All The Tropes

Stable Time Loop: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Stable Time Loop (view source)

Revision as of 11:11, 25 January 2014

120 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (Mass update links)
m (Mass update links)
Line 6:
This is also the basic premise of how [[Time Travel]] would work, according to Albert Einstein. Simply put, even if it were possible to [[Time Travel|travel back in time]], you would not be able to change any events in the past, because they've already happened. No matter what your intentions, everything that you did would only fulfill the past. The only thing that would change is your perception of the events. (Hm, this somehow explains [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act]].)
 
This is sometimes referred to as a "time loop" paradox, particularly when a character, object, or piece of information was never originally created, but exists solely because of its own existence. Also known as a "bootstrap paradox," from the classic Heinlein short story, ''[[By His Bootstraps]]''. It's also called an "[[Temporal Paradox|ontological paradox]]" on [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_paradox:Ontological paradox|The Other Wiki]]. The classic hypothetical example is to jump into the future, steal some wondrous gadget, come back to the original time, grab the patent on that gadget and start mass-producing them immediately. Eventually, they become so ubiquitous or so common that you, ten, twenty years younger, show up and steal one. If it's the same one you stole before, it's an [[Temporal Paradox|Object paradox.]] If it's not, then it's this. The simplest version is the one where the time machine itself is the product of the stable time loop--the character sees a version of himself pop into existence with a time machine, hand it to him, and press the button, only to be whisked into the past where he hands it to his past self and presses the button.
 
[[Tricked -Out Time]] is when you "change" the past on purpose to resemble this. Compare [[You Already Changed the Past]], [[Wayback Trip]], [[Timey-Wimey Ball]], [[Retroactive Preparation]]. For the [[Recursive Canon|Recursive Fiction]] variant of this, see [[Mutually Fictional]].
 
For further discussion of this trope, see [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradoxes_in_popular_culture:Predestination paradoxes in popular culture|Wikipedia]].
 
Since many examples of this trope aren't revealed until late in the story, and the existence of a loop can itself be a [[Spoiler]], consider yourself spoiler-warned.
Line 80:
* Robo finds himself in one of these in ''[[Atomic Robo]] and the Shadow from Beyond Time'', where three future versions of Robo instruct him to learn the ''hell'' out of hyperdimensional mathematics so he can return to that point in time-space to defeat the [[Eldritch Abomination]] they're fighting. It's not a ''true'' [[Stable Time Loop]], of course, because Robo is very insistent that [[Arbitrary Skepticism|there's no such thing as time travel]].
* When [[Sonic the Comic]] did an adaptation of [[Sonic CD]] (a game where time travel is one of the main mechanics), it pulled off a loop so neat that, in the last part of the story, they could reprint an unedited page from an earlier issue and have it make perfect sense and not seem like laziness on the part of the writer or artist. (The first time the page appeared, the audience perspective is that of present Sonic; the second time, we're following future Sonic, [[It Makes Sense in Context|who's been shrunk]].)
* In ''[[Dial H for Hero (Comic Book)|H-E-R-O]]'', this is the fate of the HERO dial. At the end of the series, it gets thrown back in time, where it's found by its very first user, who featured in a [[Whole -Episode Flashback]] earlier in the series.
* [[The Mighty Thor|Thor's]] grandfather, Bor, was defeated in battle against Frost Giants. He did not expect them to use magic, and therefore wasn't protected when a sorcerer cursed him and turned him into living snow. He told his son, Odin, to find a stronger sorcerer and undo the curse, but Odin stalled for years. When Thor was born, Odin noticed he had Bor's eyes, and was ridden with guilt Bor's spirit came to him and told him he'd be forgiven if he adopts a child who's father he'd kill in his next war. As it happens, Odin's next war was against Frost Giants as well, and the child whose father he killed was Loki. Thus was Loki adopted as an Asgardian. {{spoiler|The truth is Loki was the sorcerer who turned Bor into living snow. He returned back in time to do that, and then he appeared to Odin as Bor's spirit and told him to adopt the child. Then he went to his younger self and instructed him exactly what to do and say so to incite war between the Frost Giants and the Asgardians, so he'd be adopted as an Asgardian and become the man he's today.}}
 
Line 88:
* ''[[Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality (Fanfic)|Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]]'' has four of these to date, the most notable one being when {{spoiler|Harry pulled a prank on himself using a Time Turner, an Invisibility Cloak, two pies, and several sheets of parchment.}}
** His attempt to use Time Loop Logic (see Real Life below) as a manually-performed perfect algorithm was... less than successful. The output: {{spoiler|'''DO NOT MESS WITH TIME'''}}
* ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero (Fanfic)|Kyon Big Damn Hero]]'' has these every few chapters, and so many that any unresolved ones are offering {{spoiler|Kyon protection from the IDSE.}} As soon as he resolves the last one...
* [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6575772/1/Yabba_Dabba_Joes Yabba Dabba Joes] -- Destro went through almost three dozen agents trying to kill members of the Joe team in their cribs before finally accepting that time travel in the Joe-verse doesn't allow changing the past.
* [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/261328/1/Paradox Paradox] has a stable time loop despite the name. {{spoiler|Shampoo strands Ukyou and Ryouga in the past, where they become the real parents of Ranma who is stolen at birth by Genma.}}
Line 101:
* ''[[Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure]]'': Bill and Ted demonstrate remarkable [[Genre Savvy]] by using Stable Time Loops to their advantage. For example, in the first film Ted's father has lost his keys; when Bill hits upon the idea of setting things up using time travel, he suggests they could go back, take the keys, and hide them somewhere; they immediately check the location and the keys are there. They're also careful to remind themselves that they need to set things up when they're done with the history report, otherwise it won't happen.
** Also, they hear their future selves call Rufus "Rufus", which is why they use that name for him later when they become the future selves. He never actually tells them his name.
** The climax of the second film revolves around this, as both Bill and Ted and [[Big Bad]] Denomolos try to use the same plan against each other; the boys disarm Denomolos with a sandbag and trap him in a cage, but he produces a key and a new gun. When the gun turns out to be a [["BANG!" Flag Gun]] (that says "Wyld Stallyns Rule!"), the boys point out that only the winners can play that game, and they set up the key and gun to fool him.
* In ''[[The Final Countdown]]'', the USS ''Nimitz'' [[Time Travel|goes back in time]] from the early 1980s to just before Pearl Harbor. {{spoiler|During their trip, one of their crew is left on an island and ends up [[The Slow Path|staying there]]. Forty years later, he's running a defense company that helped design the carrier in the first place...and was the man who had sent Martin Sheen's character, an employee of his company, to be onboard the ''Nimitz'' at that time.}} This not only meant that person was present for the events but sending him to the ''Nimitz'' delayed her departure, which could have been what put her in the right place at the right time to be sent back in time.
* ''[[Donnie Darko]]'': {{spoiler|The entire movie takes place in an unstable time loop, and the whole plot centers on trying to close it. When Donnie transports himself and the jet engine that killed him back in time, it closes the loop and negates everything that happens in the movie.}} However, this is never explicitly stated, resulting in a certain amount of [[Mind Screw]].
Line 175:
* The ''[[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Last Continent|The Last Continent]]'' is essentially a single, but quite complex, [[Stable Time Loop]], in which the problem Rincewind has to solve is caused by the wizards accidentally going back in time while looking for him. It also includes Ridcully dismissing Ponder Stibbons' worries about the [[Butterfly of Doom]] (or Ant Of Doom in Ponder's example) by concluding that history ''depends'' on you treading on the ants you've already trodden on.
** Specifically, Ridcully's argument relies on the old "you can't step on an ant if you don't exist." His logic is that if they're in the past NOW, then they've already been there thousands of years ago, when it was now. Therefore, anything they do, they've already done (because it's the past and the past has already happened), and it's vitally important that they do whatever they do, because if they didn't, they wouldn't have done it and they'd have done the different thing instead.
** ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Night Watch|Night Watch]]'' subverts a Stable Time Loop: there was a real Sergeant Keel the first time around, but Vimes' and Carcer's arrival from the future gets him killed ahead of schedule. Vimes must [[Tricked -Out Time|assume Keel's role]] to ''force'' stability on the Loop, and while the general outcome is the same, several of the specific events are different.
** On a smaller scale, minor recurring character Mrs. Cake is a psychic who is known to answer peoples' questions before they ask them; she then insists they ask, to stabilize the time loop, or she'll get a migraine.
*** In ''Interesting Times'', Hex answers a problem before it is asked. The wizard in charge eventually enters the problem to appease causality, but not until hiding in the privy for an hour and a half.
Line 203:
* Time travel in [[Poul Anderson]]'s novel ''There Will Be Time'' seems to require these.
* In "Explain the Internet to a 19th Century Street Urchin", from the book ''[[Everything Explained Through Flowcharts]]", these are some of the more favorable outcomes. The non-temporal outcomes usually result in your death.
* The ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' short story collection ''Short Trips: Time Signature'' follows a single piece of [[Brown Note|Vortex-threatening music]] through the Doctor's life. Since the book is in extreme [[Anachronic Order]], following neither the music nor the Doctor linearly, it takes a bit of working out, but essentially the music was sent to the planet where the Doctor first heard it by someone who'd heard it from the Doctor. ( {{spoiler|But then the same person helps the Doctor disrupt a key point in the chain, so none of it happens after all. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey.}})
** The events of the novel ''The Stone Rose'' begin because Mickey sees a statue of Rose in the British Museum. By the end of the story {{spoiler|the statue still hasn't been made, so the Doctor carves it himself}}. In the same book, a vial of mysterious liquid turns out to have been created by the Doctor, by running the dregs of the vial through the TARDIS's [[Matter Replicator]], and taking the result back in time.
** The Fourth Doctor short story "Breadcrumbs" has the Doctor going to a lot of trouble to collect various three-dimensional data fragments and run them through a reversed Matter Disperser in order to find out what they are. The last fragment is very close to a wormhole, and he just has time to register that the "message" is another Fourth Doctor, before he gets sucked into the Vortex, and ends up on a deserted island on an unknown planet. His only hope is to rewire the Matter Disperser correctly, and transmit himself as a series of three-dimensional data fragments...
Line 214:
* A millennia-long time loop is central to the plot of Aleksandr Zarevin's ''Lonely Gods of the Universe'', although it's not revealed until the second half of the book. Of course, the characters realize that the time loop is far from stable and will inevitably collapse after 5 or 6 cycles (what that means is anybody's guess), destroying everyone and everything in it. They spend the rest of the novel trying to break out of the time loop, namely by {{spoiler|preventing their births}}, while making sure that their present selves stay alive. Let's just say the temporal mechanics get very confusing by the end.
** A smaller time loop occurs in the middle of the novel. The main character is asleep in his apartment, when he hears a loud thud in the next room. He finds a strange object that appears to have been neatly sliced diagonally. Not sure what to make of it, he throws it in the back of his closet and forgets about it. A year later, him and his friend are experimenting with a strange machine they built, which appears to be a mix of a teleporter/portal. One of the tests is a long object specifically made for this. In the middle of the test, power cuts out, resulting in a [[Portal Cut]]. However, the part of the object that went through is nowhere to be seen. The main character quickly runs out and brings back the other part from his closet, explaining what must have happened. Eventually, they get additional funding and turn it into a [[Time Machine]].
* Comes up in [[Dinoverse (Literature)|Dinoverse]]. Bones from a large dinosaur closely related to [[Tyrannosaurus Rex]] were found at a site called the Standing Stones, a series of, well, standing stones. Bertram puts a shard of one of those bones in his science fair project, which accidentally turns out to be a time machine that sends his mind, and those of some people around him, into the past and into the bodies of dinosaurs and [[Ptero -Soarer|a large pterosaur]]. They get a message from the distant future, sixty years after the time machine came on, telling them that their bodies had been in comas for sixty years but someone had found a way to fix things. If they could just get to the site of the Standing Stones, they could go back. On the way there is discussion as to [[Wrong Time Travel Savvy|whether they'd already failed]], and when they got to the place there were no stones, plus they got attacked by a large Tyrannosaur and barely managed to kill it. Turns out it was the same dinosaur, and they had to set up the stones themselves before they could go back.
* ''[[Count and Countess (Literature)|Count and Countess]]'' makes use of this ''frequently''. The two main characters, Vlad Dracula and Elizabeth Bathory, have been writing letters to each other across time since they were young children, and often what one character writes to the other will have a large impact on the recipient's timeline, depending on how he/she acts on it.
* In Barrington J Bayley's novel "The Fall of Chronopolis", a gay man called Narcis travels back five years to seduce his younger self away from the latter's boyfriend. Five years later, they realise someone will soon arrive to destroy their relationship. The book doesn't explain how the traveller didn't ''remember'' this had already happened.
Line 221:
== Live Action TV ==
* One of Jim's ''[[The Office|Office]]'' pranks involves sending Dwight faxed warnings from "Future Dwight".
* In one episode of ''[[The Red Green Show]]'', one of Ranger Gord's educational shorts had him teaming up with his future self and going back in time to prevent a forest fire. After the two meet and team up with Past Gord, Future Gord explains his information shows the fire will be caused by lightning, which strike [[Butt Monkey|Red and Harold.]] The three Gords violently put out the fire and after looking like the usual [["Everybody Laughs" Ending]], the three Gords decide to go to the future and celebrate. However, sparks from the time machine taking off end up causing the fire in the first place.
* ''[[The Adventures of Brisco County Jr]]'' has the titular character go back in time to meet himself and take a necessary [[McGuffin]] out of his own hands. Which is exactly what happened a few episodes ago.
* ''[[Babylon Five|Babylon 5]]'' has two of these, related to the same incident. The two-part episode "War Without End" in the third season has the protagonists cause the mysterious time incident on Babylon 4 that happened [[Call Back|in the first season episode "Babylon Squared"]]... at the conclusion of which, an important character travels back even farther in time to become the cause of one of the show's central [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|prophecies]].
** {{spoiler|Not to mention becoming the ancestor of Delenn, one of the show's main characters, whose own decision at the start of the war, started the chain of events that led to Sinclair's [[Time Travel]].}}
* In the first season of the new series of ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', The Doctor and Rose are followed everywhere by [[Arc Words|the words "Bad Wolf"]] - in the final episode, Rose saves The Doctor's life and uses the time-bending power of the TARDIS to deposit the words in the past, in order to inspire her to go forward into the future and save The Doctor's life, which ends in her putting the words into the past, etc., etc. This also crops up a few times in the second and third seasons (since the words were placed all over time and space, there's no reason for them to stop showing up just because they're not needed anymore), and more times than you can shake a TARDIS key at in the Ten/Rose [[Expanded Universe]] novel ''The Stone Rose''. The phrase also turns at the cliffhanger of the fourth season episode "Turn Left" (with all written words, from the Doctor's point of view being replaced with "Bad Wolf" -- even the TARDIS' signage), in which it {{spoiler|heralds Davros' gambit to steal a number of planets in a plan that will either end up in the Daleks' domination of the universe or by the universe's destruction}}
** The episode "Blink" also repeatedly uses it. At one point, the Doctor pre-records his half of a conversation with another character; when the other character has the conversation, it's written down, and the Doctor works off it to record his half. Also, his half is recorded as an easter egg on 17 specific DVDs; when the Doctor tells a video executive which discs to put the recording on, he's working from a list someone in the future made of DVDs that have the video on them.
** Also used "for cheap tricks" (his words) in "Smith and Jones"; when Martha first meets the Doctor, he stops in front of her on the street, takes off his tie, and walks off. When they meet at the hospital again, the Doctor can't ever recall meeting her. At the end of the episode, he goes back in time and takes his tie off in front of Martha in order to prove that the TARDIS is a time machine.
Line 234:
** The Fifth Doctor story "Earthshock" also is an example {{spoiler|A ship is sent back in time and causes the extinction of the dinosaurs, the dominance of ''Homo sapiens'' and the creation of the ship. It also kills Adric.}}. So, really a win-win situation.
** There's also "City of Death", in which an alien whose mind was split several ways across time after his space-ship landed on Earth and exploded. His past selves hid various treasures to be found by his future selves (including multiple copies of The Mona Lisa!), which were to be sold off and used to get the materials to create a time machine so he could go back and prevent the explosion - something The Doctor might have helped with had he not discovered that the same explosion was the "lightning bolt" that stirred up the primordial soup to begin creating life on Earth...
** Is [[Time Travel for Fun And Profit|abused]] in [[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S31 E13 The Big Bang|The Big Bang]], in which {{spoiler|the Doctor is rescued from the Pandorica by Rory wielding the Doctor's own sonic screwdriver, given to him by the Doctor in the future after Rory rescues him. The Doctor then goes on to plant hints for Amelia to follow to resurrect her future self.}}
*** This episode also features possibly the most pointless stable time loop ever conceived. Young Amelia is thirsty, so the Doctor jumps back in time several hours and steals a drink. He then returns to the present and gives the drink to her. The reason she's thirsty in the first place is that a few hours ago [[Mind Screw|someone stole her drink]].
**** Given that Steven Moffat frequently writes in lines that poke fun at Dr Who tropes (Curse of Fatal Death is a long string of these!) this drink-loop is probably employed as an in-joke at how much the trope is being abused in this episode. In fairness though, they do acknowledge it on screen in this episode (and again in The Impossible Astronaut) that they're only able to do all this time-looping because the universe is collapsing.
Line 258:
** The Prophets form a part of one. Sisko meets them in 2369, informing them that they are the gods of the Bajorans. That they sent the Bajorans "Orbs". Thing is, the Prophets live in a wormhole, and exist outside of time. From their wormhole, they can simultaneously access any era of history (Shown when they bring an ancient Bajoran to the present, then take him back to his time). So the Prophets, upon being told that this is what they do... do it. They send the orbs back in time, and begin acting as gods to the ancient Bajorans, causing the culture that Sisko gets to know... and then tells them about on his first meeting.
** Sisko's own existence. Sisko is the Emissary of the Prophet, and discovered the wormhole. This caused the prophets to {{spoiler|Possess Sisko's mom, so she'd marry Sisko's dad, ensuring Sisko's birth}}. The only reason the Prophets did this, is because they met Sisko in the future (and being outside linear time, realized the role they played in his life, and thus took it upon themselves to make it happen).
* And referenced almost explicitly in the ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' two-parter ''Time's Arrow'', which deals with a similar subject. It's put in as something of a [[Shout -Out]] to sci-fi fans: Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) receives his own watch from the ''Enterprise'' who have time-travelled back to his period in history after recovering the watch from a cave in the future (and no, [[Memetic Mutation|it was not made from a BOX OF SCRAPS!)]]. The end of the two-parter concludes with Clemens in the same cave in that time period, looking at the same watch ... and, with a chuckle of amusement, putting the watch down again so the ''Enterprise'' crew will find it in the future, thereby sentencing the watch to an eternity inside the [[Stable Time Loop]], as the watch was put there by Clemens to trigger off the loop to begin with.
* In the premiere episode of ''[[Primeval]]'', Nick Cutter discovers a human camp (and human bones) in the Permian, as well as a camera with a picture proving his vanished wife had been there. In the first season finale, having been reunited with his wife, they travel back to the Permian where Helen convinces him to take her picture...which he suddenly realizes is the picture he'd discovered previously, and that the camp they just set up is the one he'd discovered originally. An actual change does happen to the past, however, which confuses things.
* In the ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode '1969,' the team travels back to the title year and has to figure out how to get home, meeting a young General (then Lieutenant) Hammond, two hippies, and a young Catherine Langford. General Hammond sends a note back with them that Captain Carter is not allowed to read until after they go through the gate. The note contains cryptic instructions as to how to get home, as well as instructions from General Hammond to his younger self to help the visitors (that from his POV writing the note he has already helped). It is later revealed that General Hammond has been waiting for years for the sign that it is time to send the note (evidenced by a large cut on Captain Carter's hand).
Line 298:
 
== Radio ==
* The ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' audio drama "Flip-Flop" takes this to a rather confusing extreme: Two time loops that feed ''each other''. It's presented on two discs, a "White disc" and a "Black disc", and they can be listened to in either order (or indeed in a continuous loop), as each one follows a different timeline. {{spoiler|To summarize: On both discs the Doctor and Mel arrive to find the planet [[Groundhog Day Loop|Puxatornee]] on Christmas Eve just before midnight in a terrible way: On one disc, a radioactive wasteland, on the other controlled by a hostile alien species. They are forced to go back in time to prevent it, and go back to Christmas Day to find the planet worse: On one disc, controlled by an alien species, and on the other a radioactive wasteland. They are then forced to go back to Christmas Eve before they arrived, and leave just before their other selves arrive on the planet, beginning the adventure on the other disc. In essence it's two ''unstable'' time loops, each leading to the other one.}}
 
== Tabletop RPG ==
Line 338:
** In the good ending, {{spoiler|Yuri kills himself, letting himself be impaled on a rock spire, to avoid having his soul destroyed by the Mistletoe's curse. With his last thought}}, he sends himself back to the beginning of the first game. As he waits for the train, there are hints that {{spoiler|this time he will save Alice from what killed her the first time.}}
** Regarding that good ending, Yuri actually {{spoiler|seems aware of the stable time loop ("Here comes that train again."), which raises questions of its own}}.
* ''[[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters]]'' features one of the most bizarre examples of this trope: During an early cutscene during a [[New Game Plus+]], possession of a certain item {{spoiler|sends Gig and the main character 250 years back in time, to shortly after Lord Median killed the Master of Death, Vigilance (the previous incarnation of Gig). The pair of you destroy Median's armies and cause the Master of Life, Virtuous, to murder Median,}} causing the fall of {{spoiler|Median's empire}} that is a part of your own timeline's backstory {{spoiler|(and giving Virtuous the idea for fusing the main character and Gig 250 years in the future). When the main character later dies, his or her soul, as well as Gig's, is sent to Drazil, who causes the original creation of Gig from the newly deceased Vigilance. Drazil then turns the two of ''you'' into two of the world eaters that are subsequently sent back to Haephnes with the newly minted Gig to cause mass destruction -- which are destroyed by the main character and Gig 250 years later during the game's main storyline.}} Thus, the alternate timeline version of you two not only set in motion the events of the main story and {{spoiler|are inspirations for your own creation}}, but also become two of your own worst enemies, and get killed by yourselves. Whew.
** Not only bizarre, but also [[Squick]] of possibly {{spoiler|[[Selfcest]]}} overlapping with {{spoiler|[[Foe Yay]]}}/HoYay. In one of the ending where you play as the heroine, you basically travel the world together with {{spoiler|[[Heel Face Turn|one of the aforementioned World Eaters]]}}, romance subtext included. It's still vague whose soul becomes whom (fans generally assume Gig became {{spoiler|Raksha}} while Revya became {{spoiler|Thuris}}, but another theory is that {{spoiler|Drazil}} waited the two souls to fuse together before splitting them apart. So you get either you romancing a half of your reincarnated alternate-dimension self or you romancing your reincarnated alternate-dimension partner, [[Running Gag|but you can call him Gig]]. But, hey, at least it proves that even [[Person of Mass Destruction|Gig]] [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold|can love!]]
* The ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' series is basically one big stable time loop, with the first two games being both prequels and sequels to each other. At the end of [[Jak and Daxter The Precursor Legacy|the first game]], Jak discovers a huge portal through time. When activated at the start of [[Jak II Renegade|the second game]] it unleashes the Metal Head race into the world, and Jak and Daxter are immediately sent to the distant future. {{spoiler|There Jak discovers that he was actually born in the future, and helps his younger self go back into the past to be raised safe from harm so that he can become his old self and defeat the Metal Head leader.}}
Line 348:
** Then, in Season 3, Sam and Max have to use the astral projector from the Devil's Toybox to alter the actions of their ancestors Sameth and Maximus, to get the Devil's Toybox from Egypt and into the basement where they found it. The only way Sameth and Maximus did it in the first place was with information they wouldn't know at the time; not getting the box would probably destroy the universe.
*** There are other things. How do you know that the vampire elf needs to bite Jurgen the Vampire Hunter in the past? Because you've met Jurgen before in the present, as a vampire.
* The [[Infocom]] [[Adventure Game]] ''Sorcerer'' features a [[Stable Time Loop]]. At one point, your future self appears and gives you the combination to a locked door, and demands your spell book. After you've unlocked the door, you have to travel back in time and give the combination to your past self, and get the spell book from him. (You can't carry anything with you when you go back in time.) The time travel spell is named "golmac" as a [[Shout -Out]] to the "gold machine", the time machine in ''[[Zork (Video Game)|Zork]] III''. It's fun to do silly things like screaming or singing when your future self appears, then watch how they're described when it's your past self doing them.
** Its sequel, ''Spellbreaker'', features a two-in-one: you have to establish ''two'' Stable Time Loops in two different locations (with time limits on each), or else be wrung from existence by the ensuing paradox should you try to leave the hourglass. Early on in the game, you find a magic zipper that functions as your Bag of Holding; going back to that location in the past, you find a sack in its place, and have to swap the two (and all the contents thereof) before the rising water kills you. Elsewhere, there's a disused cell containing a moldy spellbook, entirely illegible save for one useful spell; when you return there in the past, you have to put ''your'' spellbook where you found the moldy one in the future (memorizing as many spells from it as you can first!) and leave the room precisely as it was (or will be) before the guards arrive.
* The DS game ''[[Time Hollow]]'' is rife with these, mostly because {{spoiler|more than one person can adjust time.}}
Line 404:
{{quote| '''Sarda:''' No one can unmake the past. It's already happened, there's no "undo". Similarly, the future already happened. we just haven't '''reached it''' yet.<br />
'''Black Mage:''' Okay, I have a theory. It's called: '''I never knew it possible to care less about time travel.''' }}
* The Space theme of ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' was stuck in one complex [[Stable Time Loop]] in which the characters constantly revenge their own actions to themselves. It ended taking up most of the other themes, and (as expected) ended in a [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies]] [http://irregularwebcomic.net/2166.html at the end of that year].
** Of course, parts of the time loop were unstable, as Iki Piki's Splanch is now, theoretically, infinitely old.
* [http://starslip.com/2008/08/07/starslip-number-843/ This] ''[[Starslip Crisis]]'' strip is utterly shameless and straight-faced about this trope. When strips had individual names it thanked Heinlein
Line 471:
* ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' featured a truly epic multi-layer time loop revealed over the course of several episodes. 11 million years ago, A3 led a [[Turned Against Their Masters|revolt against the Quintessons]]; however, in 2006, the Quintessons yanked A3 into their own time to prevent themselves from losing Cybertron. Blaster, Perceptor, Blurr, and Wreck-Gar go back in time to help the rebellion, while the Aerialbots save A3 from the Quintessons. A3 returns to his own time to lead the rebellion. Two million years later, A3, now known as Alpha Trion, meets the Aerialbots, who have travelled back in time from 1986. The Aerialbots persuade him to save the life of a young dock worker named Orion Pax, who he rebuilds into Optimus Prime (and also rebuilds Orion's girlfriend Ariel into [[FemBot|Elita One]]). The Aerialbots return to their own time and then, in 1984, Optimus Prime and Alpha Trion build the Aerialbots from a group of shuttles. You may wish to draw a diagram.
* In the ''[[Pinky and The Brain (Animation)|Pinky and The Brain]]'' episode "Brain of the Future," the two mice travel to the distant future in a time machine given to them by their future selves, who had just returned from the distant future. There, they lose the time machine they arrived in but manage to steal a "different" one and return to give it to their past selves...
* ''[[Kim Possible (Animation)|Kim Possible]]: A Stitch in Time'' has this. Shego stole the time monkey only because she stole it, went back in time, transferred Ron away from Kim, and then told herself to steal the time monkey. This somewhat changes when the time monkey is is destroyed and the entire timeline that its use created is revoked, [[Ret -Gone|along with the very existence of the time monkey]]. So, you destroy it once, it erases itself from ever existing. So Shego never went back in time, Ron never left KP, and nobody ever knew or cared about the time monkey.
** And within that wheel, Shego takes the monkey while in the past and escapes into the timestream, so Kim goes straight from the past to face Shego in the [[Bad Future]]. Shego manages to [[Take Over the World]] partly because Kim wasn't around to stop her, since she skipped over that whole time.
** On the other hand, the [[Ret -Gone|self-destruction of the time monkey]] is only implied; if its destruction doesn't affect its past existence, then the movie becomes a case of the [[Timey-Wimey Ball]].
* The ''[[Dexters Laboratory (Animation)|Dexters Laboratory]]'' movie "Ego Trip" had this going on. The movie starts with robots appearing in the lab, looking for "the one who saved the future" and attacking Dexter. Inspired by this, Dexter hops in his time machine and ends up going on an adventure with [[My Future Self and Me|three future versions of himself]], battling four Mandarks. In the end, the day is saved when Dee Dee walks in and [[What Does This Button Do?|does her thing]] Furious at being upstaged, the four Dexters build some robots and send them to beat up "the one who saved the future". When he realizes this, Dexter's reaction is to give up on explaining time travel and then going to eat lunch.
* The only time time travel occurred in ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants (Animation)|SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' had Squidward going to the distant past through a series of events stemming from avoiding Spongebob and Patrick trying to get him to go jellyfishing with them. He meets the caveman versions of them and shows them not to be afraid of jellyfish by demonstrating jellyfishing, then giving both nets to try it themselves. Upon his return, he mocks whoever was the one who invented jellyfishing, to which Spongebob and Patrick tell Squidward it was him.
Line 492:
* There is apparently a theory out there that human time travellers seeded the young planet Earth with life. This is sometimes known as the [[Fun With Acronyms|Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle]].
* Older theories of cosmology fiddled with the possibility this universe is a [[Stable Time Loop]]. Big Bang leads to Expansion, Contraction, finally the Big Crunch which Big Bangs again and we still have no idea where it all 'originally' came from.
* Some theories of particle physics hold that antiparticles (particles with the opposite charge and parity of a "standard" particle) travel backward through time. It's also widely believed that particle-antiparticle pairs randomly pop into existence from the [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam:Quantum foam|Quantum Foam]], and then feel their mutual attraction and annihilate each other moments later. It's also possible to see this as a single particle traveling in a loop through time: Forward as a regular particle to annihilate with its antiparticle, then backward as its antiparticle to annihilate with its standard particle, and repeat.
 
{{reflist}}
Line 499:
[[Category:Time Travel Tropes]]
[[Category:Stable Time Loop]]
[[Category:Trope]]
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/576558"