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{{trope}}
[[File:rsz wchter der ewigkeit 2267 2253.jpg|link=Star Trek: The Original Series|
Who needs a [[Steampunk]] [[Time Machine]] or [[Doctor Who|alien police boxes]]? Certainly not someone with a portal to the past. It might be the result of a eddies in the time stream or a magic spell, or it might remain unexplained in a [[Magic Realism]] style. However it happened, the portal is your two-way ticket to time travelling fun.
The portal is usually synched up with the modern day, so that an hour on ''this'' side is equivalent to an hour on ''that'' side, thus allowing relationships to develop and [[Justified Trope|justifying]] the existence of [[San Dimas Time]]. However, if the story is a little more tragic then time might [[Year Inside, Hour Outside|move faster on one side]], making the character on that side age much faster.
If a melancholy ending or moment of tension is required, a [[Portal Slam]] may come into play.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Inuyasha]]'': The Bone Eaters' Well connects the two time periods in sync, so that time flows at the same rate on both sides.
* In ''[[Shinobi Life]]'' the portal is in a lake in [[Ninja|Kagetora]]'s time, and connects to one above a skyscraper in the modern day. We later learn that {{spoiler|there is another portal from the modern day to the future, which Beni's mother often used}}.
== [[Film]] ==▼
* The [[Time Viewer]] in ''
▲== Film ==
▲* The [[Time Viewer]] in ''Deja Vu'' is permanently set to look at the past about 5 days earlier, and this interval cannot be changed, because they've just accidentally stumbled upon the 'future end' of the type of wormhole described under Real Life below. Oddly, no one thinks of looking through the 'past end' to see the future.
* In ''[[Frequency]]'', apparently because of the Aurora Borealis, a ham radio set sends and receives signals between the present and thirty years ago.
* In the 1998 film ''[[The Love Letter]]'', an modern-day American man finds letters written in the 1860s hidden in his antique desk. He fancifully responds to these letters by routing his own through a pre-Civil War post office, where they are mysteriously transported back in time to be delivered to the original writer (a previous owner of the desk), who then replies by hiding
* ''[[The Smurfs (film)|The Smurfs]]'' has a portal that opens within a waterfall in the Smurf forest [[Once in a Blue Moon]] that transports whoever enters it through time and space...in the movie's case, into modern-day [[Big Applesauce|New York City]].
== [[Literature]] ==▼
* ''[[Miss
▲== Literature ==
* The
▲* ''[[Miss Peregrines Homefor Peculiar Children|Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children]]'' has a cave near the town in which the main story takes place.
* The ''[[Nightside]]'' books have Timeslips, leading to both the past and possible futures, depending which one you stumble into.▼
▲* The Book "The Daughter of the Regiment" had a tiny time portal through which a boy watched a girl in the past grow up.
▲* The [[Nightside]] books have Timeslips, leading to both the past and possible futures, depending which one you stumble into.
* Stone circles work this way in the ''[[Outlander (novel)|Outlander]]'' book series—but travel is really only ever something like "safe" if you have a certain assortment of precious stones with you, and it's got a very high fatality rate. (And as the heroine muses, the separation in the various times is roughly 200 years... just like in the folktales.)
* Julian May's ''[[Saga of the Exiles]]'' has a portal to six million BC, initially only one-way.
* First, Second, and Third Earth (past, present and future) in the ''[[Pendragon]]'' series are linked by the [[Portal Network]], and employ [[San Dimas Time]].
* In the short story
* The [[Cool Gate]]s of the ''[[Morgaine Cycle]]'' can do this as a side effect of their [[Portal Network]] function. Unfortunately, anyone who uses them to create a [[Time Paradox]] triggers a civilization destroying [[Time Crash]], which is why Morgaine is on her quest to destroy all the gates.
* The ''[[Time Scout]]'' series by Robert Asprin is based around an ever growing network of periodicly opening portals, each of which is tied to a particular spot and reaches back a fixed length of time (which varies from portal to portal).
* [[Michael Crichton]]'s ''[[Timeline]]'' has a wormhole that was accidentally discovered during a teleportation experiment. The wormholes leads to the past, specifically, to France in 1357. The events in the present and the past are synced, although it's also implied that [[You Have Already Changed The Past]] (i.e. no changes in the timeline are possible). When the quantum mirror is damaged by a grenade, the lead technician fears the connection may be lost for good, as they have no idea how the link works.
* The Great Door of Time in ''[[Septimus Heap]]''.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Quantum Leap]]'' worked rather like this from Al's point of view - the door that took him to Sam was synced up so that if Al went away to do something for five minutes, Sam would have to wait out those five minutes before he returned.
** One episode had changes that took place instantaneously from Sam and Al's viewpoint.
* The whole ''[[Mirror Mirror]]'' New Zealand TV series was built upon this trope.
* The comedy ''[[Goodnight Sweetheart]]'' had the main character walking down an old cobbled street that would take him - and only him - back in time, where he fell in love with a World War II barmaid and committed time-travelling bigamy. Turns out it was due to the "harmonics" of time and other characters could time travel but none of the main characters.
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story "The Girl In The Fireplace" had a malfunctioning portal that which allowed time to [[Year Inside, Hour Outside|seemingly run faster]] on one side and not the other. There were other portals that were more consistent, however.
* Hordes of these show up in ''[[Primeval]]'' where they make up the shows premise. They're called Time Anomalies by the cast.
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* The ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Stasis Leak" revolves around one of these. Lister wants to use it to save Kochanski; Rimmer wants to use it to save himself.
* The game ''[[Feng Shui (role-playing game)|Feng Shui]]'' takes place in four eras (AD 69, 1850, 1996 and 2056) as well as the timeless realm outside of time, the Netherworld. These four eras are connected by various portals, and are synchronized to each other.▼
==
▲* The game ''Feng Shui'' takes place in four eras (AD 69, 1850, 1996 and 2056) as well as the timeless realm outside of time, the Netherworld. These four eras are connected by various portals, and are synchronized to each other.
▲== Video Games ==
* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' has a whole bunch of these portals going to multiple "locations" in time, and always in sync. This doesn't explain, however, why the Epoch itself is on [[San Dimas Time]].
* ''[[Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time]]'' had time portals popping up all over the place, leading to different areas in the same time period.
* The Caverns of Time in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' are all about this. It would of course be difficult, incredibly confusing, and quite pointless to do it in any other fashion.
* The protagonist of ''[[Time Hollow]]'' has the ability to open these using his "Hollow Pen". {{spoiler|It turns out that anyone who steps through them will be removed from the flow of time, stopping them from aging from then on.}}
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* Portals to both past and future figure prominently in ''Darkfall 2: Lights Out''.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda (video game)|The Legend of Zelda]]'':
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** The Gate of Time in ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
* The ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' expansion ''Wings of the Goddess'' introduced Cavernous Maws, intimidating-looking examples of this trope that connect present Vana'diel with the Crystal War era.
* In ''[[City of Heroes]]'', the Midnight Squad uses one to access the ancient Roman town of Cimerora. And anyone with Ouroboros access can use one to go practically ''anywhen''.
* Appears in ''[[Okami]]'', causing the protagonist to have to reenact a famous battle—in which the protagonist died.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* [[Conversed]] in ''[[Tales From the Pit]]'', causing another lost day of R&D productivity as the Pit enters a heated discussion about the best way to make money if you had a [[Time Machine]] that can only go back exactly 24 hours.
* This appears to happen briefly within the first couple strips of ''[[Girl Genius]]''. The story hasn't caught up{{when}}
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* The ''Superfriends'' episode "The Time Trap" uses this trope.
* [[Jackie Chan Adventures]] had this happened three times all involving the character of Jade. In each instant one could only travel in one direction through time, meaning they had to provide their own "return ticket."
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** The [[Time Machine|Tempus Simia]] allowed time travel to the past and to the future via portals it made when activated.
** The wristwatch [[Time Machine|time machines]] also created portals.
* A veritable part of the landscape in ''[[Samurai Jack]]'': almost every episode features a new time portal that's [[Status Quo Is God|invariably]] destroyed in the end to spite [[Fish Out of Temporal Water|our poor samurai hero]].
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Physicist Kip Thorne discovered, using general relativity, a possible way to use wormholes to create links between time periods. The time-synching phenomenon is explained by the fact that after the wormhole/time portal is set up, both sides will be essentially at rest with one another, meaning that time must flow at the same rate on both sides.
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[[Category:Time Travel Tropes]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:
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