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The Internet Time Travel Database

Dystopian World

Fictional Settings

The Collapse of Homo Sapiens

by P. Anderson Graham
The narrator longs to see history develop over centuries, so when an immensely evolved Being offers to take him into the future, he agrees and is taken to a dystopian world of 2120 A.D. when mankind is on the verge of extinction.
— Michael Main
After wading through years of fruitless research and encountering failures enough to make the heart sick, I accidentally got into communication with an intelligence whose home was no single sphere but the universe, one to whom human time was nought, as were also human fears, joys, sorrows and emotions. The fortunes of mankind meant no more to him that thosee of a tribe of insects, one year swarming over the earth, the next swept out of existence.

He would not let me address him in the language intercession. “I am like you,” he said, “but of a different sphere and a different power. I am not immortal; nothing is immortal. Neither the Earth, the Sun, nor the God who made them. Everything is passing away, or rather, dissolving, to be re-fashioned into other forms.”

The Collapse of Homo Sapiens by P. Anderson Graham (G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1923).

Paycheck

by Philip K. Dick
Apparently, Jennings agreed to work as a specialized mechanic for two years at Rethrick Construction, having his memory wiped at the end in return for 50,000 credits—except instead of a bag full of credits, the memory-wiped Jennings is left holding a bag of seven trinkets and no idea why he would have agreed to such a thing.
— Michael Main
But the big puzzle: how had he—his earlier self—known that a piece of wire and a bus token would save his life? He had known, all right. Known in advance. But how? And the other five. Probably they were just as precious, or would be.
“Paycheck” by Philip K. Dick, Imagination, June 1953.

The Twonky

written and directed by Arch Oboler
Unlike in the original short story of “The Twonky,” the movie’s mad machine is a TV rather than a radio. Also, we never explicitly see the machine’s construction by a time traveler, but the professor’s discussions with the coach make it clear that they believe the machine is from the future, and that’s good enough for us. And finally, when you watch the wacky film, you’ll see that Arch Oboler devised a different fate for the Twonky than that of Kuttner and Moore’s original story.
— Michael Main
Kerry: Then it is from another world?
Coach Trout: No, from our world, centuries in the future.
The Twonky written and directed by Arch Oboler (at movie theaters, USA, 10 June 1953).

Infinity Ring 1

A Mutiny in Time

by James Dashner
This first book of the multi-author series tells of how teens Dak (a history buff and odd duck), Sera (a science nerd), and Riq (a member of the secret Hystorians society) end up as the only ones who can save the world by fixing breaks in time that changed what was meant to be. Their first mission—saving Columbus from a mutiny that was meant to fail—is a disquieting choice that I would not choose as an introduction of history to children. For starters, they are choosing to save the man who brought genocide to the Americas. And to boot, in the broken world where the mutiny succeeded, his three ships still completed their voyage with no noticable change to subsequent centuries (apart from Columbus resting at the bottom of the Atlantic).
— Michael Main
Time had gone wrong—this is what the Hystorians believed. And if things were beyond fixing now, there was only one hope left . . . to go back in time and fix the past instead.
“A Mutiny in Time” by James Dashner (Scholastic, August 2012).

The Theta Prophecy

by Chris Dietzel
The treasure at Oak Island. JFK’s assassination. A tyrannous regime’s inner-workings. Welcome to The Theta Prophecy, where alternate history meets modern dystopian.
— based on publicity material
The Theta Prophecy by Chris Dietzel (Watch the World End Publications, December 2014) [print · e-book].

Theta Timeline 1

The Theta Timeline

by Chris Dietzel
Freedom wasn’t stolen overnight, but gradually chipped away through a campaign of war and terror. People were told new laws and restrictions were for their own good. But the reality was a monstrous regime bent on controlling its subjects. Now, there is only one way to stop the Tyranny: go back in time and prevent it from ever starting.
— based on publicity material
“The Theta Timeline” by Chris Dietzel (Watch the World End Publications, December 2014) [print · e-book].

The Theta Patient

by Chris Dietzel
After receiving three new patients at the mental institution he runs, Dr. Bradburn is immediately visited by an agent of the Tyranny who insists one of the men is a radical. Only by asking each patient a series of questions will the supposed threat be identified. But the questions Dr. Bradburn is told to ask—all about time travel!—will make him rethink everything he knows about the world around him.
— based on publicity material
“The Theta Patient” by Chris Dietzel (Watch the World End Publications, September 2015) [print · e-book].

2067

written and directed by Seth Larney
The cinematic vision of writer/director Seth Larney was beyond his grasp in this story of a Philip K. Dick-esque future where all plant life has been killed off, an evil corporation has cornered the market in artificial oxygen, and a lowly utility worker with a dying wife is called four centuries into the future by a successfully executed causal loop accompanied by the usual kind of unexplained skeleton timeline.
— Michael Main
You want to shoot me into oblivion with no way to get home.
2067 written and directed by Seth Larney (at limited theaters (USA, 2 October 2020).

The Other Emily

by Dean R. Koontz
A decade after David Thorne’s wife goes missing on a solo trip to northern California, her exact duplicate shows up—without having aged a day and claiming not to be Emily—at a bar in one of David’s favorite restaurants.
— Michael Main
Equally in the grip of dread and amazement, David Thorne began to awaken to a previously unthought-of truth, the ramifications of which were devastating and numberless.
The Other Emily by Dean R. Koontz (Thomas and Mercer, March 2021).

Time Traveler at the Grocery Store circa 1992

by Kristian Macaron
Twentieth-century grocery store aisles provide a vision of a world of dust that's coming.
— Michael Main
Some days it’s hard to believe that there’s not something wrong with the lettuce.
“Time Traveler at the Grocery Store circa 1992” by Kristian Macaron, Asimov’s Science Fiction, March/April 2021.

Captain Nova

English release: Captain Nova

by Lotte Tabbers and Maurice Trouwborst, directed by Maurice Trouwborst
Captain Nova Kester travels back from a devastated future to warn an energy mogel about the impending climate cataclysm, but only young Nas takes her seriously. That happens when time travel causes you to revert to 12 years old.
— Michael Main
Luister, jongedame: De mensen denken al eeuwen dat ze leven in het einde der tijden. Het zou handig ziln als je jezelf ietsje minderbelangrijk maakt.
Listen, young lady: People have thought for centuries that the end of time is drawing near. It would help everyone if you showed just a little less . . . self-importance.
English
Captain Nova by Lotte Tabbers and Maurice Trouwborst, directed by Maurice Trouwborst (Cinekid Film Festival, 13 October 2021).

Star Trek: Picard, Season 2

by multiple writers and directors
After a catastrophic start to Season 2, Q steps in to pluck Picard’s crew and the Borg Queen from certain death only to insert them into a dystopian timeline that Q himself had created via a small change in 2024.
— Michael Main
Time? Of course, that’s how he did it. This is not another reality—this is our reality. He went back in time and changed the present.
Star Trek: Picard, Season 2 by multiple writers and directors (Paramount+, 3 March 2022 to 5 May 2022).

The Adam Project

by Jonathan Tropper et al., directed by Shawn Levy
In 2050, time jet pilot Adam Reed steals a jet and heads back to 2018 to save his stranded wife, but he gets waylaid in 2022 where his 12-year-old self is the only hope to save the mission.
— Michael Main
Young Adam: I mean if this is happening to me, that means that it already happened to you—right?—unless it works more like a multiverse where each ripple creates an alternate timeline—
Middle-Age Adam: It isn’t a multiverse! My god, we watch too many movies.
The Adam Project by Jonathan Tropper et al., directed by Shawn Levy (Netflix, worldwide, 11 March 2022).

The Peripheral, Season 1

by Scott B. Smith, et al., directed by Vincenzo Natali and Alrick Riley
When Flynne Fisher’s ne’er-do-well brother lands a lucrative gig testing new VR tech, he drafts Flynne to do the heavy lifting, and she’s bowled over by the future world the VR has created—until she realizes it’s more than a sim.
— Michael Main
If it were time travel, as you say, you’d be here physically. This is merely a matter of data transfer: quantum tunneling is the technical term for it. I understand your confusion.
The Peripheral, Season 1 by Scott B. Smith, et al., directed by Vincenzo Natali and Alrick Riley, 8 episodes (Amazon Prime, 21 October 2022 to 2 December 2022).
as of 5:13 p.m. MDT, 5 May 2024
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