History Main / RandomTeleportation

** In [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]], the Enterprise winds up in the 60's. Not to mention the [[MirrorUniverse "Mirror, Mirror" universe]].
*** Worth noting that once they figure out time travel can happen from an accident, they do it *on purpose* at will both in the series and in the fourth film. Although later series have a "time police" to put the kibosh on time travel.
** In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the Enterprise is pushed off course by light years by both the Q and the [[LivingShip Tin Man]] object. In one episode, the Enterprise ends up in the ''wrong galaxy'' due to the presence of "The Traveler" onboard.
*** Implied in the episode "True Q," where Amanda tells Q that when she practices her teleportation, she always ends up somewhere she doesn't want to be.

* This happens to the cast of DubiousCompany. After getting stranded in a random dimension, the brains develop a spell to hop them to the next dimension in the hopes it gets them closer to home. However, they have no clue what that dimension is like until they arrive. [[/folder]]

[[MillionToOneChance If you're lucky, you can control when it happens.]] See also TeleporterAccident, and BlindJump

* In the old computer game [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daleks_(video_game) ''Robots'']] and its derivatives, one of the tools available to the protagonist randomly teleports them to any empty square. Since there's no guarantee their new position will be any safer than their old one, this is generally reserved as a last resort. Some versions label this move as a 'safe' teleport, while also having a completely random one that can warp you right on top of an enemy for an instant death.

** There's also a ring of teleport in {{Crawl}} that does just this and... let's just say that it's become a genre staple, along with spells and scrolls that randomly teleport you on demand and some way of gaining control of all your teleports.

* In [[ChzoMythos Trilby's Notes]], you randomly teleport twice, once to the past and the other to the distant future.
* WorldOfWarcraft has engineering teleporters, 4/5 times they will teleport you to a preset location, but that other 1/5 times..anything can happen, your character turns into the last person who went through, split into a "good" and "evil" side, turned into various small critters, end up anywhere else on the continent, and the most infamous one, simply teleport a mere 100 yards away from the teleport pad, 100 yards straight up.

[[MillionToOneChance If you're lucky, you can control when it happens.]] See also TeleporterAccident.

* This was how Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect ended up on the Earth of two million years past in ''[[TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy The Restaurant at the End of the Universe]]''. Trapped on a spaceship that was about to crash into a sun, their only way out was a teleporter whose navigation controls were broken.
** In ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', Arthur Dent suggests activating the infinite improbability drive without defining any parameters. Subverted when rather than transporting anything, the drive transforms the missiles they were trying to escape into a very confused looking sperm whale and a bowl of petunias, to everyone's surprise. This is because the abilities of the drive are literally infinite, and everyone just [[MundaneUtility justs use it for space travel]].

** In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the Enterprise is pushed off course by light years by both the Q and the [[LivingShip TinMan]] object. In one episode, the Enterprise ends up in the ''wrong galaxy'' due to the presence of "the traveller" onboard.

* This happens once in a while in the various Franchise/StargateVerse series. Sometimes (as in ''Series/{{Stargate SG-1}}'s'' "Solitudes"), the sending gate is hit with enough energy to overload it while open; this causes the wormhole to jump from the receiving gate to the next nearest gate. Other times ("1969") the wormhole passes near a star, which if it happens during a solar flare causes the traveler to travel through time. Note that [[MagicAIsMagicA it's not truly random]] in that both types of glitches could be replicated later once characters figured out what caused the problems. They just seemed random the first time someone was caught in them.

* In ''PowerRangersRPM'', when the Green Ranger first tries to use his teleportation power, he accidentally appears in an underground bank vault, which leads to the rest of the team learning about his criminal past.

* The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Unstable Teleport Plasmid]] in ''BioShock2'' will [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej2AHBNaq40 teleport all over the place in as you try to acquire it, then will start teleporting YOU all over the place if you're successful in doing so.]]

* In ''{{Diablo}}'', there's a spell called Phasing that teleports you randomly to an area within view. There's also a shrine that does the same thing, with the appropriate flavor text: "Wherever you go, there you are."

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* [[Series/DoctorWho The TARDIS]] has a randomiser that allows it to work like this, except with added time travel. This effect is also produced by the fact that the Doctor is just pretty bad at piloting it.

* This happens once in a while in the various Franchise/StargateVerse series. Sometimes (as in ''Series/{{Stargate SG-1}}'s'' "Solitudes"), the sending gate is hit with enough energy to overload it while open; this causes the wormhole to jump from the receiving gate to the next nearest gate. Other times ("1969") the wormhole passes near a star, which if it happens during a solar flare causes the traveler to travel through time.

* In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's novel ''StarmanJones'', a [[RandomTeleportation MisJump]] (the result of a navigational error) causes a ship to become lost in space. The crew finally uses NowDoItAgainBackwards to get home.

* ''KingdomOfLoathing'' has a status effect called "teleportitis", which randomly teleports you around everytime you try to adventure. One person [[http://forums.kingdomofloathing.com/vb/showthread.php?t=172962 has played through the entire game this way.]]

* In ''{{Gone}}'' by Michael Grant, Little Pete does this. Little Pete is severely autistic though, so it isn't random in his mind.

** In the finale, [[spoiler: Starbuck enters a series of random coordinates as the Cylon homebase launches the last of it's defenses and begins to explode around them, based on the notes to the recurring music connected to her father and the final five cylons. Galactica ends up jumping to a point in orbit of Earth (ours, not the radioactive one from earlier in the series)]]

* In ''KingsQuestIII'' you could learn an optional random teleportation spell that takes you to a random screen in the area. This is useful for getting out of dangerous situations (as long as you don't randomly end up in the same place).

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* This happens fairly often in the ''Warhammer40K'' universe. Understandable, as their teleportation would be more accurately described as "taking a quick jaunt through Hell".

* The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Unstable Teleport Plasmid]] in ''BioShock 2'' will [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej2AHBNaq40 teleport all over the place in as you try to acquire it, then will start teleporting YOU all over the place if you're successful in doing so.]]

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** In DeepSpaceNine, Sisko winds up in the MirrorUniverse as well, though not accidentally.