History Main / ArcNumber

[[TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/180px-Answer_to_Life.png]]

* 47 in InlandEmpire.

* 47 in InlandEmpire

* In the AlfredHitchcock film ''The39Steps'', the numbers 3 and 5 appear quite frequently. A couple examples include the numbers 5 and 10 (5 x 2) appearing in the corners of the film, the title being "39" (3 and 3 x 9, or 3 x 13), and the scenes being roughly 3 - 5 minutes in length. The significance is not present in the film itself, but a theme of bread and fish is seen throughout the film as an alleged reference to TheBible, where Jesus Christ takes '''3''' fish and loaves of bread to feed '''5''',000 people.

* All significant numbers in the {{Discworld}} gravitate towards [[strike:7a]] 8. There's an eighth color in the spectrum, being the eighth son of an eighth son makes you a [[strike:wizard]] sourceror, Box Five from ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' becomes Box Eight in ''Discworld/{{Maskerade}}''...

* All significant numbers in the {{Discworld}} gravitate towards [[strike:7a]] 8. There's an eighth color in the spectrum, being the eighth son of an eighth son makes you a wizard, Box Five from ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' becomes Box Eight in ''Discworld/{{Maskerade}}''...

* More of a Chekhov's Gun, really, but two one six is important in ''{{Fallout}} 3''. It's introduced at the very beginning of the game as the chapter and verse of the PC's mother's favorite Bible passage, Revelation 21:6. It's mentioned a few times during gameplay. Fully twenty years later, at the very end of the game, it recurs as the keycode to the MacGuffin-two-one-six.
** Better still because the importance of this sequence is NEVER explicitly told to the player by anyone who would know it, but it does show up as one of the response options when the player is interrogated for the code (providing the closest thing to a direct clue in the game as to what the code might actually be).

** 47 appears an awful lot in ''StarTrek''. Many joke that it's "42 adjusted for inflation," and many sci-fi shows, notably StargateSG1, also see 47 cropping up frequently, most likely in tribute. It's become something of a NumerologicalMotif and/or injoke in the sci-fi community at large. Trek's 47s were started by writer Joe Menosky, a graduate of Pomona College, which is the origin of the "47 Society," a group proclaiming that 47 is the quintessential random number. In the 1960s, a Pomona professor named Donald Bentley produced a "proof" showing that all numbers are equal to 47.

* '''7''' in the ''ScottPilgrim'' saga. It becomes more readily apparent when Scott finally reaches Gideon, Ramona's seventh and final evil ex. There's only six books in the series however, because two of her exes (a pair of twins) are defeated simultaniously in the fifth book.
** There are also mini-arc numbers for each ex, most wear their numbers, and coincidentally have them around them. Except for, again, 5 and 6, who get the number "11" (which is 5 plus 6).

* ''{{Eberron}}'': 12+ 1, a Baker's dozen. The guy who designed ''{{Eberron}}'' is named Keith Baker. There are lots of examples where you get twelve obvious things and a hidden one. Twelve dragonmarked houses -- and the eradicated (?) dragonmark of Death. Twelve Planes -- and the sealed Plane of [[CosmicHorrorStory Xoriat]]. Twelve moons -- plus the dark moon.
** Actually, the "+1" plane/moon is Dal Quor, the dream world wich has been ''blown out of its orbit.'' Plus, there are now twelve nations in the Khorvaire continent, plus Cyre...which is now the D&D equivalent of Fallout.

* 42, the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything in ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy~=]''.
** It's what you get when you multiply [[spoiler:6 by 9. I always knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.]]

* ''The Eight'' by Katherine Neville has an ArcNumber. [[CaptainObvious Guess which one.]]
** Another Katherine Neville novel, ''The Fire'', has 64, for the number of squares in a chessboard.

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* 7 in the {{Marathon}} trilogy, and later ''{{Halo}}''. In fact 7 appears to be an ArcNumber for Bungie Studios in general: many of their event dates, character names, and even their fan club (the seventh column) feature the number seven or multiples of seven. Even the studio Microsoft set up to handle any future Halo products after ''Reach'' is called 343 Industries.[[hottip:* :343 is equal to 7 times 7 times 7]]

* ''TheWorldEndsWithYou'' repeats the number seven-- each game lasts a week (seven days), there's a character named 777, when Joshua says Makoto has done a 180, Neku corrects that to seven times 180.

* In {{Fallout 3}}, I've found the number 2 scrawled on the walls of nearly every building with a heavy Raider presence.
* Several SilentHill games use at least one ArcNumber to add to the creepy factor; in [[SilentHillHomecoming Homecoming]], for instance, every clock in the town of Shepherd's Glen is stopped dead at exactly 2:06. This later becomes the solution to several puzzles. [[spoiler: Cutscenes and scattered documents imply that "206" was Alex's room number during his horrific stay at [[BedlamHouse Alchemilla Hospital]]; in the cutscene before the final boss fight it is also revealed that 2:06 is the time when his little brother Joshua died. ]]

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* AdventureQuest and its AlternateRealityGame had 755 crop up an awful lot.

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[[caption-width:180:That's your answer to everything]]

This is the number that pops up over and over again in a given work, often in seemingly unrelated contexts. Sometimes the number really is significant; sometimes, it's just an in-joke or [[StockShoutOuts Stock Shout Out]]. The numeric equivalent of ArcWords.

* ''{{Inception}}'' has 528-491.