Deus Ex Machina / Fan Works

• During “Reluctant Choice” in Arc-Ved Protagonists, Yuri has no cards on his field, and just one card in is hand, which can't help him at all against 3 monsters each with more attack points then he has life points, and where two can get effects that can either destroy any monster he is able to summon, or just deal enough effect damage to win that way. Zarc then starts speaking to Yuri and activates his Awakened state, seemingly giving him access to Super Polymerization just in time for Yuri to add it to his hand with a graveyard effect and then win the duel.
• A literal case played to awesome effect in Ashes of the Past: After dying and coming Back from the Dead, Ash summons Arceus from the GS Ball to defeat the Original Team Galactic.
• The Lucifer (2016) fic "Alloparent" opens with Lucifer having a chance encounter with a two-year-old Trixie Espinoza, the two forming a surprising bond that is initially only known to Trixie's grandmother Penelope. However, as time goes on, Lucifer learns that Dan has learnt since Trixie's birth that he's actually sterile and has noticed Trixie's similarities to Lucifer to the extent that he concludes Lucifer had an affair with Chloe that led to Trixie's birth. While Lucifer denies that at first, when he later agrees to a DNA test with Chloe and Trixie he's shocked to learn that he actually is Trixie's father, prompting Lucifer to speculate that his father arranged Trixie's conception for some reason.
• In Avengers: Infinite Wars, from the perspective of Robbie Reyes and Wong, the destruction of the Darkhold is this. The two were discussing what to do with the Book of the Damned when it abruptly self-destructed, solving the problem for them. Downplayed and Zig-Zagged in that while neither of the characters have any idea as to why it happened, and the story doesn't directly explain things either, readers who have watched Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will recognize this as the moment Wanda destroyed every copy of the Darkhold in the multiverse.
• In the Avengers of the Ring sequel Scarlet Witch and the Thirteen Dwarves, once the Battle of Five Armies has concluded with the final destruction of Azog and Ultron, the Vision and Galadriel have to appeal to the Valar to erase all recollection of Wanda, Ultron and the Vision's time in Middle-Earth to ensure that the War of the Ring will unfold as it should, as a younger Captain America, Thor and Bruce Banner/Hulk have already taken part in that conflict.
• In The Unexpected Rookie, Mater introduces the Lambo twins to tractor-tipping. Unfortunately, their antics lead to Frank almost trashing Radiator Springs. The Autobots are standing guard at the front of the town, ready to protect it from a rampaging tractor...when the Dinobots appear out of nowhere and "tractor tip" Frank. This one is mildly justified; the Dinobots had been established earlier in the story and Mater had invited them to go tractor-tipping (they'd followed him there, but he hadn't seen them).
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation fic "Big Doors", a still-living Tasha Yar makes it clear to Q at one point that giving Data the chance to experience laughter isn't sufficient compensation for Data saving Q's life and Q will owe him a favour in future. Later on, as Data's daughter Lal experiences a cascade failure, Tasha calls on Q to repay his debt, and Q ensures that Lal survives.
• A relatively minor example occurs in The Chronicles of the Fellowship when the Pevensies arrive in Middle-Earth and find their weapons and suitable clothing all waiting for them just outside the cave they arrived in, giving them time to change before meeting anyone else; Lucy immediately suspects that it was Aslan who did this.
• A Crown of Stars: Deliberately invoked. After the events of canon and the preceding fic, Shinji and Asuka were physically burned-out and emotionally wrecked. This story's author wanted to try to give them a happy end, and he thought that it would be ironical that it would take actual divine intervention to get them to fricking talk to each other. So that in the first chapter a God-Emperor called Daniel appeared in front of Shinji and Asuka and offered to help them. It is more justified than other examples since Daniel serves as a plot device to start the story, rather ending it, and although he can help them, he can not automatically fix all of their troubles or changing the past, and the story focuses on Shinji and Asuka and their struggles to recover from their traumas and repair their relationship. And when the main external conflict begins, the main characters are cut off him, so that he can not bail them out.
• In Dangerous Tenant, this basically applies when the Doctor uses the TARDIS in the final chapter to help out with a few details of his plan to create a cure and vaccine for the T-Virus by dispersing a non-dangerous variation of the virus across the world.
• Deus Ex Rannoch, a minor Mass Effect fic where the Refusal ending is overwritten by a hidden geth/quarian empire big enough to defeat the Reapers.
• In Did I Make the Most of Loving You?, the reset of time is eventually attributed to Cavil/Number One's use of the Orb of Kronos, a tool of an entity referred to as "the jealous god".
• In Digimon Adventure 02: The Story We Never Told, a literal example occurs when Azulongmon ends a battle with Blackwargreymon in a very decisive manner. Later on, the "Arrows of Hope and Light" from Digimon Adventure are reused to defeat Dagomon.
• In The Ghost Child And The Ghostbusters, Danny and Vlad's powers are stolen by Morbius, a necromancer who can absorb the power of other ghosts. During the final battle, Danny initially appears to have sacrificed himself to set off a 'ghost bomb' to disrupt Morbius's ectoplasmic energy, but subsequently appears with his powers restored after Morbius reconstitutes himself using the ghost energy that couldn't return to its source as the ghosts were already trapped. Others speculate that Danny just got lucky enough to regain his powers before the blast could kill him, but Clockwork confirms that he took steps to save Danny's life without anyone knowing.
• In The Great Pokemon Fight, Tommy is mortally wounded by Greymon during a heated battle to save the Poke-Digital World... And just as Greymon tries to finish off Tommy, he, along with his army, then just disappeared. Like, poof, bye bye. Heck, the story even says that they just disappeared for no reason. No one even questions this as they were too busy on the dying Tommy. Then he dies, and suddenly, Mew comes out of nowhere and revives him. In total, there's two Deus ex Machinas in the span of a minute.
• In Harry Potter and the Mystic Force, after the Rangers ask the Tribunal to help them restore the original history after the events of "Dark Wish", the Tribunal not only give the Rangers their enhanced powers as in canon, but also bend the rules indirectly. Madison had attempted to save Hagrid from his past death (Harry having been framed for Hagrid's death) by giving the Hagrid of the new timeline a Time Turner so that he can go back and replace his original self, the Tribunal acknowledging that they preserved the alternate Hagrid despite the destruction of his timeline so that Madison's plan could succeed.
• In Harry's Happy Christmas Santa Claus gives Harry a repaired wand, the Sword of Gryffindor, Voldemort (in doll form) and all of the Horcruxes for Christmas.
• In the Supernatural fic "Heart's Desire", after the Winchesters travel to an alternate universe where Jess survived and Sam's counterpart is now trapped in Hell, after the alternate John completes the Trials to seal Hell, Sam is nearly trapped in Hell when the angels of the other world remove his soul to try and use as a bargaining tool to get the Apocalypse back on track, but Chuck steps in after Dean, Castiel and Jack are sent back to their world and restores their Sam to his body in his world.
• Specifically averted and its absence discussed by characters in the Heroes of the Storm fanfic Heroes of the Desk. Raynor points out that "This Blizzard ain't gonna be around to write some-last-ditch save in this time."
• History Teaches Us sees a literal example, though a downplayed one. Eru and Mahal/Aulë are keeping an eye on how events unfold after Thorin is sent back from the moment of his death to re-do his quest for Erebor, but they rarely interfere directly.
• In In This World and the Next, Harry and Hermione are sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss for killing Ron the Death Eater. Instead, the Dementor explodes and releases their life force, allowing them to go back in time. A bit more Justified than other examples, serving as a plot device to start the story, rather than the more common use in ending it.
• Infinity Crisis;
  • The heroes of the Arrowverse are alerted to the cause of so many people dying by the Phantom Stranger, while the Justice League of the DC Extended Universe receive a similar update from Doctor Fate, directing both groups of heroes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to assist the Avengers against Thanos.
  • In the later spin-off Infinity Crisis: The Inhumans, the Phantom Stranger also takes a Green Lantern ring from a dusted Corpsman on Earth-51 and sends it into a rift that takes it to Earth-199999, saying that Earth will need a Green Lantern.
• In the season 4 finale of Jake English's Mysterious Theater of Scientific Romance from the Year 3000, after being rescued Zeus declares all the other plot threads to be resolved.
• "Kim Possible: The Next Generation" depicts Kim Possible as a new ensign on the Enterprise-D (Star Trek: The Next Generation) who ends up making a significant impression on various key figures in the galaxy when her best friend Ron visits the ship. They make such a positive impression on so many that after Kim and Ron sacrifice themselves to stop Lore using the Pan-Dimensional Vortex Inducer to destroy Earth, Q himself steps in to make a slight "tweak" to history; while he doesn't explicitly show himself, he compels Kim to wait a few extra seconds to disable Lore's equipment so that it will drop out of warp first, as removing the PDVI in flight would have destroyed the ship.
• Knowledge is Power: There's not really any other way to describe Harry and Hermione being sent into the past by the ghosts of James and Lily when a ceiling falls on them.
• Features to a degree in Mercy, when Batman and Zatanna go to Paradise Island to ask Persephone for help after Diana is trapped in a Black Mercy 'dream' by Circe; Persephone cannot release Diana from the Mercy's influence, but she does manage to capture Circe just as the witch in question was apparently planning to turn Tim Drake into an actual robin.
• My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic:
  • The Uniforce. A force of good only unicorns with golden horns can summon to amplify their magic by shouting that they believe. It is never explained what it really is, why only golden horned unicorns can use it and how the Grand Ruler discovered it, but it is the main attack to kill all Big Bads.
  • Mystic Light, the finishing move of The Grand Celestial Ruler.
• This is the best definition of events in the Twilight/Titanic (1997) crossover fic "Never Letting Go", which opens with Bella and Edward suddenly swapping times and places with Jack and Rose on the night the Titanic sank, leaving Bella and Edward in Rose's stateroom while Jack and Rose are in the meadow. While the Cullens given Jack and Rose a place to stay, Edward helps Bella pose as a first-class passenger using Rose's clothes and meets her on the Carpathia after the sinking. The fic concludes with Bella and Edward returned to the present while Jack and Rose decide to stay in their new time, the time-displaced passengers ultimately setting out to make new lives for themselves with the Cullens' financial support.
• Chillingly done in the Pokémon fic No Antidote. After realizing a poisoned trainer is completely an Empty Shell, a ghost Pokémon, under orders from Giratina, takes control. The motives claim to be for the benefit of the "Starter" Pokémon that unquestionably follow their leader but...
  Ghost Controlled Trainer: This is the most fun we've had in decades!
• In The One With The Angelic Face series, when Angela (a female version of Angel) thought she was walking into Hell to stop Alcathla, she is met by an agent of the higher powers (using the form of Buffy to talk to her) who offers to either let Angela move on to Heaven or go back to Earth to be with Buffy.
• Lampshaded at the climax of Hetalia: Axis Powers High School AU Outcast. Just as the vengeful spirit of Ancient Scandinavia (who has possessed Sweden to carry out his plan) is about to kill Finland and shatter the Foundation Stone that has bound his spirit to the mortal realm with a single mighty hammer blow, Denmark appears out of nowhere and uses the twisted remnants of his ancestral battle axe to crack the stone — breaking Ancient Scandinavia's hold on Sweden and saving Finland's life in the process. He also delivers an Incredibly Lame Pun just for the occasion:
  "Looks like I got here just in time," he said, grinning. "That's what I call a deus axe machina."
  I had never been so happy to see that grin or hear such a lame joke.
• The plots of 20th and 21st century Musicals as adapted for Valdemaran Audiences's version of Valdemar has a variant of the trope; the 'Herald Ex Machina'. It is an accepted and expected event in Valdemaran plays for the protagonist to be saved at some timely moment (and have his/her heroism validated) by a Companion arriving and Choosing them to be a Herald. (That's because the same thing has happened to so many of Valdemar's historical figures.) For example, their version of My Fair Lady is about the same as ours, except that the ending also involves Eliza becoming a Herald; in this particular example, the 'Herald Ex Machina' doesn't resolve the plot so much as provide a handily built-in And the Adventure Continues.
• Quite a few feature in Pokemon: Shadow of Time;
  • When the psychic parasite that was possessing Sabrina tries to take over Ash, the parasite is trapped in his subconscious along with the entity known as the King of Pokelantis by Arceus Itself.
  • In Chapter 29, not only do a mass of Legendaries show up to stop Mewtwo's plans, but later Arceus rewards Ash's friend Kyoji for his aid by giving him the gift of understanding Pokemon in the same manner as Ash.
  • In the spin-off Rising Tide, the arrival of Primal Groundon to stop a Gigantamaxed Shadow Hydregion is treated as aid from Arceus.
• Pony Age: Catalyst: The Spirit of Justice who comes out of nowhere to save Twilight and Lyra from the Sloth Demon.
• In The Ronless Factor, after Ron Stoppable is killed at the start of the fic, it is later all but explicitly stated that a pair of ghosts he has met, a mysterious woman called Rita and a mischievous little girl called Michaela, are actually disguises assumed by God and the archangel Michael respectively, with their goal being to create a situation where Ron can be brought back to life, albeit 'disguising' it as a side-effect of Drakken's reprogrammed death ray striking Ron's spectral form.
• Episode 75 of Sonic X: Dark Chaos has a big one. Maledict has lured the heroes into his trap and takes the entire galaxy hostage with the Galaxy Crusher in exchange for the Chaos Emeralds, leaving the heroes in a literally hopeless situation. Suddenly, a gigantic Angel fleet led by Jesus Christ himself suddenly shuts down Maledict's trap and ambushes his fleet.
• The ending of The Story to End All Stories. Lampshaded by Mike and the Bots.
• Tantabus Mark II: Discussed with Daring Do's dream. If Moondog is the protagonist, then it showing up to save Daring from being Mind Raped is perfectly fine, because it fits with how the story flows and Moondog's known capabilities. If Daring is the protagonist, then it's a horrible Deus ex Machina because a new character appeared out of nowhere to save her from a situation that had already been established to be impossible for her to escape on her own. This is a problem, since Daring writes accounts of her adventures as fiction. With Moondog's help, Daring finds a solution: Rewrite earlier chapters so that Princess Luna was the one who sent her on the mission, has been checking on her in her dreams since, and therefore is in a good position to jump in to help when she gets attacked.
• In Tealove's Steamy Adventure, the cast face a seemingly hopeless fight against a giant, mobile pear tree. Then, Fluttershy appears from nowhere (the narration just states that she was hiding behind a cart the entire time) and summons a flock of fruit bats to take out the tree.
• The Told That Devil to Take You Back series opens with Sam being sent from the Men of Letters bunker to a bus into Purgatory, carrying the Colt, where he meets Wynnona Earp and becomes involved in her efforts to break the Earp family curse. All available evidence all but explicitly confirms that this is due to God/Chuck displacing Sam.
• Top of the Line (Editor-Bug): As Zim struggles to figure out how to get past the tournament's security, which won't let him in because he's not really an Invader, it suddenly turns out that Skoodge stowed away aboard the Voot underneath Zim's seat, allowing Zim to use him to get past the security. GIR even cheerfully refers to it as a "Skoodge ex machina".
• The Lucifer (2016) fic "Tragic Life Changes" opens with Chloe and Dan being apparently killed when a plane they are on explodes, only for Chloe to be saved by God as he realises that someone is trying to kill her to hurt Lucifer, which is particularly concerning as God cannot see who is responsible. Later on, once the perpetrators are identified as Marcus Pierce/Cain and Uriel, God not only sentences Uriel to a special level of Hell, but also takes away Cain's immortality and provides evidence of his recent sins so that Cain will spend the rest of his mortal life in prison before going to Hell when he finally dies. On Lucifer's request (having established that he won't bring someone back to life but he will grant any other request within his power), God also allows Lucifer to relocate the soul of Dan Espinoza to Heaven rather than Hell, as Chloe and Lucifer both agree that while Dan's guilt sent him to Hell he was working on the issues that he felt guilty over when he died and it's only because of Uriel and Pierce that Dan didn't have time to properly get over them.
• Happens a bunch of times in Twillight Sparkle's awesome adventure:
  • The new lead guard takes an arrow to the knee before he can shoot Twilight. This is in a setting where guns are the weapon of choice and no character is ever shown to have a bow.
  • At one point Twilight notices a hatch in the ground with a ladder in it inside a broom closet which helps her avoid a space shark.
  • Slenderman appears out of nowhere to save Rainbow Dash from the gay snake.
  • ADMIRAL Awesome comes Back from the Dead to save the heroes at the end of the Last Part.
• In What Tomorrow Brings, by the time Tobias finds Loren and Elfangor, he has proved an old Andalite myth of Fillia-Rillia, a guide-tree who gave the child of a nothlit an Andalite form when the child first came to the homeworld.

---