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Like Reality Unless Noted: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"[[Robert A. Heinlein|Robert Heinlein]] once wrote that the best way to give the flavor of the future is to drop in, without warning, some strange detail. He gives as an example, '[[Dilating Door|The door dilated open]].' Mention it once, and never mention it again, except to satisfy the needs of continuity. And your readers know, from these subtle details, that they aren't exactly dealing with the real world anymore.''
|'''[[Larry Niven]]'''|in his essay "Building ''[[The Mote in God's Eye]]''"}}
The general assumption that all of the unstated details of the setting of a work of fiction that remotely resembles [[Real Life]] can be filled in by the audience's knowledge of the world in which they live, except in areas where the fictional world explicitly or by necessary implication deviates from [[Real Life]].
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So, for example, if the characters note that they've just gotten back from Paris, the audience can safely assume that this is the capital city of France complete with Eiffel Tower, even if this is never made explicit in the narrative. If a character mentions reading ''[[War and Peace]]'', then even without further details, it can be assumed to be the [[Doorstopper|lengthy]] Russian novel by Tolstoy. If a character expresses admiration for [[Winston Churchill]] without additional explanation, that can be assumed to be a reference to a man who was among other things the British Prime Minister during most of [[World War Two]].
Such assumptions are still expected even if the setting has obvious deviations from [[Real Life]], such as the presence of superheroes, vampires, aliens, or [[Our Presidents Are Different|a fictional President of the United States]]. The setting, after all, is '''Like Reality Unless Noted'''; the obvious fictional elements are the part that's been noted, and [[In Spite of a Nail]] the rest of the world is still assumed to be identical to [[Real Life]].
When it becomes ''explicit'' that the setting is Like Reality Unless Noted in some aspect, that's [[Truth in Television]]. On the other hand, the audience's subconscious assumption that the setting is Like Reality Unless Noted may be suddenly and obviously disproven for [[The Reveal]] that it is actually an [[Alternate Universe]] or [[Alternate History]], which may serve as a [[Tomato Surprise]].
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(Of course, if the book claims to be factually correct in some or all areas then it pretty much falls under [[Dan Browned|Dan Browning]].)
A work that is Like Reality Unless Noted has strong [[External Consistency]]. The [[Celebrity Paradox]] is an exception to Like Reality Unless Noted. Contrast [[Call a Smeerp a Rabbit]], where people may use the same terms as they do in reality, but to describe entirely different things. See also the [[Sliding Scale
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== Anime and Manga ==
* In its first episode, ''[[Code Geass]]'' claims that [[The Empire|Brittania]] invaded Japan in order to get access to its vast natural resources. Some viewers called foul on this, since in the real world Japan is a fairly resource-poor nation. It takes several episodes before viewers discover that 1) the world of ''Code Geass'' is an alternate history set in our equivalent of 1962, rather than a future version of our own Earth, and 2) the resource Brittania wants from Japan is "sakuradite," a fictional mineral that can be used as an isothermic superconductor or energy source rivaling nuclear power, and [[Philosopher's Stone|its discovery in the middle ages]] caused technology to develop along a very different path.
* The setting of any given [[Super Robot]] is Like Reality Except That One Phlebotinum, from ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' to ''[[GaoGaiGar]]'' to ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]''. The few settings that aren't that tend to be some sort of adventure or journey (''Combat Mecha Xabungle'', the first half of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]''). [[Real Robot]]s, on the other hand, tend to be set {{smallcaps|IN SPACE}}.
** [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann|TTGL]] is hinted to be in the near future. The near ''evolutionary'' future. When the map of the world is seen very briefly in one episode, it looks like a future map of the world where the continents have shifted a bit.
== Comic Books ==
* Most comic book settings are like this, just with an incredibly extensive "noted" category. Superpowers, magic, alternate pantheons, the confirmed existence of the soul, contact with multiple alien races, and yet [[In Spite of a Nail|everything else is the same as our world]].
== Fan Works ==
* This is specifically part of the premise behind ''[[My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character]]''. While the characters are [[Trapped in Another World]], it's a world that largely matched [[Real Life]] in late 2016 (to begin with); it's the characters who add an element of difference to the story.
== Film ==
* ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'': {{spoiler|[[Adolf Hitler]] and most of the Nazi leaders are killed in one swift, bloody attack, presumably ending [[World War II]] earlier than it did in our world.}}
* The town in ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]]''. It's a normal city with normal people watching their normal Channel 8... but when you see the odd content being aired on Channel 62 and realize all these people and things must have been out there already before they got TV shows, it makes you wonder what anyone found weird or odd about George at the beginning of the movie.
** It becomes even weirder when you know that almost everything was filmed at recognizable Tulsa, OK landmarks, and the Channel 8 studio was later used in real life by the station that helped the production crew build it.
== Literature ==
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** Interestingly though, it seems that as the series progresses, it moves slowly into our reality. For example, Neanderthals can't breed so will soon all be extinct again, and time travel no longer exists. However, there is mentioned in one of the books an "alternate universe" that has been discovered, which sounds just like ours, implying that the whole series is actually set in a different universe anyway and nothing to do with us.
* Used explicitly in [[Jack Chalker]] 's "Wonderland Gambit" trilogy, which is about alternate histories created within some gargantuan virtual reality game. To save computational space, all elements of reality not explicitly changed by the premise are Like Reality Unless Noted—but if magic exists or people are unisex centaurs, an awful lot of Reality may be Noted.
== Live-Action TV ==
*
* The average man's technology and culture remain just like reality in ''[[Power Rangers]]'' despite humanity having made [[First Contact]] and developing hyperadvanced ranger technology. The only noted exception is that the [[Fiction 500|ludicrously rich]] can afford antigravity craft and such (but never use them in public) and universities now have majors in areas like "Galactic Myths and Legends".
* In at least one episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'', an otherwise normal-looking world turns out to be an almost-perfect duplicate.
* ''[[Ugly Americans]]'' is set in a modern version of New York where nonhuman "creatures" ([[Our Demons Are Different|demons]], [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|giant apes]], etc.) exist as minorities. Spattered throughout the series are hints of how this has created an [[Alternate History]], such as a [[Zombie Apocalypse|human-zombie war]] having taken place in [[The Sixties]].
== Meta ==
* Can be considered the root cause for a setting having such elements as [[Anti-Magic]] or [[Power Nullifier
== Professional Wrestling ==
* Not only is [[Professional Wrestling]] Like Reality Unless Noted, but, generally speaking, the characters the wrestlers play are like themselves unless noted.
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Ace Combat]]'' does a variation. The series is set on an alternate Earth, the proper name for which is Strangereal, where the continents and countries are, to say the least, [https://web.archive.org/web/20111115084126/http://images.wikia.com/acecombat/images/2/20/Ace_combat_world2.PNG different.] History is similar, but often times, events anywhere from Strangreal's 1995 to 2015 have [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|obvious parallels]] to real history; Belka is blatantly [[World War
* [[Double Subversion|Doubly-subverted]] in ''[[Custom Robo]]'': At one point, you are asked whether the world is flat or round. If you answer "round," your teammates scold you for joking - [[The Reveal|revealing]] that you've actually been on a flat world the whole time - and [[But Thou Must!|the promptor asks the question again]]. When you answer "flat," though, the promptor then [[The Reveal|reveals]] that you had been lied to your whole life and that the supposedly flat plane you'd been living on was actually a closed-off portion of a round planet the whole time.
** The fact that the main character can give the "wrong" answer to this and a similar question is actually [[Justified Trope|Justified]], despite how that makes it sound. {{spoiler|The main character's [[Disappeared Dad]] was one of the few who knew the truth and is established to have been opposed to keeping it a secret. It's implied your character learned it from him at some point.}}
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* ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' has an alternate Earth with odd country or region names like "Electopia" for the Japan-equivalent, "Netopia" ("Amerope" in the original Japanese) for an America-Europe equivalent etc. Of course, the main difference is in the series premise, with the different way of browsing the 'net and all.
* The ''[[Metal Gear]]'' series can be quite confusing with this. About half of the past events that is referred to in the games actually happened and the other half is made up.
** It's interesting to note that some of this comes from most of the games' being set [[Next Sunday
* At first, [[The Sims]] looks very similar to real life.... until you find out that over the various installments of the series and their expansion packs, the games have featured vampires, robots, time travel, magic, alien abduction, werewolves and the Grim Reaper. Why? [[Rule of Cool]], that's why.
* [[Star Wars]] is remembered 500 years in the future, and it seems most things stayed the same without Bungie's existence (or at least ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' and ''Halo'') in the ''[[Halo]]'' universe.
* Although most of the ''[[Touhou]]'' series occurs on the inside of the [[Pocket Dimension|Great Hakurei Border]], there is a very obvious [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Outside World]] that is believed to be a parallel of our own time line alongside the [[All Myths Are True]] wonderland, consistent chronologically until at least the moon landing. Of note: the strange college majors of the two popular outsiders are Maribel Han, Relative Psychology, and Renko Usami, Super Unified Physics. Bonus "alternate reality" points if its sister series ''[[Seihou]]'' is the same Outside World.
** Then again, there's quite a bit of indication that Renko and Maribel's in the future (commercial moon trip, amongst other things), and Yukari does imply in ''Curiosities of Lotus Asia'' that the DS is popular in the outside world.
== Web Comics ==
* If you write down the latitude and longitude coordinates provided in ''[[Homestuck]]'' and put them into Google Maps, they are in fact real places. This makes {{spoiler|the [[Word of God|fact]] that [[Our Trolls Are Different|Trolls]] [[Creation Myth|created]] [http://www.formspring.me/andrewhussie/q/1158290610 our universe]}} all the more unsettling...
* ''[[Questionable Content]]'' lives in a world where up-to-date indie music references coexist with sentient, anthropomorphic personal computers. The town that it takes place in, Northampton, also appears accurate to modern day save for a few eccentricities.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Consistency]]
[[Category:Omnipresent Tropes]]
[[Category:Urban Fantasy Tropes]]
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