Derelict Graveyard: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

Between the idea of exploring tumbling derelicts crammed with ancient technology, apparently dead hulks suddenly coming to life, a hidden base made of ancient battleships linked together, the explorers running into weird indigenous creatures or the mutant cannibal descendants of the original crews, the kind of dread powers that can gather all these vessels together in the first place, and simply the whole idea of abandoned, empty derelicts, the [[Derelict Graveyard]] is ''insanely'' [[Rule of Cool|cool]].

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

 

* The Autobots encounter one in the ''[[Transformers Headmasters]]'' episode "Mystery of the Space Pirate Ship".

* The "shoal zones" in ''Mobile Suit Gundam'' and its sequels are debris fields of wrecked space colonies, spaceships, mobile suits, etc.

* The episode "Magnetic Rose" of ''[[Memories]]'' takes place in one.

* The debris belt from ''[[Gundam Seed]]'' qualifies. Arguably, the L4 colony cluster does too.

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'': In the first film they have to pass over a ship graveyard to get to the island, and in the third the meeting of the Pirate Lords takes place at Shipwreck cove.

** Specifically, the meeting was in the town of Shipwreck, which was within Shipwreck Cove, on Shipwreck Isle.

** It's actually the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

* The film ''[[Real Steel]]'' features one. Charlie and Max break into a robot junkyard to find parts to build a new robot boxer. After a near-death experience, Max discovers the film's robot protagonist, Atom, buried in the mud.

* In the opening scene of ''[[Deep Rising]]'', before we switch to the main plot the creatures are seen travelling through a deep sea ship graveyard, some of them hundreds of years old, ''all of which they presumably attacked, ate all the people on it, and sank the ships afterwards''. There are even the remains of whale skeletons besides the derelict ships.

 

== Literature ==

 

* In the [[Backstory]] of [[David Brin]]'s ''Startide Rising'', a Terran starship discovers a fleet of derelict [[Precursors|Progenitor]] ships and unleashes a galaxies-wide holy war.

* [[Andre Norton]]'s novels contain several:

** ''Forerunner'': the desert north of Kuxortal holds a field of Forerunner spacecraft contaminated with radiation.

** ''Sargasso of Space'': a Forerunner installation on the planet Limbo had dragged many ships to their destruction over the eons.

** ''Web of the [[Witch World]]'': The harbor in Sippar.

* Sabriel, in the first ''[[Old Kingdom]]'' book, lands her Paperwing coincidentally in a ship's graveyard. But not any ship's graveyard: this one is not underwater, but underground, and enchanted heavily to protect it, because it is full of the burial ships of kings. As such, there's nothing harmful lurking in the ship grounds itself, but she does find a [[Human Popsicle]] that needs rescuing while she's there.

* The ''[[Katanas Are Just Better|Katana]]'' fleet in [[Timothy Zahn]]'s novel ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy|Dark Force Rising]]'' is a lost fleet of warships that had blindly jumped into hyperspace years ago, after a hive virus drove the entire crew of each vessel insane. One of the main characters knew where it was and had been selling them off one at a time, and after the heroes saved him from Thrawn he decided to show them where the others were. But as it turned out, Thrawn already knew, and he stole a march on them by first taking all the remaining functional ships, then setting a trap.

* In the ''Dream Park'' South Seas Treasure Game, some important items are found amid a collection of abandoned ships and planes, which the villainous {{spoiler|Fore sorcerors}} had summoned to New Guinea with their [[Cargo Cult]] magic.

* Star Trek's ''Dominion War'' series placed one of these in the Badlands.

* In the ''[[Starfleet Corps of Engineers]]'' series, we've got the Sargasso Sector, named for the Sargasso Sea on Earth. It's a junkyard of abandoned ships floating around a collection of black holes and quasars. The protagonists are assigned to clear a path through it to allow a convoy access - one of the series' more notable cases of [[Space Is an Ocean]].

* [[The Diving Universe]] novel ''Boneyards'' has the Boneyard, a massive derelict graveyard full of ancient spaceships.

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Andromeda]]'' had a graveyard full of abandoned High Guard ships, captured by the Nietzscheans after the war and left to sit there for 3 centuries until they could figure out how to deal with the [[A Is]] defending them. There were also a couple of episodes where they came across single abandoned ships from the same time, generally presumed to be haunted wrecks (including the Andromeda itself in the pilot).

* The old, derelict graveyard where ghosts went to recharge in ''[[The Ghost Busters]]''.

* Several examples in ''[[Life After People]]''.

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

 

** Examples of merely a lot of spread-out wrecks happen occasionally, including in the graphic novel ''Bloodquest''.

** Space Hulks - giant asteroids with the ancient wreckage of hundreds of ships embedded in them - are a recurring plot device and the basis for an entire series of Space Hulk games, whether full of handfuls of Genestealers, millions of Orks, or an STC device the Imperium has to snatch from the claws/choppas of aforementioned nasties.

* The Lintha Family stronghold of Bluehaven in ''[[Exalted]]''.

* Several locations in the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' setting qualify, including the ring of battered wrecks that encircle Monette's isle, and the kelp-mired vessels enmeshed in the domain of Saragoss.

* An entire level of ''[[Gradius|Gradius Gaiden]]'' is made entirely of huge wrecked ships... all of which [[Continuity Nod|were once bosses in previous games!]]

* The ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games have a few:

** {{spoiler|Actually, pretty much the entire game takes place in one.}}

* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'', the planet Rakata becomes a ship graveyard due to an ancient jamming field installed there to keep wandering ships away from [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon|the Star Forge]].

** It also has Malachor Five in the second game, which is surrounded by the wrecks of Republic and Mandalorian warships after the Exile activated Revan's ace in the hole.

** Also a mostly intact Star Destroyer. Star Wars loves this type of planet.

* ''[[Total Annihilation]]'' has "Dump", a moon around the Core homeworld which has accumulated four thousand years of garbage. Said garbage is the remains of Core war units and is the only source of metal in that mission. Any battlefield will resemble this given enough time. Those wrecks really do pile up.

** Along with Pirate Storm (though some of the ships are functional) in ''[[Sonic and The Secret Rings]]''. Overlap with [[Gang Plank Galleon]].

* Lost Fleet in ''[[Spyro the Dragon|Spyro 3]]'' is filled with sunken ships, but mostly landlocked...

* Arguably the first three worlds of ''[[Donkey Kong Country]] 2''. First there's a ship that's in mint condition except for a hole torn into the hull, then there's a ship that's been torn in half and is sitting in the middle of a swamp. And then there's the half-submerged ship in ''lava''...

** Gloomy Galleon from ''[[Donkey Kong 64]]'' also had a large number of wrecked ships.

* ''[[Endless Ocean]]'' features one of these for its final bonus area. You can pet baby great white sharks there!

** ''[[Endless Ocean]] 2'' has the Ciceros Strait region, which hosts quite a few shipwrecks. [[Darker and Edgier|Adult great white sharks will attack you there!]]

* Level 5 of ''[[R-Type]] Delta'' is an interdimensional derelict graveyard, containing random scrap and enemies from the first R-Type. While most of the derelict ships can't manouver anymore, they do have operational weapon systems.

* There was a 'starship graveyard' in ''Lylat Wars'' on the N64.

* The 'main' quest of ''Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships'' involves traveling to the eponymous conglomeration of derelict ships fastened together, forming a floating town. {{spoiler|Well not really.}}

* Sir Raleigh's level "Gunboat Graveyard" in the first ''[[Sly Cooper]]'' game, with the graveyard being deliberately created by Raleigh himself.

* The Spaceship Graveyard in ''[[Ratchet and Clank|Secret Agent Clank.]]''

* The Ship Graveyard level in ''[[Hydro Thunder]]''.

* ''[[Far Cry]] 2'' has the Train variety in multiple areas, and a multiplayer map. Also Saharan Shipwrecks of a sort if you follow the tracks into the desert.

* The far side of the {{spoiler|Omega-4 Relay}} in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' is littered with broken and derelict ships {{spoiler|lacking the IFF transponder that tells the relay to send a ship through safely instead of shooting it. ''If'' you can get past the black hole flanking its exit point.}}

* ''[[Prehistoric Isle|Prehistoric Isle in 1930]]'' features this in the second part of the underwater level, showing all the ships that have gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle.

* Seventh story mission in ''[[Jaws Unleashed]]'' has you chasing some divers into a lagoon filled with partially and completely sunken ships.

* In the ''[[X Universe]]'', the sector President's End has about a dozen burned out capital ships and space stations floating around, leftovers from a Kha'ak attack.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

** Earlier in the film, Ariel and Flounder can be seen collecting artifacts from a sunken ship inhabited by Glut the shark.

* The "Other Railway" from ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'', which is for some reason full of [[Nightmare Fuel|rusted and decaying steam locomotive parts.]]

== Real Life ==

 

** Although apparently the only reason the Bermuda Triangle accumulates shipwrecks is because so many shipping lanes pass through it. Statistically, it's actually safer than the rest of the ocean.

** Subverted with quiet, methodical, bludgeoning research by [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bermuda_Triangle#Larry_Kusche Larry Kusche in ''The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved''] where he discovers that while there are genuine mysteries most disappearances either happened well outside the Bermuda Triangle, occurred during a time of bad weather, the start of the search was delayed, had a number of plausible explanations, wreckage was found, the vessel never existed and/or [[Did Not Do the Research|it was reported missing but eventually got home safely]]!

* The area off Cape Hatteras in North Carolina is referred to as "The Graveyard of the Atlantic" with good reason, having a remarkably high shipwreck density; partially because of the ever-shifting sandbank known as Diamond Shoals, and partially because of German U-boats during two World Wars.

** Also the hurricanes and other storms which regularly sweep through the area.

** Bikini Atoll was the site of [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Operation_Crossroads several atomic bomb tests] involving a "fleet" of derelict ships, many of which now lie in shallow waters on the bottom.

** Or the Mothball Fleet at Suisun Bay, California.

* Some Russian naval ports are a bit like this, with rusting subs and ships waiting for disposal. Word of advice- some of the subs may be radioactive.

* Paracas, a bay in Ica, Peru has sunken ships in what's now a national reserve, they are wooden and much joy for children...

* Pearl Harbor has a small graveyard of two sunken ships, the ''USS Arizona'' and ''Utah'', that have remained there since the Japanese attack on the harbor during World War II. There used to be more sunken ships, but the majority were salvaged, with the ''Arizona'' and ''Utah'' deemed too damaged to raise. The ''Arizona'' itself was eventually turned into a war memorial.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Settings]]

[[Category:Derelict Graveyard]]