Line #68 Main/TeslaTechTimeline


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7	Need to establish a setting where LightningCanDoAnything, but don't want your reader/viewer/gamer to stop and think too hard about the scientific ramifications of it?
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9	Easy: Add UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla, his inventions, or even just inventions carrying his name and suddenly you have {{handwaved}} even the most bizarre uses of electricity.[[note]]And as LightningCanDoAnything, you can extend this handwave to things with only tangential relation to electricity.[[/note]]
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11	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!
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13	Why this works is because, as [[UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla the Useful Notes page on Tesla]] will tell you, Tesla garnered a reputation as a [[GadgeteerGenius brilliant scientist]] and [[MadScientist utter madman]] who was [[IgnoredExpert unfairly marginalized]] by the scientific and industrial establishment of his day, particularly UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison. This reputation, which has only strengthened in the modern day with the rediscovery of Tesla's work, is perfect for spawning all sorts of myths and conspiracy theories regarding just what the man was creating in his laboratories. Sometimes, this results in Edison getting a HistoricalVillainUpgrade to CorruptCorporateExecutive in these timelines for wanting to suppress Tesla's supposed genius.
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15	In a Tesla Tech Timeline, {{Lightning Gun}}s are some of the more mundane uses of electricity, so expect a lot of electricity arcing everywhere whenever you travel to one.
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17	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, though DieselPunk is usually much more 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.
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19	[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] anything regarding the car manufacturer ''Tesla, Inc''.
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22	!!Examples
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25	[[folder:Comic Books]]
26	* ''Comicbook/AtomicRobo'' is all about this trope; Tesla created the titular Atomic Robo, and many of Robo's adventures center around the technology Tesla invented.
27	* Subtly implied in ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen''. 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).
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30	[[folder:Fan Works]]
31	* In ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace'', the MacGuffin involves the search for a stolen [[EarthquakeMachine Tesla Scalar Interferometer]] from Area51. However, the setting is an [[RaygunGothic 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.
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34	[[folder:Film]]
35	* ''Film/Goosebumps2HauntedHalloween'', of all movies, employs a combination of this and {{Magitek}}. In the film's world, Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower in Long Island was never demolished, and so Slappy's plot is to use it to grant extra power to his spell to bring Halloween to life, broadcasting it much further than just one little town.
36	* 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 perfectly duplicating physical objects (seemingly creating matter from ''nothing'', no less), anything from top hats, to cats, to ''people''. This invention [[SubvertedTrope should]] have revolutionized ''everything'', but [[MadScientist its owner]] only ever [[MisappliedPhlebotinum uses it for a stage magic trick]], and [[ReedRichardsIsUseless it's eventually destroyed before anyone else learns about it]]]].
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39	[[folder:Literature]]
40	* In ''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).
41	* ''Literature/{{Leviathan}}'' is set in an alternate, more advanced version of 1914, and Tesla has invented massive Tesla Cannons, and even a tower that supposedly can create a "Death Ray".
42	* ''Literature/TheMasterKey'': {{Defied\|Trope}}, as 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...
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45	[[folder:Live-Action Television]]
46	* 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 1920s by Philo Farnsworth, and a slew of other devices that may or may not be {{Magitek}}.
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49	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
50	* One of the campaign settings in ''TabletopGame/GURPSAlternateEarths'' is Gernsback, where Nikola Tesla succeeded in creating technologically advanced inventions that revolutionized the world.
51	* ''TabletopGame/{{Scythe}}'' takes place in an alternate version of 1920 in which a Second Great War broke out, fought with diesel-powered HumongousMecha. The game's imagery features deliberate juxtaposition of pastoral European peasants beside thundering mechanical behemoths belching black smoke. One guess on whose inventions made the mechs possible.
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54	[[folder:Video Games]]
55	* ''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 TheTunguskaEvent.
56	-->'''Tesla:''' ''[as he flicks the switch]'' Rot in ''Hell'', Edison.
57	* The [[AllThereInTheManual flavor text]] in ''VideoGame/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' identifies your main weapon as a "Teslator". It can be turned into an [[HarmlessFreezing ice-gun]] or a goo-gun. Rather surprisingly, this weapon never appears in [[WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire the movie proper]] -- presumably, Creator/DisneyInteractiveStudios was squeamish about including firearms in a first-person shooter.
58	* 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 the game itself isn't a Tesla Tech Timeline, but Elizabeth can pull things from a timeline that is.
59	* ''VideoGame/CloseToTheSun'' is a SurvivalHorror game set aboard the Helios, a Tesla-designed super-cruiser the size of a small island. In this world, Tesla's technology succeeded in propelling him to fame and fortune over Edison, and he used his influence to create the Helios as a haven for scientists and free thinkers from all over the world, where they may pursue their creative ideas completely free of any financial, corporate, governmental, religious or moral restraints. The similarities to [[VideoGame/BioShock Andrew Ryan and his Rapture]] have not gone unnoticed... especially since it all goes horribly wrong.
60	* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries'':
61	** In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert'', Tesla himself is never mentioned beyond a brief reference by UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein 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, [[SovietSuperscience do the Soviets love to use Tesla coil-like weapons and inventions]]. That being said, the aforementioned brief reference in the Allied campaign has Einstein note that the principles behind the newly discovered Soviet superweapon, [[NighInvulnerability the Iron Curtain]], remind 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).
62	** Tesla coils show up in all the alternate timelines -- not as transformers, but as the Soviet Union's advanced base defenses. Tesla Troopers and Tesla Tanks, meanwhile, are the Soviets' LightningGun-armed troops.
63	** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'' 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.
64	** The events of ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'' are caused by the Soviets travelling back in time to assassinate Einstein. Their time machine is basically a cockpit surrounded by tesla coils.
65	* ''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.
66	* ''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 ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'').
67	* 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.
68	* In ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}}: Fall of Man'', Tesla receives a patent for his VTOL designs in 1928. By the 1950s, it's become a standard military aircraft.
69	* ''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.
70	* Some electrical weapons in ''VideoGame/WeNeedToGoDeeper'' were created by Tesla, including a Tesla Gun and a chargeable Tesla Crank.
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73	[[folder:Webcomics]]
74	* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'', the Rogue Canadian Scientists' lightning gun is called a Tesla Projector.
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77	[[folder:Web Original]]
78	* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': As part of AllThereInTheManual, in [[http://crystalhall.wikia.com/wiki/The_World this Wiki article]], the Tesla Matrix, found by analysis of a Tesla Lightning Gun, allows anti-gravity, with sufficient energy/electricity.
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Context Main / TeslaTechTimeline