History Main / GoneToTheFuture

* The main cast of ''FairyTail'' ends up [[ArcNumber seven]] years into their future to the stasis effect of a mass-protection spell they cast on themselves. In that time, their guild has gone from one of the region's most powerful to its weakest.

So you want to visit the future? See how things turn out in 20 years? Maybe [[MyFutureSelfAndMe hang out with your future self]]? Will you be rich and successful? Will you be happily married with a large family? Or maybe you'll have to HelpYourSelfInTheFuture? Of course, there are the warnings about [[NeverTheSelvesShallMeet causing a paradox]]. But you're cool with that. So here you are in the future. Where's the future you?

And if you had [[CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit a savings account]], it's gone. And the fact that "The ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated" doesn't matter.

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* ''TheTimeMachine'' does this. The protagonist whisks away into the future never to be heard from again. This is probably the UrExample.

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** And yet, the rule was forgotten when Hiro went to the future again and saw his future self apparently betrayed by Ando.

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* The DeathJunior tie-in manga had this happen to Pandora as part of the time machine's anti-tampering mechanism. While she was away, her friends had drifted apart and a snake goddess had seduced DJ.

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* Played with in a unique way in the Dresden Files novel ''GhostStory''. When Harry returns to perform an investigation to solve [[spoiler:his murder]], he finds six months have passed since he was last in Chicago. With his absence and the major changes at the end of the previous novel, he finds the world has very much become a CrapsackWorld.

* Played with in a unique way in the Dresden Files novel ''GhostStory''. When Harry returns to perform an investigation to solve [[spoiler:his murder]], he finds six months have passed since [[spoiler:his death]] and with his absence and the results at the end of the previous novel, Chicago has very much become a CrapsackWorld.

* The makers of ''BackToTheFuture'' considered that this could logically happen according to their time-travel rules when Marty and Jennifer went to the future in Part II, but only by some theories of time travel.

** In fact, it ''did'' happen once. But just in the time machine's initial test with Einstein, which makes it less noticeable due to him only skipping over a single minute.

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<<|TimeTravelTropes|>>

* In the ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" a ship from the past did this, changing the present into a war with the Klingons. They sent it back and restored the timeline at the urging of Guinan, who could tell that things had changed. (Which kind of [[FridgeLogic doesn't make sense]] when you realize the war timeline would be the original and the peaceful "original" timeline would be the altered timeline, but whatever.)

A sensible time traveler will make it top priority to return to his or her present, thereby undoing this fiasco (and erasing the event from everyone else's minds). That is, of course, unless the time travel is one-way or if the traveler is incapable of returning to the origin time. If a story is narrated by TheIshmael who stays in the present, and the time traveler never returns (Nay, if TheIshmael even realizes the time traveler left at all!), then something bad likely happened.

Note that Unexpected Lack Of Future Me is only really a trope of the kinds of time travel where the traveller pops out of existence in the present and then back into existence in the future. For the forms of "time travel", such as [[HumanPopsicle cryonics]] and time dilation, where the "traveller" is still physically present for every second of the 20 years, Lack Of Future Me is the generally expected outcome.

* The ''[[Series/MegaMan Mega Man]]'' cartoon also had this happen when Mega Man thought he'd accidentally trapped Dr. Light 30 years in the future and went to find him. Naturally, without Mega Man around to stop him all the time, Dr. Wily eventually managed to conquer the world and imprisoned Mega Man's family.
* This trope is the inciting incident for the ''DarkwingDuck'' episode "Time and Punishment". Gosalyn accidentally travels into the future, in which her father has become a KnightTemplar out of grief over her mysterious disappearance so many years ago. To correct the timeline, she must travel back and simply exist in the present.

* Omi from ''XiaolinShowdown'' wants to go to the future to meet himself to borrow a time-traveling {{MacGuffin}} his future self holds, to accomplish this he decides to [[HumanPopsicle freeze himself]] and set an alarm to wake him up 80 years later. [[TheSlowPath He doesn't find out the flaw in that plan until it's too late.]]

* The makers of ''BackToTheFuture'' considered that this should logically happen according to their time-travel rules when Marty and Jennifer went to the future in Part II, but they didn't go through with it because they thought it would come off as a MissedMomentOfAwesome.

* In an episode of ''TeenTitans'', Starfire accidentally travels twenty years into the future while fighting a villain. Due to her absence, the Teen Titans have all but split up-- Beast Boy's become a circus freak, Cyborg's batteries have run out, Raven's been put in an asylum, having gone insane from loneliness, and Robin's gone solo, becoming Nightwing.

* In the ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" a ship from the past did this, changing the present into a war with the Klingons. They sent it back and restored the timeline at the urging of a Guinan who could tell that things had changed. (Which kind of [[FridgeLogic doesn't make sense]] when you realize the war timeline would be the original and the peaceful "original" timeline the altered timeline, but whatever.)

* In the live action television adaptation of ''TheFlash'' the hero is accidentally warped into the future and finds his absence leads to a royally screwed up future, with the recurring bad-guy becoming a tyrant Mayor-for-life.

* In the ''CaptainNTheGameMaster'' part of an issue of the ''SuperMarioBros'' comic, Kevin is knocked into a garbage chute. Samus takes a second-or-more-hand time gadget and tries to go forward just a little bit so she can catch him and take him back. But the device is defective, and sends her 20 years forward, where due to the absence of Kevin, Garbageworld is the last place that [[{{Metroid}} Mother Brain]] hasn't taken over, and it's under attack, as well, defended only by Kevin and KidIcarus (Pit in the game, but Kid Icarus here). She takes him back to the previous time, undoing his aging, so he can defend Videoland again.

* In ''{{Futurama}}'', protagonist and {{Arthur Dent}} Fry time-travels via cyronic freezing. Some flashbacks to the 2000s show what happened to his family after he disappeared.
** Except that in BendersBigScore, it is revealed that a Time Duplicate of Fry went back and lived for quite a while in the past, before returning to the future when Bender tried to kill him. [[Spoiler: And he realised he was Lars and would be able to be with Leela]]

->'''Gosalyn:''' Well, [[BadFuture howcomewhathappened]]?!\\
'''Launchpad:''' Well, I guess you happened. Or... ''didn't'' happen.
-->-- ''Darkwing Duck'' episode "Time and Punishment"

* The makers of ''BackToTheFuture'' considered that this should logically happen according to their time-travel rules when Marty and Jennifer went to the future in Part II, but they didn't go through with it because they thought it would come off as a MissedMomentOfAwesome. However, time travel in the series works this way in every other example (e.g. Einstein going one minute into the future, Marty going from 1955 to 1985).