Questions tagged [timeline]
A timeline is a paradox filled science fiction plot device consisting of a series of chronological events, each a link from the past that leads up to the present. Timelines are sometimes portrayed as being vulnerable to alteration and are often threatened by the actions of time travelers.
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What is the timeline for The Lord of the Rings trilogy?
The Lord of the Rings trilogy obviously covers a lot of time. How many months/years pass from the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring until the end of The Return of the King? A timeline of events ...
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Were there two Death Stars in construction at the same time?
The first Death Star was in construction at the end of Episode III (presumably 19 BBY). The ending shot is this picture, with only small portions of the superstructure completed:
19 years later, the ...
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What's the most recent specific historical element that is common between Star Trek and the real world?
It is well known that there appears to be some divergence between the events of the Star Trek universe and ours (in particular, the Augments and Khan Singh, etc.)
Related: Has Star Trek ever ...
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How long, in-universe, were each of the Star Wars movies?
Inspired by this question:
Why did Luke name his son Ben and not Obi-wan?
Currently, the only answer there addresses the fact that the "names you first know someone by are hard to shake". However, ...
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What is the latest date for the setting in a sci-fi text or movie?
I was thinking of the Mayans this morning, and the controversy about the Mayan calendar in 2012 (through a long and circuitous thought process). But it got me thinking: Someone back 5000 years ago ...
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How is Data alive in "All Good Things" when he died in Nemesis?
In the Star Trek TNG series finale, "All Good Things", Data is clearly alive and well while Picard is an old man.
But Data is clearly destroyed in Star Trek: Nemesis, while Picard is still relatively ...
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Did Marty wipe his children from existence?
At the end of Back to the Future, Part III, Marty declines to enter the drag race that was shown in the previous film to have disastrous consequences for his musical career. The 2015 fax of future-...
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Beethoven driven mad by voice from future
Short story in which a student of music uses some sort of an audio time machine to speak across time to Beethoven. He wants to the ask the famous composer why he didn't finish his last work.
Beethoven ...
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When was Babylon 5 constructed, and how long did it take?
I've just recently started watching B5, and I'm near the end of season 2.
One thing that's seemed strange to me is that all five Babylon stations were built in the decade following the Earth-Minbari ...
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Do Judy and Peter remember anything from the events in Jumanji?
According to this answer, the game Jumanji teaches its players important life lessons.
Jumanji appears to be an artifact designed to teach the players important values, as games often do, but with ...
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Has Star Trek ever addressed why our timeline is different than theirs?
The Star Trek universe and ours are identical (as far as we know) until sometime between the 1960s and 1993. We know from Vic Fontaine and various references to Apollo that the 1960s happened very ...
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How could Janeway have used Holodecks as a child when they were new to Picard?
How could Janeway use Holodecks as a child when Picard and the rest of the Enterprise-D crew make it clear in TNG: Encounter at Farpoint that holo-technology is very new? For many of them it's the ...
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Does time move slower inside Lothlórien?
I know I have read this somewhere and I wonder if it is correct. When the Fellowship comes out of Lothlórien it is implied that, during the time it has taken for them to be in Lothlórien, a lot more ...
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When did the Harry Potter books take place?
I always wondered when the setting of the books was supposed to be. Is it set in the past? Present? Future?
I remember seeing somewhere that there was actual years/dates associated with events in the ...
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Is there a difference between timelines and universes in the MCU?
Is there a difference between a timeline and a universe as established by the MCU?
After watching the Loki series, my understanding is that a single reality/universe exists with the potential to ...
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who are all you zombies? a (mangled) quote from a 1980s(?) science fiction story
I'm looking for a short story where a guy goes back in time (I think repeatedly in some form) and the story ends with the guy either wondering or getting confused (or maybe just making a statement ...
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Why didn't River know what would happen to The Doctor at Lake Silencio?
I'm talking about the Season 6 finale "The Wedding of River Song", about this moment:
I'm specifically talking about the moment
(I won't bother with spoiler boxes from now, because this won't show ...
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When was David Tennant's Doctor in "Day of The Doctor"?
After re-watching the 50th anniversary special of Doctor Who I was wondering at what point in time David Tennant's doctor was along his own timeline. He mentions to the rabbit that he is 904 and he ...
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Why did the Daleks bother to leave Adelaide Brooke alive?
In The Waters of Mars, it is shown that a Dalek left Adelaide Brooke unharmed when she was young during the events of The Stolen Earth, because she was a "fixed point in time", according to the words ...
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Why is Ocarina of Time the splitting off point for the Zelda timeline?
I have read the other questions and answers related to the Zelda timeline on here. But my question wasn't answered there. A few years ago Nintendo finally released the History of Hyrule book. It, ...
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A novel about converging timelines
I remember reading a novel where multiple timelines converge over several days and then separate again. The character gradually becomes aware that the convergence is happening through a sequence of ...
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Why aren't the Xindi referred to anywhere other than Enterprise?
The Xindi (multiple species in the sector) were shown only in Enterprise. What happens to them in the later timelines? Why isn't there any mention of these species in other Star Trek series, since ...
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How long was Rick in the hospital?
I have always assumed that Rick was in the hospital for about 3 weeks. Several factors led me to this conclusion: The length of his beard; the fact that the IV bag was empty, but he didn't die of ...
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Story About Time Travel Using a Gate on the Sun [duplicate]
When I was in high school (6 or 7 years ago), one of the short stories that we read out of the text book had to do with an alien civilization that had discovered time travel.
They had managed to ...
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How did Voyager encounter the Krenim so soon when Kes hadn't ascended?
In Voyager's Before and After, Kes warns Captain Janeway (at the point in her timeline when she is eventually stabilized) about their impending encounter with the Krenim "in about six months", for ...
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If the TVA exists outside of time, why are there still nexus events?
In the new Loki TV show, we see the TVA having to deal with nexus events from "time to time" (no pun intended). However, we are also made aware that the TVA exists outside of what we would ...
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What is the point of sending anything back in time in the Terminator movies?
As explored in another SCF question, the only way to answer the bootstrap paradox is to say "every time someone is sent back in time, time branches into a separate line."
But if that is the case, ...
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Timeline of events in/around 32 BBY
I would like to get the timeline of the following events - which has never been entirely clear to me - straightened out once and for all:
The Phantom Menace - including the Battle of Naboo, the ...
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What is the timeframe for Dune 2000/Battle for Dune?
I know that the video games Dune II/2000 and Battle for Dune are not considered canon with the 1984 movie, despite sharing props & overall look-and-feel. The games themselves do not mention the ...
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Is Star Trek set in our future, or is it an alternate universe? [closed]
If I recall correctly, the Eugenics Wars were supposed to have occurred in the 1990s and World War 3 is supposed to happen relatively early in the 21st century. Obviously, the Eugenics Wars did not ...
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When was Peter Capaldi's Doctor in "Day of the Doctor"?
This question is pretty much the same as this one, except for the twelfth Doctor instead of the tenth.
We see a short glimpse of the thirteenth Doctor in The day of the Doctor, but as far as I know, ...
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Did Marty-2 go to the Lone Pine Mall, or was is still Twin Pines Mall for him?
In Back to the Future when Marty first goes to the mall to meet up with Doc he walks past the mall sign which reads Twin Pines Mall. At the end of the movie when he returns to the mall to save Doc and ...
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When, exactly, does Justice League (2017) take place?
While answering this old question, I ran into a slight problem: it's unclear exactly how much time passes between Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. I've found multiple sources ...
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Annorax and the Krenim Weapon Ship
At the end of VOY:Year of Hell Part 2, you see Annorax with his wife and he is working on Temporal Incursion Calculations. Does this imply that a significant portion of the Delta Quadrant would be ...
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Do Heptapods have a life expectancy of more than 3000 years?
Louise's mind's perception of time is altered and she can see into her own past/future, but she is not immortal (as per this Q&A) and can't see beyond her own death.
The Heptapods state that ...
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Who knows about the alternate timeline?
With the new movie coming up I've been wondering: Just how many people know that Nero was from the future and created the alternate timeline they are all now living in? Starfleet Command knows, and ...
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How could our heroes & old Biff switch timeline while keeping Almanac with young Biff?
In Back to the Future 2, old Biff stole the time machine in 2015 and went back in time to give an Almanac to young Biff. At the point of giving the Almanac to young Biff in 1955, he altered the future ...
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When does Westworld take place?
The technology in Westworld on HBO seems to more advanced than our current technology, but ridiculously so. However, it has been mentioned by a few character that the park has been open for 30 years ...
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When does the Doctor actually tell River his name? [duplicate]
In The Name of the Doctor, we are technically seeing a saved version of River Song from the Library, meaning she's definitely dead. If this is so, where in the timeline does the Doctor tell her his ...
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What year was the Time Lock established?
Is there any evidence to indicate when - what year by our Earthly reckoning - the Time Lock was put in place around the Time War between the Daleks and Time Lords?
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Story ID: Lafferty? Conversation about a condensing/telescoping past
The thesis of the story: like our memory of history, actual history (past time) is telescoping, i.e., becoming shorter. The story is a conversation between characters musing on, e.g., the multiple ...
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At the time of the burn did Starfleet have ships in the Delta Quadrant?
From Star Trek Voyager: Death Wish:
QUINN: Well, good luck to you all. I really have to be going now.
JANEWAY: Return my crew!
QUINN: I, I'm not sure how. Humans. Humans.
Who would have more recent ...
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In Superman (1978), did two Supermen exist at one point in time?
In the movie Superman (1978), Superman flies around the world in one direction to make the Earth go back in time, and then he stops and then flies around the Earth in the opposite direction to restore ...
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Time travel in Doraemon - was the Stable Timeloop effect ever really adverted?
The basic premise in the Japanese manga/anime Doraemon is that the titular character - a robot cat from the 22 century - was sent to the past to help Nobita Nobi to improve his future. In the first ...
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Creature that can choose all options in its timeline
I am trying to find a very short story that I read when I was a kid in the 80s, and it is most probably decades older. It was only a paragraph or two long, and it just described an animal or creature (...
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Wouldn't giving the Grays' Sports Almanac to Biff change the outcome of the games after 1955?
In Back to the Future - Part II, Biff brings a copy of Gray's Sports Almanac back to his earlier self in 1955.
Old Biff: [about the copy of "Grey's Sports Almanac" from the future] The ...
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Did Harry, Hermione and Ron see Buckbeak die?
My recollection is that, in the Prisoner of Azkaban movie, Harry, Hermione, and Ron see Buckbeak being executed, before
However, this didn't happen in the book, and the idea that they saw something ...
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What is the timeline for the Mad Max series?
Dates are probably of little importance to the people who exist in the post-apocalyptic world depicted in the Mad Max tetralogy, but of interest to the viewer:
Is it stated in what year(s) the Mad ...
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How can The Flash still exist, given the events of the last episode of season 1?
Since
there would be no
So the time line will be altered drastically: remember Eobard said to Wells that he only built the particle accelerator in 2020. So how is it even possible for the Flash to ...
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What happened to Chekov's confiscated phaser and communicator in Star Trek: The Voyage Home?
In the Star Trek: The Voyage Home, Chekov is captured after sneaking on board the USS Enterprise. During his interrogation we see three items of 23rd century origin:
Chekov's Starfleet ID
Phaser
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