nonindicative name: Grays Sports Almanac

Relies so much on Back To The Future to work, and even then it's not one of the known items. It also seems to be a fresh trope due to the low wicks. We can do better.

True. While the movies are popular, they're not that popular so that you would remember a single (if important) item in them.

Usage seems low too.

Imporant Item From The Future?

edited 28th Jan '12 7:47:27 AM by Raso

This page has been around for as long as I can remember visiting this wiki. That should make the article somewhere around two years old, minimum.

If anything though, that just enforces the argument for a page having an obscure name for moderately common time-travel trope that just isn't thriving well enough.

edited 28th Jan '12 9:36:45 AM by SeanMurrayI

Agreed on renaming due to obscurity and failure to thrive. For as old as this page is, it's not very healthy.

Really this is a Mac Guffin From The Future so how about that?

Hmm...while that doesn't touch every part of the trope (this is an object from the future that causes an alternate timeline), its still pretty good. Unless someone can think of a better one, that seems like it would work.

Alternate Timeline Inducing Object is correct, but it's a bit clunky.

The other issue with the other suggested title is that the Gray's Sports Almanac can be from the past.

The description does not bring that up at all.

The trope is an item from one time period (say, Alexander Graham Bell's original telephone) is brought back to an earlier time period (say, the Middle Ages) and the presence of this new item radically changes the original timeline.

If the inverse occurs, something from the past is brought to a later time period, there's no guarantee that the presence of the new item is upsetting an originally plotted course of events. The future, in this scenario, is still originally unwritten and is not being rewritten.

edited 28th Jan '12 10:15:25 AM by SeanMurrayI

That's the worst name I can remember seeing, and the lack of wiks underscores the awfulness. The trope itself seems to be valid, though.

Gotcha. I misunderstood it then. Still, the bit about it changing the timeline should be in there.

Almost any object from the future especially if its a MacGuffin will have "change the future" as a tag line somewhere... I don't think we really need to put that in the title.

Anyway some objects from the future might fit into a Stable Time Loop that become a MacGuffin as well to keep that Stable Time Loop which IMO should be covered here too. (That Risa episode in Star Trek TNG with the Tox Utuat (SP) which was a MacGuffin from the future being fought over Picard blew it up like history said he would.)

edited 28th Jan '12 10:35:39 AM by Raso

I'm willing to rename this—I just can't think of a good name to rename it to.

Grays Sports Almanac Changes The Timeline?

edited 28th Jan '12 10:39:52 AM by troacctid

Timeline Coupon?

I think this is currently being covered under the "Object Loop" subcategory of the "Ontological Paradox" subcategory on the Temporal Paradox page.*

In any case, pretty much any examples that can fit the basic concept you're describing could also go there. I know all the examples I'm thinking of could go there.

edited 28th Jan '12 3:54:16 PM by SeanMurrayI

...huh... I always thought it's about objects that are mundane from the future/present being superpowers/advanced when brought to the past.

See, nonindicative name right there!

There is now a single proposition rename crowner for this trope here.

I dont know I still think it is the same thing as this, the "Stable Time Loop" is only revealed after the fact until then it was just a Temporal Mac Guffin wanted by 4 different parties with all the backstabbing accompanied with these because it could change the future.

edited 29th Jan '12 11:23:55 AM by Raso

Perhaps in that particular example. The general idea you suggested though is still basically "Objects that establish a Stable Time Loop", which, more often than not, would probably end up playing out like the pocket watch in Somewhere In Time—old Jane Seymour gives the young Christopher Reeve the watch, he travels back in time to find her, taking the watch with him, and accidentally leaves it in the past, she keeps it, grows old, and the cycle repeats itself (and then you get hit with Fridge Logic when you ask yourself, "Who originally made the watch?").

It's also not entirely related to what this particular page here would cover, since objects in this scenario would specifically create an Alternate Timeline.

EDIT: The watch actually is a MacGuffin, too. And to be fair, a Temporal Mac Guffin, generally speaking, wouldn't necessarily have to create a Stable Time Loop, either.

edited 29th Jan '12 6:21:07 PM by SeanMurrayI

That wouldn't be a Temporal Mac Guffin (temporary name) though really, as this has to be desired and drives the plot... and why its desired is usually "its from the future" or "it holds secrets from the future" if gotten by the wrong people it will change the future. (which is why most good guys seek to destroy it.)

edited 29th Jan '12 12:01:50 PM by Raso

I voted yes... but I thought the rename is pretty much a guarantee?

Bringing this up.

Calling in favour of rename.

Created an alt names crowner here with the proposals from the thread.