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The Internet Time Travel Database

Outside of Time

Timeline Specifics

The Atom-Smasher

by Victor Rousseau
We've got the evil Professor Tode (who modifies an atom-smasher into a time machine that travels to the Palaeolithic and to Atlantis), a fatherly older professor, his beautiful young daughter (menaced by evil Tode), casually written racist pronouncements (by Rousseau), and our hero scientist, the dashing Jim Dent. But my favorite sentence was the brief description of quantum mechanics, which I didn’t expect in a 1930 science fiction tale.
— Michael Main
The Planck-Bohr quantum theory that the energy of a body cannot vary continuously, but only by a certain finite amount, or exact multiples of this amount, had been the key that unlocked the door.
“The Atom-Smasher” by Victor Rousseau, Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May 1930.

The Land Where Time Stood Still

by Arthur Leo Zagat
Twentieth-century American Ronald Stratton and Arthurian damsel Elaise find themselves in a land with people from all ages as well as predators from the 400th century.

This may be the earliest use of something akin to a “wheel of time.”

Time’s all mixed up. It’s as if the universe were the rim of a great wheel, whirling through Time. As if, somehow, we have left that rim, shot inward along different spokes whose outer ends are different years, far apart, and reached the wheel’s axis where all the year-spokes join. The center point of the hub, that doesn’t move at all through Time, because it is the center. Where there is no Time. Where the past and the present and the future are all one. A land, in some weird other dimension, where Time stands still.
“The Land Where Time Stood Still” by Arthur Leo Zagat, Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1936.

The Search

by A. E. van Vogt
When salesman Ralph Carson Drake tries to recover his missing memory of the past two weeks, he discovers he had interactions with three people: a woman named Selanie Johns who sold remarkable futuristic devices for one dollar, her father, and an old gray-eyed man who is feared by Selanie and her father.

Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.

— Michael Main
The Palace of Immortality was built in an eddy of time, the only known Reverse, or Immortality, Drift in the Earth Time Stream
“The Search” by A. E. van Vogt, Astounding, January 1943.

Jon’s World

by Philip K. Dick
First the Soviets and the Westerners fought. Then the Westerners brought Schonerman’s killer robots into the mix. Then the robots fought both human sides. You know all that from Dick’s earlier story, “Second Variety.” But now it’s long after the desolation, long enough that Caleb Ryan and his financial backer Kastner are willing to bring back the secret of Schonerman’s robots from the past to make their world a better place for surviving mankind, including Ryan’s visionary son Jon.
— Michael Main
And then the terminator’s claws began to manufacture their own varieties and attack Soviets and Westerners alike. The only humans that survived were those at the UN base on Luna.
“Jon’s World” by Philip K. Dick, in Time to Come: Science-Fiction Stories of Tomorrow, edited by August Derleth; Farrar (Strass and Young, April 1954).

Strange Tales #148—150

Kaluu!

by Denny O’Neil, Roy Thomas, and Bill Everett
When Kaluu triumphantly sends the all-powerful Book of Vishanti back to the time of its origin, it falls to Doc Strange and the Ancient One to banish it to a timeless period so that it will never again fall into the wrong hands.
— Michael Main
We approach the time-space continuum of ancient Babylonia— It is there that the book which we seek was created milenniums [sic] ago!
“Kaluu!” by Denny O’Neil, Roy Thomas, and Bill Everett, in Strange Tales 148–150 (Marvel Comics, September to November 1966).

SpongeBob SquarePants [s1:e14A]

SB-129

by Aaron Springer, Erik Wiese, and Mr. Lawrence, directed by Aarpm Springer et al.
The first of SpongeBob’s family to foray into time was Squidward, whose accidental cryofreeze took him two millennia into the future. Of course, even primitive sponges know that that was not actual time travel, but future-SpongeTrons point the six-limbed cephalopod to a time machine that took him on two actual time travel trips before returning him to his own time. No, we don’t know whether one of the future SpongeTrons is SB-129, but we do note that the production code for this episode was 2515-129.
— Inmate Jan
Well, why didn’t ya just ask? The time machine is down the hall and to the left.
“SB-129” by Aaron Springer, Erik Wiese, and Mr. Lawrence, directed by Aarpm Springer et al., from SpongeBob SquarePants [s01e14A], Nickelodeon (USA, 31 December 1999).

The Egg

by Andy Weir
After a man dies, he meets God, upon which he doesn’t find out the meaning of life, but he does discover something about time and the meaning of the universe.
Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?
English
“The Egg” by Andy Weir, in Creative Writings of Andy Weir (Galactanet, added 15 August 2009) [ongoing e-collection].

Insidious 2

Insidious: Chapter 2

by Leigh Whannell, directed by James Wan
The first scene goes back to the time of Josh (the dad in Insidious) as a boy when he was possessed by a woman in white. The movie then returns to the present day, just after a possessed Josh murdered the exorcist who had treated him as a child, and gives a horrific, supernatural explanation of it all—including time travel via a demon world of non-linear time.
— Michael Main
I, uh, digitized the actual footage taken from the night. I, uh, cropped and lightened the image.
Insidious: Chapter 2 by Leigh Whannell, directed by James Wan (at movie theaters, USA etc., 13 September 2013).

The Boy in His Winter

by Norman Lock
After Huck Finn and Jim fall asleep on an appropriated raft in Hannibal, Mo., they find themselves floating down the Mississippi for decades without ever aging a day themselves.
— Michael Main
We came by the raft dishonestly. We’d only meant to do a little fishing. It was cool and nice under the big willow with its whips trailing over the water. Christ, it was a scorcher of a day. The whole town must have fallen asleep, along with Jim and me. When we finally did wake, if we ever did, the raft was too far along in space and time to return it. We could no longer reverse ourselves, our motions in all five dimensions, than fly to the moon.
The Boy in His Winter by Norman Lock (Bellevue Literary Press, May 2014).

Invictus

by Ryan Graudin
After Farway Gaius McCarthy fails his final examination at the Central Time Travelers Academy, he puts together a rogue time travel crew to swipe valuable artifacts from the past at moments when they won’t be missed. And it’s all roses until a mysterious girl sidetracks them on the Titanic and steers them into a multiverse of fading timelines.

As you might guess, we enjoyed Far and his friends, but the thing that sealed an Eloi Bronze Medal was the fact that when a particular timeline actually managed to branch (not an easy feat) and the traveler then jumped to the future, she found her another self—the her that was born on that timeline—waiting for her. Most branching timeline stories ignore this issue entirely.

— Michael Main
“There’s nothing to return to.” Eliot’s knuckles bulged at the seams, but she didn’t yell. “When the Fade destroys a moment, it’s lost. Forever.”
Invictus by Ryan Graudin (Little, Brown, September 2017).

Marvel Cinematic Universe 19

Avengers: Infinity War

by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
Given that the Time Stone is a key element to Thanos’s master plan, you’d think that time travel would play a major part in this movie, but not so. Doc Strange does use the stone to view a slew of possible futures, but we know that’s not actually time travel. So where does the time travel come into play? Pay close attention to the final thirteen minutes of the film, after Strange announces “We’re in the end game now,” and you’ll spot one definite time travel moment and a second possible moment.
— Michael Main
Tony, there was no other way.
Avengers: Infinity War by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (premiered at an unknown movie theater, Los Angeles, 23 April 2018).

The Future of Another Timeline

by Annalee Newitz
Tess is a geologist (because, of course, geologists control the time travel of the giant ancient machines) and a member of the Daughters of Harriet (Senator Harriet Tubman, that is, from 19th-century Mississippi). On the surface, the Daughters are time travel scholars, but in reality, Tess and her fellow Daughters are fighting a pitched changewar for women’s rights against the oppressors known as the Comstockers. One more thing: While she’s at it,Tess also hopes to also save the souls of her teenaged self and her underground feminist punk friends in the 1990s, with a particular focus on their vigilante killing spree and young Beth’s abortion.
— Michael Main
All five Machines had limitations, but the hardest to surmount was what travelers call the Long Four Years. Wormholes only opened for people who remained within twenty kilometers of a Machine for at least 1,680 days.
The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz (Tor, September 2019).

The Shadows of Alexandrium

by David Gerrold
Up in the Citadel, we polled eight Librarians on whether this story should be included in the database. The results? Nobody thought it should be excluded, nobody thought it should be included, and eleven were certain it wasn’t a story. Probably. So with that mandate along with the fact that at one point in the narrative neither space nor time exist and at another point outside the narrative David Gerrold annouced this was an homage to Douglas Adams and Doctor Who, we hereby present the official indexing of “The Shadows of Alexandrium.”
— Michael Main
If we had the time—well, actually, we do, because there isn’t any time here, just like there isn’t any space, except what we’ve been creating by being here, all this staring around—that’s making nothing into something.
“The Shadows of Alexandrium” by David Gerrold, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September/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).

Loki, Season 1

by Michael Waldron et al, directed by Kate Herron
Hang on to your Tesseracts! Apparently, in Endgame[/em], when the Avengers traveled back to 2012 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 quickly spotted him as a Deviant and quickly recruited him to help in their fight against even more deviant Deviants.
— Michael Main
Appears to be a standard sequence violation. Branches growing at a stable rate and slope. Variant identified.
Loki, Season 1 by Michael Waldron et al, directed by Kate Herron (Disney+, worldwide, 9 June 2021 to 14 July 2021 [6 episodes]).
as of 2:21 p.m. MDT, 18 May 2024
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