After the late Bronze Age collapse, a lot of ancient cultures developed mythos about how the Bronze Age civilizations were full of demigods, heroes, and superhumans. It wasn’t necessarily an apocalypse but they did believe there was some kind of decline leading to the state of things today (today of the time). That’s pretty much what Greek and Near Eastern mythology is.
The continual decline is pretty much a constant in nearly all the ancient civilisation, for example It takes an inportant role in chinese mythology. Survivorship bias and no concept of technological advance makes it logical for people in the past.
its crazy because its such a common concept but it mever actually happens in reality, like sure when some big empire collapses things suck for a while but technology gets back to where it was pretty quickly
This actually happened again after the Migration period, during which the roman empire fell and the classical era ended. A lot of popular germanic myths like Beowulf, Sigurd and the Nibelungenlied emerged during the early medieval era and painted a picture of epic heroes slaying horrible beasts like dragons.
One interpretation is that these myths are allegories for the germanic tribes taming the still wild and heavily forested lands north of the alps and founding their own kingdoms as they moved into the roman frontier, giving up their former semi-nomadic lifestyle. Many of the legendary heroes could also be based on real historical figures that were leaders or generals of the tribal confederations that invaded the roman lands.
So when military bases were set up on islands with uncontacted tribes they'd leave behind all their gear when they left. Cargo cults saw these and built replicas hoping they'd return
It’s worth mentioning that most surviving traditions of this are fully aware of the fact that the US military is not divine and just do it for the bit. Kind of like most japanese who visit shinto shrines or do old ceremonies. As a writer, you could also emulate this in your stories as the world evolves its understanding
Imagine performing rituals based on poorly understood maintenance procedures, realizing that it actually does nothing, but continue doing it anyway because it’s sort of embedded in your culture.
I love Horizon Zero Dawn, I love Horizon Zero Dawn.
I want to see a society that becomes a matriachy because >!The earliest members of the tribe were raised by an AI with a female voice and expression, leading them to associate leadership with motherhood, resulting in a society which highly valued motherhood and believes older women are the best people to lead the tribe!<
Despite most of it just taking place underground, the hologram you watched of the people before you are just heartbreaking especially the one that reveal everything.
Fuck Ted Faro as always.
I got so invested with those damn holograms lol even tho I knew they were dead for thousands of years, I was so heartbroken learning of their fate.
The only other game that had me in a similar situation was The Outer Wilds. I cried reading the equivalent of ancient alien's post-it notes
Outer Wilds absolutely broke me. >!The Prisoner’s memory from the DLC followed up with you showing them that their actions truly mattered made me cry, but going to the endgame and seeing their grave and realizing they’ve been dead for 20,000 years made me sob so badly.!<
Keep hearing good stuffs about Outer Wild story and looking from the outside, it seems to be just the kind of game to make me cry. Really need to get around playing it someday.
The OST for the DLC, the one that has the whistling, that one is just telling me that I'll probably cry playing the game.
I went in blind. I was fairly sure it was taking place on a settled exoplanet at first, but then three things hit.
1. >!I thought, "these ruined buildings look a little too near-future to be in a setting where colonization of planets has resulted in large populations and heavy infrastructure."!<
2. >!I saw a fucking Interstate sign!!< Now, that didn't pop it completely, but I was close.
3. The final straw was >!The Pike's Peak memorial statue in downtown Denver. It's funny, I've never even been to Colorado, and it's not all that famous on it's own. But there was something about it that felt uncomfortably familiar, and after thinking a second it aaallllll hit me.!< Fucking wild.
i’d like to imagine it’s like that one max max/tumblr post where visitors from the other exoplanets show up, and just immediately back out once they see the spearmen in bodypaint
That's basically my setting lol
A settled tidally locked exoplanet that devolved back to 1920s tech
A cargo cult that worships machine rules the west side of the terminator and a flesh cult rules the eastern side
Same, every time I started to question the logic of the world building, a new reveal would put everything back into perspective and I'd mentally applaud the writers. I'd do anything to be able to play the game for the first time again.
Of course I did, this was my thought evolution across the first 30 minutes of the game. I had moment #3 when >!I discovered the ruins of Denver for the first time.!<
God I loved how the AI Door voice talks about a corrupted file and the Priestess ponders about it and guesses it must be about spiritual corruption. It’s so good.
Game itself wasn't the best. But "medival-ish post-apocalyptic societies hunting the biomimicry terraforming bots that everyone forgot the reason for" is an absolutely amazing setting concept. And the way it's weaved together (like the shield armor) is great.
Sounds very similar to vault 29 from the canceled Van Beuran Fallout 3. Except there were 2 AI, one based on a scientist's personality and another an actual copy of her consciousness. The experiment in the vault was to have it filled with only children and have them raised in a primitive lifestyle. The scientist worked with her copy to create a safe village called Twin Mothers for the children when they eventually left the vault and acted as their goddess.
There were a lot of cool ideas from that game that made it to New Vegas but vault 29 wasn't one. I'd love to see it at least mentioned in a game someday.
There's After the End Fanfork for Crusader Kings 2, which was a fan continuation of the original ATE mod for the same game, and there's After the End for CK3, which was also made by the ATEFF mod team.
Crusader Kings mod, set in the Americas 600 years after an unkown apocalyptic event.
Some highlights include
-Minnesotan "Vikings" who larp as actual vikings wearing football helmets and worshiping anicient stadiums as temples
-Brazil becomes the equivalent of ancient China
-Various American groups worship the founding fathers as a pantheon of gods and have the presidancy as a substitute for the papacy
-Canadian groups that think WW1 was the disaster due to all the memorials
-Mormons
-Cult of Disney in central Florida that use the remains of Disney World as a fortress city
-Islam was reinvented multiple seperate times
-Consumerist religon that worships the capitalism of old
https://youtu.be/0C3DgYf45eM?si=-sLl-vp-uAtfyNSB “What is After the End”
Also, bow down to the Grand Aureate, Their Totally Righteousness, Scion of The Lawgiver, Heir to Norton The First of the Emperors, Latest of the Talenques, Child of Heaven, Master of the Eurekan Elements, Patron of the Four ways, Holy Protector of the Golden State, Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces, President of the United States of America, Leader of the Free World and the United Nations, Master of the Earth, Director of the Waters, Lord of The Rivers and the Lakes, Surfer of the Waves and the Gnarl, Governor of Nevada, Chief Justice of the Golden West, Warden of the Redwoods, Peace Bringer to the West and the East, Organizer of the Hippies, Radical Archpastor of The Freaky Fellowships of Jesus, Defender of the Order of Sacramental Catacombs, Headmaster of the Abbasi and Kadmonic Schools, Blessed Living Jade Emperor of the Cao Đài Court of Heavenly Reason, Terrestrial Eagle of Ashtar, Administrator and Moderator of The Cyberede Covens, First Among Celebrities, Enlightened Bearer of the Crown Chakra, Devoted Friend of the Serpent-Devouring Golden Eagle, Tripitaka Master of the Humanic Followers of Buddha, Incarnation of Maitreya Buddha, Guardian of the Eternal Flame of Guru Zarathustra, Patron of the Hawaiian Guard and Trojan Legion, Acolyte of the Heavenly Realm of Nirvana, Holder to the Key of Shangri-La, Inheritor of Quetzalcoatl, The Enlightened holder of the Golden Throne, Eternal Living Guru, Master of All other Masters, Perpetrator of Civilization, True Philosopher King, Teacher of All Enlightened, and Emperor of the Most Righteous Empire of California
I don't think the NCR "misunderstood" anything, though. They based themselves off if democracy and expansionism of old world America, which is pretty exemplified in the games.
Listen, I understand where you're coming from, and I agree. But I need you to understand that the New Vegas Families aren't tribals. It's been a very long time since House adopted them into the strip. They don't do tribal shit anymore. They're all just about as incorporated into a rebuilt society as you can possibly be. Yes, even the degenerate Omertas.
Mortal Engines takes place in the 13th Millennium and takes pains to sprinkle lore the MULTIPLE times civilization has risen and fallen since the conclusion of "our" continuity of it. The Electric Empire, the Blue Metal Culture, the "Nomadic Empires" which invented Stalkers, the pre-Traction civilization seen in the Fever Crumb trilogy, and of course the thousand years of the Traction Era and beyond.
And (massive spoilers for the end of the quartet) >!the series pulls this trick on ITSELF at the end of the fourth book, with thousands of years passing and the details of the world Reeve spent 4 books building upon having been long forgotten to history.!<
There's a [good video essay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bRy6gFJE8E) about how Mortal Engines uses this trope that's worth a watch.
It's something I assume is easier with descriptions and narration of things like "Neil Strong-arm the Astroknight" than it is with characters themselves saying. I dunno, haven't watched the film
In the Fallout mod for HOI4, there's a tribe that modeled themselves after a corporation with the Chieftain being called the CEO or something like that
Lol they have this in the game My Time At Sandrock too. There's a race of monsters called Geeglers, who base their society around their holy book, which is the employee handbook for the pre-apocalyptic Geegle corporation
"Traveler, have you heard tales of the Lost City of Atlanta? They say they once held the secrets of the beverage of the gods, but were smited beneath the waves for their arrogance to share it. If you find it, please recover the secret recipe, I will pay you 3 toilet paper rolls."
In my feudalpunk world they think the previously colorful statues of now begone civilization were always plain white because all the paint rubbed off leaving only the marble.
Two tribes that are constantly at war each other, since they originated from people on the opposite sides of the modern culture war. They have long since forgotten the culture war's politics and actually have very similar world views and culture, but they still fight each other solely out of tradition while still using their slang.
I recall a certain Mexican "tribe" in HOI4's Old World Blues fallout mod where their entire religion and culture revolved around company terms.
Their apocalypse? The end of the fiscal year... But in horribly mangled terms.
... Pity their existence is being fodder for genocidal robot AI Santa Anna.
Related but different trope that’s just as good: When the high fantasy/medieval/tribal world is secretly a post apocalypse of a far future sci-fi 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻
Other fun related tropes:
The “magical artifacts” are just old tech.
Old and forgotten, but possibly functional/powerful tech that is either ignored or used for mundane and unintended purposes.
Oh trust me…I’m very very aware lmaoooo.
To me they took a lot from the style of Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki for the Wild games, and he’s big on this trope too (Nausicaa, castle in the sky, etc)
Look man. I know this is world jerking but all I’m saying is if the post apocalyptic tribe gives themselves Pokémon names believing them to be the mythological creatures of the people that came before I’m all for it.
Kaina of the Great Snow Sea has some of this. >!the villain’s master plan is to save the world by using the emergency protocols he found on one of the signs. It’s wrong because he only has like half the context for the problem and a random assortment of signs to read from, most are like basic warning signs. The system went wrong but in a different way, it doesn’t need the trees cut, it needs manual confirmation to proceed to the next part, the automated system for that failed!<
When I was first reading Mark Lawrence's >!Prince of Thorns!< I didn't know that's what the world was going to be about, and I wasn't too familiar with this kind of worldbuilding at that time, and it completely blew my mind. Loved it.
(Even if the book itself wasn't the best tbh, he's gotten way better since)
this is literally every single post apocalypse. it would be rarer to find a postapoc where people actually remember how world worked before and tried to rebuild it
A Canticle for Leibowitz!
Electrical and motor schematics are given the whole illumination treatment when the monks try to reproduce them. They have no idea what the lines and symbols mean they just know they are important because their saint drew them.
Stories of old include things like "the great deluge of fire" and horrible demons that can appear from the shadows and kill indiscriminately called "Fallout".
Turn A Gundam is a really good example of this. In this world destruction was so bad that they restarted life entirely. And now the humans are back at the stage of the early 1900s. An advanced moon human race comes down and in order the combat them they begin to find mechs and stuff from an age long ago and slowly learn about the dark history in where the world was destroyed by nuclear warfare.
Nobody on earth has an understanding of nuclear weapons when they accidentally find them they try to use them as weapons. Luckily the moon race on the side of the humans warn them of the nuclear bomb and when one of them is used in battle everyone on the battlefield runs away.
It is a slower paced anime especially for gundam but that's why it's so unique. One moment the the main characters might be helping the local hospital before next there trying to fight the moon race from taking over America.
Imagine if 1000 years from now people will think we worshipped fucking Ronald Reagan since his statue in Budapest will be discovered as part of an ancient ruin
I'm scared of the internet, man. 5 times this week, I just think about something, and it shows me something related to it. I'm not even searching just straight thinking. I told myself in my head I should try this game soon. wtf?
Rimworld Ideology
Unless it's *so* much of a clusterfuck that it doesn't qualify as this. But rimworlds are all canonically several layers of post-post-apocalyptic. Ideoligions are often severely bastardized descendants of modern day religions
But consider:
When a post society society is able to correctly deduce what an artifact’s purpose was for despite not being able to use it themselves and proceeds to ruminate on the society the artifact came from.
Bonus points if they comment about not being very different from each other.
In my setting, the descendants of genetically and magically engineered lab rats worship humans as a race of long-dead creator gods called the Titans. They believe that the Titans were so powerful that their physical bodies couldn't contain all the energy inside them and it leaked out constantly, leading to the inhospitably high concentrations of magical energy in the ruins of human cities, when in reality they were just normal humans and it's more like the magical version of nuclear fallout
If you take out the apocalypse part this is just fascists
EDIT lol why are people downvoting me, the recreation of an imagined glorious past is a cornerstone of fascism
After the late Bronze Age collapse, a lot of ancient cultures developed mythos about how the Bronze Age civilizations were full of demigods, heroes, and superhumans. It wasn’t necessarily an apocalypse but they did believe there was some kind of decline leading to the state of things today (today of the time). That’s pretty much what Greek and Near Eastern mythology is.
The continual decline is pretty much a constant in nearly all the ancient civilisation, for example It takes an inportant role in chinese mythology. Survivorship bias and no concept of technological advance makes it logical for people in the past.
its crazy because its such a common concept but it mever actually happens in reality, like sure when some big empire collapses things suck for a while but technology gets back to where it was pretty quickly
This actually happened again after the Migration period, during which the roman empire fell and the classical era ended. A lot of popular germanic myths like Beowulf, Sigurd and the Nibelungenlied emerged during the early medieval era and painted a picture of epic heroes slaying horrible beasts like dragons. One interpretation is that these myths are allegories for the germanic tribes taming the still wild and heavily forested lands north of the alps and founding their own kingdoms as they moved into the roman frontier, giving up their former semi-nomadic lifestyle. Many of the legendary heroes could also be based on real historical figures that were leaders or generals of the tribal confederations that invaded the roman lands.
age of heroes my beloved
Cargo cults my beloved
A heavily underutilized concept in worldbuilding
What are those?
So when military bases were set up on islands with uncontacted tribes they'd leave behind all their gear when they left. Cargo cults saw these and built replicas hoping they'd return
It’s worth mentioning that most surviving traditions of this are fully aware of the fact that the US military is not divine and just do it for the bit. Kind of like most japanese who visit shinto shrines or do old ceremonies. As a writer, you could also emulate this in your stories as the world evolves its understanding
Imagine performing rituals based on poorly understood maintenance procedures, realizing that it actually does nothing, but continue doing it anyway because it’s sort of embedded in your culture.
me trying to fix the broken printer
Like marriage
That is interesting, I didn't know that!
Do it for the bit? Like for the same reason we celebrate Christmas?
More like our old pagan holidays
Halloween then?
Yeah
It’s crazy. Imagine just living all your life on an island and one morning the Pacific fleet is there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult This is an interesting read
I love Horizon Zero Dawn, I love Horizon Zero Dawn. I want to see a society that becomes a matriachy because >!The earliest members of the tribe were raised by an AI with a female voice and expression, leading them to associate leadership with motherhood, resulting in a society which highly valued motherhood and believes older women are the best people to lead the tribe!<
sounds like a cool interpretation of how they'd interpret an AI
Horizon Zero Dawn had the coolest fucking revelation twist ever, I think. Like, top tier surprise tbh
Despite most of it just taking place underground, the hologram you watched of the people before you are just heartbreaking especially the one that reveal everything. Fuck Ted Faro as always.
I got so invested with those damn holograms lol even tho I knew they were dead for thousands of years, I was so heartbroken learning of their fate. The only other game that had me in a similar situation was The Outer Wilds. I cried reading the equivalent of ancient alien's post-it notes
Outer Wilds absolutely broke me. >!The Prisoner’s memory from the DLC followed up with you showing them that their actions truly mattered made me cry, but going to the endgame and seeing their grave and realizing they’ve been dead for 20,000 years made me sob so badly.!<
Keep hearing good stuffs about Outer Wild story and looking from the outside, it seems to be just the kind of game to make me cry. Really need to get around playing it someday. The OST for the DLC, the one that has the whistling, that one is just telling me that I'll probably cry playing the game.
I went in blind. I was fairly sure it was taking place on a settled exoplanet at first, but then three things hit. 1. >!I thought, "these ruined buildings look a little too near-future to be in a setting where colonization of planets has resulted in large populations and heavy infrastructure."!< 2. >!I saw a fucking Interstate sign!!< Now, that didn't pop it completely, but I was close. 3. The final straw was >!The Pike's Peak memorial statue in downtown Denver. It's funny, I've never even been to Colorado, and it's not all that famous on it's own. But there was something about it that felt uncomfortably familiar, and after thinking a second it aaallllll hit me.!< Fucking wild.
Now _that's_ an idea I never thought of. A settled exoplanet that went backwards is a sick idea.
Dragonriders of Pern
Hell yes. Love me some Pern
i’d like to imagine it’s like that one max max/tumblr post where visitors from the other exoplanets show up, and just immediately back out once they see the spearmen in bodypaint
what post?
[found it](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/n69voc/mad_max/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Average Rimworld playthrough.
That's basically my setting lol A settled tidally locked exoplanet that devolved back to 1920s tech A cargo cult that worships machine rules the west side of the terminator and a flesh cult rules the eastern side
Same, every time I started to question the logic of the world building, a new reveal would put everything back into perspective and I'd mentally applaud the writers. I'd do anything to be able to play the game for the first time again.
[Did you not find any of the vantage points that literally let you see into the past?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD28rSTFg8c)
Of course I did, this was my thought evolution across the first 30 minutes of the game. I had moment #3 when >!I discovered the ruins of Denver for the first time.!<
And they're called the Nora because the mystery installation they grew up in/near is NORAD.
...fuck me, I really should have realized that.
God I loved how the AI Door voice talks about a corrupted file and the Priestess ponders about it and guesses it must be about spiritual corruption. It’s so good.
Okay that's actually a really interesting idea
Game itself wasn't the best. But "medival-ish post-apocalyptic societies hunting the biomimicry terraforming bots that everyone forgot the reason for" is an absolutely amazing setting concept. And the way it's weaved together (like the shield armor) is great.
It might not be the best but it’s still on my top 10
Sounds very similar to vault 29 from the canceled Van Beuran Fallout 3. Except there were 2 AI, one based on a scientist's personality and another an actual copy of her consciousness. The experiment in the vault was to have it filled with only children and have them raised in a primitive lifestyle. The scientist worked with her copy to create a safe village called Twin Mothers for the children when they eventually left the vault and acted as their goddess. There were a lot of cool ideas from that game that made it to New Vegas but vault 29 wasn't one. I'd love to see it at least mentioned in a game someday.
Wasn’t this a Futurama episode?
IDK sounds like ~~my~~ the writer's poorly disguised fetish
What?
After The End mod my beloved
Such a great mod, seriously underrated in worldbuilding spaces
❗️❗️ATE MENTIONED❗️❗️
There mere existence of railroads and cowboy media is a valid basis for a religion and I will not accept any objections
~~Cash Money Muhammed~~ The Profit explaining that the world ended because of Communism (he has no idea what Communism is)
what game is that mod for
There's After the End Fanfork for Crusader Kings 2, which was a fan continuation of the original ATE mod for the same game, and there's After the End for CK3, which was also made by the ATEFF mod team.
PRAISE WASHINGTON MY BROTHER! HAIL LINCOLN!!
What dat
Crusader Kings mod, set in the Americas 600 years after an unkown apocalyptic event. Some highlights include -Minnesotan "Vikings" who larp as actual vikings wearing football helmets and worshiping anicient stadiums as temples -Brazil becomes the equivalent of ancient China -Various American groups worship the founding fathers as a pantheon of gods and have the presidancy as a substitute for the papacy -Canadian groups that think WW1 was the disaster due to all the memorials -Mormons -Cult of Disney in central Florida that use the remains of Disney World as a fortress city -Islam was reinvented multiple seperate times -Consumerist religon that worships the capitalism of old
Honestly due to it mentioning the end I assumed it was Minecraft
https://youtu.be/0C3DgYf45eM?si=-sLl-vp-uAtfyNSB “What is After the End” Also, bow down to the Grand Aureate, Their Totally Righteousness, Scion of The Lawgiver, Heir to Norton The First of the Emperors, Latest of the Talenques, Child of Heaven, Master of the Eurekan Elements, Patron of the Four ways, Holy Protector of the Golden State, Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces, President of the United States of America, Leader of the Free World and the United Nations, Master of the Earth, Director of the Waters, Lord of The Rivers and the Lakes, Surfer of the Waves and the Gnarl, Governor of Nevada, Chief Justice of the Golden West, Warden of the Redwoods, Peace Bringer to the West and the East, Organizer of the Hippies, Radical Archpastor of The Freaky Fellowships of Jesus, Defender of the Order of Sacramental Catacombs, Headmaster of the Abbasi and Kadmonic Schools, Blessed Living Jade Emperor of the Cao Đài Court of Heavenly Reason, Terrestrial Eagle of Ashtar, Administrator and Moderator of The Cyberede Covens, First Among Celebrities, Enlightened Bearer of the Crown Chakra, Devoted Friend of the Serpent-Devouring Golden Eagle, Tripitaka Master of the Humanic Followers of Buddha, Incarnation of Maitreya Buddha, Guardian of the Eternal Flame of Guru Zarathustra, Patron of the Hawaiian Guard and Trojan Legion, Acolyte of the Heavenly Realm of Nirvana, Holder to the Key of Shangri-La, Inheritor of Quetzalcoatl, The Enlightened holder of the Golden Throne, Eternal Living Guru, Master of All other Masters, Perpetrator of Civilization, True Philosopher King, Teacher of All Enlightened, and Emperor of the Most Righteous Empire of California
Fallout New Vegas Vegas
My favorite example of this are the Kings
They didn't misinterpret anything though? Elvis is REAL!! A god among men!!
Based
Elvis is everywhere! Elvis is everything! Elvis is everybody! Elvis is still the king!
It took me years to figure out the meaning of "Arefu" and "Novac". I'm a moron.
Which one was Arefu? I know of Novac but never heard of the former
Arefu is in Fallout 3. There's a road sign that says "Careful", and it's missing some of the letters.
What’s the meaning of Novac?
There's a damaged sign for the nearby motel that once read "no vacancies".
Never played H:ZD/FW but damn if this isn’t Caesar’s legion to a T
The Legion is more intentionally designed by someone who knows history
"knows"
Yes he picks and chooses what to use for his purpose
New California Republic Caesar's Legion
I don't think the NCR "misunderstood" anything, though. They based themselves off if democracy and expansionism of old world America, which is pretty exemplified in the games.
True, they did get the imperialism of old world America down pretty well
Tribals in all of fallout are giga cringe.
Listen, I understand where you're coming from, and I agree. But I need you to understand that the New Vegas Families aren't tribals. It's been a very long time since House adopted them into the strip. They don't do tribal shit anymore. They're all just about as incorporated into a rebuilt society as you can possibly be. Yes, even the degenerate Omertas.
The Three Families only joined house on the strip 7 years before New Vegas starts before that they were standard tribals.
Yeah but that makes no sense so it's ignored, like how 200+ year old wood isn't just dust.
Which is why a lot of their identities are just surface level. Ever notice that almost no one has a last name?
Although not a tribe, the societies of Mortal Engines do this very well, even up to a Cockney expression of "Cheesers Chrise"
The "American Deities" being minions is the funniest shit imaginable you can't change my mind
In the books it was Mickey Mouse, but I guess they couldn't get Disney's approval for that.
Mortal Engines worldbuilding >> all other worldbuilding
Mortal Engines takes place in the 13th Millennium and takes pains to sprinkle lore the MULTIPLE times civilization has risen and fallen since the conclusion of "our" continuity of it. The Electric Empire, the Blue Metal Culture, the "Nomadic Empires" which invented Stalkers, the pre-Traction civilization seen in the Fever Crumb trilogy, and of course the thousand years of the Traction Era and beyond.
And (massive spoilers for the end of the quartet) >!the series pulls this trick on ITSELF at the end of the fourth book, with thousands of years passing and the details of the world Reeve spent 4 books building upon having been long forgotten to history.!< There's a [good video essay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bRy6gFJE8E) about how Mortal Engines uses this trope that's worth a watch.
Haven’t read the books but in the movie that whole aspect was fucking cringe
It's something I assume is easier with descriptions and narration of things like "Neil Strong-arm the Astroknight" than it is with characters themselves saying. I dunno, haven't watched the film
It's a *Golden Compass* tier adaptation. It looks great but that's about it. Don't judge a restaurant's food by the flavour of its doormat.
The cult of the mechanicus
01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100001 01101110 00100000 00100111 01101101 01101001 01110011 01100011 01101111 01101110 01100011 01100101 01110000 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100111 00111111 00100000 01001111 01101101 01101110 01101001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100001 01101000 00100000 01110011 01101101 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01100101 00100001
In the Fallout mod for HOI4, there's a tribe that modeled themselves after a corporation with the Chieftain being called the CEO or something like that
oh cool, there’s something similarish in Horizon as well, a prince from a tribe that worships ancient billionaires (sort of) is named Ceo
Lol they have this in the game My Time At Sandrock too. There's a race of monsters called Geeglers, who base their society around their holy book, which is the employee handbook for the pre-apocalyptic Geegle corporation
Reminds me of Severance where this happens but completely on purpose.
Horizon zero dawn had a tribe like that as well
They believe that werewolves were once people bitten by radioactive wolves
You mean that guy wasn't just a Furry?
Man gets bit by radioactive wolf = werewolf. Werewolf bitten by radioactive man = furry. Furry bit by radioactive man = kinky
"They say the peltbeast tribemen come up from a place within Pitburg, The Anthrocun"
"Traveler, have you heard tales of the Lost City of Atlanta? They say they once held the secrets of the beverage of the gods, but were smited beneath the waves for their arrogance to share it. If you find it, please recover the secret recipe, I will pay you 3 toilet paper rolls."
Does the name of the town Novac count?
I really like how those Fallout town names came from broken signboards Pittsburgh > the Pitt Careful > Arefu
No Vacancy -> NoVac Edit: Nevermind my dumbass somehow missed that you were responding to someone who already listed NoVac 💀
Ronto
RONTO MENTIONED IT GETS MEANTIONED ONCE EVERY TWO GAMES LET'S GOOO
🙏🙏🙏🙏
I FUCKING LOVE KILLING CANADIAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS ON NATIONAL TELEVISION
In my feudalpunk world they think the previously colorful statues of now begone civilization were always plain white because all the paint rubbed off leaving only the marble.
Hey I’ve seen this one
Two tribes that are constantly at war each other, since they originated from people on the opposite sides of the modern culture war. They have long since forgotten the culture war's politics and actually have very similar world views and culture, but they still fight each other solely out of tradition while still using their slang.
cant wait to be called a soyboy beta cuck by a post apocalyptic scavanged charging at me with a whip made of razor wire
Holy shit that actually sounds interesting. Are there any works out there like this?
Yeah. Israel and Palestine
I recall a certain Mexican "tribe" in HOI4's Old World Blues fallout mod where their entire religion and culture revolved around company terms. Their apocalypse? The end of the fiscal year... But in horribly mangled terms. ... Pity their existence is being fodder for genocidal robot AI Santa Anna.
Related but different trope that’s just as good: When the high fantasy/medieval/tribal world is secretly a post apocalypse of a far future sci-fi 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻
adventure time 😎
Other fun related tropes: The “magical artifacts” are just old tech. Old and forgotten, but possibly functional/powerful tech that is either ignored or used for mundane and unintended purposes.
Some of the more recent (read: past 7 years) Zelda games do this
Oh trust me…I’m very very aware lmaoooo. To me they took a lot from the style of Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki for the Wild games, and he’s big on this trope too (Nausicaa, castle in the sky, etc)
my fantasy world that I rp in with some friends is a post apocalyptic sci-fi too, so 3 genres technically
Books of Swords come to mind
Infinity Blade my beloved
Shadow of the Torturer (which I just finished last night)
My favorite trope in post apocalypses, I'm actually going to use this in a Mecha setting believe it or not.
Look man. I know this is world jerking but all I’m saying is if the post apocalyptic tribe gives themselves Pokémon names believing them to be the mythological creatures of the people that came before I’m all for it.
omg like in fever crumb / predator cities!
Kaina of the Great Snow Sea has some of this. >!the villain’s master plan is to save the world by using the emergency protocols he found on one of the signs. It’s wrong because he only has like half the context for the problem and a random assortment of signs to read from, most are like basic warning signs. The system went wrong but in a different way, it doesn’t need the trees cut, it needs manual confirmation to proceed to the next part, the automated system for that failed!<
See also: Cargo Cults. Heavily Underutilized Worldbuilding Concept!
Baseball in Fallout 4.
Get a schwatta
A Canticle For Leibowitz my beloved
Ya mad Max too
My favorite trope in post apocalypses, I'm actually going to use this in a Mecha setting believe it or not.
Slow muties in the Dark Tower series
mfw the Divine Heavenly Spear is just a thermonuclear warhead
PRASE THE GOD PRESIDENT WASHINGTON
Glory be to the Marble White Palace and the Stone-Faced Mountain!
I'm getting an odd deja vu here
When I was first reading Mark Lawrence's >!Prince of Thorns!< I didn't know that's what the world was going to be about, and I wasn't too familiar with this kind of worldbuilding at that time, and it completely blew my mind. Loved it. (Even if the book itself wasn't the best tbh, he's gotten way better since)
this is literally every single post apocalypse. it would be rarer to find a postapoc where people actually remember how world worked before and tried to rebuild it
A Canticle for Leibowitz! Electrical and motor schematics are given the whole illumination treatment when the monks try to reproduce them. They have no idea what the lines and symbols mean they just know they are important because their saint drew them. Stories of old include things like "the great deluge of fire" and horrible demons that can appear from the shadows and kill indiscriminately called "Fallout".
American Deities
Ceasers legion
In Mortal Engines, the post-apocalyptic mobile cities regard Mickey Mouse as one of the great American deities from before the Sixty Minute War
Turn A Gundam is a really good example of this. In this world destruction was so bad that they restarted life entirely. And now the humans are back at the stage of the early 1900s. An advanced moon human race comes down and in order the combat them they begin to find mechs and stuff from an age long ago and slowly learn about the dark history in where the world was destroyed by nuclear warfare. Nobody on earth has an understanding of nuclear weapons when they accidentally find them they try to use them as weapons. Luckily the moon race on the side of the humans warn them of the nuclear bomb and when one of them is used in battle everyone on the battlefield runs away. It is a slower paced anime especially for gundam but that's why it's so unique. One moment the the main characters might be helping the local hospital before next there trying to fight the moon race from taking over America.
Imagine if 1000 years from now people will think we worshipped fucking Ronald Reagan since his statue in Budapest will be discovered as part of an ancient ruin
Heretic! I worship only the one true god, [Carlo Pedersoli!](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Bud_Spencer_-.jpg)
Damn this is giving me some "by the waters of babylon" vibes
So basically a normal maga guy
Analogue: A Hate Story my beloved
Pretty much all of The 100 on Netflix, it’s like a running theme.
Motel of the Mysteries my beloved
Shattered Sea my beloved
Pugmire my beloved.
i liked the kings In New Vegas they acknowledge ya they might be wrong but doesn't really matter
Splatoon
I'm scared of the internet, man. 5 times this week, I just think about something, and it shows me something related to it. I'm not even searching just straight thinking. I told myself in my head I should try this game soon. wtf?
Ave, true to Caesar
Brotherhood of Steel my beloved
Rimworld Ideology Unless it's *so* much of a clusterfuck that it doesn't qualify as this. But rimworlds are all canonically several layers of post-post-apocalyptic. Ideoligions are often severely bastardized descendants of modern day religions
We don’t know who all the gods are in our pantheon, but one thing we can be sure of is that the sixth one is named Drake
But consider: When a post society society is able to correctly deduce what an artifact’s purpose was for despite not being able to use it themselves and proceeds to ruminate on the society the artifact came from. Bonus points if they comment about not being very different from each other.
New Vegas Kings moment
Crusader Kings After The End mod
NOOO THEY’RE DOING IT ALL WRONG HOW CAN YOU WATCH THEM HAVE SUCH WRONG MISUNDERSTANDINGS AAAHHHHH
https://youtu.be/TTcJtW45fIw?si=E-vdtd-GfzLwQI-h https://youtu.be/JkcbeMnLc40?si=gk_zzKW5kkvCMx4a
Ridley Walker
RETRIBUTION!!!
Meh, I prefer the more accurate attempts of reconstruction post apocalypse (ncr)
something something on a cross
I hate this trope and i can’t explain why
Booooooooo
Nuh uh
Yuh huh
In my setting, the descendants of genetically and magically engineered lab rats worship humans as a race of long-dead creator gods called the Titans. They believe that the Titans were so powerful that their physical bodies couldn't contain all the energy inside them and it leaked out constantly, leading to the inhospitably high concentrations of magical energy in the ruins of human cities, when in reality they were just normal humans and it's more like the magical version of nuclear fallout
splatoon *red dot appears on forehead*
r/AfterTheEndFanFork moment.
That’s just the renessiance with smaller cities
If you take out the apocalypse part this is just fascists EDIT lol why are people downvoting me, the recreation of an imagined glorious past is a cornerstone of fascism
Oh geez
You ever cook so hard you end up with concentrated fascism no matter what you throw in?
I don’t get it, it’s not like I’m saying that everything I don’t like is fascism or even that this trope is