Time Travel: Difference between revisions

# [[Temporal Paradox]]: ''Now'' it gets complicated...

## Characters go to the past! In the past, they change history: If they do so by accident, it well may end the story with a [[Karmic Twist Ending]]; alternately, it will set the ''real'' plot in motion by requiring the characters to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]].

## Characters go to the future! Upon returning to the past, they ''are'' able to fight fate and prevent the events of the future (seeing which prompted them to try to prevent the events of the future in the first place) from occurring.

# [[Trapped in the Past]]: The characters are stuck in another time with no way of return and must choose between quietly living out their lives without changing history or [[Giving Radio to the Romans|working to change the world]] to their (and the natives') benefit. You'd be amazed how few people seem to pick the first option.

# [[Alternate Timeline]]: The characters time-travel has split their universe in twain. There's the universe they're in (that's they've "changed") and the universe they're not in. (the "old" universe that wasn't changed.)

No matter what the variation, if there's a scientist or scholar in the group, he'll be [[Reluctant Mad Scientist|giving warnings]] about the [[Temporal Paradox]] risk. And every trip risks an encounter with the [[Butterfly of Doom]] or accidentally leaving behind a [[Timeline-Altering MacGuffin]].

 

 

Note that only the [[Stable Time Loop]] and [[Alternate Universe]] (when done properly, i.e. you can never get back to the first universe) resolutions are the only ones logically consistent with typical ideas of causality so stories wishing to be more "realistic" should favor these.

Even less sensibly time travel may run on [[San Dimas Time]] or display a [[Groundhog Day Loop]].

 

 

See also [[Temporal Mutability]] for the very tricky problem of how (or even if) you can change the future or the past.

* In ''[[Time Trax]]'', the method varied, but the rules were that you could only travel between two set time periods (The Present and The Future), and more than two trips in a lifetime are lethal.

* In the original ''[[Star Trek]]'', time travel required either a dangerous and complicated slingshot maneuver or a precision jump into the Donut of Forever or Mr. Atoz's Atavachron, but these days ''Trek'' characters can travel through time by spilling coffee on their tricorder. (Which is probably why Star Fleet now has a department of time travel cops staffed entirely by grim-jawed [[The Men in Black|Men in Black]], as seen in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|DS9]]''.)

** Time Travel is such an amusingly big thing in Star Trek that, in [[Star Trek Online]], [[State Sec|Section 31]] are revealed to have a star system set up ''specifically'' for pulling off the "slingshot around a star" stunt with precise calibration.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' is ''all'' about time travel.

* In the [[Role Playing Game]] ''[[Feng Shui]]'', a region of cross-time 'space' called the Netherworld allows characters to move between four different points in history (69 AD, 1850 AD, 1996 AD and 2056 AD). These junctures are [[Meanwhile in the Future|fixed with relation to each other]], treating the start of the campaign as zero-hour for all of them. So, if you enter the Netherworld in 1996, travel back to 69 AD, stay for six months and then return to '96, it will be six months later there, as well. A second use of [[Phlebotinum]] states that only people who control powerful feng shui sites can actually change the future by changing the past; everyone else just sees history work itself around the change.

* In the card game ''[[Chrononauts]]'', the players are time travelers from various alternate futures, and are trying to change the timeline to match their own timeline's version of the "past" so that they can finally go home. Since all the alternate futures have conflicting versions of "history," and many of those conflicting versions require a specific outcome to World War II (Hitler was assassinated early and [[WW 2]] was Japan vs. America, Hitler lived and D-Day failed so that Germany won [[WW 2]], and a couple other variants), [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act]] gets a real workout. There's an alternate victory condition in which players have to collect certain combinations of [[MacGuffin|Mac Guffins]] of questionable historical importance, but that's for material gain, not timeline shenanigans. A third victory condition is to get hired by the local [[Time Police]] after fixing enough of other people's paradoxes.

 

 

** Episode 1: Stop the scientists, who have given the time travel technology to [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|Nazi scientists]], to keep them from controlling key moments in history and changing the timeline... then when ''that'' doesn't work, going back in time ''again'' to make sure the [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|nuking of New York]] [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|never happened]]...

** Episode 2: Sideslip to an alternate Earth where Gordon Freeman failed to stop the Xen invasion and try to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|Set Right What Already Went Wrong]], only to find [[Those Wacky Nazis]] meddling in that dimension as well...

 

 

 

 

=== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ===

* The ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'' stories/anime feature time travelers, most notably [[Woobie|Mikuru]]. It gets important in a major way in the novels, which also push Mikuru from being the [[Neutral Female]] somewhat. {{spoiler|They travel to [[Arc Words|3 years ago]], and [[Trust Password|Kyon is the goddamn John Smith!]] }} The 7th novel also circles around it, this time with a Mikuru from a week in the future, setting off events to inspire the future inventor of time-travel and set off events necessary to bring about her organization. Like by nailing a can to the ground to send a man to hospital so that he can meet his future wife, or by dropping a turtle into freezing water to teach the inventor of time-travel something.

=== [[Comics]] ===

* ''[[PS238]]'', especially the later issues. Includes several confusing [[Stable Time Loop|stable time loops]]

* ''[[Justice Society of America|JSA]]'' has featured the modern Starman, a severe schizophrenic with powerful gravity controlling abilities. He claims, and it's probably true, that he is from a future Legion of Superheroes, future in terms of the Legion's comic too since he's an adult and the Legion in its comic is composed entirely of teenagers. Starman is also a dimensional traveler, who made his original appearance in [[Kingdom Come]] by helping Superman try and contain the villains and anti-heroes; apparently he can travel through time and the multiverse through a combination of his powers and a map that's written into his costume.

* Prior to [[Post-Crisis|1985]] [[Superman]] could time travel under his own power but would arrive in the past completely invisible and intangible, unable to interact with the past in any way, avoiding the problems with this trope. After 1985, he was no longer powerful enough to time travel at all.

* The driving force behind the plot of ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers]]'' is that the god of time is slowly losing his marbles, and time is screwing up royally as a result.

* ''[[Shadow Hearts|Shadow Hearts: Covenant]]''. {{spoiler|[[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Kato]]'s entire plan hinges on going back in time 100 years to eliminate certain individuals. When the plan is ultimately foiled, everyone gets to pick a time to travel to to live happily ever after. Karin ends up going back in time, meeting Yuri's dad and [[Abandon Shipping|becoming his mum.]] So...yeah.}}

* ''[[Day of the Tentacle]]''

* ''[[Warriors Orochi|Warriors Orochi 3]]''. A monstrous eight-headed beast called the Hydra kills most of the heroes. The few remaining survivors are aided by Kaguya, the moon princess from ''Tale of the Bamboo Cutter'', who uses her ability to travel through time to rescue the heroes who died in the battle with the Hydra.

* The changing-the-past equivalent was used thrice in ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]: A Crack in Time'', the first time to save [[Cool Old Guy|Orvus]] from [[Big Bad|Dr. Nefarious]], the second to defend Zanifar from the Agorians, and the third to {{spoiler|prevent Azimuth from killing Ratchet.}} The main plot also centers around using the Great Clock to travel back to prevent larger incidents. In Nefarious' case, he wants to wrong all the rights in the universe. For Ratchet and Azimuth, it's going back to prevent the Lombaxes' banishment. {{spoiler|Either use would screw over the universe and all of reality, though.}}

* ''[[Radiant Historia]]'' not only deals with time travel, but parallel universes caused by making different choices at certain points in time.

* ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha As Portable]]: The Gears of Destiny'' features a Time Machine [[Lost Technology|Lost Logia]] discovered by a brilliant scientist who is trying to restore a dying world. The scientist, being the well-meaning and sane kind, decides not to use it since it for his purposes since that would cause too many complications to the timestream. Unfortunately, her daughter Kyrie, who doesn't want her aging father to die without succeeding in his life's project, decides to use it to retrieve an [[Applied Phlebotinum]] that only existed at one point of a specific timeline, kicking off the plot of the game.

 

* ''[[Earthsong]]'' features a particularly head-spinning variant that doesn't actually CHANGE TIME AT ALL.

* ''[[Dresden Codak]]'' has a major plot arch which revolves around time travelers from the future entering {{spoiler|and later invading}} the present.

* ''[[Bob and George]]''. Oh, lord, Bob and George. One of the recurring catchphrases shared by many characters is "I hate time travel". George even suffers a nervous breakdown when faced with having to use it.

* ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'' features time travel (as well as dimensional travel) in several arcs, including "Doc Gets Rad" ({{spoiler|[[Big Bad]] Sparklelord}} gets defeated by being trapped in a [[Stable Time Loop]]), "Army of One" (In a [[Flash Back]], a time-travelling {{spoiler|Chuck Goodrich}} tries briefly to stop Doc from being cloned by Ben Franklin II), and "Space Savers" (Yet another {{spoiler|Chuck Goodrich}} travels back in time [and into another universe] to stop a space dinosaur invasion). Since the comic works on [[Rule of Cool]], the precise rules for how all this fits together are never clearly established.

 

 

=== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ===

* Time travel is specifically taboo in the ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' universe, and it's the job of Sailor Pluto to guard the gate of time and make sure no one uses it. That said, The sailor soldiers (Chibi-usa especially) make occasional trips between the 20th and 30th centuries.

* ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' had an [[Screw Learning, I Have Phlebotinum|intellegent Beezy]] make a [[Cool Chair]] time machine, which he then used mainly to rub his intellegence in Heloise's face.

* For a series that is so focused on the dangers of advanced technology, ''[[Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures|The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest]]'' notably only had ''one'' time travel episode, "The Edge of Yesterday," near the end of its run.

* The entire final season of ''[[The Smurfs]]'' was about time travel, coupled with [[Failure Is the Only Option]] as the Smurfs end up in one time period (and/or geographical location) after another.

* The [[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]] episode Bloodlines is all about Bart Allen a.k.a. Impulse trying to prevent a [[Bad Future]] and the after effects are really confusing. In the future everything has become destroyed and covered in ash with only Impulse and the villian of the episode in sight. When Impulse changes the future the only thing that changes is that the villain was no longer a major threat in the past and doesn't have scars, but somehow despite changing that little the villian can still remember the old timeline.

 

 

Mentioned in the end, since this series uses (and spoofs) ''every single trope'' listed above:

 

[[Category:World War One]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]