Trapped in the Past: Difference between revisions

If they land in the recent past, they typically use their foreknowledge to try to gain a comfortable life. Interacting with their immediate ancestors is a great temptation and they can hope to [[The Slow Path|live until their original time]]. The really unlucky travelers end up in the path of war or disaster - on the Titanic, during the last days of Pompei, in medieval England with the Black Death raging - in which case, the plot will be about escaping the immediate peril.

The middle ground of travelers, those who avoided immediate disaster but didn't have the foresight to learn the right things, have to accommodate themselves to the past. They may be able to improve their life in little ways, but for the most part they are stuck with the dismal realities of history.

[[Gilbert and Sullivan|Well, hardly ever.]] Aversions and subversions of those parts of the trope are increasingly popular.

When the phenomenon takes place on a collective scale (say, an entire city rather than a single person), it's an [[Island in The Sea of Time]].

{{examples}}

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* The ''[[Marvel 1602]]'' mini-series has a time-displaced [[Captain America]] sent back to Elizabethan times. When asked to return to the future, he insists on staying to try and build a better America from the beginning -- which he does in small ways, such as helping a group of colonists survive a winter that should have wiped them out, or warning the natives against selling their land to unscrupulous capitalists. The final touch comes when, because of his actions, the American colonies declare independence from Britain 174 years early.

** It also has consequences beyond his control -- his presence causes the [[Marvel Universe]] to impose itself on the past, and period versions of the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]], [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Avengers]] and other superheroes start appearing.

* ''[[Sasmira]]'': A young couple from the present day somehow find themselves sent back to the turn of the 20th century.

== [[Film]] ==

* Ash in ''[[Army of Darkness]]''.

* Picard accepts this fate for the crew of the ''Enterprise'' in ''First Contact'', when it appears that they may not be able to return to their own time; as he prepares to attempt to rescue Data from the clutches of the Borg Queen, he gives the order that if he doesn't return, they should pursue happiness in this era.

* [[Poul Anderson]]'s short story ''The Man Who Came Early'', in which an American soldier stationed in Iceland is sent back to the Viking Era after being hit by lightning. Luckily the Icelandic language has not changed much since then. All his attempts to change history fall flat on their face. When he tries to show the Vikings how to make compasses, he has no idea where to find or mine magnetic ores. When he tries to show them how to build more modern sailing vessels, the Vikings point out that such vessels are too cumbersome to dock anywhere where there is not a ready built harbor, an obvious rarity in that time period. The Vikings find the matches he brought with him impressive, but he has no idea how to make more. The only knowledge he has of any use is modern martial arts. {{spoiler|In the end the soldier runs afoul of his ignorance of Viking legal customs and is killed.}} The story's main point is that victims of this trope don't really have much chance of introducing future inventions because most advances are useless without an advanced societal infrastructure to support them.

* The ''[[Axis of Time]]'' trilogy by [[John Birmingham]]. ''World War 2.1: Weapons of Choice'', ''World War 2.2: Designated Targets'', and ''World War 2.3: Final Impact''. A multinational naval task force from 2021 is sent back to [[World War II]], where it (literally) impacts with the American fleet steaming for Midway. The consequences are ''extremely'' far-reaching.

** This one has been [http://community.livejournal.com/canon_sues/94852.html accused] of being one big bit of [[Mary Sue]]-starring wish-fulfillment. Bad enough the original publisher dropped him.

** Language difficulties are handwaved in a justification that "all Slavic languages are pretty much the same." Diseases don't really rear their head until the 6th book, ''Conrad's Quest for Rubber'' where they have to deal with unfamiliar diseases in Africa, but is semi-justified by Conrad's cousin going back in time to make Conrad sterile (no, not like that... he's rather prolific, really).

* Inverted in ''The Centurion's Empire'' by [[Sean Mcmullan]], the premise of which is that [[Ancient Rome]] developed a medicine that [[Human Popsicle|allowed the human body to survive being frozen]], and promptly started storing its best and brightest. After the empire collapsed the one survivor set up shop in an English village, being unfrozen when they needed his military expertise.

* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s short story ''Once and Future'' a [[Time Travel|time traveller]] called Mervin finds himself not only trapped in the past, but in a past that never existed: the [[Anachronism Stew]] that was [[King Arthur]]'s time. Working as a doctor for a village in Sir Ector's demenses, he quickly realises that what they need is a great and noble leader, gimmicks up an electromagnet to hold a sword in a stone, and waits for a candidate whose body language suggests he's sensible enough to take advice. It works, although not quite how he expected.

* Brought later full circle with ''To Bring The Light'' by [[David Drake]], which is bound with ''Lest Darkness Fall'' in some editions. In this story a woman from Justinian Era Rome gets sent back to the founding of Rome and must use the inventions of later Rome to help found it...

* Temporally inverted in Philip Francis Nowlan's ''Armageddon 2419 A.D.'', or as it's better known, ''[[Buck Rogers]] in the 25th Century.'' Rogers, in the various versions of his tale, brings lost knowledge and a certain 20th-century vitality to future America and/or Earth as a whole.

* ''The Dechronization of Sam Magruder'' by George Gaylord Simpson --Sam Magruder, a scientist, is accidentally sent back to the dinosaur era by an experiment. The novel is in the form of his diaries, carved in stone, concerning how he copes with being stuck in the past, alone, for the rest of his life.

* [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|Arthur and Ford]] find themselves trapped on prehistoric earth, the only skills between them the ability to live in a crapsack universe. They're unable to communicate with the aborigines, an odd aversion since their [[Universal Translator|babel fish]] allow them to communicate with all the rest of the known universe, including the interplanetary immigrants they are marooned with.

* Jayfeather from ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' finds himself stuck in the time of the Ancients twice. He manages to leave both times.

==== A group or community is transplanted. ====

* Parodied repeatedly in this [http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/winter2007/fiction-missives-from-possible-futures-1-alternate-history-search-results-by-john-scalzi/ short story] (scenario 6).

* Jon Scieszka's ''Time Warp Trio'' series.

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* The plot of ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' revolves around Tidus being plucked out of the futuristic city of Zanarkand (while said city is [[Doomed Hometown|destroyed]]) and dropped in the world of Spira. He finds that Zanarkand was destroyed 1000 years ago and has no way of getting back, so he helps a summoner on her quest to destroy the local [[Eldritch Abomination|world killing god whale]].

** Fully subverted when we find out {{spoiler|Tidus, along with the rest of Zanarkand, is a dream of the fayth}}.

== [[Western Animation]] ==