History Main / TIMETRAVEL

** "The Chimes at Midnight" feature a pair of time travelers on a mission to elminate the Black Eagle before he can become a superhero. Their information gives them the exact time and place in which he becomes a hero, but the plan ultimately fails because, while their historical records accurately describe the moment the Black Eagle became a hero, they do mention that was not the moment he got his ''powers'', which he'd had for a while already.

* ''VideoGame/DarkCloud 2'' (a.k.a. ''Dark Chronicle''), both with objects the main characters carried and a flying, time travelling CoolTrain that seems [[GalaxyExpress999 awfully]] [[Series/KamenRiderDenO familiar]].

* In the card game ''TabletopGame/{{Chrononauts}}'', the players are time travelers from various alternate futures, and are trying to change the timeline to match their own timeline's version of the "past" so that they can finally go home. Since all the alternate futures have conflicting versions of "history," and many of those conflicting versions require a specific outcome to World War II (Hitler was assassinated early and WW2 was Japan vs. America, Hitler lived and D-Day failed so that Germany won WW2, and a couple other variants), HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct gets a real workout. There's an alternate victory condition in which players have to collect certain combinations of [[MacGuffin Mac Guffins]] of questionable historical importance, but that's for material gain, not timeline shenanigans. A third victory condition is to get hired by the local TimePolice after fixing enough of other people's paradoxes.

* One of the missions in ''OsuTatakaeOuendan'' involves being called by Cleopatra in Ancient Egypt to cheer on her helping her workers to build a Pyramid in 10 days so she can use its magic to get more beautiful and greet her lover Marc Antony properly.

* Three ''Zelda'' games use it as a core game mechanic: ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' has Link travel back and forth seven years, ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'' has him travel through a GroundhogDayLoop, and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Oracle Of Ages]]'' has him use a harp to travel 400 years to the past and back. The mechanics aren't exactly consistent; time travel in ''Ocarina of Time'' causes a [[AlternateTimeline timeline split]], but seems to operate on a StableTimeLoop system in the ''Oracle of Ages''. And let's not get started on the various ways the time travel mechanics of ''Majora's Mask'' might work.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' heavily features this mechanic in the Lanayru area: By hitting Timeshift Stones, Link can return an area in a certain radius from the stone to how it was in the past, also reviving any creatures whose remains lie in the area. So basically you can travel through time by walking into or out of the area of effect.
*** Time travel also plays a substantial role in [[spoiler:the main story]]; among other things, [[spoiler:the finale take place ages before most of the characters were even born]], and [[spoiler:Impa is escorting Zelda around the surface at the exact same time her older self is continuing to monitor the Imprisoned]].

* Becomes a major theme in ''PandoraHearts'' after it is revealed that time flows differently in [[TheUnderworld the Abyss.]] Any character that falls down there, [[EldritchLocation if they make it out alive,]] hardly ever comes back to his or her original timeline.

* Warhammer40K: Warp travel involves going through another dimension where FTL is possible, but it's extremely erratic and random. [[StableTimeLoop One ship ended up setting out to respond to its own distress signal sent just before it exploded]], while an ork Waaaaagh! ended up popping out of the Warp just in front of its younger self. The warboss immediately attacked and killed his past self so he could have two sets of his favorite gun. In the ensuing confusion, the Waaagh! disbanded.

* In ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange", the main character acquires the ability to time-travel, although the power only extends to a few minutes in the past, and is typically used to change some of the recent choices you make. In Episode 3, [[spoiler: she travels ''really'' far back into the past and ends up creating an alternate timeline.]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' is about a time travelling HumanoidAlien and his human companions who travel throughout time and space in his spaceship, The TARDIS, which is usually disguised as a blue London police box and is BiggerOnTheInside. Although the show started with time travel on Earth just going to historical eras to see what happened in the past (as it was originally devised as an edutainment programme), later series would always have some alien interference in whatever was happening in the episodes set on Earth.

* The series ''Series/{{Timeless}}'' starts with a group of criminals stealing a secret time machine (called the Mothership) from Mason Industries in order to change past events. Mason Industries then informs the government of the existence of time travel. The NSA quickly recruits a historian, a soldier, and the remaining time machine pilot to use the prototype machine (called the Lifeboat) to go back and keep the bad guys from altering the timeline. As a rule, they fail at least in some way, so every time they come back, they hit the Internet to see how things have changed. As it turns out, [[spoiler:the "bad guy" is actually trying to erase an AncientConspiracy from history using the notes that are yet to be written by the above-mentioned historian]]. Oh, and there are personal consequences to time travel as well, as [[spoiler:the historian finds out that, after their first jump, she no longer has a sister, who was never born in the altered timeline]].

* ''Series/QuantumLeap''
* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': One of its central premises was a "temporal cold war", in which bandits are going back in time and messing with the timeline. The rules and limitations of time travel are never explained to anyone at any time, so the writers had a license to AssPull.
* ''Series/TheTimeTunnel''.
* ''Series/{{Voyagers}}'' - this was the entire premise. The 'Voyagers' were charged to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong - they used one gadget, the ''Omni'' (which looked rather like a large gold pocketwatch), both to travel and to figure out what was wrong and how to set it right.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' has the character Hiro, his time travelling basically set off the whole first series in an attempt to change the future, it's a lot harder than you imagine, apparently. Also in the second series, he travels back in time and creates the character he heard in his bedtime stories. Peter also is prone to time travel but less often.
* As the titles indicate, ''Series/MiraiSentaiTimeranger'' and ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'' feature this; they're about TimePolice squads from the year 3000 who have chased a prisonful of escaped inmates to 2000 (''Timeranger'') / 2001 (''Time Force'').

* ''Series/OdiseaBurbujas'' using Professor Memelovsky’s Time Slide in most of the episodes, as a way to teach children’s history as it was an educational show.

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' adds time travel to the list of twists surrounding Xehanort, the series' main villain. As a result, his egomania and knack for swapping bodies and identities have reached their LogicalExtreme - the different incarnations are acting as BigBad, CoDragons and TheHeavy all at the same time, and are working on infecting even more people while they're at it.
** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', [[Disney/TheSwordInTheStone Merlin]] was able to create a door that led into a world based on WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts such as ''Steamboat Willie''. Notably, Merlin's version manages to break pretty much ''every rule'' of time travel that was established in ''3D'': You can't change the past, you don't remember time traveling when you're done, a version of yourself must exist at the destination, and [[spoiler:you must give up your physical body to do it.]]

* In ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'', time travel requires the successful completion of the Emerald Ri Maajon, an extremely dangerous maneuver that can only be accomplished by a pair of the most skillful pilots with [[TeamSpirit a powerful emotional bond]] with each other. Failed attempts are generally fatal, with [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo explosive consequences]].

* In ''ComicBook/UniversalWarOne'', scientists build a space station that accidentally opens a wormhole, allowing limited time travel. [[spoiler: Then Kalish solves the equations that allow anybody to travel through time and space without limitation.]]

* In ''Film/DonnieDarko'' people in the future will be able to mess with the past without leaving the future via machine. Such meddling causes alternate universes which must be destroyed or they'll erase the future-people's universe.

* ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' series
** In ''Film/TheTerminator'', only organic things could be sent through time. No weapons or clothes or anything but the time traveller.
** Stretched by LoopholeAbuse starting with ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay''. The only thing that allowed the original T-800 model 101 to go back through time was the fact it was a shell surrounded by living tissue. Following that, Skynet manages to send other Terminators back which are made of, or covered by, liquid metal or nanobots that mimic human flesh. Noted by many reviewers is that this discovery creates all new plot holes, such as the fact that now, the machines should be able smuggle back anything they want into the past, so long as it's covered by that stuff.
* In Jean Claude Van Damme's ''Film/{{Timecop}}'', there's a federal agency responsible for going after people who attempt to go back in time. He winds up [[spoiler: having to go back in time himself to save his wife from dying, which is what he was hired to keep other people from doing.]]
* ''Franchise/StarTrek 4'', 7, 8 and 11 all use time travel as a device, by a different method each time.
* [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100704194442/http://www.cvil.wustl.edu/~gary/SF/time-movies.html This website]] lists almost every single Time Travel movie ever made, from 1921's ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' up to 2009's ''Film/StarTrek''.
* ''Film/FrequentlyAskedQuestionsAboutTimeTravel'' has several of the above mentioned categories (notably SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong taken to KnightTemplar extremes, as [[spoiler: an entire group exists to kill great people just after their greatest achievement, so they never decline in quality]] as [[ConversationalTroping discusses]] the rest.
* In ''Film/TwelveMonkeys'', James Cole travels to the past several times, to find a sample of TheVirus before it become ThePlague.

* In ''Film/{{Predestination}}'', Temporal Agent go back in time to prevent crimes.

* In Sean Ferrill's ''The Man in the Empty Suit'', the narrator celebrates his subjective birthday every year by visiting a party 100 years after he was born. This, of course, means that every other version of himself is also in attendance. Temporal paradoxes are dealt with in an interesting way-- each version of himself is "tethered" to a younger version. When one of them creates a paradox, they become "untethered", having come from different timelines, but still existing on the same timeline. Confused? So is he.
* In Creator/GeneWolfe's "Free Live Free" is a character study of some down and outers in 1980s Chicago, but uses time travel to enable the otherwise unexplainable series of events that reveal the main characters. The time machine is left behind when a time travel occurs. The means by which jumpers to the future are able to get back (not taking the machine with them) is very poetically handled if you see technology from a poetic point of view; Miyazaki might like it. There is never more than one version of a person, so if you go back to a time in which you previously lived, the previous you disappears when the new you arrives (but the travelling version is also affected by this by a folding in of character traits). This whole entry would be a spoiler on any other page, as the book is partly a mystery novel, and figuring out that time travel was involved is part of the detective's task.
* Kim Stanley Robinson's "Galileo's Dream" ties together quantum mechanics and cosmology in it's unique form of time travel, which manages to merge the concepts of AlternateUniverse and TemporalMutability - The ButterflyOfDoom lives comfortably alongside YouCantFightFate. The book allows itself the leeway to be fantastical by basing itself in Renaissance fantasy literature, but it still manages to achieve this TimeyWimeyBall in a very scientifically satisfying way. In fact, nearly every single time travel related trope manages to make an appearance in the novel in one form or another, with the plot turning out to revolve around [[spoiler:a bona fide temporal war]] - a concept that is rarely made to make sense. Interestingly, in Robinson's universe, [[OurTimeTravelIsDifferent time is not a dimension]] - instead [[spoiler:it is a manifold of three different dimensions, one of which conveniently runs backwards.]]

* In ''Series/TimeTrax'', the method varied, but the rules were that you could only travel between two set time periods (The Present and The Future), and more than two trips in a lifetime are lethal.

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}} Back and Forth'' featured Blackadder and Baldrick traveling through time when Baldrick accidentally made a working time machine. Then they go back to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong when they change history by accident. [[spoiler: Then they MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight so Blackadder could become king. For once, it ''worked''. ]]
* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' had an interesting variation: The title characters cannot actually travel through time, as their portals always lead them to a parallel Earth during the current year. However, one such world is a place where events play out exactly the same as they did on the Sliders' earth, but at a much slower rate, so when the Sliders' arrive, it seems to them be more than ten years earlier.

* Similarly, ''Pinball/TimeMachineDataEast'' has a [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture silver sports car]] that morphs as it travels from TheEighties to TheFifties.
* Downplayed in ''Pinball/AustinPowers''; shoot the center ramp up to the Time Machine four times to start Time Machine Multiball.

* In the RolePlayingGame ''TabletopGame/FengShui'', a region of cross-time 'space' called the Netherworld allows characters to move between four different points in history (69 AD, 1850 AD, 1996 AD and 2056 AD). These junctures are [[MeanwhileInTheFuture fixed with relation to each other]], treating the start of the campaign as zero-hour for all of them. So, if you enter the Netherworld in 1996, travel back to 69 AD, stay for six months and then return to '96, it will be six months later there, as well. A second use of {{phlebotinum}} states that only people who control powerful feng shui sites can actually change the future by changing the past; everyone else just sees history work itself around the change.

* In the ''Flux Family Secrets'' series the titular family is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the past.
* ''The Clumsies'' and ''The Clumsies 2: Butterfly Effect'' involve going back and fixing the effects of accidental time travel.
* The main character in ''Time Hollow'' does quite a bit of time-traveling (via a pen that "draws" windows in the time stream) in order to fix the effects of temporal meddling and get his parents and old life back.
* In ''Tesla's Tower: The Wardenclyffe Mystery'' Nikola Tesla sends time travel device plans to the present so that the main character, a distant descendant of his, can go back and correct or prevent the sabotaged experiment which resulted in everyone in the world losing the ability to see color.

* In ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange", the main character acquires the ability to time-travel, although the power only extends to a few minutes in the past, and is typically used to change some of the recent choices you make. In Episode 3, [[spoiler: she travels ''really'' far back into the past and ends up creating an alternate timeline.]]
* Time travel as well as going back in time to fix any mistakes in history caused by the antagonists (and sometimes the protagonists) is the premise of the online hidden objects game ''VideoGame/GardensOfTime.''

* ''Podcast/ArsParadoxica'' is built around this, with the protagonist (Dr. Sally Grissom) being accidentally flung into the 1940s with a Higgs Field Inhibitor. The rest of the podcast centers around her trying to fix the machine, dubbed the Timepiece, and the American government's interest in what she brings from the future...

* In ''WesternAnimation/TimeSquad'' the characters have to constantly go back in time in order to stop goofups in the timeline (because time is like a rope and as it grows it becomes frayed). HilarityEnsues when they encounter historical figures doing crazy things, such as Eli Whitney creating flesh-eating robots instead of the cotton gin, Ludwig von Beethoven becoming a wrestler instead of a composer, or UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush thinking that the answer to all of the country's problems is a giant ball of twine.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' calls attention to the many types of time travel in an episode when future people emigrate to the present. The news anchor announces that "apparently this is using 'Terminator' rules"

* All the ''Anime/TimeBokan'' series (with the exception of ''Anime/{{Yatterman}}'') feature heroes and villain travel in the time for a specific objective in every episode and battle with their MiniMecha or HumongousMecha.

* A major theme and the focal point of ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate''. There are multiple types of time machines and they all depend on the use of black holes. However, prototypes could only send back emails or some sort of electrical pulse because sending matter back in time causes it to turn into some jelly-like substance. ''Steins Gate'' uses the John Titor hoax from real life as if it were real, to create a plotline based on world lines and stable time loops.

* The ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' stories/anime feature time travelers, most notably [[{{Woobie}} Mikuru]]. It gets important in a major way in the novels, which also push Mikuru from being the NeutralFemale somewhat. [[spoiler:They travel to [[ArcWords 3 years ago]], and [[TrustPassword Kyon is the goddamn John Smith!]] ]] The 7th novel also circles around it, this time with a Mikuru from a week in the future, setting off events to inspire the future inventor of time-travel and set off events necessary to bring about her organization. Like by nailing a can to the ground to send a man to hospital so that he can meet his future wife, or by dropping a turtle into freezing water to teach the inventor of time-travel something.
** For everyone who has questions, I present you [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/timeline.png this]]. If it even ''[[MindScrew helps]]''. Careful of spoilers.

* ''Manga/LetsLagoon'' where the fog surrounding the deserted island can cause things to travel through time.

# YouCantFightFate: Characters go to the future! They must get back to their own time and prevent the future from going horribly horribly wrong. Sometimes, they can't, in which case it's YouCannotChangeTheFuture or a StableTimeLoop (see below).

# SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Characters go to the past! Again, this is usually to "fix" the future -- that is, the characters' "present." Often this involves correcting a TemporalParadox. Remember, Hitler has [[HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct Time Travel Exemption]].
** MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight: Characters go to the past! But... not to fix the present or future. They want to change the events in some way, to favor themselves or their employer. Generally [[BadFuture bad things ensue]].
** TerminatorTwosome: Both of the above at once; a villain goes back to change the future in their favor, and a hero follows to put a stop to it.

# StableTimeLoop: Characters go to the past! And in the past, they turn out to be responsible for the events that led to their "present." In other words, YouAlreadyChangedThePast. This is similar to YouCantFightFate, but in the present instead of the future.

# ResetButton: The characters go through a world of crap, or somebody "changes history", and they resort to time travel to fix it. If they succeed, the time-line fixes itself and the characters awaken having no knowledge that anything was ever different. Occasionally, [[RippleEffectProofMemory only the time-travellers remember]] -- at least, the ones who were alive at the point of fix. If they don't succeed, the series has just received a ReTool or StoryReset.

# TrappedInThePast: The characters are stuck in another time with no way of return (a.k.a. forced to take TheSlowPath) and must choose between quietly living out their lives without changing history or [[GivingRadioToTheRomans working to change the world]] to their (and the natives') benefit. You'd be amazed how few people seem to pick the first option.

# AlternateTimeline: The characters' time-travel has split their universe in twain. There's the universe they're in (that they've "changed") and the universe they're not in (the "old" universe that wasn't changed).

# TimeyWimeyBall: When all of the above can be invoked to suit the plot.

Because OurTimeTravelIsDifferent, the time traveler can experience a variety of experiences when traveling in time. For example, the three major types treat time as the fast-forward or rewind buttons on your remote, a tunnel that you or the machine travel through, and instantaneous (temporal) teleportation.

Note that the StableTimeLoop and AlternateUniverse (when done properly; i.e., the time-traveller(s) can never get back to the first universe) resolutions are the only ones logically consistent with typical ideas of causality, so stories wishing to be more "realistic" should favor these.

Stories not wishing to be "realistic", of course, can just ignore the whole TemporalParadox thing for some reason. Maybe the time travelers have RippleEffectProofMemory or otherwise get to ignore their own pasts making them immune to changes in the timeline. After all, it's not like we actually know what will happen, right? [[MindScrew Right]]?

** Likewise, in ''EliteBeatAgents'', one of the missions involve travelling back in time (by purpose) to Florence in the 15th Century, to help Leonardo Da Vinci win the heart of Mona Lisa and eventually create his masterpiece of painting.

** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', [[Disney/TheSwordInTheStone Merlin]] was able to create a door that led into a world based on ClassicDisneyShorts such as ''Steamboat Willie''. Notably, Merlin's version manages to break pretty much ''every rule'' of time travel that was established in ''3D'': You can't change the past, you don't remember time traveling when you're done, a version of yourself must exist at the destination, and [[spoiler:you must give up your physical body to do it.]]

** The spin-off ''The Adventures of Podcast/GrettBinchleaf'' has even more time travel in it. It went to the extent that after their two first series it was agreed upon by the two hosts that time travel wouldn't be allowed in their third series, with an unspecified punishment each time the rule were to be broken. Trying to get away with still putting time travel then turned into a running gag, resulting in even more of the story being about time travel than before. Cue book 4, and the titular hero [[spoiler: escapes his murder by using his magical watch to go an hour back in time multiple times in a row]] shortly before breaking it upon being [[spoiler: killed by a crocodile]] and being hurtled a thousand years into the past and [[spoiler: meeting his nemesis]] from two different points in time.

** The spin-off ''The Adventures of Podcast/GrettBinchleaf'' has even more time travel in it. It went to the extent that after their two first series it was agreed upon by the two hosts that time travel wouldn't be allowed in their third series, with an unspecified punishment each time the rule were to be broken. Trying to get away with still putting time travel then turned into a running gag, resulting in even more of the story being about time travel than before.

* All the ''Anime/TimeBokan'' series (with the exception of ''Anime/{{Yatterman}}'') feature heroes and villain travel in the time for a specific objective in every episode and battle with their MiniMecha or HumongusMecha.

* Mahou Sensei Negima, with the (multiple in the manga, one in the original series) version(s) of the Cassiopeia, which is (literally) a watch that allows you to time-travel.

** The Supreme Kais are able to time travel using "Time Rings", but they can only go to the future (and back again) to help themselves evaluated long-term consequences of mortal actions. Travelling to the past is absolutely forbidden: every time it happens, the timeline splits and an alternate reality is created (there are seemingly five in total, and the Supreme Kais have rings that allow them to jump from one to the other as well). Black has one of these Time Rings, which concerns Whis and Beerus, since only the Supreme Kais should ever be in possession of one of those.

* In ''Manga/DragonBall Z'', Trunks uses type 7 time travel which creates the plot for the entire Cell and Android Sagas. His time travel also causes an Alternate Reality Cell to also use type 7 travel to get to the timeline which the series is focused on.

** ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' has this happen for its fourth arc, as Future Trunks once again travels to the past to escape the new ArcVillain, Black. Black apparently has the means to time travel as well, and follows Trunks, though how exactly he does it hasn't been revealed as yet.