Questions tagged [parallel-universe]
For questions about a parallel universe or alternative reality, a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality.
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A universe not quite like ours
Okay this is a story someone else was telling me about. I wanted to read it but he didn't remember the title. This was in the mid-eighties; the story itself must be at least that old.
The protagonist ...
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What is the first instance of a portal to another world?
In ancient Greece, the gods lived up on a mountain, and Hades seems to have been a place that you could sail to.
Personally, I think in modern times the concept of a portal or wormhole is so familiar,...
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What's the most recent specific historical element that is common between Star Trek and the real world?
It is well known that there appears to be some divergence between the events of the Star Trek universe and ours (in particular, the Augments and Khan Singh, etc.)
Related: Has Star Trek ever ...
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Can Marty McFly ever truly return home?
In the Back to the Future trilogy, the character Marty McFly travels back in time, and meets his own parents. In doing this, he directly changes the outcome of many things including the relationship ...
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Story Identification: Fantasy world that is "the one true world"
Sometime in the early 90's, I borrowed an audio book from a local library. I would be interested in reading it in full, but I don't remember the author or title. Given that it was an audio book in a ...
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Movie with two parallel universes, each of which is a television show in the other's universe
I didn't expect this to be so difficult to find since it was relatively recent, but my Google searches are turning up nothing but listicles.
Details:
Most likely made sometime between 2005 and 2015
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Is there a depiction of Superman where he is an African American?
Is there a comic book, animation, or any other media where Superman is depicted as being an African American?
I know that there are alternate universes where he is, for example, a Soviet, but I'm ...
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Was the Enterprise-D the first Galaxy class starship? Why?
According to the script of Yesterday's Enterprise, the Enterprise-D was, "the first Galaxy Class warship built by the Federation".
How can that be? I thought the first would be the Galaxy, hence the ...
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Sci-fi novel involving parallel universes and possible time travel
I'm trying to identify a science fiction novel I read many years ago but whose title and author escape me.
I think it was borrowed because I went through all my books, but I couldn't find that one.
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Is there a difference between a parallel universe and an alternate universe?
This was prompted by a previous question I had here, but I decided it was a good stand-alone question.
This is a general science fiction question and not specific to any particular world.
Is there a ...
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Was there an original and definitive use of alternate dimensions/realities in fiction?
The fictional device or premise of alternate dimensions or realities seems so common today that it requires almost no explanation when used in stories. But despite how common this is now, it must have ...
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Story about machines generating energy with parallel universes, endangering ours
I suppose I read this story in a book in the nineties but I have no memory of actually reading it or the cover, I just remember a lot of the plot.
Scientists find out they are being contacted by the ...
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Book where Earth is invaded by a future, parallel-universe Earth
I read this young-adult science-fiction book about 10 years ago, I believe I may have picked it up through an advance reader copy program. If it was an ARC, details may have been changed before ...
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SF book about people trapped in a series of worlds they imagine
I read this story a while ago, before 1990, probably quite a bit eartlier, and I suspect it is rather older than that (60s or 70s?). I think it was a short story, but I am not sure.
It is set in the ...
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Complicated story identification from book cover
I really want to find this book again. I had it back in the seventies, the story was complex, surreal, competing realities type.
The cover showed one figure (I think), anyway, their neck was a ...
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Book involving a metaverse of many parallel worlds, a section of which is known as "The Blight"
I am trying to find a book I read maybe 40 years ago, but which has stuck with me.
There were many "parallel" worlds, each only slightly different (as usual). Most of the worldlines adjacent ...
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Novel in which the protagonist fades out is forgotten by, and can't interact with, the rest of the world
Trying to identify a novel I read years ago (probably in the '80s) in which the protagonist (late teens, early 20s?) is gradually forgotten by and ceases to be able to interact with the rest of the ...
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Short story about a hole to another universe that pulls in metal
This question reminded me of a story I read in the 90s.
A woman is caught shoplifting a bunch of metal items by throwing them into her purse. She has no memory, and the purse is empty. Anything metal ...
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Man transported from Alternate World into ours by a Neutrino Detector
Probably read 15-20 years ago. English Paperback.
Scientists running a deep underground Neutrino Detector [might have been cosmic rays]. It was a VERY Large tank of water with detectors built into ...
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A novel about a group of scientists who think they've invented a teleporter
I read this a few years ago, around 2015/16 I think and I cannot for the life of me remember the title of it and googling isn't helping at all.
It was about a group of scientists who are working on ...
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A man sent to a parallel Earth to save someone important
This is not a novel, but "longish" short fiction, novelette or novella. I read it around 1984, in an already used book containing half a dozen or so stories, in a cheap hotel in the US. There were ...
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TV Alternate World Story - No WW2
In the 1960s or possibly 1970s I saw a British tv programme in which a man gets transferred into an alternate world. I only remember a few snatches. He gets a coin in change with Edward VIII's head ...
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Story about a multiverse theory of immortality
Please help me identify a short story I read about a guy who believed that the multiverse was true, but the one that we experienced was the one in which we lived the longest. He was also contemplating ...
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First instance of a universe being "close enough"
My favorite Simpsons episode is the 1994 Halloween episode in which Homer Simpson repeatedly travels back in time and makes changes in the past, resulting in bizarre alterations to the present. ...
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Story: Ship repeatedly blasted into parallel universes
I read this short story about 10 years ago.
A young female starship officer wakes up after an attack by the dreaded mysterious alien enemies. She finds only part of her ship still in existence, and ...
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What exactly are the 'voids' in the Fringe parallel universe?
From what I can tell the primary reason that the other parallel universe is seeking to destroy our universe is because they presume that the voids that appear there are being caused by this universe.
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Boy meets female version of self from alternate dimension after his mother dies
When I was young I read a book about a teenage boy whose life was very miserable because his mother had died. He then finds a girl in his house and she thinks she is in her house. They share about ...
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Name a book of the 80s about a group of scientist/students being transported to a parallel universe
Can you help me identify this book? I read it in the 80s. What I can remember:
It was about a group of people who get sucked into a parallel
universe / another world after a device malfunctions and ...
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2018-2019 short Netflix series about a world that splits into two identical halves
Trying to remember a short Netflix series about a world that experiences a catastrophic event where it splits into two separate but identical halves. Each half is a whole image of the original world, ...
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A (G-rated) graphic novel with a picture of purple tentacles coming out of a door on the cover
I'm trying to find a graphic novel about two kids, a boy and a girl, who moved to an old family house because they couldn't afford where they were living anymore. In the house, they discovered a ...