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Standard Sci-Fi History: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
Back in the Golden Age of science fiction, a rough outline of the future began to form. It was largely hinted at in various stories that shared many common attributes. Whether or not this was done consciously is unknown, but the fans noticed the trends in the stories and pieced it together. Thus formed the '''Standard Sci
The Standard Sci
Although the details greatly vary, the outline was basically the same:
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{{examples}}
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* Most ''[[Gundam]]'' series are typically set at Stage 1...and sadly jump into Stage 2.
** ''[[Turn A Gundam
* ''[[Legend of the Galactic Heroes]]'' takes place during the end of the Second Empire and the birth of the Third.
==
* ''[[Star Wars]]'': The trope is invoked in the movies, with the Decline and Fall of the Republic, Interregnum of the Galactic Empire, and with the Empire's end the Formation of the New Republic. Although, in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Expanded Universe]], this doesn't pan out so well {{spoiler|The New Republic ends up collapsing, and although a better government forms, internal problems also show up.}}
==
* ''[[A Canticle for Leibowitz]]'': World War III, the Interregnum, and Renaissance. {{spoiler|However, the trope is subverted. Instead of showing history as Linear (things keep on getting better), history turns out to the Cyclical, history repeats itself again and again.}}
* James Blish's ''Cities in Flight'': {{spoiler|Actually ends at Stage 7, the Rebirth of the universe!}}
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* The [[Ur Example]] here would be Edward Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', at least for the Cycle of Empire stages. While Nonfiction, Issac Asimov based [[Foundation]] on the ideas of Gibbon's work. As a result, Gibbon indirectly influenced the genre.
▲== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Andromeda]]'': Features the Decline and Interregnum of the Systems Commonwealth. Interestingly, according to the [[All in The Manual|backstory]], the Commonwealth is not the First Empire in this case. The Vedran Empire is this. It's only later that the Vedrans decide that [[The Federation]] is better than [[The Empire]] and reform their government.
** Also humanity was contacted and annexed by the Commonwealth towards the end of step #2, they had just sent out a single relativistic exploration ship when aliens offered them slipstream drive.
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* ''[[Star Trek]]'': The background history of Earth. 20th/21st Century humans play the role of the First Empire, World War III occurs and everything collapses. Then following the Interregnum (the aptly named Post-Atomic Horror), First Contact is made. Humanity begins to explore the Stars. Eventually, this leads to the formation of the Federation. There are hints that Humanity may reach Stage 6 and 7 in the far future.
▲== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[BattleTech]]'': The game itself is set during the Interregnum, following the demise of the Star League. Up to that point, humanity had gone through Solar and Interstellar exploration, Formation, Decline, and Interregnum. Currently, the game wobbles between Renaissance and Interregnum. For the most part, Alien Contact has been avoided.
** Semi-intelligent aliens have shown up twice in the fiction- once as a minor incident in the early novel Sword and Dagger with a primate-like species known as the pinkies that may or may not have had tool using ability, and once as a major plot point of Far Country, with a species of intelligent birdlike aliens that had Stone Age technology. [[The Scrappy|Far Country]] has frequently been criticized over this point, and the head of production for [[BattleTech]] has stated repeatedly that the intention is to keep the game about different human empires fighting, not to make it a humans vs aliens game.
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* ''[[Traveller]]'' follows this with several cultures. At the default time of the [[GURPS]] version, the Imperium is old and seemingly stable but the frontiers are chaotic and incompletely explored.
** Though the history of Humaniti is a bit different due to the [[Precursors|Ancients]] [[Transplanted Humans|seeding them]] all across the galaxy. The Vilani discovered Jump drive first and founded the First Imperium, as it was just starting it's decline the expanding Terran Federation encountered them, went to war, and took over turning it into the Second Imperium. The Second collapsed into interregnum quickly, and a thousand years later the Third (and current) Imperium emerged.
* ''[[Warhammer
* ''[[Eclipse Phase]]'' takes place ten years [[After the End|after "The Fall"]], a combination [[Robot War]] and [[The Singularity|Singularity]] that left earth a radioactive wasteland patrolled by killer robots. Most of the <1 billion survivors are scattered across the solar system. A couple years after the Fall the [[Portal Network|Pandora Gates]] were discovered and used to explore and colonize a few extrasolar planets, shortly after [[Starfish Aliens|The Factors]] made contact. Transhumanity is too fragmented for any sort of "empire" and if the Anarchists have their way it's unlikely there ever will be one.
▲== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', this cycle has been continuing for millions of years with many different species in the past, enforced by an extremely ancient species of robotic [[Eldritch Abomination]]s, who regularly exterminate ([[Fate Worse Than Death|or worse]]) all intelligent life in the galaxy once it gets advanced enough.
* ''[[Escape Velocity|EV Nova's]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20140802013046/http://www.ambrosiasw.com/assets/files/graphics_products/evn/preambles/nova_preamble_1.pdf official timeline] only goes back as far as stage 3. The Colonial Council colonized much of the galaxy. Then it began to crumble due to a string of wars. The deathblow was the Armetis terrorists' destruction of the Sol [[Warp Whistle|hypergate]], which caused many of the others to be destroyed, cutting the member systems off from each other. The Renaissance began when physicists rediscovered how to build hyperdrives, allowing humanity to reform interstellar governments. Things have since solidified into a fairly [[Standard Sci
▲== Web Original ==
* ''[[Orion's Arm]]'' has gone through the empire cycle at least once, after the fall of the First Federation Terragen space was divided into several "sephirotic empires". Also the Nanodisaster seems to stand in for WWIII in that it erased all the current nations and drove humanity off Old Earth.
* Like ''Gundam'', ''[[Exo Squad]]'' starts off at Stage 1 and leaps into Stage 2.
▲== Western Animation ==
▲* Like Gundam, [[Exo Squad]] starts off at Stage 1 and leaps into Stage 2. Interesingly, it does have elements of being Stage 5.2 at the beginning.
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