History Main / AbusivePrecursors

%%* The Quintessons from ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' are this for Cybertron.

** The [[SapientShip Reapers]] almost set the record for the most abusive of all. They deliberately leave LostTechnology around for future species to find to encourage specific technological developments, thus making it easier when they return to completely obliterate them. They do this for the purposes of ''reproduction'', creating new Reapers from millions of harvested people. Those who aren't suitable for this are instead transformed into mindless husks, tools to be used in the next "cycle". [[spoiler:The Catalyst states at the end of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' that the Reapers' true purpose is to catalogue and indefinitely preserve all organic life, to protect it from the inevitable (actually quite evitable as it turns out) RobotWar.]]

** The third game also reveals that the Protheans were not very nice. While they did kickstart the technological development of some species, they were also massive [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinists]] who erased the cultures of their subject species if they didn't outright exterminate them.

** [[Characters/AmphibiaKingAndrias King Andrias]] refers to his ancestors -- the newts who founded Newtopia, the heart of all Amphibia -- as peaceful explorers. [[spoiler:This is a lie. They were [[MultiversalConqueror conquerors]] who used the Calamity Box to subjugate other worlds, and the enigmatic ruins turn out to be their factories -- still operational factories, at that, for the purpose of assembling death robots. Their city fell to ruin a thousand years ago, and the second season's central BigBad, King Andrias, seeks the Calamity Box as a means of restoring his ancestors' "glorious" legacy.]]
** [[Characters/AmphibiaTheCore The Core]] is an entire MindHive of them, as they're a collection of all of Newtopia's previous rulers, and as the series goes on, it becomes clear they couldn't care less about their descendants; not only do they show complete disinterest in the damage they cause to Amphibia and its inhabitants, but they treat King Andrias, the latest king and their most trustworthy servant in the present, like a tool to be used and discarded.

** The Silence manipulated humanity in secret for millennia and not for good ends. Supposedly they've been trying to ''save the universe'' from a future threat that [[spoiler:involves the Doctor]], but they could easily be lying. They even admit that we should kill them all on sight.

* TheGreys of ''Series/TheXFiles.'' Where to start? They manipulated some of the most powerful people on Earth into plotting against the rest of humanity (''turning us against each other''), abducted and performed medical experiments on us, plotted with their human allies to cover up their existence, leaving said abductees as social outcasts, planned to use the Black Oil to enslave us until we were no longer of use to them, at which point they planned to make us extinct, touched off a war with a rebel faction that was fought on Earth and resulted in tragedy for the families of their abductees, sent the Mighty Morphin' Bounty Hunter and the Supersoldiers after us, and by the way... their invasion date was set for 2012. Even then the real villain is "Black Oil", the creature(s) who took over the originally-peaceful Greys.

TheDarkTimes are a mythological period in the past when the Abusive Precursors were at the height of their power. Sub-trope of {{Precursors}}, with BenevolentPrecursors as {{Inversion}}.

* In ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VIII'', a non-malfunctioning Ancient construct, Escaton tries to destroy the world. As there doesn't seem to be any reason for that, this would appear to make the Ancients fit into this trope (especially as they ''are'' still out there, just rather busy at the moment). [[spoiler:As it turns out, [[SubvertedTrope there is a reason]]: the Ancients, rather reasonably, put fail-safes into Escaton to keep him from being subverted by the Kreegan, one of which was an inability to willingly stop destroying a world once he had started. As he only started doing it if he deemed a world unable to defeat the Kreegan, that generally worked out, but in this one case, he happened to underestimate the inhabitants''...]]

* The case of [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters Humanity]] vs ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'' has been opened. It engineered a vast, ''vast'' number of [[WeaponOfMassDestruction Weapons of Mass Destruction]], which include the titanic [[PersonOfMassDestruction cyborg-like God Warriors]], destroyed the entire ecosystem of the whole world, and finally all but perished in the Seven Days of Fire. But its greatest sin was to create [[spoiler:the Heart of Shuwa, a biological computer which contains a human-like consciousness]], and which, when found by the few surviving humans, dispensed just enough scientific knowledge to enthrall them. Additionally, war technology pre-Seven Days of Fire is still scattered across the planet, including the aforementioned God Warriors. If that's not all, the [[spoiler:Heart deliberately created the Sea of Corruption and the Ohmu to cleanse the planet, so [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans its creators could live again in a purified world]]]] -- after willingly [[KillAllHumans destroying the current mankind]].
* The Mu of ''Anime/RahXephon'', a race of blue-blooded humans who vanished off the Earth several tens of thousands of years ago due to one of their own experiments failing (the reason for said experiment? [[spoiler:[[ForScience The scientist just wanted to see if it would actually work]]]]). The story happens when they try to come back, and the end of the series makes it very clear that they could effortlessly wipe out humanity if they really wanted. [[spoiler:They don't, they only suppress the TERRA organization that is directly opposing them. Their real goal is to re-do that aforementioned failed experiment properly and RetGone the entire human race, so that they can have Earth for themselves. Oh, and the HumongousMecha they use are PoweredByAForsakenChild, meaning that every Dolem killed was an innocent human life suddenly ending.]]

** Galactus in the ''ComicBook/HeroesReborn'' universe. Kust like the main one, he destroys whole planets to feed himself, but Dr. Doom and Iron Man also see, via time travel, the origin of life on planet Earth: it seems that it was ''Galactus himself'' (actually, his herald Airwalker) who seeded life in the planet to begin with, just to harvest it some millennia afterwards.

* The Youma Empire from ''Anime/BraveRaideen''.
* The Super-Paleolithic People (Choukodaijomonjin) from ''Anime/{{Gekiganger 3}}''.
* The Dinosaur Empire from ''Manga/GetterRobo''.
* The Mycene Empire from ''Anime/MazingerZ'', ''Anime/GreatMazinger'' and ''Anime/{{Mazinkaiser}}'' (In ''Anime/ShinMazinger'' they were more like {{Ancient|Astronauts}} {{Alien Inva|sion}}ders who left their stuff behind).
* From ''Franchise/{{Naruto}}'', the Otsutsuki clan, they're a race of celestial beings who are also the ancestors of all Shinobi, and the {{Greater Scope Villain}}s of the entire series; their main MO is to travel between worlds and harvest all the life force and chakra from their inhabitants into a world tree which they consume to become stronger.
* The case of [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters Humanity]] vs ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'' has been opened. It engineered a vast, ''vast'' number of [[WeaponOfMassDestruction Weapons Of Mass Destruction]], which include the titanic [[PersonOfMassDestruction cyborg-like God Warriors]], destroyed the entire ecosystem of the whole world, and finally all but perished in the Seven Days Of Fire. But its greatest sin was to create [[spoiler:the Heart of Shuwa, a biological computer which contains a human-like consciousness]], and which, when found by the few surviving humans, dispensed just enough scientific knowledge to enthrall them. Additionally, war technology pre-Seven Days Of Fire is still scattered across the planet, including the aforementioned God Warriors. And if that's not all, the [[spoiler:Heart deliberately created the Sea of Corruption and the Ohmu to cleanse the planet, so [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans its creators could live again in a purified world]]]] -- after willingly [[KillAllHumans destroying the current mankind]].
* The Mu of ''Anime/RahXephon'', a race of blue-blooded humans who vanished off the Earth several ten thousands of years ago due to one of their own experiments failing (the reason for said experiment? [[spoiler:[[ForScience The scientist just wanted to see if it would actually work]]]]). The story happens when they try to come back, and the end of the series makes it very clear that they could effortlessly wipe out humanity if they really wanted. [[spoiler:They don't, they only suppress the TERRA organization that is directly opposing them. Their real goal is to re-do that aforementioned failed experiment properly and RetGone the entire human race, so that they can have Earth for themselves. Oh, and the HumongousMecha they use are PoweredByAForsakenChild, meaning that every Dolem killed was an innocent human life suddenly ending.]]
* At the smallest end of the scale, [[spoiler: Rozen]] from ''Manga/RozenMaiden.'' [[spoiler: He created a race of thinking, sentient creatures, made them blindly loyal, and ''commanded them to fight to the death until only one survives.'' Why? To ''earn his love.'' Only centuries later, after a pretender triggers a fake Alice Game, does he deign to show his face again ... to restore the status quo and reset the game back to start. With a grudging admission that "there are other ways to win besides battle."]] On the other hand, can a force, however mysterious, who [[spoiler: creates a "race" with less than ten members]] really be considered a {{Precursor|s}}?
* The Dark Kingdom and Dead Moon Kingdom from ''Franchise/SailorMoon''.
* The Anti-Spirals from ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' wait around watching to make sure the universe doesn't develop too many intelligent beings capable of creating or controlling Spiral Energy, including humans. Once they decide there are too many, they sweep in and LeaveNoSurvivors. They do it with a really snotty attitude, too, which adds insult to injury. And the reason? Paranoia that too much Spiral Energy will create the so-called "Spiral Nemesis".
** Humanity survived due to a rare exception: using Spiral powers, it was winning the war - until the Anti-Spirals explained the apocalyptic threat of the "Spiral Nemesis" scenario to the human leader. So they struck up a truce: the human leader killed his ''entire'' fleet, bombed Earth back to the stone age, and forced the survivors to live underground. The surviving human population would be culled so it never exceeded only one million worldwide, and in return, the Anti-Spirals would leave the planet alone.
* In ''Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater'', it's revealed that [[spoiler: humans were created by the ancient Atlanteans via tampering with primates to be used as a servant race.]]

* [[Franchise/GreenLantern The Guardians of the Universe]] swing in and out of the [[BenevolentPrecursors three]] [[NeglectfulPrecursors Precursor tropes]], but towards the end, they landed themselves firmly into this one. Among other things, they:

* Franchise/MarvelUniverse:

** And when Marvel took a stab at ''[[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey A Space Odyssey]]'', the Celestials were written to be the ones who built the monoliths, making them ''the'' classic Abusive Precursors.
** In ''ComicBook/TheUltimates2015'', the Celestials turn out to have got it from their creator, [[spoiler:the First Firmament, the first universe to ever exist, which created them out of boredom... and then got pissed when the Celestials started creating life on their own. The end result nearly destroyed the First Firmament, creating the first multiverse. Ever since then, the First Firmament spent all its time plotting ways to corrupt and destroy all existence out of sheer ''spite''.]]
** The Builders manage to make the Celestials look like the pinnacle of good parenthood. They're the oldest mortal race in the universe and are amazingly advanced, regularly creating and/or uplifting sentient races and inventing systems to benevolently control spacetime. Unfortunately, they're also supremely arrogant assholes who think they know what's best for everybody and have casually destroyed races and planets for the crime of ''getting in their way while they're going someplace''. Fortunately for everyone else, they also turn out to be huge [[PaperTiger Paper Tigers]]; for all their arrogance and advanced technology, they're pretty much just humanoid bugs and go down like punks once the Avengers inspire the races of the galaxy to stand up to them.

** ComicBook/{{Galactus}}, in the ComicBook/HeroesReborn universe. As in the main one, he destroys whole planets to feed himself. But Dr. Doom and Iron Man also saw, in a time travel, the origin of life on planet earth: it seems that it was ''Galactus himself'' (actually, his herald Airwalker) who seeded life in the planet to begin with, just to harvest it some millenias afterwards.
* The Merk Drizripool is definitely one in ''ComicBook/{{Nexus}}''; the rest of the Merk are merely NeglectfulPrecursors.

* In the ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'', it's revealed that [[SatanicArchetype Lord Tirek]] is the sole survivor of the long-dead Centaur race that ruled long before Ponyland's founding [[spoiler:and before pony sapience ''period''. And [[PrecursorKillers was the reason for his kind's extinction]]]]. As such he ''definitely'' counts for this trope for all races to come after him.
* FanFic/ThePalaververse: In the distant past, before the world's modern species developed anything in the way of civilization, the world was ruled by the Mage-Lords of Antlertis, a powerful and advanced civilization of deer based on an island on the far side of the planet from the rest of the world’s continents. The Mage-Lords were almost uniformly users of dark magic who saw the other intelligent species -- and their own subjects -- as nothing more than thralls or guinea pigs for their experiments. They ruled the world tyrannically until they destroyed themselves while attempting to capture [[EldritchAbomination something]] from the depths of space, destroying their island and their race in a single night. They’re also responsible, directly or indirectly, for creating a great deal of the horrors that have plagued the world over the ages, including Tirek, Discord, the Sirens, Ahuizotl, and the horror in the Pachidermian south.
* In ''Fanfic/GoingAnotherWay'' [[spoiler:Lilith, the creator of mankind - and all life on Earth -]] is that in a big, BIG way. The sheer scope of it is mind-boggling.
* ''Fanfic/AMothToAFlame'': Not only were Andrias' ancestors [[MultiversalConqueror Multiversal Conquerors]], so were Marcy's. Hell, even before that they came to Amphibia they were [[TheUsurper usurpers]], directly worked for dictators, [[TheWarlord Chinese warlords]], [[EvilSorcerer witches]] and assassins of other emperors.

* The Predators from the first ''Film/AVPAlienVsPredator'' movie. They uplifted humans just so they could use us as bait in a planet-sized game preserve. When the aliens overwhelmed them (purely because the predators handicapped themselves to increase the challenge rating) they detonated a nuclear weapon and wiped out a whole human civilization.

--> '''Matai Shang''': We do not cause the destruction of worlds. We merely manage them.

* In ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' the Engineers[=/=]"Space Jockeys" were the advanced alien race responsible for seeding life on Earth. When one is awakened from stasis [[spoiler:he immediately tries to destroy humanity.]]
* The unknown alien species from ''Film/{{Supernova}}'' is smart enough to be able to encase "9th-dimensional matter in a 3rd-dimensional shell". This shell's energy has the effect of [[spoiler:a FountainOfYouth]] when touched. (Better than candy!) The real use for this artifact? To [[spoiler:blow up any civilization advanced enough to have developed star drive and reach the places where they've hidden these supernova-causing weapons.]]

* ''Literature/Area51'': The Airlia, the aliens who [[spoiler:created humans]] and have covertly manipulated us throughout history, view humanity as cannon fodder at best. However, they were fighting something even ''[[PuppeteerParasite worse]]''.
* The unknown builders of the life-annihilating robots from Creator/FredSaberhagen's ''Literature/{{Berserker}}'' novels.
** Imaginatively known as "The Builders". It was shown that they made them to defeat another alien race and things went wrong. So less abusive and more technology has turned against us. Given the kitbashed and divergent technologies of Berserkers over the millennia of endless killing, it is unknown if one race used them as the Final Option against another or if two or more different factions or races deployed these death machines against each other. (You could always ask a berserker--but they don't care, and you wouldn't survive to share the answer...) No matter how you slice it, Berserkers are shining examples of GoneHorriblyRight as well as contenders for largest mass production {{Precursor Killer|s}} models.
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/CountToTheEschaton'', the precursors left the Momument, so that we would meddle with it and reveal our existence, so they could come to enslave us.

* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'' stories:

* The [[SnakePeople serpent men]] from Creator/RobertEHoward's ''King Literature/{{Kull}}'' and ''[[Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian Conan]]'' stories.

* The Aldenata from Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/LegacyOfTheAldenata'', with new abuses added with every new novel. Some are negligent, some are abusive. They took the Space Elves and made them unable to kill, but did nothing to their instincts to dominate and control, so instead they [[CorruptCorporateExecutive seek economic domination of everyone]]. They convinced most of the other races if they wish to ascend they have to be PerfectPacifistPeople, knowing this is not only false, but other races who use rage in their mental powers exist and are actively looking for races to use as cannon fodder and slaves. They also convinced those child races that modifying a race against its will is a good thing, and they are doing it to humans. Oh and then there is the Posleen, where they took a race that was something like Ancient Greece and made them into a HordeOfAlienLocusts by making them breed often and quickly, and so that 9/10 would be born with a form of intellectual disability except for genetic memories and gifts for things like agriculture. And when this [[GoneHorriblyWrong went horribly wrong]] they tried to shove them off on a prison planet, and after they escaped it became even worse as they started to actively harm them to try and contain them more. Like wrecking their cultural memory so instead of actively looking for their foes, they loot and breed and plunder everyone.
* Curiously mostly averted by the various {{Eldritch Abomination}}s (and semi-related StarfishAlien species) of Creator/HPLovecraft, most of whom are either too indifferent or too incomprehensible to truly qualify as "abusive on purpose". It's also not always clear how many of them (other than Azathoth, who apparently created the universe more or less by blind accident and the Elder Things who in ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'' are credited with likewise somewhat accidentally being responsible for organic life on Earth) can truly claim "precursor" status.

** The K'chain Che'malle, the oldest race, were [[LizardFolk lizardmen]] who ruled the planet with an iron fist; when [[spoiler: Che'malle survivors]] show up in the last couple of books, though, they turn out to be [[BlueAndOrangeMorality more coldly alien than evil]] and end up [[spoiler: allying with the protagonists, recognizing that humans are now the dominant race on the planet]].
** The Jaghut were mostly a race of solitary, pacifist scholars and mages, but every so often one of them would go mad and become [[EvilOverlord a Jaghut Tyrant]], effectively a GodEmperor to the younger races they enslaved. Subverted when more about the Jaghut is revealed. They seem like abusive precursors at first, but aside from the aforementioned occasional Tyrant they [[NeglectfulPrecursors just didn't care]] because civilization is for wimps. And they should know, [[spoiler: they used to have a thriving one until one of them aptly named the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Lord of Hate]] convinced them to collectively sit down and stop being social]].
** The Forkrul Assail are the most clear-cut example; a race of {{Knight Templar}}s obsessed with purity, they killed ''their own god'' when it didn't live up to their standards, and [[spoiler: come back in the last couple of books to give humanity the same treatment]].

* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/IceCrown'', Clio is an experiment by the Psychocrats, still running after their downfall, and still using conditioning on the humans there to prevent their thinking wrong thoughts.

%%* The Titans in ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', especially Kronos.
%%** Continued in the sequel series ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' with the new BigBad [[spoiler: Gaia, aka Mother Earth]].

* The Wolves/Inhibitors from Creator/AlastairReynolds' ''[[Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries Revelation Space]]'' novels ''seem'' to be this. They deliberately transformed themselves into (usually) nonsentient machines which act to prevent sentient life from spreading through the galaxy--typically by way of genocide, though they're sometimes willing to overlook planetbound life forms. They do have a noble-sounding motivation--[[spoiler:they're trying to ensure the collision with the Andromeda Galaxy doesn't wipe out intelligence permanently and don't believe a multiple-species society can pull together to prevent the chaos ahead]]--but they've been slaughtering for billions of years, there are billions more to go, and it's questionable whether they really intended to end up this way.
** Some of the [[spoiler: shrouders]] are pretty abusive too; the one time they didn't [[spoiler: kill or drive insane any human that got too close to their territory]], it was part of a plan to [[spoiler: trick humans into awakening the Inhibitors, so that the shrouders would know whether it was safe to come out of hiding. It wasn't safe, and humans were driven nearly to extinction as a result.]]
* The Valheru from Creator/RaymondEFeist's ''[[Literature/TheRiftwarCycle Riftwar]]'' books.

* Everyone in ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' thinks the Knights Radiant were this, based on their betrayal and abandonment of humanity that [[spoiler:created more Voidbringers]]. In truth, [[spoiler:they were BenevolentPrecursors who abandoned their oaths after learning a terrible secret, [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom not knowing what that entailed]].]]

* The "Firstborn" featured in Sir Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Time Odyssey'' and ''[[Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries Space Odyssey]]'' books are pretty much [[UrExample Ur examples]] for both this trope ''and'' BenevolentPrecursors respectively. In ''Space Odyssey'' they are super-advanced aliens that made it their purpose to promote the development of intelligent life throughout the Galaxy. After they [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence moved on]], they left their "Monoliths" to continue their work in their stead. In ''[[AlternateUniverse Time Odyssey]]'' they are the ''exact opposite'': to them, intelligent life is indeed a treasure, but not one greater than [[ItsAllAboutMe their own existence]]. Every intelligent race out there, if left unchecked, would speed up the Universe's Heat Death, leading to their own extinction as well. The Monoliths are replaced with "[[AlienGeometries Eyes]]", which act as observers and enforcers of their will; if the Firstborn's first plan to sterilize Earth with a ''massive'' solar flare 2000 years in the making failed, the Eyes can also double as planet-busting [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Q-bombs]].
* In the ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series, the punishment for being Abusive to your client species is often extermination. Also, way back in prehistory, there was description of a group called "the Lions" who ignored the rules, ruled without any care for the potential species for millions of years (causing mass extinctions, which is tantamount to genocide for the Galactic Society of the Uplift universe), destroying lots of information about the past, and had to be put down by an alliance of Sentient Species which would have to rebuild so much lost information on Galactic Civilization and put in new safeguards.
** An idea of the scale involved is that the Lions ruled the Five Galaxies for ''twenty million years''. In retrospect, this is seen as a brief, nasty interregnum.

* ''Series/{{Andor}}'': The Kuati signet kyber crystal that Luthen gives to Cassian is said to celebrate the uprising against the "Rakatan invaders" - an ancient species that invented hyperspace travel and conquered the galaxy in the ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' continuity, first seen in ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic''. While the exact details haven't been confirmed, the mention of there being an "uprising" and them being "invaders" implies that they share the same backstory here as they do in ''Legends''.

* The Old Ones and other "pure" demons of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' and ''Series/{{Angel}}''. These [[EldritchAbomination monstrous primal entities]] [[TheDarkTimes ruled the Earth with an iron fist for untold millennia]] until humanity eventually supplanted them. Though all of the Old Ones still on Earth are either dormant or "dead", the return of even one to full power would likely bring HellOnEarth and/or [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the Apocalypse]].

** Before they adopted a [[AlienNonInterferenceClause non-interference policy]], the Time Lords were pretty evil, such as kidnapping species from different planets and have them fight to the death for their amusement. Even afterwards they would act to preserve their near-monopoly on effective time travel, to the point of exterminating any species that got too close.
*** The Time War was not a positive influence on the Time Lords' disposition. They became so unpleasant and genocidal that the Doctor had to basically turn all of Gallifrey into a SealedEvilInACan.

** The Daemons were established as manipulating humanity (as one of innumerable "experiments" they ran on less advanced species) long before the Silence. Specifically what and when they manipulated is just part of the series' long ContinuitySnarl. [[spoiler:An ExpandedUniverse series of novels posits the Daemons tricked Renaissance-era humans in order to force the creation of Earth's first time-sensitives and later pretended to be insulted by the results, arranging a massive purge to kill all of them. Turns out, they just wanted humanity to do all of the heavy lifting -- first they ensure Earth has the potential for time sensitivity, and then they arrange for conditions in which only the hardiest and most experienced sensitives can survive in order to create their window of opportunity to create perfect time channelers (essentially, human [=TARDISes=]).]]
* In ''Series/EngineSentaiGoOnger'', an ancient counterpart of the villains known as the Horonderthals caused the dinosaurs to destroy themselves.
* ''Series/Foundation2021'': Season 2 reveals that Cleon I was this to his successor clones in the Genetic Dynasty. Aside from creating the dynasty merely because he was so egotistical he viewed only himself as capable of keeping the Empire going, it's clear from the attitude of his [[BrainUploading AI copy]] left behind as an emergency advisor that he just sees the later Cleons as [[ExpendableClone extensions of himself, ignoring their individual needs so long as they keep to their roles]]. [[spoiler: Also, he reprogrammed [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Demerzel]] to be eternally dedicated to protecting the integrity of the dynasty even if it means killing individual clones, [[AndIMustScream whether she wants to or not]].]]

** The Ori are evil ascended beings who fought and chased away [[NeglectfulPrecursors The Ancients]]. Both are the same race, just different cultures.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek''[='=]s Iconian civilization was apparently so abusive even in their own time that the other races at the time banded together to ''wipe them out'', and are always referred to in leftover artifacts as "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Demons of Air and Darkness]]". Though the episode that introduced them had Picard theorise that this was a reaction to their signature technology (portals that can go seemingly ''anywhere'') rather than the Iconians actually being ''evil'', and the other canonical appearance of Iconian technology doesn't present any evidence to the contrary.
** In ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', the Iconians [[spoiler: aren't so extinct]] and apparently have been involved in [[spoiler: the [[Film/StarTrek2009 destruction of Romulus]], and the Undine and Borg issues plaguing the Alpha quadrant as of late.]] Even more, [[spoiler: The Guardian of Forever, the Prophets, and even Kahless know of them and all agree that they're a bunch of dicks. So much so that the Guardian refuses to let them use him.]]

** The Illithids (Mind Flayers) in certain incarnations. [[{{Cthulhumanoid}} Squid-headed]] [[BrainFood brain-eating]] power-hungry masters of a multidimensional empire brought down by their own slaves. At least one story suggests they are actually thrown out of time. In one sourcebook dealing with different blood ancestry gifts (stuff like having dragon descendants, etc.), Illithid blood powers are in the people who are the Illthids' ancestors. Thus, some humans are Abusive Precursors.
** In the fan-made [[VideoGame/TheAielundSaga Aielund]] module series for Neverwinter Nights, the mind flayers (called Saquarin, but they use the same models and rules) are aliens who keep 'lesser races' as cattle without them knowing it, and have Githzerai agents on the planets to engineer wars so as to keep the humans (and others) technologically inferior.

** This trope seems to be popular for tentacled aberrations in general, as the kopru from TabletopGame/{{Mystara}} are mentioned as having ruled a mind-controlled empire in the distant past.

*** The demon Overlords were the first lords of the world, and some of their ruins still dot the land to this day. They were also immortal, inescapable {{Anthropomorphic Personification}}s of all the worst aspects of mortality, like endless war and a winter that kills all things. The only reason why mortals managed to survive at all is that most Overlords wanted to keep them around to give some meaning to their existences--the Rage of War could send his demons against other demons, but they were all immortal so it wasn't ''real''. They were bound by the sacrifice of the couatls, aided by the dragons.
*** [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation The dragons of Argonnessen might also be.]] Oh, they ''claim'' everything they've ever done is for the good of the world, but they've caused more than a few genocides that seem to be focused more on keeping their own power, and even on a good day they tend to treat mortal races as interesting animals to be preserved for environmental reasons than people with their own civilization.

* The TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms has a couple of these:
** First, there were the reptilian Sarrukh. At first, they kept their sacrifices to their god to honoured Sarrukh volunteers. But then someone hit upon the idea of sacrificing all those non-reptilians, which required the use of divine aspect trickery to 'purify' the souls, which (together with the non-voluntary part) led to the sacrifices having to be in much larger quantities. Their descendants include various serpentfolk and scalykind races ranging from saurials to yuan-ti to dragonborn to kobolds to troglodytes. Some of them are good-natured and can get on well with mammalian races, but others are just as vile as their ancestors were.
** Among humans, the Netherese started out [[FromNobodyToNightmare a collection of simple farmers and fisherfolk]]. When they started learning magic from the elves, they realized they had an incredible talent for it. They grew into one of the most powerful magical empires the Realms has ever seen, as well as one of the cruelest and most tyrannical. They were TheMagocracy, ruled by spectacularly powerful wizards who dwelled in flying cities, lorded over the lower classes they abused and enslaved. The Netherese wizards' hubris became so great that one of them even tried to [[AGodAmI become the god of magic]], usurping the role from the goddess in charge of it. He had no idea how to handle his divine status and caused a magical apocalypse that completely destroyed the Netherese Empire. A few Netherese wizards survived and haunt the Realms even today, such as the [[OurLichesAreDifferent undead wizard Larloch]] and the Princes of Shade, who fled to the Plane of Shadow before the rest of the empire was destroyed and returned in the present day.
* The world of {{TabletopGame/Greyhawk}} has the wicked Suel Imperium. The Suel Imperium was much like the Realms' Netheril, ruled by powerful mages that made deals with {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and treated the lower classes like chattel. They fell into a violent magical war with the more benign Baklunish Empire when they tried to wipe the Baklunish out with [[ApocalypseHow the Invoked Devastation.]] The enraged Baklunish survivors retaliated with the Rain of Colorless Fire, which vaporized most of the Imperium and turned it into the lifeless Sea of Dust. The surviving Suel fled eastward into the Flanaess, forming new states in the present day. Most modern Suel people aren't as nasty as their ancestors, but some of them like the Scarlet Brotherhood are ANaziByAnyOtherName and want to recreate an empire where the pale-skinned Suel rule over darker-skinned humans and all the world's non-human races.

* The plot of ''[[VideoGame/{{Ares}} Ares Extinction Agenda]]'' can be summarized as follows: Some alien(s) created all life in the universe. Said alien(s) have decided humanity is destructive and wasteful and should be wiped out. A robot humans built disagrees, strongly.
* ''VideoGame/BetrayalAtKrondor'', just like the world from the ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'' that it is based in, features the Valheru, dragon-riding tyrants who trolled the multiverse since the dawn of time, only to be brought low by the newly-forming gods. Directly responsible for the introduction of every race in the world, as well as most races on other worlds.

* Pre-War civilization in ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}''. Not only did they destroy themselves in a nuclear holocaust and reduce the world to an irradiated hellscape, but a lot of the Wasteland's problems can be tied back to their reprehensible actions: [[DemonicSpiders Deathclaws?]] The result of the US military using bio-engineering on chameleons to create deadly seek-and-destroy units. Robobrains? The US government putting the brains of executed criminals in robot bodies for both military ''and civilian'' applications. The Vaults? Most of them were never meant to save anybody, instead being insane social experiments set up by (you guessed it) the US government. The Enclave? They ''are'' the US government (or rather their descendants), and seek to wipe out all of the "impure" residents of the wastes. And let's not even get started on the [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas Big Empty]].

** From ''Shadowbringers'', we have a race of ancient beings introduced about halfway through the story. They were a race of people gifted with near-immortal lifespans, and vast aetheric manipulating abilities that allowed them to [[CreatingLife create just about anything]] on a whim. Combine this with their culture valuing discussion and philosophy and their naturally peaceful dispositions, their world never once knew conflict or violence. Then one day [[ApocalypseHow a series of horrifying calamities brought about by their powers suddenly going haywire with little idea of what was causing it]], and they were left with no other option but to willingly sacrifice half of their population to summon a being embodying the will of The Star itself to save them. If you're wondering how these beings could possibly be abusive to anyone, that's because they're actually [[spoiler: the ''[[GreaterScopeVillain Ascians]]''. The very same black-robed sowers of discord you've been fighting throughout the whole game, are actually [[TheRemnant the last remnants]] of the original world that existed before it was split into The Source and its thirteen Shards. The reason why the Star was sundered was that Hydaelyn shattered it in her battle against Zodiark, and the original race of Ascians was practically wiped out as a result. The Ascians of today now seek to trigger Calamities that will destroy the Shards and have their aether remerge with The Source, and once they are all reunited they plan to summon Zodiark once again to restore the original world and all of its inhabitants at the cost of all life remaining on The Source.]]
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXVI'' [[spoiler: Ultima reveals he and his race (a series of identical individuals, implied to be a MindHive) introduced magic and all it brought with it to the planet, but after the Blight began to spiral out of control, created humanity with the sole goal of cultivating a physical body strong enough to handle enough aether to create a new world, one where Ultima would be free of the Blight, with an army of mindless human thralls to wait on him hand and foot. Humans developing sentience was not part of his plan, and now upon returning to collect his perfect vessel, Ultima can barely disguise his hatred and disdain for humans and wants to erase their consciousness before he leaves for his perfect world.]]
* [[spoiler:The Agarthans, aka "those who slither in the dark"]] from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' are remnants of an ancient civilization hell-bent on wreaking vengeance against the 'surface-dwellers'. And to give an idea of how dangerous they are, they possess [[spoiler:ballistic missiles and mechs]] in a setting generally characterized by MedievalStasis. And what do they want revenge for? [[spoiler:The Goddess Sothis mopping the floor with them when they tried to kill her and her children in a fit of pride.]]
* ''VideoGame/FreedomPlanet2'' reveals that [[spoiler:the earth dragons, initially presented in [[VideoGame/FreedomPlanet the first game]] as the BenevolentPrecursors, are revealed to have actually enslaved the planet's indigenous species, the water dragons, and forced them to build their spaceship Bakunawa, with them working under horrible and unsafe conditions without any rest. And when the water dragons tried to rebel, the earth dragons responded by genociding the race with the use of Bakunawa; to date, there are only two known still-living water dragons. The reason why the earth dragons are believed to be benevolent beings in the present day is that they were the ones who painted themselves that way [[WrittenByTheWinners once they rewrote the history in their favor while portraying the water dragons as unjust and violent aggressors]].]]
* The ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' series has the [[OmnicidalManiac Shivans]], [[BlueAndOrangeMorality though why they are so intent on destroying the Terrans and the Vasudans is a complete mystery]]. Theories range from them being some kind of "galactic immune system" to them being {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s from another universe, but their motivations are more or less entirely unknown. The Ancient Ones were pretty bad too, either enslaving less advanced lifeforms or running rebellious/resisting races into extinction, which caused the Shivans to wipe them out entirely. It's also implied that the Ancient Ones had a hand in helping the Vasudans get off the ground and that the Vasudans rebelled just as the Shivans began attacking, thus allowing them to continue to grow until they met the Terrans, who were probably ignored by the Ancient Ones because of the Shivans' wiping them out. [[spoiler: To give them credit, the Ancient Ones also left behind artifacts on their home planet in the Altair System that helped the newly founded Terran-Vasudan Alliance defeat the Shivans in the first game by destroying their super-destroyer, the ''Lucifer'', while in [[SubspaceOrHyperspace Subspace]] transit to the Solar System, to destroy Earth like it had Vasuda Prime before it.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' novel trilogy reveals that the Precursors tried to exterminate the Forerunners, who struck back and wiped ''them'' out instead (then again, it's possible the Forerunners attacked them unprovoked; it depends on which side is telling the story). It's later revealed that the Precursors subsequently became the parasitic Flood and currently ''do'' intend to condemn all of their creations to an existence of eternal pain and misery.
** The Forerunners themselves are shown to have been pretty abusive towards both lesser species and the [[AdvancedAncientHumans nearly-as-advanced Humans]] and San'Shyuum, ultimately culminating in the Forerunners forcibly devolving the former and stripping them of all of their technology and quarantining the latter to a mere two planets. Ironically, it's implied that the Forerunners' overbearing rule played a big role in the fall of their civilization. They had weakened their subject species so much that the latter could provide no real help in fighting back against the Flood, forcing the Forerunners to resort to wiping out all life in the galaxy with the Halo Array.
* In ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'', [[Characters/HorizonZeroDawnTedFaro Ted Faro]] and his global mega-corporation absolutely count as this, creating the robot plague that destroyed the biosphere and [[spoiler: purging the APOLLO archive of all of humanity's collected art, culture, science, and technology, dooming future humans to ignorance and primitive existences to hide his crimes]]. Elisabet Sobeck and the rest of Project Zero Dawn, on the other hand, are BenevolentPrecursors, even if things didn't turn out quite how they intended.
* The Rakata in ''Franchise/StarWars'': ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' enslaved every other species they came across. Ever wondered why Tatooine is a [[SingleBiomePlanet Desert World]]? [[DeathFromAbove Well]]... In addition, the planet's native species, the Kumumgah, evolved into the Jawas and Tusken Raiders as a result of their actions. They also left behind the Star Forge, a [[ThatsNoMoon colossal]] space factory capable of singlehandedly sustaining the war effort against a galaxy, powered by ''TheDarkSide'', designed specifically for aspiring {{Galactic Conqueror}}s. Complete with operator's manual. Seriously.
** [[EvilIsNotAToy They paid a serious price for this]], however. Eventually, their entire species lost its connection to the force, and they degenerated into tribal primitives found only in the ruins of their homeworld. One of the operations for ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' involves an ancient Rakata Lord [[SealedEvilInACan about to force open its can]]... Half of it is listening to his {{Badass Boast}}s.
** The ''ComicBook/DawnOfTheJedi'' comic is set while the Rakata were at their prime and has them as the {{Big Bad}}s. They're ''horrifying''. Even worse, it's revealed early on that a kinder species [[NiceJobBreakingItHero misjudged them when teaching them how to use the Force]].
** [[spoiler:The Iokath Species]] are more BlueAndOrangeMorality than outright abusive, but they still count. Their whole race was dedicated solely to the construction of [[WeaponOfMassDestruction Weapons Of Mass Destruction]], which they tried to perfect by testing them on over 70 unique worlds. They were also the creators of [[spoiler:the Eternal Fleet, the Gravestone, and the Old Gods]]. However, despite their dedication to weapons, they were not actually violent and expansionist in nature and provided survivors of their weapons with reparations so that they would be able to rebuild their civilizations, if only so they can be tested again at a later date. They eventually all died in a civil war where both sides employed their superweapons and automated armies against each other, only to completely lose control of them.
* [[spoiler:The Mother]] from ''VideoGame/LaMulana'' is hinted to be one, having created the Eight Children -- that is, humankind and its seven predecessor races -- for the sole purpose of [[spoiler: engineering her return to space, [[AncientAstronauts from whence she came]]]]. It's stated that she is behind the destruction of a few of the previous Children for their failure to accomplish this goal, making her guilty of multiple counts of genocide (through negligence, at the very least). And there is one tablet that implies that [[spoiler: humanity itself has an expiration date coming up in 2015]].
* ''VideoGame/TheLastFederation'' has Hydral. They were first into space and created lots of tech that much, much more powerful than anything else others have. They also actively prevented anyone else getting into the space, destroying anything bigger than a satellite. They died when they were hit by DepopulationBomb and one of the species dropped a moon on them. The problem is that the game consists of you, on your own, trying to bring all those abused races together to form a federation, and they have ample reason to distrust each other thanks to the Hydral's manipulations. And also to distrust ''you'', since you're the last of the Hydrals.

** The [[SapientShip Reapers]] almost set the record for the most abusive of all. They deliberately leave LostTechnology around for future species to find to encourage specific technological developments, thus making it easier when they return to completely obliterate them. They do this for the purposes of ''reproduction'', creating new Reapers from millions of harvested people. Those who aren't suitable for this are instead transformed into mindless husks, tools to be used in the next "cycle". [[spoiler:The Catalyst states at the end of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' that the Reapers' true purpose is to catalogue and indefinitely preserve all organic life, to protect it from the inevitable (actually quite evitable as it turns out) RobotWar]].
** The ''Leviathan'' {{DLC}} introduces the Leviathans, the species that built the intelligence which built the Reapers. The Reaper's MindControl ability is copied from the Leviathans' own ability which they used to enslave the rest of the galaxy, turning them into thralls to serve their needs.
** The third game also reveals that the Protheans were not very nice. While they did kickstart the technological development of some species, they were also massive SocialDarwinists who erased the cultures of their subject species if they didn't outright exterminate them.
** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' [[spoiler:The unidentified alien race who were at war with the Jaardan, who disagreed with what they were doing so much they cooked up a FantasticNuke called the Scourge, which is designed to seek out Jaardan tech and screw it up. By the time the story takes place in, it's destroyed several planets, one solar system is almost ''gone'', and killed one completely innocent primitive species that just happened to be in the area. Squadmate Liam puts it pretty accurately when he calls them "some motherfuckers".]]

* Done by humanity itself ''by accident'' in the ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'' series. See, humanity made an [[ArtificialHuman artificial]] slave race called the "Carbons", and to make sure they didn't [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters go rogue]], set up several failsafe systems to wipe out all the Carbons if there were any signs of acting outside usual parameters, or if Carbon population was suddenly much greater than the human population. Then the humans died off from a cataclysm, leaving behind the sapient carbons and several failsafe systems that thought the Carbons had gone rogue when they were simply replacing the void that humanity's sudden extinction left behind.
* In ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VIII'', a non-malfunctioning Ancient construct, Escaton tries to destroy the world. As there doesn't seem to be any reason for that, this would appear to make the Ancients fit into this trope (especially as they ''are'' still out there, just rather busy at the moment)... [[spoiler: but as it turns out, [[SubvertedTrope there is a reason]]: the Ancients, rather reasonably, put fail-safes into Escaton to keep him from being subverted by the Kreegan, one of which was an inability to willingly stop destroying a world once he had started. As he only started doing it if he deemed a world unable to defeat the Kreegan, that generally worked out, but in this one case he happened to underestimate the inhabitants...]]

* ''VideoGame/MythTheFallenLords'' has the Trow, a race of giants created by the goddess Nyx as the first sentient life in the world. Initially peaceful, when challenged by another elder race, they begged Nyx for help, and she whispered the secret of working iron to them. They used this power to drive no fewer than ''three'' elder races to extinction, and one of these was in punishment for rebelling after the Trow had enslaved them. The Trow were eventually punished by the hero Connacht and returned to their peaceful ways...until Connacht returned as the Leveller and offered them positions of leadership in his conquering army. In fairness, the Trow had a HeelFaceTurn in ''Myth II'', where the few remaining Trow sided with the Light against Soulblighter, mostly out of shame for their actions in the previous conflict.
* The Sarrukh "Old Ones" in ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights''. Powerful magical humanoid reptiles forced into dormancy by a cooling climate... for now. Elaboration in the [[TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms tabletop game]] revealed that the Sarrukh, one of five Creator Races, had begun fairly non-abusive, but (mostly) began to slide into evil as their god fractured and fell into somnolence and an excuse was made for sacrificing non-Sarrukh (sacrificing honored volunteers are one thing. Mass sacrifices of slave races, another).

* The Precursors who built [[BigDumbObject the Sphere]] in ''VideoGame/Prey2006'' seeded countless planets throughout the galaxy and are directly responsible for life on Earth. And all they ask for in return is that every few thousand years, they stop by and gruesomely abduct and slaughter countless people to keep their OrganicTechnology running.

** The [[VestigialEmpire Fallen Empire]]s are often this:

*** Enigmatic Observers/Fanatic Xenophiles can be seen as this or haughty but BenevolentPrecursors, depending on perspective. They will only attack younger empires who enslave or purge other species, but when they awaken as Benevolent Interventionists they ''insist'' that the rest of the galaxy sign a peace treaty. At this stage of the game, most planets are already claimed and the only way to expand is by conquest; their treaty might not be terrible for the ''citizens'' of the galaxy, but it's such a huge hindrance for ''players'' that many prefer thralldom to the Jingoistic Reclaimers.

* The Suul'Ka in the ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' {{backstory}}, who enslaved the Liir, used their pawns to destroy the old Morrigi civilization and killed 90% of their male population, and created the Zuul, a genocidal race of religiously fanatic {{Super Soldier}}s. The Liir wiped most of them out with a bio-weapon, but the sequel revealed that seven of them survived and recovered... And now they are back. And they are ''angry''.
** In the first game, Suul'ka was assumed to merely be the name the Liir gave them, [[UnseenEvil their true name being unknown]]. "Suul'ka" actually translates literally as "winterheart" or "abomination". [[spoiler:As it turned out, they are Liir, and they do indeed call themselves "Suul'ka". It says a lot about them that they actually refer to themselves as abominations.]]
** The Morrigi were fairly benign in their heyday. But the intro to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYgti3MKCDg A Murder of Crows]] suggests that they were rather pissed when they came back to reclaim their old colonies.

* ''VideoGame/{{Utawarerumono}}.'' {{Jerkass}} precursors: [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans]] that experimented with [[UnusualEars strangely-eared]] clones and the Ice Man.

** Their original, hopefully abandoned-by-the-Tenno method of creating the titular warframes? [[spoiler: Using a controlled form of the Infestation to mutate people ''into'' warframes. While they're alive and conscious. If the unfortunate is lucky, they become just a mindless meat puppet. If not, [[AndIMustScream they replay the traumatic memory of their transformation eternally]]]].

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', players learn of the Titans, the race of {{Precursors}} who seeded much of the life on Azeroth. But when their creations were corrupted by [[EldritchAbomination the Old Gods]] with the "[[CursedWithAwesome curse]] [[TheCorruption of]] [[FleshVersusSteel flesh]]," they set up a ResetButton or two, most notably in the Halls of Origination, in case the corruption got too great. "Reset Button" should be read as "EarthShatteringKaboom." That said, the ''Chronicles'' book goes into detail about the thinking behind this and reveals the Titans weren't so much "Abusive Precursors" as "Precursors Trying to Keep the Universe Safe".
** In Ulduar, where Yogg-Saron is [[SealedEvilInACan held captive and asleep]], the Titans left a failsafe to deal with him should the [[SemiDivine Watchers]] be overpowered. [[MeaningfulName Algalon the Observer]] would ascertain whether or not the corruption of TheOldGods was sufficient to warrant the "[[DeadlyEuphemism re-origination]]" of the planet, obliterating all life, including the descendants of the Titans' own creations.
*** It should be noted that all of this is a NecessarilyEvil and GodzillaThreshold however because the Old Gods' corruption would not only corrupt all life on the planet [[spoiler:if left unchecked they would corrupt [[GeniusLoci the slumbering Titan world-soul of Azeroth itself]] and turn it into a FetusTerrible that would [[OmnicidalManiac corrupt and destroy the entire universe]]]].

* On balance, the ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe's]]'' Old Ones are this. Theoretically, they have good goals, such as preventing the heat death of the universe, and they consider the PortalNetwork they built a gift to the younger races. Unfortunately, they have a tendency to think of the younger races as a single group, making them frighteningly willing to toy with them seemingly at random. Since their most direct method of manipulation is to switch gate pairs in the PortalNetwork, this means they do things like start interplanetary wars, [[YouCantGoHomeAgain separate colony ships from their home planets]] or lock fleets in deep space with nowhere to go, or even [[InferredHolocaust turn off the whole network]]. Then again, the network shutdown after ''X3: Albion Prelude'' came partly in response to the [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]] gaining control over a sizable portion of the galaxy, so YMMV.
** Possibly justified by the fact that according to the backstory, the Old Ones have been united for over 3.2 billion years, which brings BlueAndOrangeMorality into play. In other words, they're so far above us that we don't understand them, and they don't understand us.

* ''Utawarerumono''[='s=] expy ''VisualNovel/TearsToTiara'' has [[spoiler:[[LightIsNotGood the Angels]] as the abusive precursors. [[ColonyDrop And]] ''[[ApocalypseHow how]]''!]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Whatever created Sburb in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': the game in question seeds species' existence for the sole purpose of destroying it except for a limited group of ''children'' who are tested to see if they can win a difficult game. [[spoiler: And the children don't even come from that planet, they're created by the game itself, using in-game equipment called Apperifiers. The devices use paradox slime to extract genetic information from the kids' guardians to create both infant versions of them and the kids, which are then sent back in time by an in-game entity called Skaia.]]
** Sburb is created by the Genesis Frog, [[spoiler: a frog that contains the entire Universe and all alternate timelines, as a means to reproduce and create new Universes. The kids' sprites' prototypings shape the new reality.]] Therefore, Billious Slick and all Genesis Frogs before him are the Abusive Precursors.
** The trolls [[spoiler: wanted to become this to Earth. Didn't quite work out.]]

* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', it turns out the species that run the galactic wormhole network has been running their nefarious sentient trafficking operations for longer than any other living galactic civilization has been around. Every time someone goes through a wormhole, a gate clone is created. [[MoralEventHorizon Gate clones are fully aware, sentient, and retain the original's memories. Each gate clone is interrogated, killed, and dissected, not necessarily in that order. The knowledge is leveraged to manipulate things behind the scenes]]. The Gatekeepers justify these acts as necessary sacrifices to the apex predators of the Andromeda Galaxy, the [[EldritchAbomination Pa'anuri]], by ensuring that the Milky Way is a police state in a CosmicHorrorStory and the Pa'anuri don't view any of them as a threat. But the Gatekeepers are exactly as sociopathic, amoral, and greedy as you'd expect from a race that can kidnap, torture, and murder anyone they want on tap.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* PlayedForLaughs in ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall''. One running gag has Linkara ranting about the evils of AncientEgypt.
* The [[https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/1744/ Sufficiently Advanced Trolling]] thread on web forum Sufficient Velocity has a long list of examples which are [[PlayedForLaughs Played For Laughs]]. How malicious they are varies wildly.
* One proposal for SCP-001 is that the entire ''Website/SCPFoundation'' universe is created by a group of abusive precursors for entertainment purposes. [[spoiler:"God is real. [[NoticingTheFourthWall And He's a bunch of horror writers.]]"]]
* [[spoiler: Zion/Scion and Eden, also known as The Entities]] in ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' aren't responsible for the creation of humanity, [[spoiler: but they are responsible for the creation of superpowers and parahumans in general through their "shards", though Eden's role in that is partially unwilling. ADayInTheLimelight for Scion shows that it and Eden have done this for hundreds if not ''thousands'' of planets before, granting the inhabitants powers and watching them develop and create new shards through growth and conflict, then wiping them out when they no longer served any purpose. Scion comes mere inches away from doing the same to humanity, too.]]
* The [[EldritchAbomination Great Old Ones]] (yes, ''[[Creator/HPLovecraft those]]'' [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Great Old Ones]]...) in the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse''. They fought a war with the Sidhe that wiped out the Sidhe and got the Great Old Ones sealed out of this dimension. For now...

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': [[Characters/AmphibiaKingAndrias King Andrias]] refers to his ancestors--the newts who founded Newtopia, the heart of all Amphibia--as peaceful explorers. [[spoiler:This is a flat lie. They were [[MultiversalConqueror conquerors]] who used the Calamity Box to subjugate other worlds, and the enigmatic ruins turn out to be their factories--still operational factories, at that, for the purpose of assembling death robots. Their city fell to ruin a thousand years ago, and the second season's central BigBad, King Andrias, seeks the Calamity Box as a means of restoring his ancestors' "glorious" legacy.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', [[{{Satan}} Unicron]] is this for all life on Earth. [[spoiler: He IS planet Earth (or at least, the center of it), and views the organisms that have come to live upon him while he slept much the same way as if a human were to wake up covered in mosquitoes.]]

* ''Series/StargateSG1'':

* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': The Wraith are vampiric hive aliens who think [[ToServeMan humans are crunchy and good with ketchup]], and managed to chase the Ancients out of the Pegasus galaxy.

* Pre-War civilization in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}''. Not only did they destroy themselves in a nuclear holocaust and reduce the world to an irradiated hellscape, but a lot of the Wasteland's problems can be tied back to their reprehensible actions: [[DemonicSpiders Deathclaws?]] The result of the US military using bio-engineering on chameleons to create deadly seek-and-destroy units. Robobrains? The US government putting the brains of executed criminals in robot bodies for both military ''and civilian'' applications. The Vaults? Most of them were never meant to save anybody, instead being insane social experiments set up by (you guessed it) the US government. The Enclave? They ''are'' the US government (or rather their descendants), and seek to wipe out all of the "impure" residents of the wastes. And let's not even get started on the [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas Big Empty]].

** The Ayleids, the "[[OurElvesAreDifferent Wild Elves]]" of Cyrodiil, were a fairly extreme example. They initially split off from their Aldmeri ancestors to get around the (Aedra worshiping) Aldmeri ban on Daedra worship and would eventually found Tamriel's first empire in Cyrodiil. They enslaved the Nedes (human ancestors to the Bretons, Imperials, and possibly Nords), and some of their more horrific acts toward these slaves included: forcing them all to work naked, force-feeding them hallucinogenic drugs and watching their reactions, creating sculptures out of their bones, creating gardens out of their entrails, and setting human children on fire then siccing hungry animals on them. Eventually, under the leadership of [[FounderOfTheKingdom Alessia]] and with the support of the Aedra who would eventually be recognized as the "Divines" (who were obviously not too happy with the Ayleids' Daedra worship), their human slaves [[SlaveLiberation rose up]] and [[TheDogBitesBack revolted]], driving the Ayleids to near-extinction (save for the few who [[TokenHeroicOrc sided with the humans]] and were allowed to keep their lands as vassals to the new empire of Men). About a century later, the young empire took up an extremist [[FantasticRacism anti-Elven]] religion and drove out the remaining Ayleids as well as destroyed any vestiges of Ayleid culture they could find, driving them to apparent extinction as a unique race.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': It's revealed in Chapter 10 that ''[[DraconicAbomination Ghidorah]]'' was created by a technologically-advanced civilization on a distant alien world, billions of years ago: these alien beings apparently [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil did "bad things" to Ghidorah]] which directly triggered and indirectly exacerbated Ghidorah's descent into evil (a descent which was apparently irrevocable for [[MultipleHeadCase two of the three heads]]). It's indicated that these aliens made Ghidorah specifically to be a BioweaponBeast (bear in mind that on an Earth-like planet, Ghidorah [[PersonOfMassDestruction is capable of almost single-handedly ending all multicellular life on a global scale]]), and elaboration by the author on her Tumblr has only painted an even nastier picture regarding what these aliens were really like and the things they did that drove Ghidorah down its dark path. Unsurprisingly, when these beings let Ghidorah out of its cage expecting it to obliterate something for them, Ghidorah did what they wanted and then it [[PrecursorKillers turned against and eradicated them]] for all that they'd done to it.

** If you want to consider ''VideoGame/StarControl3'', let's put up the Eternal Ones. Seeding the universe with sentient life so you can eat all of it? Considering that one such sentient population managed to [[TakeAThirdOption figure out a way to make sure that no one has to die]] in their iteration, while the Eternal Ones went through who knows how many iterations committing universe-scale xenocide...

* In ''VideoGame/StarCraft'', the Protoss and the Zerg were uplifted by the Xel'Naga and gifted with the purity of form and the purity of essence respectively. At least, that's the history they know. The truth is revealed in ''Videogame/StarcraftIILegacyOfTheVoid'': [[spoiler:a rogue faction of Xel'Naga led by Amon uplifted the Protoss and the Zerg with the intention of eventually using both to wipe out all life in existence to end the Xel'Naga cycle forever. The vaunted Khala that unites the Khalai Protoss? It's actually something Amon added that allows him to enslave any Protoss connected to it.]]

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': It's revealed in Chapter 10 that ''[[DraconicAbomination Ghidorah]]'' was created by a technologically-advanced civilization on a distant alien world, billions of years ago: these alien beings apparently [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil did "bad things" to Ghidorah]] which directly triggered and indirectly exacerbated Ghidorah's descent into evil (a descent which was apparently irrevocable for [[MultipleHeadCase two of the three heads]]). It's indicated that these aliens made Ghidorah specifically to be a BioweaponBeast (bear in mind that on an Earth-like planet, Ghidorah [[PersonOfMassDestruction is capable of almost single-handedly ending all multicellular life on the planet]]), and elaboration by the author on her Tumblr has only painted an even nastier picture regarding what these aliens were really like and the things they did that drove Ghidorah down its dark path. Unsurprisingly, when these beings let Ghidorah out of its cage expecting it to obliterate something for them, Ghidorah did what they wanted and then it [[PrecursorKillers turned against and eradicated them]] for all that they'd done to it.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': It's revealed in Chapter 10 that Ghidorah was created billions of years ago by a technologically-advanced civilization on an alien world, whom Word of God indicates were ''not'' [[AntiVillain Anti-Villains]] or BlueAndOrangeMorality but really were sadistic assholes. Ghidorah became their [[PrecursorKillers Precursor Killer]].