History Main / MultipleChoiceFuture

** Zig-Zagged due to the events of ''Series/{{Loki|2021}}'', where its revealed that while AlternateTimelines and Futures do indeed exist, all of them except the "Main" one end up being pruned by the [[TimePolice Time Variance Authority]] (at least until He Who Remains was killed).

* "The Choices" from ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' has Nicole [[HowDadMetMom recalling how she first met Richard]] when they were children. While reminiscing, she imagines all the ways her life would be different if she had done different things in the moments leading up to their meeting. Several of the imagined outcomes are her suddenly dying.
* The ''Franchise/Ben10'' franchise establishes that there are countless alternate timelines and potential futures for the characters, and the future is constantly changing based on the events of the present. Each time Ben learns about a potential future, his real future changes.
* In ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'', Clockwork himself compares time to a parade, and while the Observants can only see the immediate future based upon present occurring events, he watches the "parade" from above, and can see every course it might or ''might not'' take. [[spoiler:This makes Danny realize that rather than eliminating him to prevent Dark Danny's existence, Clockwork was helping him to change his future]].

* Garnet from ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' is established is having "Future Vision", an ability that allows her to see into many different probable futures. Many of these range from mundane to incredibly improbable (ranging from various comical deaths to chasing away the Ruby Squadron with a game of baseball) and are selected by the choices people involved in such outcomes make. In-contrast, Sapphire's future vision is much more hard-deterministic in nature and can only see one possible outcome, implying that Ruby's passionate and impulsive personality enhances her future vision while fused together as Garnet.
* In ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'', there are countless realities that are the result of diverging paths at different points in time. It's implied that Slav has the ability to see all these different realities, along with future ones, and is easily overwhelmed by them.

* {{Exploited}} in ''Literature/ReignOfTheSevenSpellblades''. The Fourth Spellblade, "Angustavia, the thread that crosses the abyss", explores possible short-term futures to find and reach one with the optimal outcome--namely where one has defeated one's opponent against all odds. [[spoiler:In volume 1, Oliver uses this technique, acquired from his mother's GhostMemory, to [[LiteralDisarming Literally Disarm]] SadistTeacher Darius Grenville in a one-cut duel, a one-in-ten-thousand chance for a first-year student.]]

* In ''ComicBook/GenerationZero'', Telic has the ability to see the flow of time, giving her a limited ability to see multiple futures.
* In ''ComicBook/SupremePower'', Arcanna has a limited ability to see possible futures and collapse them into a preferred outcome.
* Destiny, a member of the ''Franchise/XMen'' adversaries the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, can see the future but makes it clear that what she sees are probabilities, not set-in-stone facts.
* ''ComicBook/TheUltimates2015'' has Galactus reveal an apparently simplified view of time to the Ultimates, including the sliding timescale (some events have a certain 'weight', so are always only a decade or so behind), and various futures struggle to realise themselves as they become more and more probable, with the 'Old King Thor', 'Maestro', '2099', and ''ComicBook/DaysOfFuturePast'' futures among those shown.

While it is impossible to divine the future in any meaningful way in RealLife, {{Seers}} in fiction usually see the future for real and are forced to choose between a multitude of prophecies. When the future is a multiple choice question with no wrong answers, one SelfFulfillingProphecy means a near-infinite supply of [[SelfDefeatingProphecy Self-Defeating Prophecies]]. In some cases, this can lead to {{Alternate Timeline}}s, with various forms of media showing that each probable future (often caused by [[ForWantOfANail crucial decisions/different happenstances]]) has happened and live parallel with one another.

* In ''Manga/SpyXFamily'', this turns out to be the case for Bond's future-seeing powers, with a person's actions or decisions leading to his visions changing. And since he's a dog, he obviously can't just inform people of things. And while [[TheTelepath Anya]] can certainly help in matters because she can see his visions, she herself is a young child and trying to keep her own powers a secret, leading to her actions being the things that could alter the original vision.

* ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'': this seems to be how predicting the future works. There is a prophecy surrounding Lyra and her actions, but there are caveats in it that state certain things must happen in order for it to be fulfilled; if they don't, then the prophecy is moot. Another person says when using the alethiometer (a tool many factions use to try to predict events): "Please understand, the alethiometer does not ''forecast''. It says "''if'' this happens, ''then'' the consequences will be...", showing that there is no absolute future.

* In ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'', Luke at one point uses the Force to meditate on the future and try to decide his next move. He perceives nearly infinite possible futures and [[CallBack wonders if this is what Yoda saw]] while Luke was fixated on his vision of Darth Vader capturing Han and Leia at Cloud City back in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. He ultimately selects the only course of action he saw that didn't appear to lead to complete chaos: leaving the Caamas crisis to Han and Leia and following Mara Jade into the Unknown Regions. The result: [[spoiler:FirstContact with the Chiss and the Empire of the Hand, recovery of an intact copy of the Caamas Document which allows the actual perpetrators to be punished, and he and Mara having a RelationshipUpgrade and deciding to get married]].

* ''Film/{{Next}}'': The ArcWords for the film {{discuss|edTrope}} this: "Every time you look at the future, it changes, ''[[SelfDefeatingProphecy because]]'' you looked at it." Because Cris can see multiple possible short-term futures, he can select the one with the best outcome.

Supertrope to EitherOrProphecy, where there are exactly ''two'' possibilities. Subtrope of SlidingScaleOfFreeWillVsFate. Sounds similar but has nothing to do with MultipleChoicePast. For more meta-examples, see MultipleEndings.

* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': This is how Claudia Enfield explains her {{Seer|s}} abilities (granted by her [[EmpathicWeapon Orga Lux]], Pan-Dora) in volume 7. Pan-Dora in essence gives her ManaMeter that allows her to expend accrued points (which accrue at a rate of one second of viewable future time for every three ''days'' that she experiences normally) to look an equal number of seconds into the future. This is unreliable, particularly when attacking, because how an opponent responds to her future attacks varies based on what she does. If she tries to preview the results of, for example, five different attacks lasting two seconds each, she consumes ''ten'' seconds of viewable time (5 attacks x 2 seconds).

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* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' seemingly has two varieties of Destiny. One universal, unexplained force that [[BecauseDestinySaysSo seemingly governs everything]] and an artificial version exclusive to the Matoran Universe that's programmed into everyone who lives there and is celebrated by the good guys as the third most important life virtue (the others being Unity and Duty). While it's possible to create diverging {{alternate timeline}}s that drastically change history (such as the [[BadFuture Kingdom]], [[VillainWorld Empire]] and [[MirrorUniverse Melding]] universes), and there are [[MaskOfPower Masks of Power]] that let people see or even travel to these timelines, it is generally advised that if someone's duty is to be a hero or protector, [[ScrewDestiny they should not stray from that]]. Doing so either leads to a disaster and their own downfall unless they come to their senses and rejoin the good side, or [[YouCantFightFate something will force the intended future to happen anyway]].

* {{Exploited}} in ''LightNovel/ReignOfTheSevenSpellblades''. The Fourth Spellblade, "Angustavia, the thread that crosses the abyss", explores possible short-term futures to find and reach one with the optimal outcome--namely where one has defeated one's opponent against all odds. [[spoiler:In volume 1, Oliver uses this technique, acquired from his mother's GhostMemory, to [[LiteralDisarming Literally Disarm]] SadistTeacher Darius Grenville in a one-cut duel, a one-in-ten-thousand chance for a first-year student.]]

* In ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'', Luke at one point uses the Force to meditate on the future and try to decide his next move. He perceives nearly infinite possible futures and [[CallBack wonders if this is what Yoda saw]] while Luke was fixated on his vision of Darth Vader capturing Han and Leia at Cloud City back in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. He ultimately selects the only course of action he saw that didn't appear to lead to complete chaos.
* This is strongly implied that there is no set destiny in the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' universe, with various character's choices and instances on fulfilling prophecies being the catalyst for many of such prophecies in the first place. Dumbledore flat-out states that [[spoiler:the only reason Harry Potter became Voldemort's undoing was because he believed in the prophecy that he would be defeated by him ''so much'' that [[CreateYourOwnHero his own attempts at curtailing it led to his own undoing]].]] Because of this, Divination is considered an especially fickle skill to master given that the future is constantly in flux, Hermione Granger once describing it as "woolly" and "a lot of guesswork."

* In the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe, The Force can give its users precognition in the very short term, but the future gets foggy if one tries to see farther than that. As Yoda explains in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'':
-->'''Yoda:''' It is the future you see.
-->'''Luke:''' The future? ''[beat]'' Will they die?
-->'''Yoda:''' ''[closes his eyes for a moment]'' Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

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* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': This is how Claudia Enfield explains her {{Seer|s}} abilities (granted by her [[EmpathicWeapon Orga Lux]], Pan-Dora) in volume 7. Pan-Dora in essence gives her ManaMeter that allows her to expend accrued points (which accrue at a rate of one second of viewable future time for every three ''days'' that she experiences normally) to look an equal number of seconds into the future. This is unreliable, particularly when attacking, because how an opponent responds to her future attacks varies based on what she does. If she tries to preview the results of, for example, five different attacks lasting two seconds each, she consumes ''ten'' seconds of viewable time (5 attacks x 2 seconds).
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* In the Literature/{{Sulien}} novels, all seers can see multiple possible futures, and have to weigh up which one seems most likely to come true and what they can do to bring it about. In a twist, it's said that what they're actually seeing is the futures of alternate timelines, meaning that the one future no seer will ever see is the one that's actually about to happen to them. Most of the time this makes no practical difference, since they will see futures that are like their real future in every relevant detail, but they can be blindsided if a god intervenes to cause something impossible to happen, since that won't be reflected in any other timeline. (Sulien herself has her life saved by divine intervention early in the series, with the result that seers have no idea what to make of her because she never appears in the futures they see.)

* ''ComicBook/Ultimates2015'' has Galactus reveal an apparently simplified view of time to the Ultimates, including the sliding timescale (some events have a certain 'weight', so are always only a decade or so behind), and various futures struggle to realise themselves as they become more and more probable, with the 'Old King Thor', 'Maestro', '2099', and ''ComicBook/DaysOfFuturePast'' futures among those shown.

* In ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', Doctor Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to peer into the future to find an outcome where they come out winning against Thanos, sifting through over fourteen million probable futures and only finding one with such an outcome. [[spoiler:It is even implied that [[TheBadGuyWins him willingly giving Thanos the stone after their battle against him and Thanos succeeding in his near-omnicidal goal]] [[ThanatosGambit was all a part of that probable future]].]] A theory ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' proves correct.
** Zig-Zagged due to the events of Series/Loki2021, where its revealed that while AlternateTimelines and Futures do indeed exist, all of them except the "Main" one end up being pruned by [[TImePolice the Time Variance Authority]].

** Zig-Zagged due to the events of LiveActionTV/Loki2021, where its revealed that while AlternateTimelines and Futures do indeed exist, all of them except the "Main" one end up being pruned by [[TImePolice the Time Variance Authority]].