Write Back to the Future: Difference between revisions

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== Anime and Manga ==

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

* ''[[Rave Master]]''. When Haru, Elie, and Sieg Hart travel unintentionally 50 years into the past, Sieg manages to {{spoiler|send Haru and Elie back to the present at the cost of returning himself}}. He then proceeds to write letters to all their friends in the present, informing them of the final battle so they may help the hero. Then he sits down on a stone in order not to change the past and guards the only place where that time travel would be possible, {{spoiler|becoming the skeleton the saw the very first time they came there.}}

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== [[Comic Books]] ==

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== ~~Card~~ Games ==

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* The game ''[[Chrononauts]]'' revolves entirely around time travel, and uses this trope. One of the cards is a "Memo from your Future Self," and basically acts like a counterspell via going back and time and stopping the previous card from being played.

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== Comic Books ==

* In a [[Big Finish]] ''[[Judge Dredd]]''/''[[Strontium Dogs]]'' crossover, Johnny Alpha returns to his own time by leaving notes giving his exact location for his employers to find. Ready to leave, he gives such a note to Dredd, then immediately starts accusing him of betrayal when he fails to dematerialize. It turns out that without his help, Dredd won't survive to deliver the note.

* ''[[Superman]] Vs. [[The Terminator]]: Death To The Future'' #1 has Cyborg Superman leaving information for the future Skynet in a graveyard sculpture.

* In the Return of Bruce Wayne story arc, [[Batman]] time-travels forward and leaves clues to his whereabouts in and around the past location of Wayne Manor.

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== [[Fan Works]] ==

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== Fan Works ==

* In the ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2574681/1/Exact_Change Exact Change]'' by Ozzallos, Nabiki Tendo does this.

* in [http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=1707&pid=200417#pid200417 this vignette] from ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'', [[Good Omens|Agnes Nutter (witch)]] did this to deliver a message to protagonist Doug Sangnoir (along with all the other messages she sent to the future).

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== [[Film]] ==

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== Film ==

* Probably the best-known modern example is the letter Dr. Brown writes to Marty at the end of ''[[Back to The Future]] 2''. This is an example of "I'm happy in the past", but Marty finds evidence that Dr. Brown is killed a week after writing that letter, thus prompting him to go back and save him.

** Marty tries to do this in the first film, with a 'Do Not Open Until 1985' letter talking about how Doc gets gunned down. Doc tears it up while proclaiming he can't let it influence the future. {{spoiler|He later tapes it back together and reads it.}}

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* Edward Johnston does this in ''[[Timeline]]'', the film of the Michael Chrichton novel. also, one main character muses over what the life story of a knight buried in a recently-discovered grave might be. At the end, it is revealed to be ''his own'' grave, with an inscription to those of his friends who returned to the present.

== Literature ==

== [[Literature]] ==

* The novel ''[[Good Omens]]'' has a variation, where the author of the "deliver this message to this specific person at this address on this date" message is not a time traveler, but has the ability to see the future. And includes extra messages, addressed by name, for the three people who try to open the message before it reaches its intended recipient.

** To elaborate: Agnes Nutter predicted events of future generations, leaving a record for her descendants to consult, one prophecy at a time, in centuries to come. By the time the story is set, intervening generations have annotated many of these documents, including some ribald comments on the page that predicts Agnes's modern-day descendant will have sex with a particular other character.

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* Isaac Asimov's ''[[Foundation]]'' series features a non-time traveling version of this: Psychohistorian Hari Seldon, having mathematically predicted the future, leaves a set of what amount to video recordings set to automatically play at specific times to reassure the people of the future that they're on track. The fact that one of them turns out to make no sense (well, ''little'' sense, one of the characters mentions they were thinking about doing that, but changed their minds because of the current crisis) is the evidence that convinces everyone that the villain called The Mule is a much more serious threat than they had previously thought. (And the fact that after The Mule is defeated the predictions start making sense again is the evidence used by the Foundation to show that a hidden Second Foundation, dedicated to keeping things on track, must exist.)

* In Connie Willis' time travel books, the historians use so much space in the classifieds trying to communicate with each other and the future that you begin to wonder if ''any'' classified ads are "real".

* There's another short story by Finney where a man in the present day sends out an unaddressed letter complaining of his loneliness, and then a few days later finds a hidden compartment in his antique desk containing a letter from a lonely Victorian woman who received a strange, unmarked letter and wished she knew who to reply to. He writes another unaddressed letter, and again finds a hidden compartment in his desk that contains a letter from the Victorian woman. He realizes that there's one last unopened compartment, and writes to the lady explaining that this will be their last exchange and he wishes for something to remember her by. When he opens the last compartment, {{spoiler|he finds a photograph of her, and nothing else}}.

* There's another short story by Finney{{context}} where a man in the present day sends out an unaddressed letter complaining of his loneliness, and then a few days later finds a hidden compartment in his antique desk containing a letter from a lonely Victorian woman who received a strange, unmarked letter and wished she knew who to reply to. He writes another unaddressed letter, and again finds a hidden compartment in his desk that contains a letter from the Victorian woman. He realizes that there's one last unopened compartment, and writes to the lady explaining that this will be their last exchange and he wishes for something to remember her by. When he opens the last compartment, {{spoiler|he finds a photograph of her, and nothing else}}.

* In Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, Claire and Jamie write to their daughter and son-in-law, storing the letters in a chest addressed to their oldest grandchild.

* In Diana Gabaldon's ''Outlander'' series, Claire and Jamie write to their daughter and son-in-law, storing the letters in a chest addressed to their oldest grandchild.

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== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

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== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'':

** In "Battlefield", the Doctor finds a note in his own handwriting with the body of [[King Arthur]], a message from his future self.

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'''Sheldon''': Well, that's disappointing. }}

== Newspaper Comics ==

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* [[Calvin and Hobbes~~|Calvin~~]] writes a letter to his future self, expressing envy at having experienced life [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]]. When he receives the letter, some days later, he feels sorry for his past self.

* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'': Calvin writes a letter to his future self, expressing envy at having experienced life [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]]. When he receives the letter, some days later, he feels sorry for his past self.

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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

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== Tabletop Games ==

* In ''[[Continuum]]'', this is a common solution to being "stuck" in the past while your Span recovers; the Scribes specialize in this. Also, taken to extremes, a way of "instant messaging" with fellow spanners. [http://www.yamara.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=85#85 Have an example of this in action.]

* This is also a recommended tactic in ''GURPS Time Travel'' and ''GURPS Infinite Worlds,'' where the authors suggest giving the message to a law firm to hold until the proper time. Other possible channels exist, they note, but a good lawyer won't even blink at the request.

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* The game ''[[Chrononauts]]'' revolves entirely around time travel, and uses this trope. One of the cards is a "Memo from your Future Self," and basically acts like a counterspell via going back and time and stopping the previous card from being played.

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== [[Video Games]] ==

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[Dark Cloud]] 2'', the diary and letters that Max is writing to his mother... {{spoiler|since Elena, like Monica, is from 100 years into the future, and was forced to return there while Max was still an infant}}.

* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' uses this with the Rainbow Shell. Leene leaves a message with it meant for Marle, which she reads 400 years after it's written.

* In ''Dark Fall 2: Lights Out'', {{spoiler|Parker (your character) reads Drake's diary and discovers a threatening message ''addressed to him''. Drake's foreknowledge is explained because he was being manipulated by Malakai, a time-traveling sentient space probe from the future.}}

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== [[Web Original]] ==

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== Web Original ==

* In ''[[Darwin's Soldiers]]: Pavlov's Checkmate'', Shelton's antimatter copy ([[It Makes Sense in Context|long story)]]) uses this to inform modern-day Shelton that he's trapped in 1990.

== [[Web Comics]] ==

== Webcomics ==

* ''[[Casey and Andy]]'': President Cleveland sends a message forward a century, to deliver a crotch-punch to his archenemy. {{spoiler|And husband to his wife}}

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== [[Western Animation]] ==

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* In ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' episode, "The Ultimate Enemy" Jazz (in the present) sends a message to Danny, who's {{spoiler|trapped ten years in the future}}. She used a particularly foolproof method, too: {{spoiler|she used the boo-merang, an item designed to target Danny Phantom specifically, with a message that she attached using her [[Iconic Item]] (her headband).}}

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== Western Animation ==

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* In ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' episode, "The Ultimate Enemy" Jazz (in the present) sends a message to Danny, who's {{spoiler|trapped 10 years in the future}}. She used a particularly foolproof method, too: {{spoiler|she used the boo-merang, an item designed to target Danny Phantom specifically, with a message that she attached using her [[Iconic Item]] (her headband).}}

* ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'' used a short-term version of this, as Dexter (after opening a space gate to an alien world and being eaten by an alien blob) sends Dee Dee back several hours with a message... but past-Dexter doesn't get it until it's too late (which is to say, just after writing the letter in the first place), due to Dee Dee's ditziness and his own irritability.

* [[Xanatos Gambit|David Xanatos]], from ''[[Gargoyles]]'', makes his fortune via this trope. After he's zapped back 1020 years in time by the Phoenix Gate, he leaves a package in the care of the Illuminati, to be delivered to his younger self 1000 years in the future (1975). The package contains three coins (worth thousands of dollars by the time the younger Xanatos receives them and uses them for his first investments, but near worthless for their era) and a lengthy letter to be delivered twenty years after ''that'' (1995, one week before the beginning of the episode) that details what he will have to do to ensure that he is sent to the past to send the coins and the letter in the first place. And he even makes a crack about being a "[[Self-Made Man]]". [[Magnificent Bastard|Magnificent]].

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* In the ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' episode "It's About Time!", Phineas and Ferb get trapped in the prehistoric past and send messages back to the present by scratching them into the mud next to a dinosaur footprint they know is going to become fossilized and end up in the local museum.

* An episode of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]: Fast Forward'' focussed on this. The Turtles received a letter, and later on get separated in groups of two across time and space. It's after Raphael and Michaelangelo from the future tell the same two from the past (in the present) to read the letter that they realize it had been sent by Donatello from 200something.

* An interesting variation occurs in one episode of the [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|original Ninja Turtles]]. [[Sixth Ranger|Carter]] needs to contact time-travelling allies Landor and Merrik, but they're twenty years in the future. Carter sends a radio message into space, with the intent of bouncing it back to Earth via a star ten light years away. It works.

* An interesting variation occurs in one episode of the [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|original ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'']]. [[Sixth Ranger|Carter]] needs to contact time-travelling allies Landor and Merrik, but they're twenty years in the future. Carter sends a radio message into space, with the intent of bouncing it back to Earth via a star ten light years away. It works.

* Though not quite the same thing, an episode of the ''[[Superfriends]]'' has some of the super-heroes trapped in the prehistoric past. To get a signal to the heroes in the present, the trapped heroes bury their communicator in the ground at the precise location where the Hall of Justice will be built thousands of years from now. At that time, the heroes in the present begin to hear a signal coming from the ground. Somehow, this tells them that their friends are trapped in the past. Even as a kid watching this, none of it made any sense.

* ~~At one point~~ ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'' and [[Sidekick|Arthur]] are stranded in the prehistoric past. Arthur takes months, years carving a message into the hardest stone he can find in the hopes that the message would survive millions of years of erosion to be discovered in the future {{spoiler|[[The Ditz|The Tick]] breaks it.}} For those who're curious, some hard granite erodes at a rate of approximately one inch every million years; since they were cohabiting with Australopithecus, letters would probably have to be carved at least a foot deep and wide spaced to still be legible today, assuming they were left exposed to the elements.

* ''[[The Tick (animation)|The Tick]]'': At one point The Tick and [[Sidekick|Arthur]] are stranded in the prehistoric past. Arthur takes months, years carving a message into the hardest stone he can find in the hopes that the message would survive millions of years of erosion to be discovered in the future {{spoiler|[[The Ditz|The Tick]] breaks it.}} For those who're curious, some hard granite erodes at a rate of approximately one inch every million years; since they were cohabiting with Australopithecus, letters would probably have to be carved at least a foot deep and wide spaced to still be legible today, assuming they were left exposed to the elements.

* In the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode ''The Late Philip J. Fry'', Leela discovers that Fry's been sent into the future, unable to return. She goes into a cave and blasts a pattern of holes in the ceiling. The resulting stalagmite formations over millions of years spell out [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|a touching message for him.]]

* In the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "The Late Philip J. Fry", Leela discovers that Fry's been sent into the future, unable to return. She goes into a cave and blasts a pattern of holes in the ceiling. The resulting stalagmite formations over millions of years spell out [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|a touching message for him.]]

== Real Life ==

== [[Real Life]] ==

* [[Stephen Hawking]] tries this in his "Time ~~Traveller~~'s Party" experiment. He holds a reception for future time travellers, but doesn't publish the time (12:00 on June 28, 2009, for any future people reading this) until ''after'' the party, so the only people who could show up would be time travelers. No one did (or [[Secret Keeper|he's ~~not~~ ~~telling~~]]).

* [[Stephen Hawking]] tries this in his "Time Travelers' Party" experiment. He holds a reception for future time travellers, but doesn't publish the time (12:00 on June 28, 2009, for any future people reading this) until ''after'' the party, so the only people who could show up would be time travelers. No one did (or [[Secret Keeper|he never told]]).