...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

Failed Future Forecast

881 statements
170 feature instances
183 referencing feature instances

Failed Future Forecast	type	FeatureClass
Failed Future Forecast	label	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast	page	FailedFutureForecast
Failed Future Forecast	comment	People have been trying to predict the future for as long as human civilization, but in most cases they have been partially or completely wrong when the year in question rolls around. Sometimes, a writer inadvertently creates an Alternate History, which causes problems when referencing later events. Real life has simply progressed beyond the fictional events, meaning that the work suddenly becomes inaccurate. Adventure thrillers are especially vulnerable to this, as they are often written 20 Minutes into the Future. Sometimes, the writer will refer to later events such as 9/11, In Spite of a Nail. In other cases, what was a series of adventure novels experiences a Genre Shift and becomes some kind of science-fiction or true Alternate History. Anything that doesn't have The Internet is prone to this, which is everything written before the mid-90s but set after. Anything vaguely similar to the 'net as we know it, tends to be limited to looking up a remote, probably centralized, database. The idea of it being a many-to-many medium doesn't seem to have occurred to many people until it actually happened.note This is mostly due to the fact that the Internet as it is today evolved, rather than being specifically developed: the designers of ARPAnet had no idea what it would become until it actually did. For examples of fictional not-quite-Internets, see The Alternet. The science-fiction version is a special case, where dates or rates of technological advance become invalidated by the march of time. Zeerust is an aesthetic version, where "futuristic" designs wind up dated. This is a particularly Omnipresent Trope in near-future Speculative Fiction, since the readers (and author) are usually still around when the prediction fails. If the creator is still alive they may even offer an official explanation. The fact that the prediction isn't true may be Hilarious in Hindsight or Harsher in Hindsight. See also Time Marches On, which tends more towards reactions of current audiences (e.g. a work becomes unreadable due to Values Dissonance). Contrast Life Imitates Art, which includes successful future forecasts. Related tropes: Absurdly Huge Population: Many examples exist of people thinking either too small or too big in terms of population numbers. Apocalypse Day Planner: The world continues to exist despite many predictions to the contrary. Mayan Doomsday: As should be fairly obvious by now, the world didn't end on December 21, 2012. Millennium Bug: With some exceptions, our computers did not all crash and burn on January 1, 2000. Though it would be reasonable to assume they didn't all crash because we were warned and companies spent millions rewriting code to prevent it. Future Society, Present Values: A future is shown with similar values to the present, making it seem dated. Future Spandex: Continues to be much less popular than predicted. I Want My Jetpack: Technological or scientific developments did not come to pass by the designated year. Most real-life jetpacks are proof-of-design or prototypes. Japan Takes Over the World: The Lost Decades permanently buried the idea of the country as an economic superpower. No New Fashions in the Future: Fashionable hairstyles, clothing, architecture, and so on fail to change as rapidly as they do in Real Life. Overpopulation Crisis: Despite what doomsayers would tell you, our population growth is slowing down and we produce more food than ever. Humanity faces a lot of challenges, yes*like global warming, disease, violence, biodiversity loss, pollution, and excessive resource extraction., but none of them are rooted in simply the number of people being large. Science Marches On: Improved understanding of science renders the prediction outdated. Space Clothes: As with Future Spandex, above. Technology Marches On: Advancements in technology render the prediction outdated. Values Dissonance: Changes in a society's attitudes occur in a different way and/or different areas than predicted or else had not been predicted to occur at all. Or maybe society tried the changes the author endorsed, only to reject them later as doing more harm than good. Zeerust: Technology portrayed as futuristic comes off as dated to modern day audiences. noreallife
Failed Future Forecast	fetched	2024-04-19T23:02:22Z
Failed Future Forecast	parsed	2024-04-19T23:02:22Z
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to AlternateHistory: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to ApocalypseHow: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to BreakTheHaughty: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to CyberPunk: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to DavidBowie: Not an Item - IGNORE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to Defied: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to FramingDevice: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to GiantFood: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to GreenAesop: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to HarsherInHindsight: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to HumanPopsicle: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to JapanTakesOverTheWorld: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to MomentOfAwesome: Not an Item - CAT
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to NationalStereotypes: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to NegativeSpaceWedgie: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to Novelization: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to OrwellianRetcon: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to Retcon: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to SerialKiller: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to WorldWarIII: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingComment	Dropped link to ZigZagged: Not an Item - FEATURE
Failed Future Forecast	processingUnknown	Defied
Failed Future Forecast	isPartOf	DBTropes
Failed Future Forecast / int_109b49e1	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_109b49e1	comment	In Predator 2, it was predicted that by 1997 Los Angeles would decay into a dystopian Crapsack World with drug gangs in open war with each other, as well as the police, using military-grade hardware and body counts seemingly in the thousands. The police themselves show elements of being an occupying force in their own city and Harrigan himself refers to his beat as "the war." Based on the high crime rates of L.A. in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this didn't seem too far-fetched circa 1990, but fast forward to the second decade of the 21st Century and we see that Los Angeles, while still not a utopia, has far lower crime rates than it did at the time the film was made. Ironically, it was in the next year that they started to fall.
Failed Future Forecast / int_109b49e1	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_109b49e1	featureConfidence	1.0
Predator 2	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_109b49e1
Failed Future Forecast / int_112decbc	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_112decbc	comment	The original Planet of the Apes pentalogy eventually fell victim to this. The original film was released in 1968 and focused on a space crew that set out for an interstellar mission in the far-off year of 1972. The third movie, released three years later, had two talking apes arrive from the future one year after the mission from the original, which was two years away at the time. By the time the fourth movie was released, it was the same year interstellar travel was supposed to be possible according to the original, and when the fifth movie was released another year later, there were no talking apes from the future, obviously. Sadly the film franchise did get a prediction almost right (though not to the extent predicted, thankfully): the film predicted that a virus would kill all cats and dogs in the world sometime in the 1970s. In 1978, the canine parvovirus pandemic did kill thousands of dogs worldwide, and a similar virus affected cats in the UK but was much more localized.
Failed Future Forecast / int_112decbc	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_112decbc	featureConfidence	1.0
Planet of the Apes (Franchise)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_112decbc
Failed Future Forecast / int_14b52449	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_14b52449	comment	2012 intended to predicted The End of the World as We Know It without success... Although one could make the case that it was just Roland Emmerich using the silly "Mayan prophecy" mumbo-jumbo to cram as many natural disasters as he could into one film.
Failed Future Forecast / int_14b52449	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_14b52449	featureConfidence	1.0
2012	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_14b52449
Failed Future Forecast / int_164bedb5	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_164bedb5	comment	Split Second (1992): This dystopian sci-fi action movie predicted that London would become partially flooded by 2008 as a result of Global Warming, giving the monster in the film a place to hide in the mass of abandoned buildings and subway stations. Suffice it to say, this prediction was a bit off.
Failed Future Forecast / int_164bedb5	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_164bedb5	featureConfidence	1.0
Split Second (1992)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_164bedb5
Failed Future Forecast / int_164eec8f	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_164eec8f	comment	Corsair is centered in Libya where Muammar Gaddafi announces an increased cooperation with NATO in anti-terrorism efforts. The book was written just two years before the Libyan Civil War.
Failed Future Forecast / int_164eec8f	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_164eec8f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Oregon Files	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_164eec8f
Failed Future Forecast / int_16712475	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_16712475	comment	The Jetsons: Several jokes were made about the standard work week being nine hours long, based on the popular conception of the time that technology would allow people to work far less. Not only has the exact opposite happened, but cell phones and email have allowed bosses to contact employees 24/7, meaning that the separation between work and leisure has become blurred.
Failed Future Forecast / int_16712475	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_16712475	featureConfidence	1.0
The Jetsons	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_16712475
Failed Future Forecast / int_188709f8	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_188709f8	comment	Averted in A Good Day to Die Hard, which includes a scene where John McClane and a friend talk in an NYPD shooting range with a picture of President Obama in the background. The film was released in 2013 but filmed prior to the 2012 presidential election. Therefore a second version of the scene was shot with a picture of Mitt Romney in the background as insurance in case of a Republican victory.
Failed Future Forecast / int_188709f8	featureApplicability	-1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_188709f8	featureConfidence	1.0
A Good Day to Die Hard	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_188709f8
Failed Future Forecast / int_194eb14e	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_194eb14e	comment	Strikeforce: Morituri managed to get things wrong in both directions at once. The story is set in 2072, but the Soviet Union still exists under the "Paideia" One World Order. However, a memorial seen in one panel implies that South African apartheid collapsed in 1989, a few years too optimistic a prediction.
Failed Future Forecast / int_194eb14e	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_194eb14e	featureConfidence	1.0
Strikeforce: Morituri (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_194eb14e
Failed Future Forecast / int_198091c2	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_198091c2	comment	Logan's Run: In "Man Out of Time", the Soviet Union seemingly still existed in 2119 as a newspaper headline reads "Eastern Bloc Demands Time Travel Controls."
Failed Future Forecast / int_198091c2	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_198091c2	featureConfidence	1.0
Logan's Run	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_198091c2
Failed Future Forecast / int_1a17ff62	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_1a17ff62	comment	The Way Series: A major plot point of Eon, written in 1985 and set in the early 21st century, is that the USSR still exists and the Third World War breaks out between it and the USA. On the other hand, the plot makes extensive use of the concept of parallel worlds and alternate histories, which handwaves the problem away: the story is not taking place in our timeline.
Failed Future Forecast / int_1a17ff62	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_1a17ff62	featureConfidence	1.0
The Way Series	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_1a17ff62
Failed Future Forecast / int_1b08d2b8	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_1b08d2b8	comment	In IDW's Transformers: Escalation, much of the plot during the second half or so consist of the Decepticons trying to stir up conflict between the Soviet Union and a breakaway republic called Brasnya. This was written in 2006. They started referring to Russia (and Brasnya as a "former Soviet republic") from issue 5 onward, and Simon Furman admitted the Soviet references in the earlier issues were errors.
Failed Future Forecast / int_1b08d2b8	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_1b08d2b8	featureConfidence	1.0
The Transformers Megaseries (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_1b08d2b8
Failed Future Forecast / int_1b94c69	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_1b94c69	comment	Death Race 2000 presents the turn of the millennium as a barbaric period where millions of people gather around their televisions to gleefully cheer on racers as they run over and kill innocent pedestrians to earn points. The remake, released in 2008, predicted that by 2012 the economy would have collapsed so severely that prisons would become massively overcrowded, making it profitable for prisoners to compete in lethal races.
Failed Future Forecast / int_1b94c69	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_1b94c69	featureConfidence	1.0
Death Race 2000	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_1b94c69
Failed Future Forecast / int_1c34acd2	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_1c34acd2	comment	Parodied in Rocketship Voyager, a Star Trek: Voyager fanfic written In the Style of a 1950s sci-fi magazine pulp. Not only is there still a "Sino-Soviet Union", it's racing ahead of the West in the development of electronics, computer technology and the safe production of atomic energy (a riff on the Failed Future Forecast of Mack Reynolds that a centrally-controlled Soviet economy would be more efficient than a Western capitalist one). Some members of the crew come from countries that no longer exist in the year that it's set, including East Germany, South Vietnam, and Yugoslavia, while Seska is an expatriate Soviet Communist and suspected KGB agent.
Failed Future Forecast / int_1c34acd2	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_1c34acd2	featureConfidence	1.0
Rocketship Voyager (Fanfic)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_1c34acd2
Failed Future Forecast / int_1d880fd1	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_1d880fd1	comment	A memorable episode of Patlabor: The TV Series (debuted 1989) involved a Soviet defector bringing an experimental mech to a Japanese seaside resort town where everybody was actually a spy of some sort.
Failed Future Forecast / int_1d880fd1	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_1d880fd1	featureConfidence	1.0
Patlabor: The TV Series	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_1d880fd1
Failed Future Forecast / int_1de3a79c	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_1de3a79c	comment	While the present day period of Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja is never established, it's suggested to be on or near 1989, when the first issue was published. Reading it in hindsight can feel rather anachronistic, given how much of the story relies on Cold War tensions and the Red Scare (particularly an exchange of warheads between the US and the USSR).
Failed Future Forecast / int_1de3a79c	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_1de3a79c	featureConfidence	1.0
Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_1de3a79c
Failed Future Forecast / int_1e9b9579	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_1e9b9579	comment	Lord of the Flies features a nuclear war breaking out sometime in the late 1950s, making it this trope if you block out all the heavy-handed symbolism.
Failed Future Forecast / int_1e9b9579	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_1e9b9579	featureConfidence	1.0
Lord of the Flies	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_1e9b9579
Failed Future Forecast / int_21e43f3a	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_21e43f3a	comment	The PBS game show adaptation of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego had the misfortune of being launched just as the USSR was on the verge of collapse, meaning that by the second season, anything related to it or Eastern Europe in the first season reruns was already outdated. This, combined with chronic instability in the third world, prompted a disclaimer to be added: "All geographic information was accurate as of the date this program was recorded." It also necessitated constant updating of the maps used on the show, sometimes overnight according to Defunctland.
Failed Future Forecast / int_21e43f3a	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_21e43f3a	featureConfidence	1.0
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_21e43f3a
Failed Future Forecast / int_21e4ee5c	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_21e4ee5c	comment	Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: "In the year 1987, NASA launched the last of America's deep space probes. ..." Granted, we haven't sent any manned probes past Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972, but we're still sending unmanned ones. The show, which aired from 1979 until 1981, took as its main premise that Captain William "Buck" Rogers would be lost in space during a Negative Space Wedgie that would engulf his deep-space Ranger 3 exploratory craft sometime in the far-off year... of 1987. As of 2018, humanity is still trying to get back to the moon, let alone anywhere further afield, with a manned mission. And, more to the point of 1987, in real life, no space launches of any sort happened in the US that year, due to the Challenger disaster the previous year. In an episode someone tests to see if Buck is who he says he is by making a pop culture reference to the 20th Century. Today, O. J. Simpson's image as "The Juice" has fallen out of public consciousness. And when one thinks of O.J, it's about something completely different. In Buck's defense, he was frozen in 1987, years before O.J's fall from grace.
Failed Future Forecast / int_21e4ee5c	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_21e4ee5c	featureConfidence	1.0
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_21e4ee5c
Failed Future Forecast / int_222a8847	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_222a8847	comment	RoboCop (1987), set at some unclear future date after 1987, implies that the Cold War is still going on, with references to SDI and the MX missile. The latter, which became the Peacekeeper, has now been scrapped. References are also made to the South African apartheid government which is not only still in power (albeit reduced to a single city-state), but actively threatening to deploy a Neutron Bomb against insurgents, thus promoting them from racist assholes to cartoonish supervillains (although, in Real Life, they did have nukes).
Failed Future Forecast / int_222a8847	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_222a8847	featureConfidence	1.0
RoboCop (1987)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_222a8847
Failed Future Forecast / int_230b3240	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_230b3240	comment	Jack Ryan: The Sum of All Fears is a close one-written in early 1991, months before the breakup of the Soviet Union, and revolves around a "hoaxed" Soviet attack on the US in January 1992, by which time the USSR had been formally dissolved for a month. The film adaptation was aware of this, with the main villain changed from an East German to a neo-Nazi. His portrayal of the prominent Afghan viewpoint character, a mujahideen, in Cardinal of the Kremlin also uses the "tragic, noble victims of the invading Soviets" political Historical Hero Upgrade common in those times as he was stated to have been nothing but a peaceful teacher who only became a ruthless killer after the Soviets had ruined his life and killed his family and that he wouldn't have even picked up a gun if it were otherwise. Played with in that the other mujahideen viewpoint character is Ax-Crazy, but it still didn't stop the novel ultimately laying the fault on the Soviet invasion and the American interference in it:
Failed Future Forecast / int_230b3240	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_230b3240	featureConfidence	1.0
Jack Ryan	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_230b3240
Failed Future Forecast / int_24931627	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_24931627	comment	Ghost in the Shell: The Soviet Union is still going in 2030, though revisions and reprints made after 1992 by Shirow Masamune himself changed this to reflect their downfall. The establishment of the Soviet Union still existing in the future was made in the Appleseed series during the 80s. Ghost in the Shell is a sister series that takes place almost a century before Appleseed, but was written in the early 90s. There were some other mess ups in-universe that were mostly corrected. There was a World War III during the mid-90s, and a Non-Nuclear World War IV in 2019-2020, and the United States was separated into three countries after a civil war that took part during World War IV (of which most of the main characters are veterans).note The American Empire AKA Imperial Americana makes up the largest part of the country, with all the states east of New Mexico, south of South Dakota, and south of the New England area, including Washington D.C. The still democratic United States of America was reduced to the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. The New England states, California, Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii became the socialist Ameri-Soviet Union (revised to the Russo-American Alliance after 1992). And as a side note, Berlin was mostly bombed to pieces in the latter two wars.
Failed Future Forecast / int_24931627	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_24931627	featureConfidence	1.0
Ghost in the Shell (Manga)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_24931627
Failed Future Forecast / int_24eb97b7	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_24eb97b7	comment	This is why Black Widow was Retconned into possessing slowed aging. Marvel wanted to keep her Cold War ties and her back story as a Soviet super spy without having to retroactively make her appear decades older.
Failed Future Forecast / int_24eb97b7	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_24eb97b7	featureConfidence	1.0
Black Widow / Comicbook	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_24eb97b7
Failed Future Forecast / int_2593d5ed	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_2593d5ed	comment	The Space Odyssey Series predicted lunar bases and manned missions to Jupiter by the first year of the 21st Century. More egregiously, the movie predicted that we would be flown there by PanAm, which went out of business in 1991.
Failed Future Forecast / int_2593d5ed	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_2593d5ed	featureConfidence	1.0
The Space Odyssey Series	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_2593d5ed
Failed Future Forecast / int_261c8d3f	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_261c8d3f	comment	The Simpsons: According to "Lisa's Wedding", World War III took place at some point between 1995 (when the episode originally aired) and 2010, which the episode flash-forwards to. Zig-zagged during "Bart to the Future", a glimpse into Lisa Simpson's adulthood set 20 Minutes into the Future, Lenny offhandedly references the idea of Chaz Bono taking up a career in politics like his father, Sonny Bono, when in reality, he ended up becoming an actor. The episode also refers to the younger Bono by his deadname, as he didn't come out as a trans man until nine years after its premiere. Also, there's an infamous line about a Donald Trump presidency in the distant future. At the time, Trump was seeking the Reform Party's candidacy for president during the 2000 presidential election, but by the time the episode aired, Trump already ended his campaign. However, he ended up winning the 2016 presidential election as the Republican Party's candidate.
Failed Future Forecast / int_261c8d3f	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_261c8d3f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Simpsons	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_261c8d3f
Failed Future Forecast / int_26434e28	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_26434e28	comment	Hector Bywater's The Great Pacific War was actually written as future fiction (it was published in 1925, the war in the book takes lasts from 1931 - 1933), but the naval conflict in the book had so many similarities to the actual Pacific war that happened soon after that it now seems like an alt-history novel.
Failed Future Forecast / int_26434e28	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_26434e28	featureConfidence	1.0
The Great Pacific War	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_26434e28
Failed Future Forecast / int_3558eaa2	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_3558eaa2	comment	The introduction to 'Kickpuncher' in Community episode "Romantic Expressionism".
Failed Future Forecast / int_3558eaa2	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_3558eaa2	featureConfidence	1.0
Community	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_3558eaa2
Failed Future Forecast / int_362874e3	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_362874e3	comment	Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: In "Lunarville 7" (1967), the Lunar Controller refers to "man's first successful landing on the Moon, back in the 1970's". The writers clearly assumed that NASA's ambition to land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade would not be realized.
Failed Future Forecast / int_362874e3	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_362874e3	featureConfidence	1.0
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_362874e3
Failed Future Forecast / int_36ee2abe	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_36ee2abe	comment	Paranoia has some kind of world-ending catastrophe in its Backstory, and though the details are vague and obscured by time, secrecy and misinformation, the main culprits that The Computer suspects are Communists, hinting at World War III. Not surprising, since the game first came out in The '80s, but not the first people you'd blame these days. On the other hand, records of the past are so mangled and manipulated that it hasn't affected the setting. In fact, the core drives behind the setting have proven remarkably resilient. As the Kickstarter for the 2015 edition says, "The original Paranoia was a product of, well, Cold War paranoia. Today, we have no need to be paranoid! The NSA and GCHQ work tirelessly to ensure that we are all safe and secure against the pervasive threat of Commie mutant trai.... Uh, I mean, evil, crazed terrorists."
Failed Future Forecast / int_36ee2abe	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_36ee2abe	featureConfidence	1.0
Paranoia (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_36ee2abe
Failed Future Forecast / int_38662f0a	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_38662f0a	comment	Escape from New York, in 1981, predicted that by 1997 crime rates would have risen to such catastrophic levels that Manhattan Island would be turned into a penal colony for containing all the convicts. While the high crime rates of the 1970s-80s made it look more plausible then, the fact they started falling just ten years on left it looking silly when the actual 1997 rolled around.
Failed Future Forecast / int_38662f0a	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_38662f0a	featureConfidence	1.0
Escape from New York	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_38662f0a
Failed Future Forecast / int_386f20f5	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_386f20f5	comment	In the author's notes of Harry Potter Becomes a Communist, it's repeatedly predicted that capitalism will be overthrown by the year 2020.
Failed Future Forecast / int_386f20f5	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_386f20f5	featureConfidence	1.0
Harry Potter Becomes A Communist / Fan Fic	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_386f20f5
Failed Future Forecast / int_3aabfec3	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_3aabfec3	comment	Captain Planet and the Planeteers ran straight into this. The show began airing September 1990, at which time Linka (wind) was from the Soviet Union in the introductory opening. When they finally got around to updating the intro (it took a while), she was from Eastern Europe. note The USSR covered a big chunk of Asia as well as Europe, but Asia was Gi's continent of origin. Also, most of the USSR's population lived in the European part of it.
Failed Future Forecast / int_3aabfec3	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_3aabfec3	featureConfidence	1.0
Captain Planet and the Planeteers	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_3aabfec3
Failed Future Forecast / int_3adaad9b	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_3adaad9b	comment	The Defenders: One issue in the 70s predicted that in the 80s, mankind's aerosol usage got so out of hand the Ozone layer was gone, resulting in a mass epidemic of skin cancer, which mankind responded to with bionics, which then let to a mass war between cyborgs and non-cyborgs. Meanwhile, NASA made a one-man flight to Alpha Centauri, farming became entirely hydroponic (because the increase of ultra-violet radiation killing most animals) and nuclear power was widespread, until a nuclear power plant exploded, taking out half of Canada. This did end the whole bionic war, as the nations of Earth got together and formed a One World Government in 1996 (including the still extant Soviet Union). All was cool and groovy... until 2001 when the Martians invaded.
Failed Future Forecast / int_3adaad9b	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_3adaad9b	featureConfidence	1.0
The Defenders (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_3adaad9b
Failed Future Forecast / int_3be31c4	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_3be31c4	comment	Modern Warfare predicted a civil war in Russia by 2011 which obviously did not come to pass.
Failed Future Forecast / int_3be31c4	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_3be31c4	featureConfidence	1.0
Modern Warfare (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_3be31c4
Failed Future Forecast / int_3cd31075	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_3cd31075	comment	GunBuster, made in 1988 but set in 2023, had Jung Freud, one of the Soviet Union's ace pilots. Presumably she was from East Germany.
Failed Future Forecast / int_3cd31075	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_3cd31075	featureConfidence	1.0
GunBuster	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_3cd31075
Failed Future Forecast / int_3d22c14b	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_3d22c14b	comment	Mobile Suit Gundam 00: Has a brief mention of the IRA declaring a ceasefire in the far future (after 2300). This already happened in real life, in 2005, 2 years before Gundam 00 was even announced, however, the organisation that declared a ceasefire was the "Real IRA", presumably some sort of spiritual successor, although there is an actual "Real IRA". Same with the Sri Lankan Civil War. In the series, Celestial Being did an intervention to stop the war... which basically just ended in 2009. But it's one of those wars that may or may not come back with new force after a few years, depending on whether the Sri Lankan government is magnanimous in victory and helps the Tamils get back on their feet and addresses the grievances that caused the conflict.
Failed Future Forecast / int_3d22c14b	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_3d22c14b	featureConfidence	1.0
Mobile Suit Gundam 00	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_3d22c14b
Failed Future Forecast / int_3f13a30c	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_3f13a30c	comment	The Spooks spin-off series Spooks: Code 9 started with a nuclear attack during the London 2012 Opening Ceremony - an event that thankfully never happened.
Failed Future Forecast / int_3f13a30c	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_3f13a30c	featureConfidence	1.0
Spooks	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_3f13a30c
Failed Future Forecast / int_4015dab7	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_4015dab7	comment	The ending of Memories of Murder assumes that by 2003, the Hwaesong serial murderer would still be at large. But in September 2019, the murderer was identified via DNA evidence as Lee Choon-jae, who had already been imprisoned since 1994 (with his original death sentence being commuted to life imprisonment) for murdering his sister-in-law in a similar fashion.
Failed Future Forecast / int_4015dab7	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_4015dab7	featureConfidence	1.0
Memories of Murder	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_4015dab7
Failed Future Forecast / int_4244bb47	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_4244bb47	comment	Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen has a nuclear war where there shouldn't have been, though Roald Dahl is just looking for a convenient time to kill humanity.
Failed Future Forecast / int_4244bb47	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_4244bb47	featureConfidence	1.0
Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_4244bb47
Failed Future Forecast / int_4388e597	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_4388e597	comment	The musical Chess was originally released as a Concept Album in 1984, at the height of the Reagan-era Cold War tensions. Set in the "current day", the plot relied heavily on those tensions. By the time it reached Broadway in 1988, glasnost was in full swing and the impending fall of the Soviet Union was already visible on the horizon. As a result, vast swathes of the story — and several of the songs — had to be rewritten to accommodate the new political reality. (For instance: in one of the dropped songs, the civil servants of the British embassy complained that so many Russians defecting to the West "makes you wonder what they built the Berlin wall for"; in a newly written song, a CIA agent and a KGB agent agree to cooperate to the point where "the Berlin wall becomes a backyard fence.") Modern revivals of the show seem to be getting round this by more-or-less sticking to the plot of the album, and simply making the whole thing an early-80s period piece.
Failed Future Forecast / int_4388e597	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_4388e597	featureConfidence	1.0
Chess (Theatre)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_4388e597
Failed Future Forecast / int_457b671e	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_457b671e	comment	24: Season 1 was written and filmed pre-9/11 but was set in 2004. By the second season, 9/11 had happened, and the Department of Homeland Security suddenly existed when it hadn't before.
Failed Future Forecast / int_457b671e	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_457b671e	featureConfidence	1.0
24	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_457b671e
Failed Future Forecast / int_46d48eba	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_46d48eba	comment	The original James Bond novels were primarily about Bond fighting agents of the Soviet spy organization SMERSH. But Ian Fleming began to worry that the Cold War might end at some point and leave his stories feeling dated. So when writing Thunderball, he decided to come up with SPECTRE, an apolitical, multinational terrorist organization with a tendency to play both sides of the Cold War and other conflicts for their own schemes who could fit into any political context imaginable.
Failed Future Forecast / int_46d48eba	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_46d48eba	featureConfidence	1.0
James Bond	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_46d48eba
Failed Future Forecast / int_49f8275e	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_49f8275e	comment	Contradiction has characters say that salvia divinorum is a legal hallucinogenic. About a year after the game's release, the UK (where the game takes place) made it illegal to supply, produce, or import it.
Failed Future Forecast / int_49f8275e	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_49f8275e	featureConfidence	1.0
Contradiction (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_49f8275e
Failed Future Forecast / int_4b13f12b	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_4b13f12b	comment	"Let's Get Together": There are two superpowers who are usually referred to as "Us" and "Them", who maintain a delicate stalemate. It's supposed to be America against Russia despite being set decades into the future, where Deceptively Human Robots are used as weapons of infiltration designed to explode when they get together. It is, however, mentioned that They are no longer called "Russia" or "the Communists" or even "the East", because none of those are particularly accurate descriptions (as well as using the same "pastel shades" bit as Fantastic Voyage). It also correctly predicts the reunification of Germany.
Failed Future Forecast / int_4b13f12b	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_4b13f12b	featureConfidence	1.0
Let's Get Together	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_4b13f12b
Failed Future Forecast / int_4c095a1f	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_4c095a1f	comment	The Soviet Union somehow exists in the third season of The Transformers, produced in 1986 and set in 2006.
Failed Future Forecast / int_4c095a1f	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_4c095a1f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Transformers	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_4c095a1f
Failed Future Forecast / int_4c09ea5c	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_4c09ea5c	comment	Fenspace has made it an official editorial policy that no real-world elected officials from after 2006 will appear to avoid bringing partisan political squabbles into the process of creating a shared universe. One story does mention Edward Snowden in passing though, and establishes that he did basically the same thing as in Real Life except for seeking asylum in near-Earth orbit instead of Russia.
Failed Future Forecast / int_4c09ea5c	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_4c09ea5c	featureConfidence	1.0
Fenspace (Website)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_4c09ea5c
Failed Future Forecast / int_4da4f20	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_4da4f20	comment	Dream Park by Niven and Steven Barnes has California decimated by an earthquake and associated tsunami in 1985. The second sequel bumped this to 1995, after which the authors threw up their hands and let it stand as an alternate-history Verse.
Failed Future Forecast / int_4da4f20	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_4da4f20	featureConfidence	1.0
Dream Park	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_4da4f20
Failed Future Forecast / int_4ed9d17f	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_4ed9d17f	comment	American Flagg! dances on the verge, but still manages to fall into this pit, though it falls very gracefully. The sight of ultra-capitalist Soviets and "Stalinland" theme parks fifty years in the future (in a mid-to-late 80s comic which ended just as the Berlin Wall fell) seems almost like a foreshadowing.
Failed Future Forecast / int_4ed9d17f	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_4ed9d17f	featureConfidence	1.0
AmericanFlagg	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_4ed9d17f
Failed Future Forecast / int_513f5832	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_513f5832	comment	Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: Humpback whales will go extinct in the 21st century. Granted, there are still several more decades of the 21st century to go, but humpback whales are no longer endangered as they were when the film was made. The whole point of the film was to stop them from becoming extinct, so that prophecy was actually meant to be self-defeating. During a global loss of power, Leningrad's power grid is described to have collapsed. Leningrad reverted in 1991 to its pre-revolutionary name, St. Petersburg. The name of the oblast, on the other hand, is still Leningrad. If the power grid includes the entire area, the statement is technically correct.
Failed Future Forecast / int_513f5832	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_513f5832	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_513f5832
Failed Future Forecast / int_5141197f	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_5141197f	comment	The Soviet Union is still going in 2030, though revisions and reprints made after 1992 by Shirow Masamune himself changed this to reflect their downfall. The establishment of the Soviet Union still existing in the future was made in the Appleseed series during the 80s. Ghost in the Shell is a sister series that takes place almost a century before Appleseed, but was written in the early 90s.
Failed Future Forecast / int_5141197f	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_5141197f	featureConfidence	1.0
Appleseed (Manga)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_5141197f
Failed Future Forecast / int_51f345f6	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_51f345f6	comment	The original Strider (Arcade) assumes that the Soviet Union will still be around by the year 2048. In fact, the first stage is set in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, a former Soviet state now known as Kazakhstan. In most of Strider's sequels, the political future of the world is not addressed, but in the 2014 remake the developers simply ran with the original idea and you're still chopping up Cossacks and proletariat dragons all while a a man over a PA system spews vaguely socialist-sounding idioms.
Failed Future Forecast / int_51f345f6	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_51f345f6	featureConfidence	1.0
Strider (Arcade) (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_51f345f6
Failed Future Forecast / int_54a7dc07	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_54a7dc07	comment	Space: 1999: It was covered later by stating it had taken place in an Alternate Universe. The first episode has a news report referring to Yugoslavia. Technically, Serbia and Montenegro still called itself Yugoslavia until 2003 (although they had a hard time getting the rest of the world to do the same), but Yugoslavia as it was known in the 70s ceased to exist in 1992. And of course we all remember where we were on September 13, 1999 when a huge nuclear explosion blew the Moon out of Earth orbit.
Failed Future Forecast / int_54a7dc07	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_54a7dc07	featureConfidence	1.0
Space: 1999	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_54a7dc07
Failed Future Forecast / int_5586ac0d	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_5586ac0d	comment	One of the first sections of The Mario Paint Player's Guide is "Mario Paint: A History", which is a brief overview of art, animation, and music, with an accompanying timeline of artists and works. The final part of this section is "The 90s", which features the following timeline: 1992—Mario Paint Introduced 1993—Mario Paint Player's Guide 199?—First Mario Paint Exhibit 200?—Mario Paint Institute Opens
Failed Future Forecast / int_5586ac0d	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_5586ac0d	featureConfidence	1.0
Mario Paint (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_5586ac0d
Failed Future Forecast / int_5589ebc1	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_5589ebc1	comment	The long-running Deathlands series of novels started in 1986. They claimed that a nuclear war broke out between the USA and the USSR on January 20, 2001, leading to the post-apocalyptic setting where the action takes place. In real life, not only was there no war between the USA and the Soviet Union in 2001, the latter had ceased to exist ten years prior. Rather than attempt to retcon any of their predictions, the series simply became Alternate History.
Failed Future Forecast / int_5589ebc1	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_5589ebc1	featureConfidence	1.0
Deathlands	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_5589ebc1
Failed Future Forecast / int_55c5a085	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_55c5a085	comment	Mazinger Z spin-off New Mazinger was written in 1988, but the story happens several centuries after that World War III between America and Soviet Union left the planet devastated in the early 21st century. It is the early 21st century now, and not only nothing of it has happened, but also the Soviet Union collapsed shortly after the story's publishing.
Failed Future Forecast / int_55c5a085	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_55c5a085	featureConfidence	1.0
Mazinger Z	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_55c5a085
Failed Future Forecast / int_57debcbc	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_57debcbc	comment	Hover Car Racer has an in-universe example. After Jason's car is destroyed in the Italian Run, a newspaper prepares two versions of the front page but prints the wrong one, leading Jason to discover a story with the headline "The Death of Jason Chaser''.
Failed Future Forecast / int_57debcbc	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_57debcbc	featureConfidence	1.0
Hover Car Racer	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_57debcbc
Failed Future Forecast / int_58c7b20a	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_58c7b20a	comment	Idoru, written in 1996, has Russia transform into a kind of criminal empire run by the The Mafiya, which was a fairly common speculation of Russia's future in the West during the Yeltsin years.
Failed Future Forecast / int_58c7b20a	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_58c7b20a	featureConfidence	1.0
Idoru	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_58c7b20a
Failed Future Forecast / int_59151283	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_59151283	comment	Metal Gear: The games have made a habit of presenting extremely inaccurate visions of the near-future (though there is also some Alternate History at work, since even in games set in the past the technology is more advanced than it really was in those time periods). Thankfully the year 2014 wasn't dominated by a global war fought by nanomachine-powered soldiers as shown in the games. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, first released for the MSX2 in 1990, not only predicts that the Soviet Union will still be around in 1999, it also features a character named Natasha Marcova (Gustava Heffner in later versions) who works for the StB (the Czechoslovakian Secret Police), a real-life organization that was dissolved during the very same year the game was released.
Failed Future Forecast / int_59151283	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_59151283	featureConfidence	1.0
Metal Gear (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_59151283
Failed Future Forecast / int_5ab7ccaf	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_5ab7ccaf	comment	Ready Player One was written and released in the middle of the Great Recession. The book takes place in a world where the Recession never ended, stretching into the 2040s. The real Great Recession officially ended in 2009, but most people had felt the last of its effects by 2015. . . only for another Recession to hit in 2020.
Failed Future Forecast / int_5ab7ccaf	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_5ab7ccaf	featureConfidence	1.0
Ready Player One	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_5ab7ccaf
Failed Future Forecast / int_5d354f8	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_5d354f8	comment	A poster in Red Dwarf, on board on a ship that left the solar system in either the 21st, 22nd or 23rd century depending on the series, features a rather prominent Soviet flag. There was also an episode in which the characters become convinced they're in Bulgaria, and seem to think it's still part of the Communist bloc.
Failed Future Forecast / int_5d354f8	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_5d354f8	featureConfidence	1.0
Red Dwarf	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_5d354f8
Failed Future Forecast / int_5e90f278	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_5e90f278	comment	009-1 the anime takes place in an alternate world where the Cold War continues... because the original manga was made in the 1960s and used the Cold War.
Failed Future Forecast / int_5e90f278	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_5e90f278	featureConfidence	1.0
009-1 (Manga)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_5e90f278
Failed Future Forecast / int_5eb940e6	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_5eb940e6	comment	The Eclipse Trilogy by John Shirley happens in an early 21st century with a Third World War between NATO and the Warsaw Pact bloc. It was retconned later to a revived Soviet Union.
Failed Future Forecast / int_5eb940e6	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_5eb940e6	featureConfidence	1.0
Eclipse Trilogy	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_5eb940e6
Failed Future Forecast / int_60def055	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_60def055	comment	Robots and Empire claims nuclear fission power fell into disuse following the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979. Chernobyl is conspicuously not mentioned, despite having been far worse, since it occurred shortly after the book was published.
Failed Future Forecast / int_60def055	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_60def055	featureConfidence	1.0
Robots and Empire	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_60def055
Failed Future Forecast / int_6535218b	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_6535218b	comment	The war outlined in Red Storm Rising is purely conventional with no nuclear or chemical weapons causing massive civilian casualties, making an immediate postwar return to the status quo more plausible. Lampshaded by the US ground forces commander in Europe during the ceasefire talks; his Soviet counterpart points out that "both sides can still lose" if NATO advances into the USSR itself. Also, the novel ends with the ceasefire; the survival of an oil-starved and war-weakened Soviet Union in the aftermath is open to the reader's interpretation.
Failed Future Forecast / int_6535218b	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_6535218b	featureConfidence	1.0
Red Storm Rising	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_6535218b
Failed Future Forecast / int_674f5fd3	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_674f5fd3	comment	CoDominium: A world government evolved out of cooperation between the US and USSR in the 1990s. When the real 1991 came around, Jerry Pournelle retconned the timeline so the CoDominium was founded in 2000. Not to mention also adding a Soviet coup to reestablish the USSR 20 minutes into the future, which had collapsed in reality. Interestingly, novels set later in that universe—like 1974's The Mote in God's Eye—avoid the problem. In the far future, a post-communist Russia venerates both its Communist and its Imperial past—so there's a Russian (and Eastern Orthodox) world named "Saint Ekaterina" with a battleship named Lenin. Under Putin in recent years, Russia has been doing just that.
Failed Future Forecast / int_674f5fd3	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_674f5fd3	featureConfidence	1.0
CoDominium	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_674f5fd3
Failed Future Forecast / int_69085a0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_69085a0	comment	Macross: The original Super Dimension Fortress Macross was broadcast in 1982 but featured an alternate history of humanity after 2009 when humans and aliens fight a devastating war over a transforming mecha battleship. It's beyond 2009 now, and we haven't even fought World War III and built mecha like they did in the seriesnote nobody's complaining about that first one though... — we're behind schedule, in other words.
Failed Future Forecast / int_69085a0	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_69085a0	featureConfidence	1.0
Macross	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_69085a0
Failed Future Forecast / int_694ab80	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_694ab80	comment	Batman Beyond: When studying Presidents with Max, Terry has trouble remembering who came after Clinton, which Max describes as "the boring one." Unless something even bigger than The War on Terror occurred between 2001 and the time of Beyond - which, at least as of 2021, it seems to have - boring is not a word to describe George W. Bush's tenure. This is certainly a reference to Al Gore, Clinton's vice president who at the time the episode was made was believed by the writers as likely to succeed Clinton as president and who had a reputation for being perceived as boring. Then again, there was that time Lex Luthor ran for President. Given a later episode's reference to a clash between Batman and Ra's al Ghul as "The Near-Apocalypse of '09", something even bigger than the War on Terror seems to have been exactly what happened.
Failed Future Forecast / int_694ab80	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_694ab80	featureConfidence	1.0
Batman Beyond	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_694ab80
Failed Future Forecast / int_6a4e2e01	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_6a4e2e01	comment	Avenged Sevenfold: The music video for "The Stage", released October of 2016, features a puppet of Hillary Clinton among a bunch of world leaders towards the end, clearly predicting that she would win the upcoming election. One month later, Clinton would lose the presidency to Donald Trump.
Failed Future Forecast / int_6a4e2e01	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_6a4e2e01	featureConfidence	1.0
Avenged Sevenfold (Music)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_6a4e2e01
Failed Future Forecast / int_6c5725a2	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_6c5725a2	comment	Transformers: Super-God Masterforce refers to Ginrai traveling in West Germany; Masterforce was made in 1988 but set some time after 2011.
Failed Future Forecast / int_6c5725a2	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_6c5725a2	featureConfidence	1.0
Transformers: Super-God Masterforce	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_6c5725a2
Failed Future Forecast / int_6ddef913	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_6ddef913	comment	This hit the game Twilight: 2000 particularly hard, as the premise of the game was that it was set during or just after World War III, after the Soviets had rolled over the Fulda Gap... in the year 2000. They tried a Retcon that only ended up torking off the Germans (predicating the war on Germany's invading Poland...) before reverting to the original plot, throwing up their hands and declaring it an Alternate Timeline.
Failed Future Forecast / int_6ddef913	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_6ddef913	featureConfidence	1.0
Twilight: 2000 (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_6ddef913
Failed Future Forecast / int_707b2eff	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_707b2eff	comment	Make Room! Make Room! predicts a world population of seven billion in 1999 turning the world into a starving dystopia. It was about a decade off on the population and parts of the world are suffering from epidemic obesity. It also has New York City with a population of thirty five million. Almost twenty years later, it has not even reached nine million.
Failed Future Forecast / int_707b2eff	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_707b2eff	featureConfidence	1.0
Make Room! Make Room!	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_707b2eff
Failed Future Forecast / int_718f3ed1	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_718f3ed1	comment	Call of Duty: Black Ops II predicted that David Petraeus would be Secretary of Defense in 2025. Given the fact that Petraeus was caught up in an extramarital affair in late 2012 and ended up resigning as Director of the CIA just three days before the game came out, that seems really unlikely.
Failed Future Forecast / int_718f3ed1	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_718f3ed1	featureConfidence	1.0
Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_718f3ed1
Failed Future Forecast / int_741e3a46	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_741e3a46	comment	Planet Terror, the leader of the infected soldiers claims his team had already killed bin Laden, but the circumstances would've embarrassed his superiors, so they kept it quiet. Grindhouse was released in 2007, a few years before Bin Laden's actual death in 2011.
Failed Future Forecast / int_741e3a46	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_741e3a46	featureConfidence	1.0
Planet Terror	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_741e3a46
Failed Future Forecast / int_74677280	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_74677280	comment	Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games - Tokyo 2020 is set in the summer of 2020 when the Olympics are happening, when in real life, months after the game was released, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Failed Future Forecast / int_74677280	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_74677280	featureConfidence	1.0
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_74677280
Failed Future Forecast / int_77f41d89	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_77f41d89	comment	The Saga of the Exiles by Julian May takes place both in the 21st century and in the Pliocene. The Soviet Union plays a prominent, but peaceful, role in psychic research. The author has had to dodge the Soviet issue in the sequels.
Failed Future Forecast / int_77f41d89	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_77f41d89	featureConfidence	1.0
Saga of the Exiles	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_77f41d89
Failed Future Forecast / int_7ab10627	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_7ab10627	comment	In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, V'ger is revealed to be a twentieth-century NASA probe called Voyager 6. There have only ever been two Voyagers, the two that were launched shortly before the film's release.
Failed Future Forecast / int_7ab10627	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_7ab10627	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: The Motion Picture	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_7ab10627
Failed Future Forecast / int_7ccc77f0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_7ccc77f0	comment	The Patlabor franchise was created in the late 1980s, debuting in 1988) but originally set in 1998, and failed to predict the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. 1993's Patlabor 2: The Movie, set in 2002, mentions the In-Universe end of the Cold War, and with the creation of the toku continuation The Next Generation -Patlabor- (launched 2014, set in 2013), it seems the OVA/movie continuity settled on becoming an Alternate History. A Brocken military mech shows up to cause trouble for the Mobile Police in every continuity, and was said to have been commissioned by West Germany's border guards. The Mobile Police Patlabor: The Early Days episode featuring it has it "accidentally" falling into the hands of communist sympathizers as part of some kind of ill-conceived War for Fun and Profit scheme by the manufacturer. Germany reunified only a year after the episode was delivered. A memorable episode of Patlabor: The TV Series (debuted 1989) involved a Soviet defector bringing an experimental mech to a Japanese seaside resort town where everybody was actually a spy of some sort.
Failed Future Forecast / int_7ccc77f0	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_7ccc77f0	featureConfidence	1.0
Patlabor (Franchise)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_7ccc77f0
Failed Future Forecast / int_7cf12e3e	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_7cf12e3e	comment	Both the book and the movie of H. G. Wells's The Shape of Things to Come predicted that World War II would lead to the collapse of civilization and the rise of a technocratic new world order. Among Wells's howlers was the prediction that the German army would be fought to a standstill by Poland. However, he did accurately predict the second world war coming (admittedly not that hard) along with the fact it would happen by 1940 (the war began four months before).
Failed Future Forecast / int_7cf12e3e	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_7cf12e3e	featureConfidence	1.0
Things to Come	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_7cf12e3e
Failed Future Forecast / int_7d5e591c	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_7d5e591c	comment	In the comic Camelot 3000, King Arthur and Merlin are resurrected and their knights reincarnated in the year 3000. Almost nothing has changed politically since the 1970s or early 80s, except that there are now four power blocs. The USA has a Ronald Reagan-esque president who dresses as a cowboy and carries authentic sixguns. The USSR is led by Comrade Yazof, a Brezhnev lookalike; China is led by Chairperson Feng (a lady Mao); and Africa by The Supreme Rakma, an Idi Amin type. Apartheid also still exists, and Gawain is reincarnated as a black South African. And this is after a nuclear war that blasted man back to the medieval period. It also has Sir Tristan's angsting about being reincarnated as a woman, even though her reborn lover Isolde seems quite content to contemplate a lesbian relationship, and sex reassignment surgery is bound to be as routine as a tummy-tuck by that era if Tristan is really not happy.
Failed Future Forecast / int_7d5e591c	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_7d5e591c	featureConfidence	1.0
Camelot 3000 (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_7d5e591c
Failed Future Forecast / int_7e05b89f	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_7e05b89f	comment	Aerobiz: The second entry in the series predicted supersonic airliners and 1000+ passenger super-jumbo jets in the 2000s, missing the large scale move from regular airliners to smaller, more fuel-efficient Regional Jets for most small and medium-sized routes. It also failed to portray a large number of very prominent cities that cropped up in the late 1990s & early 2000s, such as Dubai, and the terrible economic impact that the 2000s would have on airlines around the world. On a lesser scale, it also predicted the next Airbus airliner would be the A350 (which didn't even enter design stage until 2004, with the first prototype taking flight in 2010), and that McDonnell-Douglas would produce the early concept "MD-12" (a stretched MD-11) and still be an independent manufacturer.
Failed Future Forecast / int_7e05b89f	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_7e05b89f	featureConfidence	1.0
Aerobiz (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_7e05b89f
Failed Future Forecast / int_81692f99	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_81692f99	comment	Star Trek: Star Trek: The Original Series: Chekov mentioned Leningrad in two separate episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and, unlike the Trek example above in film, both are clearly references to the city. On the plus side, Chekov always referred to his homeland as "Russia", never uttering the words "Soviet Union" or "USSR". It's unknown whether the writers imagined the Soviet Union will still exist in the future.note Funnily enough, Anton Yelchin, who later played him in the new movies, was actually from Leningrad before his family emigrated to the US. "Space Seed" caused several issues, chief among which, the episode states the Eugenics Wars occurred in the 1990s. There were a couple of attempts to fix this one. Deep Space Nine's "Dr. Bashir, I Presume" claims that it actually happened later sometime. In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the pilot episode moved the Eugenics Wars from the 1990s to taking place sometime in the first half of the 21st century, leading to World War III by the middle of the century (also mashing it up with a newly invented "Second American Civil War"). It implied that the confusion was due to the war destroying records from that century, but "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" went one better by stating that so many time travellers had tried to interfere with the events that the war had gotten delayed from the previously established era.On another note, we apparently had Sleeper Starships in the 1990s, and moreover, they were supposed to have been obsolete by the year 2018. The non-canon Star Trek Khan comic book just says "screw it, we're going all in" and actually has Khan destroying Washington D.C. and Moscow in 1992, making it straight-out alternate history, which is probably better. Another series of books suggests that they were "secret wars" where the actual historical events were being manipulated from behind the scenes. Zig-Zagged with "Assignment: Earth". The Enterprise is observing Earth on an unspecified date in 1968, and Spock mentions two major historical events happening on the day in question: an important assassination and the launch of an orbital nuclear warhead platform by the United States, the latter of which ends up being disrupted by the events of the episode, causing it to crash. Six days after the episode aired, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, on the same day NASA also launched a Saturn V rocket which suffered a malfunction and ended up going way off course. (The Saturn V was not actually carrying weapons and the problem was caused by a mechanical failure, but fanon is that the official story about Saturn V was a coverup.) On the other hand, Spock also mentions a coup in Asia on the same day and indicates that the nuclear platform launch was just one of many that occurred, such that "the sky was full of orbiting H-bombs" at some point, but neither of these came to pass. (Spock's prediction of an uprising in Asia is sometimes tied to a coup in Iraq, but that was over three months after the King assassination and the Saturn V launch.) Star Trek: The Next Generation: The second episode featured the SS Tsiolkovsky whose dedication plaque reveals that it was built and launched in the USSR in 2363. The beginning of "The Royale" has Picard musing about Fermat's Last Theorem, pointing to humanity's continued failure to solve the problem despite being centuries more technologically advanced than its creator as a lesson in humility. He must have missed that it had actually been solved as early as 1995. This would eventually get referenced in the Deep Space Nine episode "Facets", when Dax says one of her previous hosts had the best approach to proving it since Andrew Wiles, presumably one relying only on techniques made before Fermat stated the theorem.note Fermat's Last Theorem was first stated as a note in the margin of a book he owned, which also stated he had developed a proof but would be unable to fit it on the page. Wiles's proof relied on mathematical techniques developed after Fermat's death, meaning it's not the one Fermat would have been talking about. As of 2023, Fermat's own proof, if it was correct, remains unknown. In the episode "The High Ground", Data casually mentions that a series of terrorist attacks led to the reunification of Ireland into a single state in 2024. At the point the episode was released (1990), a peace treaty was seen as utterly inconceivable, and many believe the only way for that to happen would be for the United Kingdom to collapse. Of course, reunification in full has still not happened, but time will tell whether this prediction will come true depending on how Brexit goes. Incidentally, the reference to Ireland being reunited due to terrorism led to this episode being banned on British television for years afterward. It was finally shown on the BBC in 2007. It has never been shown on Irish television. With unionist parties winning fewer Northern Irish seats than pro-reunification parties in the 2019 general election, itâ€™s looking like Star Trek may actually have been slightly late in its prediction. It still wouldnâ€™t be right about the terrorism.note we hope. The episode doesn't specify who the terrorists are, and there has been a significant rise in right wing terrorism in the UK, Europe, America, and around the world in the early 2020s, meaning the possibility of terror attacks from without Ireland is back on the table sadly. Star Trek: Voyager: In-universe in the episode "Future's End". When Voyager is sent back to 1996, Tom Paris, the ship's expert on the 20th Century, enlists the aid of an astronomer called Rain Robinson, claiming to be a CIA agent investigating a Soviet plot. When she tells him the USSR collapsed five years ago, he pauses for a second and replies "That's what they want you to think!"
Failed Future Forecast / int_81692f99	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_81692f99	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek (Franchise)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_81692f99
Failed Future Forecast / int_81706932	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_81706932	comment	The Running Man: Although reality TV was a huge thing when the film took place around 2017-2019 (unlike the book, which is set in 2025), no one is putting condemned criminals on live game shows to fight to survive.
Failed Future Forecast / int_81706932	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_81706932	featureConfidence	1.0
The Running Man	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_81706932
Failed Future Forecast / int_8290be4d	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_8290be4d	comment	Fantastic Voyage: This novelization of Fantastic Voyage has two superpowers referred to simply as "Us" and "Them". In-Universe, characters mention that the political maps have changed over the years. The maps used to show "Us" (and allies) as a pure pristine white and "Them" (and their allies) as a deep, brooding, bloody red, but now both sides are depicted in pastel shades. It's also implied that the political ideologies have drifted closer together.
Failed Future Forecast / int_8290be4d	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_8290be4d	featureConfidence	1.0
FantasticVoyage	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_8290be4d
Failed Future Forecast / int_83e716b1	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_83e716b1	comment	The Last Man on Earth offhandedly depicts Mike Pence as being the 46th president of the United States, aligning with common predictions in the late 2010s that he'd emerge as a potential successor to Donald Trump, under whom he served as vice president. The actual 46th president would end up being Joe Biden, whose election coincidentally occurred during a pandemic similar to the one depicted in the show.
Failed Future Forecast / int_83e716b1	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_83e716b1	featureConfidence	1.0
The Last Man on Earth	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_83e716b1
Failed Future Forecast / int_84843b08	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_84843b08	comment	Star Cops includes a recurring character who is generally referred to as Russian, but clearly has the Soviet flag on his uniform. The premise seems such that the major Cold War tensions have eased and the two superpowers have learned to get along...more or less. Sort of like the way it is now between the US and Russia.
Failed Future Forecast / int_84843b08	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_84843b08	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Cops	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_84843b08
Failed Future Forecast / int_86546782	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_86546782	comment	A Brocken military mech shows up to cause trouble for the Mobile Police in every continuity, and was said to have been commissioned by West Germany's border guards. The Mobile Police Patlabor: The Early Days episode featuring it has it "accidentally" falling into the hands of communist sympathizers as part of some kind of ill-conceived War for Fun and Profit scheme by the manufacturer. Germany reunified only a year after the episode was delivered.
Failed Future Forecast / int_86546782	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_86546782	featureConfidence	1.0
Mobile Police Patlabor: The Early Days	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_86546782
Failed Future Forecast / int_869872dd	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_869872dd	comment	Armageddon 2001: In Superman Annual #3, Superman destroys the nuclear arsenal of several nations in 2001, including the Soviet Union. The USSR was dissolved only months after this crossover event was published in 1991. In Action Comics Annual #3, President Superman is attempting to negotiate peace in Northern Ireland in 2001 but the parties aren't cooperating with either him or each other. In reality, the Troubles are seen as having ended with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, something which was unforeseeable in 1991.
Failed Future Forecast / int_869872dd	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_869872dd	featureConfidence	1.0
Armageddon 2001 (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_869872dd
Failed Future Forecast / int_86a842e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_86a842e0	comment	The Chalet School in Exile (1940) has the Chalet School relocate from Austria to Guernsey to escape the Nazis. Shortly after it was published, the Nazis invaded Guernsey. The Chalet School Goes to It (1941) establishes that they almost immediately re-relocate to Wales.
Failed Future Forecast / int_86a842e0	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_86a842e0	featureConfidence	1.0
Chalet School	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_86a842e0
Failed Future Forecast / int_8706e0e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_8706e0e0	comment	In Otaku no Video, made in 1991, the Iron Curtain still exists and Gorbachev is still in power in 1997.
Failed Future Forecast / int_8706e0e0	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_8706e0e0	featureConfidence	1.0
Otaku no Video	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_8706e0e0
Failed Future Forecast / int_87cf8985	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_87cf8985	comment	The default setting for Champions displayed a classic great mix-up turnaround. Red Doom, a 3rd edition supplement, was published in 1988, and depicted a pair of official Soviet superteams — "The Supreme Soviets", who were basically loyal to the state, if only because that suited their ambitious leader, Colonel Vasalov, and who thus tended to operate in the range from Worthy Opponents to Dirty Communists, and their auxiliary team, the "Comintern", who were created as something of a dumping-ground for less reliable or more independent-minded supers, and who could thus be more likely to come across as Chummy Commies. (Both included non-Russian members.) However, by the time the characters were updated for the 4th edition in Classic Enemies (1991), they needed major changes. One group, "Red Doom", had gone rogue, with Colonel Vasalov aiming to depose President Gorbachev and take over Russia, thus falling into the Renegade Russian category (though the team still had several non-Russian members); the other characters had become an independent hero team, the "New Guard", albeit still loyal to their various homelands and so potentially able to operate at cross-purposes to western heroes, making them basically Chummy Commies who weren't especially communist.
Failed Future Forecast / int_87cf8985	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_87cf8985	featureConfidence	1.0
Champions (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_87cf8985
Failed Future Forecast / int_8827bf0d	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_8827bf0d	comment	This is a common trope in very old sports games (especially in sport simulations like Football Manager) since you can manage teams from pre-Cold War era and control them until beyond the 90s without any changes.
Failed Future Forecast / int_8827bf0d	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_8827bf0d	featureConfidence	1.0
Football Manager (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_8827bf0d
Failed Future Forecast / int_889ea24c	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_889ea24c	comment	"The Evitable Conflict": When Byerley contemplates the Cold War, he characterizes it as a conflict between Karl Marx and Adam Smith, and how it was destined to be made irrelevant by robots inventing Casual Interplanetary Travel. In the setting of this story, the two sides adapted to new supply/demand concerns, making them economically similar.
Failed Future Forecast / int_889ea24c	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_889ea24c	featureConfidence	1.0
The Evitable Conflict	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_889ea24c
Failed Future Forecast / int_8ae25cfe	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_8ae25cfe	comment	The Peace War opens with a prologue set in 1997, featuring a US Air Force recon mission over the still-existing Soviet Union. It's a relatively minor case, though, because then the Peace War breaks out and rewrites all the existing political borders.
Failed Future Forecast / int_8ae25cfe	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_8ae25cfe	featureConfidence	1.0
The Peace War	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_8ae25cfe
Failed Future Forecast / int_8dea9503	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_8dea9503	comment	By contrast, the plot of 2010: The Year We Make Contact revolves almost entirely around Cold War tensions between the Soviet astronauts piloting the Alexei Leonov and the Americans who need their help to reach the wreck of the Discovery. Although not the book's, which is why a few lines about peace are tacked on with the message at the end of the film.
Failed Future Forecast / int_8dea9503	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_8dea9503	featureConfidence	1.0
2010: The Year We Make Contact	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_8dea9503
Failed Future Forecast / int_8f1b2b6e	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_8f1b2b6e	comment	In the novel President's Vampire by Christopher Farnsworth, Cade, the eponymous vampire, assassinated Osama bin Laden as he was fleeing Tora Bora. This could not be revealed to the public without breaking the Masquerade, especially after bin Laden revealed his true form as a Deep One. After bin Laden's real life death, a later book in the series has an offhand mention of the government staging said death for the sake of political capital.
Failed Future Forecast / int_8f1b2b6e	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_8f1b2b6e	featureConfidence	1.0
President's Vampire	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_8f1b2b6e
Failed Future Forecast / int_9045b1b7	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_9045b1b7	comment	World War Z: The exact date is never openly established but the fact that Fidel Castro is still alive allows you to presume it's intended to be in or near the date it was published (2006). The most obvious failed prediction (thankfully) is the Zombie Apocalypse, however a series of political and geographical changes that happen as consequence of the war include: peace between Israel and Palestine (renamed Unified Palestine), the independence of Tibet from China, Russia turning into the theocratic Holy Russian Empire, Mexico changing its name to Aztlan and the aforementioned Fidel Castro not only alive but leading the democratization of Cuba. Of course some of these events may still happen but none of them would happen before the death of Castro who died in 2016.
Failed Future Forecast / int_9045b1b7	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_9045b1b7	featureConfidence	1.0
World War Z	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_9045b1b7
Failed Future Forecast / int_90e2f673	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_90e2f673	comment	Most of the relevant parts of the BattleTech timeline are in the middle parts of the 31st century, so it's a petty detail — but the game's timeline includes a second "Soviet Civil War" in the early 21st century, just before the first manned flight to Mars. Newer materials haven't retconned this; presumably, it's just assumed to be an alternate reality. Actually similar to Shadowrun (only logical since both were created by the same company), it was at one point mentioned that an attempted retcon to the Russian Federation was made, before the creators gave up and as much as declared (Particularly joked on on the BattleTech forums) that BattleTech is not our future but rather the future of the mid 1980s. Which actually explains quite a bit, including the bulk of much of the computer equipment in the game in comparison to modern computers and the like.
Failed Future Forecast / int_90e2f673	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_90e2f673	featureConfidence	1.0
BattleTech (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_90e2f673
Failed Future Forecast / int_95226eb6	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_95226eb6	comment	The second edition of the Cyberpunk game (Cyberpunk 2020) was published in 1990. The fall of the Soviet Union is mentioned in the timeline (as is Germany's reunification), but the Soviet Union did not split up as in OTL. Instead, it reformed into the Federation of Soviet Republics, which is basically what would have happened if perestroika had led to roughly the same type of economic reforms as happened in China under Deng Xiaoping in OTL. Speaking of which, Deng Xiaoping's reforms in China result into a massive civil war between the Dengist government and Maoist rebels dissatisfied with the market reforms, which was thought as a real possibility at the time due the then recent 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Failed Future Forecast / int_95226eb6	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_95226eb6	featureConfidence	1.0
Cyberpunk (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_95226eb6
Failed Future Forecast / int_95aba2f5	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_95aba2f5	comment	Steve Jackson Games' Illuminati card game (first published in 1982) assigned groups various alignments that (mostly) came in opposing pairs; one opposing pair was "Government" and "Communist". When they adapted the concept into the Illuminati: New World Order Collectible Card Game (in 1995), "Communist" was demoted from an alignment to a secondary "attribute", and the "Corporate" alignment was introduced as the new opposite to "Government".
Failed Future Forecast / int_95aba2f5	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_95aba2f5	featureConfidence	1.0
Illuminati (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_95aba2f5
Failed Future Forecast / int_96849573	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_96849573	comment	The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, a 1981 Speculative Documentary about Nostradamus, has become an amusing example of this trope. Apparently, we're in the late stages of World War III right now, New York City is a radioactive crater, Ted Kennedy was the Democratic presidential candidate a while back, and the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 happened in '88. This Is the Part Where... we explain that Nostradamus typically made his predictions so vague as to be interpretable six ways from Sunday in a successful bid to stay off the Church Police's radar.
Failed Future Forecast / int_96849573	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_96849573	featureConfidence	1.0
The Man Who Saw Tomorrow	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_96849573
Failed Future Forecast / int_969f9b98	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_969f9b98	comment	The story of SPT Layzner features students from both sides of the Iron Curtain traveling to the moon together on the equivalent of a field trip. At least it actually predicts that the conflict between both sides will end, just much slower than it actually did. Also, the potential end of this Cold War is the stated reason that the aliens show up in the first place, to take over the world before the two sides work together well enough to take over their planet, which they have no idea exists in the first place.
Failed Future Forecast / int_969f9b98	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_969f9b98	featureConfidence	1.0
Blue Comet SPT Layzner	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_969f9b98
Failed Future Forecast / int_980ffdc9	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_980ffdc9	comment	The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. An ad for a cryogenic storage company in the 80s promises that by 1997, Manhattan will be a maximum-security prison, off-world colonies will be established by 2019, and the billionth Betamax will be sold in 2052.
Failed Future Forecast / int_980ffdc9	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_980ffdc9	featureConfidence	1.0
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Manga)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_980ffdc9
Failed Future Forecast / int_994af351	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_994af351	comment	A major plot point in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is the Statute of Limitations on an old murder case being almost up. Despite what most players would assume, at the time of the game's original 2001 release (and even the 2005 updated re-release), Japan really did have a 15-year Statute of Limitations on murder. However, it would be abolished in 2010, with the abolition applying to all murders that were still active under the prior Statute. As such, since the game takes place in 2016, the entire idea that those who plotted against Edgeworth were "running out of time to get revenge" no longer makes sense.
Failed Future Forecast / int_994af351	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_994af351	featureConfidence	1.0
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Visual Novel)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_994af351
Failed Future Forecast / int_9a7088bc	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_9a7088bc	comment	Chekov mentioned Leningrad in two separate episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and, unlike the Trek example above in film, both are clearly references to the city. On the plus side, Chekov always referred to his homeland as "Russia", never uttering the words "Soviet Union" or "USSR". It's unknown whether the writers imagined the Soviet Union will still exist in the future.note Funnily enough, Anton Yelchin, who later played him in the new movies, was actually from Leningrad before his family emigrated to the US.
Failed Future Forecast / int_9a7088bc	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_9a7088bc	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: The Original Series	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_9a7088bc
Failed Future Forecast / int_9aab7b0a	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_9aab7b0a	comment	A 1986 issue of Swamp Thing took place during the temporal distortion period of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Amidst the dinosaurs and aliens is a 1997-model car, which the artist renders as something out of The Jetsons. In the actual nineties, car designs leaned toward a much more streamlined and conservative direction.
Failed Future Forecast / int_9aab7b0a	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_9aab7b0a	featureConfidence	1.0
Swamp Thing (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_9aab7b0a
Failed Future Forecast / int_9e62e79	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_9e62e79	comment	Kamal and Barnea: Though the series is not explicitly about this, it quickly becomes so. It started as being set in some near future where the Israelis largely pulled out of the West Bank, and Yasser Arafat was President of the Palestinian state. After this was written, Israel eventually did pull out of Gaza, but Arafat died in 2004 and the West Bank remains occupied. Nor unfortunately is peace any closer more than twenty years on, contrary to what these books show.
Failed Future Forecast / int_9e62e79	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_9e62e79	featureConfidence	1.0
Kamal And Barnea	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_9e62e79
Failed Future Forecast / int_a079a529	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_a079a529	comment	The animated series Spiral Zone, produced in 1987 but set in 2007, assumes that the Soviet Union still exists in the early 21st century.
Failed Future Forecast / int_a079a529	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_a079a529	featureConfidence	1.0
Spiral Zone	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_a079a529
Failed Future Forecast / int_a0e1af96	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_a0e1af96	comment	Martian Manhunter was originally from a thriving and prosperous Mars. After space probes found Mars to be barren, a Retcon was introduced to explain what had happened to J'onn's people.
Failed Future Forecast / int_a0e1af96	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_a0e1af96	featureConfidence	1.0
Martian Manhunter (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_a0e1af96
Failed Future Forecast / int_a2bd35cf	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_a2bd35cf	comment	Angel Cop takes place under the belief that the Japanese economy would continue to grow; instead, the economic bubble popped in the mid '90s.
Failed Future Forecast / int_a2bd35cf	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_a2bd35cf	featureConfidence	1.0
Angel Cop	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_a2bd35cf
Failed Future Forecast / int_a61cf021	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_a61cf021	comment	The Power: The segment of the story set in Saudi Arabia mentions that women there aren't even allowed to drive. This law was repealed in 2017, a year after the book came out
Failed Future Forecast / int_a61cf021	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_a61cf021	featureConfidence	1.0
The Power	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_a61cf021
Failed Future Forecast / int_a6492af2	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_a6492af2	comment	In The Stand, written in 1979 and set in 1990, an American general instructs his subordinate to release a virus in each of the Soviet satellite states.
Failed Future Forecast / int_a6492af2	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_a6492af2	featureConfidence	1.0
The Stand	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_a6492af2
Failed Future Forecast / int_ac5db594	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ac5db594	comment	The Dead Zone has a relatively minor one: Johnny Smith's vision of a future nuclear apocalypse ushered in by President Greg Stillson. Smith predicts that the war will originate in South Africa which, at the time the book was written, was pursuing a nuclear weapons program under the direction of the apartheid government. However, South Africa dismantled its arsenal in 1989, three years before Smith predicted Stillson would be elected.
Failed Future Forecast / int_ac5db594	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ac5db594	featureConfidence	1.0
The Dead Zone	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ac5db594
Failed Future Forecast / int_ac614030	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ac614030	comment	GoLion started with Earth being destroyed in World War III, when the east and west finally launched their missiles at each other in 1999.
Failed Future Forecast / int_ac614030	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ac614030	featureConfidence	1.0
GoLion	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ac614030
Failed Future Forecast / int_afc86b0a	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_afc86b0a	comment	Ender's Game: The story had been published in 1985, with an existing Soviet Union. When re-released in 1991, such references were modified to reflect the decline of the Soviet Union. The sequel Ender's Shadow trilogy did not anticipate South Sudan becoming independent.
Failed Future Forecast / int_afc86b0a	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_afc86b0a	featureConfidence	1.0
Ender's Game	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_afc86b0a
Failed Future Forecast / int_b0fc9724	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b0fc9724	comment	Saturday Night Live: Zig-zagged during the December 12, 1998 episode hosted by Alec Baldwin, which had Baldwin experiencing Yet Another Christmas Carol during the show's opening monologue, with then-new castmember Jimmy Fallon appearing as the "Ghost of Hosts Future", telling Alec that he was given a prediction that he would become famous and host the show on December 12, 2011. That date was actually a Monday, not a Saturday, although he would indeed host SNL that week on December 17, 2011. The sketch also stated that R.E.M. was the musical guest for the episode Fallon hosted. In reality, REM broke up earlier that year. This is possibly inverted during the Weekend Update segment where a joke is made about a potential presidential run by Donald Trump, basically scoffing at the idea. He would seek the Reform Party's presidential candidacy during the 2000 election before dropping out early, only to actually win in the 2016 election.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b0fc9724	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b0fc9724	featureConfidence	1.0
Saturday Night Live	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b0fc9724
Failed Future Forecast / int_b24f49ab	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b24f49ab	comment	Back to the Future Part II's version of 2015: A Cubs-Miami World Series in 2015 became impossible as long as both franchises remained in the National League. The fact these teams had the two worst records in the NL in 2013 would've made a World Series by either squad unlikely, anyway. (Although the Cubs did come closer than anybody thought they would, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals to win the 2015 NLDS, only to lose to the hated Mets. On October 21, 2015.) Good job predicting there'd be a Miami team, though (the Florida Marlins were formed in 1993 and became the Miami Marlins in 2012), even if they got the name and league wrong. The Cubs World Series happened in 2016, with them winning and ending the century-drought that was still very much in effect during the Back to the Future trilogy. In one that crosses with Harsher in Hindsight, "Queen Diana visits Washington." Not only did Princess Diana leave the royal family by divorcing Charles and later died tragically in 1997, but Elizabeth II was alive and well in 2015 and continued reigning all the way until her own death in 2022. Maybe the two swapped fates? On October 21, 2015, the real-life USA Today issued a special edition replicating the front page from the movie, but omitting the Queen Diana headline. As shown above, the newspaper that mentions "Queen Diana" also suggests a female US president. If it's referring to the President of the United States, that hadn't happened by 2015 and, as of 2024, still hasn't.note A female Vice President of the United States has happened though. One of the more amusing mispredictions: The continued existence of Pontiac. Why they even decided that a Toyota dealership would switch to selling American cars in the first place is a mystery, especially since '80s futurism was heavily inspired by a Japan Takes Over the World mentality (we see this with Marty working for a Mr. Ito T. Fujitsu); which will not likely happen after Japan's bubble economy burst during The '90s. Another amusing misprediction is the existence of Jaws 19. The Jaws franchise ended after the fourth movie (this one may be intentionally mispredicted, seeing as how the Jaws 19 poster with the "This time it's REALLY personal" tag was a Take That! to Jaws: The Revenge after that film was ripped apart by critics and audiences and became an instant Old Shame to Universal Pictures and its crew). In 2015, Universal actually released a tongue in cheek mock trailer for Jaws 19, where they also referenced the other faux Jaws sequels (Jaws 5 through 18). The films predicted some form of sensor technology for video games (as suggested by Elijah Wood's character's comment remarking on the Nintendo Zapper being "like a babies toy" for using his hands). The prediction rang false however, as while such technology does exist (Xbox Kinect), it has a slim following among the industry at large at best and is ridiculed at worst, resulting in people still using their hands. Fashion styles are a whole category of mispredictions, but one of the more obvious is that no one is using two ties, quite the opposite, ties are nowadays falling out of favor in all but the most formal occasions, let alone office environments. Assumed that Japan Takes Over the World, that there would be a Japanese fax machine in every room of every house, and that every corporation would be run from Japan. All of this was from a common belief during the 1980s that Japan's superior electronics were going to allow it to become a global superpower. While Japan is a major economic driving force in The New '10s, nothing like what Part II predicted came to pass. Also, another Asian country is seen as the challenge now. Fax machines aren't doing all that well either.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b24f49ab	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b24f49ab	featureConfidence	1.0
Back to the Future Part II	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b24f49ab
Failed Future Forecast / int_b273393a	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b273393a	comment	Destroy All Monsters, released in 1968, guessed that by 1999 humanity would have a base established on the moon and the technology needed to keep nearly a dozen kaiju in containment on a small chain of islands. Some films in the Godzilla universe depict technology even more advanced than that already existing in the 1960s, but continuity was never the franchise's strong point.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b273393a	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b273393a	featureConfidence	1.0
Destroy All Monsters	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b273393a
Failed Future Forecast / int_b3788a5d	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b3788a5d	comment	2001: A Space Odyssey. All of the Space Odyssey series have already been invalidated this way, one way or another. For example, the first three books all feature a still-existing USSR; the backstory of 2061 involves a revolution in South Africa in the 2030s which overthrows the apartheid regime; then of course there's the invention of HAL. Arthur C. Clarke went on record to state that the 'sequels' were actually stories taking place in alternate universes when current events surpassed his stories.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b3788a5d	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b3788a5d	featureConfidence	1.0
2001: A Space Odyssey	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b3788a5d
Failed Future Forecast / int_b38f090c	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b38f090c	comment	This was averted in the 1968 movie The Shoes Of The Fisherman, which predicted that by the time the film was set in the late 1980s a non-Italian from an Eastern European country would be elected Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. When the film had been made there had not been a non-Italian Pontiff in over four hundred years. Ten years after the film was made that prediction became true when the College of Cardinals elected the Polish Cardinal Karol WojtyÅ‚a Pope, the first non-Italian to hold the office in over 455 years.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b38f090c	featureApplicability	-1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b38f090c	featureConfidence	1.0
The Shoes Of The Fisherman	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b38f090c
Failed Future Forecast / int_b3e0e2e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b3e0e2e0	comment	The Sum of All Fears is a close one-written in early 1991, months before the breakup of the Soviet Union, and revolves around a "hoaxed" Soviet attack on the US in January 1992, by which time the USSR had been formally dissolved for a month. The film adaptation was aware of this, with the main villain changed from an East German to a neo-Nazi.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b3e0e2e0	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b3e0e2e0	featureConfidence	1.0
The Sum of All Fears	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b3e0e2e0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b6cb9396	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b6cb9396	comment	Lost in Space has the interstellar Jupiter 2 vessel sent from Earth to Alpha Centauri in October 16, 1997.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b6cb9396	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b6cb9396	featureConfidence	1.0
Lost in Space	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b6cb9396
Failed Future Forecast / int_b6f4562d	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b6f4562d	comment	In Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth, the map of the Uplifted Animal-controlled post-apocalyptic Earth shows that Siberia is now the "Communi-Bear Silo State". Human civilization has collapsed entirely, but Russia is still communist.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b6f4562d	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b6f4562d	featureConfidence	1.0
Kamandi (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b6f4562d
Failed Future Forecast / int_b8404ba7	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b8404ba7	comment	In the web-novel Domina, the Soviets are mentioned obliquely a few times even before the reveal that the story takes place in an alternate 2001. The timeline changed in 1970, and apparently one of the effects is that the USSR never fell. The Cold War appears to be long over, though, and the Soviets maintain the space station that serves as the communications hub for the space colonies.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b8404ba7	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b8404ba7	featureConfidence	1.0
Domina	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b8404ba7
Failed Future Forecast / int_b92ad66b	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_b92ad66b	comment	An early issue of Ultimate X-Men featured the X-Men foiling a plot by the Provisional IRA. At the time, the 1998 Peace Agreement was still young, and many suspected it might not hold. It did, and the Provisional IRA destroyed its last weapons and ceased to exist some time around 2005.
Failed Future Forecast / int_b92ad66b	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_b92ad66b	featureConfidence	1.0
Ultimate X-Men (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_b92ad66b
Failed Future Forecast / int_bb187d29	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_bb187d29	comment	Full Disclosure: The novel takes place during the administration of the 41st president of the United States. Israel and the Arabs are allies, China and Japan have become one country, America and the Soviets are allies, and most of the U.S. government cabinet positions have been combined to form consolidated departments (for a total of five secretaries, and the attorney general).
Failed Future Forecast / int_bb187d29	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_bb187d29	featureConfidence	1.0
Full Disclosure	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_bb187d29
Failed Future Forecast / int_bcb32dc6	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_bcb32dc6	comment	The first edition of Shadowrun had references to the Soviet Union in its future history, while the second swapped these out for the Russian Federation. Later editions said to hell with it and admitted the game's timeline is an Alternate History.
Failed Future Forecast / int_bcb32dc6	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_bcb32dc6	featureConfidence	1.0
Shadowrun (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_bcb32dc6
Failed Future Forecast / int_c0589b98	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_c0589b98	comment	Call of Duty: Black Ops III predicts the collapse of the European Union by 2025. It predicted that Italy, Spain and Greece would leave the EU by 2021. By that year in real life, only the United Kingdom had left the union. All things considered, the EU is in a lot better shape than predicted in many works, including this one.
Failed Future Forecast / int_c0589b98	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_c0589b98	featureConfidence	1.0
Call of Duty: Black Ops III (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_c0589b98
Failed Future Forecast / int_c0add399	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_c0add399	comment	The Third World War: August 1985, a 1978 mock-history book on a World War III, has the USSR collapse in 1985... In a highly violent manner after the nuclear destruction of Minsk, now Belarus, and Birmingham, UK.
Failed Future Forecast / int_c0add399	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_c0add399	featureConfidence	1.0
The Third World War	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_c0add399
Failed Future Forecast / int_c1f35224	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_c1f35224	comment	The Man Who Brought the Dodgers Back to Brooklyn was written in 1981, but largely takes place in 1985â€“88. A few of the changes are necessary for the story to work; for instance, the LA Dodgers' mid-Eighties stats ended up being pretty good in Real Life, but had to be abysmal in the book to help the characters buy out the team. A minor aversion occurs with the 1988 World Series; the Dodgers make it to the Series in the book, just like they made it to the actual '88 Series. Played straight with the book's central premise, though. As of 2024, the Dodgers are still in Los Angeles.
Failed Future Forecast / int_c1f35224	featureApplicability	-1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_c1f35224	featureConfidence	1.0
The Man Who Brought the Dodgers Back to Brooklyn	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_c1f35224
Failed Future Forecast / int_c2297a9c	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_c2297a9c	comment	In early Judge Dredd comics, the Soviet Union is depicted as surviving into the 22nd century, having been renamed as the 'Sov Blok', and is depicted as the main villain in the Apocalypse War storyline. In later comics, it enters a Glasnost period, before reverting back to its previous militaristic self, although it uses the Judge System instead of being communist. By extension, this occurs in other strips which take place in the shared universe, such as Harlem Heroes.
Failed Future Forecast / int_c2297a9c	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_c2297a9c	featureConfidence	1.0
Judge Dredd (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_c2297a9c
Failed Future Forecast / int_c25cfc1d	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_c25cfc1d	comment	Aleste 2, released in 1989, is set in 2039 and features the skyline of New York in a cutscene that features the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, as no one at the time could've predicted that the Twin Towers would fall victim to a terrorist attack in 2001.
Failed Future Forecast / int_c25cfc1d	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_c25cfc1d	featureConfidence	1.0
Aleste (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_c25cfc1d
Failed Future Forecast / int_c3bbb7f7	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_c3bbb7f7	comment	While not a Sci-Fi novel, the Dale Brown novel Sky Masters was published in 1991 and set in 1994. It makes references to the Soviet Union (which would cease to exist at the end of 1991) and features the Strategic Air Command in a prominent role. The SAC would be abolished in 1992.
Failed Future Forecast / int_c3bbb7f7	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_c3bbb7f7	featureConfidence	1.0
SciFi	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_c3bbb7f7
Failed Future Forecast / int_c43df4d8	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_c43df4d8	comment	Doctor Who: While not being explicit about it, the story Warriors of the Deep (set circa 2084) involves two superpowers armed with nuclear weapons that highly mistrust each other. The Doctor even comments that nothing has changed: "There are still two power blocs, fingers poised to annihilate each other." To make things vaguer, Ingrid Pitt's character has an Eastern European accent (she was born in Poland). However this is more a case of Does This Remind You of Anything?, as we're never told that they're the same as the USSR and the NATO countries, merely that the same political situation has arisen. The Novelization doesn't even have the half-assed aversion; the blocs are named as East and West, and the sea base residents (the "good guys") are from the West Bloc, while the East Bloc has a policy of "uniformity, obedience and central control". It was not adapted by the original writer, and shoots any subtlety in the original setup stone dead. Several UNIT stories produced in both the 70s and the 80s also mention the "end of the Cold War" but still have a USSR. This combines a failed future forecast with the UNIT dating mess-up, since UNIT stories were notoriously vague and contradictory as to whether they were 20 Minutes into the Future or The Present Day. We did lose a spacecraft with all hands in 1986, but it was a seven-person crew, not a two-person crew. Also, it was an accident rather than a Cyberman invasion, and in January rather than December. "Battlefield" is set in the near future (i.e. the early '90s) and offhandedly mentions a king on the throne in Buckingham Palace. While Charles III did indeed ascend to the throne as Elizabeth II's successor, this didn't happen until 2022, 33 years after the serial's airing (well past the near future). A stranger in a suit and duster did not, in fact, carry the Olympic Torch in the final leg of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Matt Smith did carry the torch for a leg, but it was in Cardiff, not London.
Failed Future Forecast / int_c43df4d8	featureApplicability	-1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_c43df4d8	featureConfidence	1.0
Doctor Who	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_c43df4d8
Failed Future Forecast / int_c6482e0b	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_c6482e0b	comment	Journey into Space: The original series was produced from 1953 to 1958 and featured manned missions to The Moon in 1965 and Mars in 1971 and 1972. In Frozen in Time, which was produced in 2008, it is mentioned that the Ares embarked on a mission to explore The Solar System on June 8, 1973 and had reached Neptune by 1977.
Failed Future Forecast / int_c6482e0b	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_c6482e0b	featureConfidence	1.0
Journey into Space (Radio)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_c6482e0b
Failed Future Forecast / int_c94c2600	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_c94c2600	comment	Endwar has another World War Three, kicked off by a preceding nuclear war in the Middle East in 2014.
Failed Future Forecast / int_c94c2600	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_c94c2600	featureConfidence	1.0
EndWar (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_c94c2600
Failed Future Forecast / int_cc50f8c4	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_cc50f8c4	comment	Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, first released for the MSX2 in 1990, not only predicts that the Soviet Union will still be around in 1999, it also features a character named Natasha Marcova (Gustava Heffner in later versions) who works for the StB (the Czechoslovakian Secret Police), a real-life organization that was dissolved during the very same year the game was released.
Failed Future Forecast / int_cc50f8c4	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_cc50f8c4	featureConfidence	1.0
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_cc50f8c4
Failed Future Forecast / int_cd34a1e5	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_cd34a1e5	comment	With frightening accuracy, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In averted this. In their "News of the Future" segment they mentioned that in 1988, twenty years from the time the episode was telecast, Ronald Reagan would be the U.S. President and the Berlin Wall would come down. (Okay, the Berlin Wall came down in November of 1989, but still close enough for jazz.) note And this prediction spawned an aversion of its own in a 2011 Cracked article: https://www.cracked.com/article_19146_8-absurd-jokes-that-predicted-real-life-events.html note ("Of course, a little more than a decade later, Reagan did win the presidency, his term ending the very year their "news of the future" segment took place. So, has anyone done a wacky "Donald Trump as president" sketch yet? Laugh all you want, it may seem strangely prescient in, say, 2017".* emphasis added by TV Tropes contributor "And we're legitimately sorry if this comes true.")
Failed Future Forecast / int_cd34a1e5	featureApplicability	-1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_cd34a1e5	featureConfidence	1.0
Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_cd34a1e5
Failed Future Forecast / int_ced3c7a1	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ced3c7a1	comment	The New Breed, a 1986 tag team who claimed to be from 2002, said (among other things) that Dusty Rhodes was President of the US in the future. They also thought that LazorTron (Hector Guererro) was real because in their time there really were robots.
Failed Future Forecast / int_ced3c7a1	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ced3c7a1	featureConfidence	1.0
Dusty Rhodes (Wrestling)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ced3c7a1
Failed Future Forecast / int_d0f995a5	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_d0f995a5	comment	In Moonbase 3, the Soviet Union still exists in 2003. It operates Moonbase 2, one of five lunar outposts (the others being operated by the US, Europe, China and Brazil). Furthermore, in the fifth episode "Castor and Pollux", it is revealed that the Soviets are on the verge of sending a manned mission to Mars and that their long-term goal is to launch a manned orbital flight of Jupiter using Mars as a springboard.
Failed Future Forecast / int_d0f995a5	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_d0f995a5	featureConfidence	1.0
Moonbase 3	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_d0f995a5
Failed Future Forecast / int_d30b220e	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_d30b220e	comment	Knights of Buena Vista is a Campaign Comic covering the Disney Animated Canon. When they are playing Wreck-It Ralph, it turns out that Zangief still doesn't know the USSR fell, and no one's had the heart to tell him.
Failed Future Forecast / int_d30b220e	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_d30b220e	featureConfidence	1.0
Knights of Buena Vista (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_d30b220e
Failed Future Forecast / int_d432a439	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_d432a439	comment	Looking Backward, published in 1888, predicted that by 2000 the US, Europe, and much of the world overall would be socialist. Not only did this not happen, but most socialist states collapsed in the late 80s/early 90s. However, it did accurately predict skyscrapers, credit cards and radio (the last being around the corner at the time).
Failed Future Forecast / int_d432a439	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_d432a439	featureConfidence	1.0
Looking Backward	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_d432a439
Failed Future Forecast / int_d54b59cc	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_d54b59cc	comment	See also the opening of Demolition Man, which shows about 10% of the city on fire (including the Hollywood sign), gangs with anti-aircraft weapons and police riding military grade Humvees... in 1996 (just three years after the film's release, making it even more ridiculous than most of them). This is mostly to crank up the contrast with the 2032 world, where crime is so low that the police have basically forgotten what it is.
Failed Future Forecast / int_d54b59cc	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_d54b59cc	featureConfidence	1.0
Demolition Man	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_d54b59cc
Failed Future Forecast / int_d7859aa2	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_d7859aa2	comment	In AKIRA, set in 2030, a Soviet Navy helicopter transports scientists to an American aircraft carrier.
Failed Future Forecast / int_d7859aa2	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_d7859aa2	featureConfidence	1.0
AKIRA (Manga)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_d7859aa2
Failed Future Forecast / int_d78e771e	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_d78e771e	comment	Interestingly, novels set later in that universe—like 1974's The Mote in God's Eye—avoid the problem. In the far future, a post-communist Russia venerates both its Communist and its Imperial past—so there's a Russian (and Eastern Orthodox) world named "Saint Ekaterina" with a battleship named Lenin. Under Putin in recent years, Russia has been doing just that.
Failed Future Forecast / int_d78e771e	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_d78e771e	featureConfidence	1.0
The Mote in God's Eye	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_d78e771e
Failed Future Forecast / int_d7e94801	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_d7e94801	comment	Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka's Warday (1984) depicts a "limited" nuclear war in 1988. In a case of Write Who You Know the authors recount their (fictional) experiences in the war and travel across a devastated and depopulated America to show the consequences of the war. The eastern half of the country has been destroyed by bombings on San Antonio, New York, and Washington, D.C. and the breakdown of order while California is pretty much untouched and has become an undeclared separate country with closed borders.
Failed Future Forecast / int_d7e94801	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_d7e94801	featureConfidence	1.0
Warday	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_d7e94801
Failed Future Forecast / int_d8d79afa	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_d8d79afa	comment	The sequel, Escape from L.A., predicted that in 2000 a massive earthquake would separate a chunk of California from the mainland, creating a new island, which also became a penal colony. This was followed by the president moving the capital to Lynchburg, Virginia, making his term lifelong, and reshaping the US into a puritanical hellhole where things like alcohol, cigarettes, and premarital sex are crimes worthy of the death sentence. The main plot itself takes place in 2013.
Failed Future Forecast / int_d8d79afa	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_d8d79afa	featureConfidence	1.0
Escape from L.A.	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_d8d79afa
Failed Future Forecast / int_d9c602eb	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_d9c602eb	comment	The original last few episodes of South Park's season 20 Story Arc described Hillary Clinton defeating Mr. Garrison in the presidential election, an obvious parallel to her expected win over Donald Trump. When Trump won, the seventh episode had to be entirely rewritten between the time it was announced (1 AM of the day after the election took place) and the premiere of the episode that same day specifically to avert this.
Failed Future Forecast / int_d9c602eb	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_d9c602eb	featureConfidence	1.0
South Park	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_d9c602eb
Failed Future Forecast / int_df6c9f95	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_df6c9f95	comment	Airwolf: In one episode, Stringfellow Hawke wakes up in a hospital bed and is told that he has been in a coma for five years. The television on the wall in his private room is permanently tuned to a 24-hour news channel: the dominant story is "The British Royal Divorce" (presumably Chaz & Di). At one point a nurse comes in, crying, saying "I never thought those two would split" (this episode was broadcast in 1987). Before long, Hawke realises that the hospital is a fake, and he is being held by "Dastardly Commies" trying to discover where he has stashed Airwolf.
Failed Future Forecast / int_df6c9f95	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_df6c9f95	featureConfidence	1.0
Airwolf	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_df6c9f95
Failed Future Forecast / int_e25322af	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_e25322af	comment	Homestar Runner: The Strong Bad Email "2 years" involves Strong Bad making some tongue-in-cheek predictions for the biggest developments in Strong Badia's future, such as the population tripling to "Population: Tire, Bundt Cake Pan, and Coach Z", the Stop Sign and Cinder Block going through a break-up, the construction of "a world-class hole", The Cheat painting an elaborate "FIREWORKS OR DIE!" mural on the Fence, and the Tire winning "the Title". None of these predictions wound up coming true (except possibly Strong Sad becoming "more whiny and annoying", as he has become more sarcastic and less passive over the years).
Failed Future Forecast / int_e25322af	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_e25322af	featureConfidence	1.0
Homestar Runner (Web Animation)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_e25322af
Failed Future Forecast / int_e58673ff	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_e58673ff	comment	The miniseries Amerika posits a U.S. that was taken over by the Soviet Union in 1987 and was now Soviet-occupied territory. The reason given in the movie as to why this happens is "American apathy." To contrast, there is also a novel entitled USSA: United Soviet States of America, which is a murder mystery set in American-occupied Russia.
Failed Future Forecast / int_e58673ff	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_e58673ff	featureConfidence	1.0
Amerika	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_e58673ff
Failed Future Forecast / int_e5c5bc22	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_e5c5bc22	comment	GURPS Terradyne has a much-reduced (with only five republics left) USSR in the year 2120. Again, this was written in the period where it was expected that some states would peel off from the Union but not that it would break completely.
Failed Future Forecast / int_e5c5bc22	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_e5c5bc22	featureConfidence	1.0
GURPS (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_e5c5bc22
Failed Future Forecast / int_e66a25a9	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_e66a25a9	comment	Rifts has a weird example. The Sourcebook Warlords of Russia was written well after the fall of the Soviet Union (the game itself came out in 1991), yet one of the power blocs mentioned in the setting is a group called the "Sovietski." The book explains that they are the remnants of a second Soviet Union that was formed in the 21st Century before the Coming of the Rifts.
Failed Future Forecast / int_e66a25a9	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_e66a25a9	featureConfidence	1.0
Rifts (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_e66a25a9
Failed Future Forecast / int_e68decb8	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_e68decb8	comment	The background history of the Star Control franchise has the Small War of 2015, in which a small nuclear exchange took place between Middle East countries that year, killing several million people. That fortunately never happened in the real world.
Failed Future Forecast / int_e68decb8	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_e68decb8	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Control (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_e68decb8
Failed Future Forecast / int_e782b6f4	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_e782b6f4	comment	The Chaos Timeline has its own version for in-universe works done before the Logo and AI-induced abortion of World War III but set 20 Minutes into the Future.
Failed Future Forecast / int_e782b6f4	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_e782b6f4	featureConfidence	1.0
Chaos Timeline	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_e782b6f4
Failed Future Forecast / int_e85737d6	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_e85737d6	comment	Killraven: In the 90s, TV and cars were phased out, NASA had manned flights to Mars (but only one female astronaut), thermonuclear power is used to warm every home, and cattle farming has died out due to artificial food becoming commonplace. Oh, and the Martians invaded Earth in 2001 and enslaved mankind.
Failed Future Forecast / int_e85737d6	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_e85737d6	featureConfidence	1.0
Killraven (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_e85737d6
Failed Future Forecast / int_e97e9ac4	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_e97e9ac4	comment	Harpoon was released in 1989 and one expansion pack assumed that the Soviet Union would still exist in 1996. After the USSR's collapse, there was a big scramble to create new scenarios that weren't obsolete. Of course, since it was a simulation the existing ones were still developed.
Failed Future Forecast / int_e97e9ac4	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_e97e9ac4	featureConfidence	1.0
Harpoon (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_e97e9ac4
Failed Future Forecast / int_ea11b11e	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ea11b11e	comment	Ghost Recon predicted an ultranationalist party gaining power in Russia and launching an invasion of the Republic of Georgia to annex it in 2008, which quickly escalates into essentially World War III as NATO intervenes in their subsequent attempts to do the same to other former Soviet satellites like Lithuania; while Georgia and Russia did get into a war in 2008, it did not escalate into the larger conflict that is the focus of the gamenote Throughout the 2010's and 2020's, Russia did use military action to reclaim some of the territory it had lost during the collapse of the USSR from its neighboring newly formed independent states, but not to the extent suggested by the game. Its expansions likewise predicted the death of Fidel Castro in 2006 and a second Eritrean/Ethiopean War in 2009. While the first has since come to pass (albeit ten years late and without democratic elections as a result) there has still been no new war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Endwar has another World War Three, kicked off by a preceding nuclear war in the Middle East in 2014.
Failed Future Forecast / int_ea11b11e	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ea11b11e	featureConfidence	1.0
Ghost Recon (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ea11b11e
Failed Future Forecast / int_ebc16967	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ebc16967	comment	The original arcade edition of Street Fighter II was released less than a year before the fall of the Soviet Union and had one of its fighters, namely Zangief, as a Soviet representative. His ending sequence even features Mikhail Gorbachev, who is helicoptered in to congratulate him on his victory, espousing the greatness of the "Soviet spirit". Despite subsequent editions of the game being released after the fall of the Soviet Union, Zangief's nationality and ending remained unchanged, although the SNES and Genesis ports attempted to somewhat fix that by having Zangief address Gorbachev as "Mr. Ex-President". This was justified in the Alpha series, which took place chronologically before Street Fighter II, but other games don't have this excuse. It wasn't until Street Fighter IV that Zangief's nationality was officially changed to the Russian Federation, with the current flag. To make it even less consistent, Hyper Street Fighter II, released in 2004, changed the flag of Hong Kong from its earlier British colonial flag to its current five petal design while keeping Zangief's Soviet nationality. And Hong Kong was under British control for the entire history of the Soviet Union! "Ultra Street Fighter II" for the Nintendo Switch, however, replaced the USSR's flag and voice line with Russia's.
Failed Future Forecast / int_ebc16967	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ebc16967	featureConfidence	1.0
Street Fighter II (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ebc16967
Failed Future Forecast / int_ed0803a7	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ed0803a7	comment	Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was made as a commentary about the Cold War winding down, though it came out a few weeks before the Soviet Union actually collapsed. Its Star Trek counterpart, the Klingon Empire, does not.
Failed Future Forecast / int_ed0803a7	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ed0803a7	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ed0803a7
Failed Future Forecast / int_ee384546	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ee384546	comment	Cyberpunk 2077 inherited some of this from its source material.
Failed Future Forecast / int_ee384546	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ee384546	featureConfidence	1.0
Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ee384546
Failed Future Forecast / int_ef076a36	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ef076a36	comment	Star Trek: Voyager: In-universe in the episode "Future's End". When Voyager is sent back to 1996, Tom Paris, the ship's expert on the 20th Century, enlists the aid of an astronomer called Rain Robinson, claiming to be a CIA agent investigating a Soviet plot. When she tells him the USSR collapsed five years ago, he pauses for a second and replies "That's what they want you to think!"
Failed Future Forecast / int_ef076a36	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ef076a36	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: Voyager	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ef076a36
Failed Future Forecast / int_f0d57197	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_f0d57197	comment	The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin, originally published in 2008, has a meeting 20 Minutes into the Future between a former American secretary of defense and an aged Islamic fundamentalist hiding out in Afghanistan who is clearly intended to be â€” but not named as â€” Osama bin Laden. The English translation of the book didn't appear until 2015, meaning that the mess-up was baked into it from the start.
Failed Future Forecast / int_f0d57197	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_f0d57197	featureConfidence	1.0
The Dark Forest	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_f0d57197
Failed Future Forecast / int_f1938c51	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_f1938c51	comment	Deliberately spoofed in More Information Than You Require, which is apparently set in some kind of Alternate History where, among other things, Dewey Defeats Truman, and in the follow-up volume, That is All, we learn that Hitler drowned while on vacation during the 1930s. Roosevelt was right there and he allowed it to happen.
Failed Future Forecast / int_f1938c51	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_f1938c51	featureConfidence	1.0
More Information Than You Require	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_f1938c51
Failed Future Forecast / int_f37a1662	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_f37a1662	comment	Islands in the Net: The Soviet Union is portrayed as lasting into the 2020s.
Failed Future Forecast / int_f37a1662	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_f37a1662	featureConfidence	1.0
Islands in the Net	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_f37a1662
Failed Future Forecast / int_f4313238	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_f4313238	comment	The sequel Ender's Shadow trilogy did not anticipate South Sudan becoming independent.
Failed Future Forecast / int_f4313238	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_f4313238	featureConfidence	1.0
Ender's Shadow	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_f4313238
Failed Future Forecast / int_f4bc7cf	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_f4bc7cf	comment	The early books of the Venus Prime series, being based on old short stories written by Arthur C. Clarke and having been started in the eighties, imply that Russia is still Communist, despite taking place at least a century into the future. The last book, written more recently, clarifies that the Soviet Union is still around (or reformed itself), but the second "S" in USSR stands for something other than "Socialist", and apparently, there are still Russians who want to return their country to socialism; the Soviet colony on Mars featured in the third book was an attempt to pacify them. In the first book, one of the suspects in the Star Queen sabotage, Sondra Sylvester, has a big secret that she doesn't want anyone to find out... she's living with another woman. While this might have been scandalous in the 80's, it's not so controversial nowadays. The plot of the third book relies heavily on the assumption that the Soviet Union is still around in the 22nd century, and has enough clout that the Council of Worlds (a successor to the UN) granted it and China their own colony on Mars to spread communism. The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. The last book, written after the Soviet Union's demise, retroactively places a lampshade on this, claiming that in recent years, there have been Russians pining for a return to communism, and the Mars colony was an attempt to siphon those agitators away from Mother Russia.
Failed Future Forecast / int_f4bc7cf	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_f4bc7cf	featureConfidence	1.0
Venus Prime	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_f4bc7cf
Failed Future Forecast / int_faf0ebf1	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_faf0ebf1	comment	Blade Runner 2049 does not drop many of the ones from the first film in a deliberate attempt to maintain the aesthetic of the first film. This means Japan Takes Over the World, the USSR still exists, a huge Atari neon in Los Angeles...
Failed Future Forecast / int_faf0ebf1	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_faf0ebf1	featureConfidence	1.0
Blade Runner 2049	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_faf0ebf1
Failed Future Forecast / int_fdbace96	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_fdbace96	comment	"Gravity Falls": Lampshaded when Dipper brings a brawler from a Street Fighter-inspired fighting game to life; Rumble Mc Skirmish asks to be taken to the Soviet Union, and Dipper answers that itâ€™s going to be difficult for a number of reasons.
Failed Future Forecast / int_fdbace96	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_fdbace96	featureConfidence	1.0
Gravity Falls	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_fdbace96
Failed Future Forecast / int_ff9ab17f	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ff9ab17f	comment	Star Trek: The Next Generation: The second episode featured the SS Tsiolkovsky whose dedication plaque reveals that it was built and launched in the USSR in 2363. The beginning of "The Royale" has Picard musing about Fermat's Last Theorem, pointing to humanity's continued failure to solve the problem despite being centuries more technologically advanced than its creator as a lesson in humility. He must have missed that it had actually been solved as early as 1995. This would eventually get referenced in the Deep Space Nine episode "Facets", when Dax says one of her previous hosts had the best approach to proving it since Andrew Wiles, presumably one relying only on techniques made before Fermat stated the theorem.note Fermat's Last Theorem was first stated as a note in the margin of a book he owned, which also stated he had developed a proof but would be unable to fit it on the page. Wiles's proof relied on mathematical techniques developed after Fermat's death, meaning it's not the one Fermat would have been talking about. As of 2023, Fermat's own proof, if it was correct, remains unknown. In the episode "The High Ground", Data casually mentions that a series of terrorist attacks led to the reunification of Ireland into a single state in 2024. At the point the episode was released (1990), a peace treaty was seen as utterly inconceivable, and many believe the only way for that to happen would be for the United Kingdom to collapse. Of course, reunification in full has still not happened, but time will tell whether this prediction will come true depending on how Brexit goes. Incidentally, the reference to Ireland being reunited due to terrorism led to this episode being banned on British television for years afterward. It was finally shown on the BBC in 2007. It has never been shown on Irish television. With unionist parties winning fewer Northern Irish seats than pro-reunification parties in the 2019 general election, itâ€™s looking like Star Trek may actually have been slightly late in its prediction. It still wouldnâ€™t be right about the terrorism.note we hope. The episode doesn't specify who the terrorists are, and there has been a significant rise in right wing terrorism in the UK, Europe, America, and around the world in the early 2020s, meaning the possibility of terror attacks from without Ireland is back on the table sadly.
Failed Future Forecast / int_ff9ab17f	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ff9ab17f	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: The Next Generation	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ff9ab17f
Failed Future Forecast / int_ffc9bcc1	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_ffc9bcc1	comment	Soylent Green predicts that by 2022, New York City will have a population of over 40 million people and that overcrowding, global warming, and food shortages will turn the entire planet into a barren, dystopian wasteland where humans are forced to eat the deceased to survive. As of the real 2022, NYC's population still hasn't reached nine million, and obesity from overeating is a common ailment in much of the world, especially the US. Note also that, based on the age and life experience of Charlton Heston's character, the film's dystopia couldn't have come into existence any later than the 1980s, and this is a film that was released in 1973. This is actually consistent with then-current population-bomb projections, which made the mistake of failing to take the Green Revolution into account.
Failed Future Forecast / int_ffc9bcc1	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_ffc9bcc1	featureConfidence	1.0
Soylent Green	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_ffc9bcc1
Failed Future Forecast / int_fff2d31b	type	Failed Future Forecast
Failed Future Forecast / int_fff2d31b	comment	Grendel has the USSR still existing in 2120, at which point the simultaneous assassination of both its Premier and the US President at a summit ignites World War III. (After this, the Soviet Union doesn't exist any more, but neither does most of the USA.)
Failed Future Forecast / int_fff2d31b	featureApplicability	1.0
Failed Future Forecast / int_fff2d31b	featureConfidence	1.0
Grendel (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Failed Future Forecast / int_fff2d31b

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Failed Future Forecast	processingCategory2	Alternate History Tropes
Failed Future Forecast	processingCategory2	Fate and Prophecy Tropes
Failed Future Forecast	processingCategory2	Index Failure
Failed Future Forecast	processingCategory2	Speculative Fiction Tropes
Failed Future Forecast	processingCategory2	This Index Is Not an Example
Failed Future Forecast	processingCategory2	Time Marches On
Failed Future Forecast	processingCategory2	We Will Not Use an Index in the Future
Angel Cop / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Bubblegum Crisis / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Cowboy Bebop / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
GoLion / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
GunBuster / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Mobile Police Patlabor: The Early Days / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Neon Genesis Evangelion / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Otaku no Video / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Camelot 3000 (Comic Book) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Chick Tracts (Comic Book) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Grendel (Comic Book) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Harlem Heroes (Comic Book) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Killraven (Comic Book) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Defenders (Comic Book) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Dead Bart (Fanfic) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Harry Is a Dragon, and That's OK (Fanfic) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Harry Is A Dragon, And That's Okay (Fanfic) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Lotus, Violet and Cherry Blossoms (Fanfic) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Purple Days (Fanfic) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Rocketship Voyager (Fanfic) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
A Few Good Men / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Americathon / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Austin Powers / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Back to the Future / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Back to the Future Part II / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Blade Runner 2049 / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Demolition Man / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Destroy All Monsters / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Escape from New York / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
First Spaceship on Venus / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Forbidden Planet / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Goldengirl / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Hot Shots! Part Deux / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Licence to Kill / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Memories of Murder / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Millions / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
My Name is Khan / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Ninotchka / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
One, Two, Three / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Predator 2 / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Red Dawn (1984) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
RoboCop (1987) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Robot Jox / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Split Second (1992) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Strange Days / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Superman II / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Black Hole / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Last Days of Patton / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Man Who Saw Tomorrow / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Russia House / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Time Machine (1960) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Tomorrow War / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The War Game / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Things to Come / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
2001: A Space Odyssey / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
2010: The Year We Make Contact / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
2012 / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Underground 1995 / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Patlabor (Franchise) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
RoboCop (Franchise) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Hohenzollern Empire (Lets Play) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Full Metal Panic! / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Alpha and Omega / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Beggars in Spain / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Bridge Trilogy / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Chalet School / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Chaos Timeline / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Cities in Flight / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
CoDominium / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Contact / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Cyteen / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Deathlands / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Doc Savage / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Ender's Game / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Face the Storm / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Freeway Warrior / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Full Disclosure / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Full Metal Panic! / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Giants Series / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Islands in the Net / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Known Space / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Last and First Men / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Let's Get Together / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Logan's Run / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Looking Backward / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Lord of the Flies / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Lyttle Lytton Contest / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Make Room! Make Room! / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Neuromancer / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Night Watch (Series) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Our Dumb Century / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Piecing Together the Ashes: Reconstructing the Old World Order / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Ready Player One / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Red Mars Trilogy / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Rendezvous with Rama / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Richard III in the 21st Century / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Rising Sun / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Robot Series / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Robots and Empire / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Schismatrix / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Slaughterhouse-Five / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Spinneret / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Butter Battle Book / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Dark Forest / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Dead Zone / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The General (Foundation) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Last Man / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Man Who Brought the Dodgers Back to Brooklyn / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Napoleon Of Notting Hill / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Second Renaissance / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Space Odyssey Series / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Stars My Destination / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Sum of All Fears / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Turner Diaries / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The War Against the Chtorr / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Venus Prime / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Vortex / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
War Day / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
ApocalypseDayPlanner	processingCategory1	Failed Future Forecast
Creepypasta / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
AKIRA (Manga) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind (Manga) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
New Mazinger (Manga) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Planetes (Manga) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Riki-Oh (Manga) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Mercury Theatre on the Air (Radio) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Mefhor Canon Bloc (Roleplay) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Amerika / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Connections / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Cosmos / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Logan's Run / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Moonbase 3 / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Star Cops / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Star Trek: Voyager / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Bachelor / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Last Man on Earth / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
30 Rock / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
UFO / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
UFO (1970) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Cyberpunk (Tabletop Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
GURPS Reign of Steel (Tabletop Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Rifts (Tabletop Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Shadowrun (Tabletop Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Twilight: 2000 (Tabletop Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
A Mind Forever Voyaging (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Aerobiz (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Covert Action (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Double Dragon (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
EndWar (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Ethnic Cleansing (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Shattered Union (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Strider (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Campaign Trail (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Time Pilot (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Where in Europe Is Carmen Sandiego? (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (Video Game) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Shigatsu Youka (Visual Novel) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
To Boldly Flee (Web Video) / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Challenge of the GoBots / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Clerks: The Animated Series / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Sealab 2021 / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Spiral Zone / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Ducktators / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Jetsons / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Old Grey Hare / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
The Transformers / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
This Is America, Charlie Brown / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast
Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story / int_bb40e7e0	type	Failed Future Forecast

Copyright of DBTropes.org wrapper 2009-2013 DFKI Knowledge Management. Imprint. - Thanks to Bakken&Baeck for hosting. Contact.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.