History Main / OurTimeTravelIsDifferent

* The short Website/YouTube film "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBkBS4O3yvY One-Minute Time Machine]]" has a guy (played by Brian Dietzen of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'') invent the titular device (shaped like a box with a BigRedButton), which [[MentalTimeTravel throws his mind back 60 seconds]], which he uses to try to hit on a woman on a park bench. Naturally, he goes through many iterations before he succeeds. She turns out to be a scientist herself and has published a book on time travel. She points out that every time he uses the machine, he dies, and a new version of him is created in a branched universe (we're treated to a montage of the girl freaking out at the guy suddenly dying multiple times in all those other universes). Unfortunately for ''her'', this revelation means he isn't likely to get a boner anytime soon, and she's ready to go (he was very successful in his attempts to pick her up). So, she quietly tells her future double she better make it worth it and pushes the button herself in order to avoid telling him the truth, willingly killing herself in order to allow her double to get some action. It's never explained why the original has to die for the time machine to work or why the inventor himself wouldn't know about it.

* In ''Film/TheThreeMagi'', TheThreeWiseMen are walking together in the desert in the First Century AC at the beginning. Then the star described in the Gospels that announced the birth of Jesus starts shining unusually bright, and they find themselves transported to 2001. They appear in bodies of water in three separate locations in the modern world -- Caspar in a pond of water in an UsefulNotes/{{Africa}}n country, Balthazar in the sea on a coast of UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}}, and Melchior in a fountain in UsefulNotes/{{Tibet}}. The gifts all three men were holding for Jesus magically disappear from their hands as they arrive in modern-day, also.

* In the ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' novels, Asahina's method for time-travelers and Nagato's "emergency escape program" seems to be of the "special effects" variety, but it makes Kyon much too dizzy and nauseous to actually look beyond taking quick peeks, which he doesn't understand; this arguably makes it '''both''' [[OurWormholesAreDifferent Wormhole Time Travel]] and Unseen Time Travel. Asahina and Nagato don't seem to have that problem, but we don't know for sure either.

* ''Series/SevenDays'' uses this one; different from others in that the protagonist needs to steer ("fly the needles") in order to land on Earth. Even with his better-than-average ability, his time machine still winds up miles away from where he left.

* In the ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' novels there is one instance of Nagato sending Kyon and Asahina three years forward in time in what Kyon experiences as an instant.

* In ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' novels, whenever Kyon is time-traveling, he has to close his eyes because it makes him so sick he could puke. The reader doesn't learn much of what is happening, but the hints sound like a version of [[OurWormholesAreDifferent Wormhole Time Travel]].

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue''. The very first instance of time travel is the latter version since it occurs during a huge explosion that knocks all the characters out and who then wake up in the future, except for Church who's in the past. Every other instance somebody goes back in time though, it's instantaneous.

What does TimeTravel '''look''' like? Well, no one knows (as far as we know anyway), but fiction has given us four models, each of which may or may not involve a TimeMachine. (These concepts are not to be confused with the different fictional interpretations of TemporalMutability. This page is purely about the '''visuals'''.)

* Used in ''Film/BlackKnight''.

[[header:Videocassette Time Travel]]

It is, of course, presumed that you're invisible (and intangible) while traveling through time in this manner, i.e. people on the outside don't see someone standing around for years and years while moving ''very'' slowly. Modern works take this for granted, but H.G. Wells actually gave it a HandWave, essentially explaining that the traveler is going through time too quickly to be seen. (This doesn't quite explain how the traveler isn't ''[[FridgeLogic solid]]'', but never mind.)[[note]]That could be explained if time was a discrete variable, since if you go 5x fast, your atoms would only be there in one out of 5 "instants"; but of course, that brings a whole another set of problems.[[/note]]

If one is only going forwards, then this version resembles one the most scientifically plausible means of time travel, namely, accelerating fast enough for TimeDilation to be noticeable. (Of course, since you're actually ''accelerating'', you'll only be able to see the "fast-forwarding" of very distant large object, like a galaxy, and your vision will be modified too, [[DisSimile so it's not really anything like this model]].)

[[folder:'''Examples of this version of time travel''']]

* The book ''Literature/TheMagicSchoolBus in the Time of Dinosaurs''. Absurdly, the TV adaptation used this theory for the trip back in time, but switched to the one below for the return trip. Even stranger, the fossilized dinosaur egg became a normal egg (as in feasibly hatchable or edible), yet none of the humans on board disintegrated from aging backwards millions of years.

* ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'' used a more efficient form of the one used in ''Franchise/PrinceOfPersia Sands of Time.''

* At the end of ''Series/StargateSG1'', Teal'c is sent back in time through this method, to impart the solution to the problem of the Ori's ability to track the ship with the Asgard memory core (the Odyssey). The solution is on a memory crystal, which when inserted, performs a rapid shutdown of the core. There's no other way to prevent the Ori from tracking it.

[[header:[[OurWormholesAreDifferent Wormhole Time Travel]]]]

[[folder:'''Examples of this version of time travel''']]

* In the ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' novels, Asahina's time travelers's method and Nagato's "emergency escape program" seems to be of the "special effects" variety, but it makes Kyon much too dizzy and nauseous to actually look beyond taking quick peeks, which he doesn't understand; this arguably makes it '''both''' [[OurWormholesAreDifferent Wormhole Time Travel]] and Unseen Time Travel. Asahina and Nagato don't seem to have that problem, but we don't know for sure either.

* ''Series/SevenDays'' uses this one; different from others in that the protagonist needs to steer ("fly the needles") in order to land on Earth. Even with his better than average ability, his time machine still winds up miles away from where he left.
* ''ComicBook/MajorBummer'' used the less serious version, with moments from history flying by on two dimensional "shards" of time, one of which ends up impaling a character.

* ''WesternAnimation/TimeSquad'': Robots control the ability to travel through a computer in their arm. When the coordinates are set and the device is activated, electricity bursts around the travelers, light flashes and swallows them into a purple and green tunnel. This tunnel sucks the travelers in like a raging whirlpool, and then spits them back out into their destination. First timers always come out screaming in terror.
* ''Series/{{Timeless}}'' uses this version. Two times machines exist: the Lifeboat (the prototype three-person pod) and the larger Mothership (a sleek [=iPod=]-looking sphere that can fit 8-10 people). The wormhole is never shown, except on a diagram. Only a few people are trained to pilot a time machine, and precise navigation (both temporal and spacial) is required.
* Series/ArrowVerse handles time travel this way. When [[SuperSpeed speedsters]] time travel, they run fast enough to resonate with the Speed Force and enter it (which looks like a wormhole), at which point they can visualize where and when they want to go and appear there. The method used by the Time Masters involves jumping into the time stream (which appears like a different wormhole) and traveling through it to their destination. Only the former method attracts [[ClockRoaches Time Wraiths]], though.
* ''VisualNovel/{{SOON}}'': Time Traveling to a certain date resets any changes caused by Atlas from that point and on. To progress, the player had to be careful of not to undo their own work this way.

[[header:Instantaneous Time Travel]]

[[folder:'''Examples of this version of time travel''']]

* ''VideoGame/TheJourneymanProject'' from the second game onward. The noise and purple lightning when someone departs and arrives via this sort of time travel is handwaved as a phenomenon called "displacement effect", caused by the amount of matter in the universe being added or subtracted by the time traveller. The "time tunnel" shown in the first game more resembled a screensaver with the Playstation controller icons than anything else, and was wisely removed.

** The MentalTimeTravel [[spoiler:as well as whatever the heck happened to Ben at the end of season 4]] were instantaneous.

* In ''Back to the 50s'', S Club travel back in time 40 years simply by driving through a shimmering thing on the road, in a car which seemed to be self-aware just after the amount of distance it have driven went over one million miles.
* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue''. The very first instance of time travel is the latter version, since it occurs during a huge explosion that knocks all the characters out and then waking up in the future, except for Church who's in the past. Every other instance somebody goes back in time though, it's instantaneous.
* ''Webcomic/TimesLikeThis'' uses a [[AmuletOfConcentratedAwesome handheld device]] to cut a green glowing "time window" in front of it. Once the time window's operational, all the time traveler has to do is walk through it to get to the different time.

* In ''Series/QuantumLeap'', Sam arrives and leaves via an impressive special effect, but the final episode points out that this version applies in reverse: Sam sees what may be another leaper depart, and isn't sure what he just saw. He later explains it to Al, who also can't be sure -- neither of them has seen what a leap looks like. This implies instantaneous, since Sam is conscious when he leaps.

** Although the incident in question was Nagato freezing time in that room so that time passed as normal on the outside, but ''seemed'' to pass instantly to those in side. So it isn't true time-travel any more than what people do regularly.

* In ''Literature/ParadoxBound'', there are no special effects to ''[[InsistentTerminology history]]'' travel. In fact, it happens fairly often, it's just that people usually don't realize anything has happened. For example, someone may pass through a town that looks like it came straight out of TheFifties and then end up right back in his or her native time period, just figuring it's a town that needs to catch up with the times. It's all because of the so-called "slick spots", which can be found on many roads and railroads. An experienced Searcher memorizes the "slick spots" and where and when they lead, as well as how to "skid" on them in order to pass into a different period of history. It usually involves a car appearing to lose traction on a road (even if it's 90 degrees outside). Any normal drives will attempt to regain control. A Searcher will, instead, know how to properly let the car (or, in some cases, a motorcycle, or even a train) "skid" through the "slick spot". There are some requirements, such as the need that the vehicle be mostly made up of American steel (i.e. no foreign cars, no modern mostly plastic/fiberglass cars). Most Searchers use pre-1975 vehicles that are fairly easy to maintain in any period of history. Some are modified with a Garrett electrolytic carburetor, which allows them to run on water, while John Henry's ''Steel Bucephalus'' locomotive burns wood, since he can always find fuel.

[[header:Unseen Time Travel]]
This covers all instances where the time travel occurs off-screen. Often a form of MentalTimeTravel. For example, if you fell asleep and then woke up to find yourself in TheMiddleAges. Another variation of this occurs if all the audience ever sees is the traveler leaving from and arriving in various times, i.e. the traveler's point of view is never shown. Either way, it's impossible to determine which of the above theories is in place.

[[folder:'''Examples of this version of time travel''']]

* Used in an episode of ''Music/{{S Club 7}} in Miami'' (aka ''Series/Miami7''), where the group went into fog on a boat in the BermudaTriangle and fell unconscious, waking up in the 80s with clothes from that time. They regained their original clothes when they re-entered the fog to go back to their own time, except for Hannah, who kept her 80s shoes for reasons that were never explained.

* In ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' novels, whenever Kyon is time traveling, he has to close his eyes because it makes him so sick he could puke. The reader doesn't learn much of what is happening, but the hints sound like a version of [[OurWormholesAreDifferent Wormhole Time Travel]].

* [[Literature/SlaughterHouseFive "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time,"]] meaning that he lives his life out of order, but there are no discernible time travel moments or effects.

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