Ruins of the Modern Age: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Want to make something set in the future? What better way then making it look like our current era has passed. Have all the trappings of our modern time fall into disuse and litter the landscape. Used to great effect in many [[After the End]] pieces. Related to [[Scenery Gorn]] and [[Ragnarok Proofing]]. See also [[Monumental Damage Resistance]]. For further down the line see [[Techno Wreckage]].

 

* ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'': Every time there's an episode that takes place on Earth. In one episode, Spike trudges through an abandoned museum in search of a rare Beta video tape player.

* At one point in ''[[Scrapped Princess]]'', the three main characters pass through the decrepit remains of a skyscraper. All that's left is the cement skeleton, but one of them remarks on how unnatural the "rock formations" look.

 

 

 

== Documentary ==

 

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'': "You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"

* In the recent adaption of ''[[The Time Machine]]'' has the protagonist visit a library [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], and then visit the same library [[After the End]]. The library has deteriorated quite a bit by the second visit, although the AI is still active.

** Also, [[Word of God]] is that the cliffs used by the Eloi to build their villages are remains of New York skyscrapers, apparently able to withstand 800,000 years of erosion and an Ice Age but covered in dirt.

* ''[[I Am Legend]]'' (the film adaptation) is set in New York City three years after the [[Zombie Apocalypse]]. ''The Omega Man'', an earlier adaptation of the same book, features suburban Los Angeles [[After the End]].

* ''[[Battlefield Earth]]'' shows them in ruins. To the point that the humans think that [[All Hail the Great God Mickey|icons of a golf course were gods]].

* ''[[The Book of Eli]]'': In the not-too-distant future, some 30 years after the final war, a solitary man walks across the wasteland that was once America.

* ''[[Terminator]] Salvation'' has a group of people hiding out in a 7-11 that has definitely seen better days.

 

== Literature ==

* In the novel ''[[The Road]]'', a man and a boy survive by scrounging materials from the ruined landscape [[After the End]], and pass by several abandoned cities.

* Becomes omnipresent in Robert Jordan's ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' at just about the point the reader starts thinking he's reading a standard fantasy tale. The Breaking of the World, followed by repeated wars and a slow depopulation, have left wrecked cities (along with the occasional [[Artifact of Doom]]) all over the world. Unexpectedly played for laughs when a mysterious museum artifact that "radiates pride and vanity" can be recognized by readers as a Mercedes hood ornament.

* In ''The Book of the New Sun'' there are entire towns that make their living by digging up the refuse of the past. Then again, the novels are set so far into the future that it may not be the ruins of the ''modern'' age, rather some future age. (We are told that the mine tailings contain perfectly preserved corpses, which is probably beyond today's science.)

* ''[[Flood]]'', by [[Stephen Baxter]], features underwater ruins as a global flood continually rises and drowns everything. People survive by diving down and scavenging usable materials.

* Larry Niven's ''Beyowulf'' series mentions crumbling roadways. They're crumbling not because of disaster, but quite the opposite - they became obsolete once flying vehicles were ubiquitous. There's a section of roadway around Los Angeles preserved so that people can drive on it for sport.

* [[John Wyndham]]'s ''[[The Chrysalids]]'' has the remains of US cities as being still radioactive enough to still glow at night and kill passing sailors over a millenium after the 'Tribulation', where nuclear and mutagenic weapons were used in an all-out world war.

** His other books ''[[The Day of the Triffids]]'' and ''The Kraken Wakes'' also feature the descent into ruin of civilisation, although more on a permanent scale in the former book, describing London being reclaimed by vegetation and buildings collapsing.

 

 

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Fallout]]'': It has been many decades since the winds of the apocalypse blew in over America and took the old world with it, leaving only the Wasteland in its place. Post-war America is a central muse of this series.

* Sigma Team's ''Zombie Shooter'' uses this trope to an extent; several of the game's levels have a ''[[Fallout]]''-like look.

* ''[[Half Life|Half-Life 2]]'' uses this trope in almost every scene.

* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]] 2006'' has this when Sonic and Co travel to the future after some fire demon was unleashed, or something

* Large Staple of the [[Metal Saga]] series.

* ''[[Fragile Dreams|Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon]]''

* The ''[[STALKER]]'' games are set in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Northern Ukraine, with the ruins of the city of Pripyat. The rest of the world is just fine, though. For now.

* A section of Gran Pulse from ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' provides the trope picture. All around there, especially in places like Oerba, are ruins that have been abandoned for over half a millenium, owing to the fact that most of the inhabitants were either Cie'th-ed or killed, and the last survivors were frozen for centuries elsewhere.

* Most footage of [[The Last of Us]] so far has shown a large city being reclaimed by vegetation.

 

 

** The city is still inhabited, and Bender refers to mentioning this as "social commentary".

* Just about every episode of ''[[Thundarr the Barbarian]]''.

 

 

== Web Comics ==

 

 

== Other ==

* Some truly spectacular (NSFW) illustrations of ruined Tokyo can be found [http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=tokyogenso here].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Settings]]