History Main / WhatOtherGalaxies

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Marvel Comics are ''usually'' consistent about [[SmallUniverseAfterAll events spanning multiple galaxies]] (the big three empires in the Marvel Universe operate in galaxies outside the Milky Way), but on occasion...

** The ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy do this just by name alone, both original and modern, since their remit is protecting the entire universe (when they can). In fairness, "Guardians of the Universe" was [[Franchise/GreenLantern taken]].
** On a related note, ComicBook/{{Gamora}} is often called the Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy.

* In ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'', the Great Barrier was planned to be located at the center of the universe, but was changed to be located at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Beyond the Great Barrier is Sha Ka Ree, where creation is said to have begun, as if the center of the Milky Way Galaxy were the center of the universe.

* In the ''very'' distant future (exponentially the current age of the universe), if the Universe keeps increasing the acceleration of its expansion, the light emitted from distant galaxies will have a wavelength longer than the size of the observable universe, putting them beyond the cosmological horizon and making them undetectable in any way. At that point an observer inside their own galaxy would look out and see... nothing at all. Any conclusion that they live in a larger universe with many galaxies will have to be done either by inference or from reference to truly ancient records, rather than observation. [[note]]Some astronomers have theorized that in those very distant ages, cosmology could become a sort of religion, as pretty much the only way to know how the Universe was born and what's out there would be records that somehow survived to that epoch, which of course would depend on how much evidence these had, the trust people put in them etc.[[/note]]

* Despite having access to faster-than-light travel (called Hyperspace), the Empire from ''Franchise/StarWars'' acts like there's nothing to control beyond one single galaxy (and, in the Expanded Universe, seems not to care very much about the satellite galaxies of its one). This may be excusable, however. Hyperdrive technology is shown as taking a while to get you anywhere. Expanded Universe materials establish that it takes months to get from one side of the galaxy to the other, gravity wells can pull you out and wreck you, and finding safe hyperroutes is both very dangerous and very random. The Empire may just not want to take the risks or spend the logistics of traveling to other galaxies when they have superweapons to build instead. [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends continuity]] states that while there are other galaxies, there's a hyperspace disturbance at the edge of the main galaxy [[CorralledCosmos preventing travel in and out]]; there's only one known place where the barrier doesn't work.
** In ''Legends'', Jedi Master Jorus C'Baoth commissioned a extra-galactic expedition, [[Literature/OutboundFlight the Outbound Flight Project]], in the last years of the Galactic Republic to seek out new life and civilizations beyond the galactic disk. Unfortunately it ended disastrously thanks to [[BigBad Chancellor Palpatine]] who saw it as a nice way to get rid of some Jedi ahead of schedule.
** [[Literature/NewJediOrder The Yuuzhan Vong]] explicitly hailed from another galaxy and are one of the few examples of an extragalactic civilization found in ''Legends''

[[folder:Film -- Animation]]

** In ''Legends'',Jedi Master Jorus C'Baoth commissioned a extra-galactic expedition, [[Literature/OutboundFlight the Outbound Flight Project]], in the last years of the Galactic Republic to seek out new life and civilizations beyond the galactic disk. Unfortunately it ended disastrously thanks to [[BigBad Chancellor Palpatine]] who saw it as a nice way to get rid of some Jedi ahead of schedule.

** In ''Legends'',Jedi Master Jorus C'Baoth commissioned a extra-galactic expedition, [[Literature/OutboundFlight the Outbound Flight Project ]], in the last years of the Galactic Republic to seek out new life and civilizations beyond the galactic disk. Unfortunately it ended disastrously thanks to [[BigBad Chancellor Palpatine]] who saw it as a nice way to get rid of some Jedi ahead of schedule.

** Hyperspace travel is said to be [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lightspeed/Legends 100,000 times faster than light speed]]. The diameter of the Milky Way is at least [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way 100,000 light-years]], meaning it would take at least a year for a ship at this speed to traverse the entire galaxy. The distance between the Milky Way and the next closest galaxy, Andromeda, is approximately [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy 2.5 million light years]]. This makes the travel time via Hyperspace at least 25 years. The galaxy we see in Star Wars is said to be [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_galaxy about the size of the Milky Way]], so it's reasonable to suppose a similar distance to the next nearest galaxy.

* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', the Milky Way is the only galaxy ever specifically mentioned, even though the outlandish technology we see would presumably make intergalactic travel feasible[[note]]Hell, the Improbability Drive makes it more feasible the more impossible it is..[[/note]]. The most notable references to "the Universe" are either metaphysical ("the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything") or temporal (the titular "[[Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse Restaurant at the End of the Universe]]" is permanently located at the end of time itself). There is at least one mention of a wider physical universe, when someone speculates that the enigmatic Galactic President may in fact rule all of it.

* ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'' features countless of stars in its own galaxy. That's the only galaxy there is [[spoiler: unless you get to the center of the galaxy and follow the main plot to find out, that the whole universe is a simulation that needs to be reset by you, which allows you the choice of what kind of galaxy should replace the current one. But then again, you can freely travel between galaxies (there are more than one or two), but they are treated as different iterations from the original galaxy and are basically treated as being another dimension or parallel universe from the previous one, as they are part of a different simulation of the same AI, the Atlas.]]

* This was the view held by scientists until TheRoaringTwenties, when it was clear that a lot of objects considered as "nebulae" were actually galaxies (more or less) like our Milky Way. Conversely, in the ''very'' distant future (trillions of years), if the Universe keeps increasing the acceleration of its expansion, the light emitted from distant galaxies will have a wavelength longer than the size of the observable universe, putting them beyond the cosmological horizon and making them undetectable in any way. At that point an observer inside their own galaxy would look out and see... nothing at all. Any conclusion that they live in a larger universe with many galaxies will have to be done either by inference or from reference to truly ancient records, rather than observation. [[note]]Some astronomers have theorized that in those very distant ages, cosmology could become a sort of religion, as pretty much the only way to know how the Universe was born and what's out there would be records that somehow survived to that epoch, which of course would depend on how much evidence these had, the trust people put in them etc.[[/note]]

* This was the view held by scientists until TheRoaringTwenties, when it was clear that a lot of objects considered as "nebulae" were actually galaxies (more or less) like our Milky Way. Conversely, in the ''very'' distant future (trillions of years), if the Universe keeps increasing the acceleration of its expansion, the light emitted from distant galaxies will have a wavelength longer than the size of the observable universe, putting them beyond the cosmological horizon and making them undetectable in any way. At that point an observer inside their own galaxy would look out and see... nothing at all. Any conclusion that they live in a larger universe with many galaxies will have to be done either by inference or from reference to truly ancient records, rather than observation. [[note]]Some astronomers have theorized that in those very distant ages, cosmology could become a sort of religion, as pretty much the only way to know how the Universe was born and what's out there would be records that somehow survived to that epoch.[[/note]]

--->''"Yet we speak so much and so often of the Galaxy that it is all but impossible for us to see that this is not enough. The Galaxy is not the universe. There are other galaxies." -- '''Golan Trevize'''

* This was the view held by scientists until TheRoaringTwenties, when it was clear that a lot of objects considered as "nebulae" were actually galaxies (more or less) like our Milky Way. Conversely, in the ''very'' distant future (trillions of years), if the Universe keeps increasing the acceleration of its expansion, the light emitted from distant galaxies will have a wavelength longer than the size of the observable universe, putting them beyond the cosmological horizon and making them undetectable in any way. Therefore an observer inside their own galaxy would look out and see... nothing at all. Any conclusion that they live in a larger universe with many galaxies will have to be done either by inference or from reference to truly ancient records, rather than observation. [[note]]Some astronomers have theorized that in those very distant ages, cosmology could become a sort of religion, as pretty much the only way to know how the Universe was born and what's out there would be records that somehow survived to that epoch.[[/note]]

** Hyperspace travel is said to be [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lightspeed/Legends 100,000 times faster than light speed]]. The diameter of the Milky Way is at least [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way 100,00 light-years]], meaning it would take at least a year for a ship at this speed to traverse the entire galaxy. The distance between the Milky Way and the next closest galaxy, Andromeda, is approximately [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy 2.5 million light years]]. This makes the travel time via Hyperspace at least 25 years. The galaxy we see in Star Wars is said to be [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_galaxy about the size of the Milky Way]], so it's reasonable to suppose a similar distance to the next nearest galaxy.

* Despite having access to light speed, the Empire from ''Franchise/StarWars'' acts like there's nothing to control beyond one single galaxy (and, in the Expanded Universe, seems not to care very much about the satellite galaxies of its one). This may be excusable, however. Hyperdrive technology is shown as taking a while to get you anywhere. Expanded Universe materials establish that it takes months to get from one side of the galaxy to the other, gravity wells can pull you out and wreck you, and finding safe hyperroutes is both very dangerous and very random. The Empire may just not want to take the risks or spend the logistics of traveling to other galaxies when they have superweapons to build instead. [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends continuity]] states that while there are other galaxies, there's a hyperspace disturbance at the edge of the main galaxy [[CorralledCosmos preventing travel in and out]]; there's only one known place where the barrier doesn't work.

* This was the view held by scientists until TheRoaringTwenties, when it was clear that a lot of objects considered as "nebulae" were actually galaxies (more or less) like our Milky Way. Conversely, in the ''very'' distant future (trillions of years), if the Universe keeps increasing the acceleration of its expansion, the light emitted from distant galaxies will have a wavelength longer than the size of the observable universe, putting them beyond the cosmological horizon and making them undetectable in any way. Therefore an observer inside their own galaxy would look out and see... nothing at all. Any conclusion that they live in a larger universe with many galaxies will have to be done either by inference or from reference to truly ancient records, rather than observation. [[note]]Some astronomers have theorized that in those very distant ages, cosmology could become a sort of religion, as pretty much the only way to know how the Universe was born and what's out there would be records that somehow survived to that epoch[[/note]].

* This was the view held by scientists until TheRoaringTwenties, when it was clear that a lot of objects considered as "nebulae" were actually galaxies (more or less) like our Milky Way. Conversely, in the ''very'' distant future (trillions of years), if the Universe keeps increasing the acceleration of its expansion, the light emitted from distant galaxies will have a wavelength longer than the size of the observable universe, putting them beyond the cosmological horizon and making them undetectable in any way. Therefore an observer inside their own galaxy would look out and see... nothing at all. Any conclusion that they live in a larger universe with many galaxies will have to either be done by inference or from reference to truly ancient records, rather than observation. [[note]]Some astronomers have theorized that in those very distant ages, cosmology could become a sort of religion, as pretty much the only way to know how the Universe was born and what's out there would be records that somehow survived to that epoch[[/note]].

* This was the view held by scientists until TheRoaringTwenties, when it was clear that a lot of objects considered as "nebulae" were actually galaxies (more or less) like our Milky Way. Conversely, in the ''very'' distant future if the Universe keeps increasing the acceleration of its expansion observers who existed by them will see just the galaxy where they're located and at best those nearby ones, returning to the view mentioned at first[[note]]Some astronomers have fantasized that in those very distant ages, cosmology could become a sort of religion, as pretty much the only way to know how the Universe was born and what's out there in the distance would be records that somehow survived to that epoch[[/note]].

When "the Galaxy" and "the Universe" are used interchangeably, either in the logic of the plot or explicitly. Common cases.

** For humans, FTLTravel is only possible in the range of the psychic beacon of the Astronomican, which is on Earth and doesn't even cover the totality of the galaxy. So for all intents and purposes, there is no universe outside the Milky Way.

* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'':

Compare with the unconfused tropes TheMilkyWayIsTheOnlyWay, EverythingInSpaceIsAGalaxy and SmallUniverseAfterAll.

Compare with the unconfused tropes TheMilkyWayIsTheOnlyWay and SmallUniverseAfterAll.

When "the Galaxy" and "the Universe" are used interchangeably, either in the logic of the plot or explicitly. Common cases:

* PhysicalGods have control over spacetime, but seem to only reside in one galaxy.
* Advertisements of the book conflate the two lazily.

** ''Literature/FoundationAndEmpire'': The stories originally handled the difference between the Milky Way galaxy and the universe (including multiple galaxies) correctly, but the ''[[EncyclopediaExposita Encyclopedia Galactica]]'' entry for "Literature/TheMule" conflates the two, and this mistake is followed by multiple covers for this book, as do {{Tagline}}s from Creator/{{Panther}} and Creator/{{Avon}}.
* ''Literature/FoundationAndEarth'': It's a PlotPoint during the climax that AbsentAliens only applies to the Milky Way, and just because there aren't any aliens in ''this'' galaxy ([[SequelHook Except for]] the [[{{Transhuman}} Solarians]]) doesn't mean that aliens don't exist in other galaxies.

* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', the Universe is mentioned several times (the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, ''Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse''), yet no other galaxy is ever acknowledged. To be fair, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe is at the temporal end of the universe, not the physical end.

* Despite having access to light speed, the Empire from ''Franchise/StarWars'' acts like there's nothing to control beyond one single galaxy (and, in the Expanded Universe, seems not to care very much about the satellite galaxies of its one). This may be excusable, however. Hyperdrive technology is shown as taking a while to get you anywhere. Expanded Universe materials establish that it takes months to get from one side of the galaxy to the other, gravity wells can pull you out and wreck you, and finding safe hyperroutes is both very dangerous and very random. The Empire may just not want to take the risks or spend the logistics of traveling to other galaxies when they have superweapons to build instead. [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends continuity]] states that while there are other galaxies, there's a hyperspace disturbance at the edge of the main galaxy [[CorralledCosmos preventing travel in and out]]; there's only one known place where the barrier doesn't work.

[[folder:Film]]
* Despite having access to light speed, the Empire from ''Franchise/StarWars'' acts like there's nothing to control beyond one single galaxy (and, in the Expanded Universe, seems not to care very much about the satellite galaxies of its one). This may be excusable, however. Hyperdrive technology is shown as taking a while to get you anywhere. Expanded Universe materials establish that it takes months to get from one side of the galaxy to the other, gravity wells can pull you out and wreck you, and finding safe hyperroutes is both very dangerous and very random. The Empire may just not want to take the risks or spend the logistics of traveling to other galaxies when they have superweapons to build instead.
** [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends continuity]] states that while there are other galaxies, there's a hyperspace disturbance at the edge of the main galaxy preventing travel in and out; there's only one known place where the barrier doesn't work.

* Marvel Comics is ''usually'' pretty good at avoiding this trope (the big three empires in the Marvel Universe operate in galaxies outside the Milky Way), but on occasion...

* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', the Universe is mentioned several times (the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, ''Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse''), yet no other galaxy is ever acknowledged.
** To be fair, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe is at the temporal end of the universe, not the physical end.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's [[Literature/{{Foundation}} Foundation trilogy]]. The books themselves don't have this problem. [[http://geekdaily7.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/foundationtrilogypb.jpg The covers, on the other hand]]...

* Despite having access to light speed, the Empire from ''Franchise/StarWars'' acts like there's nothing to control beyond one single galaxy (and, in the Expanded Universe, seems not to care very much about the satellite galaxies of its one.) This may be excusable, however. Hyperdrive technology is shown as taking a while to get you anywhere. Expanded Universe materials establish that it takes months to get from one side of the galaxy to the other, gravity wells can pull you out and wreck you, and finding safe hyperroutes is both very dangerous and very random. The Empire may just not want to take the risks or spend the logistics of traveling to other galaxies when they have superweapons to build instead.

* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'', the [[EldritchAbomination Gods]] of the [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Warp]] live in the "immaterium", a sort of Spiritual counterpart to the Milky Way and want to merge the two. Whether or not this extends to the rest of the Universe is up for debate, in and out of story.