Tolkien:
- Some elven kingdoms are precursors to the people of Middle-Earth.
- Needs to be more explicit. Since Beleriand was drowned, there's not much in the way of visible traces of lost Elvish culture: Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting (from Gondolin); the west gate of Moria (made for commerce with the Elves of Eregion, which was later destroyed by Sauron); what else?
- Khazad-dûm.
- Conquered within the lifetime of living Dwarves' grandparents, iirc, and not known to be truly lost until Gimli's visit; so does it count?
Heading for tomorrow
The "cavemen who run faster than Usain Bolt" thing in the real life section is a definite Citation Needed. When dealing with Real Life section, extraordinary claims like that need to be backed up.
Out of Context Theater: Mike K "'Bloody Pussies' cracked me up" Hide / Show Replies
It's been pruned. For posterity:
- Ancient preserved human footprints suggest that at least one person can run much faster than Usain Bolt...while running in mud...without fancy shoes, diet and training so it is possible that intensive survival of the fittest created superhuman ancestors.
If someone can provide evidence that that is true, and then make a reasonable argument that it's meaningful within the context of this trope, then do so and let it be restored to its full glory upon the trope page, reshaped by the fires of reason. Until such time, it'll stay right here, nice and quiet.
Edited by illegalcheese
Drop this comment from Gargoyles — apparently speculation only.
- Presumably the same reason given in the Invader Zim episode "Battle Of The Planets". The ancient Martians worked their race into extinction to turn their world and Mercury into space vessels. When asked the reason why, the hologram that is all that is left of the civilization responds "because it's cool".
This seems too tenuous: precursors have a big, usually all-encompassing impact on their descendants/creations/victims/influencees — though it might be quite indirect. Existing in isolation in the past doesn't seem to fit.
- In Order Of The Stick, where the inhabitants of the First World did go extinct before the dawn of history, but were annihilated entirely by the coming of the Snarl, forcing the gods to build the present Second World from scratch. Thus, while they may or may not have been powerful, the First World's peoples didn't leave behind any knowledge, artifacts or descendants.
- Considering the likely significant discovery that there appears to be a fully inact world somehow contained within the Snarl, it seems possible that the people of the First World may eventually have some influence upon or interaction with their successors eventually.
Dropped this comment from Neon Genesis Evangelion — as far as I can see this is speculation http://wiki.evageeks.org/First_Ancestral_Race
and other references say nothing of the First Ancestral Race going extinct or recycling souls. If the game really does say this, please Repair Dont Respond.
- To extrapolate, the First Ancesters were about to go extinct (even though they're immortal), and recycled their souls into the eggs, of which there are seven. The rest is explained above.
On balance the Magratheans from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy are not a strong example — rather than existing in isolation in the dawn times of the universe they are one of many, many entities working in the relatively recent past, at least in terms of galatic history.
- In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the Magratheans seem to hit all the key points of the trope, although they also subvert it in that they're capitalists who disappeared because the bottom had dropped out of the custom planet-building market, and they went into Suspended Animation until the Galactic economy recovered enough to provide them with customers again.
- They actually weren't that old in galactic terms. A lot of the backstory was ridiculously ancient history when they got started in the business, most obviously the Krikkit Wars.
From Star Craft — if the work really is not canon then not part of that work's 'verse.
- An Expanded Universe novel proposes that the creation of the Protoss and the Zerg races was not a part of some grand experiment to create a perfect race but a deliberate action of the part of the Xel'Naga in order to perpetuate the Xel'Naga race. Basically, their entire history consists of cycles of creating two races (one to embody their physical form and the other to personify their mind) and having them join together in a distant future, thus re-creating the Xel'Naga and beginning the next cycle. Overmind's betrayal threw that plan out the window, forcing the remaining Xel'Naga to find a third race to balance out the coming war between their creations. How great it was that they found us.
- On the other hand, that book is not canon.
This is such a ubiquitous trope in sci-fi. it might be worth flagging some notable aversions? It's quite hard to think of sci-fi settings on a larger-than-planetary scale that *don't* have a precursor race of some sort