New Eden: Difference between revisions

Long before the start of the story, ecological disaster drove humanity undersea, or underground, or into space, [[Earth-That-Was|away from a ravaged Earth]]. After living for quite a while in a [[City in a Bottle]], it's a safe bet that someone will eventually find the way out and discover that the Earth has cleaned itself up nicely and now looks like the pristine [[Ghibli Hills]], or why not, [[California Doubling|the Yosemite National Park]].

 

 

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In ''[[Last Exile]]'', {{spoiler|The show is set in an [[City in a Bottle|hourglass shaped space station]] (which is why the [[Eyecatch]] says "Last Exile In the Bottle"), and Last Exile is a transport ship to take anyone who wants back to Earth.}}

* The core [[MacGuffin]] of ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]'', though it looks less like a national park and more like a surreal, magical realm.

** And there's the caveat that {{spoiler|since humans have adapted to their polluted [[After the End]] environment, they literally wouldn't be able to survive there, and since the advance of the so-called Sea of Corruption that is actually turning the world ''into'' the literal [[Ghibli Hills]] can't be stopped, everyone is pretty much ''screwed''. Unless they find a way to start polluting again, of course.}}

* Averted in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'': Simon, Kamina and Yoko manage to escape to the surface... only to find a dangerous land of beastmen [[Kick the Dog|kicking puppies]] with their Ganmen. Of course, that inspires Kamina to [[Fearless Fool|conquer the Surface]].

** Probably has something to do with Lordgenome wiping all spiral life off the surface of the planet and repopulating it with less capable non-spiral lifeforms. Those weird animals couldn't have evolved on their own.

== [[Film]] ==

* Used at the end of [[The Film of the Book]] ''[[Logan's Run]]''.

* The end of {{spoiler|[[WALL-E]] is ''all over'' this [[Trope]]. At least in the credits. When the movie was first shown to test audiences before [[Pixar]] made the "humanity restoring Earth" montage, about half the audience walked away with the rather realistic assumption that humanity died less than a week after they returned to Earth.}}

* In the film adaptation of ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'', this is [[Evil Sorcerer|Grigori]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Rasputin]]'s motivation for trying to release the [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Ogdru]] [[Eldritch Abominations|Jahad]]. He's [[Axe Crazy|deluded]] of course, seeing as an actual vision of their return reveals a fiery wasteland.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' and its "expansionalone", ''City of Villains'' has a few zones that fit this trope. One example is the area previously named "Woodvale", but referred to in-game almost exclusively as "Eden". Here, the player can find many vistas of pristine wilderness trying to crawl its way back across a previously urban landscape. In a twist, all the nature ''hates humanity''.

** Not so much nature as a scientifically created [[The Virus|Virus]] created by a [[Mad Scientist]] environmentalist. There's the spirit of a true nature guardian killed by them that helps heroes.

* ''[[Mega Man X]] 5'' had [[Colony Drop|the crash of the Eurasia colony]] as the ecological disaster. Flash forward to ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 4'', and with [[Big Bad|Dr. Weil]] now ruling Neo Arcadia with an iron fist, the dissenters are fleeing to Area Zero, a land made naturally pristine thanks to an environmental conditioning system left active after the crash. Area Zero is the hope of the people in that fragment of the timeline for a life free of Weil's influence; fitting his role as the [[Big Bad]], Dr. Weil employs the Neo Arcadia militia to raze the area, up to and including manufacturing the [[Kill Sat|Ragnarok Satellite]] for just that end; needless to say the whole point of the game is to prevent Area Zero's demise.

* In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', the homeworld of the quarians is becoming this, after they all basically got kicked off their planet in a war with their creations, the geth, which also severely damaged the planet. {{spoiler|Legion reveals that the geth don't even use the planet, but help heal it instead, as a sort of monument to their creators, and a present, if the quarians ever announced a truce the geth could accept.}}

* The ''[[Civilization|Call To Power]]'' games allows you to CAUSE this, just faster. By completing the Eden Project, switching to a [[Utopia Justifies the Means|Ecotopian]] government and churning out Eco Ranger units, you can systematically wipe out every sprawling, polluting city in the world, replacing them (and the surrounding area) with [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxBVc2cSFeI pristine wilderness].

* ''[[Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica]]'': Finally happen to Sol Marta after a [[Utopia Justifies the Means|long]], [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|tragic]], [[It Got Worse|desperate]] struggle; by way of the elusive Metafalica that everyone is after. Considering that this game can be described as [[It Got Worse]]: The JRPG, it's one of the most triumphant example of [[Earn Your Happy Ending]].

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* A recent television program was aired on the History Channel called ''[[Life After People]]'' which explored, in vivid CGI, what would happen to the world we leave behind if every human on earth disappeared.

* The demilitarized zone between North and South Korean is a refuge for all sorts of plants and wildlife, simply because no human dare set foot in it for fear of getting shot by the other side (also land mines).

* The city of Pripyat in the Ukraine. Despite the entire area being contaminated by radiation due to the damaged Chernobyl reactor, wildlife levels in the exclusion zone are at levels not seen since before the beginning of the twentieth century. It's called the Chernobyl effect. Radiation is bad for animals, but humans are worse.

** That's actually heartbreakingly depressing. Humans are ''worse than nuclear radiation''.

* Shortly after the US entered [[WW 2]], German u-boats began patrolling off the eastern seaboard. This made it extremely dangerous for fishing boats to go out, because they were effectively unarmed and likely to get sunk. The result of several years free of human fishing was that fish populations exploded. However, certain species have been so overharvested that scientists believe they will never recover.

* Some of the most biologically diverse regions of the UK are actually in military training areas - because of the closed nature of these areas, as well as the strict rules the military have promoting rotation and protection (some parts of the training areas are even off limits to infantry and vehicles)

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:New Eden]]