History Main / NonSequiturCausality

* ''DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'' has a perfectly lampshaded use of the trope. Early in the book, it turns out that in bringing the coelacanth from prehistory to the early 20th century to be rediscovered, the dodo went extinct, and that was the end of a short chain of similar changes. At the end of the book, after [[spoiler: the main characters go back to the dawn of life on earth]], Dirk finds out that [[spoiler:his secretary was still working for him, and a cat that he'd spent the last eleven years searching for had never gotten lost in the first place]].

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* Season 4 of ''{{Series/Eureka}}'': Despite removing one of the town's founders from the timeline in 1947, the biggest changes that occur in the resulting future are that a few people have different jobs, Henry's married, and Jo's not dating Zane anymore.

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** In another episode, Timmy went back to help his Dad win the trophy he accidentally melted. He comes back to find that the Internet is called Timmy and his name is Internet. Of course, he meets a younger Bill Gates who suggested it.
** Possibly something of a GeniusBonus, since Tim Burners-Lee, (who invented the World Wide Web[[note]]''Not'' the Internet, that's merely the result of computer networks growing large enough to cover the Earth. Burners-Lee himself credits the creation of the Internet to Vint Cerf and Bob Khan who developed IP protocols.[[/note]] by way of being in charge of the team who developed HTML protocols) originally planned on calling his invention [[FunWithAcronyms The Infomation Mine]], before realizing the acronym was "un peu egoiste".

* In ''{{Primeval}}'', leaving a couple of Future Predators in the past somehow changes Claudia Brown into Jenny Lewis, gives the team a new HQ, and alters Connor's ''dress sense''.

* Season 4 of ''{{Eureka}}'': Despite removing one of the town's founders from the timeline in 1947, the biggest changes that occur in the resulting future are that a few people have different jobs, Henry's married, and Jo's not dating Zane anymore.

* For his review of ''Film/TheRoom'' WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic travels to the future. After his returning he sees, that the wall behind him now has another colour. Nothing else changed, just another wall. [[FurryFandom And he has a tail.]]

** It's probably not happening earlier. The castle is 'outside of time', and therefore the mirrors can likely show whatever portion of the timeline they feel is significant.
*** Nobody actually says they can, though, so the default implication is that they're showing what Tyler would be doing right now in that other timeline.
*** Possibly a WMG, but since HE was the baseline human in the main timeline, the [[spoiler: aliens may have targeted someone else, possibly earlier, leading to mass infection with their virus.]]

* In one issue of ''PS238'', Tyler is shown glimpses of alternate timelines in which he was born with different superpowers. In most, the visible changes make sense as consequences of that Tyler's powers, but there's one where everybody is in the middle of a crisis that [[{{Foreshadowing}} starts up ten issues later in the main storyline]], and there's no obvious reason why it should happen sooner in the other timeline just because Tyler has gravity-manipulating powers.
** It's probably not happening earlier. The castle is 'outside of time', and therefore the mirrors can likely show whatever portion of the timeline they feel is significant.
*** Nobody actually says they can, though, so the default implication is that they're showing what Tyler would be doing right now in that other timeline.
*** Possibly a WMG, but since HE was the baseline human in the main timeline, the [[spoiler: aliens may have targeted someone else, possibly earlier, leading to mass infection with their virus.]]

* Many issues of Marvel's ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' fall into this trap, especially "What If Captain America had formed the Avengers?", which despite being the direct sequel to a much more coherent issue, asks you to make a lot of leaps in logic to make sense of it all. "What If the Hulk killed Wolverine" where the death of Wolverine creates a cosmic imbalance favoring chaos and thus the super villain the Adversary is free to imprison Roma and go on to kill many other X-Men, something he never did even he fought them in the mainstream continuity. In "What If Professor X became the Juggernaut" the Fantastic Four decide to randomly attack Xavier and the X-Men after the latter trashed the Sentinels that first attacked them, handwaving that Reed Richards was friends with Bolvier Trask, the maker of the Sentinels, resulting in them all losing their powers due to a device that Xavier makes. In "What if The Marvel Super Heroes had Lost Atlantis Attacks," Set contaminates the world's water supply turning nearly everyone into serpent people, except for about eight random superheroes and villains. No reason is given why these particular eight never drank the water, and why other didn't, other than for the purposes of the story.

* Many issues of Marvel's ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' fall into this trap, especially "What If Captain America had formed the Avengers?", which despite being the direct sequel to a much more coherent issue, asks you to make a lot of leaps in logic to make sense of it all. "What If the Hulk killed Wolverine" where the death of wolverine creates a cosmic imbalance favoring chaos and thus the super villain the Adversary is free to imprisoned Roma and goes on to kill many other X-Men, something he never did even he fought them in the mainstream continuity. In "What If Professor X became the Juggernaut" the Fantastic Four decide to randomly attack Xavier and the X-men after the latter trashed the Sentinels that first attacked them, handwaving that Reed Richards was friends with Bolvier Trask, the maker of the Sentinels, resulting in them all losing their powers due to a device that Xavier makes. In "What if The Marvel Super Heroes had Lost Atlantis Attacks," Set contaminates the world's water supply turning nearly everyone into serpent people, except for about eight random superheroes and villains. No reason is given why these particular eight never drank the water, and why other didn't, other than for the purposes of the story.

* Many issues of Marvel's ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' fall into this trap, especially "What If Captain America had formed the Avengers?", which despite being the direct sequel to a much more coherent issue, asks you to make a lot of leaps in logic to make sense of it all. "What If the Hulk killed Wolverine" where the death of wolverine creates a cosmic imbalance favoring chaos and thus the super villain the Adversary is free to imprisoned Roma and goes on to kill many other X-Men, something he never did even he fought them in the mainstream continuity. In "What If Professor X became the Juggernaut" the Fantastic Four decide to randomly attack Xavier and the X-men after the latter trashed the Sentinels that first attacked them, handwaving that Reed Richards was friends with Bolvier Trask, the maker of the Sentinels, resulting in them all losing their powers due to a device that Xavier makes.

* Many issues of Marvel's ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' fall into this trap, especially "What If Captain America had formed the Avengers?", which despite being the direct sequel to a much more coherent issue, asks you to make a lot of leaps in logic to make sense of it all. "What If the Hulk killed Wolverine" where the death of wolverine creates a cosmic imbalance favoring chaos and thus the super villain the Adversary is free to imprisoned Roma and goes on to kill many other X-Men, something he never did even he fought them in the mainstream continuity. In "What If Professor X became the Juggernaut" the Fantastic Four decide to randomly attack Xavier and the X-men after the latter trashed the Sentinels that first attacked them, handwaving that Reed Richards was friends with Bolvier Trask, the maker of the Sentinels.

* Many issues of Marvel's ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' fall into this trap, especially "What If Captain America had formed the Avengers?", which despite being the direct sequel to a much more coherent issue, asks you to make a lot of leaps in logic to make sense of it all.

** In a WonderfulLife episode, it turns out that if Timmy had never been born, AJ would have hair, Elmer wouldn't have a boil and a non-braceface Chester would have Timmy's fairy godparents.

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Compare ButterflyOfDoom. Contrast InSpiteOfANail. AlternateHistroyWank may be particularly vulnerable to this, as the author often starts out with an implausible world he wants to create and works back from there.

Compare ButterflyOfDoom. Contrast InSpiteOfANail.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TuffPuppy'' episode "Watch Dog" Dudley uses a time travel watch to go back and beat Kitty to the last donut. This somehow changes the present so Snaptrap has taken over the world. And at the end, Dudley uses it again when he misses the ice cream truck and this somehow changes the present so he's wearing pants.
* In the ''{{Freakazoid}}'' episode "Freakazoid is History," Freakazoid is accidentally sent back in time to Pearl Harbor. He averts Japan's surprise attack and returns to the present. Much of the world seems the same, but RushLimbaugh is a bleeding heart liberal, Sharon Stone can act, no Chevy Chase movies exist, cold fusion works, and [[WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain Brain]] is the president (with Pinky as the Air Force One pilot).

* ''StargateSG1'': After SG-1 is sent back in time they start a revolution against the Goa'uld, the problem is that the Goa'uld take away the stargate and the alternative SG-1 has to go back in time and put things as they were. When the timeline is corrected, the only difference is that Jack's lake now has fish.
* Many small changes to the barracks and a few minor discrepancies in continuity in ''{{Lost}}'' have been theorized to be because [[spoiler: the time-travelling survivors altered some minute details of the past when the island was shifting through time. These include Rousseau forgetting Jin and Aaron's birth being slightly different.]]

** Possibly something of a GeniusBonus, since Tim Burners-Lee, (who invented the World Wide Web[[hottip:*:''Not'' the Internet, that's merely the result of computer networks growing large enough to cover the Earth. Burners-Lee himself credits the creation of the Internet to Vint Cerf and Bob Khan who developed IP protocols.]] by way of being in charge of the team who developed HTML protocols) originally planned on calling his invention [[FunWithAcronyms The Infomation Mine]], before realizing the acronym was "un peu egoiste".

* In a WonderfulLife episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', it turns out that if Timmy had never been born, AJ would have hair, Elmer wouldn't have a boil and a non-braceface Chester would have Timmy's fairy godparents.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'', Timmy's Dad asks Cosmo, who was suffering from amnesia and thinking he was a genie, to wish his neighbor Dinkleberg never existed. Despite Cosmo's objection that it could result in this trope, he goes through with it, and they enter a post-apocalyptic world where somehow Timmy's Mom is a two-headed dragon.

* For his review of ''Film/TheRoom'' WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic travels to the future. After his returning he sees, that the wall behind him now have another colour. Nothing else changed, just an another wall. [[FurryFandom And he has a tail.]]

* In ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' using the Infinite Improbability Drive on the starship ''Heart of Gold'' tended to cause this throughout the universe. That being one reason why it was replaced with the Bistromathic drive.

* In RobertSilverberg's short story "Needle In A Timestack" time travel is common for holidays, so minor changes (your car was a grey Toyota, now it's a silver BMW) are just "the little annoyances of modern life". Unless your wife's ex-boyfriend is trying to undo your marriage.