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Line 1: {{trope}} {{quote\|''"Be for Man the memory of Earth and Origin. Remember this Earth. Never forget her-- but '''never come back.'''"''~~\|''[[A Canticle for Leibowitz]]''}}~~ \|''[[A Canticle for Leibowitz]]''}} [[The End of the World as We Know It\|The end is nigh]], and [[The Fall (film)\|the curtain is dropping]]. With [[Death by Origin Story\|no hope left]], the doomed inhabitants of a world perform one final act of defiance against the coming dark: they ~~fling~~'''Fling a ~~light~~Light ~~into~~Into the ~~future~~Future'''. Whether it's [[Last of His Kind\|their last son]], a [[MacGuffin\|powerful artifact]], weapon, or even a simple [[Apocalyptic Log\|warning]], they send another people in danger of similar destruction a means to recognize and hopefully avert it. Sending this shining beacon can involve an escape (space) ship, [[Time Travel]], being put in [[Suspended Animation]], or a [[Subspace Ansible]] of some kind. This trope is common in [[Speculative Fiction]] and [[Fantasy]], so the means of delivery can vary considerably. Line 9 ⟶ 10: Compare [[Living Relic]], [[Moses in the Bulrushes]], [[Thanatos Gambit]]. Contrast [[Outside Context Villain]]. {{examples}} == Anime &and Manga ==▼ ▲== Anime & Manga == * ''[[Flame of Recca]]'': Recca was born in the Warring States Era, but flung into the future (that is, our present) by a forbidden spell, to escape the annihilation of his ninja-clan at the hands of [[Oda Nobunaga]]. Unfortunately, [[The Rival]] [[Psycho for Hire]] hitched a ride... * ''[[Scrapped Princess]]'': {{spoiler\|the titular character, Pacifica Casull, was genetically designed to resist the will of automated defense mechanisms that had taken over the world in an interstellar war thousands of years earlier, however it was done in such a way that the necessary genes for her creation wouldn't come together until long after humanity had ever forgotten that they were in an interstellar war.}} Line 23 ⟶ 24: * In the end of Part 6 of ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' {{spoiler\|Jolyne [[Heroic Sacrifice\|sacrifices herself]] to let Emporio escape Pucci, survive the effects of [[A God Am I\|Made in Heaven]] and defeat Pucci in the new universe he created.}} == Comic Books == ~~== Comicbooks ==~~ * Baby [[Superman]] is an obvious example. ** In the [[Elseworld~~\|Elseworlds~~]]s story ''[[Red Son]]'', it is revealed that {{spoiler\|Jor-L has flung a light into the ''past'', creating a [[Stable Time Loop]]}} * Inverted in ''[[Final Crisis]]'', where they send a rocket into the past, because the future is in the process of being destroyed. * [[Double Subverted]] in ''[[Ultimate Marvel]]'' with the Vision, who was created by a world that was about to be destroyed by the Gah Lak Tus and sent across the cosmos to visit each world that was going to be targeted by it, in order to...record that planet's cultures and leave, believing that [[Nothing Can Save Us Now\|nothing can stand against the Gah Lak Tus]]. But because [[Humans Are Special]], Vision ends up fulfilling this trope and helping save the world anyway. The act of driving off Gah Lak Tus actually takes a few ~~things -- Vision~~things—Vision's intervention and psychic contact by the X-Men among ~~them -- but~~them—but an interesting variation of this trope occurs at the end of the storyline. After {{spoiler\|Reed Richards's superweapon (a dimensional gateway that links to another universe's big bang, directing the energy as a weapon)}} finally drives off the Devourer of Worlds, Nick Fury sends Vision off, back on its journey. Except this time, rather than telling sapient species to pray to whatever god they believe in, it will be carrying schematics... * And a message, directly to the citizens of the universe, from resident badass [[Nick Fury]]: Human Beings can blow the crap out of ANYTHING. ** The 616-Galactus does this when the [[Silver Surfer]] is his herald, as he knows that Surfer will warn people to escape. So long as he gets to [[Planet Eater\|feed]], it doesn't matter to him whether there's anyone ''on'' the planet. Of course, when the Surfer actually tries to stop him... Line 36: * ''[[Crisis on Infinite Earths]]'' opens with a homage to the [[Superman]] origin story. As a wall of antimatter sweeps across Earth-3, Earth-3's sole superhero, Alexander Luthor, and his wife, Lois Lane-Luthor, place their infant son Alexander, Jr., into an experimental device that will send him across the dimensional barriers to the relative safety of Earth-1. ** Lex Jr. is an interesting example, because within that story, he is an enormous help to the safety of the multiverse. However, {{spoiler\|by the time of the [[Infinite Crisis\|next crisis]], he has performed a [[Face Heel Turn]] and proves that [[Light Is Not Good]]}}. * ''[[PS238]]'', being a bit of [[Genre Deconstruction]], has Argonaut — the blatant [[Expy]] of Superman. In his case, this origin turned out to be a lie concocted by his handlers so that he won't look back (or look forward) to his homeworld… and of course this story didn't survive the inevitable visit of actual and very much living Argonians. ** It's supposed to be the story of Prospero (though he speaks in [[Wingdinglish]] only his "girlfriend" understands). Except his people didn't fall to a disaster but to an enemy. And he was sent ahead to help the next target fight them off… {{spoiler\|or [[Taking You with Me\|destroy their mothership]] along with [[Earth-Shattering Kaboom\|their next conquest]] if everything else fails}}. == Film == Line 46 ⟶ 47: * ''[[Alien (franchise)\|Alien]]''. The unnamed Pilot of the alien spacecraft left a warning signal; unfortunately it only succeeds in attracting people to the derelict. * ''[[Prince of Darkness\|John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness]]''. Inverted. {{spoiler\|Scientists from the ''future'' fling a light in the ''past'' using tachyon waves.}} * In ''[[Iron Man (film)\|Iron Man]] 2'', {{spoiler\|[[Memetic Mutation\|limited by the technology of his time]], Howard Stark leaves a film recording and a model of the first Stark Expo so that Tony can synthesise the element needed to perfect the Arc Reactor.}} * Both [[Megamind]] and his arch-nemesis Metro Man have the same origin story up to the point of them crash-landing on Earth. Their planets were about to be sucked into a black hole, so their parents sent their infants away. * ''[[Mission to Mars]]'' reveals that {{spoiler\|the Martians did this after Mars was struck by an asteroid turning it into the lifeless rock we know. Slightly subverted in that some members of their species survived and fled to another galaxy (because that's what you do when your home is destroyed by a hurricane - you move to another country). This "light" is the primordian seed that kick-started life on Earth, eventually resulting in humans, all so we can get to Mars and find out the truth}}. == Literature == Line 75: ** Several of the tests that Richard has to face. Justified, since the Wizards from the Great War knew that Subtractive Magic was locked away from future generations in the Temple of the Winds before War Wizards started to die out. * There was a short story called ''Last Contact'' where the Big Rip happens much earlier than expected, and there's a throwaway line about how they're discovering new alien stars daily, because those aliens are doing very noisy artificial things (like throwing a huge pile of exotic atoms into their sun) simply as a "The universe is ending, but I'm here!" {{spoiler\|Or as one of the human characters put it "they were saying goodbye". At the end, there was a device which had been designed by humans to record data about the Rip, in the hope that some of it ''might'' survive and ''might'' be found by and be of use to a hypothetical race in the next universe.}} * This is the direct origin story of one of the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien~~\|Sufficiently Advanced Aliens~~]]s of ''[[Perry Rhodan]]''. A highly advanced species faced with a slow decline into extinction embarks on a long-term project to send all of their accumulated knowledge out into the universe in a self-sustaining "Prior Wave". It takes long years and much difficulty until the wave is finally ''sent'', and it travels through the universe for rather longer, touching the ancestors of at least one known civilization along the way...until it gets absorbed, purely by chance, by a cloud of cosmic dust that is just about to collapse and form a solar system. Fast forward to the actual formation of the planets, and one of them in the new star's habitable zone is featuring a super-intelligent crystal shell englobing much of it (and eventually its atmosphere) -- the future Empress of Therm. (A poignant scene shows how the last survivors of an expedition launched by the Empress much later, after intelligent organic life has finally evolved on her world and she's gone about building the actual empire she takes her name from, ''discover'' that planet of origin...a dead world with no signs of the original civilization left at all. Even the ruins have long since crumbled into dust.) * A version of this trope, less dire when it was enacted, happened in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]. Alderaan's pacifism is mentioned to be a relatively new development. When it became global, some of their weaponry was auctioned off, some was melted down and repurposed... and two were set aside, computer-controlled and kept in local space. The Rebellion found one not long after the world was destroyed. In the [[X Wing Series]], one [[Big Damn Gunship\|came to Rogue Squadron's rescue]]. * In Martha Wells' ''City of Bones,'' the Krismen (humanoid marsupials resistant to poison, drought, and desert sun) were created so that at least something ''mostly'' human would be able to survive in the wasteland consuming the known world. (And then it turned out that normal humans could live on the fringes of it just fine, so now the Krismen are a hated underclass whenever they leave the desert to do business in the cities.) Line 81: * This happens to Luke, Leia, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and pretty much the whole proto-rebellion at the end of [[Revenge of the Sith]]. Obi-wan and Yoda go into exile, the twins are sent to adoptive families in secret, and the rebellious senators vote FOR the newly christened emperor. * [[The Book of Mormon (literature)\|The Book of Mormon]] purports to be collection of prophetic writings abridged by Mormon, one of the last of a persecuted line of Christians in the ancient Americas. Mormon wrote this abridgement on golden plates that would be hidden in a hillside for centuries, in hopes that the fall of his people would serve as a warning to future inhabitants of the Americas. == Live-Action TV == Line 87 ⟶ 86: Though they weren't actually going extinct, some alien dissidents preserved a collection of their race's greatest artistic masterpieces when their government declared art to be an illegal waste of resources. This precious collection was later salvaged by the ''Excalibur's'' crew on ''[[Crusade]]''. In the prequel movie ''In the Beginning'' Mankind does this: when Earth is about to be hit by the [[Hopeless War\|unstoppable Minbari]], hundreds of civilians are evaquated as Earthforce and any ship capable of fighting try and buy time fighting the Minbari, so that Mankind will still survive. * The [[Tear Jerker\|tearjerkingly brilliant]] "The Inner Light", an episode of ''[[Star Trek: The ~~Next Generation\|Star Trek the~~ Next Generation]]'' commonly seen as one of the best, tells the story of an alien race doomed by instability in their sun who send out a space probe that finds Picard and [[Mind Rape\|forces]] him to hallucinate living a lifetime among their final generations before the end, and thus ensures that their species will at least be remembered. It affected ''Picard'' and no other crew member. The life he lived involved getting married, having a family, and other things he's never made time for - taking it from a disturbing experience to something he sees as a gift. But brutally subverted in ''[[Star Trek: ~~Voyager\|Star Trek~~ Voyager]]'''s "Course: Oblivion", in which {{spoiler\|the Silver Blood duplicate of ''Voyager'' 's crew}} create a log capsule that will survive after them, and their attempt to launch it fails, destroying it. The ship disintegrates just beyond {{spoiler\|the real ''Voyager''}}'s sensor range. There's also an episode with a mysterious monument that commemorates a slaughter by [[Mind Rape\|forcing everyone in its proximity to become a participant in the massacre]]. {{spoiler\|The crew decides its lesson is too valuable to forget but leave a warning beacon.}} * The final message from a never-seen culture to "Beware The Destroyers" is the only reason ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' lasted more than a season. Then they did it ''again'' with the Asgard. * And the Ashenn storyline involved flinging a light [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong\|into the past]]. They ''like'' this one. * In [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)\|the ~~recent~~reimagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica ~~Reimagined]]~~'']], {{spoiler\|the Final Five Cylons arranged to be reborn following the destruction of the Earth by Paleo-Centurions. Using a sublight ship, they headed to the Twelve Colonies of Kobol to attempt to warn the human tribes of similar dangers. In vain.}} * The Andromeda Ascendant on ''Gene Roddenberry's [[Andromeda]]'', except that it was thrown into the future by accident. * ''[[Buck Rogers]]''. Although it was completely an accident. And the fact that although the civilization ''he'' knew was destroyed, a brand new society took its place. Line 103 ⟶ 102: * In ''[[Supernatural]]'' Sam and Dean have to go to the past and retrieve the ashes of a Phoenix to destroy Eve. They succeed in killing the Phoenix but can't get to the ashes in time due to their limited time frame. Samuel Colt, yes that Samuel Colt, sends the ashes to them via Western Union with instructions to wait like 100 years so that they get them in the present. It's not technically the future but it was Samuel Colt's future. * ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'': An [[Alternate Universe]] SGC in "There But For the Grace of God" received a message from an unknown culture that was about to be wiped out by the Goa'uld. It gave them the gate coordinates from which the Goa'uld launched their attack. Unfortunately this SGC never learned how to speak Goa'uld and the warning went untranslated until a [[Applied Phlebotinum\|quantum mirror]] landed the prime universe's Daniel Jackson in that one. At which point it was too late for that Earth because the Goa'uld were already there. [[Double Subverted\|Luckily, Daniel was able to return to his own universe with the gate coordinates]], and SG-1 subsequently defied orders to save the planet from Apophis's invasion. == Tabletop Games == * Inverted in a profoundly dark and disturbing way by the [[Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods\|Illithid]] [[Brain Food\|race]] in ''[[Dungeons ~~and~~& Dragons]]'' ([[Retcon\|at least before]] [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot\|4th Edition]]). The Mind Flayers were - [[Time Travel Tense Trouble\|or will be]] - the overlords of the multiverse at the literal end of time, when most if not all the stars have burnt out. But after facing defeat at the hands of a trans-planar rebellion (not that there's much to fight over at this point), the Illithids sacrificed unbelievable numbers of their Elder Brains to create a psionic maelstrom that sent the surviving members of their race into the distant past - that is, shortly before the ''D&D'' setting. This way they can get a head start on forging their empire while avoiding that pesky slave uprising altogether. It also explains their tremendous egos; after all, they ''know'' [[You Can't Fight Fate\|their victory is inevitable]]. Fortunately for the Multiverse at large, they aren't quite as good at this as they think. Every attempt they make to change history makes their predictions less and less accurate. While they have made multiple attempts, trying to correct their mistakes cause them to make more extreme attempts, which leads to more mistakes, which only changes the timeline less in their favor each time. Events like the slave uprisings (involving the Gith, derro, and duegar, to name the most well-known), Orcus killing Maanzecorian (the illithids' god who orchestrated the plan), and the traumatic schism that created the "heretical" Cult of Thoon have all hindered their attempts to restore the favorable timeline they envision. One more disturbing note about the Illithids - it's possible for characters to take feats representing having [[Half-Human Hybrid\|monstruous non-human ancestors]], like a bit of dragon blood in your family tree or something. If you apply them to the Illithids, it doesn't mean you have an inhuman ancestor, it means that the squid-faced, brain-eating monsters with the parasitic life cycle are your ''descendants''. == Video Games == ~~== Videogames ==~~ * Subverted in ''[[Anachronox]]'', the [[Magitek\|light]] is flung into the ''past''. ** And the guys doing it are ''dicks''. Line 131 ⟶ 129: * The Soul Cube in ''[[Doom]] 3''. * Backstory of the Shivans in ''[[City of Heroes]]''. An alien planet destroyed by Shiva sent a probe to Earth to warn it that it was the next target. Humanity found this, deciphered the language, found they had only a little while before Shiva would destroy them, and blew Shiva up. Unfortunately, the fragments landed on an island a bit close to home, and are trying to reform themselves. Hey, they're my favorite villain group, so I know a bit. * In ''[[~~Starcraft~~StarCraft II]]'', {{spoiler\|the final mission of Zeratul's mini-campaign takes place in a possible future where the remaining survivors of the Protoss fight a doomed last battle against the near-omnipotent Dark Voice and his army of Zerg and Hybrids. The bonus objective involves protecting the Archives long enough for the Preservers to seal away the history and knowledge of the Protoss, so that someday a future race might use it against the Hybrids.}} * Dr. Light created ''[[Mega Man X]]'' in hopes that he would help create a world of peace. {{spoiler\|In a way, he ''did'', but it took many hundreds of years, and ''Dr. Wily's'' last creation is [[Mega Man Zero\|just as responsible]] as Light's.}} * In the Flash game ''Cellcraft'', a race of advanced platypus-like people discover that an inescapable cataclysm will wipe out all life on their planet. With no means to escape their eventual destruction, they breed microbes (the premise of the game) tough enough to survive even the most hostile conditions that are still capable of supporting life and send them to another ~~planet -- that~~planet—that planet being Earth. This is apparently the origin of platypi on Earth and handily explains why they are so ~~strange -- they~~strange—they are ''aliens''. * The Vault program is this in the ''[[Fallout]]'' universe. At least, the handful of control vaults were. Specifically, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.) that came with most Vaults was meant to give the survivors of the nuclear apocalypse the ability to rebuild, even when the world as they knew it was gone. * In ''[[Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth\|WURM Journey to The Center of The Earth]]'', while searching for your missing comrades, you dig too deep and discover a beacon from a long-lost civilization. * In [[Homeworld]] the ancient Hiigaran Exiles, realizing they were being forced to leave their city about to be buried in sand and lose their technology, left into it the Guidestone to tell their descendants the way for their ancestral [[Title Drop\|Homeworld]] and an hyperspace module to reach it. == Web Comics == ~~== Webcomics ==~~ * In ''[[Homestuck]]'': {{spoiler\|Rose}} rips her incomplete walkthrough out of the internet and seals it in the Furthest Ring so that other SBURB players can read it. In an inversion, the person to read it turns out to be {{spoiler\|Kanaya, in the session directly responsible for Rose's universe.}} * ''[[Nedroid]]'': Beartato's parents [http://nedroid.com/2011/04/secret-origins/ put him] in a rocket before their planet was destroyed. Reginald, in a similar rocket, was sent up because his father had stuff to do. * ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' has people of Earth [//www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2009-12-04 sending] lots of children away, Superman style. Or at least they told them so. == Western Animation == Line 150 ⟶ 147: * An inversion of this was the premise of ''[[Samurai Jack]]''. Aku, the [[Big Bad]], was not strong enough to defeat the titular hero, so instead flings him into the future. Jack arrives in an era where Aku is the unquestioned ruler. The origin story plays it straight. When Aku attacked Jack's homeland, Jack was safely evacuated and spent the next 20 years traveling the world and training. He returned too late to save his people, but could have avenged them if the series had not been cut short. {{spoiler\|HeIn ~~may~~Season ~~still~~5, ~~get~~he ~~his~~finally ~~chance~~succeeded, ifwith ~~[[The~~help ~~Movie]]~~from ~~works~~Aku's ~~out~~own daughter.}}. * An episode of ''[[The Batman]]'' called "Artifacts", is set 1000 years into the future. Mr. Freeze, who is immortal, goes on a rampage with no Batman to stop him. Archeologists find the Batcave, where Batman [[Crazy Prepared\|left instructions on how to beat Freeze, etched in titanium, knowing his computers would eventually become obsolete and incompatible with the technology of the future]]. * ~~In "~~''[[The Venture Bros\|]]'': In "Twenty Years To Midnight]]", Jonas Sr. receives a message that the fate of the universe depends on him building a machine and getting it to Times Square in [[Title Drop\|20 years]]. He dies before then but leaves a message to his son with all the details and where he hid the pieces. It's one of the few times Rusty actually does something good successfully (despite several obstacles, obviously). == Real Life == * The human civilization itself! Even if Earth (and every person on it) were obliterated tomorrow, our old [[Aliens Steal Cable\|radio waves]] would continue to travel in the interstellar void forever. {{spoiler\|Well, for several hundred light years, anyway, as the void of space isn't actually perfectly empty, and signals still decay.}} ** {{spoiler\|Even if space was a perfect vacuum, ~~eventually~~ they would be far too weak to read due to the dispersion of the signal. The Sun is a far stronger radio source than anything we've ever built for commercial use; mankind's signals aren't getting past the Oort Cloud.}} * [[The Other Wiki]] has an official policy,<ref>actually part of an April Fool's joke</ref>, accessible [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Terminal Event Management Policy\|here]], for preserving its contents in case of [[The End of the World as We Know It]]. * According to the History Channel's 'Life After People' Mount Rushmore will probably remain recognizable long enough for other species to develop sapience and recognize it as an unnatural structure. Which means [[Teddy Roosevelt]] [[Memetic Badass\|will never die]]. * As an inversion of sorts, the [[wikipedia:Waste Isolation Pilot Plant\|Waste Isolation Pilot Plant]] project is struggling to find a way to [https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130704215345/http://downlode.org/Etext/WIPP/ inform future generations] not to mess with [[Neglectful Precursors\|our]] [[Sealed Evil in a Can\|radioactive waste]]. * [[wikipedia:Seedbank\|Seedbanks]]. * Several cases during [[World War II]]. Of course, most of them, with the exception of the first example are more of hoping that their allies will rescue them in the future, rather than just sending the light off to help others. Line 170 ⟶ 166: * Several of [[wikipedia:Long Now Foundation#Projects\|The Long Now Foundation's projects]] are about this. They include a clock to run for ten millenia and an effort to preserve languages that are likely to become extinct. * Some high schools have buried time capsules, where they get a container, fill it with stuff from their year and bury it. Decades later, at a school reunion or something, they dig it up and see what everyone put in there to reminisce about their teen years. * From the famous [[World War ~~One~~I]] poem ''In Flanders Fields'': {{quote\|Take up our quarrel with the foe: / To you from failing hands we throw / The torch; be yours to hold it high.}} * A total of five space probes have been sent out, or are on their way out, of the solar system (Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, and New Horizons). On them contains information about both the location in space, as well as ''when'', they originate from. A number of scientists think that they may one day be picked up by some other intelligence and will tell them we were here, once .<ref>Although, others hypothesize that ''we'' may end up recovering them in the future as museum pieces to early space exploration</ref>. [[Star Trek V: The Final Frontier\|Or a Klingon will blow it up because he's bored]]. [[Beast Wars\|Or an evil robot will use the information to travel through time and try to wipe us out before we evolve]] Line 181 ⟶ 177: [[Category:Sealed Index in A Can]] [[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]] [[Category:~~Fling a Light Into the Future~~{{PAGENAME}}]]