Web Video / In Space with Markiplier

Their lives are in your hands, Captain.

Good morning, Captain. We are currently <ERROR> years into our journey. Coffee is en route. Current ship status is <ABSOLUTELY CATASTROPHIC>. Initializing Emergency Wakey-Wakey Protocol...

— The Computer

In Space With Markiplier is a multiple-part YouTube Original feature created by Mark Fischbach, and a sequel to A Heist with Markiplier. Part 1 premiered on April 4th, 2022; Part 2 premiered on May 2nd, 2022.

The series is shown in First-Person Perspective, where the protagonist is the Captain of the Colony Ship Invincible II on their first and last day of duty. You're given a tour by the Head Engineer Mark, right before you realize everything has Gone Horribly Wrong.

Tropes found in In Space With Markiplier:

• Actor Allusion:
  • The ship's Computer is voiced by Steve Taylor, the narrator of the Kurzgesagt series.
  • Brian Wecht and Dan Avidan are credited as background extras Ninja Crew and Sex Crew respectively.
  • Matthew Patrick is credited as Theory Crew background extra. In Part 2, a whole dimension is one that parodies a Game Theory video as Matt attempts to explain wormholes.
  • Ethan Nestor (CrankGamePlays) plays Agent Crank in a "Where in the World is Markiplier?" bit.
• Adam Westing: Markiplier shows up As Himself in one of the routes, or rather a Nice Character, Mean Actor version of himself who is a Mean Boss to his film crew and is apparently on parole for some unknown crime.
  • In Part 2, you encounter Mark sitting on a bed, bawling his eyes out and listening to music on his headphones. The song in question is 'Other Side of the Screen' by Emily Scholz, and this entire scene is a reference to/parody of Mark's 8 million subscriber milestone video, in which he cried like a baby. His reaction here is exaggerated for comedy.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Computer prevents you from accessing Asteroid Defense System via turrets due to malfunction. Even when it's not malfunctioning, it's pretty useless all around.
• Aliens Are Bastards: In one route the crew is kidnapped by alien poachers for their Gladiator Games.
• Alien Sky: In one route, the crew colonize a planet with a brown dwarf looming in the sky.
• All Just a Dream: In one dimension in Part 2, the Captain wakes up as a small child in bed as their father enters the room, asking if they had the nightmare about being on a spaceship again, suggesting that everything before was just a child's dream.
  • It's subtly implied in Part 2's Golden Ending that the entire series was just a dream the Captain was having in cryo sleep...until Markiplier thanks the Captain for not giving up on him.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: Your first decision: do you put out the fire on the bridge, or repair the damaged life support system? If you choose the former, the latter ends up killing you in short order.
• Ambiguous Time Period: No time frame is given for the events of the story. According to invokedWord of God, Burt, Gunther, and Celci were all born in the 2040s, so presumably the series is set in the late 21st century.
• And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: Old Mark's mug in the diner reads "I Destroyed The Universe And All I Got Was This Stupid Mug".
• Anyone Can Die: Invincible II has two dozen crew members, 100,000 sleeping colonists, and one dog. The series trailer makes it very clear that nobody is safe. Mark dies immediately... just before the "Groundhog Day" Loop kicks in.
• Apocalypse How:
  • Celci warns that trying to blow up the wormhole could cause a false vacuum collapse if they're not careful, which would create an expanding bubble of nothingness that would eventually destroy the universe.
  • In the true ending of Part 1, Mark's attempt to stop the wormhole creates a Time Crash that destroys the multiverse — though apparently not all of it, as seen in the Sequel Hook.
  • In Part 2, the multiverse is on the verge of total collapse, with only a handful of timelines barely holding on. You are repeatedly thrown through them via either wormholes or reality glitches, and by the end, only one timeline remains.
• Arc Words:
  • "Have we been here before?"
  • "Don't open the door."
  • "So much trouble, all for something so small."
  • "Everything has to end," and, "Everything has to begin."
• Artifact of Doom: The gem used to create the warp core. It's implied that it's the same gem on the box in A Heist with Markiplier. It would explain how the contents of the box keep changing depending on the chosen path.
• Asteroid Thicket: An early crisis is the Asteroid Defence System going down in the middle of a meteor storm.
• A-Team Firing: The Sentry Guns have absolutely abysmal aim, which they try — and usually fail — to make up for with volume of fire. Basically the only way to die to them is to stand still and let them hit you.
• Author Appeal: Markiplier's most frequently mentioned dream is to be in space. While it is not actually filmed in space, the series gives Mark a chance to live out his oldest fantasy.
• Award-Bait Song: "The Last Goodbye" by The Gregory Brothers, which plays over the second half of Part 2's ending credits. It was apparently supposed to appear in the series proper, but Mark cut it due to Soundtrack Dissonance.
• Be as Unhelpful as Possible: The ship's computer is pretty consistently useless, even when it's not malfunctioning.
  Mark: Computer, what's the status of the warp core?
  Computer: Error: warp core cannot be reached.
  Mark: Clarify?
  Computer: Warp core. Cannot. Be reached.
  Mark: (exasperated) Okay, can you at least tell us if it's gonna blow up?
  Computer: No.
  Mark: (hopeful) No, it's not gonna blow up?
  Computer: No.
  Mark: THEN WHAT GOOD ARE YOU, YOU STUPID ROBOT!
• Big "NO!": One crewmember does this when another is seemingly killed in the shuttle's landing at the very beginning. Mark also does this whenever the Captain chooses to "Fix it from the Outside" (read: deliberately get Thrown Out the Airlock)
• Big Red Button: A giant Self-Destruct button appears on ship's controls in one of the routes in the Captain's attempt to Screw Destiny in front of the almighty narrator.
• Blamed for Being Railroaded: Being the Captain of Invincible II and taking full responsibility, the characters blame them for many problems appearing in the series even if they didn't cause them or had no option to avoid them.
• Bookends: Part 2 starts and ends with the Captain and Old Mark having a heart to heart at a restaraunt.
• Breather Episode: One of the "Left" paths in Part 2 re-connects you with the Bandit and Wug, both of whom are happy to see you (the former in particular Took a Level in Kindness since you last met). The only "danger" in this scene is when Wug tries to hug you at the end.
• Brick Joke: Celci denigrates Mark's engineering skills, like putting windows on a spaceship, even with automatic blast shields. If you thaw her out after he's dead, she correctly assumes that's the cause.
• Call-Back:
  • Mark's crew ID (M2702) is the same prisoner ID from A Heist with Markiplier.
  • In one route, the Captain finds themselves on the recording set of In Space with Markiplier, and briefly encounters an actor version of Mark who is apparently playing the part of the Head Engineer. This mirrors an ending in A Date with Markiplier where the player character could get a similar peek behind the scenes and encounter a similar version of Mark. This Mark even mentions he has a month left of parole, while the Mark from Date (which was uploaded roughly five years prior to this series debuting) had five years of parole still to go.
  • The "Romance" choice in Part 2 leads to a skit titled "An Evening with Markiplier" that acts like a sequel to A Date with Markiplier.
  • The "Where in the World is Markiplier?" skit is a continuation of A Heist with Markiplier from the perspective of the police force.
  • Yancy's appearance acts as a continuation to the "I Want To Be Free" ending from Heist
  • The Jims somehow appear in the U.S.A. in Part 2.
  • When Darkiplier appears in The Stinger and obtains the warp crystal, he repeats a notable line from his appearance in Heist: "So much trouble, all for something so small."
  • Wilford Warfstache's apperance in Part 2 is one to Wilford 'MOTHERLOVING' Warfstache. In the background the player can hear Wilford and Abe's voices from their first confrontation and the Wilford the player speaks too is actually the Wilford who appeared behind Abe and went behind the curtain. There's also another call back when Wilford says that he'll schedule your interview with him for October 30th, 2019.
• The Cameo:
  • Illinois from Heist shows up in one of the endings, and Ed's corpse is briefly seen on the bridge when you return to the ship with the Bandit in tow.
  • Darkiplier makes a brief appearance in The Stinger of Part 2, though we see no more than their shoe and hand.
• Cartoon Bomb: One path in Part 1 involves a bomb that you can use to blow up the reactor.
• Central Theme: Choices and Responsibility. Turns out the whole shebang was caused by Mark, when he chose to try and fix the problem that he blamed on the Captain, and really just kept making things worse. The only way to fix everything is to keep him from trying again, on the advice of his older self who broke the multiverse while under the same misapprehension, but now recognizes his mistake.
  • According to Mark himself in this stream, the story is about the illusion of choice (or lack thereof). He said the only way to make a cohesive narrative in an interactive medium is to make the illusion of choice a part of the story, including the "inconclusivity of the story".
• Chekhov's Gun: The "Event Horizon Protocol" — using explosives to separate the warp drive from the rest of the ship — becomes relevant in a few different routes, and in the true ending of Part 1, Mark defeats you by implanting one of the charges into a fake hand, which he then tricks you into holding.
• Crash in Through the Ceiling: Gunther does this when the Captain wakes him up
• Colony Ship: Invincible II's mission is to safely deliver 100,000 people sleeping in Cryo to a new planet.
• Continuous Decompression: Immediately after first awakening from Cyro sleep, a window breaks on the ship, sucking Markiplier out into space.
• Contrasting Replacement Character: In one Part 2 path, Mark is replaced by Mack, who unlike the Head Engineer in the main timeline, has everything under control, is a Smug Snake who orders the crew instead of the Captain, and builds an Egopolis for himself when Invincible II establishes a colony with the Captain as his slave.
• Conveniently Close Planet: If you use the "Event Horizon Protocol" to get clear of the wormhole, the ship is deposited in a system with a habitable planet, one even more idyllic than the one Mark had chosen.
• Cool Starship: The Invincible II is quite an impressive ship, warts and all.
• Cover Drop: The thumbnail for Part 1 shows Mark being pulled into a black hole, with the Captain hanging on. This happens at a rather insignificant point, lasting only a few seconds. The thumbnail for part 2, on the other hand, showing Mark again being pulled into a wormhole with the Captain holding on, occurs at the climax
• Creator Cameo: One route briefly takes place in the series' recording set, with Markiplier As Himself reading the script.
• Darker and Edgier: The higher body count, higher stakes, and an incredibly grim ending for Part 1 easily make this the darkest "With Markiplier" installment thus far.
• Dark Reprise: "Space Was Cool", a version of the series theme (itself based on "Space Is Cool" by The Gregory Brothers) that plays in one of the final branches of Part 2 as the universe is about to die.
• Deadly Euphemism: "Fix it from outside", which amounts to throwing yourself out an airlock to kill yourself and reset the time loop.
• Death Amnesia: Averted and discussed with the Bandit. After the Captain blows up the ship and seemingly causing a reset, Mark asks the Bandit if she remembers dying. She claims she doesn't and that you're not supposed to remember dying, but it's clear she very much does, contributing to her Sanity Slippage.
• Death Notification: The Captain writes a message to Chica, Mark's dog, after pushing Mark to fix the Cryo to inform her of her owner's demise. To the Captain's surprise, Mark gets the job done.
• Downer Ending: Part one ends with you failing to shut down the warp drive in all of Act 2's main endings, causing a massive time paradox that destroys the universe. However, The Stinger reveals someone is rebooting the universe, which will complete on May 2, 2022.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Humorously lampshaded when you first encounter Wilford Warfstache, who scolds you for finding him too early and promises to meet you properly in "Part 2".
  • When you first arrive, among the crew you can notice the old version of Mark from the Part 1's ending.
  • If you take the route where you repeatedly send Mark in to fix the spaceship's various malfunctions, you'll catch a very quick glimpse of Ms. Whitacre in the hallway that leads to the main control room.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Part 2 puts you through the grinder after everything that happened in Part 1, going as far as to bat you around the multiverse before you realize what is actually happening. Eventually, you meet up with the elderly Mark who very nearly broke the multiverse entirely in Part 1, coming to terms with his guilt over the Time Crash and begging you to stop him from breaking everything. Should you heed his advice and stop his younger self from going back, the paradox is ultimately resolved and the multiverse is once again stable. Better yet, the entire crew of the Invincible^note the screen in your cryo chamber indicates that you are on the original Invincible instead of the Invincible II have survived their journey, your colonization efforts succeed, and you make amends with Mark as you look over your new home planet.
• Easter Egg: Several routes have shout-outs to things like video games or other of Markiplier's works. One branch in Act 2 goes so far as to parody this by presenting a paper face-mask of Warfstache and promising that it ties together every piece of lore in the universe before railroading you back to the plot.
• Evil Laugh: Mack in Part 2 gives an exaggerated laugh when he shows that the Captain is not in control of the ship.
• Explosions in Space: In several paths, the entire spaceship blows up in a grand popcorn-style explosion.
• Fake Interactivity:
  • At one point you're given a choice between "Jump In" and "Cannon Ball" while facing a wormhole, but those are in-video boxes, not something that can be clicked on.
  • "Romance" and "Horror" bits show several pairs of choices that, once again, are part of the video and not functional annotations.
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: The Warp Core allows the ship to open a wormhole and travel between the stars.
• Film Noir: Parodied in one route, where everything is in black and white, the computers look like newspapers, the blast shields look like window blinds, pretty much everyone is wearing fedoras, and there are lots of guns and alcohol. One of your choices in this route is to shoot the wormhole, after which the wormhole shoots you back with a tommy gun.
• Fingore: Part 2 starts similarly to Part 1, but the Shuttle Pilot is outside and hanging onto the window, then the shutters close and only his fingers remain. Then he reappears next to you, none the worse for wear.
• 420, Blaze It: One of the two lengths for the Fake Interactivity choices is 4:20.^note The other is 3:14 (pi).
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The cryo control tablet shows the names of a few crew members. Mark is called Markiplier even In-Universe.
  • From their tablet, Captain can penalize Mark for a lot of things, including "inability to scrub hard enough", "died without permission", and "dared to challenge the Captain to a contest of strength".
  • One of the sticky notes on the lockers says, "Warfstache was here! Captain call me 555-2702"^note M2702 is Mark's crew tag.
  • At the beginning of Part 2, the Dad goes through several bedtime storybooks, which show the thumbnails of Markiplier's older live-action videos.
  • Later in Part 2, during a cameo appearance, Warfstache is seen holding the tasteful nudes calendar that Mark made for his 20M subscriber special.
• Funny Background Event:
  • One of the crewmates is in critical condition from the shuttle's landing, and apparently dies off-screen, but the medic's melodramatic Big "NO!" and Mark talking over it make it funny.
  • In the "A Murder With Markiplier" skit, a smiley face made of police tape is briefly visible in an otherwise serious moment.
• Genre Shift:
  • One route is a Parody of the Film Noir style, being Deliberately Monochrome, with everyone somehow wearing longcoats, flat hats, and all the monitors looking like newspaper.
  • Another route is presented like a Hand Puppets show.
  • Exaggerated in Part 2, which due to the rapidly destabilizing multiverse has you constantly jumping to different genres between, or sometimes even in the middle of scenes.
• Gilligan Cut: You are able to jump back into the wormhole with Mark a handful of times. Each time, Mark boasts that they're sure to find the warp core. Cut to the Captain and Mark in some kind of calamity.
• Given Name Reveal: Full names of all characters are shown only in the credits.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: When the Captain dies anywhere in the first portions of the series, they're brought back to the moment they and Mark are released from the cryo pods, with some memories of the route. In some routes, though, they wake up in a timeline where the ship is entirely empty.
  • Deconstructed; As Lady eloquently points out, you aren't experiencing time loops; you are going through multiple different timelines as a result of the Time Crash from the wormhole your ship opened. She even calls you and Mark out on your own recklessness over jumping through so many different variations without any regard for their inhabitants.
  • The whole series is this if you choose to Let Go of Mark. His attempts to fix the multiverse is what dooms it from the start. The only way to break the loop is to Hold On and resolve the paradox.
• Hope Spot: One route is presented like a good ending: You wake up the crew and together you avert the crisis, everyone does a "YEAH!" Shot, a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue is given through GIS Syndrome, and you die of old age. Then you wake up back in the broken ship.
  • Later on, the Captain and Mark are thrown into the wormhole by an explosion. Mark sees what appears to be the door leading to the warp core. Just as he proclaims "Maybe we're not all gonna die after all", several more doors appear
• Human Popsicle: The Invincible II has 100,000 colonists in Cryo, waiting to settle a new planet. The crew also has to enter Cryo ahead of the warp jump.
• Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: The main incident occurs during an accident in a warp jump. In some routes, ship's malfunctions aren't the only problems.
• In Case of X, Break Glass:
  • The backup radio transceiver is sealed in a glass box that reads "Radio fer callin' aliens".
  • Another box reads "Disguise fer foolin' aliens".
  • Another glass box contains a Cartoon Bomb with a sign "Bombs fer blowin' aliens up". The Captain opens it with a high kick and it lights up itself.
• Inner Monologue: In the Film Noir route, nearly everyone gets one, including Mark, the ship's computer, Wug, and the Bandit. It's clear that everyone can hear everybody else's monologues, but there are apparently rules against paying attention to them.
• Interactive Narrator: One of the routes adds a Narrator. Mark and others can clearly hear him saying that viewers may get bored watching repetitive elements. The narrator is shown to bend reality to their script. In Part 2, he is confirmed to be Dr. Cecil H. H. Mills, and they have a book that makes anything written in it real.
• Ironic Name: It should be fairly obvious that the Invincible II spaceship is anything but invincible. Mark lampshades this in regard to the first Invincible, expressing confidence that this one will finally live up to her name.
• It Has Been an Honor: If your solution to the overloading reactor is to chuck a bomb into the engine room, Celci will stare at you in disbelief for a few seconds before saluting and saying this right before the ship explodes.
• Jump Scare: Opening the door in some of the end routes results in a jumpscare.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: Both endings for Part 2 occur after the last choice of the Part.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The first video's title was changed to "In Space with Markiplier: Part 1" the day after it aired, revealing that there are multiple parts and the main video doesn't lead to a definite ending.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the first video the Shuttle Pilot locks the windows and says they "couldn't afford to show" the landing.
• Leave the Camera Running: The Celci ending is a Non-Standard Game Over, the only one that doesn't result in Universal Collapse, and also the only one that doesn't have credits. Instead, it spends nine minutes inside the cryo pod before Illinois finds it and promptly closes the door again.
• Legacy Vessel Naming: Played for Laughs. The ship in the story is named Invincible II, after her predecessor failed to live up to the name.
  • In Part Two at the Diner, Old Mark is holding a newspaper reading ''INVINCIBLE III: THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM?!''
• Meaningful Background Event: Just as Markiplier and The Captain enter the warp core a figure exits the room. Said person doesn't show up again, which is notable because the operations crew is shown assembled for the Captain's toast. The figure turns out to be an elderly Mark that is here to stop you in the ending.
• Meaningful Rename: A day after the original video came out it was renamed Part 1, making clear that this is only the first series.
• Military Salute: The Shuttle Pilot and the Captain give one to each other. Occurs sometimes with other crew members as well.
• Mind Screw: When the Bandit's portable wormhole generator takes you to a hellish version of the Invincible, things will have started to go very, very wrong, as indicated when you find a second incarnation of Mark in the captain's cryo chamber who insists the one you arrived with isn't him.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: One ending in Act 1 involves the Captain overworking Mark and making him do everything in the colony from building housing to defending against Alien Invasions, all the while being completely dismissive and outright mean to him. After several years of this, Mark smothers the Captain to death with a pillow.
• Multiple Endings: The two acts of Part 1 along with Part 2 have different endings, usually tied into the player's final choice.
  • Act 1 of Part 1
    • If you keep making the "correct" choices for Act 1, the ship is saved without the Captain ever dying and jumping back in time (meaning that Mark remains dead). The colony flourishes thanks to the Captain, and the Captain dies in peace... only for them to be sent back to the disaster after they die, starting Act 2 (this part is shared by all of the following endings).
    • If you send Mark to fix the reactor, Mark saves the ship, but the Captain decides to have Mark do everything when developing the colony and take all the credit. Eventually Mark snaps after too much abuse, smothering the Captain with the very pillow they ordered.
    • If you decide to fix the reactor from outside, the Captain dies and jumps to a timeline where the ship isn't damaged at all. On the colony however, the Captain becomes horrifically paranoid about an unknown threat they call "it", to the point of scouring the entire planet for "it" before letting anyone leave the ship, turning the colony into a strict dictatorship, and ultimately sealing everyone underground in a misguided attempt to protect them from "it".
    • If you decide to blow up the reactor then tell Mark "I believe you" or you keep trying to Wake the Crew after dying, eventually the Captain ends up in a reality where everyone on the Invincible II is gone, spending the rest of their days alone on a dead ship.
    • If you decide to blow up the reactor then tell Mark "This must be a dream", the Captain's delusion results in the Invincible II getting hijacked by aliens, who enslave all the inhabitants and force them to participate in deadly gladiatorial combat, with the Captain killed during a battle while still thinking it's All Just a Dream.
  • Act 2 of Part 1
    • In the main ending, an old man version of Mark is trying to incapacitate you and causes a Universal Collapse after doing so.
    • If you keep trying to push the plot Off the Rails, to the point of ignoring what the Interactive Narrator says and rejecting Ms. Whitacre's portal to the ending, she takes away the Captain's warp device and leaves them alone in the void while Mark causes the Collapse somewhere off-screen.
    • If you keep trying to reason with the crew, during your attempt to try to reason with Celci as she advocates freezing everyone on the ship, the warp device stops working, so the Captain takes the only available choice and enters the cryo pod willingly. This ending has no credits and instead leaves the camera running until Illinois finds you.
  • Part 2
    • If you Let Go of Mark, the paradox continues, with Ms. Whitacre appearing and having a discussion with the Captain about choice before the ship explodes. Then the rest of the video plays out exactly the same as the first video of Part 1, giving the player the same choices at the end as well.
    • If you Hold On to Mark, the paradox ends and he realizes the whole mess is his fault before the ship explodes. Both the Captain and Mark end up in a reality where not only has the entire crew survived, but the ship has reached its target planet in perfect condition, prepared to set up the colony.
• The Mutiny: Gunter and the crew take over the ship in one of the Act 2 routes.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Mark in the true ending of Part 2, realizing he's dedicated countless years to rebuilding the warp core so he can stop you from breaking it and destroying the multiverse, only to figure out he's the one who built it and caused the whole mess in the first place.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The hand bomb that Old Mark gives you plays Mark's familiar "Buh-bye!" before going off.
  • One route features a voice on the other end of a door enticing you with promises to open the door which gives a two-fer. Not only is the door-voice a throwback to Markiplier's "Don't Open the Door" series, the first of its promises is a Shout-Out to Darkiplier.
  • In the Film Noir Parody route in Act 2, Mark talks about asking the captain out on a date, a throwback to A Date with Markiplier. In "Part 2", there's even a Date-inspired route, the "Romance" route.
  • Speaking of "Romance", one of the gifts that Mark gives you in this path is Tiny Box Tim with a bow on his head.
• Negative Space Wedgie: In one of the routes, Mark falls into a wormhole, which temporarily transforms him into various animals.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: In Part 1, an explosive goes off in the Captain's hand, which only ends up briefly incapacitating them and damaging the warp device on their hand
• Noodle Incident: The fate of the first Invincible is teased a few times, but never elaborated on. Interestingly, the Golden Ending for Part 2 suggests (via Freeze-Frame Bonus) that they're somehow the same ship, with the same mission and crew.
• No OSHA Compliance: Invincible II's doom is telegraphed from the start.
  • The shuttle you arrive in crashes into the spaceship. While you and the pilot are unaffected, the dock is on fire and at least one person seems to die.
  • Mark doesn't understand how the Warp Core works, despite serving as the Invincible II's head engineer and the Warp Core being the heart of said ship.
  • Mark's method of splitting off the Core from the rest of the ship involves blowing the corridor to it up. It actually proves to be effective despite the Core seemingly being located somewhere in the middle of the ship.
    • Doing so also seems to require only a quick voice command, with no countdown or confirmation.
      Celci: That's it? You tied explosives to that? No confirmation?
      Mark: It worked, didn't it?
      Celci: I'm gonna kill you.
      Mark: Gunther said it was okay!
  • Mark nonchalantly brushes a few control panels....which shoot sparks immediately afterwards.
  • The condition of life support is unknown. Mark says they’d only know if it was failing when everyone slipped into unconsciousness and died.
  • The windows of the spaceship are apparently made from regular glass, which Celci points out is a structural weakness (and is proven right).
• Offscreen Teleportation:
  • Some crew members somehow get ahead of you to the main deck and have already prepared drinks, despite meeting you previously in the corridors.
  • Some controls on the ship's bridge change depending on the route while the Captain isn't looking. For example, a steering wheel gets added when the Captain decides to reverse into the wormhole and see if it'll get unstuck.
• Ominous Visual Glitch:
  • One is noticeable in the trailer, and turns out to be intentional.
  • In one Part 1 route the various members of the crew suddenly turn into Ms. Whitacre, who then dies. Then you and Mark teleport all over and across time. It only gets more glitchy from there.
  • Part 2 starts with Time Crash still ongoing despite the universal reboot and every scene in the first video constantly swaps with other versions of themselves.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • The Universal Stability Agency and the Lady are only formally introduced in the normal route, which is entirely possible to skip for the variant Film Noir route. Lampshaded during the conversation with the Lady, where the Déjà Vu Markiplier attests to feeling at the sight of the Lady drawing a gun anticipates the audience having encountered her in one of the many other endings where she confronts you—except now you know who the Lady is and what she wants.
  • The first time Mark and the captain encounter Wug, Wug's English will be too broken to understand. He will be more understandable if re-encountered in future loops.
• The Oner: Since the entire series is filmed from the Captain's perspective, there are many long continuous shots, with cuts between takes masked through clever camera movement or objects obscuring the Captain's field of vision for a moment.
• Pizza Boy Special Delivery: In the "Romance" path of Part 2, A Date With Markiplier Mark glitches into a pizza delivery boy, then a plumber, then a doctor, showing up at your door and offering their "services" in a suggestive manner.
• Poor Communication Kills: Everyone wants to stop the wormhole, but thanks to the confusion caused by the ongoing Time Crash, no one has a clear picture of what's going on, resulting in a lot of well-intentioned Gambit Pileups that only make things worse. This culminates in a frail, old version of Mark — presumably from many years (if not decades) into the future — violently subduing you before trying to take the ship outside the universe, resulting in a Reality-Breaking Paradox that destroys said universe.
  • Turns out the Captain and Lady's conflict was caused by a poorly timed warp jump, and was exacerbated by the Captain's nature as a Heroic Mime. When someone asks "don't you want to save the universe?" and you say nothing, it doesn't really look good.
• The Power of the Sun: The ship's reactor is powered by an artificial star of Mark's design.
• Railroading: Unlike A Heist with Markiplier, which puts emphasis on having a lot of Multiple Endings, In Space with Markiplier has one main narrative that leads to the same conclusion, with Story Branching converging on same videos at multiple points.
• Recurring Extra: One crewmate with an injured neck and a crutch reappears occasionally in many routes regardless of the timeline.
• Resurrection Gambit: The Captain can throw themself out the airlock (or through a window) to kill themself and reset the "Groundhog Day" Loop; in fact that's the first thing they do after resurrecting in "Go towards the light".
• Resurrective Immortality: Thanks to wormhole shenanigans, whenever Mark or the viewer die, they wake up back in their cryo pod immediately after the warp jump. Mark is even excited after realizing he's technically immortal.
• Rule of Funny: The doors on the Invincible II require a handprint scan to be opened or closed, though this is sometimes circumvented for comedic effect. In one route, Gunther shoots the handprint scanner. In another, Mark is slammed against one scanner to open the door. Later that same route, another scanner has a fire extinguisher pin thrown at it.
• Running Gag:
  • Everyone perceiving the Captain as "handsome and/or beautiful", and Mark as utterly hideous.
  • Whenever someone starts counting down from five, they are immediately interrupted by whatever the countdown was for.
  • The Lady getting smacked in the head by a metal grate.
• Sanity Slippage: As the situation aboard the Invincible II deteriorates, so too do her crew: Gunther stages a mutiny, Burt uploads himself into the computer and tries to scuttle the ship, and Celci attempts to put the entire crew into cryo against their will so they won't suffer in the time loop anymore.
• Saved for the Sequel: One of the routes reuses the concept of Markiplier's older multi-part video about a monster asking you to open the door for it.
• Screw Destiny: The best endings of both parts come about by standing up for yourself, and defying fate and cosmology itself to do what's right.
• Sentient Phlebotinum: The Warp Core talks to the Captain and gives them a Tricked-Out Gloves version of itself at the beginning of Act 2, asking them to fix the paradox.
• Sentry Gun: The Asteroid Defense System is guarded by two laser turrets, which malfunction and begin to fire on crew members indiscriminately. In Part 2, Old Mark admits that was part of his sabotage in a misguided effort to stop you.
• Sequel Hook: The Interactive Narrator in one of the routes to the ending mentions a Part 2; if you manage to encounter Warfstache, he says his and the viewers' meeting is in Part 2; and the ending concludes with a loading screen that estimates May 2nd as the date the Universe will have finished rebooting. Sure enough, that's when Part 2 debuted.
• Serial Escalation: Following from A Date with Markiplier (10 endings) and A Heist with Markiplier (31 endings), the web series promises to be larger than that.
• Settling the Frontier: The Invincible II's mission is to create the first human colony outside the solar system.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Invincible II closely resembles the Event Horizon in both appearance and function, and like the eponymous ship can use explosive charges to separate the wormhole drive from the rest of the ship in the event of an emergency (which is called the "Event Horizon Protocol").
  • Two of the routes gives a parody of one of Henry Stickmin Series endings.
    Gunther/Wug: This is the greatest plaaaaan!
  • The Captain calls an Emergency Meeting, complete with Among Us visuals.
  • The Lady in Noir route wears the same outfit as Lady Dimitrescu, complete with the pipe.
  • The theme cue of the series matches the first nine notes of the chorus of The Gregory Brothers' "Space is Cool", a song about Mark's love for space.
  • One branch causes a reset that provides you with an irritable Narrator who is also a Medium Aware Control Freak and Reality Warper à la The Stanley Parable.
  • One of the endings is a reference to G-Man at the end of Half-Life, both in the situation (agreeing to step into a wormhole) and the dialogue:
    Whitacre: Wisely done, Captain. Wisely done. I'll see you up ahead.
  • One of the promotional videos released between Parts One and Two states "You do not recognize the bodies in the wormhole", a clear allusion to SCP-2316's "You do not recognize the bodies in the water".
  • An encounter with Lady in Part 2 is visually played out like a Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire battle.
  • A late Part 2 bit plays out like a Game Theory episode.
  • The beginning of Part 2 has the universe reduced to a diner, with which the Captain has a philosophical dialogue inside. This is a Whole-Plot Reference to SCP-4405, albeit with contrasting tones — while 4405 is a discussion about mediocrity and inanity, the dialogue with old Mark in the diner is much more hopeful in nature.
  • While not referred to as such, the aforementioned diner winds up being a literal Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
  • The menu in the diner, briefly visible as a Funny Background Event, includes entries such as:
    • "Sanghelli and Yautja Balls"
    • "Klingon Kasserole"
    • "Ewok Steak Sandwich"
    • "Navi Slaw"
    • "Groot Salad"
    • "Kang & Kodos Cake Slice"
  • If you mock Mark for crying, he stands up and his sobs become more distorted before he suddenly lunges at you, much like SCP-096's behavior in SCP – Containment Breach.
  • One route in Part 2 traps you in a forest, being hunted by HeeHoo.
• Sinking Ship Scenario: The plot of the web serial is centered around the spaceship being damaged mid-route and everyone on board desperately trying to survive. This is because of a Halfway Plot Switch. It ends early, then the REAL plot starts.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Celci's introduction has her trading verbal blows with Mark
  Celci: Captain, all colonists are prepped and stable. 100,000 souls ready for a new life. Let's get them there safe.
  Mark: Oh, don't worry. Before they know it, they're gonna wake up to the sight of a brand new planet...with a fresh cup of coffee in their hands.
  Celci: Why don't you give them more windows to look through?
  Mark: Well, maybe I will! Maybe then, someone might appreciate the aesthetics!
• Stable Time Loop: Of the "bootstrap paradox" variety. The beginning of Part 1 has Mark mention that he didn't build the Warp Core, rather he just found it one day and decided to use it. The mid-point of Part 1 then sees the crystal powering the Warp Core embed itself into the Captain's hand. The climax of Part 2 reveals that Mark did build the Warp Core, but in the future, having thought he rebuilt it when he couldn't find it and thought the Captain destroyed it, taking the crystal from the Captain to power it. If you choose to let go of Mark at the final choice, the Warp Core, the crystal included, proceeds to vanish, being sent back into the past where Past!Mark can find it. As such, there is no "origin" for the idea of the Warp Core nor the physical crystal itself, the latter showing no signs of entropy. If you choose not to let go of Mark, the Warp Core is never sent back, meaning his past self can never find it, and the Reality-Breaking Paradox never occurs, fixing the timeline and erasing the Warp Core from existence. The crystal however does continue to exist somehow, being found by Darkiplier, with the hyperlink for A Heist with Markiplier all but suggesting the crystal would become one of the crystals adorning the box Mark Iplier and his partner try to steal, creating another paradox since that crystal would never be apart of the box were it not for undoing the original paradox, but Mark Iplier already having been arrested for committing that very same heist in one of the routes in Part 2. Headache yet?
• The Stars Are Going Out: In Part 2, thanks to the Time Crash wiping out reality. In the penultimate video, the last of the stars blinks out of existence while the Captain watches.
• The Stinger: After the credits of Part 2, the wormhole crystal is picked up by someone implied to be Darkiplier, who gives the impression he was looking for it. Then it shows a link to A Heist with Markiplier.
• Story Branching: Like A Date with Markiplier and A Heist with Markiplier, the series is presented through unlisted YouTube videos piece by piece, by using cards to select which video to follow after each one.
• Stylistic Suck: One of the possible outcomes from your choices is a version of the story told with crude puppets and illustrated backdrops.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • If you put out the fire before repairing life support, you suffocate and die because there's no oxygen. If you fix life support first, not only do you survive, but the momentary lack of oxygen puts out the fire anyway.
  • If you try to bluff past the sentry turrets by wearing a disguise, they gun you down anyway, because an unknown person is trying to access the Asteroid Defense System.
• Swirly Energy Thingy: The Wormhole looks like a swirl of glowing space when you and Mark jump in and travel through it.
• Temporal Paradox: At multiple points the Captain meets characters from future paths.
• Tempting Fate:
  • What's worse than naming your brand new starship Invincible? Building a second one after the first is lost under mysterious circumstances, and naming it Invincible II.
  • A Running Gag in the "Send Mark in" path. Every time Mark solves a problem and says everything looks good (while giving a thumbs-up), something else immediately breaks.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Once the Captain obtains a portable wormhole device in Act 2, they are able to jump between timelines.
• This Cannot Be!: Said word for word by different characters in "Where in the World is Markiplier?" bit when others pull a Latex Perfection and Triple Undercover reveals.
• Three-Point Landing: In one route, waking up Gunther will lead to him doing this after crashing through the ceiling
• Thrown Out the Airlock: The Captain can do this to themself in a few routes as part of a Resurrection Gambit to reset the "Groundhog Day" Loop.
• The Triple: When the crew leads weigh in on the situation during the emergency meeting.
  Celci: Captain, thank you for such an upfront and thorough explanation of the situation.
  Gunther: The mark of a great leader: always being open and honest with the crew. Never holding anything back.
  Burt: The sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds. A lily that festers smells far worse than weeds.
  Celci: ...what?
• Top-Heavy Guy: The upper body of the chief in the "Where in the World is Markiplier?" route is comically exaggerated.
• Used Future: The Invincible II looks and feels very lived-in, despite being brand new.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
  • Part 1 is structured so that the more reckless the Captain's decisions are, the less they'll understand the underlying story, and the more the other characters will recall of them being a Bad Boss.
  • In the Part 2 scenario where you happen upon Mark crying, if you choose to mock him, the surroundings suddenly horrifically distort before he lunges at you.
• Villainous Breakdown: In the Part 2 route where Mark is replaced by Mack, he will undergo this if you choose to point out that he isn't Mark, with him devolving into megalomaniacal rants as he glitches out, concluding with an emphatic, "THIS IS MY SHIP!" right before he's replaced with Mark.
• Wham Line:
  • The Lady drops a bombshell toward the end of Part 1:
    Lady: How many people have died because of your carelessness? And how many universes have you destroyed?
    Mark: Whoa, whoa, why so mad? We're just gonna reset things and fix it. It's fine.
    Lady: That's... that's not how it works, you reckless, careless, idiotic monsters! These aren't second chances! Every mistake has cost the lives of people who have trusted you! The multiverse is littered with the corpses of your failures!
  • From the very end of Part 2.
    Mark: If I'm not back, then the warp core is not back...I thought— I thought I rebuilt it because you destroyed it...unless... I built the warp core?
• Wham Shot: You die...and wake up in your cryo pod, revealing that you're stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop starting from the moment of the warp jump.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Mark asks "what could go wrong with a crew like this?" A lot of things, as it turns out.
• Wire Dilemma: You come across a bomb in one of the paths in Part 2. Cutting either wire causes it to blow up and send you to camp. You also can cut the yellow wire at the campfire, which causes it to explode and sends you to meet Warfstache.
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: A tragic example. "Lady" holds Mark at gunpoint, and later shoots him, because she's desperate to stop the wormhole from destroying the universe. She doesn't give him or the Captain the chance to explain that they're also trying to stop the wormhole, and her actions ultimately doom the multiverse.

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"Have we been here before?"

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