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1->''"You see, Jake, there's rules to this stuff. Wishing an event to be changes elements before and after it; memories will be destroyed, babies will not be born, potential worlds could be evaporated by your wish."''
2-->-- '''Prismo''', ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''
3
4So you've decided to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. TemporalParadox is ''not'' a problem; once you make this change, the dark future (your old present? Whatever) will utterly change.
5
6There's a very dark possibility of a SadisticChoice here. What if there's no such thing as InSpiteOfANail? What if the holocaust you're trying to prevent resulted in someone being born who will [[RetGone no longer exist]] if the situation of his parents getting together changes? What if there's millions of people who will be changed or erased against their will? What if this timeline had someone do a HeelFaceTurn who won't in the new timeline?
7
8This is a heavy responsibility.
9
10Many writers don't like dealing with this, so they'll often write that the better future is better ''in every way imaginable'' with no exceptions; and [[InSpiteOfANail nobody left out]]. Or that TheMultiverse means that world, those people and its choices somehow still exist... somewhere. But not everyone does, and it's a disturbing train of thought.
11
12One must keep in mind that people ''already'' make choices that prevent future possibilities from happening every day. Preventing future possibilities from happening is inherent in the act of making choices at all. For example, by sitting in your room and reading TV Tropes rather than going out and having as many babies as possible, you are denying the existence of many potential people, but you can hardly be held responsible for the deaths of many because of that. The major difference between everyday decision-making and the situations examined by this trope is that the people subject to it have experienced the alternate timelines themselves; that can certainly change the perception of the people who have to make the decision.
13
14ResetButtonSuicideMission is closely related, but in that trope the erasure of events is often seen as a positive, negating the costs paid to push the reset button. The two can intersect in painful ways, however: Say, Alice and Bob have a child, Charlie, in the BadFuture, but [[RelationshipSalvagingDisaster never would have gotten back together]] without the cataclysm they want to undo. Thus, their chance to change the past becomes a SadisticChoice between [[RetGone Charlie's existence]] and the lives that would be saved by changing the past. Needless to say, TakingAThirdOption where the positives can be kept while erasing the negatives is very popular when the two tropes overlap.
15
16Related to ExpendableAlternateUniverse, TheStoryThatNeverWas. HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct is the most quoted example of this trope.
17----
18!!Examples:
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20[[foldercontrol]]
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22[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
23* The SeriesFauxnale of ''Manga/AyakashiTriangle'' before it changed magazine has Suzu sent back in time to the day Matsuri was [[GenderBender turned into a girl]] in the first chapter, and her inner ayakashi medium urges her to stop it from happening. Suzu goes along but pulls back at the last second, as she realizes Matsuri's transformation had been key to his growth as a person and most of the relationship he'd since formed. (Considering it lead to Shirogane's HeelFaceTurn and ''directly'' saved Matsuri's life once, the consequences of changing the past could have been far worse than Suzu realized.)
24* Kyon of ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'' once changed the world back to his old one via TimeTravel. He still has nightmares of the implications of what he did, mostly because [[spoiler:it was a world where Yuki Nagato had her fondest wish: being human and quite possibly in love with Kyon.]]
25[[/folder]]
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27[[folder:Comic Books]]
28* In the "ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse" arc of Creator/MarvelComics, set in a changed present where Charles Xavier was killed in the past, Magneto and Rogue have a son. The Time Traveler Bishop wants to change things back. Magneto supports Bishop in this, but reminds him that if they succeed, his son will be gone forever. Presumably this also bothered some writers, who later wrote that this world continued to exist as an AlternateUniverse. (Btw, Jean Grey stopped the nukes in the end.)
29* Franchise/TheDCU explored ''part'' of this with alternate timelines where good versions of Doomsday and Vandal Savage change things back; ironically back to where they are villains.
30* The end of Creator/NeilGaiman's ''ComicBook/{{Marvel 1602}}'' sets right the circumstances that caused the temporal divergence that brought about the 'Age of Marvels' in the Elizabethan era. Thus, the timeline is overwritten, and history proceeds as necessary. The Watchers, however, step in and save the 1602 world as a pocket universe, kept in a glass globe by this version of Uatu.
31* ''ComicBook/AstroCity'':
32** Samaritan changes the future into a utopia, but his family was never born, and his old house is replaced with a future Taco Bell.
33** It's revealed in "The Eagle and the Mountain" that this is actually one of Samaritan's powers. No matter what happens in history, he will still exist.
34** One of the most famous issues, "The Nearness of You", has a different version, where a man is haunted by dreams of a woman he never met. [[spoiler:In a previous timeline, she was his wife, but following an off-panel CrisisCrossover, she was erased from existence, leaving only his memories of her.]]
35* Franchise/TheDCU's second {{Chronos}} spent some time trying to change history so his mother wouldn't die in a car accident. He eventually realised that the only way to ensure this was to [[RetGone never be born]]. He still exists as a time traveller, but his history up to the point he found Chronopolis has gone.
36* In the ''ComicBook/JLAAvengers'' story arc, at one point the histories of the DC and Marvel universes were altered by the retroactive effects of a history of the two universes interacting through their respective heroes. When they realized it needed to be fixed, they first asked to see what they were saving. Barry Allen and Superman saw their deaths, Hal Jordan saw that he would become the power-mad Parallax, Hank and Janet Pym saw [[NeverLiveItDown Hank striking Janet]], etc and they realized they were deciding the fates of potentially billions of people. The heroes decided to go forward in spite of what would happen to them.
37* The cost of salvaging anything at all of the original multiverse in ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' was to produce a new single universe and erase the original multiverse entirely from history. So, from a very real standpoint, ''[[PyrrhicVictory nobody]]'' [[PyrrhicVictory survived the original Crisis]] (except Superboy Prime and co., and maybe Power Girl and Psycho Pirate), and all the current heroes are temporal copies of the originals.
38* The ComicBook/YoungAvengers team was started by the time-traveling villain Kang the Conqueror, who got a look at what he was going to grow into and ran away to our time to try and avoid growing into him. Which he did apparently succeed in, but unfortunately no Kang meant that none of the many fights he'd had with ComicBook/TheAvengers over the years and in some way that lead to almost all of them being killed, the small amount of the alternate world we see looking pretty dystopian, and the members of his team who were children of Avengers members (except for the daughter of the one whose death might actually have been ''prevented'' in the new timeline) fading out of existence. He realized that [[ButNowIMustGo he had to go.]] Although we've found out since that he's still time-traveling trying to find a way to avoid becoming a villain, he's just looking for a way that won't wreck things for everyone.
39[[/folder]]
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41[[folder:Fanfiction]]
42* In ''Fanfic/MementoVivere'', a ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' fanfiction, this is a main plot point of the story.
43* A ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' SlashFic called ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9035781/1/Redo Redo]]'' explores this problem. Ed and Al, living TwentyMinutesInTheFuture from the end of the manga/''Brotherhood'', are sent back in time by a rogue alchemist to right before they traveled to Lior. They struggle with how they're now given the opportunity to save some people who died and situations they screwed up the first time, but also need to make sure everything that went ''right'' before does as well.
44* Averted in ''Fanfic/TheThreeWhooves'', where [[spoiler:Three's memory is erased to make sure his experiences don't change his actions]].
45* This weighs on Edward throughout ''Fanfic/MyMasterEd''. [[spoiler: If Ed manages to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong save Xerxes]], Amestris as a country won't exist. If Hohenheim never becomes immortal, he won't live long enough to meet Trisha, and [[RetGone Alphonse will never be born]]. Ed is acutely, ''painfully'' aware of this]].
46* Discussed in ''Blog/AStudentOutOfTime'', where [[VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair Hajime Hinata]] [[spoiler: and a few others]] is sent back in time and decides to try and stop the events leading up to [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt The Tragedy]]. He and his allies are aware that, as horrible as it is, they're also essentially erasing the events that would lead to a lot of people becoming heroes and having families of their own. [[spoiler: Later on, Umeko, who's learned her future self is the one who invented time travel, concludes that if they do change enough, the Tragedy future and everyone there- including the minds of the past versions of the time travelers- will be [[RetGone overwritten by a new future.]]]]
47* In ''Fanfic/StarsEyesOfHeaven'', it's implied that Jotaro for years feared creating the EverybodyLives timeline following ''VideoGame/JoJosBizarreAdventureEyesOfHeaven'' had RetGone his daughter Jolyne, especially after getting into a relationship with Kakyoin and not knowing who her mom was (or learning that it was his platonic roommate Marian was his wife in the original timeline), which ended after the new timeline's Jolyne was born. In ''Demolition Man'', it's revealed he had to consciously make sure his grandfather had his affair with Tomoko Higashikata so that Josuke would be born, despite repeating the same turmoil the Joestar family went through in the old timeline.
48* The ''Literature/FateZero'' fic ''Fanfic/TheSagesDisciple'' has Crow confront Artoria with this dilemma to get her to realize the flaws of her wish.
49* In the ''Anime/LoveLive'' fic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/44932012/chapters/115585708#workskin Nico Lost In Time]]'', one of Nico Yazawa's goals [[MentalTimeTravel after going back to when she was ten-years-old]] is to prevent her father's death from breast cancer. The dilemma is that she arrived before her younger brother Cotaro was even conceived, and the expenses of cancer treatment would delay or even prevent her parents' decision for a fourth child. Nico feels this dilemma is karma for playing God, but considers that any future "Cotaro" would at least grow up with both parents and still be loved by their older sister.
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52[[folder:Film]]
53* [[DiscussedTrope Considered]] in ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' as part of [[spoiler:the plan to extract Infinity Stones from parallel timelines in order to undo Thanos' decimation of half of the universe. When in possession of the colossal, [[RealityWarper reality-warping power]] of the Stones, the team considers, but ultimately decides against the idea of [[CosmicRetcon retroactively undoing Thanos' acts]], because such an act has far too much risk involved for what life has emerged in [[TimeSkip the intervening five years]] (including Tony Stark's daughter and countless other children born in the post-Thanos universe). In the end, they skip attempting any [[CosmicRetcon time-travel-based retcons]], and their final priority is simply restoring the half of the universe that was originally dusted.]]
54* The ending of ''Film/TheButterflyEffect'' invokes this trope: [[spoiler: The main character goes back to the beginning, and ends his lifelong friendship/love (depending on the timeline in question) with the female lead before it starts. It works, but it's obviously a BittersweetEnding. Which is still better than the alternate DownerEnding in which he chooses to kill himself.]]
55* ''Film/StargateContinuum'':
56** Subverted when the government in the new timeline refuse to help the team try to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. To punctuate this, the character who berates them was estranged from his family in the "good" timeline, but HappilyMarried in the altered one. And earlier, the alternate version of Colonel O'Neill that SG-1 encounters in the Arctic didn't tragically lose his son Charlie to a gun accident.
57--->'''Major General Hank Landry''': My goodness, people, the arrogance of what you're asking us to help you do is mind-boggling!
58** And played relatively straight anyway once everything starts going to pot (Ba'al dies, snakeheads attack, Earth in deep trouble). Apparently, ''Earth'' humans (as opposed to "alien" humans) living as slaves under the Goa'uld is not to be thought of - and we'd be better off never existing in the first place.
59* ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' touches on this in the [[ReCut extended "Rogue Cut"]]. When Professor Xavier proposes sending Wolverine back to the 70s to change the past, several of the younger mutants wonder if they'll still exist in the new timeline. They ultimately agree with the plan anyway, since the current timeline is [[CrapsackWorld just so bad]] that they're willing to be erased to fix it.
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62[[folder:Literature]]
63* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'':
64** [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in ''Megamorphs 3''. Some things in the altered future may have been better, many things were worse, but in the end when Jake asked Cassie if they fixed everything, all Cassie could say was that "they put it all back."
65** In ''Megamorphs 2'', this trope is in effect big time, though played...interestingly. To elaborate, the Animorphs go back to the end of the Cretaceous Era and soon discover not one but two sentient alien races who had colonized the Earth. They also soon discover that there is a giant freakin' comet flying through the sky, which [[TheSmartGuy Ax]] informs the group will just barely miss the Earth, based on its trajectory. The two alien races are at war with each other, but with the Animorphs' help, the "good" aliens drive off the "bad" ones. The "bad" ones respond by moving the comet off its path, aiming it towards the Earth in order to wipe out the entire "good" alien population. If you know anything about the age of the dinosaurs, you've probably guessed by now where this is going. The "good" aliens try a last ditch effort to blow the comet back into not hitting the planet and killing them all, but Tobias secretly has Ax rig the explosive to be a dud. Tobias insists that [[IDidWhatIHadToDo he did what had to be done]], realizing that in order for humanity to rise, the Animorphs can't change history such that the "good" aliens (and the dinosaurs) survive, because they know from the lack of either in the present that they don't. Tobias also insists that he didn't consult the others because he didn't want them to live with the guilt of having condemned an entire sentient species to extinction. This still leaves Ax and Tobias with that guilt, and the question of whether dooming one innocent species to ensure their own existence was the right choice. This therefore is the unusual case of ensuring a StableTimeLoop being highly morally questionable.
66* Handily averted in John Birmingham's ''Literature/AxisOfTime'' trilogy, where a multinational fleet from the 21st century ends up in the middle of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII with no way to get back. The question is moot, as the appearance of the fleet results in a battle between them and the American task force heading for Midway. By the time the main characters figure out what happened, history has already been affected in a major way. Also, according to the novel, the characters know they're not really in their own past but in an alternate reality, so any changes they make will not affect their own timeline. For bonus points, Einstein himself confirms this.
67* Discussed and averted in ''Literature/IslandInTheSeaOfTime'' and ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'', both novels involving the permanent transplantation of a modern town to the past. They came to the conclusion that it was a once-in-a-universe cosmic event, so they were astronomically unlikely to go back, therefore they didn't have to worry about changing the future because they'd already changed it by their very presence.
68* Addressed in Creator/OrsonScottCard's novel ''Literature/PastwatchTheRedemptionOfChristopherColumbus'', where the organization that just discovered time travel is quite aware that interfering with the past will erase the existence of everyone in the current timeline and insists on having the world vote on whether or not to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. As humanity is facing imminent extinction anyway at that point, the vote passes. It should be noted that, at first, they ask scientists to make sure that there's only one reality. This takes years, but eventually scientists confirm that time travel will not result in a separate timeline but will rewrite reality. How they can possibly confirm this is anybody's guess. The scientists also have to figure out how to send three people into the past at the same time. It has to be at the same time right down to the millisecond, as any difference would mean that two of the people would cease to exist along with this reality the moment one of them goes into the past. They make sure to measure the cables to be as identical as possible (despite the fact that an electrical impulse travels at the speed of light). Even then, the lead physicist admits that, in the end, they have to trust the universe to allow the "moment" to stretch to allow all three to make it through before reality is erased.
69* ''Literature/TheRifter'': Faced head-on. John, by going to Basawar at an earlier point than the point where he got the key to the gates from Kyle, changes history (and creates an alternate version of Kyle who never traveled to Nayeshi and lost the key); on the whole, the new history is for the better (thanks to American liberalism, the power of love, and perhaps the providence of Parfir), but bad things happen too -- for example, John destroys northern Basawar and all its living things, which wouldn’t have happened in the original time.
70* In the Creator/PeterDavid Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse novel ''Imzadi'', Admiral Riker wants to go back some thirty years to the time of late-season [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]] to save Deanna's life, since he believes someone already altered time by traveling back to kill her; Data objects on these grounds. When it's done and everybody has time-traveled home, the Guardian of Forever--time-travel mechanism of choice today--points out that "All is as it was." When asked why it didn't bother to mention that yes, Riker was restoring the proper flow of history, it answers [[spoiler:YouDidntAsk]].
71* In the ''Literature/TimePatrol'' short story "Delenda Est", rogue time travelers interfere with the outcome of the Punic Wars, resulting in a present that's nearly unrecognizable to the Manse Everard and his fellow Time Patrolmen. They acknowledge that setting the timeline right will result in everyone from the new present day getting erased from existence. But they regard this as a regrettable but necessary sacrifice, and go through with it. Van Sarawak rescues ''one'' native of this new timeline (because you AlwaysSaveTheGirl), and Everard can't bring himself to fully explain to her why she can't go back home.
72* In ''Literature/TheTimeShips'', the Time Traveller's second trip into the future sends him to a completely different world from the one he remembers. He concludes that with every use of the time machine he is potentially committing murder on an unimaginable scale and vows to prevent himself from ever creating the machine. Later subverted when it turns out that the many worlds model is in effect.
73%% This is a zero context example, please elaborate before unhiding:
74%% * [[spoiler:Edeard]] encounters this in the ''Literature/VoidTrilogy''.
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77[[folder:Live Action TV]]
78* Acknowledged and arguably justified in an episode of ''Series/{{Buffy|the Vampire Slayer}}'', involving not time travel but alternate realities. In the Season Three episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E9TheWish The Wish]]", Cordelia wishes that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, creating an alternate reality in which the town is overrun by vampires. Alt-Giles figures out how to reverse the effect, but at the last second, the demon responsible for it tries to stop him, asking why he thinks the alternate (original) universe is any better than the one he knows. Giles' response? "Because it has to be."
79* This is the main focus of ''Series/{{Continuum}}''. The protagonist is thrown back in time with a group of {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s who wish to avert the dystopian future. She is faced with the dilemma of either trying to stop them and preserve her future at any cost, or trying to make the future a better place by preventing historical disasters and/or preventing murders. However, there are several added hurdles:
80** The series steadfastly refuses to explain how exactly time travel works, meaning the characters have no idea if they can change the future or not.
81** The protagonist begins the series believing that while her time isn't perfect, it still is worth saving. That is until she is forced to reassess her world and the horrible things that take place there.
82** If the future does change, then her son, husband, and family will be erased from existence.
83** If the future can be changed, then it changed the moment the time travel occurred.
84* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
85** First turns up in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks "Genesis of the Daleks"]]. The Doctor is given an opportunity (an order, even) to prevent or seriously alter the creation of the Daleks. The only obvious downside is that at that point the Daleks hadn't done anything wrong (yet), and so he'd be committing genocide against a thus-far innocent race, who he knew would turn evil and try to wipe out entire species... [[spoiler: he didn't, merely delaying their development for a while, for which [[TimeyWimeyBall causality]] is thankful]]
86*** And according to {{fanon}}, enabling Davros to survive when his creations turned on him. When he was revived later in the original series, he eventually plunged the Daleks into civil war and undercut their threat to the universe for some time.
87** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E8FathersDay "Father's Day"]]: Rose can't save her father from dying. In this case, it's enforced in part by the ClockRoaches that begin to devour people to "sterilize the wound" caused by the paradox she created.
88** Done beautifully in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E2TheFiresOfPompeii "The Fires of Pompeii"]]. The Doctor is saddled with the choice of not setting off Vesuvius, thereby saving Pompeii, or sending those people to their deaths in order to keep history intact [[spoiler:and to keep the Pyroviles from conquering Earth. Finally, with support from Donna, he sets off the volcano.]]
89** Comes up again later in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E16TheWatersOfMars "The Waters of Mars"]], only this time, [[spoiler:the Doctor changes history by choosing to intervene.]]
90* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': Several have tried to save the past...and ''all'' fail miserably and ''cause'' the event, since everything that has or will happen has already happened. Most notably, Daniel's attempts to [[spoiler:reset time so that 815 never crashed by stopping the Incident]] not only results in [[spoiler:his death]], but probably ''caused'' the Incident, since [[spoiler:we see Pierre lose his arm]], a event referenced in the very first episode with him in it.
91* ''Series/TheOrville'': Lost in the 21st century thanks to time travel, Gordon eventually adopts an identity as a pilot and raises a family, despite the risk of a TemporalParadox. When Captain Mercer finds him and he refuses to return, Mercer takes a drastic measure - travel to a week after the time Gordon "landed" and rescue him, before his children were even born. Alternate past Gordon becomes so furious about the plan, he goes as far as wanting to shoot Mercer.
92* ''Series/StargateSG1'' does it in the episode "2010" with Carter's husband wondering if the other timeline will really be better and what happens to them if the plan succeeds. Carter then bluntly tells him that "they" won't exist or exist but in a different way and that the new timeline cannot be worse than the absolutely certain destruction of humanity in less than 200 years. As we know, despite the new enemies appearing later on, she was entirely right.
93* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
94** Played straight in the episode "Timeless", in which Harry Kim is driven to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, a mistake on his part which killed the crew except for him and Chakotay who were in the Delta Flyer, but both Chakotay and his girlfriend know that this will cause them never to meet. Starfleet also saw it as dangerous and sent [=LaForge=] to stop them. This is fully discussed by [=LaForge=] himself, who says he completely understands what they are trying to do and would [[NotSoDifferentRemark do the same thing in their place]], but he has to think of the timeline and his own crew who will be changed by this.
95** Voyager also had a story arc ("Year of Hell", parts 1 and 2) about an an alien WellIntentionedExtremist who built a weapon that could erase things from history; his intent was to get rid of his species' enemies, but failed to realize that interbreeding with them in the past gave his species an immunity to a specific disease which ended up killing his wife in the altered timeline, leaving him continuously trying to undo the damage by erasing more civilizations. Ironically, even after hundreds of years doing this he never realized what he really needed to erase was [[spoiler:the weapon itself. Once Voyager's attack causes it to malfunction and erase itself from history, everything he ever changed returns to normal]].
96** [[MyFutureSelfAndMe Admiral Janeway's]] plan in the finale "Endgame" is to send Voyager home NOW. Captain Janeway points out that she did get Voyager home after another sixteen years. The plot takes over before they get too philosophical, to the disappointment of many watching.
97** In another ''Voyager'' episode, a NegativeSpaceWedgie splits the ship into various time periods, through which only Chakotay may pass. At the end, Janeway from just before the mission wants to have the ship be restored to ''her'' time, thus preventing the ship from being trapped in the Delta Quadrant. Chakotay refuses, claiming that they have helped far too many people in the Delta Quadrant to erase this, as well as the fact that it would add yet another complication into an already-risky solution. (He conveniently neglects to mentions that his own ship would still be trapped in the Delta Quadrant if they follow Past!Janeway's plan.)
98*** In the same episode, Seska attempts to do the same thing after realizing that Chakotay's timeline means that he and the others must have taken the ship back from the Kazon. Fortunately, Chakotay and Janeway had anticipated that she might try to backstab them and had a plan in place to stop her.
99** The same thing is proposed by a Past!Romulan commander who ends up communicating with Present!''Voyager'' through a NegativeSpaceWedgie. He offers to warn Starfleet of ''Voyager''[='s=] fate just before the launch, but Janeway refuses. It would have been moot anyway, as Tuvok reveals later that, according to historical data, the commander died long before the ''Voyager'' was launched.
100* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Both defied and downplayed in "Tapestry". Picard's artificial heart is damaged and he's about to die, so Q gives him the opportunity to change his past to prevent the injury that led to him getting the transplant. Picard worries that any action he'll take in the past could have disastrous consequences, but Q brushes him off with, "Nothing you do will cause the Federation to collapse or galaxies to explode. To be blunt, you're not that important." But while it doesn't have disastrous consequences for anyone else, the consequences to Picard's own life after not getting in the fight that caused the injury are so bad he immediately asks Q to change it back even if he does die.
101* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Children of Time" has the Defiant crash on a world populated by the crew's descendants (and a future Odo), thanks to a time loop. The characters decide they have no choice but to make sure these people live, and prepare to trap themselves in the past. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, future Odo couldn't stand to let Kira die again, so he screws with the ship, allowing it to escape and erase the entire colony. Kira doesn't take it well.]]
102* Discussed in the ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'' episode "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow". La'an suddenly finds herself in an alternate timeline, and then she and that timeline's version of Kirk go back in time to the point of divergence. Kirk points out that if they succeed in restoring La'an's timeline, his own will be erased, so he doesn't actually have any reason to help her. La'an has to sell him on how much better her timeline is to get him on board, though it is the revelation that his brother is still alive in her timeline that [[BigBrotherInstinct fully convinces him]].
103* In the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode "The Song Remains the Same", the angel Anna goes back in time to kill John and Mary Winchester before Sam and Dean are born in order to prevent Sam and Dean from kickstarting the Apocalypse. Sam and Dean follow her to save John and Mary but take the opportunity to try to convince Mary to remain childless, as Sam and Dean are willing to cease to exist to stop the Apocalypse. This plan fails because the angel Michael, who is pro-Apocalypse, stops Anna and erases John and Mary's memories of the event.
104* Happens two times in ''Series/TheXFiles'':
105** In "Synchrony", a researcher travels from the future to destroy his own research because of the chaos created by practical time travel in his future.
106** Subverted in "Triangle" in which Mulder, as the time traveler, attempts to prevent Nazi agents from stealing "Thor's Hammer," a supposed superweapon aboard a cruise ship. [[spoiler:It was AllJustADream...or was it?]]
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109[[folder:Video Games]]
110* It's implied in a letter from Lucca in ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' that the main characters of ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' have to die as karmic punishment for changing the future. This trope is the springboard for the entire plot of ''VideoGame/CrimsonEchoes''.
111* Aversion: Not TimeTravel, but worth commenting on; an AssPull justification that Marche of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' gives regarding changing Ivalice back into [[UpTheRealRabbitHole "The Real World"]] is that surely the MagicalLand Ivalice will continue to exist as AnotherDimension after he destroys it.
112* ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers of Time/Darkness/Sky'':
113** The game reveals in its final chapter that [[spoiler: because you, Grovyle, and Dusknoir all came from the future, the three of you will be erased from the timeline if the Time Gears are returned. The player character gets better.]]
114** One of the bonus chapters in ''Sky'' reveals that even though the BadFuture was prevented, it still exists in some other universe. [[spoiler: It gets fixed in this universe too]], but thinking about this further can lead to the conclusion that it might still be sticking around in ''other'' universes.
115* In Telltale's ''VideoGame/BackToTheFutureTheGame'', First Citizen Brown (an alternate version of Doc) pulls this on Marty when he discovers that, in Marty's timeline, [[spoiler:Brown's wife Edna is a lonely batty mess]]. It turns out that Marty inadvertently fixes things anyway, as [[spoiler:Marty inadvertently fixes up Edna with Kid Tannen, and they end up being moderating influences on each other.]]
116** There are other sides to Citizen Brown's chastising. Returning everything to Marty's timeline would erase Brown (that is, replace him with Doc Brown from the first two episodes, who has a different personality) and his family and everything in his world. He bitterly concludes that his opinion doesn't matter, because Marty will erase him anyways.
117* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2:'' Our heroes Serah and Noel are trying to prevent a bad future in which the human race dies out. The secondary villain, however, believes that they do not exist in any of the timelines which lead to the good future, and tries to sabotage Serah and Noel.
118* The second expansion of ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', ''Cosmos in the Lostbelt'', has wildly divergent {{Alternate Timeline}}s competing to replace the entirety of human history. The protagonists are fighting for the original timeline, but they inevitably make friends and allies as they explore each timeline. Unfortunately the mechanics of timelines in this game demand that all of them be erased in order to bring back the original timeline. It's suggested that the protagonists keep seperate from the inhabitants of each one to avoid having to repeatedly face this dilemma, but rejected because of the need to understand what's going on.
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123* The second half of ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'' revolves around this. Realizing that the D-Mail experiments he's been conducting help cement a BadFuture [[spoiler:and guarantee the death of his childhood friend]], Okabe has to negate each one in order to avoid it. The problem? Most of those D-Mails altered the past in ways that granted his friends a good deal of happiness - including his own, as [[spoiler:the first D-mail prevented the death of the woman he's fallen in love with.]]
124* Discussed and averted in ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. [[spoiler:Although the goal of the AB project is to prevent the release of the Radical-6 virus, the timelines in which Sigma and Phi failed to do so still exist. Phi talks to you about it briefly as part of the Multi-World Interpretation, and Tenmyouji and Quark talk about it during the Golden Ending, and some ethical implications thereof.]]
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128* ''Webcomic/GeneralProtectionFault'' had a massive story arc in which the future son of the two main characters went back in time to prevent his BadFuture from occurring, knowing full well (and accepting) the fact that doing so was likely wipe him from existence. [[spoiler:It didn't. Probably. That arc was running on weapons-grade MindScrew towards the end.]]
129* Briefly addressed in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''. The cast didn't dwell on it much, probably because their universe was doomed anyway. Though [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-04-10 the metaphor used]] when he makes the jump softens the blow. It also helps that it had only been a few weeks.
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133* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In "[[Recap/AdventureTimeS5E1FinnTheHuman Finn the Human]]", Jake is in a PlaceBeyondTime, looking at the disastrous consequence of Finn's wish that the [[BigBad Lich]] never existed. [[BenevolentGenie Prismo]] can still grant Jake's wish to fix things, but points out how dangerous timeline alteration are, which is so intimidating Jake {{Stress Vomit}}s.
134-->'''Prismo''': There's rules to this stuff. Wishing an event to be changes elements before and after it; memories will be destroyed, ''[[RetGone babies will not be born!]]'' [[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds Potential]] ''[[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds worlds]]'' [[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds could be]] ''[[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds evaporated.]]'' [[PunctuatedForEmphasis By. Your. Wish.]]
135* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'':
136** "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS1E24To26TheSavageTime The Savage Time]]": Defied, as Alternate Batman doesn't like living in an authoritarian regime after the Allies lost UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and gladly accepts ceasing to be if it means achieving victory.
137--->'''Martian Manhunter''': You understand that if we do change the past, you -- this version of you -- will never have existed?\
138'''Alternate Batman''': ''Nothing'' would make me happier.
139** When Alternate Batman mentions that his parents were killed for opposing the government, he later seems hopeful that they'll have survived if the Justice League changes the past. Superman tactfully mentions that this may not be the case ([[DeathByOriginStory they don't]]).
140* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeriesS1E2Yesteryear Yesteryear]]", when Spock is erased from the timeline, his role as the first officer of the ''Enterprise'' is taken by another figure, an Andorian named Thelen. Restoring the timeline to its undamaged state means also removing him from it. It's not made clear what precisely this entails, but least he accepts his fate bravely and Spock wishes him a long and prosperous life in whatever circumstances he will be placed in. (Like most ''Trek'' time travel, it's unclear whether or not he got to stick around in a [[AlternateHistory divergent timeline.]])
141* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'': It never seems to occur to Jack that, if he succeeds in going back in time and stopping Aku, all the people who he meets and helps in "the future that is Aku" will not exist in the new timeline. [[spoiler:This becomes extremely relevant in the last two minutes of the show.]]
142* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': in the ''After Covid'' special, adult Cartman refuses to join his friends' plan to go back in time and end the pandemic in 2021 because it'll mean he might never meet his wife and father his three kids (and to a lesser extent, never mature from his bratty, racist past self). [[spoiler: In the end, his wife convinces him to go along with the plan, only for him to be proven right - the new good future is better for everyone else, but he ends up homeless.]]
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