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List of fictional universes

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This is a list of fictional universes, organized by genre and by sub-genre. The term universe can be misleading, since some of them are supposed to occur in our own world, but in a fictional future (science fiction) or past (Hyborian Age) timeline. Because one author's universe may produce stories in different genres, it may be listed in more than one place.

Fictional Earths

Stories taking place on an Earth that varies from non-fictional Earth in a few details.

Real world

Fictional universes designed to closely mimic the real world, but are nonetheless self-contained, consistent locations in their own right.

Fantastic Earth

An Earth much like ours, but with some fantastic twists.

Archaic Earth

A fantasy world that is asserted to be Earth in an imaginary age of the distant past.

Alternate history Earth

The past or present of an Earth where history diverged slightly from our experience.

Future Earth

Earth as it may be in the future.

Dying Earth

Main article: Dying Earth subgenre

Earth in the distant future, when the shapes of lands have changed.

Lost Lands

A land which is asserted to exist somewhere on Earth and which can be reached, usually with difficulty, by travelers. See also Fictional country and List of fictional countries.

Polders

Pocket universes accessed from our world; or: remote or hidden enclaves within our world (can be hidden magically or neurologically/psychologically, or simply be hard to reach)

Extraterrestrial

A science fictional universe consists of multiple stars and planets where the fictional action takes place, usually linked by some form of space travel, or in some cases by teleportation. The universe may or may not contain Earth (or some version of it, past, future or alternate).

Solar system

Main article: Solar System in fiction

Our solar system in the near future, at a time when interstellar travel is impossible, unknown, or very rare.

Other planets

Stories that take place entirely on other planets, sometimes with little or no reference to Earth or its Solar System:

Interstellar

These universes usually are set some hundreds or thousands of years in our future, at a time when mankind has spread to the stars.

See also: Interstellar travel in fiction

Including Earth

These mention or imply the existence of the Earth, the Sun, or other familiar stars.

In print
In film and television
In games

Excluding Earth

These stories describe settings with no connection to our existing chronological framework, in which the Earth, the Sun, and other familiar stars are not mentioned. They tend to be science fantasies.

  • The Delta-Omega-Iota Alliance Database is a fictional universe created through the use of a wiki-site. The site suggests that the wiki-site is an online database within the created fictional universe with information input by members of the Delta-Omega-Iota Alliance.
  • Dragonstar
  • The universe of New Eden in EVE Online (inhabitants of New Eden originally came from Earth via a wormhole, but there is now no connection between the two universes)
  • Galactik Football universe by Alphanim.
  • Star Wars universe by George Lucas (however, Earth appears in some stories deemed non-canon by Lucasfilm)
  • The Way, world in Lun Calsari's "The Way" (named after game's title) is a big, uncharted, and most likely infinite fantasy world, where wanderers are traveling along it. It's not planet-like world like in other role-playing games, but rather kind of "flat" world (as real world was considered in ancient times and Middle Ages).

Fantasy

Fantasy universes usually exist on single worlds; these worlds are typically Earthlike, but differ from Earth at least in geography; they also frequently host animals and intelligent life-forms not found on Earth. They can be found in a variety of fantasy genres, e.g. high fantasy, heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery, etc.

Parallel worlds

A fantasy world resembling our Earth, forming part of a multiverse with Earth and reachable by magic, dreaming, or similar devices.

In print

In film and television

In games

In Internet media

Other worlds

A world that resembles our Earth in a general sense, but exists entirely independently of it, and never includes any humans from Earth. Many, but not all of these worlds allow magic.

In print

In art

  • The country of Iblard and its surrounding universe, as depicted in the paintings of Naohisa Inoue

In film and television

In games

Main article: List of campaign settings
In Dungeons & Dragons

Multiverses

Some stories take place in a series of connected universes, which may or may not include Earth, including:

In print

In film and television

  • The setting of Crossworlds
  • Diniverse - Paul Dini's series of Warner Bros. animated cartoons of characters in the DC Comics universe
  • Matrix universe, consisting of "our world in 2199" and a false reality created by machines
  • The Charmed universe is set both on Earth and in supernatural locations such as heaven, limbo, the underworld and the demonic wasteland
  • The Buffyverse from Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, consisting of infinite parallel and alternate dimensions and realities
  • Bokurano, an anime where fifteen children have to defeat 15 other dimensional robots. If they're defeated, their universe will be lost forever. Same thing goes for those who got defeated by the protagonists
  • Digital World — world of Digimon
  • Chaotic and Perim — The other two worlds of Chaotic besides Earth
  • The Sliders multiverse consisting of alternate Earths, including one where time passes at a different rate and one where time passes in reverse
  • The multiverse in The One in which each universe contains the same people but in universe environments resulting from variations in choices throughout history; traveling to other universes and killing the other copies of oneself allegedly made one god-like
  • The Family Guy episode, Road to the Multiverse, this concept was explored by Brian and Stewie.

In games

Other dimensions

See also

Category: