When It All Began

"What was the start of all this?
When did the cogs of fate begin to turn?
Perhaps it is impossible to grasp that answer now
From deep within the flow of time..."

— Chrono Cross opening text

A single very significant moment, related to the fate of every single main character, and driving the entire plot, that happened before the beginning of the story.

That event will probably be discussed, interpreted, viewed through flashbacks, and a The Reveal might show its true meaning later. In cases where the characters have any way of interfering with the past, this event will be their target.

Since these events are more exciting, and more detailed than your average background story, they are frequently used as the setting for a Prequel.

The lines "Everything started x years ago", or "It all began when..." are very likely to be uttered.

See also Great Offscreen War and How Dad Met Mom. Not to be confused with Where It All Began, which entails returning to a familiar place for the finale (though they can overlap if Time Travel is involved, specifically in cases of Set Right What Once Went Wrong).

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Naruto, where the Fourth Hokage seals the Nine-Tailed Fox into a baby (Naruto) when the Fox attacked Konoha. The act cost the beloved Fourth Hokage his life, which becomes very significant later on. Later, we learn that The Fourth Hokage is actually Naruto's father, and that Naruto's mother was the previous host of the Nine-Tailed Fox. Chapters 500 - 504 (or more) depict the events of that night, from their perspective.
  • We get another one from the First Hokage himself describing first his final battle with Madara, then flashing back to their childhood and the wartorn world both had to grow up in.
  • And still another when the Sage of the Six Paths explains how he created the Tailed Beasts and the very concept of Ninja, along with the origin of the feud between the Senju and Uchiha clans that drove so much of the story.
• The Big O: The disaster forty years earlier that destroyed civilization and caused universal amnesia in the inhabitants of Paradigm City.
• In Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Second Impact.
• Haruhi Suzumiya: "Three years ago", something paranormal happened, possibly the universe was created, or at least most of the main characters were retconned into existence. It's also a recurring time travel destination.
• Higurashi: When They Cry: The curse of Oyashiro-sama. Either the first death five years prior to the story or Satoshi's disappearance one year prior.
• Umineko: When They Cry: The child from 18 years ago, the sin from six years ago, Battler abandoning his family 6 years ago, Beatrice dying 18 years ago, some of the children being born 18 years ago, etc.
• Dragon Ball has several of these: the arrival of a lone Namekian on Earth, the genocide of the Saiyans, and the arrival of a lone Saiyan infant on Earth.
• Nabari no Ou: The "incident ten years ago", when the Shinrabanshou was used.
• The execution of Gold Roger, triggering One Piece's great age of piracy.
• In Code Geass, the invasion of Japan, and the attack on Lelouch's family.
• In Den-noh Coil, there are three of these, five years ago, four years ago, and one year ago.
• In Inuyasha everything happened because of events from 50 years ago.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward and Alphonse's disastrous attempt at bringing their mother back to life through human transmutation, and the Ishvalan War, which takes place a little bit before the former incident.
• In Baccano!!, in 1711 aboard the Advena Avis, around thirty alchemists summon a 'demon' to grant them immortality. He gives it to them at no cost, tells them how to end it when they get tired of living, and gives one of them the secret to making the elixir that grants it to anyone who drinks it. Mass murder ensues.
• In Assassination Classroom, Yanagisawa/Shirou's experiments on anti-matter, with the original God of Death as a human test subject. The modifications to his body, and the influence of Aguri Yukimura, Class E's original teacher, would lead to him becoming the super-being teacher that is Koro-sensei who would teach Class E in Aguri's place after her death. The experiments also resulted in the partial destruction of the moon that Koro-sensei took credit for.
• Several times in Attack on Titan. The first chapter starts with an introduction into the main characters as innocent kids with a loving family before the sudden appearance of the Colossal Titan, so large that it actually stands a full ten meters taller than the already fifty-meter walls surrounding the last bastion of humanity in a world overrun by titans. The Colossal Titan kicks in the gate, allowing titans to pour into the main characters' home and start slaughtering people. Then the Armored Titan appears, its entire body covered in armor that is invulnerable to even cannonfire, and busts through the inner gate with sheer momentum, allowing the titans to flood into the outer ring of the Walled Kingdom, resulting in the deaths of almost a third of humanity, which kicks off the plot. Then the Colossal and Armored Titans disappear and are not seen again for years. This day, and what leads up to it, are then retold from a different perspective: the perspective of the wielders of the Colossal and Armored Titans, who were in fact merely kids themselves, terrified and scared for their lives, believing that they were on a mission to save the world.
  • Late in the story, we are also shown the origin of the Titans and how it all started.

Comic Books

• Black Magick #6 is a one-shot that tells the story of Rowan becoming a full witch, how that affected her, and shows how long the council of demons shown in issue #5 have been manipulating her.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): The chaotic Mass Awakening of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) essentially led to the entire plot of the fic, with San's severed head and a revived, mutating Dr. Vivienne Graham inside it becoming reborn as Two Beings, One Body (the fic's protagonists), and with San's old head after their births enabling Alan Jonah's group to create the Many and enabling Ghidorah itself to regenerate as the fic's true world-threatening Big Bad. And even at the fic's end, Jonah's meddling with Ghidorah's DNA and Ghidorah's manipulation of him has left far-reaching ramifications for the expanded AbraxasVerse, in the form of the Zmeyevich scattered around the world.

Films — Animation

• Arlo the Alligator Boy: The whole movie begins fifteen years before the main story, when Arlo was forsaken by his birth father Ansel into the sewers of New York, before floating out to sea and ending up on the doorstep of local Louisiana swamp hermit Edmée.

Films — Live-Action

• In the 28 Days Later franchise, the source of the Hate Plague Zombie Apocalypse which has wiped out society and the population on mainland Great Britain is depicted in the distant prologue of the first movie (and in the movies' tie-in graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath) — an Animal Wrongs Group broke into a Cambridge laboratory that was inhumanely experimenting on chimps and they released one, unaware of the extremely virulent and fast-spreading virus that it was carrying.
• Avatar starts with a narration by Jake Sully explaining how he wound up on Pandora. His twin brother Tom was supposed to go on an expedition to the planet, except he died in a grocery store robbery beforehand. The mortician who burns his body at the start of the film recommends as he does so that Jake go to Pandora himself for a fresh start.
• The MonsterVerse franchise which spawned from Godzilla (2014) has a couple major points:
  • Although the details have been massively overhauled via Canon Discontinuity in the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters series; the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Japan led to the founding of the franchise-central, monster-hunting, quasi-governmental agency Monarch.
  • The events of the original 2014 movie wherein Godzilla's and Kaiju's existence was exposed to the world amid the destructions of Honolulu (called "G-Day Minus Two" through to "G-Day") have lasting ramifications across every MonsterVerse instalment that chronologically takes place afterwards, directly or indirectly catalyzing the entire conflicts of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong, and to a lesser extent the conflict of the 2015 storyline in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
• The heist in Reservoir Dogs.
• The oft-alluded-to discovery of warp flight and how it started the brand-new era of space travel in the Star Trek verse, actually becomes the setting of the not-quite prequel Star Trek: First Contact. That movie also uses the first attempted Borg invasion as a second kind of backstory.
  • The Original Series episode "Space Seed" was the When It All Began for Wrath of Khan.

Literature

• In Dragon Bones, an ancestor of the protagonist killed a dragon. He really shouldn't have done that. Three protagonist meet in a the cave where the eponymous dragon bones, the skeleton of a dragon who was obviously killed (it is in chains) are located. While there is some political conflict, the plot itself is fueled by the dragon bones, alone.
• Treasure Island: Captain Flint buried his treasure on the island.
• From Harry Potter, The first war with Voldemort, particularly the death of the Potter parents, Harry's marking, and Voldemorts downfall, all in a single scene.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: The tourney at Harrenhal in the year of the false Spring. The events that transpired over these three days led directly to the beginning of Robert's Rebellion, which instigated many of the events in the series.
• The main characters in Eden Green would never have been infected with an alien needle symbiote if Patient Zero, Tedrin, hadn't been attacked and infected a year beforehand.
• Isaac Asimov:
  • "The Dead Past":
    • Fifty years ago, Sterbinski and LaMarr published a scientific paper on the principles of neutrinics that explained the basis of the chronoscope and time-viewing in general. This began the government's efforts to conceal the information about the field. The main character, Arnold Potterley, is a historian desperate to prove his thesis about Carthage, and convinces a physicist who studied pseudo-gravitics to work on neutrinics and prove that the government is trying to hold back scientific advancement.
    • Potterley's desperation comes from an accidental fire that took the life of his daughter when she was three years old. He may have forgotten to stub out a cigarette before falling asleep, and he's displaced that blame to his study of Carthage. Their ancient enemies (Rome and Greece) would claim that Carthaginian citizens would sacrifice their children to Moloch by tossing them into a furnace.
  • "Lenny": There are weekly tourists that come through the robot-design room, and one of the technicians forgot to lock the keyboard. So when Mortimer, one of the visitors, toyed with the console, it caused a portion of the positronic brain design for the LNE-prototype to be hopelessly jumbled, making it the intellectual equivalent of a newborn baby.
• The Cosmere: The events in every book in this meta-series can be traced back to the Shattering of Adonalsium. Thus far the event has not been depicted, only alluded to, though Sanderson plans to eventually write a series called Dragonsteel which will tell that story.

Live Action TV

• The Dukes of Hazzard: The seventh-season premiere of the series saw the Dukes and Cooter say, "Happy Birthday, General Lee." The episode establishes several key things that became part of the official series' bible. Set in 1976 (more than two years before the series' premiere), Bo and Luke, freshly placed on probation for illegal transportation of alcohol, purchase a banged-up Dodge Charger to compete in one of Boss Hogg's races; Daisy is a recent high school graduate who gets a job at Hogg's Boar's Nest. The General Lee, in its previous life, had been owned by a jewel thief and his girlfriend, who – after robbing a jewelry store – stash the booty in the dashboard, but then crash the car. Since the car's owner was in jail and forfeited it, Bo and Luke are able to purchase the car, soup it up and use it to foil every one of Boss' countless schemes.
• The nuclear holocaust of Old Earth in Battlestar Galactica (2003).
• Earth: Final Conflict begins three years after the arrival of the Taelons.
• Khitomer in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as it had a profound effect on many of the characters, and the empires themselves.
• The Cardassian occupation of Bajor in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Almost all the non-Starfleet characters participated and lived through it, and many of the Starfleet characters were involved as well.
• The Time War in the revived Doctor Who.
  • Somewhat coyly alluded to in the twentieth anniversary special, ''The Five Doctors": "So you're going to go on the run from your own people, in a rackety old TARDIS?" "Why not, that's how it all started!"
• War of the Worlds (1988-1990) took place 35 years after the Martian invasion depicted in the 1953 George Pal movie.
• Firefly has this with the Unification War.
• Smallville has the meteor shower in the pilot, which brought Kal-El to Earth, baldness to Lex, and increasingly ridiculous superpowers to numerous civilians.
• Kamen Rider Double:
  • The "Begins Night", the case in which Shotaro accidentally caused the death of his mentor, met his future partner Philip, and became Kamen Rider Double for the first time; it also qualifies for Philip because it marks the point where he starts taking responsibility for helping make Gaia Memories. They actually use the term as a shorthand for this trope later on; when they meet Ryu Terui, Philip comments that the murder of his family was his own personal Begins Night.
  • Almost all the Double characters had their "Begins Nights", the events that make them the person/rider/monster they are. Narumi's Begins Night was when he first encountered the Dopants and was given his Driver and Gaia Memory from Shroud, while Daido gets two. The first is when he dies and is the first subject of the NEVER experiment and the second is when he went to Island S where his mind practically unravels. As for Phillip, well, his began the moment he fell into the Gaia Memory well, while his mother's began when she protested at her husband wanting to use Phillip to make Gaia Memories. The murderer of Ryu's family's night began when said mother gives him a Gaia Memory.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Adar temporary killed Sauron off-screen, which turned Sauron into a Retired Monster for a while, taking a human form and wondering in the middle of the sea where he meets Galadriel. And from there, his journey is about regaining his confidence and strength to continue what he initially started, and worse. When Sauron returns to the Southlands, Adar asks him who is he, not recognizing Sauron's new form, and when he does, he knows he is screwed.
• Lost's antepenultimate episode, "Across the Sea," was a Whole Episode Flashback to the birth of Jacob and the Man in Black, revealing how they came to be who they are, which set in motion events continuing 2000 years into the future.
• In Merlin (2008), Queen Ygraine cannot concieve and so King Uther makes a deal with the enchantress Nimueh to provide him with a son. Unbeknownst to him, someone must die in order for a life to be created, and it ends up being Ygraine's. Thus, the future King Arthur is born, and a grief/guilt-stricken Uther imposes a ban upon all magic in the realm, thus setting up the conflict for the entirety of the show: that Merlin cannot reveal his magic to anyone.
• The Nora Allen murder case is the main driving mystery for most of The Flash (2014) Season 1. Eobard Thawne the Reverse-Flash travelled back in time to murder young Barry Allen. Fortunately, Barry Allen of the future/The Flash was right in his heels, and thwarted Thawne. Thawne decided to take Nora's life as consolation instead. Thawne learns too late that his skirmish with the Flash caused him to lose his connection to the Speed Force, leaving him Trapped in the Past, setting off most of the events of the Season. That's not the end of it, as Season 2 ended with Barry travelling back in time to stop Thawne from murdering Nora, which created the alternate reality Flashpoint, which then led to further problems in the next season.
  • The Particle Accelerator "accident" in Season 1 is also a byproduct of the aforementioned murder mystery, but it has its own merits as the reason for the rise of superpowers in the whole Arrowverse franchise. Most of the villains in Season 1 are transformed by the accident, but it is revisited when a few new villains in The Flash have also been victims of the accelerator: Sam Scudder (Season 3), Amunet Black and Clifford Devoe (both from Season 4).
• Mary Winchester's death from Supernatural is often highlighted as the event that kickstarted the series, driving John Winchester to become an obsessed hunter and to raise Sam and Dean as Child Soldiers. Jess's death is also a tipping point, sending Sam back into hunting when he'd been trying to stay out of it. Both deaths are referenced multiple times throughout the series and heavily motivate both the plot and the main characters. As the show goes on, however, it becomes apparent that It All Began much, much before either of those particular deaths.
• The actual disaster in Chernobyl is initially not shown (instead starting with a scene two years later and then skipping to a few seconds later), but drives everything else in the show. You don't find out the details of what happened until the final episode.
• Seinfeld plays with this trope in the episode "The Betrayal", when it jumps 10 years back to show the exact moment where Jerry accidentally created his bizarre relationship with his new neighbor, Kramer. Since the entire episode runs backwards with each scene explaining all the ones that came before it, this event is implied to have been the underlying cause for everything else in the plot — and potentially even for everything that has happened in every episode on the show.

Music

• In The Protomen, Act II, the prequel, details how Dr. Wily took over, setting up the events of Act I.
• "19 You + Me" by Dan + Shay is a summertime nostalgia love song which uses the lyric "It was our first week at Myrtle Beach, where it all began" as Book Ends.

Toys

• Just about everything in BIONICLE can be traced back to either one of these handful events:
  • "The Core War", when the planet Spherus Magna was split into three, which lead to the hectic and error-laden creation of the Matoran Universe, the giant robot Mata Nui, where most of the story takes place. Happened 100,000 years prior to the beginning of the story.
  • 80,000 years ago the League of Six Kingdoms, lead by the Barraki warlords, tried to usurp Mata Nui and take over the Matoran Universe, unaware that he was the universe. The Brotherhood of Makuta, an organization of demigod-like bio-engineers formed an army to retaliate, but one Makuta named Teridax was inspired by the Barraki's plan. After the Brotherhood replaced the former Kingdoms under the guise of governing over and protecting the universe, Teridax began using their influence for his own desires, taking over from behind the scenes. Due to an error in the Makuta's creation, they gradually became evil and forgot their purpose.
  • "The Great Cataclysm", when Teridax (oftentimes called simply "The Makuta") made his evil nature public and successfully cast Mata Nui into a deep slumber, causing him to crash down from space. This forced the Matoran people living in Metru Nui (Mata Nui's "brain module") to evacuate, lose their memories and start a new life closer to nature, and re-activated the elite Toa Mata team who become the main heroes for most of the story. Happened 1,000 years prior. The main plot isn't just about the Toa undoing the Makuta's evil and saving Mata Nui's life but also figuring out who or what their "god" even is.

Video Games

• Although it's not really apparent until the end of the series, pretty much everything that happens in the Metal Gear universe has its roots in August 1964, the Virtuous Mission which sparked Operation Snake Eater and led to the creation of the Patriots, as shown in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, chronologically the first game. The best example? The Boss's last wish: a unified world. Big Boss's and Zero's differing interpretations of that wish and how to fulfill it lead to almost everything that happens in the rest of the series, including the creation of Outer Heaven and the creation of the Patriots, which leads directly to the events of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and 4.
• Ghost Trick has the incident in Temsik Park 10 years ago. Lynne was taken hostage by Yomiel, who was fleeing Detective Jowd. Yomiel died from a Temsik shard to the back, but gained ghost tricks and an immortal, undead body. After sinking into darkness due to his isolation from humanity, he set out to take his revenge on everyone involved, causing the deadly events of the game.
• Fate/stay night: The last Holy Grail War 10 years ago, especially its final battle.
• Final Fantasy:
  • What happened in Nibelheim five years prior to the events of the game in Final Fantasy VII.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, the Sorceress' War, 18 years before the game takes place, sets off the events of the game, though due to Time Travel, the beginning point is itself affected during gameplay.
  • Final Fantasy XIII has the 13 days prior to the start of the game in flashbacks throughout the main game, which manages to link all of the main characters to the plot by way of a single event.
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: After the final boss, Demise, is defeated, he casts a curse on Link and Zelda, insinuating that anyone like them will be chased forever by "an incarnation of his hatred". This explains how Ganondorf keeps on coming back in later games, since Skyward Sword takes place before all the the other games including Ocarina of Time.
  • There also are some details about the genesis of the world that would eventually become Hyrule in Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and later expended in the Hyrule Historia book. The world was created by the three goddesses Din, Nayru and Farore. When they left, a golden artifact called the Triforce appeared, symbolizing their powers (respectively Force, Wisdom and Courage) which was left under the custody of the goddess Hylia. She protected the Triforce from numerous evil creatures including Demise the Avatar of Nothingness. Unable to totally defeat him (he was at most momentarily sealed) she decided to use the Triforce to do so, but her status of goddess forbade her to directly use it. She decided then to renounce her goddess status and reborned as a human (who would eventually be named Zelda) on Skyloft, a floating island keeping the humans safe from the ravages on the war going on land. The warrior Impa from the Sheikah clan was given the task to protect the Triforce in the absence of Hylia as well as the fragile human child she would become. Then Skyward Sword begins...
  • Also according to Hyrule Historia, the Ocarina of Time is made out of Timeshift Stones.
• Almost all the events of the Knights of the Old Republic games can be traced to Revan and Malak leading roughly half of the Jedi to fight in the Mandalorian Wars. And much of that can be narrowed down to the Battle of Malachor V, especially in the sequel.
• Bastion's Calamity happens just before the game. Rucks says it best;
  Rucks: "A proper story's supposed to start at the beginnin'... this one ain't so simple."
• Mass Effect:
  • Mass Effect has Shepard's visions from the Prothean Beacon lead them to Ilos, the location of the underground base where the last Prothean scientists worked and ultimately sacrificed themselves to delay the Reaper invasion of Shepard's time.
  • Mass Effect 3 has Shepard return to Eden Prime, the location where they first had their vision.
• The events surrounding the death of Lord Indoril Nerevar several thousand years prior to the time the game takes place essentially establish the plot of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Throughout the game, the player can find "Rashomon"-Style accounts from various parties which give conflicting reports of what happened there and who is to blame. The Tribunal Temple, the Dissident Priests, the Ashlanders, Dagoth Ur, Vivec, and Azura all tell different stories. The actual truth is never revealed, leaving the player to make his or her own conclusions. All that is known for sure is that Nerevar was slain, the Tribunal and Dagoth Ur made themselves into gods, and Azura is not happy about it.
• Kingdom Hearts all started with the Keyblade War, warriors wielding Keyblades fought for the light with Kingdom Hearts, but they ended up driving the light into the Realm of Darkness and fracturing the universe into hundreds of smaller worlds. The series has been one gigantic Gambit Pileup by the Big Bad to forge the weapon that can unlock Kingdom Hearts for him.
  • It's a little more complicated than that. As detailed in Kingdom Hearts χ, before the Keyblade War, five Unions of Keyblade wielders gathered Lux to drive off the coming darkness detailed in the Union's Foretellers' Books of Prophecy, given to them by their Master. As things escalated to the Keyblade War, Kingdom Hearts plunged into the Realm of Darkness, the X-Blade that could unlock Kingdom Hearts, and that all Keyblades were modeled after shattered into twenty pieces, seven light, and thirteen dark, and the world fell to the darkness. Light from those who survived the war recreated the worlds in their fractured form. Since then, Big Bad Xehanort has been trying to reforge the X-Blade, first by attempting to balance Ventus and Vanitas's hearts (originally Ventus's whole heart), and made a proto-X-Blade, which Aqua shattered. His Heartless, Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, tried to reach Kingdom Hearts by drowning worlds in darkness, while his Nobody, Xemnas, tried to insert pieces of his heart into thirteen candidates, the Organization XIII, of which only two succeeded before Sora brought that crashing down. But he knew he'd fail at both of those goals, so in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], he assembles a new Organization consisting of himself, his younger self, his Heartless, Nobody, and nine others to clash with seven guardians of light. And sure enough, that clash finally happens in Kingdom Hearts III, and he finally succeeds... only for Sora to defeat him once more.
  • To note is that Xehanort's Keyblade has existed since the Age of Fairy Tales. It was first carried by the Master's sixth apprentice, Luxu, who passed it down from master to apprentice until Xehanort got it. Embedded in that blade is the Master's Gazing Eye, which allowed him to see the future to write the aforementioned Books of Prophecy. On the last page is 'And on that land will the darkness triumph, and light expire,' referring to the events of III. Speaking of III, it turns out Luxu has been Body Surfing to see that Keyblade passed down through the generations. And at the end of this game, Luxu ends up reclaiming the ancient blade.
• In Robopon 2, Cody witnesses the destruction of Baba Village in the past, which has been a mystery for the entire game.
• Resident Evil Village reveals possibly the most pivotal moment in the mythology of the series in a letter found lying around in a lab: a young Oswell Spencer getting lost in the Carpathian Mountains on a hiking trip and being found by Miranda, who subsequently showed him the megamycete beneath her village and the affects it could have on the human body. This inspired his views on eugenics and evolution and directly led to the founding of the Umbrella Corporation, the driving force behind the majority of events in the series. The name "Umbrella" even came from Spencer's interpretation of a symbol found carved on significant structures in the village.

Visual Novels

• That One Case in nearly every Ace Attorney game is always the trigger of each installment's overarching plot, and is alluded to many, many times via "X years ago":
  • The DL-6 incident, happening 15 years before the first game. Defense attorney Gregory Edgeworth was shot dead in an elevator whose power had run out due to an earthquake in the courthouse. This scarred Miles Edgeworth, his son, and was the moment where he stopped wanting to be a defense lawyer and instead took the path of a prosecutor under Mandred von Karma's custody. The most tragic thing is that von Karma was the killer. Misty Fey's subsequent disgrace and disappearance following the true killer failing to be convicted ruined the Fey clan's reputation and significantly affects Mia and Maya's backstories as well.
  • The kidnapping of a kid in the backstory of Trials and Tribulations. Terry Fawles abducted Dahlia Hawthorne and wouldn't release her until Valerie (her sister) delivered a red diamond which was worth over one million dollars. Dahlia fell to a river and her body was never found. Of course, Dahlia survived and proceeded to become the main villain of Trials and Tribulations with her long chain of murders. Even the kidnapping was a charade planned by her, Valerie and Fawles.
  • The trial where Phoenix presented forged evidence and was subsequently disbarred 7 years prior to Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. It was Phoenix's Cynicism Catalyst, and the beginning of his 7-year-long gambit to take Kristoph Gavin, the man that made him present the evidence, to justice.
  • The KG-8 incident in Investigations. Manny Coachen killed Cece Yew as he was told to by the international smuggling ring, which led to the creation of the Great Thief Yatagarasu and later the murder of Kay's father, which in turn prompted Kay to continue the Yatagarasu's legacy.
  • The IS-7 incident was the trigger for the main series of games, being the case that Gregory argued in court the day he was killed, leading to DL-6.
  • The UR-1 incident 8 years before Dual Destinies. Metis Cykes, Athena's mother, was murdered because she knew top secret information about her killer, leading to the conviction of Simon Blackquill and Athena's quest to prove his innocence in court, which is accomplished in the final case.
  • The assassination of Khura'in's queen 23 years prior to the events of Spirit of Justice. It led to the enactment of the Defense Culpability Act, a fiat by which lawyers who defended criminals would be punished just the same as those criminals, killing off nearly every defense attorney in the kingdom.

Web Animation

• Brawl of the Objects: The show itself isn't canonically the first Brawl of the Objects to happen. The creator of the series, Antony Kos, provided several hints for a Brawl of the Objects that happened before the show. Probably one of the biggest ones happens to be in "Rookie Mistakes," where Rook had a flashback where he was in a similar racing challenge that Shieldy and Shelly went to in "How it All Ended." Anthony eventually posted a video called "The Rook Explanation Video", which explains the finale of the original, fictionally medieval BOTO.

Webcomics

• The prequel of A.P.O.C begins with the kids breaking out of the secret lab, and the Big Bad deciding to see whether the kids will destroy the world without any guidance. They did not.
• Drive (Dave Kellett): If it weren't for the fleeing pre-maker's actions, humanity wouldn't have gained access to the Ring Drive.
• A huge chunk of Chapter 34 of Joe vs. Elan School is devoted to telling the story of the drug arrest that spurred Joe's parents to send him to the abusive Elan School in Maine.

Western Animation

• The extinction of the Air Nomads and the disappearance of the Avatar occurs 100 years before the beginning of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• Dora the Explorer had two:
  • "Dora's First Trip" in the fourth season is a Whole Episode Flashback to the day Dora first became an explorer, showing how she learned to be one from her Mami and Papi, how she met Boots and how he became her best friend, the first time encountering Swiper and the very first "Swiper, No Swiping!", how they met Benny, Isa and Tico, as well as the Fiesta Trio, and most importantly, Dora's very first adventure where she and Boots have to return the Fiesta Trio's instruments so they can play a song for the Queen Bee on Tallest Mountain. Said episode also chronicles the first Spanish lessons, the first Fake Interactivity prompts and challenges, and especially the first Travel Song. The only bit that does not get an origin was the "We Did It" song at the end.
  • "Backpack" in the first season is a more minor example, as it shows detail on how Dora first got her sentient Backpack as a gift from Mami and Papi and her first time asking her for what she needs, how she read Map for the first time, and especially the very first three-picture pop-up sequence Dora uses when passing a location.
• The Fairly Oddparents: The special "Abra-Catastrophe!" begins with Timmy celebrating one year since he first recieved Cosmo and Wanda as his fairy godparents; during the party, we are given a flashback to when Timmy was eight years old and his parents started to spend extended time out of the house; that's when they first hired Babysitter from Hell Vicky when she was 14, which led to endless torture for him nonstop. We then jump to one year later to the day Vicky has made him so miserable and helpless enough that's when he first met Cosmo and Wanda and became his plucky True Companions.
• The Nanite Event of Generator Rex is the catalyst for everything that happens in the series.
• In Kim Possible, we have the fateful meeting of Kim and Ron the first day of Pre-K, and the equally eventful typo on a computer that resulted in them becoming world-saving heroes.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic you could argue that there are two different events that mark the beginning. One would be the banishment of Princess Luna, and the other would be the Sonic Rainboom that sparked the discovery of the Mane 6 Cutie marks.
• ReBoot season 4 gave several flashbacks to before the series began. These explained the origins of Megabyte and Hexadecimal and how the main characters were involved in it. A mix of Nice Job Breaking It, Hero from Bob and a Gone Horribly Wrong from Dot kickstarted everything.
• Wander over Yonder: A past scene in "The Waste of Time" shows how Sylvia as a bounty hunter first met Wander (then-known as "Tumbleweed"), and how they became a duo; her calling him a "wandering weirdo" is also how he got his name.

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