History Main / SimultaneousArcs

Most of the time a story will isolate specific plot beats according to certain characters, each one with [[PlotThreads their own separate journey]] for at least a portion of the story. If these story arcs are used to intercut with each other it becomes TwoLinesNoWaiting, but usually there is a minor TimeSkip between when we last saw a character and when their story is picked up again. Different characters may or may not [[YouAllShareMyStory meet up with one another later on]], but for now they are all on their own and their journeys. There may be some related relation between the plotlines, but are generally independent of one another at the moment. A story told in RealTime adds in a hurdle in that every second needs to be accounted for between the two arcs, you can't have one character walk for five minutes while [[TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot another gets on a plane to get to their next destination]].

Let us say you have several different characters and each one has [[PlotThreads their own separate journey]] for at least a portion of the story. These characters may or may not [[YouAllShareMyStory meet up with one another later on]], but for now they are all on their own and their journeys, while they may be related, are independent of one another at least for the time being. There are two ways of handling this: One way would be to tell every single event in chronological order, frequently cutting from one character to the next, and then to the next as each event plays out. This first method would be known as TwoLinesNoWaiting. For obvious reasons, stories told in RealTime would have to do it this way.

For stories that are not told in RealTime, however, there is another option. That option is known as Simultaneous Arcs.

Let's say you have two different characters: Alice and Bob, and these characters are separated from one another and are doing their own thing for a while, but each one is doing it at exactly the same time as the other one. It would work something like this:

* Chapter 1 takes place between 1:00pm and 2:00pm and includes everything that happens to Alice during that time period without regard to what Bob is going through.
* Chapter 2 also takes place between 1:00pm and 2:00pm, except it is told from Bob's point of view and has absolutely nothing to do with Alice.

This process would be repeated until Alice and Bob meet up. By its nature tends to be ADayInTheLimelight, because it tends to [[EconomyCast whittle down the cast to the essentials]]. It may also function as OnceMoreWithClarity as we may only see the other character at the tale end of their adventure, with the following story giving more information about what they were up to.

This differs from RotatingArcs because RotatingArcs is a method of dealing with large casts and the arcs occurring in RotatingArcs don't have to occur at the same time.

This is similar to AnachronicOrder, except the events in each arc of Simultaneous Arcs are probably told in the order that they occur from the point of view of the character and it is the arcs themselves that are not in chronological order.

This can sometimes result in a MindScrew, but it usually won't.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' and its expansions, ''VideoGame/HalfLifeBlueShift'', ''VideoGame/HalfLifeOpposingForce'', and ''VideoGame/HalfLifeDecay'', all take place during the same incident, with different heroes. ''Opposing Force'' has Shephard's story beginning partway through the original game, but we do get to see what happens at Black Mesa after Gordon travels to Xen.

* Levels in the ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' series love to do this. For example, the entire middle third of the second game alternates between Task Force 141 going after Makarov and the Americans trying to stop the Russian invasion.
* Events in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and its [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheLostAndDamned episode]] [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheBalladOfGayTony packs]] are all meant to occur parallel with each other and feature intersecting plot points in different points of view. Examples include Elizabeta's drug deal involving Niko and Johnny, Johnny's theft of the diamonds from a deal involving Luis, Gay Tony and the Cook, and the ambushed deal at The Libertonian involving all three main characters of the games.
** The narrative of ''GTA IV'' and its episodes inspired Rockstar North to expand on the concept of Simultaneous Arcs in the development of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''.
* ''VideoGame/AlienVsPredator 2'': The Alien causes infestation of the main MegaCorp base. Marine comes to investigate and inadvertently disables the other base's security, causing the Alien to attack it. The Marine gets captured by the MegaCorp, escapes, and unwittingly frees the Predator who you got captured as earlier.
** In the 2010 game, the Marine character watches the Predator character's ship blow away the ''USS Marlowe'' and fights to the colony, following a distress signal triggered by the Xenomorph character's escape. The stories diverge until the Marine character kills the Xenomorph Matriarch, upon when the Xenomorph character develops into another Matriarch. The Marine then fights Karl Bishop Weyland, while the Predator kills a Predalien and rigs the temple to self-destruct.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' and its two expansions, ''Blue Shift'' and ''Opposing Force'', all take place during the same incident, with different heroes. ''Opposing Force'' has Shepherd's story beginning partway through the original game, but we do get to see what happens at Black Mesa after Freeman is transported to Xen. In ''Half-Life: Decay'' you play as two characters during the events of ''Half-Life''.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Siren}}'' games follow this trope nicely. Each game consists of around ten different characters experiencing the apocalyptic events simultaneously over the course of a few days, and the story is told through snippets out of chronological order via a little timetable-style level selector. Being told like this, the story is very hard to follow at times, and very disjointed when one minute you're playing Kei on day 3 around noon, then suddenly you're back to Kyoya around 7 AM on day 1. Once you do have a decent handle on the story, though, it is pretty rewarding. The first two games even make this an explicit part of getting their true endings, as after you've completed a mission the first time you have the option of completing a "secondary objective" if you replay it, and the vast majority of the time these secondary objectives can't be completed until you've accomplished something as an entirely different character in a chronologically-earlier stage, such as opening a door as one character that was locked when you came through as another one later in the day, leaving items you can't use as one character in an area another character who will have a use for it comes by tomorrow, etc.

** ''Families'' follows three major, mostly separate story arcs focusing on the familial relationships of three groups of characters: Twilight and Spike's [[LikeASonToMe mother-son relationship]]; Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo's sisterly relationship, plus Scootaloo's relationship with her {{abusive parents}}; and Pinkie Pie's relationship with her estranged family.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' had a three-part meteor showers arc, each episode told from a different point of view: Stan got one, then Cartman got another, and then Kyle and Kenny got one as well. Each episode is completely different and the only thing they have in common is the meteor shower.

* ''VideoGame/{{CommandandConquer}} Tiberium Wars, unlike the first two games (which had mutually exclusive storylines), all three campaigns happen concurrently (with the Scrin popping up toward the end).

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'' takes place at the same time as ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories'' from Roxas's point of view. It starts at the end of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' and not long before the events of ''Chain of Memories'' and continues until just before ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' when [[spoiler:Roxas fights Riku and loses,]] which then kicks off the prologue of ''II''.
** ''Chain of Memories'' also has a mode where you play as [[spoiler:Riku in the castle basement]] instead of Sora.
*** And right after Sora reaches the top of the castle, [[spoiler:[[BookEnds Riku reaches the main/front door of the castle]].]]

** The final volume of the spinoff light novel ''LightNovel/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'' also takes place at this time, albeit it's happening in London instead of Japan. This is noted by the characters in ''Case Files'' when they realize that Saber has been summoned in Japan because [[spoiler:her manifesting in the present gives her descendant/semi-clone Gray a power boost.]]

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'' almost always does this, especially at the end of the episode (and often at the beginning of it as well). They often show the [[VillainoftheWeek killer's]] actions, then cut to the [[{{Heroes}} BAU agents]] and show them getting introduced to the case. Then once the team have worked out the killer's method, they'll show the killer starting to commit his crime once again. In most cases, the team will then be introduced into the picture (usually, they literally drive into the frame or walk through the door). Sometimes the camera actually cuts to them though, usually on the occasions when the bad guy is not sympathetic.

* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': The Meta Liberation Army Arc takes place at the same time the Pro-Hero and Joint-Training Arcs were taking place, as well as providing some context for the former. After the end of the Joint-Training Arc, the story rewound by a month to show what the League Of Villains (who hadn't appeared directly aside from Dabi since the Internship Arc) had been doing in that time, and setting up the WarArc that followed.

* Most iterations in the ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' series, especially from the Dreamcast forward. The original ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' is the most fundamental, straight version of the trope, but ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' is particularly notable in that the two stories are actually the opposing sides, not just different shades of heroism.