Foretold or Seen Future Is Not Set in Stone

Tag Area: Timeline Trait
Short Story

The Meteor Girl

When a meteor lands on the beachfront airfield of our narrator and his partner Charlie King, Charlie realizes that it provides a space-time portal through which they view the death-at-sea of Charlie’s ex-fiancée. —Michael Main
A terrestrial astronomer may reckon that the outburst on Nova Persei occurred a century before the great fire of London, but an astronomer on the Nova may reckon with equal accuracy that the great fire occurred a century before the outburst on the Nova.
Two men, surrounded by scientific apparatus, look through a portal at a young woman washed up on a small rock in the sea.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Time Patrol 1

Time Patrol

In the first of a long series of hallowed stories, former military engineer (and noncomformist) Manse Everard is recruited by the Time Patrol to prevent time travelers from making major changes to history. (Don’t worry, history bounces back from the small stuff.) —Michael Main
If you went back to, I would guess, 1946, and worked to prevent your parents’ marriage in 1947, you would still have existed in that year; you would not go out of existence just because you had influenced events. The same would apply even if you had only been in 1946 one microsecond before shooting the man who would otherwise have become your father.
A man climbs a spiraling ramp up the side of a rocket while holding a blaster on two men below.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Unusual Tales #11

Dream On . . . !

Fred Cotton refuses to sleep because each of his nightmares later comes true! —Michael Main
He fought sleep like a man fighting demons! But no man can stay awake forever! His eyelids began to close, heavy with fatigue, his head began to nod . . .
In three large panels, Fred Cotton wakes up from a seemingly impossible dream of a giant sea monster.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena
Comic Book

Unusual Tales #13

After Tomorrow!

While preparing for war against Bulavia, King Gustave of Translovia sees two visions of the future by way of a magnificent timepiece. —Michael Main
I have had a vision of my victory tomorrow!
Three large panels depict King Gustave of Translovia awaiting the arrival of a magnificent timepiece.
  • Fantasy
  • War
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena
Comic Book

Unusual Tales #20

The Forbidden Camera

Archeologist Wayne Banford ignores the sanskrit warning to leave the camera where he found it in a cave with an idol. —Michael Main
He who would claim this camera as his own will have a life of woe heed this warning.
In the first of three large panels, we see a sweating archeologist frightened over a photo of himself in years to come.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (s07e08)

Bada Ping!

Sabrina takes Salem into the future to find out her fate after gangster Mickey Brentwood finds out that she’s writing an exposé on his shady practices. —Inmate Jan
You see, this thug nightclub owner threatened our little Lois Lame over there—
Melissa Joan Hart (as Sabrina) lies peacefully in a white-lined coffin.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

Paycheck

Unlike Philip K. Dick’s story of the same name, the film has only viewing the future rather than physical time travel such as the story’s time scoop’s retrieval capability. Also, the film omits Dick’s dystopian police state and his theme of fate via what appears (in the story) to be a single static timeline. On the other side of the coin, the filmmakers made an epic car chase scene, took Jenning’s female sidekick off the sidelines, and attempted to massively raise the stakes via some questionable choices by Jennings. —Michael Main
Shorty: Look, if we know anything, we know that time travel's not possible. Einstein proved that. Right?
Michael: Time travel, yes. But Einstein was very clear that he believed time viewing, theoretically, could be accomplished.
A man runs toward us from out of an exploding jigsaw puzzle of a train tunnel.
  • Science Fiction
  • Debatable Time Travel
Miniseries

Paradox

D.I. Rebecca Flint quickly realizes that the mysterious photos downloading themselves to Dr. Christian King’s lab must be depicting future crimes and other calamities that only Rebecca and her team can stop. —Michael Main
Gada: Think of the implications if we do stop something . . . mess with things that we don’t understand.
Flint: You wouldn’t say that if we’d stopped the tanker.
Gada: Perhaps the tanker was meant to crash. It wasn’t our place to . . .
Flint: . . . Save lives?
Tamzin Outhwaite (as D.I. Flint) and Emun Slliot (as Doctor King) race toward us with a storm brewing behind them.
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Time Phenomena
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
Feature Film

A Christmas Carol

Patrick Steward delivers a nuanced portrayal of Scrooge in this faithful adaptation. Much of the dialog came verbatim from Dickens’s original, and the costumers paid careful tribute to John Leech’s original illustrations. —Michael Main
Scrooge: Is there no chance that boy will be spared?
Christmas Present: Not if the future remains unaltered.
Dressed in a black Victorian tophat, black coat, and black gloves, Patrick Stewart (as Scrooge) raises his cane as if to strike.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

ドロステのはてで僕ら

  • Dorosute no hate de bokura
  • We at the end of the Droste
  • Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
  • by 上田誠, directed by 山口淳太
  • (at limited theaters, Japan, 5 June 2020)
For the first sixty minutes, a perfect static timeline seemed to be emerging from Kato’s video stream from two minutes in the future. We might even get some philosophical commentary on free will! Alas, that was not to be as the final ten minutes presented a more commonplace ending, although the single-take nagamawashi was executed with perfection and garnered this fun film an Eloi Medal.

P.S. Don’t skip the end-credits! —Michael Main
In front of the entire cast, Kazunari Tosa (as Kato) holds up a monitor depicting infinitely regressing images of monitors.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel Series

Providence Falls Trilogy

After more than a century in limbo, Irish ruffian Liam O’Connor is dropped into an adult life in 21st-century Providence Falls where, in order to save his soul, he must convince his reincarnated true love, Cora, to marry someone other than himself. It appears that Liam had a long sleep, and Cora was reincarnated, but neither had real time travel. —Michael Main
“Cora is on earth again in this twenty-first century,” Samuel said. “You must make sure she fulfills her true destiny in this life.”
A man and a woman walk away from each other in long grass with their images, wearing old fashioned clothes, reflected in water below.
  • Romance
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Time Phenomena
Flash Fiction

Future Tense

John—a.k.a. kiddo to his mom—has the “gift” of seeing possible futures and trying to avoid them. —Michael Main
There are always more than two options, John. Find option C.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for Daily Science Fiction.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena
Flash Fiction

Prognostiqueso

Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for Daily Science Fiction.
  • Mainstream
  • Time Phenomena
Feature Film

Ghosts of Christmas Always

This time around, the usual three ghosts are only one of the many three-ghost teams who are given a yearly assignment to scrooge one of the many Scrooges who seem to be more numerous than ever before. Together with their 2022 assignment—Peter Baron, an unsatisfied son of a food baron—they provide a nice tear-jerker for the entire family. —Michael Main
He’s like the anti-Scrooge.
No image currently available.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Flash Fiction

The Third Kind of Prophecy

A magic drink allows the narrator and her friends to see visions of the coming year. —Michael Main
Magic. I read in your face that you did not want to talk about the cocktail dream, though you were thinking about it, and I watched you read the same message in mine.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for Daily Science Fiction.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel