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{{quote|'''Illyria:''' I've nowhere to go. My kingdom is long dead. Long dead. There's so much I don't understand. I've become overwhelmed. I'm unsure of my place.<br />
'''Wesley:''' Your place is with the rest of your people: Dead and turned to ash.<br />
'''Illyria:''' Perhaps... but I exist here. I must learn to walk in this world.|''[[
Cities, countries, even civilizations rise and fall through the ocean of time, becoming [[The Time of Myths|myths]] in the millennia that follow. All their triumphs and failures becoming little more than gravel and sand beneath our feet. There is one bright spot to this though, in the form of a surviving Living Relic. Somehow, a human, computer AI, robot, or immortal homunculus has managed to survive the destruction of their home and lived to tell the tale.
Though their existence can be due to a fluke of fate, they may represent an attempt to [[Fling a Light Into
Their role in a story is likely that of [[Mr. Exposition|giving exposition]] to heroes who are anywhere between months to thousands of years [[Late to
Rarely, the living relic has managed to join and live among normal human civilization (or [[Humanity's Wake|an alien equivalent]]) and tries to live on, sometimes successfully hiding their origins. Despite the emphasis on immortal survivors of ancient civilizations, the Living Relic isn't always ancient or [[Immortality|immortal]]. A derelict in space might have the [[Robot Buddy]] shut down and get started up again by the heroes thousands of years later, or a [[Human Popsicle]] can be woken up from a [[Sleeping Beauty|sleep inducing spindle.]] Sometimes, they might just be the [[Last of His Kind|last descendant]] of a group of survivors.
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* Viral in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' was supposed to be this and carry a tale of victory forever after being granted immortality by Lordgenome, but victory for the beastmen there was not, presumably he becomes a Living Relic
* Karla, from ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]'' is this. She hails from Kastuul, an ancient kingdom of sorcery which is implied to have once been the capital of Lodoss itself. A powerful sorceress in her own right, she survived the destruction of the magic city by infusing a mystic circlet with her soul, retaining all her memories and powers as the circlet possesses the bodies of numerous hosts over the subsequent 500 years.
* ''[[End of Evangelion]]'' reveals in the penultimate scene that this was Unit 01's true purpose: since humans can't exist anywhere but [[Physical God|Eva]]s can, [[Sealed Good in
== Comic Books ==
* In the noncanonical ''[[
* The Vision in the [[Ultimate Marvel]] line. Created millions of years ago by an alien race that saw [[Planet Eater|Gah Lak Tus]] coming for them, <s>he</s> [[Gender Flip|she]] was sent out at first as just a time capsule to record the stories of Gah Lak Tus' billions of victims. [[Humans Are Special|After stopping on Earth]], though, her mission changed to telling other people how to fight Gah Lak Tus.
* In addition, [[Depending
* [[Captain America]]. He was frozen just before the end of World War II and was revived. As the years unfold and [[Comic Book Time]] has to be applied, he seems like more and more of a relic. At first, he was revived in 1962, less than twenty years after the war ended. Since roughly ten years have supposedly past, the unofficial [[Retcon]] is that he was revived in [[The Nineties]], which would mean he was frozen for about sixty years.
** The [[Ultimate Marvel]] version of Cap was revived in the 2000's, which would be even more jarring for someone frozen during the war.
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== Film ==
* Aughra in ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'' is the only surviving witness to the breaking of the Crystal and the creation of the Mystics/Uru and Skeksis. This is stated more explicitly in the novelization than the film.
* Leeloo in the ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' is a "living weapon" whose existence is integral to averting [[The End of the World
* This was done in ''[[The Fountain]]'', where a man who obtains some sort of immortality is the last man in existence and floats about in space all alone.
* The elves in ''[[Hellboy (
* "Old Man" in ''[[Logan's Run]]'' is a rare example of a Living Relic who is neither immortal nor was alive in the time before civilization collapsed. He's the son of some of the last humans to live and love naturally.
* The VR librarian in the 2002 ''[[The Time Machine]]''.
* As mentioned above the [[Captain America:
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* Peot, the Tar-Aiym Guardian from the [[Alan Dean Foster]] novel ''[[Humanx Commonwealth|Bloodhype]]'', was assigned by his race to the lonely task of guarding all civilization against [[Eldritch Abomination|the Vom]], only to witness his people wiping themselves out in a cataclysmic interstellar war. Five hundred thousand years later, he awakens to find himself the [[Last of His Kind]] and facing a twilight struggle against the very same Vom. It's no wonder that, after the battle is finally won, he elects to commit suicide.
* Human soldiers who survive their tours in ''[[The Forever War]]'' become this. Time dilation resulting from faster-than-light travel means that after just a handful of years fighting the Taurans, they return home to find that in the real-time centuries that have passed the culture that birthed them has collapsed and made way for a new and completely alien one.
* [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|The Forsaken]] from the [[Wheel of Time]] series can qualify as this, as they were [[Sealed Evil in
* [[H. Rider Haggard]]'s ''[[
* Robert E. Howard's [[Conan the Barbarian]] has a knack for often running into this trope.
* Any High Elf still in Middle Earth in the Third Age of [[
* Daetrin Haal of ''[[
* ''[[Dark Reflections Trilogy]]'' has a few characters who [[Really 700 Years Old|remembers the civilization of ancient Egypt]], but most prominent example may be {{spoiler|The Flowing Queen herself}}, who lived in the age when gods walked the Earth. She was stated to be much older than any form of life in the sea, so this borders on a [[Time Abyss]].
* Antrax, the titular [[Big Bad]] of the second book of ''[[The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara]]'', is {{spoiler|a [[AI Is a Crapshoot|sentient]] [[Master Computer|supercomputer]] left over from the technological age that preceded the Shannara [[The Verse|'verse]].}}
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Star Trek:
* In ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' a backup copy of The Doctor becomes this to the two species of a planet centuries after Voyager intervened in their history. The crew stopped a "civil war" between both species, and his backup fell onto the planet, where he was reactivated and started contradicting their incomplete and revisionist vision of the incident which painted Voyager and him as [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]].
* Most everyone in ''[[
* Millennia past, Illyria from ''[[
* Lorien in ''[[Babylon 5]]''. He was the first living being to achieve sentience in the universe along with his race and was born immortal in a time before the universe invented things like life-cycles. All of his kind had died out or went beyond the rim of galaxy in the billions of intervening years. The one thing stopping him from being an [[Eldritch Abomination]] is that he also happens to be the kindest person you will ever meet.
* The Doctor in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' (from 2005 onwards, anyway), the last Time Lord (except when The Master makes his semi annual return from eternal death) with one massive case of [[Survivors Guilt]]. Understandable, as he was the one to push the metaphorical button that ended the time war and destroyed Gallifrey.
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* In ''[[Morrowind]]'' there a single remaining member of the Dwemer race living in the basement of a 4000 year old wizard. Sadly, he can't explain what happened to the other Dwemer when they all vanished thousands of years ago.
* In [[Endless Ocean Blue World]], you can find 3 extinct creatures, including one distinctively called "Living Fossil", but most notably, a plesiosaur.
* The Weapons Master in [[
* {{spoiler|Elh and Béluga}} are the last two Paladins in ''[[Solatorobo]]''. Their home was destroyed 300 years ago, and while they seem to fit in fairly well with present-day people (no mentions of ancient clothes or [[Ye Olde Butchered English]], though {{spoiler|Elh}} is capable of reading a little of the old runes when needed), they are definitely a little emotionally distant due to seeing so many generations grow up, grow old, and die while they remained unchanged. {{spoiler|Baion}} also counts, as he woke up from [[Human Popsicle|suspended animation]] 350 years ago. While it's never stated how old he was ''before'' he was frozen, he was clearly frozen for a long time, as he's from before {{spoiler|the Juno wiped out humanity and set the [[Floating Continent|Floating Continents]] in the sky to give the new Caninu and Felineko a place to live while the surface of the Earth recovered from the human wars.}}
* The ''[[Fallout]]'' series has several characters that serve as living remnants of pre-nuclear war America. Besides a number of pre-war [[Our Zombies Are Different|Ghouls]], prominent examples include President Eden, Mr. House, ZAX and SKYNET, the Think Tank, and Professor Calvert, all of whom are either sentient computers or [[Brain In
* ''[[
* ''[[
== Western Animation ==
* The Xyber 9 from ''[[Xyber 9: New Dawn]].''
* The Scarecrow and the Heart of Tarkon from ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' has two for the price of one: [[Kid Hero|Aang]] is the last Airbender, and his [[Cool Pet|sky bison]] Appa is the last of his species, who were the original Airbenders.
** Aang's even referred to as a "Living relic" by Professor Zei in The Library.
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