Only One Me Allowed Right Now: Difference between revisions

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In most time travel/cloning/alternate reality stories, one character can have multiple copies of themselves running around in the same time period. Some [[Never the Selves Shall Meet|might have problems if those copies meet each other]]. Then there are these cases...

'''Only One Me Allowed Right Now''' is a case where the universe either flat out denies multiple copies of a character to exist in a same time period, or that either the character and the copies go crazy or the universe [[Divide by Zero|starts to break down]], or something bad happens.

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** Earlier, in ''[[To Say Nothing of the Dog]]'', this was a minor point. One character could be sent back a few days because during those days, they were unable to pick him up from his time travel.

** As that universe is a [[Stable Time Loop]] where paradoxes are stopped by the universe disallowing the trip from happening at all, a more interesting way of looking at [[To Say Nothing of the Dog]] is that retrieving him from the past would have killed his near-future self, which the police would have identified as him, cause a paradox. So it refused to let his past self through.

* In Dean Koontz's Lightning, the inventors of time traveling discover that the universe has a built-in anti-paradox mechanism, where you simply get bounced back from the time-gate if you are attempting to travel to a time where you're already present (or even might be - one character tries to correct a mistake by traveling to a time a couple of minutes before he last showed up, and the universe doesn't let him).

* In the ''[[Time Scout]]'' series, you can't travel to a time where one of you already exists because you'll wink out of existence on arrival.

** An earlier series (late 1960s), ''Agent of [[Fun With Acronyms|T.E.R.R.A.]]'', was even more extreme -- '''both''' versions of you would be obliterated. The [[Big Bad]] once tried to trick the hero into thinking a way around this limit had been developed. The thought of watching '''two''' of the agent suddenly cease to exist appealed so much that he [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|couldn't just shoot him]].

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== Tabletop RPG's ==

* ''[[Dungeons ~~and~~ Dragons]]'' 1st and 2nd edition. When a clone was created with the '''Clone''' spell, both the original and the clone knew of the other's existence and each would try to kill the other. If they couldn't, within a week either one would go insane and kill itself (90% likely to be the clone) or, 2% of the time, both would kill themselves.

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' 1st and 2nd edition. When a clone was created with the '''Clone''' spell, both the original and the clone knew of the other's existence and each would try to kill the other. If they couldn't, within a week either one would go insane and kill itself (90% likely to be the clone) or, 2% of the time, both would kill themselves.

** In ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' some mages found a way around this—Zunroun cooperated with a ''dozen'' of his clones for some time. Preventing this by keeping all clones cold until the original dies also worked—Manshoon's Stasis Clone spell was a great secret and major plot point, making the Black Network's leader a [[Recurring Boss]] while keeping him on a disproportionately low level due to setbacks and memory losses every time [[Suicidal Overconfidence|he bit off too much to chew and got killed]].

** ''The Gates Of Hell'', a fan written ''[[Dungeons ~~and~~ Dragons]]'' book, features a devil who can travel in time. If he tries coming too close to his alternate self, he is pushed back and stunned.

** ''The Gates Of Hell'', a fan written ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' book, features a devil who can travel in time. If he tries coming too close to his alternate self, he is pushed back and stunned.

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[[Category:Time Travel Tropes]]

[[Category:Needs Wiki Magic Love]]

[[Category:~~Only One Me Allowed Right Now~~]]

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