Showing content from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExpandedUniverse below:
Website Navigation
Expanded Universe - TV Tropes
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExpandedUniverse
Expanded Universe
Go To
The 'Verse may branch out across different media as the fandom demands. There may be comic books, tie-in novels, movies, novelizations, video games, etc. Sometimes the TV show is itself a branching-out of a 'verse that originated in another form (such as comics, as in the Marvel Universe or The DCU).
Expanded Universe refers to everything that is not the primary medium. All that other stuff.
This can create a schism in fans. Some believe the entire Expanded Universe is Canon. Others reject it all. Still others pick and choose based on closeness to the writers of the primary medium. Expanded Universe material is usually written so that it can be fit in to the canon without having to alter the canon itself. However, later developments in the actual series can make it definitively out-of-continuity, especially when the main series decides to explain a mystery (such as a character's future) in a way that contradicts the Expanded Universe.
Even if it isn't canon, the Expanded Universe often serves as a place to apply handwavium to the canon through retcons; this may verge on professional-grade Fan Wank.
The term in fiction dates back to a collection of Robert A. Heinlein stories, but its use to refer to material for a franchise beyond its source came from Star Wars, which has an extensive Expanded Universe covering events before, during, and after the films. The Star Wars Expanded Universe even has its own page.
Note: the "primary medium" is usually the original one, but not always. For instance, few would dispute that the primary medium of the Buffyverse is the 1997 TV show, not the 1992 movie (which is only canon for the television series in the form of its altered comic book adaptation, which is based off of Joss Whedon's original script for it).
After a show's cancellation or end, the Expanded Universe may become the only place to get new material involving The 'Verse (outside of Fan Fic, of course), continuing the canon in the minds of the readers/viewers. However, if a show is later brought back, this "new canon" may be cancelled out, creating yet more conflict.
Sometimes a character from the Expanded Universe is so popular (or just so good) that they get put into the official continuity of the original medium. This character is known as a Canon Immigrant. If elements from the EU are well-received enough, they may be permanently integrated, revising or rewriting the official continuity resulting in a Ret-Canon.
Compare Adaptation Expansion, which concerns never-before-seen developments of certain aspects in a retelling of one specific work or set of works in a franchise when they're adapted into another medium. See also Restricted Expanded Universe, when the original creators put constraints on how official, derivative works can develop.
Because of Acronym Confusion, please do not abbreviate it to EU, which can also stand for The European Union.
See also sequels, prequels, interquels and spin-offs for works that share same continuity and the same medium as the primary work (i.e. a Video Game with a prequel game, or an anime series that spins off another series).
Sometimes, the expanded universe will be published in Television Tie-In Magazines.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Light novels are this for many anime shows, telling original stories that are sometimes adapted as filler.
- Many of CLAMP's works are set in a single universe, ×××HOLiC being the central hub where many other characters cameo and taking place at the same time that Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- ; the two series are regularly referencing each other (for exemple, the same conversation can sometime be seen with a different point of view). Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle also introduces The Multiverse concept when the protagonists meet characters from other CLAMP works in alternate universes (such as an organic Chii, a princess Tomoyo or a happy couple Sorata & Arashi), potentially meaning that all CLAMP mangas are in the same multiverse.
- It is also highly suggested that Chobits takes place several years after Angelic Layer (but again, this could just be a multiverse cameo).
- Many characters in Kobato. also are Alternate Self of other CLAMP works.
- One might consider Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball (and its sequels) to be set in a single universe, as Arale and some characters from the former appear in the latter, actively helping the hero. Add to this Jaco the Galactic Patrolman which is a direct prequel to Dragon Ball, the Loose Canon movies and games and the now-retconned GT and you have a pretty solid expanded universe.
- Gundam, as a 40-year franchise, has lots of manga, novels, video games, etc., including such popular titles as Crossbone Gundam and Gundam SEED Astray. Hell, it even spawned a sub-franchise that's its own example of this, SD Gundam, which has had numerous Manga, Model lines, Gashapon toys, Cardass, and even some Anime of its own. According to Sunrise, only animated works are considered Canon, meaning that everything in the Expanded Universe isn't, no matter how closely it cleaves to continuity (and, in the case of Crossbone, in spite of the fact that it was written by the creator of the franchise himself).
- There are select fans of Naruto that consider the databooks as Expanded Universe. Following the manga's conclusion, a series of spin-off novels is being released, the first of which focuses on Kakashi's life between the war's end and his becoming the Sixth Hokage.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica has developed a sizable one. In addition to the original anime and its movie sequel The Rebellion Story, there are the manga Spin-Offs Puella Magi Kazumi Magica, Puella Magi Oriko Magica, Puella Magi Suzune Magica, Puella Magi Tart Magica, the spinoffs for each of these spinoffs, a video game adaptation which functions as the manual for the franchise, the prequel "A Different Story", and countless minor features that only hardcore fans would be aware of.
- The Robotech RPG by Palladium Books significantly expands on the setting from the show, in particular the era directly following the First Robotech War.
Comic Books
Fan Works
- The Discworld has been expanded in fanfic, most thoroughly in the works of author A.A. Pessimal. From bare bones and hints in the canon, there is now a fairly fully realised "South Africa", with all the knobs turned up in approved Pratchett mode. Rimwards Howondaland is stuck in The Apartheid Era, but complicated by the existence of other sentient species as well as human. This is explored in tales such as The Black Sheep and Why and were. Elsewhere, the Foggy Islands, referenced in the canon, have become a more realised set of glimpses of a Discworld New Zealand, and a place called Aceria is emerging as another troublesome and quaint former colony, stretching, as its national anthem tells us, from Hub to shining sea. Aceria is mainly an Expy of Canada, but (just as Agatea is a portmanteau of Japan, China and Thailand) is expanding to have a marked streak of Eagleland to it. Aceria has a troublesome and stroppy Quirmian-speaking enclave to it, and has given the Disc "Country and Widdershins" music and line-dancing. Sports include hockey played on ice, and a very odd form of Foot-The-Ball with strange rules which is played in full body armour.
- Fallout: Equestria also has its own side stories.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, written by Crossoverpairinglover, has branched out to include several tie-in oneshots, several of which were written by other authors with his approval, and recently inspired a Spin-Off titled The Wild Boy From Sinnoh, written by Viroro-kun. The continuity as a whole is now named by followers and contributors as the Resetverse.
- Raised by Jägers: The Keep it under your hat series serves as one for stories that cannot fit into the main story's narrative.
- Soul Eater: Troubled Souls by Certain Destiny is meant to expand the Soul Eater universe. The story itself has its own side-story and prequel.
- Daneel Rush, the author of the Tamers Forever Series has put a lot of effort into expanding the digimon mythology, creating a mythos that combines computer programming codes with real world mythology and religious beliefs.
- Three Knights sees Bert Van Vliet from The Bubblegum Zone, Yumeko Asagiri from The Next Generation, and Craig Reed from Bubblegum Avatar teaming-up.
Films — Animation
- Coco: There's the storybook Miguel and the Amazing Alebrijes, which ties in with the movie. It deals with Miguel thinking over which animal should be his spirit guide for a class project. It's likely this book took place before the events of the film.
- After The Lion King (1994) film became extremely popular, a series of books known as "The Six New Adventures" was released as well as a boatload of comics. These introduced dozens of new characters and explained mysteries such as Scar's birth name. However, the printed works are also inconsistent with the movies and each other, leading to much of the wild mass guessing within the fandom. There are also many, mostly European-only, comics that introduce several original characters.
Films — Live-Action
- Alien and Predator have their own Expanded Universe, including several cross-over miniseries published by Dark Horse Comics during the late '80s and '90s. The first three miniseries for Aliens were originally a continuation of the second Alien movie; however, the release of Alien³ rendered the events of those series incompatible with the movie's continuity, since it killed Newt and Hicks at the beginning of the movie, and Ripley at the very end. Dark Horse got around this by re-releasing the series in graphic novel format, with new names for the series as well as renaming Newt as Billie and Hicks as Wilkes, and stuck with using original characters after that. There have also been many Alien and Predator novels and video games released, including a few Alien vs. Predator games for the PC.
- A good number of these materials are now also Canon Discontinuity thanks to Prometheus.
- And now this has gone into a (divergent) full circle thanks to Dark Horse Comics publishing Prometheus comics which have Predator–Xenomorph–Engineer Mêlée à Trois.
- Alien Vs Predator Vs The Terminator comics were also made by Dark Horse Comics, tying the Terminator franchise into the expanded universe as well.
- The Back to the Future trilogy was itself novelized, but also spawned a theme park attraction, a two-season animated series, a video game, and a comic book series — each with their own new stories to add. As far as overall canonicity goes, it's an intentional Flip-Flop of God; creator Bob Gale has said that any of these spin-offs could be canon based on the fan's preferences, since the series deals with multiple timelines.
- Blade Runner spawned three novel sequels and a video game taking place in the film's universe — as well as another film, Soldier, which (unofficially, due to rights issues) also takes place in the Blade Runner universe. A sequel and three short films followed in 2017.
- Darkman spawned a series of (quite good) novels, and a short-lived comic book series. Recently the character was licensed to Dynamite Comics, who will be publishing original stories. They've already put out an Evil Dead crossover.
- Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two have Dune: Prophecy, which expands on the history of the Bene Gesserit.
- Not counting (though some do) the In Name Only television series, Friday the 13th has a surprisingly large number of books and comics.
- Hellraiser has a surprisingly huge, detailed Expanded Universe, primarily due to many of the cast and crew from the film series contributing, even series originator Clive Barker, and Peter Atkins (the writer of the second, third and fourth films).
- Jim Henson's non-Muppet fantasy films each have expanded universe material in the form of graphic novels.
- The Dark Crystal had a two-volume prequel, the OEL Manga Legends of the Dark Crystal, via Tokyopop over 2007–10. Archaia Publishing introduced its own prequel trilogy, The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths, in 2011; that was overseen by the film's production designer Brian Froud. This was later followed by Power of the Dark Crystal in 2017, an adaptation of a sequel film that ended up stuck in Development Hell, which gained a sequel in 2018 titled Beneath the Dark Crystal. Finally, as a way of introducing the setting of the 2019 prequel series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, four Dark Crystal prequel novels were released between 2016 and 2019, though certain elements and events of their shared story vastly differed.
- Labyrinth had a OEL Manga sequel from Tokyopop, the four-volume Return to Labyrinth, over 2006–10. Archaia Entertainment is working on a prequel presenting the origin story of fan-favorite Jareth the Goblin King; while quality concerns are keeping that in Development Hell for now, this hasn't stopped one-shot stories from appearing in the company's Free Comic Book Day compilations ("Hoggle and the Worm" in 2012, and a Sir Didymus story in 2013). Interestingly, the planned prequel won't be compatible with Return to Labyrinth. This eventually emerged as Labyrinth: Coronation, which revealed Jareth as having been another baby taking into the Labyrinth and his mother trying to solve the maze.
- Independence Day: Three novels were released, starting with a novelization that goes into further detail on the characters, situations, and overall concept not explored in the film. The second, Silent Zone, gives information on Dr. Okun's background, and the third, War in the Desert, deals with another group of fighters who faced the invaders in Saudi Arabia.
- Much like its fellow Lucasfilm property, Indiana Jones has expanded beyond the theatrical films to include, most prominently, the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles depicting the hero as a boy and a young man, and many novels, comics books, and video games. Notably, outside of the early 80s comics that were outright contradicted by later movies, almost all of it is plausibly Canon. Though if all of it is canon, then Indy doesn't have a whole lot of time for teaching.
- The cult favorite series Kolchak: The Night Stalker has inspired a set of follow-on novels featuring the series characters.
- The Marvel Cinematic Universe is, as it says in the name, composed out of cinematic movies, and these movies tell the primary story of the setting and are it's main draw and money-maker. Owing to its success, however, it also has a lot of non-movie entries under its banner that help expand the setting or show the impact the events of the various movies have on the verse as a whole in greater detail.
- For starters, the primary form of expanded storytelling are the TV series that aired between 2012 and 2019, including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel's Netflix shows. All of these TV shows are produced by Marvel Studios' sister company Marvel Television. As a result of struggles behind the scenes, there is something of a disconnection between the films and TV shows; while the latter are considered "canon" to the setting and are allowed to reference the events of the movies, they have no direct impact on their overall Myth Arc and are never referenced by them, their canonicity pertaining to the fact they don't outright contradict the films and are allowed to use some secondary characters in bit-part roles and cameos. It was not until Avengers: Endgame that a character originally appearing in the TV shows spoilerEdwin Jarvis from Agent Carter, if you were wondering even appeared in the movies in a cameo. Notably, there was still enough interplay between Marvel Studios and Marvel Television to create a solid continuity without contradictions, but mostly by virtue of Marvel TV having to adjust and adapt to whatever course Marvel Studios is setting. For instance, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had to completely overhaul its premise a mere seven episodes into the first season as a result of the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The Netflix shows benefited from being more street-level and self-contained in this regard, giving them much more creative freedom without running the risk of contradicting the films.
- At the end of 2019, however, Marvel Television was shut down, meaning all future TV shows will be made by Marvel Studios themselves. As such, they will be considered to be full-fledged entries to the franchise on the same level as the movies themselves, averting this trope entirely. All of the above shows that are available on Disney+ —which is to say, all but the Netflix ones— are listed under their Marvel Legacies banner, since they aren't needed to keep up with the narrative of the main, Phase-divided MCU.
- Marvel also releases promotional Tie-in comics that are meant to promote the movies and use plotlines and characters that first appeared in them. Generally nothing major happens in these comics (the biggest name character from the source material to exclusively appear in such a comic is U.L.T.I.M.O, here reimagined as a H.Y.D.R.A creation made out of Ultron drones) although one comic, Fury's Big Week, was used to wrap up some dangling plotlines from The Incredible Hulk as that movie was unlikely to receive a sequel for legal reasons.
- Men in Black: In addition to novelizations of the first two films, two original novels were released, Men in Black: The Green Saliva Blues and Men In Black The Grazer Conspiracy, set after the first film and featuring Jay and Elle.
- Other New Line Cinema horror properties such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Final Destination and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre also have a large number of novels, short story collections, comic books, and in Freddy's case, a television series.
- Pirates of the Caribbean has spawned a number of novels, short films, comics, and games.
- Although not actually canon, Red Dawn (1984) got an Expanded Universe in the form of Red Dawn +20.
- Each of the eight major characters from Repo! The Genetic Opera have their own Myspace page. Whatever happens there is considered Canon. Rotti is understandably a very busy man and only occasionally present, but his children are there whenever they're supposed to be working, and Grave-Robber apparently drums up a lot of new clientele through the site.
- The Sixth Sense: A three-book children's series, The Sixth Sense: Secrets From Beyond, was released in 2000. Set after the events of the film, it follows Cole Sears as he continues to encounter ghosts and, in some cases, resolve their unfinished business so they can pass on.
- Stargate-verse: In addition to the movie and TV series, six novels were produced based on the film, and over fifty based on the three TV series, along with multiple comic series and video games.
- Star Wars Expanded Universe: All of it is vetted by either George Lucas or his employees, who have at times vetoed plot points, new characters, and entire stories. There are indeed people whose actual paid jobs are purely to assist in the management of all the disparate plot points in this vast, money-generating machine. Even in cases where an Expanded Universe story blatantly contradicts either the films (on account of many stories being written before the prequels existed) or the rest of the Expanded Universe, it usually remains Canon: in most cases, the aforementioned employees are tasked with forming as many retcons as needed to resolve the discrepancy.
- George Lucas views only his films and Star Wars: The Clone Wars as canon, referring to Expanded Universe works as a parallel universe. Leeland Chee went against George Lucas's statements many times by claiming that just about everything is canon (they have a policy to determine the exceptions), then eventually said that there was a "Films Only" canon, and a "Films and EU" canon, this being before the Star Wars: The Clone Wars pilot film and TV series. He then added that whichever is "more canon" is ultimately up to the tastes of the individual fan.
- Disney's sequel trilogy has necessitated the announcement that the old Expanded Universe is now an Alternate Continuity known as Star Wars Legends, and all new films, TV shows, comics, and novels are created (more extensively than before) to fit into the continuity established by the six films and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The reason for the more careful vetting is that under Disney's current rules, new Expanded Universe stories are just as canon as the movies.
- TRON spent years as a Cult Classic, but its revival began in 2003 with TRON 2.0 and the Ghost in the Machine graphic novel (now Canon Discontinuity). The "canon" timeline now includes both TRON and TRON: Legacy. It also contains the Betrayal graphic novel, the Flynn Lives Alternate Reality Game, TRON: Evolution (and Tron Battle Grids in that Jalen was said by Word of God to be the champion of that game), and the animated series TRON: Uprising.
- Few people know that the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, itself based (very loosely) on the Gary K. Wolf novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, has some nicely concise Expanded Universe material. The novel Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit? (it's really spelled that way, because Roger stutters his p's) is a direct sequel to the film, and gives us plenty of more material on how the series' world functions, and much more about the life and family of Eddie Valiant. There are also comics and a couple of short stories.
Literature
- There exists an interesting phenomenon: a bootleg Expanded Universe, created in the cracks between copyright laws of different countries. An example is the Expanded Universe several Russian fantasy writers created around J. R. R. Tolkien's works: illegal everywhere in the English-speaking world, published officially back in the Motherland. It includes such works as The Black Book Of Arda and Beyond the Dawn.
- The Cthulhu Mythos is a particularly informal Expanded Universe based around the works of H. P. Lovecraft, all writers (and Call of Cthulhu game designers) after him are generally considered to be outside "The Mythos Proper".
- Harry Potter has a growing expanded universe. Details on the Wizarding World and other characters are established by J.K. Rowling in various interviews and short stories. However, the main source of expanded universe material is Pottermore, an official website which posts extra story material and other information. In addition, the Fantastic Beasts series shows what the wizarding world was like during Dumbledore's early adulthood and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child shows what Harry's son experienced as a Hogwarts student.
- Interesting to note is the Harry Potter wiki, which is fan-made but very extensive, has a policy page on the tiers of canon. Very basically, books and original writings from Rowling herself are considered 1st tier canon, films she's involved in but did not directly write are 2nd, and games licensed without her involvement are 3rd, all are considered "canon" unless contradicted by a source on a higher tier.
- William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land had some other works published that were set in the same universe, like Eternal Love, Nightmares of the Fall and Awake in the Night Land.
- The Ring of Fire Series, a series that currently stands at nearly twenty novels and six short story collections also has currently sixty two issues of The Grantville Gazette, a digitally published collection of short stories written by fans and selected by the series authors, and are officially canon.
- Tellarium Games back in the early '80s made text adventure sequels to Fahrenheit 451, Dragonworld, and the Green-Sky Trilogy with the blessing of, and heavy input from, the series authors, making them at least semi-canonical (and in the case of Below the Root, definitely canonical) sequels.
- Warrior Cats has 13 comic books, 2 plays, multiple short stories, and 5 guidebooks (as well as one that was cancelled). These are all canon, being written by the authors themselves, except possibly Brightspirit's Mercy and The Clans Decide, which happen in the middle of a book's story rather than in one the series' plentiful time skips.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5 has Expanded Universe in the form of role-playing game sourcebooks. There are canonical comics and a lot of novels. Of the novels, only To Dream in the City of Sorrows, the Psi Corps trilogy, the Passing of the Techno-mages trilogy, the Legions of Fire trilogy, and the Anna Sheridan plot of The Shadow Within are canon. The John Sheridan plot of The Shadow Within is not canon. That's right, canon and non-canon in the same book.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer has many novels and comic books written by writers of the series that are of varying apocryphal status, and a Whedon-helmed comic-book series (along with a similar comic-book series for its spin-off series Angel) that's considered the Canon post-television storyline.
- The other, Non-Season 8/After The Fall comics are up in the air in continuity, as are all non-Post Chosen novels (those that are Post-Chosen are just non-Canon). Many of the novels are either side stories or prequels. The novel Go Ask Malice, for example, is a backstory for Faith that goes up until the episode Faith, Hope, Trick. It's status as Canon, like all of the novels, is unknown, but it does give a backstory for a character with very little and it doesn't violate Canon.
- The only bit of non-show or non-Season 8 comic that is considered "Canon" came from the fairly short-lived Buffy the Vampire Slayer role-playing game, and that is Faith's last name; Lehane. This has been confirmed as Canon by its use in the Joss-Whedon-written last issue of the Season 8 comics.
- Charmed has novels of both original stories and several based on actual episodes.
- CSI has a lot of this. Each member of the franchise has a line of novels and comic books associated with it, and then there are the video games.
- The Doctor Who Expanded Universe may in fact be Canon to the TV series as two episodes directly reference it in Mythology Gags. Other parts contradict it. But then the Whoniverse (Expanded and otherwise) tends towards Broad Strokes continuity and to a large extent anything goes within it. Former producer Russell T Davies has stated that he considers the Big Finish Doctor Who audio plays to be in-continuity. That statement was made back when the audio plays explicitly broke from continuity with the books; they've since been amended into a single continuity by the audio play The Company of Friends. The Series 3 episodes "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood" have been acknowledged as an adaptation of the Seventh Doctor Doctor Who New Adventures novel Human Nature (the novels themselves form two distinct and only semi-compatible continuities) and, confusing things yet further, some writers of the spin-off material took the view they took place in Alternate Universes to each other.
- Firefly (the original 'Verse) has a small Expanded Universe in form of comics, RPG supplements and one novelization (of Serenity).
- Glee has its own prequel book now.
- Heroes has a small Expanded Universe with comic books and graphic novels, not much of it Canon and the rest getting smaller the longer the show goes on. Now that the show itself has been canceled, the Expanded Universe presumably has free rein again.
- Highlander has a line of novels that were apparently deemed canon, as their information appears on the offical Watcher Chronicles CD-Rom released during the series. The comics are a bit more disputed, especially since they were met with mixed reviews.
- Lost has a relatively small Expanded Universe so far — a few books, two Alternate Reality Games, and a Video Game. The only one of these that's been declared Canon is the first ARG, The Lost Experience — and that only applies to the backstory information given relating to the series, not the main plot.
- Murder, She Wrote has a series of novels that started back in 1989 and continues to the present day, with book 50 being released in 2019.
- Aside from the tie-in novels released with it, Roswell has a series of four novels released after the series ended that constitute a sort of print 4th season, although its canon status has not been explicitly confirmed.
- Smallville released two series totaling eighteen novels between them, and at least a few comics series, including a Season 11 continuation of the original TV series.
- Starting in 2018, Stranger Things began releasing novels and comics that expanded the story beyond the series.
- Doctor Who's spin-off Torchwood has its own expanded materials in the form of novels, magazine strips, radio plays and audios. Perhaps the most interesting one so far is the magazine strip "Shrouded", penned by Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones's actor). Our Ianto is quite dead, but an evil Ianto from an alternate timeline is very much alive, and saw the funeral. Is this Canon?.
- 24 had several novels and comics usually set before the beginning of the series, mainly using most of the cast from the first season. As a result it mainly featured the characters from early in the show, but some of the later characters were retroactively added in to some of them. There's also a video game set between the show's second and third seasons which is canon, in which the villain from season 2 returns and is finally taken down by Jack by the end.
- Besides the main series, Twin Peaks has an audio play regarding Agent Cooper's life, the Defictionalization of Laura Palmer's secret diary, the movie and according to Word of God Lost Highway.
Professional Wrestling
- Back in the days before the internet, when Kayfabe reigned supreme, pro wrestling had the Apter magazines (named for Bill Apter, the most prolific publisher of such), which were something between an Expanded Universe and a Massively Multiplayer Crossover of all wrestling federations. While the Apter mags were not endorsed by any of the promotions they covered, and nothing reported in them (from rankings, to wrestler bios, to interviews, to "who would win?" fantasy supercards between promotions, etc.) could be considered Canon to any promotion in particular, the promoters of the time certainly didn't mind the help in exposing their characters and storylines to audiences.
Tabletop Games
- The BattleTech Expanded Universe: A long series of sci-fi novels, a pair of Video Game spin-offs, and a Western Animation series.
- Dark Future gained an expanded background courtesy of a series of novels by Kim Newman, who also wrote many of the early Warhammer-related fiction.
- Various settings originally created for Dungeons & Dragons have been expanded beyond game sourcebooks and adventures with novels, video games, comics, etc. Most prominently Dragonlance, which is outright better known for its novels (the first trilogy of which are considered outright classics of fantasy literature – not just D&D, all fantasy novels) and the Forgotten Realms, which even got a movie.
- Eclipse Phase encourages fans to produce material for the setting, leading to some extensive universe expansion efforts like the Farcast Yearblog.
- Magic: The Gathering has a truly impressive list of novels, comics and extraneous vignettes, with various levels of connection to the actual card game; the recap page itself is still very incomplete.
- There are dozens of Vampire: The Masquerade Novels as well as hundreds of total novels set in the World of Darkness.
- Warhammer 40,000 has taken its background and turned it into an Expanded Universe, with material spanning not only the tabletop game but countless novels, graphic novels and video games, and the vast and incredibly detailed faux-historical accounts. The same's been done for Warhammer Fantasy.
Theme Parks
- Compared to many other attractions in the Disney Theme Parks, The Haunted Mansion has a very robust expanded universe, having spawned two films, a Muppet crossover special, a video game, multiple comic mini-series, and several books.
- At Universal Studios:
- In Back to the Future: The Ride, Doc now has his own major research and development facility, plus we get to see more of Hill Valley in different eras. The ride serves as an unofficial "mini-sequel" to the film trilogy that you, the guest, could now be a major part of.
- E.T. Adventure reveals what E.T.'s planet looks like, who some of his alien friends are, and the other types of alien species that live on his planet.
Video Games
- Assassin's Creed took its first stab at this with Assassin's Creed: The Fall, a comic miniseries. Since then, the AC Expanded Universe has gotten bigger with numerous comics, novels, spinoff games, online websites, an audio drama, tabletop games, a film and forthcoming Netflix shows produced over the last 14 years. Almost all of it is considered canon, and is regularly referenced within the games.
- Blizzard loves this trope:
- WarCraft
- Both StarCraft and Diablo have a handful of books, comics, short stories and animated shorts that either explore the background of main characters or simply narrate interesting events from each game's setting.
- Overwatch has animated shorts, animated stills, webcomics, in-universe news articles, and graphic novels. Not only are these canon, but are actually being used as the means to tell the story of Overwatch, which in-game has no actual story mode.
- Disgaea’s Expanded Universe, the Disgaea Novels, has currently 15 books. It introduces new family members of the game’s cast and is plays out like traditional Disgaea crossed with the Harem Genre.
- .hack started as four games, an anime, a 4 episode OVA, and a light novel. Now its Canon alone has 5 novels*Epitaph of Twilight,AI Buster, Zero, Another Birth, and Cell, 4 Manga*Legend of The Twilight, Alcor, Gn U, and Quantum I(Introduction), 5 games*IMOQ, G.U., Link, Versus, and Guilty Dragon, 4 OVA*Intermezzo, Liminality, Returner and Thanatos Report, 3 animes*SIGN, Roots, and Quantum, 2 movies*Trilogy and Beyond The World, and a web novel. And that's not even mentioning the multitude of uncanon titles, artbooks, and guidebooks.
- The Final Fantasy series has built up an increasingly large Expanded Universe over time, particularly with regard to Final Fantasy VII, which, in addition to its prequel and spin-off games, has the Advent Children movie, two anime OVA's and several novellas. There's also the Legend of the Crystals anime OVA, which takes place 200 years after Final Fantasy V, and the Final Fantasy: Unlimited anime series and the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie (though their relationship to the games is mostly thematic).
- Surprisingly Gears of War has one that includes five novels and a comic book series.
- Halo's Expanded Universe consists of multiple novels, comics, guidebooks, online exclusives, commercials, live-action features and films, and Alternate Reality Games, along with an anime series. All of it, whether created directly by staff from Bungie or 343 Industries (the studios behind the games), or by third parties working under their direct control, is not only completely canonical, but is closely integrated with the games. For example, much of Halo: Reach will only be understood by people who read the books; this disclaimer even applies to its official website.
- When canon does conflict, general policy is that new material overrides old material, and that games and other media created directly by Bungie/343i staff take precedence over everything else, except when explicitly stated to be otherwise.
- King's Quest had three obscure tie-in novels, the Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles (doubling as Copy Protection), the Peter Spears guides which are embellished novelizations of the games with plenty of supplemental material, and the Fan Sequel and Fan Remake games which fill in a lot of holes the old games did not.
- Mass Effect and Dragon Age have expanded universes. Rather than having books or comics that are simply adaptations, they tell their own coherent story. The novels and comics are often a source of critical plot-related information, leading to some events or people being referenced that the gamer may never have heard of. One notable feature is that both novel series are written by the games' lead writers, which is different from the usual operating procedure of Expanded Universe materials. The comics, on the other hand, are written by other people (in both series).
- Might and Magic has a small expanded universe consisting of three novels, two by Geary Gravel set in an otherwise unvisited world (the original intent was to make it a trilogy leading up to a new Might & Magic game in that world, but when plans for Might & Magic VI shifted to using the Heroes-introduced world of Enroth, the third book fell through and was cancelled), and one by Mel Odom which has little to do with anything else in the series beyond some shared character-names.
- The Myst series now stands at three novels, five games, a comic series and an MMO.
- Resident Evil is one of the more complex examples of this, as there exist numerous spin-off games*the Outbreak duology, Survivor, Darkside Chronicles, Dead Aim, Umbrella Chronicles, and... sigh even Umbrella Corps, manga*Prelude to the Fall, The Marhawa Desire, and Heavenly Island, literature*Wesker's Report II, Incubate, novellas of Zero, REmake, 2, 3, Code: Veronica, 4, and 5, novelizations of Umbrella Chronicles, Damnation, and Vendetta, and the SURVIVE series of air-soft gun magazines., films*Degeneration, Damnation, Vendetta and Death Island television series*Infinite Darkness, comics*Infinite Darkness: The Beginning and even stage plays*The Stage that all exist within the canon of Capcom's mainline series of games — and then a whole bunch of those that exist well outside of it.*Gaiden, Operation Raccoon City, the Paul W.S. Anderson film series and their novelizations, a film reboot, a live-action Netflix series, seven novels penned by author S.D. Perry, a prequel novella, a prequel comic published by Marvel and a few comic series by WildStorm, multiple radio plays, several outlandish manhua adaptations, mobile games and numerous stage plays (including, of course, a musical).
- RuneScape has a trilogy of novels based on it. Word of God says that they are considered cannon except for where they contradict the game. The character Kara-Meir showed up in-game at the Battle of Lumbridge. Before that, in the in-game Book of the Gods, the section about the Godless Faction contains a series of messages sent between her and a colleague, showing the story of how they founded the Godless Faction. Because of her important status in the Godless Faction, she is likely to appear again in-game.
- The Suikoden series has this with novelizations, comics, and collections of short stories.
- Tavern Talk has a short story called "A Study in Fairy Dust", which is included in the Supporter Upgrade. It's a Slice of Life tale about Melli helping a fairy return to his hometown.
- Touhou Project's expanded universe exists not only in manga and print works but also in ZUN's musical CDs which by themselves introduced two beloved characters to the series' canon.
- Wing Commander's Expanded Universe includes ten novels (both adaptations of other material and original stories), multiple game guides, a Western Animation series, a Collectible Card Game, and a movie, all of which officially count towards continuity.
- The Ur-Example for these is Zork. Hint books, feelies, novels, Choose Your Own Adventure Books, comics, an online role-playing game...Not bad for something that pre-dates graphics!
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner actually directly references the concept; in the Cheat Commandos toon "The Next Epi-Snowed", the in-universe writer of the series, A. Chimendez, puts in the Author Avatar character "Agent Chimendez" and Hand Waves the addition by explaining he's an Expanded Universe character, who appears in novelizations and read-along storybooks.
Webcomics
Web Original
- The film Red Dawn (1984) got an Expanded Universe in the form of a fan collaboration known as Red Dawn +20, which is a forum in which posters role play as veterans of the war in the present day, two decades after World War III's conclusion.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time has several comic book tie-ins. There's the main one based on the show, a Spin-Off focusing on Marceline and Princess Bubblegum, and a miniseries based on the Gender Flip episode.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender has a number of comics that chronicle the adventures of the Gaang that are not shown in the TV series.
- Likewise, the Classic Disney Shorts. Hard to find a medium without its approach to Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. And they have a propensity for crossovers with the Disney Animated Canon (be it in the sprawling comic book universe or series such as House of Mouse; and then there's Kingdom Hearts, adding both the Disney features and Final Fantasy).
- Daria has one, including the show, its two published manuals, its parent show Beavis and Butt-Head and any of its spin-offs. However, the term "Expanded Universe" usually refers to a group of interconnected Fan Verses that most serious fans know, with its own set of Original Characters who appear in multiple creators' fanworks.
- Crossing over with Recursive Adaptation - the DC Animated Universe pretty much became one in itself with its loads and loads of tie-in comic series, wholly separate from the "mainstream" comics multiverse. Many of those comics - especially The Batman Adventures - were critically acclaimed, and a few were even recursively recursively adapted into animation! (Remember Mad Love? That started out as a Batman Adventures special.)
- Futurama has a comic book series and four DTV movies, all of which served as a continuation of the television series before it was Un-Canceled. The comic book is still ongoing though, and may be an entirely different continuity at this point.
- The Kung Fu Panda movies have one in the form of Direct-To-Video specials and a television series.
- Looney Tunes has had comic books, movies, picture books, TV specials, spinoffs, and story CDs galore.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has a steadily growing one with the comic book series plus assorted chapter books and a series manual.
- The Simpsons has at least three comic books (One based on the show, one that's a yearly anthology based on Treehouse Of Horror, a Spin-Off focusing on Bart Simpson, and a few one-shots for characters like Lisa, Ralph Wiggum, Mr. Burns, Radioactive Man, Maggie, and Duffman).
- Transformers. A bunchload of comic books. A number of text stories. A handful of video games. And that's not even counting that not all the cartoons are in the same continuity. Many fans are split over what the primary source really is: the original cartoon is named as such by most, but many others choose the original comic series instead, or the British version thereof, with mixing-and-matching becoming increasingly popular. The term Canon is hard to apply here: It all happened, but didn't all happen in the same timeline. And with all the other continuities created since, it's become an expanded multiverse.
- Beast Wars itself is an example of an Expanded Universe. The TV series, due to the expense of CGI, could only have a limited roster of characters, which meant that most of the toyline didn't get to be in it. The later IDW Beast Wars comics exploited this situation by using all the toy-only characters they could, as well as some from the Japanese-only Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo shows-albeit chronally displaced or on Cybertron, so the TV series and the comics didn't clash.
- The aptly-named Universe line of toys and comics is built around this, featuring characters from all different timelines and universal streams fighting together in one war. Don't worry about how it happened, just accept it and enjoy the robo-carnage.
- Winx Club Magazine: While the comics initially retold the first and second season's plots, incompatible differences start to appear. Bloom, Musa, and Mirta getting jobs or Magix looking less futuristically magic and more as an urban magic setting are excusable. However, the Shaab Stone arc, the Trix being readmitted into Cloud Tower after losing their memories, and the presence of several comic-only transformations are quick to disabuse the fans of that notion.
Real Life
- In a way, how we figured out how this universe works. Originally, many thousands of years ago the genus Homo thought this planet was flat, sky was just up, and there was another realm that normally could not be seen, such as heaven or hades. Many people also thought that water predated everything else in this realm, or in fact even the gods. We know that people began figuring out that Earth was round and the sky was not just "up" but rather around us 2,500 years ago, and during the Renaissance the old Ptolemaic idea of planets going around in "epicycles" and that the Earth was center of creation was inaccurate. Fast forward a few centuries and with better telescopes and with Eisntein's Theory of Relativity we now know this planet is one of many, inside a galaxy that is one of many, and that this universe is ruled by quantum physics, which is still being learned.
- With that in mind, thousands of years ago many people just assumed a deity made things pop into existence. While one can argue this is true, we know now that this universe came from a rapid expansion from a small dot of extreme energy and has been cooling down and expanding ever since, with it forming matter, light, anti-matter and dark matter. Scientists are still not sure what came before the Big Bang.
Alternative Title(s): Extended Universe
RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo
| Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4