Wayback Trip: Difference between revisions

Well, maybe it's a [[Stable Time Loop]], and the timeline you know only exists because [[You Already Changed the Past|you were there with silver garlic in Rome]]. But wait, weren't you worried about changing history just last week? Didn't your traveling companion [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act|prevent you from killing Hitler]] to avoid a [[Temporal Paradox]]? [[Timey-Wimey Ball|So what makes]] ''[[Timey-Wimey Ball|this]]'' [[Timey-Wimey Ball|any different?]]

 

 

This trope seems to derive from the [[Adventure Towns]] treatment of [[Time Travel]]. Periods of history are treated like places rather than points on a timeline. New York in 1897 isn't the ''cause'' of New York in 2007, it's just 110 years down the road, and is free to have its own history and events.

Can be <s>[[Justified Trope|justified]]</s> [[Handwaved]] by having a [[Delayed Ripple Effect]].

 

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* In one episode of ''[[Wandaba Style]]'', the girls [[Phlebotinum Breakdown|accidently travel to the past]], when [[Teen Genius]] Susumu was a mere [[Child Prodigy]]. While there, they encourage him to follow his dreams, and even act as guinea pigs for toned down versions of experiments he'll run in the future, yet when they return to the present, nothing at all has changed.

 

 

* This trope is the basic premise of the ''[[Terminator]]'' movies (even though side effects cause some ontological paradoxes).

 

** In the original series serial "Pyramids of Mars", Sarah Jane asks why they have to stop the villain destroying the Earth in 1915, when they know it's fine in 1980. In reply, the Doctor takes her to 1980... and it turns out to be a desolate wasteland. Apparently, once the Doctor arrives somewhere, he must complete the [[Stable Time Loop]] to maintain the "proper" version of history. (In which case, one wonders... and this question has been voiced in the series... why the heck does the Doctor keep traveling around?! Arguably, if he didn't, the effect would be that 1980 Earth had ''always'' been a desolate wasteland, and there wouldn't be a "real" 1980 for Sarah to come from) In ''Blink'', the Doctor explains that time, rather than being a linear chain of cause and effect, is actually "[[Timey-Wimey Ball|a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff]]." This apparently explains everything.

** The new series has also introduced the idea of "fixed points", which amounts to there being some things you can change, and some things you can't.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** In fact, the "World of Reptites" ending isn't caused by the landing in the past, but by the fact that to beat Lavos at this moment, you'll have to take Ayla with you; and, since she's the most skilled human fighter and the only one who would attack the Reptite headquarters...

** Also, it is implied that the Gate Key incident may have motivated the Reptites to attack Laruba village and get very serious. If Crono and co. never arrived in 65 million BC, that never would have happened.

** Technically, the time holes appeared due to an unrelated event that was nonetheless destined to happen so that the bros could travel back in time in the first place. Specifically, from [[Layman's Terms|timey machine go boom.]]

* In the various Caverns Of Time instances in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the players' goal is preserving some event in Azeroth's history the way it should be, by defeating The Infinite.

 

* "The Stormbreaker Saga" in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' involves Zoe and Torg going back to medieval times and stopping the demon K'Z'K (who they blasted into the past in an earlier arc) from conquering the world. How this works in terms of a [[Stable Time Loop]] or [[Delayed Ripple Effect]] is made more confusing by [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=990303 this] strip, which thankfully invokes [[Bellisario's Maxim]] to [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshade]] it.

** Zoe also claims that the answers to her history test changed over night, with the new answers being in line with her experience in the past. The internal consistent theory of time travel is not revealed to the readers. (If there is one.)

 

* The trope name comes from ''Peabody's Improbable History'', a [[Three Shorts|segment]] on ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]''. In every episode, Peabody and Sherman would visit a historical personage with some problem that kept them from doing what they were supposed to do historically, and help them with it.

 

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[[Category:Plots]]