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What Year Is This?: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|'''Stewie:''' ''"Now we just got to figure out where we are."''
'''Brian:''' ''"Or WHEN we are."''
'''Stewie:''' ''"[[Lampshade Hanging|Oh, that's such a douche time traveler thing to say.]]"''
|''[[Family Guy]]''}}
Damnation, you've traveled through time and have no clue when you've ended up! How are you to ascertain what time period you're in, or where you are? Surely you can't just ask a random passer-by—they would think you mad!
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==
* In a [[Marvel]] UK ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' story, when Galvatron travels back in time to 1986, he asks this question of a passing human. The human answers before running off in terror.
* In ''[[The Mighty Thor]]'' #371, a time-travelling lawman appears out of thin air and asks a bystander "What's the date, citizen?" He has to ask a second time, less politely, before the bystander pulls himself together enough to reply.
==
* In the ''[[Firefly]]''/''[[Doctor Who]]'' crossover fanfic ''[[The Man With No Name (fanfic)|The Man with No Name]]'', the Doctor spends much of the story confused about where/when he is and eventually simply asks. It does nothing to help get the ''Serenity'' crew to think he isn't completely bonkers.
* Played with in the ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' "Steplet" [http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/dw-tmods.shtml ''The Melancholy of Douglas Sangnoir'']: When asked by [[Haruhi Suzumiya]] if he is a time traveler, Doug replies, "That depends on what year it is."
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* A non-time travel example that may also be the [[Ur Example]] occurs in ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]'': during his time in prison, Dantes has lost track of the time passed, and so when he escapes he needs to ask What Year Is This? to the sailors who pick him up from the sea.
* The [[Animorphs]] ask a French knight this question in ''Elfangor's Secret.'' He looks at them like they're mad before humoring them. Later, they get smarter and use the newspaper trick, but since Rachel had already morphed an elephant in front of them, subtlety was pretty much a moot point.
* Occurs and played with in the ''[[Warhammer 40,000]] [[Night Lords]]'' novel ''Lord of the Night''. Commander Zso Sahaal crashes on an Imperial Hive World after being waylaid by the Eldar. He knows he's been gone for some time and is unwilling to risk exposure by seeking a public outlet. So, he kidnaps a man to tell him what year it is. The terrified man simply tells that the year is 986, making Sahall think he's been gone for 600 years. While pondering the implications, he gets a nagging afterthought and asks the man if he meant 31,986. Cue [[Villainous Breakdown|BSOD]] after the man tells him that the year is, in fact, 40,986.
* In ''[[Lest Darkness Fall]]'', Martin Padway finds himself transported to Rome in 535 AD. He tries to ask people the date in his shaky Latin, and at first gets the year in the old Roman calendar then has to ask how many years since Christ was born to get the proper year.
* A version where it's not the year, but with the same "How could anyone not ''know'' that?" factor - [[A Christmas Carol|Ebeneezer Scrooge]] asking an urchin what day it is. "Why, it's Christmas Day, sir!"
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s "[[The Scarlet Citadel]]" Pelias asks [[Conan the Barbarian]] this, and realizes it's been ten years, which explains his lack of coherency.
* Inverted in Lawrence Block's ''Tanner on Ice'', when Evan Tanner is perfectly sure of what year it is—1972—except that thanks to a Swedish agent (long story) who turned him into a [[Human Popsicle]], he's wrong by a quarter of a century.
* ''[[The Eyre Affair]]:'' Thursday and Bowden stop a temporal rift by driving into it, and after re-emerging they ask mission control what year it is. Doubly subverted: not only does Chrono-Guard understand the question exactly (because dealing with temporal anomalies is their job), they are so jaded that they tell Thursday a ridiculously exaggerated date, just to mess with her head.
* Averted in book seven of ''[[The Pendragon Adventure]]''. When Bobby asks passers-by on Quillan about things absolutely anyone would know, their response is to back away slowly.
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** This also happened at the end of this series's [[Groundhog Day Loop]] episode. The ''Enterprise'' asked the ship it had been crashing into what year it was. Subverted somewhat because the ''Enterprise'' already knew, from a time-base beacon, how long they'd been trapped; they wanted to know how long the ''other'' ship (which was painfully obsolete) had been in Groundhog Day.
** And in the final episode, Picard bounces between his past, present, and future self via Q, and the first scene(repeated towards the end) has him approaching Worf and Troi and asking for the date. A confused Worf gives the stardate.
* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]
* Gotten around in ''[[Sliders]]'', where the Professor would ask people to settle a bet, in a tone that sounded like he already knew the incredibly obvious answer.
* Used in two episodes of ''[[Journeyman]]''.
* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Seven Days]]''. The hero finds himself in a civil war battle, which is far further back than the one week the time machine can go. He grabs someone and asks, "What year is this? 1861?" The guy responds, "Dude, what are you talking about?" The hero realizes he just landed in the middle of a reenactment.
* Desmond on ''[[Lost]]'' starts down this road because of his time jumping.
** And {{spoiler|when Ben arrives in Tunisia, apparently by a jump in both space and time from the island in early January 2005, he asks for the date. When told it's October 24th, he says, "200...5?" and is told, with only a slightly baffled stare, that yes, it's 2005.}}
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== Web Original ==
* One piece of 4chan [[Memetic Mutation|copy pasta]] advice for [[Instant Seduction]] involves disappearing for a week, growing a beard, getting a tan (including wedding ring tan line), and being found "semi-conscious" in the target's house, [[Naked on Arrival|naked]] and injured, demanding to know the answer to this question. Somehow, [[Coitus Ensues]].
* Played straight when Team One in ''[[Suburban Knights]]'' released Chuck Jaffers from a magic book. When he asked what year it was, it turns out that he had been trapped in 30 years.
* Used in ''[[Nan Quest]]'' when it's discovered that {{spoiler|people entered the hotel at vastly different times}}.
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