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The Constant: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"It's called a [[Trope Namer|constant]]. Desmond, you have no constant. When you go to the future, nothing there is familiar. So if you want to stop this, then you need to find something there...something that you really, really care about...that also exists back here, in 1996."''|'''Daniel Faraday''', ''[[Lost]]''}}
When you [[Time Travel]], or you spend some time as a [[Human Popsicle]], or even just leave a place for a long time, things tend to change a lot. But even when almost everything has changed, there's some character or thing that exists in both time periods, not because of time travel, but because they [[The Slow Path|remained there the whole time]]. They are '''The Constant''', and they connect two different-looking settings together and prove they're the same place.
Frequently the work will go out of its way to make a point of The Constant, and in our examples we focus on these intentional, obvious Constants. If the time-traveling character didn't realize they were in the same place until discovering The Constant, then you have [[Earth All Along]].
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If the Constant in question ends up being destroyed in real life (e.g. the World Trade Center), can result in a [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* The Sacred Tree in ''[[Inuyasha]]''. In the past, it's where Kagome meets the titular Inuyasha; hundreds of years in the future, it's still tended by her grandfather, even though a modern city has grown up around it. The nearby Bone-Eater's Well also exists in both times and acts as a [[Portal to the Past]] while it's at it.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'': Marvin the Android serves as
* In Susan Cooper's novel ''[[The Dark Is Rising]]'', the immortal Will Stanton meets the character Hawkin hundreds of years in the past. Hawkin undergoes a [[Face Heel Turn]] and becomes the Walker, condemned to [[Walk the Earth]] until it's time for him to fulfill his destiny in the present.
* In [[Diana Wynne Jones]]' ''The Homeward Bounders'', the Old Fort - in particular, the statue on the grounds - are the Constant. {{spoiler|So are the canal arches, and the sign identifying the former Churt House.}}
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* In ''[[The Time Traveler's Wife]]'', Claire generally serves as Henry's Constant as he jumps around in time.
* In [[H. Beam Piper]]'s ''Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen'', the absence of an expected constant - the stone quarries of an area of Pennsylvania that the protagonist knows quite well, and which could not have eroded while leaving the local geography intact - tips him off to the fact that he has ''not'' [[Time Travel|travelled into the far future]] as he previously thought, but is in an [[Alternate Universe]].
* Lampshaded in the [[Discworld]] novel ''[[
* In [[Idiocracy]] a "Fuddrucker's" restaurant serves as the constant. After 500 years of increasing stupidity the name has gradually changed to "Buttfucker's." Oddly, it retains its status as a family restaurant, while Starbucks, H&R Block, and several other businesses have become brothels.
* A ''[[Star Wars]]'' novel has someone who was nearly killed at the end of the Clone Wars and put into stasis for at least half a century, awaking long after the ''original'' movies. With almost everyone he knew long dead and the galaxy having gone through several wars and governments, he decides to search for a specific Constant, the YT-1300 freighter he was flying on the mission where he nearly died - the ship that has since come to be known as the ''Millenium Falcon''.
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* The old Hermit in ''[[A Canticle for Leibowitz]]'', though his immortality is never explained.
** Most commentators agree that the final section of the book pretty much comes out and says that he's the Wandering Jew.
* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] in the [[Discworld]] book ''[[
** On the other hand, many of the important cast members' past selves feature in the story: Fred Colon, M(r)s. Palm, Young Vimes,
* From ''[[In the Keep of Time]]'', Smailholm Tower. In an unusual variation, it is ''also'' the "time machine", as it were. The interesting implication of this is that the key can only take time travelers to a time period where the tower exists, not before its construction or after it collapses.
* In [[Neal Stevensons]] [[Cryptonomicon]] we are treated to three seperate stories. Two during World War II, and one in the modern day. Many of the characters from the modern day are descendants of the characters from World War II. But apart from the younger Waterhouse's stories of his grandfather, there's only one man who appears in both timelines. Enoch Root. Who hasn't aged a day.
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* In [[The Redemption of Althalus]], when the title character first goes to the House At the End of the World, he passes a particular dead tree, when he leaves the House, 2500 years later, the same dead tree is still there, The Goddess Dweia says the gods keep the tree around as a landmark.
== [[Live
* The [[Trope Namer]] is an episode of ''[[Lost]]'' ("The Constant") in which Desmond is undergoing rapid [[Mental Time Travel]] between two times in his life and must find a Constant in the two times in order to avoid insanity and death. It's {{spoiler|his girlfriend Penelope}}.
** On the same show, Daniel Faraday uses {{spoiler|Desmond}} as his Constant.
* Although there's no [[Time Travel]] involved, McCoy appears in "Encounter at Farpoint", the first episode of ''[[Star Trek: The
** The same idea occurs with all the other series of ''[[Star Trek]]'' as well, with a character from a preceding series showing up in the first episode of the new series (Picard in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'', Quark in ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]]'', Spock (and a reference to an Admiral Archer) in [[Star Trek (film)|the reboot]]. ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]]'', due to taking place earliest in the continuity, used Zefram Cochrane from both ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]'' and ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]''.
** In the two-part ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Next Generation]]'' episode "Time's Arrow", the long-lived Guinan is the link between times (along with Data's severed head).
** The ''Next Generation'' two-parter "Unification", created for an anniversary and features Spock, who is used to link the past and the present.
* Happens from time to time in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' due to its time-travel nature. A significant example comes during the last episode of the new Series 5, {{spoiler|where events are put into place that makes Amy Pond the constant for the entire universe.}}
** Captain Jack Harkness has also become ''the'' constant for the universe. [[Complete Immortality|He can never die. He can never stop existing.]] {{spoiler|And now, [[Torchwood: Miracle Day|Rex Matheson]] seems to have joined him}}.
** In the old series, there was only one actor who crossed the tenures of more than two doctors. [[The Brigadier]]. Even [[The Master (trope)|The Master]] and Davros changed actors. But Nicholas Courtney was there as Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart from the second doctor, to the seventh, making his final appearance in the Sarah Jane Adventures. Companions changed, and the Doctor regenerated, but the Brigadier stood there throughout it all, always taking [[The Slow Path]], and always ready to [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|do the best he can.]]
*** And that's what makes it so [[Tear Jerker|heartbreaking]] when you find out he has died by the time of the Eleventh Doctor.
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** Applied Cryogenics somehow manages to survive for 1000 years without a power failure (or apocalyptic destruction), despite the "No Power Failures Since 1997" sign on the wall in the pilot episode, and that we see the world reduced to medieval levels twice during that time.
*** That was probably {{spoiler|Nibbler's}} doing.
* In the ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League]]'' episode "Hereafter", Superman is hurled forward some 30,000 years. He soon finds the immortal Vandal Savage as the sole survivor of the human race...who also happens to be responsible for the extinction of the rest of it. Savage feels understandably guilty about the whole thing, and sends Supes back to stop his past self.
** There is also the Watchtower which, in a subtle [[Chekhov's Gun]], has [[Colony Drop|survived reentry]] to crashland in the jungle.
* Demona in ''[[Gargoyles]]''.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Time Travel Tropes]]
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