What If...?: Difference between revisions
m
→Video Games: replaced: [[Lord of the Rings → [[The Lord of the Rings
m (revise quote template spacing) |
m (→Video Games: replaced: [[Lord of the Rings → [[The Lord of the Rings) |
||
| (23 intermediate revisions by 10 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope|wppage=Counterfactual history}}
[[File:
The [[wikipedia:What If (disambiguation)|seminal question]] of [[Speculative Fiction]].
What if ... a person had superpowers? What if ... vampires existed?
You can classify a series or an episode quite well by saying it asks a particular kind of
Commonly used
* [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|Travel between stars were possible.]]
* Aliens came to Earth.
* A different political system were in effect.
Line 23 ⟶ 22:
These were occasionally called "imaginary stories" back in the [[Silver Age]] of comics.
An [[Alternate Universe]] or [[Elseworld]] will usually be based off a single "What if?" For example, "What if [[Fantastic Four|Reed Richards]] [[Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome|weren't]] [[Reed Richards Is Useless|useless?]]" [[For Want of a Nail]] is a What If where the difference is a single, tiny change. [[In Spite of a Nail]] is a What If where a change results in a world almost identical to the original, but with a 'hole' in it where the missing or changed element should have been. Compare to [[What Could Have Been]], which covers Off-Universe or [[:Category:Paratext|Paratext]] examples.
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Jin Roh]]'', an anime movie where the Axis Powers won [[World War Two]].
Line 34 ⟶ 33:
* ''Evangelion ANIMA'' is an [[Alternate Continuity]] take on ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', the point of divergence being ''[[End of Evangelion]]'', where {{spoiler|the JSSDF sides with NERV instead of SEELE, helping them fight off the Mass Production Evas and avert Third Impact}}. The story picks up three years later, where NERV, now under the command of Misato, is a much more benevolent organization, and the Eva pilots have had three years of relative peace in which to grow up and (somewhat) deal with their [[Dysfunction Junction|personal issues]].
* ''[[After War Gundam X]]'' premise derives from an unnerving alternative resolution of the [[Mobile Suit Gundam|One Year War]] conflict: "What if the Spacenoids, after losing the war, opted for the [[Taking You with Me]] route and instead of a single [[Colony Drop]] decided to use [[Up to Eleven|each and every single one of them]] against Earth?". The aftermath: 99% of the Earth's population got wiped out and civilization was almost destroyed in the process. And that's [[After the End|just the back-story to the events of this series]].
* The ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]'' series happens in a scenario where Mikhail Gorbachev was assassinated by terrorists and, as such, his political restructuring plans never came to pass, the
== Audio Drama ==
* The ''[[Big Finish Doctor Who|Doctor Who: Unbound]]'' audio dramas apply the same principle to storylines from ''[[Doctor Who]]'', asking "what if the Doctor and Susan had never left Gallifrey?", "what if the Doctor had not been UNIT's scientific advisor?", "what if the Doctor had escaped the justice of the Time Lords at the end of ''The War Games''?", "what if the Valeyard had won at the end of ''The Trial of a Time Lord''?", "what if the Doctor believed that the ends justified the means?"... One of them does something different by asking "What If ''Doctor Who'' never made it to TV?"
== Card Games ==
* The official ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' website had a "What If? Week" Febrary 27th to March
** Which is to say nothing of the expansion set that "What If Week" was promoting. Called ''Planar Chaos'', it was about alternate dimensions/realities, both in terms of [[Alternate History|alternate story history]] creating cards like the white "Crovax Ascendant", the black "Mirri, the Cursed", and the red "Akroma, Angel of Fury", as well as off-color versions of well-known cards, shifted into colors that share or better fit the existing stats and abilities, creating the likes of Serra Sphinx (a blue Serra Angel), Bog Serpent (a black Sea Serpent), and Fa'adiyah Seer (a green Sinbad).
== Comic Books ==
* The [[Marvel Universe]] had a series [[Trope Namer|literally called]] ''What If?'', which told stories where the events shown in the comics happened just a bit differently.
** Not always "just a bit". Various cases included "What if Gwen Stacy survived?", "What if The Punisher received the Venom symbiote?" and "What if every member of the Fantastic Four received the same power?" to "What if Wolverine ended up in the Conan universe?", "What if Aunt May was bitten by the radioactive spider?", "What if Galactus was Ben and May's nephew?" and, of course, "What if Magneto, Iron Man, Colossus and Dr Doom got stuck in the same elevator?"?
** This series is notable in that, aware it's a one-time thing and therefore freed from the limitations of [[Contractual Immortality]], [[Kill'Em All|the body count for otherwise nigh indestructible heroes and villains shoots through the roof.]]
** What if The Watcher were a stand-up comedian? [[Crack Fic|That.]] [[Hilarity Ensues|Is.]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|All.]]
{{quote|'''[[Make Me Wanna Shout|What if Black Bolt]] [[Oh Crap|got hiccups?]]'''
''[[Foregone Conclusion|(cut to a shot of Black Bolt - with hiccups - walking, with a wrecked NY behind him)]]'' }}
** Also:
{{quote|'''Luke Cage with the power of Thor''': By the gleamin' gates of funky Asgard, you suckers are gonna '''''EAT HAMMER!'''''}}
** Just look at [http://marvel.wikia.com/What_If%3F_Vol_1_34 the article for that issue] (the cover of which illustrates this page) on the Marvel Database.
*** Later ''What If?''s from Marvel have pretty much ditched the absurdist (or at least gag-inducing) settings for more plausible alternatives, for example "What if Captain America had won the [[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]?" or "What if [[Dark Reign (comics)|the Siege of Asgard]] had been successful?"
* ''[[Star Wars]]: Infinities'' is a series of one-shot comic issues built around this concept. Two examples include Luke dying on Hoth and Leia having to take up his mantle as well as her own, and C-3PO getting blown to bits in Jabba's palace... which somehow results in Darth Vader getting returned to the Light Side of the Force.
** The 'what if?' for ''A New Hope'' is the craziest. The lynchpin for the change is Luke failing to destroy the original Death Star, with the rest of the story switching between bizarre events such as Leia becoming an obvious visual reference to an SS officer after falling to the dark side and the Death Star being renamed the "Justice Star," to "alternate" scenes that are really just copies of actual canon scenes from the movies with characters switched around, one of which even has Luke learning Vader is his father and ''saying the exact same line in response.'' The story ends with what one review describes as "[[Colony Drop|Cosmic 9/11]];" seriously, you have to [https://web.archive.org/web/20170331170131/http://www.whygodwhy.org/original-fiction-f4/anh-infinities-genocide-i-will-commit-yes-t1298.htm see it to believe it].
* [[DC Comics]] was doing these type of stories years before Marvel, but they called them "Imaginary Stories." In later years, the name "Imaginary Story" came to viewed as corny, so DC took to calling them "[[Elseworld
== Fan
* This is pretty much the driving force behind most fanfics.
* ''[[Downfall (fanfic)|Downfall]]'' works on this premise, messing freely with everything, while explicitiely keeping eveyone within their canon character constraints. Aizen is a plotter. Unohana is [[Team Mom]]... {{spoiler|and she kills people with her bare hands}}
* The ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3460966/1/Difficult_to_Fight_Against_Anger Difficult To Fight Against Anger]'' is a what if story where Warren Mears doesn't kill Tara Maclay, but instead sexually assaults her.
* The ''[[Star Wars]]'' fanfic series ''[[Jedi Padme Trilogy]]'' is based on the idea of Padmé as a Jedi, as well as a few other things.
* John Biles' ''[[Ranma ½]]
* There had been a few fics in ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' asking what would have happened if the Americans didn't win the American Revolution.
* The ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' fanfic
* There are a few ''[[My Little Pony:
** [[A World Without Rainbows|Here's such an example.]]
* The ''[[Total Drama Island]]'' fanfiction, ''[[Total Alternate Island]]'', is a retelling of the first season, but with six additional campers joining the game at the start. This also alters some couplings as well.
* ''[[Your Best Shot]]'' is another ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|MLP:FiM]]''
* The in-progress ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X
*
* Yet another ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is
* In the ''[[Game of Thrones]]
* ''[http://fav.me/ddaajka After Case Report]'', the narrator is left with this question on whatever or not to [[Mercy Kill| kill Melanie C]] after seeing what was done to her.
* ''[[Final Stand of Death]]'' finally answers "What If {{Spoiler|[[Spice Girls]]}} were given a chance to return to their former realm and take out [[Marilyn Manson]] for what he'd done?"
== Film ==
* The main plot of ''[[Donnie Darko]]'' is essentially a few days of a "
* ''[[wikipedia:CSA : The Confederate States of America|The Confederate States of America]]'', a mockumentary about what might have happened if the South won the American civil war.
* ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]'', "What if I'd never been born?"
* ''[[
* ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'', "What if the plots to kill [[Adolf Hitler]] {{spoiler|actually succeeded}}?"
** Although the film doesn't actually explore possible historical consequences. The answer to "what if" is: {{spoiler|then Hitler would get killed, and the movie would end soon after}}.
== Literature ==
Line 93 ⟶ 88:
* Older tropers and ones who frequent used bookstores may be aware of a [[Sci Fi]] pulp magazine titled "if: Worlds of Science Fiction".
* Naomi Novik's ''[[Temeraire]]'' saga can be best summed up as "The Napoleonic Wars <small>[[Recycled in Space|WITH DRAGONS!]]</small>".
* ''[[The Tripods]]'' series of novels by [[John Christopher]] are a
* ''[[1632]]'' by Eric Flint and
** Another Flint novel, ''1812: The Rivers of War'', posits an [[Alternate History]] of the "[[For Want of a Nail]]" variety, with Ensign Sam Houston not taking an arrow [[Groin Attack|between the goalposts]] in the [[wikipedia:Battle of Horseshoe Bend|Battle of Horseshoe Bend]], unlike what happened in [[Real Life]]. One of the changes annoyed Francis Scott Key to no end.
* ''World War'' by [[Harry Turtledove]] asks "What if [[World War Two]] was interrupted by an [[Alien Invasion]]?" His other main series, Timeline-191, is based on the more conventional question, "What if the south won the American Civil War?" while his earlier novel ''Guns of the South'' poses, {{spoiler|"What if a racist group from South Africa in the near future travelled back in time to supply the Confederacy with AK-47s?"}}
Line 100 ⟶ 95:
* A series of essays by eminent historians is entitled simply "What If". It includes topics like "What If the Americans lost the Revolution?" and "What if Pontius Pilate spared Jesus?"
* Discussed in the ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]] 2'' novelisation, where Tony suspects that being brought up by an alcohol-and-rage-fuelled father in Siberia would have caused him to turn out like Ivan Vanko.
* ''An Apology'' by Timothy Zahn is "What if Luke was killed instead of [[Cloning Blues|Luuke]] in ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy|The Last Command]]''". Released as an [[April Fools Day]], the introduction states the revelation that Luuke impersonated the original for the entire [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] was planned from the very start and lasted over a decade instead of the story being hypothetical.
== Live Action TV ==
Line 107 ⟶ 102:
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Turn Left" presented a world where {{spoiler|Donna never met the Doctor, and humanity was more or less screwed}}.
** And the ''Doctor Who'' spinoff ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' has a storyline asking "What if Sarah, rather than her best friend, had died in an accident as a teenage girl?"
* ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'': Members of the Midnight Society (the original one,
* Even if not the premise of a series,
* [[News Radio]] had two of these episodes, both with an opening introduction by Phil Hartman:
** What if the show took place on a space station and reported the "space news"? ("Space")
** What if the show took place on the luxury liner called ''Titanic''? ("Sinking Ship")
* [[The BBC]]-made series ''[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/if/default.stm If...]'' was a serious docu-drama take on
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode "The Wish": what if Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale? The answer: a lot of really bad stuff.
* Perhaps the most successful example of this trope is the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "Mirror, Mirror", which formed the basis of episodes from all of the subsequent series except Next Generation and Voyager... but they got theirs in a novel (''A Mirror Darkly'').
** The "What if?" question being answered by that episode was, of course, "What if Spock had a goatee?"
* ''[[Sliders]]'' used this trope as its main premise: "What if antibiotics had never been invented?" "What if America had lost the Cold War?" "What if traditional gender roles were swapped?" and so on.
* One
** Not to mention a two-parter for ''[[Friends]]'' (fittingly titled "[[The One With...|The One]] That Could Have Been") which showed an alternative history for the group if 1) Ross hadn't discovered his wife was a lesbian 2) Rachel hadn't walked out on her marriage 3) Joey had remained on Days of Our Lives 4) Monica was still fat 5) Phoebe became a stockbroker 6) Chandler walked out on his job.
* Trance of ''[[Andromeda]]'' has this as her superpower, basically seeing future possibilities and trying to steer the present toward the "best" one. She also [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|prunes a bonsai]] quite often.
** An episode explores what would happen if Rhade killed Dylan at the start of the [[Nietzsche Wannabe|Nietzschean]] rebellion instead of the other way around. While Rhade would still try to re-create the [[The Federation|Commonwealth]], his efforts would be futile, costing him many allies. At the end, he realizes that Dylan is a better candidate for this, goes back in time, kills his past self, and throws the fight with Dylan, leading to the series' timeline.
Line 127 ⟶ 122:
* During a production meeting for ''[[Felicity]]'', [[J.J. Abrams]] off-handedly asked "What if Felicity was a secret agent?" to try and develop a plot with relatively higher stakes. It was a joke, but he'd eventually answer the question with ''[[Alias]]''.
* Both ''[[JAG]]'' and its spinoff ''[[NCIS]]'' did episodes that revolved around the main characters making different decisions (or events that occurred one way in the "prime" timeline happening the other way). The ''JAG'' episode was even titled "What If?".
== Machinima ==
* Karzahni of ''[[Bionicle]]'' actually has "What If" as a ''superpower''; he can give people visions of possible past or future outcomes. He tends to use this as a psychological attack, showing "What if you didn't survive that situation?" or "What if you couldn't save that guy at that crucial moment?" It's rarely pretty... and when it ''is'' pretty, it becomes a [[Lotus Eater Machine]].
** One character then manages to use it against him, by daring him to show them what would happen if the Great Spirit dies. When he does so, he finds out that the answer is "the end of the universe," and that he's not nearly as important as he likes to think. This revelation causes him to go [[Heroic BSOD|BSOD]].
* In ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'', Church tries to take advantage of this trope to change the future (What if Donut didn't kill Tex? What if Captain Flowers hadn't died?). Unfortunately... it didn't work out so well. In fact, trying to change the past ended up {{spoiler|causing all the things he was hoping to avoid to happen anyway, including ''his own death''}}.
== Newspaper Comics ==
* For January 2012, ''[[Sally Forth]]'' did a storyline where Ted uses the 2012 Mayan prophecy as a reason to look back on their lives, which lead to a two-week bit where they show what life would be like if Sally and Ted had never met.
== Tabletop Games ==
* An ongoing project is the ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20121228154511/http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=200543 Dornian Heresy.]'' The trope is somewhat subverted, since rather than one point of divergence, there's actually several, but the spirit of the trope is still there. The premise:
** The World Eaters under Angron become the paragons of martial honor and virtue, and are by far some of the most well regarded of the Emperor's [[Space Marine]] Legions (yes, legions).
** The Emperor's Children are still stuck
** The Space Wolves have dedicated themselves to Khorne, and are now both figuratively and literally [[Ax Crazy]].
** The White Scars are so obsessed with speed and thrills while worshipping Slaanesh the Speed Freakz of the Orkz would be envious.
** The Word Bearers are the priesthood of the Imperium and use their knowledge of the Warp to exorcise daemons instead of summoning them.
** The Thousand Sons have renounced sorcery and become one of the most loyal Legions of the Imperium, and Magnus is the advocate and spokesperson for psykers everywhere.
** Abbadon
▲** Abbadon STILL hates Horus for being weak and a fool, and reorganizes the Sons of Horus into the Black Templars.
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei:
** As a result, it then presents another question: "What If... people were already aware of demons before the start of ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]''?" The answer isn't provided until the ''Devil Summoner'' series: "Thor would have been killed before he launched the nuclear missiles, instead of after, averting the main-series apocalypse and leading to a very different world." The ''Persona'' series before ''[[Persona 3]]'' (and possibly even ''after'', it isn't too clear if they're all absolutely in canon with one another) may or may not take place in this same What If scenario, although it's heavily implied with {{spoiler|Tamaki's presence in the early Persona games}}.
*** Due to all this, of course, it's worth noting that the What If in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei:
** Also, the ''Devil Summoner'' [[Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army|prequel]] [[Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon|games]] provide an Alternate History What If, hinging on the Taisho period lasting longer than it did in our world.
*** In that game, Raidou's antics in the time stream stopped the main Shin Megami Tensei series from ever happening and thus creating the world of the spin-off Megami Ibunroku games. The Megami Ibunroku series contains the Persona games, Devil Survivor, and was started with [[Shin Megami Tensei:
* ''[[Command
* ''[[World in Conflict]]''. In this what if, Russia invades USA during the cold war.
* Little-known [[First-Person Shooter]] ''[[Iron Storm]]'' is set in a 1964 where World War I never ended and is entering its 50th year. In a subsequent re-release (only for the UK market, as far as I know), it was retitled World War Zero.
Line 167 ⟶ 153:
* ''[[Freedom Fighters (video game)|Freedom Fighters]]'' by IO Interactive (better known for the Hitman series) put the players in the shoes of a plumber becoming a resistance leader, in an alternate reality where USA are invaded by an USSR that not only never collapsed, but was the real winner of WWII by dropping the first atomic bomb on Berlin.
* [[Real Time Strategy]] game ''[[War Front Turning Point]]'' has Hitler assassinated in the early days of WWII and, under his successor, Britain occupied by the Nazi. After the Allies defeat them, the Russian take the chance to invade Western Europe, leading to the merging of the Allies' troops with reinforcements from the recently dismantled Nazi army. All this, with some science-fiction weaponry thrown in.
* The ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' Budokai games have currently always a set of
** The story mode of Dragonball: Supersonic Warriors gives each playable character an "IF" story, in addition to having a story mode for the canonical events. For example, Piccolo,<ref>Planet Namek is ''not'' destroyed, Goku and Piccolo defeat Cell using the same [[Heroic Sacrifice|method]] they used to beat Raditz, and Piccolo revives and merges with Demon King Piccolo to defeat Buu</ref>
* ''[[The World Ends With You]]'': Question: What if Tin Pin Slammer was the biggest thing in Shibuya? Answer: {{spoiler|''TWEWY'' would be a great ''[[Beyblade]]''-parody and Neku a Tyson with "Emo-urges". (As seen in the bonus chapter)}}
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]: Conquest'' has a campaign where you fight as the forces of evil, with the question: "What if Frodo failed to destroy the One Ring?" Answer: The world goes to hell.
* ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' could be seen as "What if [[Mega Man (video game)|Dr. Light]] worked in networking technology instead of robotics?" There was even a part where there is a debate whether to fund Light's (Hikari's in this case) project instead of Dr. Wily's robots.
* ''[[The Force Unleashed]]'s'' [[Downloadable Content]] are this, as in "What if Vader died and was replaced by Galen?" (using the non-canon Dark Side ending as a starting point, obviously).
Line 179 ⟶ 165:
* The ''[[Dead Rising 2]]'' DLC "Off The Record" explores what would happen if Frank West was the hero of the game instead of Chuck Greene.
* ''[[Brink]]'' has a handful of ''What-If'' missions, which follow on from certain story levels if the canonical outcome didn't happen. For example, Security have a ''What-If'' mission in which they have to defend a prison to prevent Chen from escaping. The corresponding ''What-If'' level follows on from the mission if Security ''failed'' to prevent Chen from escaping.
* ''[[Silent Storm]]'' starts as a straightforward [[World War Two]] game, until the "What If" portion comes into play. What if a powerful secret organization bent on world domination was playing both sides against each other and supplying them with equivalent advanced weaponry in order to cause sufficient damage for the organization to take over after the war? While this would be interesting in itself, the game then had to bring in [[Energy Weapon
* The Survival Pack DLC for ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' within The Last Stand map explores the idea of what would happen to the survivors if they took a wrong turn and tried to hold out in being rescued. As the tagline says for the poster that shows the whole point of survival mode,[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|It Doesn't End Well.]]
* ''[[Fallout]]'' asks, "What if the sociopolitical aesthetic of the 1950s had endured for the next hundred years or so?" The results are [[Nuclear Option|not]] [[Crapsack World|pretty]], though the progression of the games shows that conditions are slowly improving again... after
== Western Animation ==
Line 202 ⟶ 187:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Alternate History Tropes]]
[[Category:What If...?]]
[[Category:This Index Asked You a Question]]
| |||