History Main / TrickedOutTime

* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', [[spoiler:the hero]] is fried by Lavos the EldritchAbomination. But wait! At the festival that began the game, there's a minigame where you can win a handy Clone (it's a lifelike doll, no intelligence). The heroes take the clone, go to the point precisely before [[spoiler:you know who]] was evaporated, stop time, and [[DecoyGetaway replace him with the clone]], then take him back to the future.

* Is the idea behind one of the endings of the time-traveling VisualNovel ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'' [[spoiler:(the true ending, actually)]]. To elaborate: [[spoiler:In the Beta timeline, it's a fixed event that Okabe see Kurisu dead in a pool of blood. However, in the True Ending, after messing up once, Okabe knocks out Kurisu and uses his own blood (he was stabbed earlier) in order to make it ''look'' like she died to his past self.]]

** One wonderful example of tricking out time through LoopholeAbuse is presented in the book: The GM tells one of the [=PCs=] that he has a message on his answering machine describing exactly where, when, and how the PC will die. The PC merely goes back in time a few minutes and leaves himself that message as a prank. While leaving the message was in the PC's Yet (something they know is supposed to happen), the actual death itself wasn't, because the only evidence was the recorded message. So going back while the message is still fresh in your mind and leaving it right then allows crossing off the event of "leaving the message" from the span book, allowing them to avert the stated death without any frag.

* ''Fanfic/TheKarmaOfLies'' [[{{Discussed}} discusses this]] when Ladybug reveals that all of the temporary Miraculi holders that she no longer trusts have been fired. Alix protests that she ''can't'' fire Bunnyx without creating a temporal paradox, as her future self has already come back to the present day. Ladybug responds that [[TakeAThirdOption there are other options]], such as taking advantage of technology to create a robotic counterpart or simply making a sentimonster of Bunnyx and sending them back instead.

* {{Discussed}} in ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'', where Kyon points out this possibility to Mikuru. It hasn't actually come up in the story yet, but given all the time traveling involved it almost certainly [[DiedDuringProduction would have]] at some point.

* ''Fanfic/MyChoicesTwistedTalesThroughTime'': After being TrappedInThePast, Twilight accidentally ends up taking the role of CourtMage that would have gone to Starswirl V, which would prevent him from doing the famous magical reforms that are integral to how magic developed in the original timeline. As a result, she decides to use her position to promote those same accomplishments and then sponsor his career for good measure.
* The ''Series/StargateSG1'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5287572/1/Turning-Point-Divergence-Mature-Version Turning Point: Divergence]]" features Daniel Jackson have an idea to do this to essentially bring Egeria, the queen of the Tok'ra, back to life. Using a Furling time machine he discovered on a past mission, SG-1 can go back in time to Pangara shortly before Egeria's death, and copy her knowledge and personality into a recording device that they can then "upload" to a clone of Egeria's original body after returning to the present day.
* ''Fanfic/MyMirrorSwordAndShield'': As the story is a ''Anime/CodeGeass'' and ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' crossover, it was bound to happen when [[OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Suzaku]] accidentally finds himself trapped in a terrible past governed by historical tyrant [[MagnificentBastard Lelouch Lamperouge]] and has to find a way to survive in times of war 'without' altering history (or as much history as a highschool student would know, anyway). The straightest example comes near the end when Suzaku, having discovered that Lelouch is [[spoiler:far from the soulless dictator history books made him out to be, and subsequently having fallen in love with him]] , decides that he absolutely cannot [[spoiler:let him be publicly assassinated and his body torn apart by the hands of the furious population]] , but he has to prevent it in a way that wouldn't alter those historic events, lest [[spoiler:Lelouch's]] carefully-constructed plan would crumble down. So he instead [[spoiler:disguises himself as the would-be murderer, fakes Lelouch's assasination, drugs him, escapes with him unconscious, disguises an already-dead man with Lelouch's royal regalia and throws said corpse into the crowd so it could be dismembered in his place. Then he hides his-former-Majesty's unconscious ass until they can safely escape to the future inside the now-fixed time machine]]. And actually succeeds. Whew!!

* ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' series.

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind'': Diavolo ''weaponizes'' this via King Crimson. What he exactly does is that he erases a current event for 10 seconds and replaces it with a new one, most of the time in his benefit.

** ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'', when Doc and Marty go back in time to stop "young" Biff from getting the [[TimelineAlteringMacGuffin Gray's Sports Almanac]]. Doc warns Marty not to interfere with Biff receiving the almanac from his older self, because they had to make "old" Biff believe that his plan worked so he'll return the time machine (which he stole from Doc and Marty earlier) back to the future where they left it.

* In ''Literature/CaptainUnderpants'', George and Harold go back in time to grab something that was destroyed before it was destroyed, replacing it with a replica.

** In the first ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'', [[spoiler:Doc does this by wearing a bullet-proof vest when the Libyan terrorists shoot him. He doesn't tell Marty this until after Marty comes back.]] The plot of the entire film is a semi-successful attempt to do this, since Mr. Baines still doesn't hit George with the car, but the timing of major events in George and Lorraine's relationship post-dance is otherwise the same (they live in the same house, have the same number of children at the same time with the same basic personalities, and so on). Some key differences make home life for the [=McFlys=] considerably better: Marty's efforts to ensure his parents' first kiss at the school dance still happens inadvertently caused some [[GrewASpine vertebral fortification]] in his previously meek father, and made him a more confident and and assertive man as a result, which trickled temporally downstream to his ensuing marriage and children. When Marty apprises Doc of the result of his efforts at the dance before the climactic attempt to catch lightning, Doc's reaction indicates he suspects this is going to happen.

* Creator/MargaretPetersonHaddix's series ''Literature/TheMissing'' follows young siblings Jonah and Katherine as they [[spoiler:travel back in time after learning that Jonah, along with 36 other children, are actually famous individuals from the past that experienced early deaths, and that they were removed from time to be saved from an impending death and sold off in a future by smugglers. However, this caused a ripple across time that led to the present and future not following the "proper timeline."]] In the series, Jonah and Katherine [[spoiler:must return the children to their rightful places in the timeline,]] but they trick time by [[spoiler:time travelling away with the person who was meant to die at the last second, slowly creating a StableTimeLoop with each child "returned."]]

How does one fake a StableTimeLoop? Well, you go back in time, and you make it ''look'' like the original thing happened, when instead, something else happened entirely. The important thing is that everyone who witnessed the event to be changed still see the same thing. Care must be taken to ensure the change is not detected by the wrong people until after the original time excursion point. If you go back and [[FakingTheDead save]] [[TimeTravelEscape someone]] by [[DecoyGetaway replacing them with a robot clone at the last minute]], it's probably best that this person go with the time traveler Back To The Future.[[TradeSnark ™]]

** In the first ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'', [[spoiler:Doc does this by wearing a bullet-proof vest when the Libyan terrorists shoot him. He doesn't tell Marty this until after Marty comes back.]] The plot of the entire film is a semi-successful attempt to do this, since Mr. Baines still doesn't hit George with the car, but the timing of major events in George and Lorraine's relationship post-dance is otherwise the same (they live in the same house, have the same number of children at the same time with the same basic personalities, and so on). Some key differences make home life for the [=McFlys=] considerably better: Marty's efforts to ensure his parents' first kiss at the school dance still happens inadvertently caused some [[GrewASpine vertebral fortification]] in his previously meek father, and made him a more confident and and assertive man as a result, which trickled temporally downstream to his ensuing marriage and children.

** In the first ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'', [[spoiler:Doc does this by wearing a bullet-proof vest when the Libyan terrorists shoot him. He doesn't tell Marty this until after Marty comes back.]] The plot of the entire film is a semi-successful attempt to do this, since Mr. Baines still doesn't hit George with the car, but the timing of major events in George and Lorraine's relationship post-dance is otherwise the same (they live in the same house, have the same number of children at the same time with the same basic personalities, and so on).

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!

*** The novel ''War of the Daleks'' undoes [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks the destruction of the Daleks' homeworld Skaro]] by revealing that the Daleks discovered a piece of centuries-old footage during their invasion of Earth that described the events, which begin with the discovery of their creator, Davros, on Skaro. They travel back in time, find a suitable planet that looks a bit like Skaro, move Davros to it, and fake the rescue mission that discovered him -- so the film remains accurate, but a different planet got blown up. The book wasn't particularly well received, since the description of this complex {{retcon}} took up a lot of space that could have been used for actual plot. The retcon itself is generally filed as FanonDiscontinuity by fandom, but Skaro itself survived as seen in the Series 9 premiere.

** In the first ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', [[spoiler:Doc does this by wearing a bullet-proof vest when the Libyan terrorists shoot him. He doesn't tell Marty this until after Marty comes back.]] The plot of the entire film is a semi-successful attempt to do this, since Mr. Baines still doesn't hit George with the car, but the timing of major events in George and Lorraine's relationship post-dance is otherwise the same (they live in the same house, have the same number of children at the same time with the same basic personalities, and so on).

* How Time-Turners work in ''Fanfic/TheParselmouthOfGryffindor''. [[TemporalParadox Contradicting the past]] would lead to a TimeCrash, so a time-traveler should do their best not to contradict the past up to their knowledge, and magically-induced good luck will do the rest.
* Attempted by Princess Twilight in ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/506537/1/the-puddnhead-gambit/fiction-is-obliged-to-stick-to-possibilities The Puddnhead Gambit]]''. After receiving a prophetic vision of the events of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyANewGeneration'', she commissions a film, the plot of which exactly matches her vision, in the hopes that her vision will turn out to always have been a preview of a movie that would premier next year rather than a vision of events many centuries into the future.
* Considering ''Fanfic/MyMirrorSwordAndShield'' is a ''Anime/CodeGeass'' and ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' crossover, it was bound to happen when [[OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Suzaku]] accidentally finds himself trapped in a terrible past governed by historical tyrant [[MagnificentBastard Lelouch Lamperouge]] and has to find a way to survive in times of war 'without' altering history (or as much history as a highschool student would know, anyway). The straightest example comes near the end when Suzaku, having discovered that Lelouch is [[spoiler:far from the soulless dictator history books made him out to be, and subsequently having fallen in love with him]] , decides that he absolutely cannot [[spoiler:let him be publicly assassinated and his body torn apart by the hands of the furious population]] , but he has to prevent it in a way that wouldn't alter those historic events, lest [[spoiler:Lelouch's]] carefully-constructed plan would crumble down. So he instead [[spoiler:disguises himself as the would-be murderer, fakes Lelouch's assasination, drugs him, escapes with him unconscious, disguises an already-dead man with Lelouch's royal regalia and throws said corpse into the crowd so it could be dismembered in his place. Then he hides his-former-Majesty's unconscious ass until they can safely escape to the future inside the now-fixed time machine]]. And actually succeeds. Whew!!

** One wonderful example of tricking out time through LoopholeAbuse is presented in the book: The GM tells one of the [=PCs=] that he has a message on his answering machine describing exactly where, when, and how the PC will die. The PC merely goes back in time a few minutes and leaves himself that message as a prank. While leaving the message was in the PC's Yet (something they know is supposed to happen), the actual death itself wasn't, because the only evidence was the recorded message. So going back while the message is still fresh in our mind and leaving it right then allows crossing off the event of leaving the message from the span book, allowing them to avert the stated death without frag.

** One wonderful example of tricking out time through LoopholeAbuse is presented in the book: The GM tells one of the [=PCs=] that he has a message on his answering machine describing exactly where, when, and how the PC will die. The PC merely goes back in time a few minutes and leaves himself that message as a prank. The message had to be ''left''; nobody said it had to be ''true''.