History Main / TeslaTechTimeline

Want to have a LightningGun? Have it be created by Nikola Tesla and no one will bat an eye. ShockAndAwe-power-granting inventions? One of the conspiracy theories regarding Tesla is about him having mastered artificial lightning! Turn the Eiffel Tower into a giant Tesla Coil? Absolutely - it has 'Tesla' in the name!

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] anything regarding Tesla, Inc. or its co-founder, Elon Musk.

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] anything regarding Tesla, Inc. or its founder, Elon Musk.

One step up the industrial ladder from SteamPunk, which is more about brass gears and steam engines than shiny steel and electricity. It may overlap with DieselPunk, which likewise uses electricity as an available power source and often has ArtDeco aesthetics, but is usually much less visually grimy and bleak. It may be part of SovietSuperscience -- after all, all that advanced technology needs a sufficiently different power source from its Western counterparts.

* ''Comicbook/AtomicRobo'' is all about this trope; Tesla created the titular Atomic Robo and many of his adventures center around the technology he invented.
* Subtly implied in ''ComicBook/LeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen''. An electricity fuse box in the first issue is labelled "Edison Teslatron", suggesting that in this timeline Edison and Tesla co-operated instead of competing. (And also, they were probably fictional versions of Edison and Tesla from books like ''Literature/EdisonsConquestOfMars'' and other works featuring Tesla with this trope, suggesting that they were both ludicrous-tech geniuses).

* In the [[Film/TheAdventuresOfCaptainProton Captain Proton]] ParodyFic ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace'', the MacGuffin involves the search for a stolen [[EarthquakeMachine Tesla Scalar Interferometer]] from Area 51. However the setting is an [[AtomPunk atomic-powered]] ZeeRust future of 2009. When explaining the concept of AlternateHistory, one character asks them to contemplate a world where Tesla never hired a secretary to write down his ideas.

* In ''Film/ThePrestige'', in the late 19th century Tesla builds a machine that shoots out big lightning bolts [[spoiler:and is a matter replicator, capable of making exact duplicates of anything from top hats, to cats, to ''people''.]]

* Literature/TheMasterKey, {{defied}}, where Tesla or Edison could have touched the Master Key of Electricity and gotten super-advanced tech, but didn't. Or perhaps only Edison could have...
* In ''Literature/ThePrestige'', Tesla invents a device that can perfectly duplicate physical objects (seemingly creating matter from ''nothing'', no less) and it's even capable of cloning humans (in the book, there's some CloneDegeneration, but in the movie, they're apparently perfect clones). This invention [[SubvertedTrope should]] have revolutionized ''everything'', [[MadScientist but its owner]] only ever [[MisappliedPhlebotinum uses it for a stage magic trick]], and [[ReedRichardsIsUseless it's eventually destroyed before anyone else learns about it]].
* ''The Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown'' by Paul Malmont. After Nikola Tesla dies under mysterious circumstances, a team of pulp magazine and sci-fi writers attempt to track down a possible superweapon he invented, possibly related to the Wardencyffe Tower. It's left ambiguous as to whether there really was such a weapon however, as the whole story is related by an UnreliableNarrator (pulp writer Creator/LRonHubbard).

* Modern day technology in ''Series/Warehouse13'' is much the same as it is in reality, with the exception of a handful of devices used only by agents of the Warehouse to track down dangerous artefacts. This includes [[RayGun electrical handguns and rifles]] created by Tesla himself, two-way video communication devices created in the 1920's by Philo Farnsworth, and a slew of other devices that may or may not be {{Magitek}}.

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' supplement ''Alternate Earths''. One of the campaign settings is Gernsback, where Nikola Tesla succeeded in creating technologically advanced inventions that revolutionised the world.

* ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' has Tesla being discredited by Thomas Edison using the same experiments as he did in RealLife - this is not just because he sees Tesla as a competitor, but also as part of a HistoricalVillainUpgrade since he is part of the [[KnightTemplar Templars]]. Tesla, his career and laboratory destroyed and with a little prodding from the assassins, uses the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower Wardenclyffe Tower]] to send a particle beam across the globe to blow up a Templar research station, causing the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska event]].
--> Tesla (as he flicks the switch): "Rot in ''Hell'', Edison."
* In ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite'', one of the things that Elizabeth can bring in through a tear is a Tesla Coil to zap enemies. Given the nature of Elizabeth's tear powers, it's likely that VideoGame/BioshockInfinite itself isn't a Tesla Tech Timeline, but Elizabeth can pull things from a timeline that is.

* ''Videogame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert:'' Tesla himself is never mentioned beyond a brief reference by Albert Einstein in a pre-mission cutscene in the Allied campaign, nor actually shown [[note]]In real life, he died in 1943, and the events of the game occur years after that date, so it's likely that he's dead by the time the war actually started.[[/note]], but boy do the Soviets love to use Tesla coil-like weapons and inventions. That being said, the aforementioned brief reference in the Allied campaign had Einstein note that the principles behind the newly discovered Soviet superweapon, the [[NighInvulnerability Iron Curtain]], reminded him of some experiments that Tesla was working on, implying that the Iron Curtain (and possibly the Soviet Union's "Tesla tech") may have been derived from Tesla's research (whether he willingly provided it to them or not).
** Tesla coils show up in all the alternate timelines of ''Videogame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert'' - not as transformers, but as the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union's]] advanced base defenses. Tesla Troopers and Tesla Tanks, meanwhile, are the Soviets' LightningGun-armed troops.
** [[Videogame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 The second game]] introduces "Tesla Reactors" as the Soviet Union's counterpart to the Allies' generically named "Power Plants" as the default source of electric power, and has a Soviet mission where the primary objective is to turn the Eiffel tower into a giant [[LightningGun Tesla coil]] to lay waste to Paris and force the French to back down from their plans to join the rest of the European Allies against the USSR, and demoralize the rest of Europe as well.
** [[Videogame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3 The third game's events]] are caused by the Soviets travelling back in time to assassinate UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein. Their time machine is basically a cockpit surrounded by tesla coils.

* ''VideoGame/IronHarvest'' takes place in the same universe as ''TabletopGame/{{Scythe}},'' listed above. The later portion of the campaign focuses on a megalomaniacal AncientConspiracy determined to force Tesla to provide even more advanced technology than the diesel-powered mechs they already have. The final mission shows off some of Tesla's newest models, and they look straight out of a 1950s Martian movie (or maybe ''Red Alert 2'').
* Tesla shows up in ''Videogame/TheOrder1886'' as part of the titular Order, having created science weapons like the [[LightningGun Arc Gun]] and [[KillItWithFire Thermite Thrower]] for the protagonist and his allies.
* In ''[[VideoGame/{{Resistance}} Resistance: Fall of Man]]'', Tesla receives a patent for his VTOL designs in 1928. By the 1950's, it's become a standard military aircraft.
* ''VideoGame/TeslaTheWeatherman'' Has Nikola Tesla fight against the evil Thomas Edison and his army of DC-powered robots with a power-glove like invention that allows him to control lightning strikes and levitate objects among other things.
* The [[AllThereInTheManual flavor text]] in the video-game tie-ins for ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' identify your main weapon as a "Teslator." It could be turned into an [[HarmlessFreezing ice-gun]] or a goo-gun. Rather surprisingly, this weapon ''never appears in the movie proper''--presumably Disney Interactive was squeamish about including firearms in a first-person shooter.

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* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' the Rogue Canadian Scientists' lightning gun is called a Tesla Projector.

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[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] anything regarding Tesla, Inc. or its founder, Elom Musk.

[[IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] anything regarding Tesla, Inc. or its founder, Elom Musk.

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Has absolutely nothing to do]] with the electric automaker Tesla, though that company was named after Nikola Tesla.

* VideoGame/EvolveIdle allows the player to increase their knowledge pool by constructing Wardenclyffes, a reference to the real world Wardenclyffe Tower designed and built by Nikola Tesla. Shortly after they're built they can be powered by electricity, increasing the amount of knowledge the player can have. A later upgrade, the Tesla Coil, makes them even more effective. They remain useful for the duration of the game.

* [[VideoGame/EvolveIdle]] allows the player to increase their knowledge pool by constructing Wardenclyffes, a reference to the real world Wardenclyffe Tower designed and built by Nikola Tesla. Shortly after they're built they can be powered by electricity, increasing the amount of knowledge the player can have. A later upgrade, the Tesla Coil, makes them even more effective. They remain useful for the duration of the game.

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** Tesla coils show up in all the alternate timelines of ''Videogame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert'' - not as transformers, but as the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union's]] advanced base defenses.

** [[Videogame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3 The third game's events]] are caused by the soviets travelling back in time to assassinate UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein. Their time machine is basically a cockpit surrounded by tesla coils.