Traveler X: For Many are Called, But Few are Chosen

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See at Home Depot. Many people are inspired to change the world, but What To Buy Now. While technically incorrect, and looked down upon by hard science-fiction fans and authors, the idea of another " dimension " has become synonymous with the term "parallel universe". The usage is particularly common in movies , television and comic books and much less so in modern prose science fiction.

The idea of a parallel world was first introduced in comic books with the publication of The Flash , " Flash of Two Worlds ".

Distinctions Between Those Who Are Called and Chosen

In written science fiction, "new dimension" more commonly — and more accurately — refer to additional coordinate axes , beyond the three spatial axes with which we are familiar. By proposing travel along these extra axes, which are not normally perceptible , the traveler can reach worlds that are otherwise unreachable and invisible. In , Edwin A. Abbott wrote the seminal novel exploring this concept called Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. It describes a world of two dimensions inhabited by living squares, triangles, and circles, called Flatland, as well as Pointland 0 dimensions , Lineland 1 dimension , and Spaceland three dimensions and finally posits the possibilities of even greater dimensions.

Isaac Asimov, in his foreword to the Signet Classics edition, described Flatland as "The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions. In , The Time Machine by H. Wells used time as an additional "dimension" in this sense, taking the four-dimensional model of classical physics and interpreting time as a space-like dimension in which humans could travel with the right equipment.

Wells also used the concept of parallel universes as a consequence of time as the fourth dimension in stories like The Wonderful Visit and Men Like Gods , an idea proposed by the astronomer Simon Newcomb , who talked about both time and parallel universes; "Add a fourth dimension to space, and there is room for an indefinite number of universes, all alongside of each other, as there is for an indefinite number of sheets of paper when we pile them upon each other". There are many examples where authors have explicitly created additional spatial dimensions for their characters to travel in, to reach parallel universes.

The parallel universe was similar to the real universe but with some different aspects, Britain has a fascist government and the royal family has been executed. Douglas Adams , in the last book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Mostly Harmless , uses the idea of probability as an extra axis in addition to the classical four dimensions of space and time similar to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics.

Though, according to the novel, they're not really parallel universes at all but only a model to capture the continuity of space, time and probability. Heinlein , in The Number of the Beast , postulated a six-dimensional universe. In addition to the three spatial dimensions, he invoked symmetry to add two new temporal dimensions, so there would be two sets of three.

Like the fourth dimension of H. Wells' "Time Traveller" , these extra dimensions can be traveled by persons using the right equipment. Perhaps the most common use of the concept of a parallel universe in science fiction is the concept of hyperspace. Used in science fiction, the concept of "hyperspace" often refers to a parallel universe that can be used as a faster-than-light shortcut for interstellar travel. Rationales for this form of hyperspace vary from work to work, but the two common elements are:. Sometimes "hyperspace" is used to refer to the concept of additional coordinate axes. In this model, the universe is thought to be "crumpled" in some higher spatial dimension and that traveling in this higher spatial dimension, a ship can move vast distances in the common spatial dimensions.

An analogy is to crumple a newspaper into a ball and stick a needle straight through, the needle will make widely spaced holes in the two-dimensional surface of the paper. While this idea invokes a "new dimension", it is not an example of a parallel universe. It is a more scientifically plausible use of hyperspace. While use of hyperspace is common, it is mostly used as a plot device and thus of secondary importance. While a parallel universe may be invoked by the concept, the nature of the universe is not often explored. So, while stories involving hyperspace might be the most common use of the parallel universe concept in fiction, it is not the most common source of fiction about parallel universes.

Parallel universes may be the backdrop to or the consequence of time travel, their most common use in fiction if the concept is central to the story. A seminal example of both is in Fritz Leiber 's novel The Big Time where there's a war across time between two alternative futures manipulating history to create a timeline that results in or realizes their own world.

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Time travelers in fiction often accidentally or deliberately create alternative histories , such as in The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove where the Confederate Army is given thousands of AK rifles and ends up winning the American Civil War. However, Ward Moore reversed this staple of alternative history fiction in his Bring the Jubilee , where an alternative world where the Confederate States of America won the Battle of Gettysburg and the American Civil War is destroyed after a historian and time traveler from the defeated United States of that world travels back to the scene of the battle and, by inadvertently causing the death of the Confederate officer whose troops occupied Little Round Top , changes the result so that the Union forces are victorious.

The alternative history novel by Eric Flint explicitly states, albeit briefly in a prologue, that the time travelers in the novel an entire town from West Virginia have created a new and separate universe when they're transported into the midst of the Thirty Years' War in 17th century Germany. Stirling 's Island in the Sea of Time: Ordinarily, alternative histories are not technically parallel universes. The concepts are similar but there are significant differences. Where characters travel to the past, they may cause changes in the timeline creating a point of divergence that result in changes to the present.

The alternative present will be similar in different degrees to the original present as would be the case with a parallel universe. The main difference is that parallel universes co-exist whereas only one history or alternative history can exist at any one moment. Another difference is that moving to a parallel universe involves some inter-dimensional travel whereas alternative histories involve some type of time travel. However, since the future is only potential and not actual, it is often conceived that more than one future may exist simultaneously. The concept of "sidewise" time travel, a term taken from Murray Leinster's " Sidewise in Time ", is often used to allow characters to pass through many different alternative histories, all descendant from some common branch point.

Often worlds that are similar to each other are considered closer to each other in terms of this sidewise travel. For example, a universe where World War II ended differently would be "closer" to us than one where Imperial China colonized the New World in the 15th century. Beam Piper used this concept, naming it "paratime" and writing a series of stories involving the Paratime Police who regulated travel between these alternative realities as well as the technology to do so. Keith Laumer used the same concept of "sideways" time travel in his novel Worlds of the Imperium.

More recently, novels such as Frederik Pohl 's The Coming of the Quantum Cats and Neal Stephenson 's Anathem explore human-scale readings of the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics , postulating that historical events or human consciousness spawns or allows "travel" among alternative universes.

It fits loosely in the Faction Paradox series initiated by Lawrence Miles , several of whose novels featured an artificially created universe existing within another; specifically, within a bottle. Dead Romance explored the consequences of inhabitants of the 'real' universe entering the Universe-in-a-Bottle. In Philip Pullman 's trilogy His Dark Materials , the protagonist begins in a world that is a Victorian counterpart to ours, although it takes place at the same time.

It also appears that the Protestant Reformation happened differently with John Calvin becoming the last Pope. The concept of Counter-Earth is typically similar to that of parallel universes but is actually a distinct idea. A counter-earth is a planet that shares Earth's orbit but is on the opposite side of the Sun and, therefore, cannot be seen from Earth. There would be no necessity that such a planet would be like Earth in any way though typically in fiction; it is usually nearly identical to Earth.

Since Counter-Earth is always within the universe and the Solar System , travel to it can be accomplished with ordinary space travel. Technically this is not a type of parallel universe since such planets can be reached via ordinary space travel, but the stories are similar in some respects. Star Trek frequently explored such worlds:. A similar concept in biology is gene flow. In this case, a planet may start as different from Earth, but due to the influence of Earth culture, the planet comes to resemble Earth in some way; technically this is not a type of parallel universe since such planets can be reached via ordinary space travel, but the stories are similar in some respects.

Star Trek used this theory as well: Simulated realities are digital constructs featured in science fiction such as The Matrix. Fantasy authors often want to bring characters from the author's and the reader's reality into their created world. Before the midth century, this was most often done by hiding fantastic worlds within hidden parts of the author's own universe. Peasants who seldom if ever traveled far from their villages could not conclusively say that it was impossible that an ogre or other fantastical beings could live an hour away, but increasing geographical knowledge meant that such locations had to be farther and farther off.

These " lost world " stories can be seen as geographic equivalents of a "parallel universe", as the worlds portrayed are separate from our own, and hidden to everyone except those who take the difficult journey there. The geographic "lost world" can blur into a more explicit "parallel universe" when the fantasy realm overlaps a section of the "real" world, but is much larger inside than out, as in Robert Holdstock 's novel Mythago Wood.

Madeleine L'engle, "Wrinkle in Time" series: After the midth century, perhaps influenced by ideas from science fiction, perhaps because exploration had made many places on the map too clear to write " Here there be dragons ", many fantasy worlds became completely separate from the author's world.

The main difference between this type of story and the "lost world" above, is that the fantasy realm can only be reached by certain people, or at certain times, or after following certain rituals, or with the proper artifact. In some cases, physical travel is not even possible, and the character in our reality travels in a dream or some other altered state of consciousness.

Examples include the Dream Cycle stories by H. Lovecraft or the Thomas Covenant stories of Stephen R. Often, stories of this type have as a major theme the nature of reality itself, questioning if the dream-world can have the same "reality" as the waking world. Science fiction often employs this theme usually without the dream-world being "another" universe in the ideas of cyberspace and virtual reality.

Most stories in this mold simply transport a character from the real world into the fantasy world where the bulk of the action takes place. Whatever gate is used — such as the tollbooth in The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster , or the mirror in Lewis Carroll 's Through the Looking-Glass — is left behind for the duration of the story, until the end, and then only if the protagonists will return.

However, in a few cases the interaction between the worlds is an important element, so that the focus is not on one world or the other, but on both, and their interaction. After Rick Cook introduced a computer programmer into a high fantasy world, his Wizardry series steadily acquired more interactions between this world and ours. In Aaron Allston 's Doc Sidhe our "grim world" is paralleled by a "fair world" where the elves live and history echoes ours. A major portion of the plot deals with preventing a change in interactions between the worlds. Margaret Ball , in No Earthly Sunne , depicts the interaction of our world with Faerie, and the efforts of the Queen of Faerie to deal with the slow drifting apart of Earth and Faerie.

Poul Anderson depicts Hell as a parallel universe in Operation Chaos , and the need to transfer equivalent amounts of mass between the worlds explains why a changeling is left for a kidnapped child. Interactions between magical and scientific universes, and the protagonists' attempts to restore and maintain the balance between them, are major plot points in Piers Anthony 's Apprentice Adept series; he depicts two worlds, the "SF" planet Proton and the fantasy-based Phaze, such that every person born in either world has a physical duplicate on the other world.

Only when one duplicate has died can the other cross between the worlds. Several of his Xanth novels also revolve around interactions between the magical realm of Xanth and " Mundania ". Multiple worlds, rather than a pair, increase the importance of the relationships. Lewis's works, there are hints of other worlds, and in The Magician's Nephew , the Wood between the Worlds shows many possibilities, and the plot is governed by transportation between worlds, and the effort to right problems stemming from them.

In His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman , the two protagonist Lyra and Will find themselves lost amongst many worlds, and travel them looking for the other. In Andre Norton 's Witch World , begun with a man from Earth being transported to this world, gates frequently lead to other worlds — or come from them. While an abundance of illusions, disguises, and magic that repels attention make certain parts of Witch World look like parallel worlds, some are clearly parallel in that time runs differently in them, and such gates pose a repeated problem in Witch World.

In the radio sitcom Undone , the main character, Edna Turner, prevents people from a parallel version of London called "Undone" from moving to London and making the city too weird. There are other parallel versions of London, and one of the main plots in the series is the attempt by The Prince to unite all versions of London together.

Travel between the manyworlds is the central conceit of Ian McDonald 's Everness , where the protagonist travels to a parallel London in a world without fossil fuels. Linking rooms of various types not all actual rooms can hook together any number of worlds. The characters may chose only one, but the choice is all important in determining the worlds. The idea of a multiverse is as fertile a subject for fantasy as it is for science fiction, allowing for epic settings and godlike protagonists. Among the most epic and far-ranging fantasy "multiverses" is that of Michael Moorcock.

Like many authors after him, Moorcock was inspired by the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics , saying:. Unlike many science-fiction interpretations, Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories go far beyond alternative history to include mythic and sword and sorcery settings as well as some worlds more similar to our own. However, the Eternal Champion himself is incarnate in all of them. Roger Zelazny used a mythic cosmology in his Chronicles of Amber series. His protagonist is a member of the royal family of Amber, whose members represent a godlike pantheon ruling over a prototypical universe that represents Order.

All other universes are increasingly distorted "shadows" of it, ending finally at the other extreme, Chaos, which is the complete negation of the prototype.

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Travel between these "shadow" universes is only possible by beings descended from the blood of this pantheon. Those "of the blood" can walk through Shadow, imagining any possible reality and then walk to it, making their environment more similar to their desire as they go. It is argued between the characters whether these "shadows" even exist before they're imagined by a member of the royal family of Amber, or if the "shadows'" existence can be seen as an act of godlike creation.

The background of the stories is a multiverse where godlike beings have created a number of pocket universes that represent their own desires. Our own world is part of this series, but our own universe is revealed to be much smaller than it appears, ending at the edge of the Solar System. The term 'polycosmos' was coined as an alternative to 'multiverse' by the author and editor Paul le Page Barnett , best known by the pseudonym John Grant, and is built from Greek rather than Latin morphemes. It is used by Barnett to describe a concept binding together a number of his works, its nature meaning that "all characters, real or fictional [ There are many examples of the meta-fictional idea of having the author's created universe or any author's universe rise to the same level of "reality" as the universe we're familiar with.

The theme is present in works as diverse as H. Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp took the protagonist of the Harold Shea series through the worlds of Norse myth, Edmund Spenser 's The Faerie Queene , Ludovico Ariosto 's Orlando Furioso , and the Kalevala [5] — without ever quite settling whether writers created these parallel worlds by writing these works, or received impressions from the worlds and wrote them down.

In an interlude set in " Xanadu ", a character claims that the universe is dangerous because the poem went unfinished, but whether this was his misapprehension or not is not established. Some fictional approaches definitively establish the independence of the parallel world, sometimes by having the world differ from the book's account; other approaches have works of fiction create and affect the parallel world: Sprague de Camp 's Solomon's Stone , taking place on an astral plane, is populated by the daydreams of mundane people, and in Rebecca Lickiss 's Eccentric Circles , an elf is grateful to Tolkien for transforming elves from dainty little creatures.

These stories often place the author, or authors in general, in the same position as Zelazny's characters in Amber. Questioning, in a literal fashion, if writing is an act of creating a new world, or an act of discovery of a pre-existing world. Occasionally, this approach becomes self-referential, treating the literary universe of the work itself as explicitly parallel to the universe where the work was created. Stephen King 's seven-volume Dark Tower series hinges upon the existence of multiple parallel worlds, many of which are King's own literary creations.

Ultimately the characters become aware that they are only "real" in King's literary universe this can be debated as an example of breaking the fourth wall , and even travel to a world — twice — in which again, within the novel they meet Stephen King and alter events in the real Stephen King's world outside of the books. An early instance of this was in works by Gardner Fox for DC Comics in the s, in which characters from the Golden Age which was supposed to be a series of comic books within the DC Comics universe would cross over into the main DC Comics universe.

One comic book did provide an explanation for a fictional universe existing as a parallel universe. The parallel world does "exist" and it resonates into the "real world. Robert Heinlein , in The Number of the Beast , quantizes the many parallel fictional universes - in terms of fictons. A number of fictional universes are accessible along one of the three axes of time which Dr. Jacob Burroughs' "time twister" can access.

Each quantum level change - a ficton - along this time axis corresponds to a different universe from one of several bodies of fiction known to all four travellers in the inter-universal, time travelling vehicle Gay Deceiver. Heinlein also " breaks the fourth wall " by having "both Heinleins" Robert and his wife Virginia visit an inter-universal science-fiction and fantasy convention in the book's last chapter. The convention was convened on Heinlein character Lazarus Long 's estate on the planet "Tertius" to attract the evil "Black Hats" who pursued the main characters of The Number of the Beast through space and time in order to destroy Dr.

Burroughs and his invention. Heinlein continues this literary conceit in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and To Sail Beyond the Sunset , using characters from throughout his science-fictional career, hauled forth from their own "fictons" to unite in the war against the "Black Hats. Heinlein also wrote a stand-alone novel, Job: A Comedy of Justice , whose two protagonists fall from alternative universe into alternative universe often naked , and after a number of such adventures die and enter a stereotypically Fundamentalist Christian Heaven with many of its internal contradictions explored in the novel.

Their harrowing adventures through the universes are then revealed to have been "destruction testing" of their souls by Loki , sanctioned by the Creator person of the Christian God Yahweh. The Devil appears as the most sympathetic of the gods in the story, who expresses contempt for the other gods' cavalier treatment of the story's main characters.

A Comedy of Justice rings in the theological dimension if only for the purpose of satirizing evangelical Christianity of parallel universes, that their existence can be used by God or a number of gods, Loki seems to have made himself available to do Yahweh's dirty work in this novel.

Elfland , or Faerie, the otherworldly home not only of elves and fairies but goblins , trolls , and other folkloric creatures, has an ambiguous appearance in folklore. On one hand, the land often appears to be contiguous with 'ordinary' land. Thomas the Rhymer might, on being taken by the Queen of Faerie, be taken on a road like one leading to Heaven or Hell. This is not exclusive to English or French folklore. In the sagas, it said that the people of this petty kingdom were more beautiful than other people, as they were related to the elves , showing that not only the territory was associated with elves, but also the race of its people.

While sometimes folklore seems to show fairy intrusion into human lands — " Tam Lin " does not show any otherworldly aspects about the land in which the confrontation takes place — at other times the otherworldly aspects are clear. Fantasy writers have taken up the ambiguity. Some writers depict the land of the elves as a full-blown parallel universe, with portals the only entry — as in Josepha Sherman 's Prince of the Sidhe series or Esther Friesner 's Elf Defense — and others have depicted it as the next land over, possibly difficult to reach for magical reasons — Hope Mirrlees 's Lud-in-the-Mist , or Lord Dunsany 's The King of Elfland's Daughter.

In some cases, the boundary between Elfland and more ordinary lands is not fixed. Not only the inhabitants but Faerie itself can pour into more mundane regions. Terry Pratchett 's Discworld series proposes that the world of the Elves is a "parasite" universe, that drifts between and latches onto others such as Discworld and our own world referred to as "Roundworld" in the novels. In the young teenage book Mist by Kathryn James , the Elven world lies through a patch of mist in the woods. It was constructed when the Elven were thrown out of our world.

Travel to and fro is possible by those in the know, but can have lethal consequences. Isekai , is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy light novels, manga, anime, and video games revolving around a normal person being transported to or trapped in a parallel universe. Often, this universe already exists in the protagonist's world as a fictional universe, but it may also be unbeknownst to them. The most famous treatment of the alternative universe concept in film could be considered The Wizard of Oz , which portrays a parallel world, famously separating the magical realm of the Land of Oz from the mundane world by filming it in Technicolor while filming the scenes set in Kansas in sepia.

At times, alternative universes have been featured in small scale independent productions such as Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's It Happened Here , featuring an alternative United Kingdom which had undergone Operation Sea Lion in and had been defeated and occupied by Nazi Germany. It focused on moral questions related to the professional ethics of Pauline, a nurse forced into Nazi collaboration. Another common use of the theme is as a prison for villains or demons.

The idea is used in the first two Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve where Kryptonian villains were sentenced to the Phantom Zone from where they eventually escaped. An almost exactly parallel use of the idea is presented in the campy cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension , where the "8th dimension" is essentially a "phantom zone" used to imprison the villainous Red Lectroids. Uses in horror films include the film From Beyond based on the H. Lovecraft story of the same name where a scientific experiment induces the experimenters to perceive aliens from a parallel universe, with bad results.

The John Carpenter film Prince of Darkness is based on the premise that the essence of a being described as Satan , trapped in a glass canister and found in an abandoned church in Los Angeles , is actually an alien being that is the 'son' of something even more evil and powerful, trapped in another universe. The protagonists accidentally free the creature, who then attempts to release his "father" by reaching in through a mirror. Some films present parallel realities that are actually different contrasting versions of the narrative itself. Commonly this motif is presented as different points of view revolving around a central but sometimes unknowable "truth", the seminal example being Akira Kurosawa 's Rashomon.

Conversely, often in film noir and crime dramas , the alternative narrative is a fiction created by a central character, intentionally — as in The Usual Suspects — or unintentionally — as in Angel Heart. Less often, the alternative narratives are given equal weight in the story, making them truly alternative universes, such as in the German film Run Lola Run , the short-lived British West End musical Our House and the British film Sliding Doors. More recent films that have explicitly explored parallel universes are: Frequently Asked Questions , the main character runs away from a totalitarian nightmare, and he enters into a cyber-afterlife alternative reality.

The current Star Trek films are set in an alternative universe created by the first film's villain traveling back in time, thus allowing the franchise to be rebooted without affecting the continuity of any other Star Trek film or show. The science-fiction thriller Source Code employs the concepts of quantum reality and parallel universes. The characters in The Cloverfield Paradox , the third installment of the franchise , accidentally create a ripple in the time-space continuum and travel into an alternate universe, where the monster and the events in the first film transpired.

Disney has also experimented with this through some of their animated films such as Robin Hood , A Goofy Movie , Chicken Little and Zootopia , where anthropomorphic animals take on the role of in this case, nonexistent humans and emulating the latter's characteristics, without abandoning their hereditary own. The idea of parallel universes have received treatment in a number of television series, usually as a single story or episode in a more general science fiction or fantasy storyline.

The s TV series Sliders depicts a group of adventurers visiting assorted parallel universes, as they attempt to find their "home" universe. Included in the 1st season is a universe where the world is stuck in the ice age, with no life anywhere. One of the earliest television plots to feature parallel time was a storyline on soap opera Dark Shadows. Vampire Barnabas Collins found a room in Collinwood which served as a portal to parallel time, and he entered the room in order to escape from his current problems.

A year later, the show again traveled to parallel time, the setting this time being A well known and often imitated example is the original Star Trek episode entitled " Mirror, Mirror ". The episode introduced an alternative version of the Star Trek universe where the main characters were barbaric and cruel to the point of being evil. When the parallel universe concept is parodied , the allusion is often to this Star Trek episode. A previous episode for the Trek series first hinted at the potential of differing reality planes and their occupants , titled " The Alternative Factor ".

A mad scientist from "our" universe, named Lazarus B. His counterpart, in a state of paranoia, claims the double threatens his and the very cosmos' existence. With help from Captain Kirk , A traps B along with him in a "anti"-universe, for eternity, thus bringing balance to both matter oriented realms.

A similar plot was used in the Codename: Kids Next Door episode Operation: The mirror universe of Star Trek was further developed by later series in the franchise. In several episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , the later evolution of the mirror universe is explored.

A two-part episode of Star Trek: Enterprise , entitled " In a Mirror, Darkly ", serves as a prequel , introducing the early developments of the Mirror Universe. In the s young adult British SF series The Tomorrow People , its second-season episode, A Rift in Time March—April pitted the three telepath core characters and allies against time travelling interlopers from an alternative history where the Roman Empire developed the steam engine in the first century CE, had a technological headstart, did not fragment during the fifth century and underwent accelerated technological development.

The Roman eagle standard was planted on the Moon in the fifth century and by its alternative twentieth century, it had mastered interstellar travel, had a galactic empire and time travel. Consequently, the Tomorrow People had to rectify this aberrant timeline by dismantling and disabling the anomalous steam engine. Multiple episodes of Red Dwarf use the concept.

In "Parallel Universe" the crew meet alternative versions of themselves: The next episode, "Ouroboros", makes contact with a timeline in which Kochanski, rather than Lister, was the sole survivor of the original disaster; this alternative Kochanski then joins the crew for the remaining episodes.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer experienced a Parallel universe where she was a mental patient in Normal Again and not really "The Slayer" at all. In the end, she has to choose between a universe where her mother and father are together and alive mother or one with her friends and sister in it where she has to fight for her life daily.

Parallel universes in fiction

Her core-universe allies Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg had become vampires in that timeline. The plot of the season four episode of Charmed , entitled "Brain Drain", features The Source of All Evil kidnapping Piper Halliwell and forcing her into a deep coma, where she experiences an alternative reality in which the Halliwell manor is actually a mental institution.

She and her sisters serve as patients in this universe, their powers only a manifestation of their minds, a ruse put up to trick Piper into willingly relinquishing the sisters' magic. The animated series, Futurama , had an episode where the characters travel between "Universe 1" and "Universe A" via boxes containing each universe; and one of the major jokes is an extended argument between the two sets of characters over which set were the "evil" ones. The show has gone on to feature the parallel universe prominently. In the season of Lost , the result of characters traveling back in time to prevent the crash of Oceanic Flight apparently creates a parallel reality in which the Flight never crashed, rather than resetting time itself in the characters' original timeline.

The show continued to show two "sets" of the characters following different destinies, until it was revealed in the series finale that there was really only one reality created by the characters themselves to assist themselves in leaving behind the physical world and passing on to an afterlife after their respective deaths.

In the anime and manga series of Dragon Ball Z , in the Androids Saga, Future Trunks returns to the past to give Goku medicine to prevent him from dying of a heart disease and warns him of the Androids, in the process creating parallel realities, leading to the appearance of Cell, who killed the same Future Trunks from a different splitting timeline to come back to the main timeline when the Androids are still alive for him to absorb.

Its sequel, Dragon Ball Super , later features separate universes that are in pairs whose numbers add up to the total number of the universe: Previously there were 18 universes, but Zen'o the supreme ruler of the Dragon Ball Multiverse destroyed 6 of them in a rage. Previously, Daizenshuu 7 stated that the typical Dragon Ball Universe had only 4 galaxies, but Dragon Ball Super effectively retcons this, where Whis says that the universe contains endless galaxies.

The anime Turn A Gundam attempted to combine all the parallel Gundam universes other incarnations of the series, with similar themes but differing stories and characters, that had played out at different times since the debut of the concept in the s of the metaseries into one single reality. The anime and manga series Eureka Seven: AO takes place in a parallel universe that is different from the one in the series' predecessor Eureka Seven.

The E7 series started off in the year , and the AO world, which takes place in the year , would be the home of the two main characters' son. The anime and manga series Katekyo Hitman Reborn! The anime Neon Genesis Evangelion features a parallel world in one of the final episodes. This parallel world is a sharp contrast to the harsh, dark "reality" of the show and presents a world where all the characters enjoy a much happier life. This parallel world would become the basis for the new Evangelion manga series Angelic Days. The anime series Bakugan features a parallel universe called Vestroia and is the homeworld of fantastic creatures called Bakugan.

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