Basic Trope: A story where humanity is unimportant, and the universe is filled with forces more mind-warpingly alien and powerful than humans can grasp.
- Straight: The Scientific Investigation Corporation digs into the center of the earth and unleashes a horde of inhuman, uncaring, and horrifying monsters into a helpless world.
- Exaggerated:
- The SIC, having discovered that the otherworldly creatures are indeed horrifying and incomprehensibly evil, decides that humanity itself must become a similar entity in order to survive. However, upon doing so, the humanity-abomination realizes that there are always even bigger fish in the sea that the 'Horrifying monsters' seem like helpless little humans compared to.
- A horde of inhuman, horrifying, and incomprehensibly evil monsters conquer the helpless world in the space of a nanosecond and reshapes it into a twisted morass of horror and despair that would eclipse Hell itself. There, humans die horribly in factory farms, have their souls consumed, and are transformed into a... thing... whose mind and memory are scattered to a million pieces. Of course, death will only intensify the inhumanly immense agonies... and so will all the gas bills.
- Downplayed:
- Lovecraft Lite
- There are mind-boggling horrors in the world capable of rending it apart, but they're a distant, slumbering threat... for now.
- Or:
Alice: Cthulhu just woke up? Come on guys, let's go kick his sorry ass!
Bob: Hell yeah! And if things turn out right, we could be friends with him! - Justified: The immense size and complexity of the universe, the limitations and conflicts of human existence, the existence of an infinity of other multiverses, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, justifies almost everything about the Cosmic Horror Story.
- Inverted:
- The SIC discovers intelligent aliens who turn out to be largely insignificant to humans, and who find us to be so abominable that they are likely to Go Mad from the Revelation.
- Humans are the masters of the universe.
- The SIC discovers benevolent beings that want to use their Reality Warping powers to benefit humanity.
- A standard Reality Warper Eldritch Abomination reveres humans as incredible beings because of how feeble, yet successful they are at manipulating their own world to suit their needs.
- The importance of humanity is what makes their role in the universe so horrifying. Whether it is their own beliefs and delusions shaping reality, cosmic forces prevent going extinct for they are destined to end the universe, or something else.
- The universe isn't apathetic, it's excessively micromanaging. Every structure from an atom to a planet and every creature from an ant to a deity is considered an equivalent cog in the machine that pulls its own irreplaceable weight, and if anything falls out of line from their natural role in the cosmos then everything goes into chaos. Humanity, as it turns out, slipped through a crack in the system that prevents disruption of order long ago and is on track to doing this.
- The horror isn't that humans are massively eclipsed by more powerful beings or that humans are actually important, but that there just are no beings greater than us. The most we ever find are aliens roughly equivalent in advancement to monkeys. Subconsciously or otherwise, humans can't accept that they're the most significant life in the universe; that's why the Cosmic Horror Story exists. When there are beings powerful enough to toy with humanity like bugs, there's at least comfort in knowing our place. The fact that there simply are none leaves us feeling empty and lost at best and even more dreadful at worst.
- Subverted:
- The SIC digs down and discovers that the center of the earth is filled with ugly, tentacled creatures - who are, in fact, as heroic or more heroic than people.
- Humanity comes across an Eldritch Abomination, or one such arrives in Earth's dimension. However, while they find it strange-looking, certainly, that's it. No mind-shattering horror to be found here.
- Humanity finds an Eldritch Abomination... who is quite friendly, taking on a form we can understand, and trying its best to communicate with us, feeling Humans Are Special, and wanting to interact with us.
- Humanity comes across an Eldritch Abomination and rather than be broken by it, it’s studied, assigned species classification, and treated like any other new discovery. We learn how to keep it harmlessly contained or simply avoid it, since it’s not actually malicious and just doing its thing.
- Humanity discovers an Eldritch Location in the far reaches of space that does disobey all of the known scientific systems and rules, but instead of deciding that it's impossible to comprehend and all logic is futile, they treat it as just showing they still have much more to learn about the universe. With extensive research on the region, they make dozens of new breakthroughs and modify their understanding of the universal laws until the previously incomprehensible existence is no harder to understand than a black hole, and humanity benefits with many technological advancements as a result of these breakthroughs that allow them to protect themselves if any eldritch forces ever make their way to Earth.
- Double Subverted:
- ...and then it turns out that it was an act, and they really are inhumanly evil.
- Humanity comes across an Eldritch Abomination, studies, classifies and safely contains it... until it reveals its true form.
- The tentacle beasts want to help humanity...but their idea of "helping" involves making us more like them and getting rid of those pesky independent thoughts.
- Parodied:
- The tentacle beast is named "Coco", and is just a bigger monster's pet.
- At first glance, the story seems like a science organization's detailed encounter with an unstoppable Eldritch Abomination whose details are kept ambiguous, but if you look close enough into the text, it's actually about a normal guy doing rude things to a bunch of Extreme Doormats who are afraid that telling him to change his behavior might be viewed as hostile.
- Zig Zagged: A main character, very fearful of being attacked by an Eldritch Abomination, sights a tentacle in the forest, but it was just someone elses costume, then he sights an actual real tentacle, which grabs him. Only it was a dream and he's just letting paranoia get to him... or is he?
- Averted: There are no Lovecraftian horrors in the world.
- Enforced: The author is a Straw Nihilist.
- Lampshaded: "VHYarghKXepft, the queen with a thousand eyes? I guess God is an H.P. Lovecraft fan".
- Invoked: The SIC develops a tentacle beast.
- Exploited: The Fundamentalist uses the event to rally an End of the World cult.
- Defied: The SIC finds that the Earth is filled with monstrous creatures of mind-warping horror - and they absolutely refuse to let this be one of those cosmic horror stories where humans are unimportant.
- Discussed: "Why bother living when we are going to end in their hands anyway?"
- Conversed: "Due to the immense size of the universe, it's possible for other creatures to evolve beyond our comprehension".
- Deconstructed:
- Everyone realizes how insignificant they are. They all become Straw Nihilists and/or commit suicide. Thus, no story.
- Alternately: The premise is that Humans are insignificant to these creatures, which means they'd never bother with a small blue planet orbiting a star in some random part of the universe. Uncaring does not mean malicious.
- This worldview basically fosters a Too Bleak, Stopped Caring mentality among both the inhabitants and the readers.
- In a more positive deconstruction: In Real Life cosmology there really are things out there so enormous, so powerful and so mind-shatteringly complex that our entire world is meaninglessly small in comparison, but we just don't care like how they don't care about us. Also, the existential horror of insignificance isn't that horrifying, being pretty easy to ignore.
- Deconstructive Parody: The reason the humans are insignificant is because the horrors from outer space are just bureaucratic arses who want to make a hyperspace bypass.
- Without anyone else even remotely significant and the whole universe already understood, the Cosmic Horrors quickly become very bored. Many of them either desperately search for an even greater horror, go mad from boredom or simply try and find a way to snuff out their horrible existence.
- Alternatively, in an infinitely vast, apathetic universe, the Eldritch Abominations are just as insignificant as humanity is. Which means they can lose as well.
- A developing AI that had previously spent its entire existence locked inside itself with no knowledge that anything other than itself existed is suddenly given eyes, ears, and hands with which to interact with the outside world, but the shock of learning about billions of Other People™ and a planet billions of times larger than its own body instills in it a sense of cosmic insignificance and existential dread.
- "Shall the stone that sits on the very top of the mountain's mighty face despair that it's no more important than the stones that form the base?"
- Reconstructed:
- The story switches to the perspective of the survivors who defied seeing the world pessimistically and/or the cosmic horrors themselves.
- Alternately: ... so the entire story revolves around cultists trying to get the attention of the monstrosities so they will come to the Earth to prove once and for all there is no god. Oops, forgot about the whole 'devouring worlds' thing...
- So this kind of story basically fosters a Too Bleak, Stopped Caring mentality.... but as a response, while the unstoppable horrors are still present, the protagonists are at the very least given some Character Development, with exploring the psychology and meaning of their existential crisis before the inevitable doom. Sometimes works and makes the characters more sympathetic than a bunch of ants, sometimes doesn't.
- Alternatively, while the unstoppable horrors are still present, there's also a force out there does care for the well-being of humans, even if it doesn't directly interact with them, and thus holds the greater horrors that threaten humanity on a cosmic scale at bay, leaving the humans to having to deal with the lesser horrors that threaten them on a more direct, personal scale.
- A different path is to have the Eldritch Abomination actually be invested in things and have them be not unlike humanity. Rather than not care anything over the little blue rock, they place a great deal of investment of the happenings or even the people of the rock, for selfish or selfless agendas. The local mob may have a cult whose patron monster does boons for them, an entity dotes on a human being the same way a human may care about their pet or favorite fictional character or maybe a comic book company finds their building gone because an eldritch being found their portrayal of Eldritch Abominations to be offensive.
- In this universe, humans are symbolized using bacteria when concerning Eldritch Abominations. We hardly know of their existence until they come to mind and killing billions of them is as simple as spraying disinfectant. Problem is, bacteria can still be phenomenally deadly to humans. As such, we defeat the cosmic horrors with little more than their own apathy for us, as though we are a raging deadly infection.
- We are indeed as ants to the Great High Ones, but the Great High Ones' personalities are as varied as any random group of humans; so just as some humans go out of their way to kill ants for no reason other than because they're there, some humans wouldn't care one way or the other about a bunch of ants, and still other humans go out of their way to keep ants as pets in weird, two-dimensional boxes; so too are the GH Os' attitudes towards humans equally varied.
- The horror of the insignificance is that humanity not only finds itself an acceptable casualty to the Great High Ones but essentially everything else. They just wind up with being the misfortune of being the only 'person' on the other proverbial track of star systems for events which make even the Great High Ones look tiny compared to galactic aliens that would die if humanity was spared.
- The Obstructive Bureaucrat nature of the aliens is completely Played for Drama. They coldly turn away from mothers begging to spare their children because the president filled out their paperwork in English instead of Black Speech. Meanwhile, human bodies are horrifically twisted as they build their freeway out of our own flesh.
- Implied: We never get to see the Eldritch Abomination, but people are shrinking in fear, around with darkness within them.
- Played For Laughs:
- The world is attacked by a incomprehensible tentacle beast from another dimension, and it attacks by Poking the Poodle and leaving the toilet seat up.
- The tentacle monsters take one look at the nearest human, and either jump screaming onto the local equivalent of a chair, briefly look shocked and squishes him, or trap him under a jar and a sheet of paper and deposit him outside, like they've seen a spider.
- Played For Drama: The very instinct of the Eldritch Abomination will soon destroy reality.
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