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Shared Fictional Settings

Introduction

Most fiction books that take place in the here & now are usualy assumed (and presented) as all being part of our reality. Of course, it can't be true for all since they often contradict one another. After all, many books and movie taking place during the same timeframe use fictional heads of states and since they cannot all occupy the same position at the same time, it follows that every single work of fictions must be, a priori, taking place in its own self-contain reality (no matter how similar to ours it might be).

However, sometime work can be easily linked together within a single continuity when the method of publication clearly identify it as such: a tv serie, a book marked "volume 1, 2, etc...", a group of movies using the same main actor playing the same character. In other cases, the link is more subtil but still clear enough that there is no ambiguity: the action take place in the same fictional city, a secondary character appears in every instance, an unique object is shown, a specific fictional event is refered to, etc ...

So sometime, "strings" of fictional works can be created by linking together various works which, at first sight, might not have been and this is what you will in this section. As works starts to accrue, it is interesting to note the number of specific elements within a given continuity and the "distinctiveness" that is created as well as the speculation regarding the impact it might have on unmentioned aspect. For example, the existence of a fictional city means that it either replace a know city within our world or occupy land which is empty here. If the city is large enough (such as gotham city, metropolic or edge city) it would, in the first case, slightly change the history and culture of that timeline (as naming pratices are based on specific events) and in the second cases would imply difference in population (a large amount of municipal citizens means either less person in other cities or more people in a country).

Note that the link only apply to the particular work mentioned and not to the many incarnations it might have had (batman from the 1989 movie and its sequels would be considered to be a different character then the one from the 1966 tv serie.)

Also note that parodies and imaginary stories (from the point of view of the characters) are not included in the following due to their nature (in "the simpsons", characters from the x-files guest star in an episode while in another one, a reference is made to the show itself).

Finaly, for the sake of brievity these procedures have been followed:

if there is multiple instance of confirmed links with a particular show, only the earliest will be noted.
if a work is a spinoff, no other type of link with the show where it originate will be noted. (mentioning a crossover would be redundant)