Apocalyptic Log: Difference between revisions

Not to be confused with the apocalyptic Loge from [[Richard Wagner]]'s ''[[Der Ring Des Nibelungen|Götterdämmerung]]'', or for that matter, {{smallcaps| The Log}} from ''[[Naruto the Abridged Series]]''. Or with Apocalyptic [[Just for Pun|Lag]]. See also [[Video Will]], the various times when the [[Cassette Craze]] applies to disappearances, and some of the less pleasant cases of [[Message in A Bottle]].

{{examples}}

* ''[[I Am Legend]]'' is a variation on the typical setup, as its the main character keeping the log of his continuing research into the plague, almost three years after the [[Zombie Apocalypse|Vampire Apocalypse]].

* ''[[Island of Terror]]'' had such a log, explaining how anti-cancer research resulted in the creation of the bone-eating Silicates.

* George Pal's version of ''[[The Time Machine]]'' in the form of the talking rings.

* In ''Overdrawn at the Memory Bank'' (which appeared on ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''), there's one of these for the process the heroine uses to try to save Fingal's mind.

== Literature ==

* The Last Survivors series is done this way.

* Played with in ''[[World War Z]]'', which is an oral history of a narrowly-averted [[Zombie Apocalypse]].

* ''And the Ass Saw the Angel'', by Nick Cave, is the protagonist's stream of thought as he sinks into [[Quicksand Sucks|quicksand]].

* In the novel based on true events ''Mila 18'', one person decides to keep a log of his starving to death as a Jew in Nazi occupied Warsaw. He figures since he is starving, he might as well contribute to science with full logs of all the effects. That is not the only instance of [[Apocalyptic Log]], as other Jews also record the atrocities and their resistance for posterity. [[Downer Ending|This is not a happy book]].

* ''[[The Third World War (Literature)|The Third World War]]: August 1985'' includes excerpts from the emergency logs of three communities during the war and pulls this twice. The first log ends when the building it is in is destroyed by a bombing raid (with a statement that the book was found in the ruins), but resumes with the backup copy describing the situation. The second, from an area in central Birmingham, ends with {{spoiler|the warning of Birmingham's imminent nuclear destruction being received, stopping mid-word. A statement follows that its charred remains were found in the destroyed building}}.

* Australian novel ''Underground'' is essentially a set of memoirs written by Leo James -- washed-up property developer and brother to the [[President Evil|tyrannical Australian Prime Minister]] -- during his imprisonment in the near-abandoned Parliament House. In these memoirs, he records the events that led to the permanent state of emergency, his unwanted travels up and down Australia's east coast, his capture and the weeks of torture and imprisonment that followed. The memoirs and the novel end with the moments before Leo's execution:

{{quote| I hear marching footsteps in the hall outside. Orders yelled. I think the fuckers are actually going to shoot me in ''here''. And God help them, they sound Australian.}}

* [[CS Lewis (Creator)|CS Lewis]]'s ''[[Till We Have Faces]]'' has Orual break off in mid-sentence, followed by a section (in italics) saying that she had been found dead with her head on the book. Unusually, she was not writing about her impending death; once she commented at the beginning of Part II that she wished she had time to do it over, but since time is short she will just go on, she never again alludes to knowing that she hasn't got much time.

* In the last ''[[Empire From the Ashes]]'' book, Sean and friends find an ancient digital diary documenting the fall of society on that planet, {{spoiler|as the general populous went mad from listening to the dwindling hyperspace transmissions of the Fourth Imperium as a loose bio-weapon killed '''everything''' on '''every''' other world, turning against technology as the source of the disaster}}.

* ''[[The Stormlight Archive (Literature)|The Stormlight Archive]]'' has an [[Apocalyptic Log]] in the form of {{spoiler|Dalinar's visions}}. Yes, an [[Apocalyptic Log]] {{spoiler|from God}}.

* In ''[[Ratmans Notebooks]]'' (since renamed to [[Willard]]), the titular character's diary has become this by the end of the story.

== Live Action TV ==

** "[[The Curse of Fenric]]" featured the runic inscriptions of a Viking who made the mistake of stealing a flask [[Sealed Evil in A Can|containing Fenric, Evil Incarnate.]]

{{quote| "I am the only one left now. I raise these stones to my wife, Astrid. May she forgive my sin. The day grows dark, and I sense the evil curse rising from the sea. I know now what the curse of Fenric seeks: the treasures from the Silk Lands in the east. I have heard the treasures whisper in my dreams. I have heard the magic words that will release great powers. I shall bury the treasure for ever. Tonight, I shall die, and the words die with me."}}

** "There is something... from the window..."

* In the online game ''[[Exmortis]]'', while exploring the abandoned house you discover the journal of the most recent inhabitant, a man who found the house while hunting deer in the surrounding forest. The earliest entries report that shortly after he started exploring the house, he heard countless voices screaming at him in rage before he fell unconscious: when he awoke, he found himself unable to leave, forced to listen to the ghostly voices speaking to him- voices belonging to "The Exmortis." Over the course of the next few entries, the writing grows increasingly deranged, as the man is slowly brainwashed into a pawn of the Exmortis. The final entry claims that a party of five hikers is approaching the house, and all of them are to be sacrificed in a ceremony to release the Exmortis into the mortal realm. Later {{spoiler|it's revealed that the writer is none other than the player character, suffering from amnesia after making four out of the five sacrifices needed to release the Exmortis.}}

* In one quest in ''[[Fable II (Video Game)|Fable II]]'', you can find pages from the increasingly illegible diary of a man who escaped being sacrificed by cultists, befriended a band of hobbes, and started to think ''he'' was a hobbe too.

** The promotional site for ''Fable II'' also included one of these to explain the fall of the Heroes Guild, covering the journals of an unnamed Hero who survives the fall and then tries to escape extermination at the hands of the anti-Hero mobs. {{spoiler|He even writes a journal entry as he's dying of a gunshot wound with the mob breaking down the door to his house. What a trooper.}}

** Croc's is a close second for most unsettling... his doctor simply can't believe that he's cannibalistic like the rumor's say... well, at the end he escapes... she makes it out unscathed, but the scene she sees... [[An Arm and A Leg|isn't pretty]].

* The ''[[Fallout]]'' series is packed with these, most notably [[Evilutionary Biologist|The Master]]'s.

** The Keller Family Tapes one must collect in order to get the Experimental MIRV in ''[[Fallout]] 3'' detail how one family desperately tried to survive the coming war by finding a vault in the National Guard Depot to huddle in. One is even recorded as the bombs are falling. The last of the logs is from a member of the family who refuses to spend life inside the vault with his father. He decides to give them his part of the passcode and walk into a mushroom cloud. "Have a happy Holocaust!" There are also some holotapes in Little Lamplight that shed some light on him the city started up.

*** [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Diary_of_Candace_Keller There's a cut tape that provides an epilogue] for the Keller family's saga that can be obtained in the PC version through the console. It was originally meant to be found in the shelter that the other tapes are about trying to get to, and indicates that at the very least Dad and Candace survived. However, Candace complains that her father keeps leaving the shelter and going out into the bombed-out DC ruins to scavenge for useless junk and that everytime he does, he lets a little more radiation in...

== Real Life ==

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viCAX8WupTY "They are piling dead and wounded in our tunnel. Arm's weak from pounding key, long hours, no rest, short rations, tired. I know how a mouse feels. Caught in a trap waiting for guys to come along and finish it up."]

{{quote| We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.<br />

It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more.<br />

Last entry. ''For God's sake look after our people'' }}

* The onboard video camera was recovered from the wreckage of Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' after the disaster and the last few minutes were played, although it stopped before the actual disintigration.

* And so forth. Real life examples aren't going to detail an apocalyptic horror, or anything, but will definitely qualify in the "desperation and insanity grow from entry to entry" sense.

** And even in cases where the witnesses weren't part of those who died, records of traumatic events still capture moments in history with terrifying clarity: the Zapruder film of JFK being shot, the radio dispatch of the Hindenberg crash, the morning of 9/11/2001...

(in another hand) Here it seems the author died. }}

* This is sort of the whole reason they have black boxes on airplanes. The CVR, or Cockpit Voice Recorder, records everything said in the cockpit and over the radio on an aircraft.

ATC - you think so? ok let's head for LA.<br />

ALA 261 - [thump]<br />

* The Balibo Five - a group of TV reporters from Australia and New Zealand who travelled to East Timor in 1975, shortly before the Indonesian military seized control of the territory. Three days before he was killed - suspected to be the work of Indonesian militants - one of the reporters, Greg Shackleton, recorded a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojS0B2WRS3o film newsreel] about the local villagers and their impending plight in the face of military aggression.

* [[American Civil War|"June 3rd 1864, Cold Harbor Virginia, I was killed." The final entry of a Massachusetts volunteer in the Army of The Potomac.]]

{{quote| That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again (open microphone for two seconds). It is hovering and (open microphone for one second) it's not an aircraft.}}

* [[Ulysses S Grant]] completed his autobiography five days before succumbing to throat cancer. His notes concerning the progress of his cancer were reportedly required reading in medical schools for many years.

[[Category:Horror Tropes]]

[[Category:Apocalyptic Log]]