History Main / StableTimeLoop

There are two basic types of time loop: a PredestinationParadox, in which knowledge of events in the future, even attempts to evade them, ultimately causes those events to happen (Sorry [[Theatre/OedipusTheKing Oedipus]]. And [[Film/TheTerminator John Connor]].) and the even more mind-squirming "bootstrap paradox"[[note]]from the classic Creator/RobertHeinlein short story, "Literature/ByHisBootstraps"[[/note]] (also called the ontological paradox), in which the time loop allows for the existence of information or objects that have no origin. The classic hypothetical bootstrap paradox is to jump into the future, steal some wondrous gadget, come back to the original time, grab the patent on that gadget and start mass-producing them immediately. Eventually, they become so ubiquitous or so common that you, ten, twenty years younger, show up and steal one. The simplest version is the one where the time machine itself is the product of the stable time loop — the character sees a version of himself pop into existence with a time machine, hand it to him, and press the button, only to be whisked into the past where he hands it to his past self and presses the button[[note]]This exact example is also an Object Paradox, wherein the time machine has no past and no future outside the loop, no origin, and somehow never decays or suffers wear and tear[[/note]]. The paradox can be resolved as regards physical objects by noting that such a process would imply the spontaneous creation and subsequent elimination of mass-energy, which violates the 1st Law of Thermodynamics (a principle established 150 years ago to which no exceptions have ever been found).

* As implied by the title, the events of the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3338174/1/Vicious-circle Vicious Circle]]'' are the result of such a loop. Basically - Galvatron kills Starscream, who is sent back in time and meets a young Megatron. After spending time together, the two mechs fall in love with each other, but Starscream chooses to return to his own time period, believing that Megatron becoming an abusive tyrant is inevitable. Not wanting to give up on Starscream, Megatron follows him to the future, where he helps the other mech escape Galvatron and return to the past, but once there, Starscream is killed. Megatron is so overcome by grief that he has both his memories of Starscream and a great part of his emotional system deleted, only to meet Starscream again years later - however, as this is their first meeting from Starscream's point of view, the Seeker has no memory of the time he and Megatron spent together. Unable to love Starscream the way he once did, Megatron beats and mentally tortures the mech, which causes Starscream to become [[TheStarscream the trope that he himself named]]. This, in turn, eventually leads [[WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie Starscream throwing Megatron out of Astrotrain]], which leads to Megatron becoming Galvatron and killing Starscream, which sends him back in time to start the circle all over again.

->''"One cannot damage history, because history cannot be changed. [Holds up Clock of Eternity] I went back in time to steal this because history said it disappeared. And history said it disappeared because I went back to steal it. Past, present, future. It's all written in stone, my dear."''
-->-- '''Warp''', ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'', "How Long Is Forever"

There are two basic types of time loop: a PredestinationParadox, in which knowledge of events in the future ultimately causes those events to happen (Sorry [[Theatre/OedipusTheKing Oedipus]]. And [[Film/TheTerminator John Connor]].) and the even more mind-squirming "bootstrap paradox"[[note]]from the classic Creator/RobertHeinlein short story, "Literature/ByHisBootstraps"[[/note]] (also called the ontological paradox), in which the time loop allows for the existence of information or objects that have no origin. The classic hypothetical bootstrap paradox is to jump into the future, steal some wondrous gadget, come back to the original time, grab the patent on that gadget and start mass-producing them immediately. Eventually, they become so ubiquitous or so common that you, ten, twenty years younger, show up and steal one. The simplest version is the one where the time machine itself is the product of the stable time loop — the character sees a version of himself pop into existence with a time machine, hand it to him, and press the button, only to be whisked into the past where he hands it to his past self and presses the button[[note]]This exact example is also an Object Paradox, wherein the time machine has no past and no future outside the loop, no origin, and somehow never decays or suffers wear and tear[[/note]]. The paradox can be resolved as regards physical objects by noting that such a process would imply the spontaneous creation and subsequent elimination of mass-energy, which violates the 1st Law of Thermodynamics (a principle established 150 years ago to which no exceptions have ever been found).

*** ...except there was more to the loop than once thought. The Ashes video "When?" confirmed that the "doppelgänger" Stranger!Archie saw before the aforementioned backfist was Exiled!Archie, and that he was indeed present at ''Never Compromise'' (quite possibly in more than one form, as two Archies were spotted during the aftermath).
*** The first time loop resulting from being backfisted took Archie to 2015, and due to both the future he went to changing (as evidenced by him being beaten by Tadasuke, an event that he claimed was in direct contradiction with the information he'd received) and CHIKARA's 2015 yearbook being postponed, may never be resolved...
*** ...or so everyone thought. Archie [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzf5PXY-brw appeared]] at the 2015 SeasonFinale ''Top Banana'', took the sole copy of the 2015 yearbook, learned that he would perish at the hands of Wrestling/{{Deucalion}}, and fled the building. Hasn't appeared since, and is still at large. Doubles as TheCuckoolanderWasRight.

* Show Of Hands song The Bet is about a man who finds ten grand next to a car crash, takes it, bets on horses with it, wins ten grand and... yeah, you see where I'm going with this.

* In the ''Fanfic/TwilightStorm'' fic "The Future in the Past", Bella Bella convince the Tenth Doctor to help her set up the events that will allow Esme to be in a position to be turned by Carlisle, and the two subsequently go back in time to investigate the origin of Bella's 'breed' of vampire. The Doctor and Bella thus [[spoiler:end up contributing to the events that will lead to these vampires existing in the first place, to the extent that they 'program' the vampires to hide away from humans]].

* ''Blog/RenegadeRhetoric'', a CharacterBlog for Cy-Kill from ''WesternAnimation/ChallengeOfTheGobots'' where many posts had him describe the events of episodes from a non-existent second season of that cartoon, the post describing the fictional two-part episode "Renegade Victory" ends with Cy-Kill voicing his displeasure at realizing that his attempts at securing Renegade victory by kidnapping Leader-1's past self Luther Unum may have indirectly resulted in his enemy going down the path that would lead to him becoming the noble leader of the heroic Renegades.

[[folder:Real Life]]

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' fanfic ''{{Fanfic/Gemini}}'', this trope is [[DefiedTrope defied]] by [[InvokedTrope invoking]] TimeyWimeyBall: It’s easier for the Daleks to change the past than it is for anybody else, so the military is trying to create super-soldiers that can change the timeline as easily as the Daleks can.

* In the ''[[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6 Homestuck]]'' fanfiction ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/1026527 Hopeless and Heartless]]''. there are several examples of stable time loops, all revolving around Dirk Strider's actions [[spoiler:as the result of a PortalToThePast. It is revealed that Dirk is actually his own older brother (and subsequently the guardian who raised his younger self) Main/BecauseDestinySaysSo. In order to avoid creating a paradox, Dirk is forced to remain in the past and send Jake English, the love of his life, back to the distant future, creating a 1,00 year gap between them]]. See also: IChooseToStay and LoveTranscendsSpacetime.
* The Literature/HarryPotter SlashFic ''Mobius'' by geneticallydead.
* ''FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality'' has four of these to date, the most notable one being when [[spoiler: Harry pulled a prank on himself using a Time Turner, an Invisibility Cloak, two pies, and several sheets of parchment]].

* In the ''Manga/AxisPowersHetalia'' fic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6904903/13/Chasing_An_Empty_Dream Chasing an Empty Dream]]'', [[spoiler:after a few characters end up centuries in the past curtsey of [[BlackMagic England's magic]], Germany ends up saving Holy Roman Empire's life. Moments later, he's shocked to find out he had just saved himself]].

* ''Fanfic/TimeAnomaly'';

* The entire premise of the ''FanFic/FacingTheFutureSeries'' is dependent on one of these. [[spoiler:When Future [[WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom Danny and Sam]] travel back in time to fight Dark Danny, present day Sam is driven by the revelation that her future self is half ghost to gain ghost powers of her own, thus becoming Danny's new partner]].
* The ''FanFic/PonyPOVSeries'' has a rather complex one show up in the sub-arc following the conclusion of [[BadFuture Dark World]]: [[spoiler:When Twilight/Amicitia [[DeityOfHumanOrigin ascends]], Cadence warns her that her greatest enemy awaits at the dawn of time. So she goes back then, where [[TheGrimReaper Mortis]] warns her that they're destined to one day fight each other as well, before helping her evade a sneak attack from a younger Cadence, who's [[KnightTemplar convinced that magic is inherently evil]] and wants to kill Amicitia to prevent its existence. After Amicitia barely defeats her, she then hops back in time a bit and tells Mortis to warn her, before going on to traverse her own timeline to be the [[BigGood Benevolent Interloper]] and shield her mortal self from [[GreaterScopeVillain Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox's influence]], thus insuring her own existence. And then she makes sure Razzaroo's ApocalypticLog survives G3's CosmicRetcon and sends it to the spirit world, where Razzaroo would then use it to nearly become The Magician Alicorn and challenge Dark World Twilight for the spot in the first place]]. Notably, Mortis at one point warns her not to do this too much, as it becomes complicated.

* In ''FanFic/TheApprenticeTheStudentAndTheCharlatan'' plays with this. Nova Shine is named after one of the pioneers of magic, who happened to be Princess Luna's first Night Apprentice, a unicorn held in the same regard as Star Swirl the Bearded, and the patriarch of his family, the Novus clan. Then, Nova and Twilight discover journals belonging to every previous Faithful Student and Night Apprentice in history, one of which belongs to Nova Shine I, and in it, discovers that Nova Shine I, the first Night Apprentice, is none other than present Nova himself, who heads back in time in only a few days, meaning that Nova is named after, and idolizes, himself. Except not really, because Nova ends up returning to his own time without having done many of the things Nova Shine I was reported to have done. It turns out, however, that Clover the Clever, the mare he fell in love with and ultimately left, ended up naming her son after him, and that Nova Shine was the one who became patriarch of the Novus Clan and became one of the most famous and storied unicorns in Equestrian history. The Nova Shine from the present was named after a unicorn who was named after him.
* ''FanFic/JewelOfDarkness'' has a small one in the Rivalry Arc. Midnight goes to steal the Clock of Eternity, only to find it already gone. After the ensuing confrontation with Warp [[spoiler:and trip to the canon universe]], she ends up back in the museum five minutes before her first arrival, allowing her to steal the Clock before she even shows up.

* ''FanFic/YinAndYangSeries'': A few. It's only natural with a time-controlling alien as a major character.
* ''FanFic/TheMonkeyDHaruSeries'': In ''Prisoner of Azkaban'', it's revealed that the reason why the Wizarding World knew Harry Potter was alive during his ten-year long disappearance is because Haru used his Portal-Portal powers to send a picture of himself back in time to Dumbledore.

* In ''FanFic/TheOuroboros'', [[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012 the turtles]], April and Casey ''believe'' that they're in the process of completing one in order to ensure that their world stays saved. In reality, the other versions of them aren't from the future, but an AlternateUniverse. The universe they left behind wasn't [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong set right]] by their efforts, and is still long gone... so they lied to the native versions of themselves, tricking them into heading off into space so they could replace them.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' uses one of these to explain why Professor Xavier couldn't tell Harry about his relationship to Jean -- fifty years before the start of the story, he met a time-travelling version of Harry from a little over two years into the story's future, who told him the things he had to do to ensure the closing of the loop (and thus avoiding a dangerous paradox), including swearing everyone present to secrecy until such time as Xavier could give present-day Harry a letter from his future self, that he remembered receiving from Xavier. [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble Discussing this sequence of events gives everyone a headache.]]

* "One For the Vine", on the ''Music/{{Genesis}}'' album ''Wind and Wuthering'', tells the story of a soldier deserting from an army led by a messianic leader. The deserter finds himself on an icy waste populated by primitive people, who see him as a messenger of God. He reluctantly takes the role simply in order to help himself get home, but ends up becoming the very messiah from whom he fled. As he leads his army into battle, he sees one soldier run away from the host, and vanish...

TrickedOutTime is when you "change" the past on purpose to resemble this. TimeLoopTrap is when you use a time loop as a way to imprison someone or something. Compare YouAlreadyChangedThePast, which often results in this. A WaybackTrip usually implies this. If this occurs in a universe where you can SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, you most likely have a TimeyWimeyBall on your hands. See RetroactivePreparation for one way this can be exploited. For the [[RecursiveCanon Recursive Fiction]] variant of this, see MutuallyFictional.

This is also the basic premise of how TimeTravel would work, according to Albert Einstein. Simply put, even if it were possible to travel back in time, you would not be able to change any events in the past, because your future self has already caused them to happen. No matter your intentions, everything that you did [[YouCantFightFate would only fulfill the past]]. The only thing that would change is your perception of the events. (Thus explaining HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct.)

This is also the basic premise of how TimeTravel would work, according to Albert Einstein. Simply put, even if it were possible to travel back in time, you would not be able to change any events in the past, because they've already happened. No matter your intentions, everything that you did [[YouCantFightFate would only fulfill the past]]. The only thing that would change is your perception of the events. (Thus explaining HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct.)

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** In Season 3, Church ends up TrappedInThePast due to explosion, and after taking the TheSlowPath, decides to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. His attempts creates an uncountable number of these as he fails his objective each time and keeps trying. Local CloudCuckoolander Caboose makes the following unintentionally profound statement when Church talks to him about his experiences with the timeline: "Time LINE...? Ehh, time isn't made out of LINES. It is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!"

* TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'s ''Faction War'' features a double time loop. Considering that the person stuck in it tried to overthrow the [[PowersThatBe Lady of Pain]], he had it easy.
* Rulified by the German RPG ''TabletopGame/TheDarkEye'' in which time travel follows a simple law: you cannot change the past, as it had already happened and you'll just end up doing what you did to create the present you're currently living in. If by some chance the hero does discover some [[TemporalParadox hopelessly contradicting action]], be prepared for time to [[GoodThingYouCanHeal heal itself]]. Oh, and the universe has [[ClockRoaches wardens]] against such misuse, too.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'':

* {{Multiverser}} features a whole complex system of resolving time loops and paradoxes. [[http://www.mjyoung.net/time/theory.html Details here.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/{{Ever 17}}'', the main character [[spoiler:(revealed to actually be a 4th-dimensional being known as "Blick Winkel") travels back in time from 2034 to 2017 to save two other characters from certain death, only to find that if he immediately reveals their survival to the others, that will create a TemporalParadox preventing him from coming back in time in the first place--so instead he is forced to hide their existence and manipulate the others into setting up the event in 2034 that results in him being "summoned" in the first place]].