Steins;Gate/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

The canonical ending seems a little bit like a Deus Ex Machina considering the You Can't Fight Fate nature of the show. Here is an explanation that this troper came up with. In the Beta world line, Kurisu was NOT fated to die like Mayuri in the Alpha world line. If we look back in the Alpha world line, we can compared Kurisu to Rumiho's father. Rumiho sent her D-Mail and succeeded in preventing her father from boarding a plane that was bound to crash no matter what. This means that not all deaths are destined, depending on the timeline. This avoidance of death may have changed the cause, but cannot alter the eventual effect of SERN's dystopia. With this conjecture, let's get back to the earlier point. When Okabe provoked Dr. Nakabachi to stab him, one would expect Kurisu to somehow intercept the assault (she certainly would have been able to) and die to prevent Okabe from getting involved. That didn't happen. Therefore we can safely conclude that the true fated event that could not be altered was Okabe witnessing Kurisu lying dead or unconscious in a pool of blood, not Kurisu lying dead. Essentially, we can make another deduction that Okabe and his crew are still in the Beta world line, not the Steins;Gate world line. World War III can possibly be a fated event of the Beta world line just like SERN's dystopia in the Alpha world line. Sequel Hook perhaps?
- Maybe World War III was not the fated event of the Beta timeline since the time travel documents were destroyed in the plane crash. That doesn't kill the possibility that another conflict may arise, however.
- If John Titor doesn't show up in 2000 or 2010, chances are they're not in the Beta world line anymore. You can check that with a simple Goodle search.
- I guess that they are still stuck, but not in the Beta timeline, but in the Alpha timeline where the badges show up.
  - The badges in the final Worldline are different from the one Suzuha has in the Alpha Worldline.
  - They can't still be in the Alpha worldlines by the end; worldline divergence needs to be below 1% to cross into the Alpha attractor field, which the current worldline after undoing the last D-Mail was not (it was 1.13-something-or-other). Plus, Mayuri most likely would've been dead by the 21st of August if they were still in Alpha.
- The event that led to all the series happening was the D-Mail Okabe sent to Daru telling him about Kurisu's murder. He can't undo this without causing a very serious paradox. But he can change the events that made him believe she was dead and send that mail, and he can also change the side-event that led to World War III: the doctor carrying the paper on time travel to Russia, which is in no way strictly tied to him witnessing Kurisu's death, the key event of the 1% timeline. The same way he could create different versions of the 0% timeline, where Rumiho would have an alive dad or where she wouldn't, but in which Mayuri would always die, here he can create several variations of the timeline where he sees Kurisu "dead": one where there is a World War III and one where there isn't.
- In regards to the time travel paper: the only reason it made it safely to Russia is because something inside the envelope triggered the metal detectors, forcing Nakabachi to carry it by hand. What was the trigger? Mayuri's Metal Upa that Okabe gave her in Chapter/Episode 1. How did it get there? As we learn in Episode 24, Kurisu found it, picked it up, and stashed in the envelope in the hope of returning it to its owner. The survival of Kurisu's time travel paper is the trigger for World War III, hence why Okabe heads to the vending machines first on his second rescue attempt to remove the Metal Upa from the chain of events before he tries to save Kurisu's life. This would result in Mayuri receiving a regular plastic toy instead, she still drops it, Kurisu finds it and stashes it away with her time travel thesis; therefore, when her dad inevitably steals it from her, that thing would be incinerated in the plane's cargo hold when it catches fire.
Ever wonder why Okabe's ability is called "Reading Steiner"? His ability to preserve his memories and from his method of timetravel is the same as the viewpoint of the audience. Now what was Steins;Gate adapted from? A visual novel! That means that Okabe's power is to share the viewpoint of a reader, essentially 'Reading Steins;Gate'.
Notice how in the manga/anime Amane Suzuha has such a weird salutation: (O-haa!)? The reason why she doesn't know the current trends in saying hello is because she's from the future.
- That would also explain why she is so in awe over stuff like sweetcorn, or why she wears sports attire so dated she would look out of place in the early 80's.
Connections of episode 1 and 24. It was the same voice Okabe as he tried to fake the death of Makise Kurisu on episode 1.

Fridge Horror

If left alone, the time leap machine can create monsters like Yandere Nae.

Fridge Logic

- How does a little girl manage to push a fully grown woman far enough to get hit by the subway? Granted, Mayuri is small and was caught off guard, but it still defies physics. It's even worse in how Nae pushed Mayuri by tripping.
  - Diabolus Ex Machina at work perhaps? She was fated to die anyway. I think Nae tripped and as Mayuri saved her, she fell off as a result.
  - If you revisit the scene, she trips and then nudges Mayuri into the track. It wasn't a situation where she would've fallen into the tracks, and Mayuri sacrificed herself.
When they successfully hack into SERN and find all of the reports of the dead human subjects, why didn't they just go to the police and have that organization arrested for unethical experimentation? Sure, they might have gotten that information through illegal means, but it should still have been considered at the least.
- Okabe was blackmailed.
  - Yeah, but that was for quite a while after they found those reports.
  - SERN has the ability to cover up events. Including murder in Gamma timeline.