History Main / TheSlowPath

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', Ben, Gwen, and Kevin end up meeting a man named [[DoctorWhomage Professor Paradox]] who is trying to stop a time creature currently going on a rampage in an abandoned military base. The same base where 50 years ago, Paradox performed an experiment that went awry and gave him his TimeMaster powers. It's later revealed that the accident actually was caused by Paradox's assistant, Hugo, and that Hugo was turned into the time creature by the same accident and sent to the present. After travelling to the past and saving Hugo from being turned into the time monster, Paradox takes the gang and returns to the present, leaving Hugo behind. When they arrive wondering whatever happened to him, Hugo, now an old man, reveals he's standing behind them, and responds that he lived his life.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', Ben, Gwen, and Kevin end up meeting a man named Professor Paradox who is trying to stop a time creature currently going on a rampage in an abandoned military base. In this same base, 50 years ago, Paradox performed an experiment that went awry and gave him his TimeMaster powers. It's revealed that the accident was caused by Paradox's assistant, Hugo, and that Hugo was turned into the time creature by the same accident and sent to the present. After travelling to the past and saving Hugo from being turned into the time monster, Paradox takes the gang and returns to the present, leaving Hugo behind. When they arrive wondering whatever happened to him, Hugo, now an old man, reveals he's standing behind them, and responds that he lived his life.

* In ''Literature/TheTimeTravelersWife'' the time traveler initially meets his future wife when she is just a little girl, and she has to take the slow path to get to his normal time line.

* UpToEleven in a ''Kid Gravity'' comic, published in Magazine/DisneyAdventures. Kid Gravity is stranded in the time of the dinosaurs by his evil rival, only for Gravity to suddenly return in another another time machine. He explains to his rival that he wrote himself a note to the future telling his future self to send another time machine to the past for him to return home. How he wrote that note, had it undiscovered for millions of years, identified the exact day he was trapped on, etc, isn't... exactly explained.

* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': In the British Lostbelt, Mash Kyrielight gets stranded 2400 years in the past. After an adventure, she gets back to the present by putting herself in suspended animation until the others discover and revive her.

*** In the same conversation, Widmore mentions to Locke that the Oceanic 6 has been off the island for 3 years, whereas Locke went through the portal off the island in early 2005, a few days after the Oceanic 6 left the island.

** Locke meets a young Charles Widmore on the island in 1954, then again in Tunisia in 2005. Widmore introduces himself, tells Locke that they met 50 years ago and asks how long it's been for him. "Four days".

* ''Film/BillAndTedsBogusJourney'' ends with the duo leaving and returning in their time machine, before explaining to the audience that they just slipped away for a year and a half to get married, have a honeymoon and actually learn to play the guitar! This breaks the SanDimasTime previously established, however.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeastMachines'': According to [[spoiler:Waspinator]], after he left [[WesternAnimation/TransformersBeastWars prehistoric Earth]], it "took forever" to reach Cybertron, implying he's been flying through deep space under his own power for thousands of years.

* When the others are blasted into the future in ''Series/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', Marvin has to take the slow path and wait billions of years to meet up with them. He spends the last several thousand years parking cars at the site where the Restaurant At the End of the Universe was eventually built.

** The episode [[Recap/LegendsOfTomorrowS2E5Compromised "Compromised"]] gives us Todd/Obsidian, one of [[Comicbook/{{Vixen}} Amaya's]] teammates from the ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica. Amaya stows away on the Legend's TimeMachine, the ''Waverider'', in 1942, and a few weeks later (for her), runs into Obsidian in 1987, who he hasn't seen her in over forty years.

* In ''Videogame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'', E-123 Omega takes a Chaos Emerald and enters standby mode [[BigDamnHeroes to help Shadow]] when he was trapped in the future.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' has your character [[HumanPopsicle going through cryogenic stasis]] for 200 years before waking up in a world AfterTheEnd and seeking to find their missing baby son Shaun. It turns out that [[spoiler:Shaun was stolen from Vault 111 sixty years before your character escapes the Vault, and has become an old man during that time -- as well as the leader of the Institute]].

* ''[[WebComic/EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theater's]]'' White Mage accidentally takes away Sarda the Sage's chance to become the creator of the universe, and then traps him there at the beginning of time where he is forced to wait for the universe to evolve intelligent life. (The only thing Sarda could do in all that time was grow his iconic mustache, and that only took him two weeks.)

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', Ben, Gwen, and Kevin end up meeting a man named Professor Paradox, a thinly veiled expy of Franchise/DoctorWho, that is trying to stop a time creature currently going on a rampage in an abandoned military base. The same base where 50 years ago, Paradox preformed an experiment that went awry and gave him his TimeMaster powers. Its revealed that the accident was actually caused by Paradox's assistant, Hugo, and furthermore that Hugo was turned into the time creature by the same accident and sent to the present. After travelling to the past and saving Hugo from being turned into the time monster, Paradox takes the gang and returns to the present leaving him behind. When they arrive wondering whatever happened to him, Hugo now an old man, reveals he's standing behind them and responds that he lived his life.

* In Spider Robinson's ''Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon'' there is a character who is referred to as a time traveler though really he just spent over a decade in a BananaRepublic prison cell and [[StrangerInAFamiliarLand finds it hard to adjust to the world when he gets out]].
** He is, effectively. He missed out on ten years of human development and [[TheSixties social upheaval]] languishing in a jail cell. He may have taken the slow path, of one year per year time dilation, but he still effectively jumped, culturally speaking, from 1963 to 1973.

* In ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'', the immortal elf Rayek kidnaps the family of Cutter, chief of the mortal Wolfriders, and takes them roughly ten thousand years into the future. His plan is to save the ancestors of the elves during their initial time travel mishap (which sent them back into the past). However, this would prevent the Wolfriders from ever existing. Cutter has no idea when his (immortal) lifemate Leetah and their (mortal) children will ever appear again, and he knows that he will die after roughly six thousand years. The first five centuries are torment for him and his tribe, and they eventually decide to have themselves wrapped in a time-freezing cocoon. The immortal characters (including the troll king, whose daughter was also kidnapped) live the years out, as do a select few Wolfriders who dislike tampering with nature and who simply choose to life a normal life. The plot resumes ten thousand years later, when Cutter's lifemate and children finally see him again -- after what, for them, has only been a few hours. Later chapters show that Cutter's time without his family severely traumatized him -- he could simply not stop ''counting''.

* The protagonists of ''Rainbow Mars'' by Creator/LarryNiven travel back in time hundreds of years using [[OurTimeTravelIsDifferent instantaneous time travel]] but lose access to it for the return trip. Instead, they use a stasis device on [[ItsALongStory their rocket ship]] to return to their own time, popping into reality here and there to inadvertently spawn ancient legends, including that of [[Myth/RussianMythologyAndTales Baba Yaga]].

* StarTrekPicard Season 2 begins with a mysterious new Borg Queen arriving in the Alpha Quadrant. After ten episodes of time travel shenanigans, the Borg Queen turns out to be [[spoiler: Dr. Jurati, who was assimilated in 2024 and who is only just reconnecting with her own timeline after 400 years.]]

* In ''Anime/OnePiece'', it’s revealed that [[spoiler;Kin'emon, Momonosuke and the other samurai the Straw Hats meet are actually from the past. Kin'emon explains that they used to be the vassals of the Daimyo, Kozuki Oden, who is also Momo's real Father, until he was murdered by the Shogun of Wano Country who allied himself with the pirate Kaido. After killing Oden, Kaido and his crew raided his castle in order to kill Oden's famly and vassals. Oden's wife, Kozuki Toki, used her time Devil Fruit to send Momonosuke along with Kin'emon and two others forward 20 years in time in order to save them before she was killed by Kaido. However, Momo's younger sister, Hiyori, along with the other vassals were not sent in time and were forced to stayed behind. They managed to survive the raid and would go on to live their lives in the intervening years, reaching the present storyline the old fashioned way]].

* In ''Fanfic/ALongJourneyHome'', a female version of Harry Potter is thrown into Ancient Egypt and has to live for thousands of years to get back home.

* [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in ''Script/AHDotComTheSeries'', "The Gates of Dawn": the crew are trapped at the beginning of time, before the Big Bang, and now things are too unstable to time travel back to the present. So instead they seal themselves in stasis in the belly of The Machine, which they know will survive to the present, and experience no time as we see a time-lapse sequence of fifteen billion years of history around them.

* In ''Anime/OnePiece'', its revealed that Kin'emon, Momonosuke and the other samurai the Straw Hats meet are actually from the past. Kin'emon explains that they used to be the vassals of the Daimyo, Kozuki Oden, who is also Momo's real Father, until he was murdered by the Shogun of Wano Country who allied himself with the pirate Kaido. After killing Oden, Kaido and his crew raided his castle in order to kill Oden's famly and vassals. Oden's wife, Kozuki Toki, used her time Devil Fruit to send Momonosuke along with Kin'emon and two others forward 20 years in time in order to save them before she was killed by Kaido. However, Momo's younger sister, Hiyori, along with the other vassals were not sent in time and were forced to stayed behind. They managed to survive the raid and would go on to live their lives in the intervening years, reaching the present storyline the old fashioned way.

** Referenced in [[http://www.xkcd.com/630 #63]] proving that The Slow Path can be made into the most annoying form of time travel.

* In the ''[[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/ Worm]]'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10286919/1/Recoil Recoil]]'', Taylor Hebert is sent back twenty-two years from the aftermath of a [[GoneHorriblyWrong disastrous Endbringer battle]]. That takes place in the first chapter. The rest of the story is about what happens next.

* In ''Fanfic/EquestriaAcrossTheMultiverse'', the group encounters two of the worlds created via Starlight's time travel revenge plot from the season 5 finale. It turns out that due to her methods (always remaining in the past while sending Twilight back to the future), each timeline she created possesses a temporal duplicate of her who was left stranded in the past with no way home due to Twilight having the time travel spell and there being no Cutie Map in the past. As a result, when the jaunters interact with the present time of those worlds, that Starlight has had to spend the last 20 years returning to the present the long way and hasn't aged well due to stress. Thankfully, spending 20 years witnessing the world [[BadFuture being ruined by her petty revenge]] caused them to undergo a HeelRealization and [[TheAtoner seek to atone for their mistakes.]]

* A less tragic version in the season 2 finale of ''Series/TheLibrarians2014'', where the TimeMachine that sent Flynn and Eve into Creator/{{Shakespeare}}'s time breaks after the jump, and Jenkins informs the others that it's impossible for them to return, even using another time machine, as each time machine works differently. After the BigBad is defeated ([[spoiler:by exorcising him from Shakespeare's body]]), [[spoiler:Shakespeare]] needs to return to his own time. The space/time continuum obligingly creates a temporal rift for him, but Flynn and Eve aren't able to use it. Instead, [[spoiler:they use the last of the Bard's magic to have the two of them turned into statues and placed in a locked room in the Library. A clue is then left that will only appear at the appropriate time that will allow Jenkins to open the room and break the "curse", turning the statues back to normal]].

** As of season 5, most of the characters of [[spoiler: are back in 1977. Some of them got stuck in 1974 and simply had to build lives for themselves in that time period while waiting for Locke and the O6 to return.]] Though the neat thing is, [[spoiler:the people who got off the island take three years to make it back, so that by the time everyone meets up again, they've all experienced the same amount of time.]]

** Earlier in the show, season eight's finale "Moebius", a Zero Point Module takes the slow path from Ancient Egypt, due to some monkeying with the TimeyWimeyBall by the team. That ZPM ends up in Atlantis's season 2 premiere.

** In the season four finale "[[Recap/StargateAtlantisS04E20TheLastMan The Last Man]]", a solar flare sends Sheppard 48,000 years in the future. To return to his present, Sheppard spends somewhere around 700 years in stasis to catch a solar flare that sends him back to 12 days after he disappeared.

* ''[[WebComic/EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theater's]]'' White Mage accidentally takes away Sarda the Sage's chance to become the creator of the universe, and then traps him there at the beginning of time where he is forced to wait for the universe to evolve intelligent life. (The only thing Sarda could do in all that time was grow his iconic mustache, and that only took him two weeks).

** In [[http://xkcd.com/209/ #209]], Beret Guy goes to "explore the future" with a kayak, as the kayak travels through time "just like everything else".[[note]]It also goes through water.[[/note]]
** Referenced in [[http://www.xkcd.com/630/ #630]], proving that The Slow Path can be made into the most annoying form of time travel.
** In [[http://xkcd.com/1617/ #1617]], the Beret Guy seems to mistake a time ''capsule'' for a time ''machine''; the only traveling he does is the slow variety.
** In [[https://xkcd.com/2459/ #2459]], a comic has March 2020 lasting the entire 15 months of the pandemic until the arrival of vaccinations (making the point that all of the world feels like it's been on hold). Thus, the alt-text punchline, "I've traveled here from March 2020 to give you this vaccine!"

* An AndIMustScream version is used in ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex''. Van Kliess was sent back in time by Breach and an episode focuses on how he got back to the present. While it looks like he's getting in a time machine during his travels between the various eras it's later revealed that [[spoiler:it's not a time machine but a stasis chamber and the AndIMustScream part comes when it's revealed that he was ''AWARE'' of each passing second during the thousands of years of waiting.]] And all while being chased by [[spoiler:Breach who had been turned into]] a mysterious energy force.

* A coffee grinder bought in a [[TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday disappearing antiques store]] ([[spoiler:or the Lucifer Hawk that runs it]]) sends Yuki Saiko of ''Manga/SilentMobius'' thirty years into the past, where she meets a young man named Tohru and they fall in love. When she gets back to her own time, they meet again [[spoiler: and it turns out he's her landlord.]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': There's actually a pretty good [[FanficRecs/DoctorWho fanfic]] set in an alternate universe in which the Doctor takes the slow path with Reinette: [[http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=7495 The Slow Path, or Two and a Half Centuries in Two and a Half Days]].

* In the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13733306/1/Breaking-the-Window Breaking the Window]]", Hermione forms a relationship with a version of Bellatrix Black from thirty years in the past, as they communicate through a ‘fairy window’ in a lake in the Forbidden Forest. Bellatrix often passes items on to Hermione by hiding them in different places around the lake in her time, protected by relevant enchantments, so that Hermione can retrieve them in her present still in perfect condition.

Common M.O. for TheConstant. See also TrappedInThePast, WriteBackToTheFuture and TheAgeless.

Common M.O. for TheConstant. See also TrappedInThePast and WriteBackToTheFuture.

** One arc sees the team accidentally deposited to the past, and stuck on the home planet of the Skrulls - just hours before Galactus was fated to destroy it. The team manages to escape, but they don't have any way to return to their present (and at the current moment in X-history in the time they were in, it would have been only shortly after both ComicBook/TheNewMutants were formed and ComicBook/{{Rogue}} first joined the team). Kitty uses the stolen spacecraft they escaped in to take a slower path back to Earth, while using a stasis field to keep them frozen until they arrive at the moment they left.

** In the pilot for a proposed U.S. version of the series (which was not greenlighted), Kryten's detached head is fully conscious, sitting on a shelf in the repair shop, for the entire time that Lister is in stasis.