History Main / PyramidPower

* The Arabian Nights expansion of the ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' card game features Pyramids as an artifact in which mana can be channeled through to protect lands.

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* Subverted in Creator/AlanMoore 's ''[[ComicBook/DRAndQuinch D.R. & Quinch]]'': Two alien {{time|Travel}}-travellers indeed visited AncientEgypt but they still cannot understand why the locals believed that the aliens wanted them to build pointy buildings.
%%* In the Mexican series ComicBook/{{Chanoc}} a story featured the concept of Pyramid Powers (in a satirical way.)

[[folder: Fan Fic ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* Sports film ''Film/SemiTough'' has people using all kinds of fad religious getishes to win at the game. One team actually does use "PyramidPower."
* Because giant alien death robots who turn into cars wasn't enough, ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'' had them building and destroying the pyramid at Giza, which houses a solar power collector.

[[folder: Literature ]]

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/{{Pyramids}}'', the pyramids act as "time dams", preserving the Old Kingdom unchanging for thousands of years. They don't sharpen razor blades, though ... they take them back in time to before they were blunt.
* Mentioned in ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic'', the scholarly tome ''Iyt Gryet Teymple hyte Tsort, Y Hiystory Myistical'' describes the Great Pyramid of Tsort. A copy was located in the Unseen University Library.The book described the effort that went into building the Great Pyramid; it was comprised of 1,003,010 blocks of limestone, built over 60 years and cost the lives of thousands of slaves. It was apparently done as a way of sharpening razor blades (as opposed to burying Kings). People got very excited about the significant mathematical fact that its height plus its length divided by half its width almost precisely equalled 1.67563, or precisely 1,237.98712567 times the difference between the distance to the sun and the weight of a small orange. It was held that something like this could not ''possibly'' have come about by chance.

* In ''[[Literature/TheCatWhoSeries The Cat Who Blew the Whistle]]'', there is a character named Elizabeth Hart who is big on the idea of pyramid power. Unannounced, she and her boyfriend pop over to the protagonist's (Qwilleran's) place and set up a makeshift portable pyramid. After they leave, Qwilleran's intelligent Siamese cat, Koko, makes his way to the very center of the pyramid and there is a blackout across the entire town that doesn't stop until he exits the pyramid.
* In the Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures novel ''SLEEPY'' by Kate Orman, the planet Yemaya has pyramids that seem to focus psychic powers, with a ContinuityNod to the Osirians (the AncientAstronauts who influenced the Egyptians in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMars Pyramids of Mars]]") and the Exxilons (Space {{Mayincatec}}s from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E3DeathToTheDaleks Death to the Daleks]]"). This is partly because her previous two [=NAs=], which happened to be set in Mexico and Egypt respectively, had both had a pyramid on the cover and she wanted to maintain the theme. (Her fourth NA, ''Return of the Living Dad'', is largely set in a New Age bookshop/cafe called The Pyramid.)
* In Mary Gentle's masterwork ''Literature/{{Ash}}'', the pyramids are revealed to be sentient static golems who are masnipulating the planet's timeline so as to take over Earth for their own ends. The sheer amount of energy needed to do this explains why Europe has fallen into a state of perpetual night wherever their armies have conquered.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''Series/StargateSG1'', apart from having the real pyramids in Egypt turn out to be ancient landing pads for Goa'uld spacecraft, also had Goa'uld-built pyramids appearing on alien planets as {{Supervillain Lair}}s and the like. The Goa'uld ''were'' [[AncientAstronauts the ancient Egyptian gods]], after all. Their {{Cool Starship}}s are also basically giant flying pyramids with extra high-tech superstructures added (which explains how they fit onto their "landing pads").
%%** The original ''Film/{{Stargate}}'' film had an even straighter example.

* Done in the Nineties revival of ''Series/TheTomorrowPeople''. The plot is that an immortal Egyptian pharoah is trying to recreate the circumstances required when the stars align to give him great power, which requires him to move a bunch of obelisks all over Europe (supposedly explaining why they were brought to London, Rome etc in the nineteenth century). The protagonists point out that this would mean he would have to have built a central focusing pyramid in the middle of them, in central London...they then look behind them and see the pyramidal top of the Canary Wharf Tower. Note this was years before it was used as the Torchwood Tower in ''Series/DoctorWho''.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMars The Pyramids of Mars]]", the point of the titular Martian pyramid is beaming some sort of forcefield energy at a pyramid in Egypt, thereby keeping a SealedEvilInACan sealed.
* ''Series/ChourikiSentaiOhranger'' had one of these from an ancient Pangean civilization as the source of the Ohrangers' power. King Ranger also has a pyramid HumongousMecha named King Pyramider. Its adaptation ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'' keeps the mecha pyramid, this time called Pyramidas. Also in both shows, the Blue Ranger's sphinx mecha can equip the Ohranger Robo/Zeo Megazord with a pyramid-like helmet.

[[folder: Music ]]

[[folder: Pinball ]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* The Tremere clan from ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' is obsessed with this trope, incorporating pyramid symbiology into the design of their rigid organizational structure in hopes of attaining greater mystical power. [[BlackMagic It]] [[{{Dystopia}} doesn't]] [[WhoWantsToLiveforever work]] [[ProperlyParanoid out]] [[ManipulativeBastard very well]].

* In ''ThroughTheAges'', the Pyramids grant you one extra civil action per turn. Arbitrary, but probably no less arbitrary than the powers the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' games gave them.

* The Arabian Nights expansion of [[MagicTheGathering Magic: The Gathering]] card game features Pyramids as an artifact in which mana can be channeled through to protect lands.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* The Temple of the Ancients of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' did not produce or direct power, it ''was'' power--being a giant maze which when solved would shrink into its smaller form, the [[ArtifactOfDoom Black Materia]] that would summon Meteor and bring about the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* A few planets in ''VideoGame/{{Mass Effect|1}}'' have Prothean-built pyramids on them. [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot No word on whether the pyramids on Earth have a similar story.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' allows the player to build a pyramid of power themselves by using resource expensive materials like blocks of iron, gold, diamond, or emerald. By building a pyramid out of those blocks and placing a beacon block on the top, the entire structure glow brightly and shoots out a beam of light to the sky. If the player places an iron bar, gold bar, emerald, or a diamond into the block, they can make the pyramid generate powers like increased speed or strength to anyone that stays in its radius.

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* In ''Anime/TransformersRobotsInDisguise'', one of the [[PlotCoupon O-Parts]] and the Orb of Sigma were both hidden in different pyramids.
* In ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', Doofenshmirtz thought that the pyramids of Egypt was built by aliens, when the Egyptians used music to command the aliens.

** "That Darn Katz!" plays it straight: it turns out that the pyramids were built as antennas to beam the earth's rotational energy to the planet Thuban 9 (which is the original homeworld of cats).

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Detentionaire}}'', there is a giant mysterious pyramid hidden underneath the school, guarded by Tazelwurms. It can only be opened [[spoiler:using [[CoolKey two special keys]] and [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot during the solar eclipse]], and the inside is inscribed with ancient runes that hold many secrets. The pyramid also houses a huge army of LizardFolk.]]
* WesternAnimation/DangerMouse had to deal with "A Plague Of Pyramids" (episode title). Baron Greenback scarfs up sand from the Sahara Desert and uses it to create pyramids throughout London thus causing it to sink below sea level from their collective weight.
* In ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', after [[spoiler:Bill is out of the dream world and takes over the real world]], he creates a giant pyramid as a dominion [[spoiler:for him and his Henchmaniacs]].

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* This is also the title of a book by EricFlint, the second in a series. It involves a five sided alien pyramid landing in Chicago.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'': Though the [[TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy Tomb Kings]] InSpace aspect came about much later, Necron Monolith are massive, floating, truncated pyramids that spit death at the living and summon even more Necrons.

* The Arabian Nights expansion of [[MagicTheGathering Magic: The Gathering]] card game features Pyramids as an artifact in which mana can be channeled through to protect lands

However, due to a mixture of the distinctive geometrical shape and the immense labor required to build them, a lot of people have assumed there must be some special significance to the shape. Or that they were built by [[AncientAstronauts aliens]], because, people with Bronze Age tools could not have designed such accurately geometric monuments. Predictably, this also shows up in fiction. During the [[TheSeventies 70s]] there was an actual fad about the pyramids serving as a focus of cosmic energies ('pyramid power') and that resting in houses or boxes shaped like them could grant many physical and mental benefits. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And sharpen razor blades.]]

%%* ''Film/AlienVsPredator'' also mentions pyramids in Cambodia.

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[[AC:Literature]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:Music]]

[[AC:Pinball]]
* A prominent feature of ''Pinball/TheTwilightZone'' pinball game is The Power, a one-eyed pyramid with a deep voice. It mocks you during the game, but defeating it yields a decent score bonus and a Door panel.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC: VideoGames]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

[[AC:RealLife]]

* DangerMouse had to deal with "A Plague Of Pyramids" (episode title). Baron Greenback scarfs up sand from the Sahara Desert and uses it to create pyramids throughout London thus causing it to sink below sea level from their collective weight.

There is also the incorrect belief that the Egyptian Pyramids were built by slaves. [[DatedHistory In actuality]] they were most likely built by volunteers who believed that, by participating in the creation of the Pyramids, they can get a share of the Pharaoh's luxurious afterlife, sometimes working along with native Egyptian peasants who had no work to do during the Nile's flood season; they may have been press-ganged into it, but it's just as likely that they were enticed with offers of food (grain, veggies, and beef) and beer in exchange for their labor (the invention of currency was still 2,000 years in the future, so that was the equivalent of paying wages). They also could have been conscripted peasants, like the ''corvee'' of Pre-Revolutionary France or the Czech ''Robot.'' [[note]] Read: Peasants without animals don't really have much to do a good part of the year, so the government/nobles would use them for (unpaid) labor, this being the way nearly all pre-modern public works were built. Some do consider it a ''lesser form'' of slavery. Yes, the word 'robot' does come from the Czech ''Robot.''[[/note]] It was still quite a feat of engineering, organization, and patience, but not necessarily the result of blood-soaked tyranny HollywoodHistory would present. Not related to the other kind of [[FingerTenting pyramid of power]].

There is also the incorrect belief that the Egyptian Pyramids were built by slaves. [[DatedHistory In actuality]] they were most likely built by volunteers who believed that, by participating in the creation of the Pyramids, they can get a share of the Pharaoh's luxurious afterlife, sometimes working along with native Egyptian peasants who had no work to do during the Nile's flood season; they may have been press-ganged into it, but it's just as likely that they were enticed with offers of food (grain, veggies, and beef) and beer in exchange for their labor (the invention of currency was still 2,000 years in the future, so that was the equivalent of paying wages). It was still quite a feat of engineering, organization, and patience, but not necessarily the result of blood-soaked tyranny HollywoodHistory would present. Not related to the other kind of [[FingerTenting pyramid of power]].

* In the ''{{Good Omens}}'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5304252/6/I-shall-endure-to-the-end I shall endure...]]'', Azirapahile and Crowley deconstruct the concept of pyramids whilst providing additional background detail to several Bible stories, with a courtesy dash of Erich von Daniken thrown in for free.

* One of ''Series/TheSiflAndOllyShow'''s [[LittleKnownFacts fake "Rock Facts"]] claimed that the pyramids of Egypt were built by humans, but it was in anticipation of the prophecied arrival of...DavidBowie.

* In ''[[TheCatWhoSeries The Cat Who Blew the Whistle]]'', there is a character named Elizabeth Hart who is big on the idea of pyramid power. Unannounced, she and her boyfriend pop over to the protagonist's (Qwilleran's) place and set up a makeshift portable pyramid. After they leave, Qwilleran's intelligent Siamese cat, Koko, makes his way to the very center of the pyramid and there is a blackout across the entire town that doesn't stop until he exits the pyramid.

There is also the incorrect belief that the Egyptian Pyramids were built by slaves. [[HistoryMarchesOn In actuality]] they were most likely built by volunteers who believed that, by participating in the creation of the Pyramids, they can get a share of the Pharaoh's luxurious afterlife, sometimes working along with native Egyptian peasants who had no work to do during the Nile's flood season; they may have been press-ganged into it, but it's just as likely that they were enticed with offers of food (grain, veggies, and beef) and beer in exchange for their labor (the invention of currency was still 2,000 years in the future, so that was the equivalent of paying wages). It was still quite a feat of engineering, organization, and patience, but not necessarily the result of blood-soaked tyranny HollywoodHistory would present. Not related to the other kind of [[FingerTenting pyramid of power]].

* Because giant alien death robots who turn into cars wasn't enough, ''Film/{{Transformers}}: Revenge of the Fallen'' had them building and destroying the pyramid at Giza, which houses a solar power collector.

* ''Series/ChourikiSentaiOhranger'' had one of these from an ancient Pangean civilization as the source of the Ohranger's power.

* The original ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Classic}}'' had the heroes find the lost planet of Kobol. The ancient pyramids on that planet looked ''suspiciously'' like the ones in the Giza Plateau. They contained a written account of the Lost 13th Tribe, and where they went. [[spoiler:So, of course, the writings had to be accidentally destroyed by a Cylon air raid before Adama could read them.]]

In the distant past, many civilizations built pyramids as monuments. The most famous are those of [[BuildLikeAnEgyptian Egypt]], followed by the Mayan pyramids in Mexico. They have also been found in Sudan, Iran, and China. The reason for the pyramid shape is quite simple and practical - 80% of a pyramid's mass is in the lower half, meaning that it is the most practical shape to support a building of that height. It's the form of stone building most likely to still be standing in a recognizable shape when the archaeologists show up a thousand years late to the party.

* Mentioned in ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic'', the scholarly tome ''Iyt Gryet Teymple hyte Tsort, Y Hiystory Myistical'' describes the Great Pyramid of Tsort. A copy was located in the Unseen University Library.The book described the effort that went into building the Great Pyramid; it was comprised of 1,003,010 blocks of limestone, built over 60 years and cost the lives of thousands of slaves. It was apparently done as a way of sharpening razor blades (as opposed to burying Kings). People got very excited about the significant mathematical fact that its height plus its length divided by half its width almost precisely equalled 1.67563, or precisely 1,237.98712567 times the difference between the distance to the sun and the weight of a small orange. It was held that something like this could not ''possibly' have come about by chance.

*** The notion that human beings couldn't possibly have built them unaided and needed to call on extraterrestrial assistance. (Good old ErichVonDaniken here).

* One of ''TheSiflAndOllyShow'''s [[LittleKnownFacts fake "Rock Facts"]] claimed that the pyramids of Egypt were built by humans, but it was in anticipation of the prophecied arrival of...DavidBowie.

* The Tremere clan from ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' is obsessed with this trope, incorporating pyramid symbiology into the design of their rigid organizational structure in hopes of attaining greater mystical power. [[BlackMagic It]] [[DysTopia doesn't]] [[WhoWantstoliveforever work]] [[ProperlyParanoid out]] [[ManipulativeBastard very well]].

There is also the incorrect belief that the Egyptian Pyramids were built by slaves. [[HistoryMarchesOn In actuality]] they were most likely built by volunteers who believed that, by participating in the creation of the Pyramids, they can get a share of the Pharaoh's luxurious afterlife, sometimes working along with native Egyptian peasants who had no work to do during the Nile's flood season; they may have been press-ganged into it, but it's just as likely that they were enticed with offers of food (grain, veggies, and beef) and beer in exchange for their labor (the invention of currency was still 2,000 years in the future, so that was the equivalent of paying wages). It was still quite a feat of engineering, organization, and patience, but not necessarily the result of blood-soaked tyranny HollywoodHistory would present. Not related to the other kind of [[ClaspYourHandsIfYouDeceive pyramid of power]].