page_title: Mythology of Fringe
section_title: The parallel universe
hierarchical_section_title: Mythology of Fringe / The parallel universe
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Luftaufnahme des New Yorker World Trade Centers im März 2001 English: World Trade Center, New York, aerial view March 2001. Français&#160;: Le World Trade Center à New York. Vue aérienne datant de mars 2001. Italiano: Visione aerea del World Trade Center (New York) nel marzo del 2001. Русский: Всемирный торговый центр (Нью-Йорк) в марте 2001 года. 中文: 2001年3月，纽约世界贸易中心的航拍。
context_page_description: Fringe is an American science fiction drama television series originally broadcast from 2008 to 2013. The show, created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, revolves around the fictional Fringe Division, a congressionally funded federal law enforcement task force, manned primarily by Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security personnel. The task force is responsible for investigating crimes and phenomena related to fringe science and the individuals and conspiratorial organizations that perpetrate those acts. During the five-season series, the mythology and backstory of the show expanded exponentially across a broad spectrum of recurring themes, locations and characters to serialize story arcs and intricately link early episodes with later ones.
context_section_description: While the show is based in the prime universe, several of the events are driven by the influence of the parallel universe. The existence of the parallel universe was postulated by Walter and William while under the influence of psychedelic drugs, and they were able to create a window-like device to observe the universe from their own. They later theorized ways of transporting objects from one universe to the other; one involves the use of frequency harmonics to send objects across at certain times, though through conservation of mass, an object of similar mass would be brought back some time later.
  Within Fringe, the prime and parallel worlds are inexorably linked, hypothesized by the characters as the result of a divergent event in the past that formed the two universes. Quantum entanglement of objects between the two universes is significant, having been shown as part of the function of the doomsday device and an electric typewriter used by shapeshifters to communicate with the parallel universe. The parallel universe appears more technologically advanced than the prime one; in the keystone second-season episode "Peter", which takes place primarily in 1985, the parallel universe is shown to have cell phones, and zeppelins appear as a common form of transportation. In the show's present (2009 and onward), John F. Kennedy is alive as an ambassador to the United Nations, and other figures like John Lennon and Martin Luther King, Jr. are also alive. The United States in the parallel universe only consists of 48 states; while there exists a North and South Texas, other single states appear to take the place of two separate states in the prime universe, such as both North and South Carolina being the single "Carolina" in the parallel universe. Furthermore, much of western California has been lost, suggesting that a large earthquake along the San Andreas Fault has caused much of the coastal region to sink below sea level. Other effects on the global scale have caused sheep to become extinct, and made coffee and avocados valuable rarities. The singularities that plague the parallel universe can lead to destructive voids; to prevent these, the Fringe division there uses a fast-setting amber-like substance to prevent weakened areas from becoming destructive, but with no regard for innocents that may be trapped within it. A mass blight has affected vast areas of plant life, such as the area around Boston. While the September 11 attacks still occurred in the parallel universe, only the White House and The Pentagon were attacked, and the World Trade Center remains standing. Other changes exist in the parallel universe's popular culture; Eric Stoltz stars in Back to the Future, the musical Dogs has replaced Cats as the longest running Broadway musical, the Sherlock Holmes books were never written, and many comic book characters are different or do not exist such as Green Lantern being Red Lantern and Batman being the Mantis. In the Fringe episode, "6:02 AM EST", a radio broadcast of the Dodgers versus the Expos at Ebbets Field can be heard in the alternate universe, suggesting that the Major League Baseball franchises of the Montreal Expos and the Brooklyn Dodgers were not moved from their original cities.
caption: The World Trade Center towers were unaffected by the September 11th attacks in the parallel universe, leaving them as a landmark for the alternate world's Manhattan skyline.
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