History Main / RetroactivePreparation

!!Examples

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

[[folder:Films]]

** Parodied in the non-canonical ''The Curse of Fatal Death'', where both the Doctor and the Master attempt this. Repeatedly.

** Taken advantage of by Missy in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E12TheDoctorFalls "The Doctor Falls"]]. When her [[TheNthDoctor previous incarnation]] reveals that his/their TARDIS is inoperable due to a broken piece of [[AppliedPhlebotinum Phlebotinum]], she invokes this trope. She throws said previous incarnation against the wall, and claims that she "remembers" a very scary lady once throwing her against the wall and forced her/him to promise to always carry a spare piece of that Phlebotinum at all times. The promise made, she then reaches into her own pocket to reveal that she now has the exact piece of Phlebotinum they need.
** The Seventh Doctor became particularly associated with this, mostly due to "Battlefield", in which he finds himself resolving an issue created by a future incarnation, and "The Curse of Fenric", in which he's been fighting Fenric on multiple levels in different time periods. By the time of the Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures, it had become memetic that he ''always'' did this, so the books started playing with it (see above).

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* This trope sets the plot in motion in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' movie ''Bender's Big Score''.

Let's say your favorite show is about to air, but you forgot to program your [[TechnologyMarchesOn VCR or DVR]] to record it. You run up to your front door to set that up, discover it locked, and realize you don't have your keys. What do you do? Break a window? Bust down the door? Drop down the chimney? Watch it at a neighbor's house? Hurry! There's less than a minute left! Oh, if only you'd thought to leave a key hidden under the doormat or something!

* ''[=TimeWatch=]'': All characters have the Preparedness ability. Technically this ''can'' be used for such mundane things like "of course I remembered to pack spare batteries", but it's far more likely to be used for "tomorrow, I'm going to go back five months, make a copy of the bunker key, and hide it inside the third ventilator". Preparedness does ''not'' prevent Paradox issues, though -- if the third ventilator had already been searched, finding the key inside it with a Preparedness test means the [=PCs=] get to roll a Paradox test as well.

* The ''Francise/KingdomHearts'' series is the result of the BigBad Xehanort doing this to himself. He uses his past self in his schemes to get the X-Blade, thus planting a seed of darkness in his past self's heart, which acts as a catalyst to eventually corrupt him into the monster that he becomes, [[StableTimeLoop who eventually uses his past self in his schemes...]]

If it ''is'' shown getting set up, sometimes a very strange thing will happen: The time traveler might end up rigging both the way past and original obstacl, e.g., when you're putting the key in place, you discover the door was left unlocked, and you know it 'was' locked, so you lock it.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

If it ''is'' shown getting set up, sometimes a very strange thing will happen: The time traveler might end up rigging both the way past and original obstacle. E.g., when you're putting the key in place, you discover the door was left unlocked, and you know it 'was' locked, so you lock it.

* {{Subverted|Trope}} in the ''Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures''. The Doctor walks up to a fridge, and proclaims "This fridge will be full of delicious food: in the future I will travel back in time and put it there." He opens the fridge; it's almost empty. "I forgot," he adds.

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

* In ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' and its sequels, Doctor Strange is the grand master of this trope, exploiting it to manipulate ''everyone.'' By the sequel, it's got to the point that Thor just assumes (accurately) that Strange has a plan and proposes to solve an apparently unsolvable problem by picking Strange up by the ankles and shaking him until the answers come out. [[spoiler: It actually does work, in epic fashion]].

* In ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' and its sequels, Doctor Strange is the grand master of this trope, exploiting it to manipulate ''everyone.'' By the sequel, it's got to the point that Thor just assumes (accurately) that Strange has a plan and proposes to solve an apparently unsolvable problem by picking Strange up by the ankles and shaking him until the answers come out.

** She's also the [[Pantheon/TimeAndSpace current Trope Goddess.]]

** So does ''The Man Who Folded Himself'' by David Gerrold, the time traveler using it even to get "immortal".

* Not only is it used in ''[[BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure]]'', it's practically elevated to a martial art in ''Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey'', where the climax has both the titular heroes and their nemesis making use of this trope [[spoiler: before pointing out that only the ''winner'' of the showdown can actually make use of it]].

** Because of this rule, The Doctor was able to save River Song in "Forest of the Dead".
** This is also the Doctor's only recourse in "Blink", not so much helping himself as helping Sally Sparrow defeat the Weeping Angels in 2007 because they sent him back to the 1960s without the TARDIS.

** Used in the Series 5 finale "The Big Bang", repeatedly, where we first see the Doctor show up and give random orders, leave, come back a second later, give more, and repeat a few times. Later, we see it from the other side, and learn he's doing this in real time in the future as he figures out what he needed to have already have happened. Thanks to the TimeyWimeyBall in that universe, he probably can't rely on things he's going to do later, so going back and retroactively doing them the instant before he needs them is safer.

** Straight-up depended upon by the Doctor in [[Recap/DoctorWho2011RedNoseDaySpecialSpaceAndTime the Red Nose Day special "Space"]]:
--> '''Amy:''' You don't know [[ContextSensitiveButton which lever]]?
-->'''Doctor:''' No, but I'm about to find out.
--> ''He gestures dramatically towards a door from which a future Doctor immediately enters the scene.''
--> '''Future Doctor:''' The [[InherentlyFunnyWords wibbly]] [[TechnoBabble lever]]!
** Taken to ridiculous levels in "The Day of the Doctor" where the Doctor pulls off a thousand-year preparation in order to [[spoiler:save Gallifrey by placing it in a time lock]].

* Averted in ''Series/SevenDays'', when the Russians manage to get their time travel technology off the ground thanks to Olga. Unfortunately, the technology is controlled by a rogue Russian general who proceeds to kill the Russian president and take power, intending to use the Sphere to prevent any attempts to remove him from power. Parker manages to "backstep" and stop the Russian program before their first jump. Interestingly, Olga previously worked on another Russian time travel program, which did not bear fruit but got her recruited into the Backstep program.
* ''Series/KamenRiderDouble'' has an odd variation on this. The Yesterday Dopant has the power to make someone do whatever they were doing [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly 24 hours ago]]. When Double shows up to fight it, Yesterday specifically baits him into actions that, when affected by Yesterday's power the next day, will cause him to try and assassinate a public figure.

* ''IrregularWebcomic'' [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2367.html accomplishes this]] and ensures a StableTimeLoop at the same time.

* ''VideoGame/TimeSplitters: Future Perfect'' had numerous examples of this. One of the earliest examples is also one of the most memorable - you are given a key by your future self that you need to progress, and later pass the key on to your past self, [[TemporalParadox leaving its initial existence unexplained]]. FridgeLogic also sets in when you consider the fact that ''one'' key is being infinitely passed from Cortez to Cortez, meaning it'll probably wear down and break at some point.
* In ''{{Achron}}'' this is a very basic tactic. If your base is attacked, you can go back and build defenses in preparation.
* Subverted in ''{{Singularity}}'', where the player receives advice from the future in the form of time-reversed chalk marks on the walls. You'd think that would be a huge help, but they wind up not helping because whoever wrote them has/will-have-gone completely bonkers from excessive time travel and can't explain anything coherently enough for the messages to be helpful at the time you receive them.

* A variation occurs in ''[[ComicBook/SupermanAndBatmanGenerations Superman and Batman Generations III]]'': [[spoiler:{{Darkseid}}'s plan to conquer Earth starts by sending an invasion fleet to attack the planet. Should they fail, the survivors time travel back 100 years and try again, and so on and so forth.]]

* [[spoiler:Old!]]Loki in ''Comicbook/LokiAgentOfAsgard'' went back in time (or maybe in [[TheoryOfNarrativeCausality story]]) to create the sword that was used to free [[spoiler:Thor from their parasitic influence]], because they wanted to wreak havoc without the restrictions of, well, basically [[spoiler:DemonicPossession]].

** Lord English is a time-traveling demon who can only enter a universe once it has died. Once he enters, he can travel back in time and prepare his own summoning.

* In the ''KimPossible'' movie "A Sitch in Time", [[spoiler:Shego]] used the time monkey idol to change a whole lot of things, including making tons of money by buying a big company before the bubble burst, [[TimeyWimeyBall causing Ron to move to Norway]], [[TakeOverTheWorld Taking Over The World]] by mind probing the entire population, [[TimeyWimeyBall and travelling back to the future!past to tell her past self to steal the Time Monkey Idol]].