Trope Talk: Precursors

A long time ago in a galaxy that may or may not be this one…

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[cattievogelsong]

In a mind blowing facts thread on reddit someone pointed out that ancient egypt lasted so long that there where egyptian archaeologists and historians studying early ancient egypt during what we consider to still be ancient egypt.

My world history class was terrible. Facts like that really put time into perspective.

[Red-in-Green]

I think the “Stop trying to restart ancient empires you god damn bastards” lesson might in fact be mainly historical. The sheer number of people who’ve been killed by maniacs trying to get back Rome and Alexander’s Greece alone might give any sane person pause.

[SW]

“Attempting a military takeover of heaven is stupid”
Monkey: hold my elixir of immortality

[sgtpaperwork]

Shoutout to Hollow Knight for being "Oops, All Precursors."

- Hallownest
- The Snail Shamans
- The Moths
- The Spiders in Deepnest
- The bees, kinda?
- Whatever was going on with the void in the Abyss
- The Godseekers' original home
- Everything the Grimm Troupe ate

[ItsZebulon]

This opening was so much more complex and grounded in human empathy than I expected because I always felt the trope came from "Europeans never got over the fall of Rome"

[elizaripper]

I’m surprised Red would cover this trope given…
“Society peaked with my birth and subsequent existence” - Red, Shadow of the Colossus stream❤😁

[leiakasta]

I don’t think there’s a YouTube series I get as excited for consistently when a new episode drops than Trope Talk. This is a fantastic series.

[GriffinPilgrim]

For it is said that in the distant past a woman of crimson did sit up on a throne before an inferno and speak upon great tales.

[michaelramon]

My favorite precursors thing is that TV Tropes has a page for "Neglectful Precursors" (who leave dangerous stuff lying around for no reason). On the page there are all the usual folders ("Films", "Literature", "Video Games"), but in addition to "Live Action TV", the Stargate franchise gets its OWN FOLDER, because the Ancients just left THAT MUCH poorly-labeled dangerous technology lying around.

[AJGexe]

I like it when the ancient precursor is just like... the previous generation.
Like asking your dad what life was before the end times or even just finding out that the teachers used to be the delinquents.

Huge monumental changes in relatively small amounts of time that just happen to be larger than your life span.

[abraarquraishi]

This line from jak and daxter goes hard: “I have spent my life searching for the answers that my father, and my father's fathers, failed to find. Who were the Precursors? Why did they create the vast monoliths that litter our planet? How did they harness eco, the life energy of the world? What was their purpose, and why did they vanish? I have asked the plants, but they do not remember. The plants have asked the rocks, but the rocks do not recall—even the rocks do not recall.”

[a.morphous]

There’s a ruin of a tiny ancient Byzantine church on the islet of Daskalio, right off Keros in the Lesser Cyclades. It was probably used in the 7th or 8th century, one and a half thousand years ago. Being so ancient, it’s completely fallen apart since, an almost incomprehensibly old structure that it would be absolutely surreal to stand within.
It’s built on the very top of a steep hill, and it’s made out of marble from the nearby island of Naxos. But the Romans didn’t import the marble: they pulled it out of the ground from the barely visible ruins that were _already there._ Because in the Bronze Age, _three thousand years before them, _ Daskalio was inhabited by a thriving Cycladic religious settlement.
Imagine being a Roman stepping onto that hill and beholding the abyss of time and feeling so, so small.
Ancient Precursors are my absolute favorite fictional trope because they’re _real._

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

"Could God create a rock so heavy he couldn't lift it?"
"Yes, AND IT KILLED HIM!"
~ OSP, 2024

[bradens.]

i think hollow knight has one of the most fascinating takes with precursors. the entire setting is that of a fallen and dying kingdom, all remnants of it being the lone survivors of a calamitous infection that was in part due to an even older religious sect that got erased by the current dying kingdom, which that old religious sect quite possibly also shut down an even OLDER mysterious civilzation whose ruins and influence are throughout the entire game and so little is known about them that it becomes so interesting

[SuperCatPrincess]

Splatoon did this trope pretty well. Ever since the first game it was clear that the setting is on Earth thousands of years after an apocalypse, making us humans the "ancient precursors". This also made people ask the question, if the humans are gone, how did sea creatures evolve to such closely resemble them both in anatomy and culture? Splatoon 3 ended up answering that question with "they all got embedded with liquid crystals containing the hopes and dreams of a bunch of human survivors and that fast tracked their evolution". It's a lot more poignant than my shitty summary I swear.

[Firetrigger]

"Remember us. Remember that we once lived."

[Jack-symr]

“This day cannot get any worse”
-Random Kryptonian, about to be proven wrong

[kevint]

13:20 Aw man, my favorite detail from the Lord of the Rings is that we get a bunch of monologues about how the descendents of Numenor are of a purer, fairer, morally superior character which has alas been slow-dwindled by contact and intermarriage with non-numenorians, but everyone who says that is Gondorian, one of the ancestor peoples of Numenor, and all of the characters alive during the Fall like Gandalf and Elrond give some varient of "Moral race my ass, they live longer than other humans and that's about it". Just a great contrast if you're paying attention

[seriousbichon]

Loved that you did this video, but kinda sad that my favorite use of this trope got left out - the "Fling a Light Into The Future" Trope, where the precursors know they're screwed and leave tools and messages for whoever comes next so that they can succeed where they failed.

SCP-1281 is a great example of this.

[writeon]

0:46 This is essentially the definition of my favorite word: "sonder." It's the feeling that comes with making this realization and just having it in mind. As you said, it's not something we can think about all the time, so it's just a temporary feeling like any other emotion. Giving these more specific and hard-to-put-your-finger-on emotions is really interesting. There are so many out there, waiting to be found and used by someone who is feeling them and wants to give it a name to better understand it.