History Main / RagnarokProofing

* In ''Literature/TheNightLand'', there are aircraft that would still be functional, if the air wasn't too thin to support them. They've remained in working order for hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of years.

* The universe of ''Literature/PerryRhodan'' where underground bases of the Imperium Lemuria are scattered in the Milky Way. Most of them are still functional despite the fall of Lemuria 50,000 years ago.

** The [[{{Precursors}} Nomai]] built things to last. Despite vanishing over a quarter of a million years prior to the game, their structures, while frequently crumbling in places, are in remarkably good shape, and their technology still works fine. In particular, they built an elaborate project to [[spoiler:lanch a probe from an orbital space station in a random direction to try and locate a mysterious artifact, then induce an artificial supernova in the sun in order to gather enough power to send the probe's findings back in time to before the launch. Their plan to cause an early supernova failed, but the rest of the system still works flawlessly, even after sitting unattended long enough for the sun to reach the end of its natural lifespan and go supernova on its own]].
** Zig-zagged with the unnamed aliens in the ''Echoes of the Eye'' DLC. They actually came to your star system even earlier than the Nomai, but their {{ringworld|planet}} is still intact, still hidden beneath an InvisibilityCloak, and still [[spoiler:blocking the Eye of the Universe's signal]]. The ringworld's power and motive systems are functioning after hundreds of thousands of years, as is [[spoiler:the [[LotusEaterMachine virtual reality]] its inhabitants reside in]], ''but'' the interior habitat is full of decaying wooden structures and brown vegetation. As you explore, the ringworld will activate its solar sails and begin to leave your home system, but the stress of this causes the power to flicker and a dam in the habitat to crack and eventually collapse, releasing a GiantWallOfWateryDoom that trashes the ringworld's interior. [[spoiler:This means that if you venture into the virtual reality, you might get jarred out of it by your interface site getting flooded, or you might hear a chorus of distant screams as some of its inhabitants are suddenly snuffed out.]]

* The [[{{Precursors}} Nomai]] in ''VideoGame/OuterWilds'' apparently built things to last. Despite vanishing over a quarter of a million years prior to the game, their structures, while frequently crumbling in places, are in remarkably good shape, and their technology still works fine. In particular, they built an elaborate project to [[spoiler:lanch a probe from an orbital space station in a random direction to try and locate a mysterious artifact, then induce an artificial supernova in the sun in order to gather enough power to send the probe's findings back in time to before the launch. Their plan to cause an early supernova failed, but the rest of the system still works flawlessly, even after sitting unattended long enough for the sun to reach the end of its natural lifespan and go supernova on its own]].

* Played completely straight in ''Film/LogansRun'', where the city has been running completely without maintenance for at least 200 years. The main characters wander through several rooms of massive machinery which is merrily pumping away with no one looking after it. And this doesn't even get into the problems of how food was imported into the city and waste was exported from it.[[note]]This is in contrast to the original novel, where civil infrastructure was gradually falling into disrepair because there was no-one left with the experience to understand or teach how any of it worked.[[/note]]

* The main character in ''Film/{{Doomsday}}'' finds a [[CoolCar Bentley]] that's been in a storage locker for twenty-seven years. It's in perfect condition with a full tank of petrol, and she has no problem using it to stage a ''Film/MadMax''-style chase with the bad guys. This may be justifiable (after all, it had been locked away in a sealed underground bunker), but what can't be explained is how the denizens of post-apocalyptic Scotland have somehow managed to keep their own cars running for twenty-seven years, despite there being no oil on the Scottish mainland (it all comes from the North Sea).

* ''d20 Apocalypse'' (the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin appropriately named]] post-apocalyptic supplement to ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'') has charts for looting pre-apocalypse stuff out of the ruins of modern society, complete with rolls to determine how damaged any building is -- and the longer you get from the apocalypse, the higher the minimum damage goes. You can still find working bits of modern technology if you roll well enough, though. The overall effect is somewhere between reality and the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series. ''d20 Modern'' is [[EnforcedTrope meant to be "cinematic" roleplaying rather than devotedly realistic, though]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':

** Speaking of Dagobah, in ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', Luke heads back to the world five years after ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' and finds that Yoda's hut has been overwhelmed and pretty much broken down until he barely recognizes it by the life in the swamp. He's surprised, but chastises himself, thinking that Tatooine is so dry that an abandoned structure will last forever, but it's different here. However, when he goes back into the cave he does find a still recognizable beckon call.

*** There are several power plants that provide energy to the Mojave area that use ambient energy sources, such as the hydroelectric Hoover Dam and the solar Helios One. They're considered an invaluable strategic resource and are hotly contested by various organizations in the setting. This still doesn't explain how various long-abandoned buildings have power, though.
*** Most of the tech and items left in the wastes are either on the verge of breaking down permanently or (barely) held together by tape. The ones that ''aren't'' are usually those maintained and/or built by post-War factions like the NCR; the NCR's firepower in fact almost entirely avert this trope thanks to the Gun Runners mass-producing new firearms based on Pre-War schematics.

* ''VideoGame/Portal2'' takes place several hundred years after the end of the first game, with the protagonist having been trapped in the Enrichment Center in [[HumanPopsicle cryogenic stasis]]. It initially looks like an aversion, as the place is rather thoroughly wrecked, but the portal gun still works as do many of the center's mechanisms. In particular, [=GLaDOS=] is still around, and once you restore power, she rapidly goes about repairing the facility. Less explicable is how the [[spoiler:original Enrichment Center]], four kilometers beneath the surface and abandoned before even the first game without the benefits of a caretaker AI, remains functional. Aperture Science themselves seem to have prepared accordingly for this type of scenario.

* WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender:

** Zig-zagged in ''Anime/TurnAGundam''. While Mobile Suits sealed in special "Mountain Cycle" chambers work more-or-less perfectly due to maintenance {{Nanomachines}}, other LostTechnology isn't so lucky. The titular Gundam's beam rifle it was uncovered with is degraded enough to burn itself out with one shot, and when Loran finds an armory, nearly every weapon crumbles to dust when he tries to pick it up, aside from the Hyper Hammer and that one breaks after being used only once. Another reason why there aren't any other relics from the "Dark History" is because [[spoiler: the Moonlight Butterfly ''destroyed everything else''.]]

* ''Film/MissionToMars'' ends with the protagonists [[spoiler: finding an ancient Martian structure that dates way back before life existed on Earth (since the Martians [[{{Paspermia}} turn out to be the source of all life on Earth]] after leaving a devastated Mars) which on the inside is in pristine state and has a rocket ship ready for a human visitor who decides to StayWithTheAliens in their new home]].

* ''Film/{{Parallels}}'' has Polly insisting that [[spoiler:the building is always the same, in every universe - including one where a suitcase nuke was detonated across the street. In that Earth, the building is apparently immune to rust, decay, moss, weather - unlike everything else nearby, which has clearly been through hell.]] Arguably justified, since apparently the [[spoiler:Core World]] clearly has a lot invested in the thing. That said, the builders definitely could have sprung for a cleaning service on the ''inside.''

* In ''Literature/TheCityAndTheStars'' (and the book it's a rewrite of, ''Against the Fall of Night''), the city of Diaspar was shielded and designed to be self-maintaining and to survive indefinitely long. It's a billion years old. The all-pervading computer system that runs the city creates clones of people, imbuing them with recorded knowledge and memories of their previous life. This is contrasted against the world outside Diaspar, which has decayed completely into desert; with the exception of the city of Lys, which is shielded by artificial mountains and maintained by the advanced abilities of its residents. The novel states that Diaspar is maintained by triple-redundant memory storage combined with matter converters. There are indications in the story that the technology that enables this [[spoiler: is at least partly the product of {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s]]. Played even more straight with [[spoiler: the Master's ship and the robot probe, which repair themselves using similar technology.]]

* Downplayed in Creator/KarlSchroeder's novel ''Permanence'', the place known as Dis - a 500 x 400 km piece of woven fullerene. Three billion years old, the remains of an orbital ring, built by a species that built to last in everything they made. The builders only lasted eighty million years. Despite being swallowed by a sun for a time, records found inside are still readable.

*** A LostColony is found in the last book, consisting of the malnourished and uneducated Children of a stranded survey group lost on Dagobah. The survey group's technology broke down as power ran out. The last thing to function was a datapad that was used as an ApocalypticLog. The Children keep and revere it even though its power is out - maybe it's their care of it which kept it in good enough condition that the heroes can just swap new batteries in and play the contents. It's unknown how old it is, though -- the wiki suggests forty years, but it's hard to say. The Parents mentioned seeing an "imp" that the heroes later identify as Yoda, and he'd only been there for twenty years.

*** In the ''Broken Steel'' DLC, there's a [[spoiler: fully functional train from a largely destroyed secret subway system that connects from the remains of the U.S. Capitol Building and a sewer from the ruins of the White House to a nearby airbase that proves pivotal to the game's plot. For something that survived a war from over 200 years ago, it proved to be astonishingly resilient to rust and decay, and got even luckier when it completely avoided attempts at sabotage after the War.]]

** In one of the expanded endings of the third game, [[spoiler: the Reapers win, but you see one of [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture Liara's time capsules]] being activated during the next cycle, apparently none the worse for wear. Unlike the Protheans, Liara thought to make sure that people actually ''understood'' them, including a galactic Rosetta Stone in the design. Likewise, Liara made sure to seed the time capsules on ''numerous'' worlds so that ''all'' civilisations that might exist in the next Cycle would be able to find them.]]

* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGummiBears''. Although some of the technology left by the Great Gummies still works after an unknown period of neglect (possibly over 100+ years), some do need to be cleaned/repaired/refueled before they will work. Many episodes also show that Gummi Glen only continues to exist due to the Gummies continuing to care for it - disused quick tunnel tracks are seen to have collapsed, the books in an abandoned Gummi library are seen to have rotted away, etc.

** Contrary to that, the buildings that were actually finished (and survived until now) are notorious for their haphazard and shoddy construction. Of course the short timespan of the Nazi rule didn't allow for projects that would take some decades to complete, so the things that were built were done so under serious time pressure (and Hitler's constant fiddling with details, so that plans had to be completely rewritten during construction). The best example might be the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. The construction was constrained by the yearly party rally (at which the new buildings had to be "finished"), so a lot of shortcuts were taken. Still, most of the structures seen in photos and films are actually mock-ups, representing buildings to be built in the future. The majestic "Zeppelin grandstand" is anything but a solid building - for the most part, it is a hollow prop. Today it is so derelict that the city faces renovation costs of about 70 to 80 million euros, just to preserve it in its current state (otherwise it would have to be closed for the public due to safety concerns).

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This trope can be justified, in small doses, since there is an expensive way to render any metal rust-proof the same way that platinum is — one could assume that these relics have survived because of a similar process and the chemicals used in it are breaking down, allowing the relics to decay in places where the treatment faded first. This trope is also justified when dealing with advanced alien technology, as such technology may not necessarily decay as the same rate as modern Earth technology.

Societies with Ragnarok Proofing will allow a ScavengerWorld to exist, using SchizoTech from many different time periods. {{Precursors}} frequently build like this — though usually the main effect is limited to the collective awe of upstart civilizations stumbling on their artifacts long after they became extinct or moved on.

The term [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Ragnarok]] (Ragnarök) originates from Myth/NorseMythology where it means "Destiny of the Gods"; although in modern consciousness it's better known as [[{{Gotterdammerung}} "Twilight of the Gods"]] and associated with TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, largely due to a certain German composer by the name of Music/RichardWagner.

A subtrope of SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale, OlderIsBetter and/or TheyDontMakeThemLikeTheyUsedTo. See also DurableDeathtrap, ApocalypseNot, ApocalypticLogistics, InWorkingOrder, AbsurdlyDedicatedWorker and NeverRecycleABuilding. See IndestructibleEdible for the food version and GasolineLastsForever for the fuel version.

* ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheGalaxySuperExpress'' has the titular express crashing on an abandoned mining planet, after having it's power source sabotaged by a possessed Ashton. But luckily for the heroes, the mining planet, despite being unused for decades, still have functioning facilities and a warehouse containing edible food. There's also a second, perfectly functioning express train hidden in one of the tunnels, which later comes in handy for the heroes to use for escaping.

* Both played straight and subverted in ''Anime/TurnAGundam''. While Mobile Suits sealed in special "Mountain Cycle" chambers work more-or-less perfectly due to maintenance {{Nanomachines}}, other LostTechnology isn't so lucky. The titular Gundam's beam rifle it was uncovered with is degraded enough to burn itself out with one shot, and when Loran finds an armory, nearly every weapon crumbles to dust when he tries to pick it up, aside from the Hyper Hammer and that one breaks after being used only once.
** Another reason why there aren't any other relics from the "Dark History" is because [[spoiler: the Moonlight Butterfly ''destroyed everything else''.]]
* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans'', the Gundam Barbatos is in perfect working condition even after not seeing combat for over 300 years. Subverted for other Gundam Frames -- out of the 72, only 26 actually survived to the present day. [[spoiler:The Hashmal Mobile Armor is also remarkably well-preserved buried under the Martian soil, and while it does need to do some repairs to itself upon activation, its weapons, engine, fuel source, and propulsion are in mostly working order anyway.]]
* Played partially straight (but {{justified|Trope}}) in ''Anime/GaoGaiGar'', when the missing [=ChoRyuJin=] is dug up after sixty-five million years, his body is completely fossilized, but his [=AIs=] are found to still be in working order. It turns out, however, that he had some serious AppliedPhlebotinum they were using specifically to keep himself alive long enough to be found again.
* The manga one-shot ''Hotel'' is a deliberate case. The main character is a robotically controlled, self-repairing structure designed to preserve the genetic data of Earth's creatures for billions of years after global warming has destroyed everything.
** And when you consider the fact that the AI is not only increasingly self-aware but had managed to keep itself functioning for [[spoiler:''27 million years'']], even as all its systems break down, it could also be a case of AndIMustScream.

* In the penultimate scene of ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion End of Evangelion]]'', this trope is mentioned as the true reason why the Evas were created: a monument that will outlast the universe itself.
-->'''Yui:''' Humans can only exist on this Earth, but the Evangelion will be able to exist forever, along with the human soul that dwells within it. When the Earth, the Moon and the Sun are all gone, Eva will exist so long as just one person remains. It will be lonely, but as long as one person still lives-
-->'''Fuyutsuki:''' It will be eternal proof that mankind ever existed.
* Humorously averted in ''Literature/{{Slayers}}''. In her first appearance, Martina reactivates a war golem made by her ancestors during the last great Mazoku War, which took place 1,500 years previous. As she gloats over its immense power, the golem starts malfunctioning, due to the fact that its 1,500 years old and hasn't been maintained in at least 1,000.
* Played straight in ''Manga/OnePiece'' by the Poneglyphs, much to the chagrin of the World Government. The Poneglyphs are [[MadeOfIndestructium indestructible]] records of the true history of the world that the government wants to suppress. Since they can't destroy the Poneglyphs they settle for silencing anyone capable of reading them [[spoiler:such as Nico Robin and Gold Roger.]]

** ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' had an episode where Alto was attacked by a Vajra during a training exercise in an ancient battlefield. Since his Valkyrie was only equipped with "dummy" weapons at the time, he grabs a Zentradi beam weapon that's been drifting in space for seven thousand years and uses it to slay the Vajra. Afterwards his commanding officer chews him out for gambling on ancient tech, but Klan Klang (the resident Zentradi ProudWarriorRaceGuy) defends Alto's judgement as sound, saying that Zentradi tech was made to last.

* Played straight in ''Manga/GirlsLastTour''. Chito and Yuuri wander through in a massive, crumbling city with multiple levels large enough to each support their own countless skyscrapers. Although centuries have passed and humans are nearly extinct, the city is still mostly holding together and a number of its systems still function fine, such as plumbing, lighting, and machinery used to mass-produce food. The girls even encounter functioning robots carrying out their original duties, an automated train, a derelict mecha with operational WMD's, and an AI that runs an elevator between two of the levels. In particular, the AI explains that since it can't terminate itself without human authorization, it would keep running until the city's "reserve power's reserve power's reserve power's reserve power" runs out.
* Absolutely averted in ''Manga/DrStone'', in which a mysterious light [[TakenForGranite turned every human on Earth to stone]]. When the protagonist Senku manages to de-petrify himself, over 3700 years have passed and the only man-made object that's still standing is the [[https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3100.html Great Buddha of Kamakura]], a solid bronze statue. [[ShownTheirWork A few pages are spent explaining how resistant bronze is to corrosion; even considering that, it's falling apart]]. [[spoiler:Later on Senku discovers that his astronaut father -- who avoided petrification because he was on the International Space Station at the time -- left him a "treasure chest" by sealing important objects in concrete inside a Soyuz descent module. Despite the capsule being made incredibly tough to withstand atmospheric re-entry, it ''still'' crumbles and falls apart as soon as someone touches it.]]
* JustifiedTrope in ''Literature/RebuildWorld''. There are a number of factors that keep the ruins Akira explores for relics working. Firstly, many of them have automated repair systems from the impossibly advanced Old World civilization. Secondly, many of them are designed with force-fields to preserve them (Akira at one point ends up hauling a food shelf in as a relic due to it having such a feature). At one point, Akira goes through an abandoned building where everything he touches turns to dust, this is because of a certain type of monster, who had EnergyAbsorption to shield themselves, tarnishing it.
* ''Anime/GodzillaPlanetOfTheMonsters''. The landing party find the overgrown ruins of cities [[TimeDilation even though 20,000 years have passed since they left Earth]]. Then they realise that the structures are actually fungi which fossilized in the shape of the buildings they once covered.
* ''Anime/TransformersCybertron'': The four ancient starships are still spaceworthy in spite of spending millennia: mostly buried (''Hyperborea''), completely buried (''Ogygia''), sitting with the lower decks in a lake (''Lemuria''), or lying at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean (''Atlantis''). Justified in that they have very good self repair systems that have been doing upkeep the whole time, and that they were built to be extremely tough in order to protect not only their crew and passengers, but also their PlotCoupon cargo (we're talking god power stuff here).

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: In issue 23 Wonder Woman, ComicBook/EttaCandy, Bobby Strong and Glamora Treat enter an ancient Egyptian tomb in remarkably good condition, including still functioning traps.

* In ''ComicBook/YokoTsuno'', all the technology the Vineans left on their home planet still works perfectly after ''two millions years'' and a solar cataclysm.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': In this ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' fanfiction, Alan Jonah and his paramilitary have taken up residence in an abandoned Monarch outpost in Russia. Despite being abandoned for decades, equipment in the outpost which still works includes a lazer containment field and chemical weapons that are believed to be ''a hundred years old''. Jonah lampshades this in Chapter 2.

* In ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'' the SOS Brigade uses a lost dimensional anchor created millions of years ago. It works perfectly fine.
* Used to a degree in the ''Fanfic/NineteenEightyThreeDoomsdayStories.'' A number of places are described in varying stages of decay. Abandoned ruins and wasteland settings, naturally, suffer the worst of it though even the relatively unharmed areas such as the [[TheFederation Alpine Confederation]] show signs of neglect. Though the flashbacks show at least one particular ruin in better condition.
* Handwaved and justified in ''Literature/TheDarkPast'', a fanfic-of-a-fanfic of the ''Webcomic/NiklasAndFriends'' "universe". The spaceship has been running on reducing power for millennia. The ship's electronics have survived so long because of running well under their usual power ratings.
* In ''Fanfic/{{Fractured|SovereignGFC}}'', a ''Franchise/MassEffect''[=/=]''Franchise/StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]'']] [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover crossover]] and its sequel ''Fanfic/{{Origins}}'', the trope is zig-zagged. As far as the ''Franchise/StarWars'' [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]], the trope is not in effect as many [[LegendFadesToMyth records have been lost]] over the millions of years that have passed since then. However, [[spoiler:Eridian]] defenses that were set up to deal with the threat of AlienInvasion [[spoiler:Flood]] seem to work just fine.
* ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' fanfic ''Fanfic/TheWritingOnTheWall'' deals with an example: Daring Do leads an archaeology expedition to a strangely intact and ominous-looking ancient tomb from a long-extinct culture predating ponies, inscribed with the namesake warning glyphs. [[spoiler:It's actually a nuclear waste repository left by humans, see Real Life examples below. Since the ponies have no concept of such, they disregard the glyphs, are exposed to lethal amounts of radiation, and start dying horribly. Daring Do herself only lives long enough to add a warning in Equestrian to the wall and seal the place off again.]]
** Daring does note that the tomb was built in the middle of a desert where it rains about twice a century, which is also one of the most geologically stable places on the continent.
* ''FanFic/InkyFuture'': Played with.

** Averted with [[spoiler:the Dr. Wily AI. It had been running for years assisting Tartar and eventually degraded to the point where it couldn't be recovered or backed up.]]

[[folder:Film — Animation]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}}'': The treehouse put together by Tarzan's birth-parents is incredibly intact after nearly twenty years of neglect in a jungle climate. The dapper suit Tarzan finds there is even more so.

** The ''Axiom'' even more so. Keep in mind that the starship is over ''700 years'' old by the time the movie takes place. Yet it looks and functions almost just as it during its maiden launch. Probably helped that in addition to [[MegaCorp Buy N Large's]] "built-to-last" mentality, there's a network of robots and automated systems constantly maintaining the ship and even robots to repair other robots.
* In the Creator/RalphBakshi film ''WesternAnimation/{{Wizards}}'', Blackwolf finds a movie projector and propaganda films from Nazi Germany. The film is set two million years from now.

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* Largely averted in ''Film/IAmLegend'', which is set in New York City three years AfterTheEnd. Despite the relatively short timeframe, there are already signs of decay in the [[spoiler:seemingly]] empty metropolis: tunnels are flooded, plants are starting to grow in the streets, and outside of the protagonist's home, near everything has a hint of dust and grime. Which is a case of TruthInTelevision. New York City spends thousands of dollars a year on pumps to keep water out of the tunnels. And anyone in the city can tell you how much damage grass does to sidewalks.
* ''Franchise/JurassicPark''

* ''Film/PlanetOfTheApes1968'': The Statue of Liberty has held up surprisingly well for having survived a war and been half-buried in the sea air.
** The [[Film/PlanetOfTheApes2001 remake]] had a space station shot through a NegativeSpaceWedgie of the especially [[SpaceIsMagic Magical]] variety. It wound up being abandoned for centuries, on an Earthlike planet's surface, with zero maintenance, and the computer and thrusters still worked immediately upon being activated. Although the main character specifically mentions it was designed to last forever, making this an InvokedTrope.
* In ''Film/{{Singularity}}'', Despite the film being set 97 years after the robots rising and destroying most of humanity, the houses are fully functional, including working showers, the Polaroid camera still works, and the train rails they encounter are still straight and shiny.
* Parodied in the Woody Allen comedy ''Film/{{Sleeper}}''. After 200 years, a VW Beetle is still in perfect working condition. Woody's character then [[LampshadeHanging remarks]], "Wow, they really built these things, didn't they?"
* In ''Film/TheThing2011'' it turns out that the ancient alien saucer from which the Thing arrived is still functional and almost takes off after millions of years... why the alien decided to go out and let itself get frozen instead of simply flying to a warmer place thriving with life to infect is anyone's guess, but here you go.
* Semi-averted in ''Film/TheTimeMachine2002'' when Alexander Hartdegen finds the library from 2030, but in the year 802,701; the building itself is in ruins, but the artificial intelligence ''Librarian Vox 114'' is still unbroken and semifunctional. Averted completely in [[Film/TheTimeMachine1960 the 1960 version]]. When the protagonist arrives in the future, he finds practically all traces of his own time gone entirely- the remnants of his time consist of a collection of books that crumble into dust as soon as he touches them. The only other remnants of any previous society are "talking rings" (presumably an advanced recording device from a future society, possibly intended as a time capsule or ApocalypticLog in which case its preservation is somewhat understandable)
* ''Film/{{Waterworld}}'' is another major offender. It's been long enough for people to forget that there ever was dry land. The ruins of pre-cataclysm society have spent all this time ''underwater''. Despite this, [[strike: anyone]] the Mariner can just swim down to a former city and come back up with perfectly working artifacts. The "smokers" have completely operational jet skis and sea planes, and even large stashes of cigarettes, which have a shelf life of a few weeks.

* The titular ''Literature/{{Aquila}}'' was [[AncientAstronauts an alien battlecruiser's]] [[EscapePod lifepod]] which crashed on Earth thousands of years ago, where it was later found and used to explore the world by a Roman centurion. After that, it then spent ''another'' thousand years or so buried underground before being discovered by two boys - still in fully working order.

* ''Literature/ByTheWatersOfBabylon'': John finds food from prior to the fall of the US which is still edible somehow. He also then enters a building while in the ruins of New York City which has intact books and other furnishings. With his father he'd already found books in other houses as well (from which they know how to read English). Given the state of things which he describes (the city is overgrown by plants, stone inscriptions worn away, not to mention it also suffering destruction from the war) this would not be realistic. Books rot, and food would have long since decayed (or been eaten by animals), even if kept in jars, since this implies that the fall was centuries before.
* Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Against the Fall of Night'' and ''Literature/TheCityAndTheStars''. The city of Diaspar was shielded and designed to be self-maintaining and to survive indefinitely long. It's a billion years old. The all-pervading computer system that runs the city creates clones of people, imbuing them with recorded knowledge and memories of their previous life. This is contrasted against the world outside Diaspar, which has decayed completely into desert; with the exception of the city of Lys, which is shielded by artificial mountains and maintained by the advanced abilities of its residents. The novel states that Diaspar is maintained by triple-redundant memory storage combined with matter converters. There are indications in the story that the technology that enables this [[spoiler: is at least partly the product of {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s]]. Played even more straight with [[spoiler: the Master's ship and the robot probe, which repair themselves using similar technology.]]
* In Creator/RobertEHoward's Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian story "Literature/BlackColossus", one such building in the middle of ruins obviously has something keeping it like that.
-->''Any fool could see there was something unnatural about the structure; the winds and suns of three thousand years had lashed it, yet its gold and ivory rose bright and glistening as the day it was reared by nameless hands on the bank of the nameless river.''
* ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' books by Creator/StephenKing have technology of the Ancients that still exists and functions, for the most part. There are functioning oil derricks in Mejis, working robots near the Callah Bryn Sturgis, and Blaine the Mono. This might be {{justified|Trope}}, because the flow of time in Roland's world is said to be very inconsistent, [[ChaosArchitecture as is distance and direction]].
** The robots and Blaine were designed with future tech that was supposed to run ''forever'', so the fact that they're breaking down at all is proof that they weren't Ragnarok Proofed. We'll have to go with the funky flow of time thing for the derricks, though.
*** Flow of time and reality itself... pretty much all of existence is going completely loopy. That's what the heroes want to fix, after all.

* Creator/VernorVinge's ''Literature/ADeepnessInTheSky'' features a planet whose sun only shines for 35 out of every 250 years. The inhabitants themselves can survive the dark in hibernation, but once their civilization develops to a certain level they have to start learning how to apocalypse-proof their technology.
* ''Literature/{{Deathlands}}'' takes place in a post-Apocalyptic {{scavenger world}} so sometimes this is played straight or handwaved with EarthThatWas futuristic technology which appears more durable than anything that existed [[AlternateHistory in the real 2001]]. Lampshaded when the protagonists make use of the facilities of a [[ElaborateUndergroundBase Redoubt]] and muse that they've probably started a few cascade failures by using equipment that has lain dormant for years. This comes in handy for the occasional PlotDrivenBreakdown.

* ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'' had three abandoned town-sized colony ships orbiting without maintenance for two millennia or so, with DeflectorShields active, orbital corrections properly performed and {{antimatter}} containment stable (which, of course, makes two previous points even more important). Granted, those were slow-ships made to hold well for a few centuries, while the nearest repair facility is several light years away and most of the crew are {{human popsicle}}s.
** Also AIVAS, the AI system used as a knowledge store and administrator which has been abandoned and buried without power for the same length of time, but activates immediately and is fully functional as soon as humans return to the original landing site.
** Played more sensibly with the rest of the original colonists artefacts though. Even having been put in storage specifically to last a long time (and survive a volcanic eruption), many computer and vehicle parts are little more than scrap, and some fuel has had its seals fail and gone bad. Still pretty good compared to current standards, but portrayed as rather more realistic than many examples here.
* Played mostly straight in Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'', when a conscious effort to preserve was made, thanks primarily to good AI, as well as rustproof alloys, [[YearOutsideHourInside stasis fields]] and occasionally the vacuum of space. Averted for installations abandoned in haste.

* In ''Literature/EmpireOfTheEast'' by Creator/FredSaberhagen, set thousands of years AfterTheEnd, the heroes search for a magic metal elephant to help them in the war. The elephant turns out to be a mostly operational nuclear-powered battle tank from before the nuclear holocaust. The armament is dead and the chemical-protective gear crumbles when touched, but the controls still light up, the engine roars, and none of the drive mechanism is broken. This is rare enough on a tank that hasn't been maintained since last ''week''.
* Creator/JackMcDevitt's ''Literature/EternityRoad'' has this. The AI computer running the city of Chicago is still up and running many, many years after a plague kills off much of humanity. Also the automated security system of a bank.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in a poignant line when a character finds some rotten books and laments that the only thing the roadbuilders made that didn't stand up to time was plain old paper.
* Averted in ''Literature/{{Evolution}}'' by Creator/StephenBaxter. As the novel progresses further and further away beyond [[spoiler:the extinction of the human species]], there are increasingly few remains of their constructions and products [[spoiler: at least on Earth.]]
* James S.A. Corey both plays this straight and averts it in ''Literature/TheExpanse'' series. The [[PortalNetwork interstellar Ring network]] left behind by the [[{{Precursors}} protomolecule masters]] is mostly functional despite going unused for at least a few hundred million years. Further, when humans start traveling through the Rings they find well-preserved ruins and machinery on the first planet they settle on. Averted when the machinery starts (trying) to power up when it detects the presence of the humans, and it becomes clear that a billion years without maintenance takes a toll on functionality. A planetary defense mechanism starts melting the moon, and when a power generator starts coming online, it fails in an explosion that takes out most of ''a continent.''
* In ''Literature/GatheringBlue'' the indoor plumbing in the elders' housing still works despite the village not even knowing anything about modern technology. Apparently, it was still working hundreds of years later and still works without anyone fixing it. Even weirder is that they have hot water available on tap without electricity or any form of power.[[note]]Although a gravity-fed water supply could last that long--the Roman aqueducts being a prime example. Also, passive solar heating of water requires very little in the way of advanced technology.[[/note]]
* The eponymous ''Literature/GreatShip'' - a vessel the [[PlanetSpaceship size of Jupiter]] - spent untold billions of years in intergalactic space traveling at a third of the speed of light, with only "minor" damage to its exterior hull from asteroid impacts. The interior is completely unscathed, with its fusion reactors and lighting functioning perfectly. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] by analysis of the hull revealing a complete absence of materials susceptible to radioactive decay, a hull [[MadeOfIndestructium made of extremely high-grade hyperfiber]], and with the interiors being a completely sterile environment. However, the "minor" hull damage consisted of dozens of kilometer-wide impact craters, which required huge amounts of hyperfiber to mend.
* Marvin from Creator/DouglasAdams' ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxyTrilogy''. Thanks to TimeTravel, his subjective age is 37 times the lifespan of the universe, and the diodes on his left side (which gave him a constant ache) were never replaced in all that time even though every other component was at least fifty times. Before that, he worked ''more than 576 billion years'' parking starships at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
* In the ''Literature/HomecomingSaga'' by Creator/OrsonScottCard, the technology was all designed to be self-repairing even on the stuff doing the repairs, and last a very long time regardless... but it's been forty ''million'' years since this stuff was built. Naturally, some of it broke down anyway and characters are amazed that even more isn't broken.

* ''Literature/TheLongEarth''-saga's third book, ''The Long Mars'', features a space elevator built on one of the countless iterations of the red planet that is otherwise all but lifeless. Everything else created by the civilisation that built the elevator has crumbled into nothing, but the cable alone still reaches into the sky, jutting from a featureless bit of bare ground at the bottom of a 20-mile deep shaft.
* Creator/HPLovecraft's works:
** In "Literature/TheShadowOutOfTime", the Great Race of Yith were said to have colonized the Earth about [[AncientAstronauts 200 million years ago]]. Yet, there are remarkably intact ruins of their colonies on Earth discovered by humans ''much'' later on, with the protagonist even uncovering Yithian ''books'' from a millions-of-years-old ruins in the Australian desert.
** In ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'', an entire Elder Thing city is found relatively intact in Antarctica, a ''billion'' years after they flourished, along with exceedingly well-preserved Elder Thing bodies. May be [[{{Handwave}} explained]] as the Elder Things and Yithians being very advanced aliens and possibly in possession of insanely durable materials construction and preservation technologies, but still....
** At least in the case of the Elder Things, their city may have been ''founded'' billions of years ago, but it was only ultimately abandoned a mere 500,000 years in the past, which is certainly enough time for a solid stone structure to survive in favourable conditions. The story also features an aversion: all the sophisticated machinery that the Elder Things portray in their murals has crumbled into little more than dust over the millennia.

** This was parodied in Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/TheDarkSideOfTheSun'' with the drosks, who "periodically build an advanced machine-level civilisation and then, for no apparent reason, carefully dismantle it and revert to barbarism".

* Discussed in Creator/AlastairReynolds' ''Literature/RevelationSpace'':
-->'''Sylveste:''' It's my suspicion -- no; not a suspicion, my conclusion -- that the [900,000-year-gone] Amarantin eventually progressed to the point where they could achieve space travel.\\

** Also played straight later, as several spacecraft and assorted other bits of Golden Age technology that survived the Melding Plague centuries earlier still functioning -- even if left untended for arbitrarily long periods of time.
*** Not necessarily an example, due to the utilisation of nano-scale technology- it could just be the case that the space-craft etc themselves are infused with a nanotech 'housekeeping' contingent that constantly repairs them. After all, if you're taking a thousands of years journey across the galaxy in abeyance or reefersleep, you don't want the hull of the ship degrading from rust or metal fatigue let alone the ablative effects of interstellar travel.

* The ''Literature/SagaOfTheExiles'' has aircraft left in the Alps for a thousand or so years, since the Tanu and Firvulag first arrived on Earth.
* Deliberately invoked in ''Literature/{{Spinneret}}'', where the titular artifact has been not just preserved, but ''actively operating'' for at least 100,000 years, probably much longer. One of the scientists admits that the had been thinking of it as essentially a solid-state machine barely preserved through massive redundancy. When they find that one of several small, autonomous digging machines is still functional, he describes the hyper-survivable technology as "awesome and just a little bit creepy."

*** A LostColony is found in the last book, consisting of the malnourished and uneducated Children of a stranded survey group lost on Dagobah. The survey group's technology broke down as power ran out. The last thing to function was a datapad that was used as an ApocalypticLog. The Children keep and revere it even though its power is out - maybe it's their care of it which kept it in good enough condition that the heroes can just swap new batteries in and play the contents. It's unknown how old it is, though - the wiki suggests forty years, but it's hard to say. The Parents mentioned seeing an "imp" that the heroes later identify as Yoda, and he'd only been there for twenty years.
** Speaking of Dagobah, in ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'' Luke heads back to the world five years after ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' and finds that Yoda's hut has been overwhelmed and pretty much broken down until he barely recognizes it by the life in the swamp. He's surprised, but chastises himself, thinking that Tatooine is so dry that an abandoned structure will last forever, but it's different here. However, when he goes back into the cave he does find a still recognizable beckon call.

* In Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Strata}}'', an artificial world has survived for several thousand years, maintained by a sophisticated AI and an army of robots that have managed to keep it and themselves in working order, but they can't keep it up forever; eventually there will just be too many worn-out parts for them to replace. ("What do you do when the robot that repairs the robot-repairing robots breaks down?") The protagonists arrive just as things are reaching that point and the world is on the verge of final breakdown.
** In fact, it is revealed in the end that [[spoiler:they arrive ''because'' the world is on the verge of final breakdown and they've been brought there as a result of the central AI's desperate attempt to get outside help.]]
* ''The Takers'', an ''Franchise/IndianaJones''-homage novel by Jerry Ahern, has an abandoned alien base with still-operable UFO's under the [[MysteriousAntarctica Antarctic]] ice. It also contains the dead bodies of an earlier [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi expedition]] -- as it turns out, the base's self defense system is also in full working order...
* There's a moment in H.G. Wells' ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'' where one of the Eloi takes the Time Traveller to a 20th century library that's still (partially) standing after so many thousands of years. There's even books still on the shelves. However, SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome when he picks up one of the books and it crumbles to dust in his hands. He proceeds to get very upset that all of the knowledge of his day has been lost to time.

* ''Literature/TortallUniverse'': Mentioned in ''Literature/SongOfTheLioness'', when one character relates stories of the mysterious Old Ones; their society, existing millennia before the current human one, had a cultural fear of aging, and they treated everything they owned with something to keep it from decaying. The method was [[LostTechnology lost]], but some of their artifacts did, in fact, survive.
* ''Literature/TheTripods:'' On an Earth long occupied by conquering aliens, the heroes pass through an abandoned human city and find a working wristwatch and, more importantly to the plot, a box of functional grenades.
* In Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's ''Literature/TufVoyaging'', Tuf finds an EEC seed-ship which has been abandoned for over 1,000 years, which is somewhat functional as the original crew had shut it down for long term storage including automated repair robots, but which required significant repairs to make it fully operational. But things like air lock door seals and handles still worked perfectly even after a millennium.

* In David Brin's ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series, the technology of the alien Galactic civilization pretty much always does this. Aliens design their spaceships and equipment to last for thousands or millions of years, so it can be passed down to descendants or sold to buyers who expect it to keep its value. Some of the highest-tech items are rumored to be billions of years old (although this may be religious propaganda).
* Negated very cleverly in Hugh Howey's ''Wool'' trilogy. The people who built the bunker knew that one day the survivors would need a big engine for a purpose they had to keep secret, and they also knew that there was no way to store a big engine long enough to be usable when they'd need it. So they [[spoiler:installed a big engine of the required type to run the main power generator for the bunker, along with a huge quantity of spare parts and manuals. When the survivors need an engine, they just use that one, which has been impeccably maintained and with which they are completely familiar]].
* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/AWorldOutOfTime'' has high-tech devices, including a [[PortalNetwork network of teleport booths]], {{Flying Car}}s, automated house-manufacturing units, and medical technology still functioning after ''three million'' years. The setting does have [[TimeStandsStill temporal stasis]] technology, so may be Justified.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E2DoctorWhoAndTheSilurians ''Doctor Who and the Silurians'']]: The Silurians have been in suspended animation for tens of millions of years, and other than losing their power source, their equipment seems to be perfectly functional.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E6TheDoctorsDaughter "The Doctor's Daughter"]]: The war between the humans and Hath has been going on for hundreds of generations, but the weapons, cloning machines and other technology that originated from before the war are still in incredibly good condition. [[spoiler:Ultimately, it's a subversion, since "hundreds of generations" turns out to not actually be that long.]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E8TheWitchfinders "The Witchfinders"]] averts the trope. [[spoiler:The Doctor cites the extreme age of the alien biotech tree serving as the Morax prison, possibly billions of years, as the reason why Becka Savage was able to chop it down and breach the seal.]]
* TheHistoryChannel show ''Series/LifeAfterPeople'' is an [[AvertedTrope aversion]]. It shows just how little would actually survive.

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' features this in spades. Alpha is ''not'' limber or possessing of sufficient dexterity to have kept the place running for 10,000 years. Dai Shi's palace also survived 10,000 years with no repair, and the haunts of the demons in ''[[Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue Lightspeed Rescue]]'' made it for 3000 with no maintenance while all its inhabitants were [[SealedEvilInACan trapped in a tomb]], and while the Animarium displayed ''some'' decay, it was much too intact for having been uninhabited for 3,000 years. Even in the ''Film/PowerRangers2017'' film, Zordon's ship and the Zords still work surprisingly well after being buried since the extinction of the dinosaurs.
** To be fair, Alpha is known as Alpha 5, and is later on replaced by Alpha 6, so it probably wasn't him for 10,000 years. What remains of Alpha 4 can be seen in a box in one episode.

** According to the novel ''Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers'', the ship was originally used for extremely long periods of deep space exploration before being converted into a mining craft -- the reason why it carries a stasis chamber to begin with. Also, "vacuum storage" is mentioned, indicating that the possessions of the crew were kept in stasis as well.

* ''Series/TheShannaraChronicles'' has an episode where Amberle and Eretria fall into the 3,000 year-old ruins of a human high school that remains perfectly preserved. When Eretria wonders why it hasn't rotted into dust, Amberle explains that many such structures were buried when the age of man came to an end, keeping them sealed off from the elements. While this is a reasonable explanation for the school, it doesn't explain a shot of the ruined [[UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}} Space Needle]], which is very much above ground.
* This problem is mostly averted or justified in ''Series/StargateSG1'', where most of the alien sites the team visits are some combination of inhabited, in ruins, or made of AppliedPhlebotinum by [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien aliens so sufficiently advanced]] (the eponymous Stargates are the primary example) that building something that lasts for a million years is frankly almost plausible. However, there are a few times when it gets bizarre.
** In "Moebius", Daniel takes what appears to be a small commercial camcorder on a time-travel 5000 years into the past. When the team screws up the timeline, he leaves the camcorder in a buried Goa'uld jar to be unearthed in the 21st Century. The AlternateHistory SG-1 watches the tape with little difficulty (Hammond says only that the battery needed to be recharged) and take the camera with them to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, then leave it buried '''again''' for the back-to-normal SG-1 to find, meaning this simple piece of home electronics has made a 10,000 year round-trip journey! These jars are made to last. Granted, it is implied those are _stasis_ jars, so the camcorder itself probably didn't experience much subjective time, and given how the Goa'uld work, it's likely the jars are based on some even older Ancient technology (and saying the Ancients built stuff to last is a massive understatement). We do see some of them destroyed through breaking... and others working perfectly after a few millenia.
** In the spinoff ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', Atlantis has been abandoned for 10,000 years at the bottom of the sea with a shield covering it, but most of the things inside are in working order or at least intact, down to the dead plants. We do see several sections of the city that protruded outside the shield and were worse for wear, however, and in one episode we see a "sister city" of Atlantis that was left on a planet's surface without the protection of a shield. It's so overrun with vegetation and general decay that only the central tower is even recognizable. The city's weapon system is still functional, however.
** In ''Series/StargateUniverse'' the Ancient exploration ship ''Destiny'' was launched on an unmanned voyage long before Atlantis left Earth, perhaps more than a million years ago. When the protagonists arrive it's still travelling but is very much the worse for wear - the majority of its interior is sealed off to contain various hull breaches, its life support system is no longer able to extract carbon dioxide from the air (the filters are quite realistically choked with toxic black muck), and even the lights are dim or failing. Much of the series is driven by the protagonists struggling to get the ship working even halfway properly.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' pulled this off a few times.

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E11Contagion Contagion]]", they come across a perfectly functioning pan-galactic teleporter, which was built over 200,000 years ago... and the planet it was found on was an uninhabitable wasteland... which was made that way via orbital bombardment, around the same time.
*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E6BoobyTrap Booby Trap]]", the crew boards a 1000 year old Promellian warship that still has air. Yes, the life support system, lights, power generator etc. have been in use constantly for 1000 years with no maintenance and not only have not completely broken down but are in good enough condition that the ''Enterprise'' crew feels safe beaming over with no spacesuits. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Picard remarking that the ship was built "for the generations" and it worked.
*** In the two-part episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E26S6E1TimesArrow Time's Arrow]]" where [[spoiler:Data's head]] is found to still be in working condition after about half a ''millennium'' underground, with a postmortem-programmed message still recorded and intact inside. Which was programmed using a steel file. Not only was the head still working, it was returned to service and seems none the worse for its advanced age, throughout the remainder of the series and movies!

* The [[Characters/SupernaturalMenOfLetters Men of Letters]] bunker in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' still has working electricity and hot water, despite being abandoned from 1958 to 2013. This is [[LampshadeHanging commented on Sam]], and Dean decides to apply the "if it ain't broke..." mentality to it. The magic that keeps the bunker (kind of) working is explained in Season 10.

* ''TabletopGame/GammaWorld''. Set in the post-apocalyptic ruins of a high-tech civilization, the rules explicitly say that [[RuleOfFun enjoyment of the players]] and usefulness for the plot are the sole determining factors in whether any given artifact has survived decades or even centuries lying around unprotected in a irradiated mutant-infested wasteland. (A HandWave is of course always possible: the goodies can be locked away in nuke-proof buildings, and the exact amount of time since the apocalypse is left very vague.)
* Sometimes averted, sometimes played straight with ancient human technology in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Said LostTechnology has about a fifty-fifty chance of still being fully operational when discovered-but if it is operational, it's generally a safe bet that it's been [[HauntedTechnology corrupted by Chaos]].
** "Playing it straight" tends to include vehicles and wargear that have seen common or even frequent use in combat situations for 10,000 years or more, such as old suits of PowerArmor. In some cases though, it's hinted that an item's owners are just hoarding the LostTechnology required to make new copies (like the last remaining Imperial jetbike).
** The Eldar Craftworlds have literally survived their race's Ragnarok, and are still going strong millennia later. Although they do have the Eldar still around to maintain them.
** Plenty of equipment (and people) with Chaos forces date back tens of thousands of years. Although unusual longevity is one of the least unusual things that can happen when dealing with a faction that doesn't care much for the laws of physics.
** This is pretty standard for the 60-million-year-old [[SkeleBot9000 Necrons]] and their technology, which is generally self-repairing. Some Tomb Worlds haven't proved entirely immune to the ravages of time though, which has caused their occupants to [[CameBackWrong deteriorate]] over the course of their long sleep. For example, the Necrons of the Dynasty of the Severed were [[LaserGuidedAmnesia mind-wiped]] by [[WeirdWeather radiation storms]] as they slept, causing them to re-awaken as mindless drones.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'', most [[LostTechnology First Age technology]] is self-maintaining, so even after hundreds of years of moldering in some forgotten ruin or other, they'll still work perfectly. Since Solars were the only ones who could obtain or create the materials and enchantments that make this possible, however, all {{Magitek}} made since the Usurpation requires periodic maintenance to remain operational.
* Anything from ''TabletopGame/GURPSUltraTech'' that is made from Living Metal will last forever because the material will automatically repair any damage that it incurs.

** Also, presumably if you're planning to pass a HumongousMecha off to you kids, you're going to keep it maintained. Same applies to {{Drop Ship}}s, which you don't exactly want to be held together by rusty bolts if you're coming down into an atmosphere at Mach 3 inside a ship that is about as aerodynamic as the Sydney Opera House. Unmaintained and poorly maintained TabletopGame/BattleTech technology tends to fail miserably when pushed into combat.
** Canonically, it's a mixture of both. While 'Mechs and {{Drop Ship}}s are very close to being lost technology by the late Succession Wars (and interstellar [[FasterThanLightTravel Jump Ships]] basically are), the knowledge to maintain them remains... which makes sense, since people without degrees in metallurgy, chemistry, or engineering commonly maintain things like guns and tanks and reactors. All those old 'Mechs are (usually) still maintained. On the other hand, the Terran Hegemony/Star League was so over-the-top in Ragnarok-proofing that SLDF Brian Caches, facilities, and even the occasional interstellar [[CoolStarship WarShip]] (and their contents) can be rediscovered and reactivated after being abandoned for a quarter of a millennium. The Periphery, and it's 'Mechs that are shambling piles of jury-rigs and bolted-on substitutions, shows what happens when Ragnarok-proofed military technology gets used frequently and can't be maintained up to spec.
** One of the premier examples of Ragnarok Proofing is the automated Valkyrie factory in the Federated Suns. It was built by the Star League and has since become a BlackBox: raw materials are dumped in one end of it, and complete battlemechs come out the other side. It's run for over three hundred years with no maintenance to speak of because following the collapse of the Star League there's been nobody who has any idea how it actually works. [=FedSuns=] engineers would like to try to switch it off to examine it and maybe see if they can replicate it or reprogram/retool it to produce something other than Valkyries, but they're afraid to do so on the justifiable grounds that they'd probably never be able to reactivate it.
* An old ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' supplement detailed the Darrians, a minor human (space-elvish) offshoot in the Spinward Marches which had destroyed its own advanced ([=TL16=]) civilization by accidentally triggering a solar flare and frying every microchip for parsecs. A few starships still remained operational from the ancient Darrian fleet; The expected number of modern Imperial Navy starships ([=TL15=]) to be usable after several hundred years of disuse and no maintenance was exactly 0.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' only uses this a little. Though the physical ruins of some cities and towns still stand a few centuries ''After'' AfterTheEnd, the chances of finding anything ''usable'' in them is pretty much nil. However, ever so often, a cache of military equipment from the previous age, specifically stated to be Ragnarok-Proofed, is found.

** ''Dinosaur Swamp'' has a table for finding old nuclear missile silos in what's left of Cape Canaveral, with the results essentially telling ''how'' well that silo was Ragnarok-Proofed. On a less serious note, [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Cinderella's Castle]] has been found from time to time in the Dinosaur-infested swamps of Florida. It seems to be the only thing left of the park, however.
* ''d20 Apocalypse'' (the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin appropriately named]] post-apocalyptic supplement to ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'') has charts for looting pre-apocalypse stuff out of the ruins of modern society, complete with rolls to determine how damaged any building is - and the longer you get from the apocalypse, the higher the minimum damage goes. You can still find working bits of modern technology if you roll well enough, though. The overall effect is somewhere between reality and the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series. ''d20 Modern'' is [[EnforcedTrope meant to be "cinematic" roleplaying rather than devotedly realistic, though]].
%%* This is necessary in ''TabletopGame/{{Numenera}}'', given that the entire concept behind it is that recovered technology from the previous eight super-science civilizations is the stand-in for the setting's magic.

* In ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'', Most of the technology created by the First Civilisation is in perfect condition after being lost and buried for 75,000 years. Justified, as the First Civilisation are shown to have been incredibly advanced, to the point of being [[ClarkesThirdLaw beyond human comprehension]].
* In the post-Apocalyptic world of Sera in ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'', most things hadn't gotten this. Thus you'll fine [[SceneryGorn beautifully dilapidated buildings]], cities falling apart, etc. In the third game you find the ruins of a city hit by a KillSat bombardment...
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''

* Mostly averted in ''VideoGame/Journey2012''. The vast majority of the buildings encountered in the game are in a visible state of disrepair. [[spoiler: The still-active war machines are the exception to this rule]].

*** The Ruins of Centra qualify as well, with functioning elevators and other technology still in place after 80 years – worse still, while the Gardens were in other places of the world, said ruins lie in the area affected by the Lunar Cry. It might be partly justified, along with the aforementioned Gardens, as it's implied that Centran technology is MaybeMagicMaybeMundane, maybe both combined.

*** And then there's the Deep Sea Research Center, a huge artificial island built upon the ruins of some ancient civilisation (predating Centra) that could give Lunatic Pandora a run for its money. The facility has been abandoned for an undisclosed amount of time to the point its entrance and top layer is completely overgrown with vegetation and in severe disrepair, yet the bottom layers, all consisting of huge glass walls isolating the ruins from the surrounding ocean, seem fine. There's not a single leak or broken glass in the massive cylindrical structure, and the machinery inside still operates and has enough steam power not only to allow the party to reach its bottom, but to launch excavations. All of this despite utter lack of mantainance in such a harsh environment as deep ocean.
** The Al-Bhed tribe in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' is devoted entirely to salvaging Ancient Technology, but this often goes to ridiculous lengths. Case in point: Cid's [[GlobalAirship airship]], the Fahrenheit, was found ''embedded in rock, underwater'', a thousand years after the fall of the civilization that originally built it. Not only is its interior in perfect condition (as Tidus and Rikku verify when they first salvage it), its weaponry is fully operational and Cid gets it airborne within a matter of days. Similarly, the [[WeaponOfMassDestruction Sin-level]] Vegnagun, [[AncestralWeapon sealed under Bevelle for a thousand years]], is in perfect condition when [[spoiler:Shuyin]] steals it.

*** Speaking of such ancient flood, the great vessel Nyunkrepf's Hope, a MagiTek ark built by the selfsame scholar to save as many people as possible from the calamity, still sits in perfect condition atop a hill among the peaks of Gyr Abania, its hull unweathered by time and its mystical sigils still glowing as bright as the day it set sail.
*** The Allagan Empire, a massive, continents-spanning civilization from the Fourth Astral Era, had hyper-advanced science and technology in as many fields as one could care to mention--genetic engineering, cloning, space travel, artificial intelligence, robotics, [[MagiTek aetherology]], and even the workings of the soul and the secret to binding and enslaving [[SummonMagic Eikons]]--that is, [[PhysicalGod summoned divine beings]]. These were augmented further by the discovery of Omega, an interstellar artificial intelligence whose own technology was so advanced the Allagan researchers could barely scratch the surface. So when the Fourth Umbral Calamity ended the Empire in a cataclysmic earthquake five thousand years ago, an incalculably vast amount of relics, weapons, cities, and research sites survived, merely emtombed within the earth and out of reach of man until the Seventh Calamity or the modern-day [[TheEmpire Garlean Empire]] brought them back to the surface.
*** Then there's Omega itself, a robotic AI tens of thousands of years old, and the absolute apex of its creators' technological prowess. After spending many thousand years traveling the stars in pursuit of its target, with no further contact or supplies from its home, it finally crashed into this planet and lay dormant for eons until ancient Allag reawakened it. Then it survived the Seventh Calamity taking place directly above it, and once released, it immediately restored and reconfigured itself to full operational capacity--that is to say, it was able to create interdimensional portals to the space between universes, create ''gods'' simply to have test subjects to do battle with, and ultimately [[spoiler:transfer its consciousness at the last second into a toy body when the Warrior of Light finally destroyed its original chassis. And ''then'', said toy body persisted with Omega's intellect for at least another two hundred years before beginning to show signs of deterioration.]]
*** And then, the great antecessor of them all, the [[{{Precursors}} Ancient civilization from the world before the Sundering]]. Although the catastrophe that befell the Ancients, aptly called [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the Final Days]], indeed destroyed most of their great works, what little of it that survived endured not just the Sundering of the world that came soon after, but, by all modern standards, these remnants are essentially indestructible and impenetrable. Which shows not only how unattainable the Ancients' works are to the sundered civilizations, but also how terrifying the Final Days were if they could lay low such works.
* Played straight in all the ''VideoGame/BreathOfFire'' games, but especially ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIII'', where it's played to the hilt, where there's a whole town whose purpose is to comb through giant piles of ancient technology washed up from the ocean. [[spoiler: [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] due to a WellIntentionedExtremist demigoddess having a chokehold on the world's technology due to the massive damage it's done to the ecosystem in the past, turning a large part of the world into an uninhabitable desert that's threathening to engulf the rest of it: she regulates exactly what kind of technology is allowed to be salvaged by the people living in the still-thriving part of the world so that they won't accidentally or intentionally invent {{Weapons Of Mass Destruction}} again.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': The games all take place on a very distant future on what seems to be Earth AfterTheEnd. And yet, the various objects the protagonists find throughout the series are as good as new. Electronic devices still are at full battery, metal objects are free of any rust despite having been at the mercy at the elements probably for centuries and the food items are still edible. There are also the Ravaged Rustworks in ''VideoGame/HeyPikmin'', the map of which looks like a well-tended industrial park.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' embraces this trope with singular joy:
** Although the Eldridge crashed into Earth tens of thousands of years ago, ''and broke up'' as it hit the surface, its individual systems (such as the security robots, laser turrets, and defense reflectors, and the computer systems needed to run them) work as if they had been built yesterday.
** Additionally, there's the Gears themselves (giant mecha found buried beneath the surface), some of which come from the previous civilization, but the most powerful ones are much, much older than that and presumably come from the Eldridge itself.
** The [[GlobalAirship Yggdrasil]] vessels, including a sand-sub, a seaworthy version, and even a [[HumongousMecha gigantic robot]] which had actually been built on because people thought it was a ruin.
** The Eldridge-era Merkava and Excalibur-class ships.
** Although it comes after the Eldridge incident, the Zeboim civilization is thousands of years old by the time the game takes place. It left behind an entire city, preserved for thousands of years, including a nanotechnology lab with a living ArtificialHuman made entirely out of nanites.
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles'': As the SpiritualSuccessor to ''Xenogears'', the series does the same thing:
** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'': The [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement Monado]] has existed since the beginning of the universe, untold eons ago. [[spoiler:Pretty justified since it's not so much an actual sword, and more of the physical manifestation of the [[PhysicalGod Bionis's]] will-- and while the titanic being looks dead, the Bionis is still very much alive.]]
** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'': The planet Mira has numerous ancient ruins of unspecified age, most notably the O'rrh Sim Castle that takes up a large portion of [[LethalLavaLand Cauldros]]. Of course, time is ''weird'' on Mira; you also encounter ''people'' who are either from the distant past or far future.
** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': There is a thriving industry built around salvaging bits of lost ancient technology from within the Cloud Sea. Late in the game, a trip beneath the clouds shows that [[spoiler:the Titans have been circling over the ruined but still functional remains of a TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture city, and the WorldTree they circle is a vegetation-covered SpaceElevator that the city was built around millions of years ago and leads up to a SpaceStation in orbit, all of which is still in working order complete with various superweapons just waiting to be reactivated. The rest of the planet has had its proofing deliberately undone through {{Nanomachines}} to restore the Earth's health. That said, it seems that the elevator and station itself have automated systems, tied directly into [[CosmicKeystone The Conduit]], that have been keeping things intact. When the Architect dies and the Conduit vanishes as a result, most of the whole thing starts crumbling in on itself nigh-''instantly''. Plus, one thing inside of the station that ''hasn't'' been proofed is [[ThePromisedLand Elysium]], which without upkeep has degenerated into a lifeless desert.]]
** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'': Most of the environment is made up of locations from the first two games, mashed together seemingly at random. Most of them are perfectly recognizable even after hundreds if not thousands of years, complete with a few working elevators in ancient ruins. [[spoiler:The fact that the entire point of the world is to be an "Endless Now" where nothing ever changes justifies most of it]].
* While ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'''s Chronopolis is at least ten thousand years old, it can be argued that its [[MasterComputer AI caretaker]] took precautions to keep it in working order. The same cannot be said for Terra Tower, which was sealed under the sea for that same amount of time and whose defense mechanisms (of a more {{organic|Technology}}, rather than electronic, form of technology) were up to the task when freed.
* ZigZagged in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': on the one hand, the food stores in 2300 A.D. have all rotted because the systems designed to make it last a long time failed due to lack of maintenance, and Robo is non-functional (but repairable) when the party finds him. On the other hand, plenty of {{Killer Robot}}s ''are'' still running around, perfectly functional... as long as you count KillAllHumans as a function, at least.
* The final stage of ''VideoGame/LostLandAdventure'' is set in a set of Babylonian ruins in the Middle Eastern desert, and it turns out the cannons in those ruins are still ''functioning''. You can hijack one of them to blow up enemy golems, while avoiding other cannons fired at your direction.
* One part of ''[[VideoGame/MetalSlug Metal Slug 3D]]'' has Marco fall into decently preserved ruins of an ancient alien civilization... 8 billion years old.
* Justified in ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''. The eponymous rings (and various other megastructures built by the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]]) are in perfect working condition, but there's robots to upkeep everything, and factories that build robots, etc. Also, a lot of Forerunner construction utilized HardLight holographically disguised as physical materials, which would almost certainly negate many things that factor into decaying structures (though the fact that the generators themselves still function perfectly is definitely an example of this trope). Most noticeable on [[VideoGame/{{Halo4}} Requiem]]: while some of the structures on the Halos (mentioned to not utilize HardLight to as much a degree as other installations) have at least some physical signs of age (smudges, some discoloration), the mostly HardLight structures of Requiem are as perfect and clean as the day they... appeared.
** The [[RecursivePrecursors Precursor]] artifacts in ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' (which include giant ''star system'' spanning cables) play this even more straightly, being virtually indestructible despite being millions of years old, with absolutely ''no'' visible maintenance system of any kind. This somehow has to do with the Precursors' ability to manipulate "neural physics" (basically Halo's version of the Force). As to why we don't see any Precursor artifacts in the "current" time, despite their apparent indestructibility? [[spoiler:Well, the Halos were made to destroy neurological systems of any kind, and since Precursor tech is basically made of thought...]]

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'' is littered with Prothean relics and buildings, despite the fact that the Protheans died many thousands of years ago.
** Humans discovered the first prothean remains on Mars, which with its lack of plant or animal life, moisture, or tectonic activity, provided perfect conditions to preserve mechanical equipment under the sand for 50,000 years.
** The Citadel was actually quite intentionally Ragnarok proofed, being equipped with millions of drones that keep it in working order during the times between occupation by other races.
** Likewise, the Mass Relays have extremely advanced self-repair systems keeping them functioning for at least 50,000 years at a time. It is explicitly mentioned that one was caught in a supernova and was no worse for wear except that no one could find it again for a couple thousand years. Presumably the Relays are made from a material designed to last. They can also "quantum lock," becoming almost literally indestructible, when in extreme danger.
** However the Prothean Megacity on Feros, and the Archives on Ilos, definitely do fit under the trope. On the former thin vertical spires several '''kilometers''' high are still standing, even after said 50,000 years of weather erosion and simple decay. On the later there are still functioning power sources, elevators, lighting, force fields and elaborate Virtual Intelligence terminals (slightly degraded). Visually, they appear like 20th century constructions that have been abandoned for only 10 to 20 years. Though Vigil does say he had to turn off everyone's stasis pods to keep the power on.
** Which is again discussed in the ''From Ashes'' DLC mod for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'': apparently the only reason the Prothean pods failed on Ilos was lack of power. [[spoiler:There's still one pod with a very-much-alive [[FishOutOfTemporalWater inhabitant]] in the Prothean bunker on Eden Prime]].
** In the second game, the krogan homeworld of Tuchanka was apparently bombed into ruins during the Krogan Rebellions around 1000 [=AD=]. By [=AD=] 2185 it is apparently still in the grips of a nuclear winter complete with constant sandstorm, yet many of the ruins are still intact enough that you can find a recognisable radar dish, pyramidal skyscraper or even an unexploded bomb with the casing intact.
*** Even before the Krogan Rebellions, their architecture was built with this in mind. In the second game it's mentioned that the hospitals are constructed like bunkers because injured krogan have a tendency to succumb to Blood Rage and destroy everything in their path.
** In the third game, Shepard travels through an ancient krogan temple complex with underground ruins, which despite being abandoned millennia ago, have survived remarkably well and only have a minimal amount of structural damage. A side-mission on Tuchanka involves a ground-to-space cannon that hasn't seen use since the Rebellions. Cerberus gets it up and running pretty quickly, which works out for you once you kill them.
** In one of the expanded endings of the third game, [[spoiler: the Reapers win, but you see one of [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture Liara's time capsules]] being activated during the next cycle, apparently none the worse for wear. Unlike the Protheans, Liara thought to make sure that people actually ''understood'' them, including a galactic Rosetta Stone in the design. Likewise, Liara made sure to seed the time capsules on ''numerous'' worlds so that ''all'' civilisations that might exist in the next Cycle would be able to find them.]]
** One unexplained example are the cave paintings Shepard finds in the ''Leviathan'' DLC for the third game, which are heavily implied to have been painted ''before'' [[spoiler:the Reapers ever started their extermination cycles]]. If true, this would make those paintings ''at least'' a billion years old. Very impressive stone-age paint to have lasted that long on a planetary surface, not to mention the rock should have long since eroded away.
** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' has the Remnant tech, which has been left sitting around for about four hundred years, some in extreme weather conditions, and on the whole is working perfectly well (or at least well enough). [[spoiler:Even though the disaster which drove the Remnant builders away was deliberately aimed at them. However, the disaster does seem to have scrubbed any useful or coherent information that can be gleamed from most of their systems, so Ryder and SAM's efforts to get it working is mostly just guess-work.]]
* When you get to the sunken city of Thor in ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'', long since destroyed by a meteor impact, the shield around it is still working perfectly. So by extension, so are the automatic doors, the TV (and video game system) in the pub, an electronic lock and card reader, the security systems, and the main computer Oz. Justified in that the city's power comes from the Spirit of Light, Aska. After the city's been pulled up from underwater, you can free Aska and have her join you. The city systems still somehow work after that, though...

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': The [[SingleBiomePlanet forest planet]] of Kashyyyk contains a large machine, the Builder Forge, hidden within the depths of the Shadowlands. When activated, the machine's holographic interface claims that [[LostTechnology it was built 30,000 years ago]], meaning it ''predates the Republic itself.'' Not only does the machine's computer still function, it analyzes the player and eventually [[OnlyTheWorthyMayPass determines that he or she is worthy]] of viewing its [[DismantledMacguffin Star Map]]. Of course, it's only reasonable that the machine grant you access [[spoiler: when you reconfigured it yourself five years ago as a Sith Lord.]]
** The Builder Forge was initially constructed by the [[spoiler: [[{{Precursors}} Infinite Empire]] as part of their [[GalacticSuperpower galactic conquest campaign]]. Its job was to [[{{Terraform}} reform the planet's landscape]] by rapidly growing and evolving its ecosystem.]] Even though the [[spoiler: Infinite Empire [[VestigialEmpire eventually collapsed]]]], the machine was never deactivated, resulting in the giant trees and [[EverythingTryingToKillYou ferocious wildlife]] that comprise the planet's surface.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series:
** The first games have completely abandoned sewer systems that haven't collapsed fifty years after the last human could have walked through them.
** Computers and other electronics are in perfect working order, even if at least one area, the Glow, was directly hit by a nuke. There's a ''slight'' excuse for the electromagnetic pulse from a nuke that would normally fry computers: because the game is set in an alternate universe, they still use vacuum tubes for computing, and while that may be slower, clunkier, and overall less efficient, they lack the vulnerability to electromagnetic pulses that modern transistor-based computers have.
** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'' does play with this however: Vault 15 is nothing more than a New Khan hideout full of rust and tetanus with the generator barely functioning after a meager 80 years of being abandoned. The Chryslus Highwayman however works after 164 years of rusting in a nuclear desert after a full repair, living up to its slogan "Nothing can stop a Highwayman" (granted it could use some upgrades).
** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'': The game is set 200 years after the War.
*** There are still freestanding wooden house support beams, identifiable cars ([[EveryCarIsAPinto that explode]]), glass soda bottles that still have potable liquid in them, and ''a standing Washington monument''.
*** The most grievous example? Abraham Lincoln's [[http://americanhistory.si.edu/militaryhistory/collection/object.asp?ID=3 Henry Rifle]] from 1860, fully functional.
*** A justified example, the N99 10mm pistol was intentionally designed and tested to endure the harshest conditions for extended periods of time with no maintenance. It more than lived up to its standards.
*** There's edible left-over food. You don't want to know what's in the food that leaves it edible 200 years after a nuclear holocaust.
*** One of the most egregious examples is the presence of a functioning power grid. Seriously, every single intact computer you find, even those in half-demolished, completely abandoned buildings, still somehow has a working power source, and underground utility tunnels still have working (although very dim) lights. And at least one computer entry mentions the user having found buried power lines and tapped into the still-functioning portions of the power grid. The explanation behind this is that the U.S. buried a number of backup nuclear power generators, and they're still connected to what's left of the grid and running strong 200 years later.
*** Some of the power grid is restored with the use of car batteries, this is usually only found in human settlements. Where they get all of these fully functional batteries is another question.
*** In the ''Broken Steel'' DLC, there's a [[spoiler: fully functional train from a largely destroyed secret subway system that connects from the remains of the U.S. Capitol Building and a sewer from the ruins of the White House to a nearby airbase that proves pivotal to the game's plot. For something that survived a war from over 200 years ago, it proved to be astonishingly resilient to rust and decay, and got even luckier when it completely avoided attempts at sabotage after the War.]]
** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' tones much of this down, but not entirely:
*** There are several power plants that provide energy to the Mojave area that use ambient energy sources, such as the hydroelectric Hoover Dam and the solar Helios One. They're considered an invaluable strategic resource and are hotly contested by various organizations in the setting. This still doesn't explain how various long-abandoned buildings have power, though.
*** Most of the tech and items left in the wastes are either on the verge of breaking down permanently or (barely) held together by tape. The ones that ''aren't'' are usually those maintained and/or built by post-War factions like the NCR; the NCR's firepower in fact almost entirely avert this trope thanks to the Gun Runners mass-producing new firearms based on Pre-War schematics.
*** The NCR has access to functional pre-War US Army trucks, which they used to haul some of their troops and supplies from California to their bases in the Mojave.
** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'':
*** The skyscrapers of Boston are somehow still standing after 210 years of neglect, complete with functional elevators. There are also many somewhat intact sections of elevated highways, some of which are used as settlements or raider/mercenary bases.
*** Zigzagged with the Glowing Sea. Everything on the surface has been completely wiped out, with a few ruins indicating where buildings used to be. However, some buildings were buried by mudslides triggered by the nuke's detonation, and the interiors of these locations are well preserved and unlooted. Justified in that the surface is an incredibly hostile environment and the [[DemonicSpiders native wildlife]] doesn't take kindly to visitors.
*** Most of the houses still have recognizable paint, wallpaper, and sometimes even Halloween decorations. The fridge in your own home has post-it notes which are still perfectly legible.
*** The Natick Police Department is a confusing ZigZagged example as well -- half the station and most of the neighborhood has fallen into Lake Cochituate due to erosion, but the building can still support the Sole Survivor stomping around in a full suit of power armor without immediately collapsing and burying everything inside.
** Across all games, everything also seems to be remarkably fireproof, for a postapocalyptic wasteland where all but the hardiest plants have whithered away, all the trees are dead, and the climate has been permanently set to sweltering summer desert heat, without rain. And people run around making campfires and using flamethrowers...
* Used and abused in the ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' series, which not only takes place over a period of thousands of years, but already has ancient {{Magite|k}}ch in the chronological beginning, which is ''still'' running perfectly by the chronological end, despite being used (and not at all maintained) fairly frequently throughout. The only justification is the Master Sword, which is shown in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' to possess the ability to repair itself.
* Done in ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}} 2: Durandal'' and ''Infinity'' (3rd game). The ruins of the S'pht civilization might look run down, but anything the player needs to use (Computer terminals, shield rechargers, doors, lifts, etc) works just fine. Lampshaded at least twice.
-->'''Tycho:''' It's likely a quick and dirty patch into the durable S'pht hardware. These types of strongholds were build to outlast centuries of warfare.
-->'''Pfhor computer terminal:''' The quality of the machinery is quite extraordinary, and most of the computer terminals are still functional even after two thousand years.
** Justified, in that [[spoiler:the S'pht have been so advanced for so long that prior to meeting the Pfhor couldn't conceive of non-cybernetic intelligence. They were originally created to serve as servants of the Jjaro, a race so advanced that they could warp entire planets instantly through space millions of years before the game's timeline.]]
* The [[{{Precursors}} Nomai]] in ''VideoGame/OuterWilds'' apparently built things to last. Despite vanishing over a quarter of a million years prior to the game, their structures, while frequently crumbling in places, are in remarkably good shape, and their technology still works fine. In particular, they built an elaborate project to [[spoiler:lanch a probe from an orbital space station in a random direction to try and locate a mysterious artifact, then induce an artificial supernova in the sun in order to gather enough power to send the probe's findings back in time to before the launch. Their plan to cause an early supernova failed, but the rest of the system still works flawlessly, even after sitting unattended long enough for the sun to reach the end of its natural lifespan and go supernova on its own.]]
* ''VideoGame/WildArms'' - This trope inverted may actually justify the WordOfGod stating that all six games take place on the same ''very'' unlucky planet... just thousands upon thousands of years apart. After all, technology just doesn't last! You've still got facilities/bits of tech built thousands of years before game start ''in working order'' in ''[[VideoGame/WildArms3 3]]''.
* Overplayed to the extreme in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006''. At one point in the game, Shadow and Rouge are forcibly sent to a post-apocalyptic future 200 years from the game's "present" complete with a city that is mostly intact only perpetually on fire. Conveniently, Sonic and his pals were sent to the same future in the same area by sheer coincidence, so they work together to form a portal back to the present. It works, but Shadow [[spoiler:finds the guy who zapped him and Rouge to this hellhole in the first place, and misses the portal closing in an attempt to get answers from him]]. Rouge's solution? [[spoiler:To put a MineralMacGuffin in her robot friend E-123 Omega's glove compartment and put him on sleep mode for the next two hundred years so Shadow can find him in the future and use it to teleport back in time.]] Needless to say, [[spoiler:he survives Armageddon unscathed]] and the plan works perfectly.
** Probably justified, since they already know that the plan will work due to time shenanigans, as the game [[TimeyWimeyBall never really makes up its mind on how the time travel works]]. It's a minor plot hole in a game riddled with huge ones. Also, it's a Chaos Emerald, the series' go to MacGuffin for any given miracle required. It could probably not only stop itself from being destroyed, but also protect a sleep mode enabled Omega.
** The same post-apocalyptic volcano city has working electricity, computers that are perfectly functional, and Sonic is even able to look up old news articles, implying one ''hell'' of a sysadmin is still devoted to doing their job.
* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' features the Lost City of Ehn'gha, constructed by a long-dead race that inhabited the Earth before mankind showed up. It's remarkably intact, though its use as a Guardian colony may have something to do with that. Another "forbidden city" is slightly less intact but still standing strong after twenty centuries, and in fact one of the protagonists is forced by TheDragon to perform routine maintenance. The resident TomeOfEldritchLore also manages to survive for longer than your average book would, but then again, it ''is'' [[AWizardDidIt protected by Magick]].
* A strangely appropriate trope for ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'', where the Juperos Ruins and its machinations are still in surprisingly good shape.
* ''VideoGame/Metro2033'' averts this: it's only been 20 years, but the subway system has taken a heavy toll. Considering how long the planned lifetime for these facilities is, decay can be attributed more to poor maintenance than to time alone. After entering the legendary D-6, intended to be the command center of the Russian government before the nuclear apocalypse, a casual lean on a railing causes it to fall off.
--> '''Miller''': Careful, damn it! Twenty years without maintenance is too much even for Soviet military structures! Everyone watch your step!
* ''VideoGame/PiratesTheLegendOfTheBlackBuccaneer'' is set on an uncharted island with a centuries-old fortress in it's center, but the fort's cannons are still functionable. Which is great, because you'll need those cannons to blow up walls to create exits and take down a GiantCrab boss near the end of the game.
* ''VideoGame/Portal2'' takes place several hundred years after the end of the first game, with the protagonist having been trapped in the Enrichment Center in [[HumanPopsicle cryogenic stasis]]. It initially looks like an aversion, as the place is rather thoroughly wrecked, but the portal gun still works as do many of the center's mechanisms. In particular, [=GLaDOS=] is still around, and once you restore power, she rapidly goes about repairing the facility. Less explicable is how the [[spoiler:original Enrichment Center]], four kilometers beneath the surface and abandoned before even the first game without the benefits of a caretaker AI, remains functional.
** Aperture Science themselves seem to have prepared accordingly for this type of scenario.
---> '''Announcer:''' Hello, and again, welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control. However, thanks to emergency testing protocols, testing can continue. These pre-recorded messages will provide instructional and motivational support so that science can still be done, even in the event of [[GaiasLament environmental]], [[ApocalypseHow/Class2 social, economic]], or [[TechnoWreckage structural collapse]]. The portal will open, and emergency testing will begin, in three. Two. One.
* ''VideoGame/ShadowGuardian'' has a {{steampunk}} MiniMecha in the middle of some Antarctic ruins, after several ''centuries'' of dormancy, where it's somehow still functioning allowing you to kick ass and take on Novik's army of tanks. And later on it turns out Novik have obtained his ''own'' ancient mecha to face you as a boss.
* The Xel'naga from ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' seem to have invested in some seriously heavy-duty Ragnarok Proofing. Despite being anywhere from several thousand to several million years old, their (frighteningly advanced) relics always seem to be in working order when they are inevitably dug up and reactivated.
* ''VideoGame/CavesOfQud'' has this trope going on in full force with its many LostTechnology artifacts and {{Killer Robot}}s, all still around after the world was ruined probably over a thousand years ago. But given one of the [[TabletopGame/GammaWorld settings]] the game homages, that shouldn't be a surprise.
* Go to pretty much any beach in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' and you'll find some ruins left by the Highborne, before [[CataclysmBackstory the world cracked open]] due to the hubris of Queen Azshara. That was ''ten thousand years ago'' and the ruins are still mostly standing, looking even better than Roman ruins are today.
** One-upped by the [[{{Precursors}} Titans]], which have been present on Azeroth ''geological ages'' ago. Any of their structures that haven't been damaged by the Shattering are still in pristine condition, with fully operational {{Magitek}} machinery. Justified as they have been maintained and defended by a veritable army of constructs, from [[{{Nanomachines}} clockwork beetles]] to HumongousMecha, and more could be manufactured as needed at the Forge of Wills.
* Most of the {{Magitek}} in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' is still fully functional, after untold centuries of worldwide neglect, decay, and ''WorldSundering''. At most, any stray Adept just needs to push a few dislodged circuits back into place to get the whole thing up and running again, even the {{Pointless Doomsday Device}}s that [[NeglectfulPrecursors would probably have been easier to destroy outright than deactivate and lock down]].
* The underwater city of Rapture from ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' is pretty battered and leaking at parts, with sections of it already on the verge of collapse. Yet much of it looks more or less as it did during the outbreak of its Civil War: the lights are still on, VA systems are (mostly) operational and everything's (barring some wet parts) in working order. Justified in that said mess only happened about a year before the player shows up. Fast-forward eight years to the events of [[VideoGame/BioShock2 the sequel]] and it's a different story: rust, moss and sea-crusted life are creeping more and more into what's left of the city that ''isn't'' swallowed up wholesale by the ocean. Which only serves to underline its ultimate fate as [[LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair a symbol of hubris doomed to vanish beneath the sea forever.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Industria}}'' have you finding firearms, bullets and equipment in the titular city, all in working condition even though Industria was abandoned over two decades ago.
* This is completely {{averted|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs''. Many of the buildings are falling apart a mere 20 years after the ZombieApocalypse (in fact in one of the earlier parts of the game you go through a building that's nearly sideways) and all of the surviving humans and soldiers have taken residence in sections of the city that haven't fallen apart.
* ''VideoGame/Rage2011'' is set 106 years after an asteroid impact wiped out the bulk of life on earth. Working electronics, cars and rubber tires are common.
* ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'' [[spoiler:is set inside a long-running computer program in a post-apocalyptic earth, whose goal is to have the robot running around and doing puzzles finally defy Elohim and bring about the end of the program. When you do, you are uploaded into a robotic body and find yourself in a large, overgrown building, implying that it's been decades since the program started running, and yet, there are only a few glitches here and there within the program.]]
** [[spoiler:This is pretty much an invocation; you can find texts indicating that lasting for far longer than previous supercomputers--up to centuries--is an explicit design goal for the computer the program runs on.]]
** The amount of time that passed after the calamity is hinted to be extremely long. The very first, non-spoilery terminal in the game states that the last network connection was established 9,999 years ago. On one hand, this readout is surrounded by similarly random and glitched data. On the other, the terminal says that the vast archive was reduced from several petabytes to mere dozen gigabytes in the meantime. It's unlikely that such corruption (and timer "running out of bits") could occur in mere decades. The same message also hints that the AI programs took certain liberties with the data and invalidated what didn't serve their own purposes.
* Considering it's been vacant for a few hundred years, the subterranean D'ni city from ''VideoGame/{{Uru}}'' has held up remarkably well. Granted, most of it was constructed of super-durable stone (nara), but the fabrics and paper items have remained intact and not decomposed from the nearby lake's moisture.
* ''VideoGame/{{Nihilumbra}}'': The turrets seem to apply at first, being so abandoned and yet still working. [[spoiler: It comes full force in the City, which can still work without a hitch with a little yellow paint despite being abandoned who knows how long]].
* ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3'': The ruins on Tau Volantis are at least 200 years old and covered in snow and ice, yet most are intact and machinery works like it was abandoned yesterday. Beneath that are [[spoiler: ruins that were abandoned tens of thousands, if not ''millions'' of years ago]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'': The abandoned, ruined houses in [[{{Hell}} The Underworld]] occasionally contain obsidian grandfather clocks which still tell perfect time.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAlpha Gaiden'', when the heroes are launched into the future, many of the scientists on the side of the heroes use the Mountain Cycles from ''Turn-A Gundam'' to protect their MidSeasonUpgrade machines so they have them. They, along with the BadFuture they ended up in, disappear after the heroes return from the future and prevent it.
* In ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', more of those pan-galactic teleporters are discovered beneath the surface of New Romulus, but they outfit a bit of modern tech to make sure it's all up and running. [[spoiler:Too bad the race that used those gates are actually still alive and are willing to try to screw everyone over.]]
* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'': About a millennium after the fall of civilization, the wilderness has caked over the skyscrapers and underground survival bases, but all the important stuff, like audio logs and A.I.s, still work. Even the army of killer robots was simply dug out of their hiding place and instantly put to work. [[spoiler:Justified, as the total destruction of the biosphere meant there was no biosphere to erode the structures for centuries, while the system designed to restore life was given multiple layers of proofing to ensure it would work, up to and including a self-destruct biosphere failsafe in case the first few tries went horribly wrong.]]
** It's a plot point in the sequel ''VideoGame/HorizonForbiddenWest'' that the trope is subverted. The Tenakth based their religious practices off of partially-functioning holograms in a museum from the old world, but now they are starting to fail more frequently and they need to either find a way to restore them, or find a way to record their messages before they are gone completely.
* ''VideoGame/{{Subnautica}}'': The alien facilities are all in excellent condition despite most of them being underwater and unmanned for at least a thousand years. However, the player does see automated maintenance drones wandering around a few locations, which may explain why everything's still working.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'': [[LostTechnology Orokin artifacts]] still work after being abandoned for centuries or millennia. In the Tennocon 2019 trailer, the girl prays in front of three statues which turn out to be actual warframes, left alone for so long that they have been covered in dirt and moss to the point that they look like they have been carved from stone. [[spoiler:The Operator is still able to use transference to take control of them and fight back]].
* Relics of human civilization still exist in the setting of ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'', over ten thousand years after human extinction and centuries after a hostile alien invasion. Concrete buildings, though many have fallen and been taken over by vegetation, dominate the region. The most extreme example is the existence of twentieth-century books in relatively readable condition.
* In ''VideoGame/Onimusha3DemonSiege'' you control Samanosuke Akechi, who's in 2004, and Jacques Blanc, who's instead stranded in 1582. At some points of the game you visit the same place with both in their respective timelines, and you have them cooperate so they can advance through the dungeons. The situation where you activate shutters in 1582 to lower water level in flooded passage and it stays that way withstanding hydrostatic pressure for more than 4 centuries is hard to imagine. On the other hand most of mechanics involve opening doors where it is not unreasonable to think that the doors would stay open even if locking mechanism has decayed.

-->'''Vore:''' WhatYearIsThis How long was I in there?\\

* ''Webcomic/LeavingTheCradle'' zig-zags this. Most ancient alien civilizations' legacy is ground to dust in a relatively short time, and on the timescales of tens of thousands of years, the only way to know something was even there is through a geological survey. But then there are the artifacts and buildings of the Ancients, that stood literally without a scratch and perfectly functional for '''billions''' of years.
* ''Webcomic/KeychainOfCreation'': The elevator muzak in the several-hundred-year-old ruined manse [[http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0023.html still works perfectly]]. Apparently, [[HandWave political maneuvering among First-Age Solar musicians lead to a law requiring all music-storing artifacts to be completely indestructible]].

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers'' had the Heart of Tarkon, an ancient (benevolent!) MasterComputer left behind after a massive war blew the planet back to the Bronze Age. It was awaked after many thousands of years when the planet needed its defenses. However, it was an alien technology, partly organic, and ran on LifeEnergy. It also may have been maintained by shamans who believed it to be the embodiment of the planet and a sacred place.
* Averted in Disney's ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGummiBears''. Although some of the technology left by the Great Gummies still works after an unknown period of neglect (possibly over 100+ years), some do need to be cleaned/repaired/refueled before they will work. Many episodes also show that Gummi Glen only continues to exist due to the Gummies continuing to care for it - disused quick tunnel tracks are seen to have collapsed, the books in an abandoned Gummi library are seen to have rotted away, etc.

* Partially justified and averted in "Artifacts", an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' set 1000 years after Batman's death. All of the computers in the Batcave ''were'' entirely ruined. The suits were vacuum-sealed. The entire reason the cave stayed up was that it had braces made of titanium, which is famous for resistance to corrosion, that also had a message stored on them in binary since Batman knew the computers wouldn't keep working, and the largely intact Batmobile was presumably made of the same material.
* Averted in the ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'' episode "Ultimate Weapon", where the Forever Knights discover the location of an ArtifactOfDoom and set out to retrieve it. However, upon removing it from its pedestal at the heart of an ancient Mayan temple, the artifact [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome instantly crumbles into dust]], much to the relief and amusement of our heroes.
* ''[[ComicBook/XenozoicTales Cadillacs and Dinosaurs]]''. ({{Hand Wave}}d in that humanity has been living in underground cities, and the Cadillacs are converted to run on dinosaur guano.)
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''
** Old New York is in surprisingly well-preserved ruins a thousand years later under New New York when Fry, Leela and Bender go there to find Fry's lucky seven-leaf clover, or when Fry and Bender escape Leela's career chip needle. The mutants have been working there in the meantime. So there's that.
** Parodied in "Luck of the Fryrish", when Fry's house looks ruined in the future, but the exterior is in an equally dire state in the 1990s and 2000s.
** Bender's head spent a thousand years in a New Mexico desert without looking any worse for wear. [[spoiler:As of ''Bender's Big Score'', he's lived thousands and thousands of years]]. Partially justified, in that Bender is 40% titanium (see Batman entry above) and 40% dolomite (the tough black mineral that won't cop out when there's heat all about).

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' "Dipper and Mabel vs. The Future" features Dipper and [[spoiler: Ford]] exploring a [[spoiler: spaceship that crash-landed on Earth millions of years ago]]. Yet despite this, the control panel and security system still work perfectly after all this time (as well as a variety of other stuff that [[spoiler: Ford likely scavenged out of the ship]]).

* The ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "Hereafter" has the JL's orbital Watchtower's communication system still functional after 75 years in a jungle without maintainance. Prior to that, it spent nearly thirty thousand years in Earth orbit before falling. [[MemeticBadass Even Batman]] can't build 'em ''that'' good. ComicBook/VandalSavage even lampshades how absurdly well it's held up. On the other hand, Metropolis is a pile of rubble, with the once giant skyscrapers barely above five stories high. This is what Savage has been REBUILDING over the last few decades.

* WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender: DownplayedTrope. While the Castle of Lions is in remarkably good condition several systems were not functioning correctly after 10,000 years, the least of which was the [[PowerCrystal barrier crystals]] responsible for the [[BeehiveBarrier particle barrier]] being out of alignment. The Alteans were a HigherTechSpecies after all.
** PlayedStraight with the Lions. After 10,000 years they are still in perfect condition, despite several of them apparently having their [[BeehiveBarrier particle barriers]] active ''the whole time''.

* Egyptian tombs were also deliberate attempts at Ragnarök Proofing, as the ancient Egyptians believed the body had to remain intact forever for their afterlife to work properly. They didn't have all that much success, at least in the case of the Pharaohs, as the conspicuous and treasure-filled tombs tended to draw robbers. That being said, the mummies themselves, while they aren't exactly full-fleshed, still have some meat on their bones, which is almost achievement enough for any sort of organic material that old.

* In the days before computers could tell you ''exactly'' how much cement was needed or bricks were required to do a job, the standard way of doing things was to overbuild (AKA throw as much stuff as possible in), unintentionally Ragnarök Proofing some things. Hoover Dam, for example, would likely stand for quite some time. Similarly, the Brooklyn Bridge was built in the 1870s to accommodate horse and buggy traffic, and now supports thousands of cars and trucks each day.

* Stuff left in space will last ''a lot'' of time (if it's functional or not after that time is another different topic, and it will most definitely be heavily irradiated). The footprints left in the moondust by the Apollo astronauts alone are expected to last millions of years and those (robotic) spacecraft abandoned after their mission has ended may last longer, especially the ones that are leaving the Solar System as the Voyagers or the Pioneers that perhaps could endure ''billions'' of years.

* Averted in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII''. Although Doc Brown took some measures to ensure that the [=DeLorean=] would not suffer too much deterioration by storing it in a dry, dark cave for seventy years, it still needed to be restored to working condition: [[SchizoTech the time travel circuitry had to be changed out with vacuum tubes]], while the original tires needed to be replaced with whitewall tires. How they got a 1985 vehicle to run on leaded gasoline from 1955 is another question entirely...

*** A LostColony is found in the last book, consisting of the malnourished and uneducated Children of a stranded survey group lost on Dagobah. The survey group's technology broke down as power ran out. The last thing to function was a datapad that was used as an ApocalypticLog. The Children keep and revere it even though its power is out - maybe it's their care of it which kept it in good enough condition that the heroes can just swap new batteries in and play the contents. It's unknown how old it is, though - the [[TheWikiRule wiki]] suggests forty years, but it's hard to say. The Parents mentioned seeing an "imp" that the heroes later identify as Yoda, and he'd only been there for twenty years.

** Canonically, it's a mixture of both. While 'Mechs and {{Drop Ship}}s are very close to being lost technology by the late Succession Wars (and interstellar [[FasterThanLightTravel Jump Ships]] basically are), the knowledge to maintain them remains... which makes sense, since people without degrees in metallurgy, chemistry, or engineering commonly maintain things like guns and tanks and reactors. All those old 'Mechs are (usually) still maintained. On the other hand, the Terran Hegemony/Star League was so over-the-top in Ragnarok-proofing that SLDF Brian Caches, facilities, and even the occasional interstellar WarShip (and their contents) can be rediscovered and reactivated after being abandoned for a quarter of a millennium. The Periphery, and it's 'Mechs that are shambling piles of jury-rigs and bolted-on substitutions, shows what happens when Ragnarok-proofed military technology gets used frequently and can't be maintained up to spec.

** Speaking of bunkers, even the conventional air-raid shelters in Germany had objections against being blown up after they were no longer needed with the end of WWII. Since that's the whole point of an air-raid shelter. Many are still standing.