Steins;gate has an amazing story, and you may wonder where the writers get their ideals. Ideas like the “d-mail”, and many of the main themes are inspired by famous time travel stories written prior to the original game. Below is a list of works where the story and ideas of Steins;Gate were inspired from.
Thrice Upon a Time
Thrice Upon a Time is a science fiction novel published in 1980, written by James P. Hogan. The story is also about a machine that can send messages to the past. There is a limit on how many characters that can be sent with each mail similar to the phone microwave. In Steins;gate Okabe was required to time leap multiple times to get further into the past (because of the time machines technical restrictions). The protagonist of Thrice Upon a Time, Murdoch Ross also time leaps multiple times through the machine to overcome these restrictions. The theme of the story is identical to Steins;Gate where both consider the ramifications of sending messages into the past and/or receiving messages from the future, rather than the sending of physical objects through time.
Summary from Amazon:
“It’s amazing enough when Murdoch Ross’s brilliant grandfather invents a machine that can send messages to itself in the past or the future. But when signals begin to arrive without being sent, Murdoch realizes that every action he takes changes the future that would have been…and that the world he lives in has already been altered!
Then a new message arrives from the future: The world is doomed!”
Legion of Time
Legion of Time is a novel written in 1938 by Jack Williamson. An event creates 2 parallel worlds , one where the white princess of Jonbar (Mayuri) exists and the other, the red princess of Gyronchi (Kurisu). A battle against both worlds ensues (Okabe’s mental conflict on which world to choose). The novel was also the first time travel story to develop the parallel world theory, and how these worlds converge and diverge at a certain point in time. Steins;gate heavily adopts the idea of world convergence/divergence with the
attractor field theory.
Other novels include
Minus Zero by Hirose Shoukichi where the original idea of the protagonist going through an infinite loop in time may have come from.
The writer of Steins;gate has also mentioned the reason why John Titor was Suzuha ( a girl). The idea had come from the Japanese classic time travel story “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time“. Suzuha was indeed a girl who had lept through time to help Okabe and the world.
“That is the choice of Steins;Gate” [それが、シュタインズ・ゲートの選択だ] is from “That is choice of the world” [それが、世界の選択である] which were the title words of
Gunparade March.
In Steins;Gate a world where time travel is possible eventually converges to a world where a time machine no longer exists. This goes by
Niven’s Law.
If the universe of discourse permits the possibility of time travel and of changing the past, then no time machine will be invented in that universe. – Niven’s Law
This including the above hints the writers of Steins;Gate were heavy readers of time travel novels, and theories.
Related posts:
- Mad Scientist (Again) Builds a Time Leap Machine Replica
- “Steins;Gate Movie Not Going to be a Rehash of the Anime” & Other Movie details
- Steins;Gate Episode 23 Open the Steins;Gate Q&A
Steins;gate has an amazing story, and you may wonder where the writers get their ideals. Ideas like the “d-mail”, and many of the main themes are inspired by famous time travel stories written prior to the original game. Below is a list of works where the story and ideas of Steins;Gate were inspired from.
Thanks for the news~
I can’t believe this site’s unofficial!
In the game itself, Suzuha refers to the 1993 comedy “Groundhog Day” (directed by Harold Ramis) when she notices that Okabe’s attempting to live trough an infinite time loop -which is an event that thankfully never happens in the anime-.
Summary from im0b: “A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting ‘rat’ (as he calls it)… On awaking the ‘following’ day he discovers that it’s Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. First he uses this to his advantage, then comes the realization that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing EVERY day. ”
I don’t think that any of the Steins;Gate writers have confirmed that this is where they took inspiration for the infinite time loop idea, though. This is a series filled to the rim with interesting stuff ( ◞´•௰•`)◞