Selves-Visitation

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Flash Fiction

Un brillant sujet


Now that we’re in the enlightened 21st century, every self-respecting reader is intimately familiar with all the early time travel classics. Anno 7603, Paris avant les hommes,[/em] “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains,” “The Clock That Went Backward,” El Anacronópete, The Time Machine, blah blah blah. But let’s be honest and call a Morlock a Morlock: All those old tales are tales of vacuous travelers through time, none of them giving a thought to contorted paradoxes, none wondering which lover they would get back (or get revenge on) if given the chance, none fretting about what might happen should they kill their younger self, and none having impure thoughts about sleeping with their mothers or the consequences of doing so. Yep, I’d always proudly boasted that it was my generation who discovered such sauciness.

And then I stumbled upon Jacques Rigaut’s century-old gem that managed all that and more in under 1,000 words more than a century ago. —Michael Main
Divers incestes sont consommés. Palentête a quelques raisons de croire qu’il est son propre père.
translate Various incests are consummated. Skullhead has some reason to believe that he is his own father.
A yellowed title page from the 1922 publication of "Un brillant sujet."
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Comedy
  • Experimental
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator


Pete Davidson has inherited all the properties of an uncle who had been an authority on the fourth dimension, including the Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator that can pull copies of matches, coins, dollar bills, fiancées, and kangaroos out of the past. —Michael Main
“These,” said Pete calmly, “are my fiancée.”
Three identical women, dresses in the same high fashion, stand on a contrivance
                connected to copper tubes and other high-tech machinery.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

“—All You Zombies—”


A 25-year-old man, originally born as an orphan girl named Jane, tells his story to a 55-year-old bartender who then recruits him for a time-travel adventure. —Michael Main
When I opened you, I found a mess. I sent for the Chief of Surgery while I got the baby out, then we held a consultation with you on the table—and worked for hours to salvage what we could. You had two full sets of organs, both immature, but with the female set well enough developed for you to have a baby. They could never be any use to you again, so we took them out and rearranged things so that you can develop properly as a man.
A man wearing only a skirt stands on a spaceship while firing a ray gun upward
                at another ship.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Voyages of Ijon Tichy 11

Podróż siódma

  • Journey seven
  • The Seventh Voyage
  • by Stanisław Lem
  • in Niezwyciężony i inne opowiadania by Stanisław Lem (Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, 1964)

What do you do when your one-man spaceship loses an argument with a meteor, and the only way to repair the rudder demands two people? “The Seventh Voyage” is the eleventh tale of Stanisław Lem’s space traveler Ijon Ticvhy, but I believe it’s the first where the hero also wrangles with time. —Michael Main
— Zaraz — odparł wolno, nawet nie ruszając palcem. — Dzisiaj jest wtorek. Jeżeli ty jesteś środowy i do tej chwili we środę jeszcze nie są naprawione stery, to z tego wynika, że coś przeszkodzi nam w ich naprawieniu, ponieważ w przeciwnym razie, ty, we środę, nie nakłaniałbyś już mnie do tego, abym ja, we wtorek, wspólnie je z tobą naprawiał. Więc może lepiej nie ryzykować wyjścia na zewnątrz?
translate “Just a minute,” I replied, remaining on the floor. ”Today is Tuesday. Now if you are the Wednesday me, and if by that time on Wednesday the rudder still hasn’t been fixed, then it follows that something will prevent us from fixing it, since otherwise you, on Wednesday, would not now, on Tuesday, be asking me to help you fix it. Wouldn’t it be best, then, for us to not risk going outside?”
An abstract drawing, possibly of a person in a spacesuit with a blue
                nebula of some sort poofing out of a projectile.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Time Patrol 5

Gibraltar Falls

  • by Poul Anderson
  • in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1975

As part of an crew assigned to crew to observe the filling of the Mediterranean from the Atlantic in the late Micene, Patrolman Tom Nomura breaks the rules to use time travel to rescue Feliz a Rach when she’s swept over the falls. —Michael Main
The Mediterranean floor lay ten thousand feet below sea level. The inflow took most of that drop within a fifty-mile strait. Its volume amounted to ten thousand cubic miles a year, a hundred Victoria Falls or a thousand Niagaras.
No image currently available.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Star Trek: The Next Generation (s01e24)

We’ll Always Have Paris


Temporal distortions, such as time loops and mixed times, are rippling outward from an isolated planetoid where Dr. Manheim and Jenice Manheim, an old flame of Picard’s, built their time/gravity research lab. —Michael Main
Sensors show nothing, sir, But it appears a moment in time repeated itself exactly, for everyone.
Still shot from behind of Patrick Stewart (as Captain Jean-Luc Picard) gazing
                at a future Eiffel Tower on the holo-deck.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Cartoon

SpongeBob SquarePants [s7:e09A]

Back to the Past


SpongeBob, Patrick, and their two superhero friends head back to the days when the old superheroes were young. Can you guess who it was back in that past who ate all of Mermaid Man’s tartar sauce, unintentionally altering the future? Note: The old superheroes were voiced by Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway; their young counterparts were Adam West and Burt Ward. —Michael Main
This device allows us to transport into the future or past, at a date or destination of our choosing. Unfortunately, the consequences of altering the order of history are so dangerous [thunder], we’ve chosen to leave it alone. So you mustn’t touch!
Former superhero sidekick Barnacle Boy stands beside a stylized control panel
                of a time machine.
  • Superhero
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

My Wife Hates Time Travel


When a not-so-brilliant man and his similarly equipped wife find out that one of them is destined to invent time travel, they end up continuously fighting, not the least cause of which is their future selves popping in all the time, intent on informing them that they should do this and not that. —Michael Main
Being the future inventors of time travel wasn’t all bad, of course. It was great to know that we’d never lose anything, never go to a movie that turned out to be a stinker, never buy a book we wouldn’t want to finish, never go out to a restaurant where the service was lousy, and never get stuck in a traffic jam, because we’d always be warned away, beforehand. It was terrific to have some future version of myself pop in just as I was about to irritate my wife with some inconsiderate comment and tell me, “It would be a really bad idea to say that.”
|pending alt-text|
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

D.N.E.: Do Not Erase


After Brian’s girlfriend walks out on him and he invents time travel, a parade of future Brians shows up with one dire warning after another.

If you have a nice girlfriend or boyfriend and you are trying to crack time travel, please take this short film as a warning. —Michael Main
Brian: I am on the verge . . .
Sophie: . . . of cracking time travel, I know. Maybe when you do, we can go back in time and actually have all of the dates that you canceled.
Multiple images of Nar Williams (as Brian), one who holds a raygun and three of
                whom are dumbfounded.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

A Swirl of Chocolate


Charlie may be at a playground, but this is no laughing matter. People have disappeared. —Tandy Ringoringo
. . . dragging space-time with it like a swirl of chocolate being stirred into a bowl of cream.
A star emerging from behind a blue planet.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Flash, Season 1

  • written and directed by multiple people
  • (The CW, USA, 7 October 2014) to 19 May 2015)

Time travel is implied right from the first episode of the CW’s rendition of The Flash where a newspaper from the future is seen in the closing scene. The rest of the first season builds a fine time-travel arc that includes a nefarious time traveler from the far future, a classic grandfather paradox with a twist (sadly not examined), a do-over day for the Flash (which Harrison Wells calls “temporal reversion”), and a final episode that sees the Flash travel back to his childhood (as well as a hint that Rip Hunter himself will soon appear on the CW scene). —Michael Main
Wells: Yes, it’s possible, but problematic. Assuming you could create the conditions necessary to take that journey, that journey would then be fraught with potential pitfalls: the Novikov Principle of Self-Consistency, for example.

Joe: Wait—the what, now?

Barry: If you travel back in time to change something, then you end up being the causal factor of that event.

Cisco: Like . . . Terminator.

Joe: Ah!

Wells: Or is time plastic? Is it mutable, whereby any changes in the continuum could create an alternate timeline?

Cisco: Back to the Future.

Joe: Ah, saw that one, too.
The Flash, in his red costume, zig-zags through an empty city street, leaving a
                yellow electric bolt behind him.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Flash, Season 2

  • by multiple writers and directors
  • (The CW, USA, 6 October 2015) to 24 May 2016)

After Barry aborts his mission to the past in Season 1 in order to prevent his own present from being erased, he finds that his travel has caused even bigger problems! Yep, a rift has been a-opened to a parallel world with an alternate Flash and an evil speedster and—it would seem—more time travelin’ and another attempt to save his mom and dad! —Michael Main
No, that’s not how it works. In our timeline, Barry’s mother’s already dead, and her death is a fixed point. And nothing can change that.
Surounded by yellow lightning, Grant Gustin (as the Flash) races towards us in
                his red costume with a new white logo on his chest.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Shakesville


Fifty future versions of a man show up in his apartment (49 of whom are corrupted) to warn him of an impending fateful decision that he must make correctly. —Michael Main
It’s not anything fatal. You know it can’t be anything fatal, because if it was, then there would be no future self who could be sent back to warn you.
Three identical men sleep in what must be a very crowded bed.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

Coffee Time

  • written and directed by David deMena
  • (Highbridge Film Festival, 21 April 2018)

Tiffany’s coffee takes her back and forth through time to help with her hectic college life. —Michael Main
Tiffany [waking up late]: Oh, no! It didn’t go off. I thought I’d turned it on.
No image currently available.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

2nd Door

  • written and directed by Umesh Verma
  • (Youtube: 2nd Door Channel, 8 December 2017)

Two men—a garage shop owner and a mad scientist—loop through 13 days, meeting and shooting each other and themselves, but not so that we could understand much (beyond that there was a time portal made of hubcaps and blue electricity). —Michael Main
This freak made a mess of our garage.
A man in an auto shop, dressed in clean clothes and suspenders, faces a large
                round portal made of hubcaps and other auto parts.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

Press Start! 9

Super Rabbit Boy’s Time Jump!


A superhero rabbit from a low-resolution handheld video game fights his arch-nemesis, King Viking, who plans to stop Baby Rabbit Boy from ever getting superpowers. —Michael Main
I built this Super Mega Robot Time Machine to use the Time Crystal’s power. That means I can travel through time!
Two low-resolution video game rabbits swirl into a vortex along with four
                clocks.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

The Speed of Time


Johnny Killfire of the year 2055 (the buff version) comes back to 2020 to stop his younger self from making a killer pizza-delivery app. —Michael Main
You know that pizza app you’re working on to reduce delivery times? You designed it too well.
A bearded man peers over his sunglasses, which reflect images of four
                characters and a dog from the film.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Solos [s1.e01]

Leah


While talking to her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, brilliant scientist Leah Salavara’s subconscious brings up just the idea that’s needed to video chat with herself in other times and eventually complete the final step that leads to actual time travel with a surprisingly complex set of motives. —Michael Main
Okay, so in order to run a reverse dimensional location search, I need to know what the interdimensional VIN is on your computer.
A startled Anne Hathaway (as physicist Leah Salavara) looks up from her
                computer in a lab packed with electronics and futuristic screens.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Loki, Season 1


Hang on to your Tesseracts! Apparently, in Endgame, when the Avengers traveled back in time to swipe various things from the 2012 Avengers, they inadvertantly started a branch in time where Loki ended up with the Tesseract. Of course, once that occurred, the Time Variance Authority spotted him as a Variant and quickly recruited him to help in their fight against even more variant Variants. —Michael Main
Appears to be a standard sequence violation. Branches growing at a stable rate and slope. Variant identified.
Tom Hiddleston (as Loki) stands with his arms crossed and an annoyed look on
                his face, in front of a large analog clock with multiple hands.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

The Hero of Your Own Story


A bad egg creates chaos by leaving time portals open between various times in various parts of the multiverse. —Michael Main
Your time portals are not big enough for any of the really exciting monsters.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for
                Daily Science Fiction.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel