History Main / TrickedOutTime

* In ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' [[spoiler: Kyle and Akane trade places to fit in Kyle's PoweredArmor; depending on if Akane is killed or not; both doing the same thing to lead to Akane not being killed.]]

* In ''VideoGame/VirtuesLastReward'' [[spoiler: Kyle and Akane trade places to fit in Kyle's PoweredArmor; depending on if Akane is killed or not; both doing the same thing to lead to Akane not being killed.]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** The Show Proper:
*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E8FathersDay "Father's Day"]] is all about this trope. You can visit the exact same point in time repeatedly so long as you don't make [[NeverTheSelvesShallMeet your past self]] experience something you don't remember experiencing.
*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]] has a minor one. When the Doctor blows up the Chulan warship ([[spoiler:which is an ambulance]]) he mentions that "History said there was an explosion here". Originally, this was caused by a bomb, but Captain Jack got rid of that.
*** Though not part of any of the TV series, this would have added an interesting angle to the Doctor's position in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E2TheFiresOfPompeii "The Fires of Pompeii"]]. He's in denial about why he can't try to save the city.
*** Major spoilers: [[spoiler:Series 6 [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong ends]] with the Doctor going to the death we saw at the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut beginning]] of it... inside the shape-shifting robot from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]], disguised to look like him.]]
*** This seems to be [[spoiler:the M.O. of said shape-shifting robot. It goes back to near the end of the life of a KarmaHoudini, painfully tortures them to death to pay for their crimes, then impersonates them for what remains of their life]]. As far as the history books are concerned, nothing has changed.
*** Invoked by the Doctor in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E5TheAngelsTakeManhattan "The Angels Take Manhattan"]] when he explains that once you see (or read about) the future it becomes fixed in time.
*** More major spoilers: In [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], [[spoiler:the Doctor (all ''thirteen'' regenerations) removes Gallifrey from the Time War, [[DeadlyDodging not only making the Daleks kill themselves in the crossfire]], but also making it appear to have been destroyed to the rest of the universe (and himself)]].
*** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]", the Doctor [[spoiler:pulls a ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' on Clara, whose death is a fixed point in space and time. The Doctor uses LoopholeAbuse to pluck her from immediately before this time. She will have to return to this point in time eventually, but she is immortal (and will not age) until she chooses to do so.]]
** ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]]:
*** In the [[AudioAdaptation audio drama]] "The Fires of Vulcan", the Fifth Doctor is told by UNIT that his TARDIS is found in Pompeii, buried under the volcanic ash and revealed by an earthquake. Later, as the Seventh Doctor, the TARDIS drops them in Pompeii, and the Doctor is initially resolved to his fate of dying there. They eventually figure out a plan involving letting the TARDIS get covered in magma, wait for it to harden, and then jumping forward to just before the Earthquake, letting the earthquake happen, get out, and let UNIT find the TARDIS, and then go and steal it back.
*** The novel ''War of the Daleks'' undoes [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks the destruction of the Daleks' homeworld Skaro]] by revealing that the Daleks discovered a piece of centuries-old footage during their invasion of Earth that described the events, which begin with the discovery of their creator, Davros, on Skaro. They travel back in time, find a suitable planet that looks a bit like Skaro, move Davros to it, and fake the rescue mission that discovered him -- so the film remains accurate, but a different planet got blown up. The book wasn't particularly well received, since the description of this complex {{retcon}} took up a lot of space that could have been used for actual plot. The retcon itself is generally filed as FanonDiscontinuity by fandom, but Skaro itself survived as seen in the Series 9 premiere.
*** Another (hilarious) example is the audioplay "The Kingmaker". A [[ZanyScheme wildly complex sequence of events]] leads to Creator/WilliamShakespeare hijacking the TARDIS so he can convince Theatre/RichardIII to kill his [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princes_in_the_Tower nephews]] and ensure that history remembers Richard as a monster and the Tudors (Elizabeth I's family) as heroes. It eventually ends up with Shakespeare being killed at Bosworth Field, and the Doctor dropping Richard off in the Elizabethan era with a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare...

[[folder:Web Original]]
* At one point in the history of the ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'', a time traveler "rescued" Freddy Mercury by bringing Mercury forward to a point where a cure for HIV/AIDS was developed. The time traveler covered up his interference by leaving a very convincing cloned body behind to "die" in Mercury's place.
[[/folder]]

** Invoked repeatedly in ''Discworld/TheScienceOfDiscworld'' books, especially the third book in which the UU wizards and the Auditors of Reality have a mini-Time War over ''The Origin of Species'' that will decide Roundworld-humanity's fate.
** This is the whole point of ''Discworld/NightWatch'': Past Sam Vimes's mentor dies too early, so future Vimes must stand in and take his spot mentoring himself. As long as he gets it close enough, everything will snap back into the way things were before the past was messed up.

* In the first ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' game, the hero's friend/servant sacrifices himself by locking himself in the same room as a flesh-eating fungus to save the hero. When the hero gets back to the room, no trace of the servant remains; it's assumed that he was completely consumed. However, if you get all of the Stars of Destiny, it's possible to time travel back and whisk him back to the future; his disappearance being explained that way.

* Used in the third season finale of ''Series/TheFlash2014''. As Barry is apparently destined to watch Savitar kill Iris, [[spoiler: H.R]] uses a holographic disguise to impersonate her and die in her place. This still breaks the StableTimeLoop around her death, however, as once Barry learns the truth he has no reason to [[spoiler: create the time remnant who will *become* Savitar]], and thus the villain has to complete his scheme soon or he'll be [[Retgone erased]].

See also YouAlreadyChangedThePast, where ''any'' change you make to the past already happened before you thought of it. If a paradox IS possible, but you avoided it by making it look like you haven't changed anything, you have this trope.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' novel ''Engines of Destiny'', Scotty attempts to trick Time by using salvaged Klingon ship to go back to the moment of Captain Kirk's death (as depicted in ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'') with the intention of using the ship to beam Kirk off the ''Enterprise''-B the moment after he has completed his modifications to the deflector but before he can be (from Scotty's perspective) sucked out of the ship when it's struck by the 'energy ribbon'. However, the moment Scotty does this, history changes to a timeline where the Borg conquered Earth centuries ago and are now expanding outwards across the Alpha Quadrant, with only Kirk, Scotty and the ''Enterprise''-D (which was following Scotty back in time when he changed history) aware of the original timeline. The characters deduce that the only way to restore history is to transport Kirk into the energy ribbon, but only the reader is able to work out why this is necessary; without Kirk's assistance, Picard was in some way unsuccessful in stopping Soran's own efforts to return to the Nexus on Veridian III (either failing to stop him or dying in the attempt), which led to his absence from the Borg's second attack on Earth and their subsequent trip back in time, allowing them to establish a beachhead on Earth in 2063 and expand from there.

* Used in the third season finale of ''Series/TheFlash2014''. As Barry is apparently destined to watch Savitar kill Iris, [[spoiler: H.R]] uses a holographic disguise to impersonate her and die in her place. This still breaks the StableTimeLoop around her death, however, as once Barry learns the truth he has no reason to [[spoiler: create the time remnant who will *become* Savitar.]]

** Also worthy of note is that crasher (the aforementioned Narcissists) philosophy, any change results in creating a new [[AlternateUniverse paraverse]], and that the Inheritors are brainwashing Continuum spanners into keeping the universe they are currently occupying unchanged, fueling the crashers' desire to escape.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'': at the end, in order to ensure the timeline is intact for the X and Zero games, including the Cataclysm, all the characters fake their deaths and move to Acapulco. This should be noted as one of the few times ''anyone'' in Bob & George gave a damn about the timeline, which had been twisted, warped, set on fire, run over by a steamroller and blown up with many, many elaborate time travel shenanigans before that.

* Considering ''Fanfic/MyMirrorSwordAndShield'' is a ''Anime/CodeGeass'' and ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' crossover, it was bound to happen when [[OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Suzaku]] accidentally finds himself trapped in a terrible past governed by hystorical tyrant [[MagnificentBastard Lelouch Lamperouge]] and has to find a way to survive in times of war 'without' altering history (or as much history as a highschool student would know, anyway). The straightest example comes near the end when Suzaku, having discovered that Lelouch is [[spoiler: far from the soulless dictator history books made him out to be, and subsequently having fallen in love with him]] , decides that he absolutely cannot [[spoiler: let him be publicly assasinated and his body torn appart by the hands of the furious population]] , but he has to prevent it in a way that wouldn't alter those historic events, lest [[spiler: Lelouch's]] carefully-constructed plan would crumble down. So he instead [[spoiler: disguises himself as the would-be murderer, fakes Lelouch's assasination, drugs him, escapes with him uncosncious, disguises an already-dead man with Lelouch's royal regalia and throws said corpse into the crowd so it could be dismembered in his place. Then he hides his-former-Majesty's unconscious ass until they can safely escape to the future inside the now-fixed time machine.]] And actually succeeds. Whew!!

* Considering ''Fanfic/MyMirrorSwordAndShield'' is a ''Anime/CodeGeass'' and ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' crossover, it was bound to happen when [[OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Suzaku]] accidentally finds himself trapped in a terrible past governed by hystorical tyrant [[MagnificentBastard Lelouch Lamperouge]] and has to find a way to survive in times of war 'without' altering history (or as much history as a highschool student would know, anyway). The straightest example comes near the end when Suzaku, having discovered that Lelouch is [[spoiler: far from the soulless dictator history books made him out to be, and subsequently having fallen in love with him]] decides that he absolutely cannot [[spoiler: let him be publicly assasinated and his body torn appart by the hands of the furious population]] , but he has to prevent it in a way that wouldn't alter those historic events, lest [[spiler: Lelouch's]] carefully-constructed plan would crumble down. So he instead [[spoiler: disguises himself as the would-be murderer, fakes Lelouch's assasination, drugs him, escapes with him uncosncious, disguises an already-dead man with Lelouch's royal regalia and throws said corpse into the crowd so it could be dismembered in his place. Then he hides his-former-Majesty's unconscious ass until they can safely escape to the future inside the now-fixed time machine.]] And actually succeeds. Whew!!

How does one fake a StableTimeLoop? Well, you go back in time, and you make it ''look'' like the original thing happened, when instead, something else happened entirely. The important thing is that everyone who witnessed the event to be changed still see the same thing. Care must be taken to ensure the change is not detected by the wrong people until after the original time excursion point. If you go back and [[FakingTheDead save]] [[TimeTravelEscape someone]] by [[DecoyGetaway replacing them with a robot clone at the last minute]], it's probably best that this person go with the time traveller Back To The Future.[[TradeSnark ™]]

* Considering ''Fanfic/MyMirrorSwordAndShield'' is a ''Anime/CodeGeass'' and ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' crossover, it was bound to happen when Suzaku accidentally finds himself trapped in a terrible past governed by hystorical tyrant [[MagnificentBastard Lelouch Lamperouge]] and has to find a way to survive in times of war 'without' altering history (or as much history as a highschool student would know, anyway). The straightest example comes near the end when Suzaku, having discovered that Lelouch is [[spoiler: far from the soulless dictator history books made him out to be, and subsequently having fallen in love with him]] decides that he absolutely cannot [[spoiler: let him be publicly assasinated and his body torn appart by the hands of the furious population]] , but he has to prevent it in a way that wouldn't alter those historic events, lest [[spiler: Lelouch's]] carefully-constructed plan would crumble down. So he instead [[spoiler: disguises himself as the would-be murderer, fakes Lelouch's assasination, drugs him, escapes with him uncosncious, disguises an already-dead man with Lelouch's royal regalia and throws said corpse into the crowd so it could be dismembered in his place. Then he hides his-former-Majesty's unconscious ass until they can safely escape to the future inside the now-fixed time machine.]] And actually succeeds. Whew!!

* Considering ''Fanfic/MyMirrorSwordAndShield'' is a ''Anime/CodeGeass'' and ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' crossover, it was bound to happen when Suzaku accidentally finds himself trapped in a terrible past governed by hystorical tyrant LeLouch Lamperouge and has to find a way to survive in times of war 'without' altering history (or as much history as a highschool student would know, anyway). The straightest example comes near the end when Suzaku, having discovered that LeLouch is [[spoiler: far from the soulless dictator history books made him out to be, and subsequently having fallen in love with him]] decides that he absolutely cannot [[spoiler: let him be publicly assasinated and his body torn appart by the hands of the furious population]] , but he has to prevent it in a way that wouldn't alter those historic events, lest [[spiler: LeLouch's]] carefully-constructed plan would crumble down. So he instead [[spoiler: disguises himself as the would-be murderer, fakes LeLouch's assasination, drugs him, escapes with him uncosncious, disguises an already-dead man with LeLouch's royal regalia and throws said corpse into the crowd so it could be dismembered in his place. Then he hides LeLouch's unconscious ass until they can safely escape to the future inside the now-fixed time machine.]] And actually succeeds. Whew!!

* Plays a part in a storyline of the fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9184213/1/The-Woman-Who-Counted The Woman Who Counted]]''- a ''Series/DoctorWho''/''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' crossover where the Tenth Doctor is travelling with Molly Hooper instead of Martha Jones- when the Doctor and Molly arrive in Russia a few days before [[DidAnastasiaSurvive the execution of the Romanovs]]; [[spoiler:an alien family who were exiled from their world are able to take on the appearance of the Romanovs, believing that they can take Russia for themselves, allowing Molly to convince the Doctor to take the Romanovs to 1992. From the perspective of the wider universe, nothing has changed, but the Romanovs and their children are free to make new lives]].

* Plays a part in a storyline of the fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9184213/1/The-Woman-Who-Counted The Woman Who Counted]]''- a ''Series/DoctorWho''/''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' crossover where the Tenth Doctor is travelling with Molly Hooper instead of Martha Jones- when the Doctor and Molly arrive in Russia a few days before the execution of the Romanovs; [[spoiler:an alien family who were exiled from their world are able to take on the appearance of the Romanovs, believing that they can take Russia for themselves, allowing Molly to convince the Doctor to take the Romanovs to 1992. From the perspective of the wider universe, nothing has changed, but the Romanovs and their children are free to make new lives]].

** In the first ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', [[spoiler:Doc does this by wearing a bullet-proof vest when the Libyan terrorists shoot him. He doesn't tell Marty this until after Marty comes back.]] The plot of the entire film is a semi-successful attempt to do this, since Mr. Baines still doesn't hit George with the car, but the timing of major events in George and Lorraine's relationship post-dance is otherwise the same (they live in the same house, have the same number of children at the same time with the same personalities and so on).

* This is demonstrated to be the one loophole in the otherwise infallible Pre-Crime Department in ''Film/MinorityReport''.

*** Invoked by the Doctor in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E5TheAngelsTakeManhattan "The Angels Take Manhattan"]] when he explains that once you see the future it becomes fixed in time.

*** In the [[AudioAdaptation audio drama]] "The Fires of Vulcan", the Fifth Doctor is told by UNIT that his TARDIS is found in Pompeii, buried under the volcanic ash and revealed by an earthquake. Later, as the Seventh Doctor, the TARDIS drops them in Pompeii, and the Doctor is initially resolved to his fate of dying there. They eventually figure out a plan involving letting themselves get covered in ash, and then jumping forward to just before the Earthquake, letting the earthquake happen, get out, and let UNIT find the TARDIS, and then go and steal it back.
*** The novel ''War of the Daleks'' undoes [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks the destruction of the Daleks' homeworld Skaro]] by having the Daleks discover a piece of centuries-old footage describing the events, which begin with the discovery of their creator, Davros, on Skaro. They travel back in time, find a suitable planet that looks a bit like Skaro, move Davros to it, and fake the rescue mission that discovered him -- so the film remains accurate, but a different planet got blown up. The book wasn't particularly well received, since the description of this complex {{retcon}} took up a lot of space that could have been used for actual plot. The retcon itself is generally filed as FanonDiscontinuity by fandom, but Skaro itself survived as seen in the Series 9 premiere.

** In the episode "Past Tense", Sisko inadvertently travels back in time to just before a historically significant riot. When the Gabriel Bell, who led the riots, dies trying to protect him, Sisko assumes his identity and does the things that history says Bell did. History also says that Bell ''dies'' in the riots, [[spoiler:which Sisko gets around by simply planting his ID on a corpse in the aftermath]]. When he gets back, Starfleet calls him up wanting to know exactly why the history books have changed to feature Sisko's picture in them, but then, they've got a time travel division specifically watching for this sort of thing. This led to a recurring gag as characters like Bashir and Nog keep noticing Sisko's photograph whenever they were reading about Earth history, only to dismiss Bell and Sisko's odd resemblance to each other.

* Discussed in ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'', where Kyon points out this possibility to Mikuru. It hasn't actually come up in the story yet, but given all the time traveling involved it almost certainly will at some point.

* ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'' Rintaro relies on such trickery to [[spoiler: save the world, save the girl and the like.]]

*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E8FathersDay "Father's Day"]] is all about this trope. You can visit the exact same point in time repeatedly so long as you don't make [[NeverTheSelvesShallMeet your past self]] experience something you don't remember experiencing.

* Used in the third season finale of ''Series/TheFlash2014''. As Barry is apparently destined to watch Savitar kill Iris, [[spoiler: H.R]] uses a holographic disguise to impersonate her and die in her place. This still breaks the StableTimeLoop around her death, however, as once Barry learns the truth he has no reason to [[spoiler: create the time remnant who will *become* Savitar.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/IkemenSengoku'', this happens in one of the routes. [[spoiler:Namely, Nobunaga's Dramatic route where he's able to prevent the temporal forces trying to set the timeline back to its original form where he's dead instead of the main character having saved him at Honno-ji from killing him by faking his death and letting Hideyoshi run the country instead to make it appear close enough to the original timeline for the temporal forces to leave him and the main character alone and happy together in hiding.]]