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.

* ''[[The Big O]]'' features a number of sequences, including one aquatic one {{spoiler|through Grand Central Terminal}}, that reveal something interesting about Paradigm City: {{spoiler|It's built on the ruins of New York}}.

* 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.

* ''[[Sora no Woto]]'''s No Man's Land and the battlefield of Binnenland seen in flashbacks are full of tumble-down skyscrapers and ravaged cities. Even though there are glimpses of super-advanced [[Lost Technology]] in the show, the urban landscape come across as [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|current day]].

* [[H. G. Wells]]' ''[[The Time Machine]]'' (the original novel and probably other adaptations as well) has a museum dedicated to the rotting ruins of the past. The museum itself had long been forgotten by the dull and complacent future children of humanity.

* 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.