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The Beforetimes

163 statements
30 feature instances
27 referencing feature instances

The Beforetimes	type	FeatureClass
The Beforetimes	label	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes	page	TheBeforetimes
The Beforetimes	comment	These are the times before the end. They were happier times. These were the times before everything started to go downhill. The streets were paved with gold, and everyone was happy. At least, that's what the survivors think it was like. The Beforetimes is what the survivors of some world-changing event refer to the time period before that event. In the case of a Nuclear Holocaust, The Beforetimes is basically our world, usually our world as it was at the time the story was written. Of course, other events, especially any which result in a decrease of the quality of life, can count as the event separating the characters from The Beforetimes. Plots in After the End settings have a tendency to involve things from The Beforetimes. If the disaster was recent, Beforetimes objects might still be in fairly numerous supply, with things such as working guns and vehicles manufactured in the past being valuable, but not extremely rare, finds. If the disaster was less recent, discovery of these things tends to be much rarer, and require a bit of Ragnarök Proofing so that the protagonists can still make use of them. If society has recovered enough for there to be historians, The Beforetimes is likely to be the official label for the era leading up to the disaster, possibly named after the most important development of that time period, i.e. whatever it was that started society over again. While usually a Sci-Fi trope, the Beforetimes can be spoken of in any kind of fantasy After the End scenario. Perhaps the magic-equivalent of atomic warfare wiped society out, and instead of Lost Technology, the scavengers are looking for old magical artifacts and trying to learn how to weave the threads of reality once again. Alternatively, for whatever reason the gods just left or disappeared and this has had a disastrous effect on those who were left behind. Contrast with From Cataclysm to Myth in that The Beforetimes were recent enough to not have fallen into myth. The public's knowledge of what life was like back then is reasonably accurate, although oftentimes it's portrayed as even better than it was, as people living now can't imagine how you could possibly have troubles when you had all the food you could eat. Compare Time of Myths, which may overlap with this trope, especially for fantasy settings. The Beforetimes is often where the Precursors lived, and sometimes, those precursors may even have been mankind itself. Frequently the source of equipment for an Archaeological Arms Race.
The Beforetimes	fetched	2023-07-30T08:14:59Z
The Beforetimes	parsed	2023-07-30T08:14:59Z
The Beforetimes	processingComment	Dropped link to DrSTONE: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
The Beforetimes	processingComment	Dropped link to EarthThatWas: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Beforetimes	processingComment	Dropped link to EliteMooks: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Beforetimes	processingComment	Dropped link to FromCataclysmToMyth: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Beforetimes	processingComment	Dropped link to PlayedForLaughs: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Beforetimes	processingUnknown	DrSTONE
The Beforetimes	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Beforetimes / int_10c71f4	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_10c71f4	comment	In Wizard101 the Ravenwood trees and the one of the three oldest beings in the spiral, the great tree Bartleby, at one point talk about the first world that was destroyed by the war of the titans. Now the remains of the first world form the shattered world of the spiral.
The Beforetimes / int_10c71f4	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_10c71f4	featureConfidence	1.0
Wizard101 (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_10c71f4
The Beforetimes / int_11affb50	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_11affb50	comment	Reign of Fire plays with this trope. It's not so much the world before the end, it's the fiction of that world that's a barely remembered myth: one of the characters performs Star Wars as a fireside story.
The Beforetimes / int_11affb50	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_11affb50	featureConfidence	1.0
Reign of Fire	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_11affb50
The Beforetimes / int_13658866	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_13658866	comment	Sharon Cameron's Rook is set hundreds of years after a technological apocalypse caused by solar radiation. The time before the apocalypse is referred to as Before or the Time Before.
The Beforetimes / int_13658866	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_13658866	featureConfidence	1.0
Rook	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_13658866
The Beforetimes / int_291daa72	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_291daa72	comment	Riddley Walker is set two or three millennia after a nuclear apocalypse. Since most technology has been lost, the stories about life before the "1 Big 1" are rather garbled.
The Beforetimes / int_291daa72	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_291daa72	featureConfidence	1.0
Riddley Walker	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_291daa72
The Beforetimes / int_310d6df7	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_310d6df7	comment	In Stand Still, Stay Silent: The world as it was before The Plague broke out is referred to as the Old World, in contrast to the Known World, which only consists of the five Nordic countries and is what is left of humanity as far as the protagonists are concerned.
The Beforetimes / int_310d6df7	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_310d6df7	featureConfidence	1.0
Stand Still, Stay Silent (Webcomic)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_310d6df7
The Beforetimes / int_353b7af3	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_353b7af3	comment	Star Trek: Discovery: The crew of the Discovery arrive 930 years in the future only to discover that The Burn, a mysterious catastrophe that ignited all the dilithium in the known universe, has crippled the once powerful Federation. Throughout much of the season, Michael Burnham and the rest of the crew referred to as being from Before the Burn The 23rd century, from which Discovery traveled, is referred to as the Golden Age of the Federation In one episode of season 4, Dr. Kovich admits to Lt. Tilly that part of the reason the Discovery crew was initially held at arm's length is because they come from Before the Burn, a time when anything was possible. The confidence and optimism that the Discovery crew has was initially painful for the current Starfleet officers to see because it reminded them of what they'd loss and all they'd never had.
The Beforetimes / int_353b7af3	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_353b7af3	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: Discovery	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_353b7af3
The Beforetimes / int_3558eaa2	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_3558eaa2	comment	Parodied in the Community episode "Geothermal Escapism", where Garrett has become the storyteller discussing "the now-now times." It's worth noting that before "the now-now times" was only a few hours prior, and that the disaster that ended them was a game of the Floor is Lava.
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The Beforetimes / int_3558eaa2	featureConfidence	1.0
Community	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_3558eaa2
The Beforetimes / int_36ee2abe	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_36ee2abe	comment	Paranoia: Most information on the Old Reckoning is restricted to Blue clearance and above. Below that, you might be permitted to know that the 35th President of the United States was someone named Kennedy, but not what "President" actually meant, or where the "United States" were located. (Most information on Outdoors is also restricted.)
The Beforetimes / int_36ee2abe	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_36ee2abe	featureConfidence	1.0
Paranoia (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_36ee2abe
The Beforetimes / int_3b2581c4	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_3b2581c4	comment	City of Bones by Martha Wells: The apocalypse that created the Waste was so thorough that surviving relics and scholarly resources aren't from Ancient civilization, but from the "Survivors", the remnant of humanity that lived during and immediately after the formation of the Waste. Scholars have some ideas about pre-Waste society, but they're mostly guesswork.
The Beforetimes / int_3b2581c4	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_3b2581c4	featureConfidence	1.0
City of Bones (1995)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_3b2581c4
The Beforetimes / int_3f3abe9	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_3f3abe9	comment	The post-apocalyptic Deathstalkers in the Rick and Morty episode "Rickmancing the Stone" mention "the Before-fore Time". Summer mocks them for it (and several of their other phrases), asking if the "Boomy-Booms" blew up all their "Wordy-Word Books".
The Beforetimes / int_3f3abe9	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_3f3abe9	featureConfidence	1.0
Rick and Morty	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_3f3abe9
The Beforetimes / int_4a9963aa	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_4a9963aa	comment	1983: Doomsday Stories: Played with. While the events of Doomsday and life before it are well-known at least in the surviving Nations, there are shades of this trope coming into play as more and more of the pre-Doomsday generation dies out and references emerge of the "Old World."
The Beforetimes / int_4a9963aa	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_4a9963aa	featureConfidence	1.0
1983: Doomsday Stories (Fanfic)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_4a9963aa
The Beforetimes / int_4bf9cc7b	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_4bf9cc7b	comment	Becomes prevalent in the later volumes of the Emberverse series, particularly as pre-Change adults get older and start to pass away. It's significant in that unlike most usual examples of this trope, because of apparent changes in the laws of physics most Changelings have absolutely no frame of reference for the stories of their elders. In the most recent book one character is noted as saying that "some things are legendary, like trolls and rockets." By the time of the next planned trilogy (to take place a generation after the current books) most people who were adults pre-Change will probably be dead, and this trope will come into full effect.
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The Beforetimes / int_4bf9cc7b	featureConfidence	1.0
Emberverse	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_4bf9cc7b
The Beforetimes / int_53bd0aaf	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_53bd0aaf	comment	With Strings Attached: It's clear that something happened in the past; there are ruins all around Baravada, and Grunnel refers to the current era as the Rusting. He wistfully recalls the good ol' days about 25 years ago, when there were still Tayhil and monsters to kill. He also mentions that Brox is attempting to discover a way to bring the monsters back for the skahs to kill. However, he doesn't name this "idyllic" period anything. Moreover, it comes out in various conversations that the really big stuff happened over 500 years ago, so it appears there were two Beforetimes, at least on Baravada.
The Beforetimes / int_53bd0aaf	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_53bd0aaf	featureConfidence	1.0
With Strings Attached / Fan Fic	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_53bd0aaf
The Beforetimes / int_5aa9bb49	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_5aa9bb49	comment	In Peace on Earth (and its sequel/remake, Good Will to Men) an adult animal tells the kid animals about the before time, a time of men, who all killed each other off.
The Beforetimes / int_5aa9bb49	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_5aa9bb49	featureConfidence	1.0
Peace on Earth	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_5aa9bb49
The Beforetimes / int_5e150650	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_5e150650	comment	Exalted: The First Age. It got so dystopian, despite the bright shiny everything, that the Sidereals were forced to end it. The very few people who experience it firsthand remember it as an age of decadence. You can find First Age remnants everywhere, even in remote places.
The Beforetimes / int_5e150650	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_5e150650	featureConfidence	1.0
Exalted (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_5e150650
The Beforetimes / int_76376304	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_76376304	comment	Played straight in Metro 2033, where pre-war military-grade bullets are the main currency of all humans that were "fortunate" enough to survive the nuclear holocaust.
The Beforetimes / int_76376304	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_76376304	featureConfidence	1.0
Metro 2033 (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_76376304
The Beforetimes / int_7f5bc680	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_7f5bc680	comment	In the Fallout series, civilization was mostly destroyed by worldwide nuclear bombings. Objects or sites dating back to before the bombs dropped are referred to as "pre-war" or "old-world."
The Beforetimes / int_7f5bc680	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_7f5bc680	featureConfidence	1.0
Fallout	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_7f5bc680
The Beforetimes / int_9a7088bc	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_9a7088bc	comment	Referenced by name in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Miri", in regards to the times before The Virus killed all of the adults.
The Beforetimes / int_9a7088bc	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_9a7088bc	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: The Original Series	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_9a7088bc
The Beforetimes / int_a3f4bb95	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_a3f4bb95	comment	By the Waters of Babylon: John likes hearing of The Old Days, when the "gods" lived. He and his father can read old books that tell a bit about the time past, and they collect metal at "Dead Places" (houses left from in that time), which no one else in their tribe is allowed to do.
The Beforetimes / int_a3f4bb95	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_a3f4bb95	featureConfidence	1.0
By the Waters of Babylon	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_a3f4bb95
The Beforetimes / int_b1c64860	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_b1c64860	comment	Antipodes: The times before the Cataclysm are only dimly remembered by the ponies of the present, who know of them mostly as a distant age of advanced technology and hospitable conditions, before the Princesses vanished and the world nearly ended, which passed away into legend long ago.
The Beforetimes / int_b1c64860	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_b1c64860	featureConfidence	1.0
Antipodes (Fanfic)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_b1c64860
The Beforetimes / int_d9c602eb	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_d9c602eb	comment	Referenced by name in the South Park episode "Wacky Molestation Adventure", although apparently it only took their society ten days to devolve from no-adults-but-otherwise-normal into a small-town Lord of the Flies variant, they still referred to the mists of time before the adults all went to jail as "The Beforetimes, in the Long Long Ago," as a specific reference to the Trope Namer listed above.
The Beforetimes / int_d9c602eb	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_d9c602eb	featureConfidence	1.0
South Park	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_d9c602eb
The Beforetimes / int_e5c5bc22	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_e5c5bc22	comment	GURPS After the End requires a special skill (Anthropology) to answer questions about the pre-apocalypse. Special characters known as "Learned" are experts in pre-apoc knowledge, which gives them an edge in identifying and dealing with the hazards of "today" (post-apoc).
The Beforetimes / int_e5c5bc22	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_e5c5bc22	featureConfidence	1.0
GURPS (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_e5c5bc22
The Beforetimes / int_e63c8b18	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_e63c8b18	comment	In The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, the so-called "Dawn Ages" encompass all of human history prior to the coming of the Invaders a billion years before the story is set. Alvin muses that this must result in truly primitive pre-spaceflight times being lumped together with the Galactic Empire that preceded the current version of Diaspar. Because records of this time are mostly lost (or deliberately erased), nobody knows how long the Dawn Ages actually lasted.
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The City and the Stars	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_e63c8b18
The Beforetimes / int_e66a25a9	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_e66a25a9	comment	Rifts: The Time of Man, AKA the Golden Age of Humanity. Pretty much modern day Earth up until 2098, when The Great Cataclysm/Coming of the Rifts occurred. It is generally considered to have been an idyllic paradise,note Hints throughout the books suggest that while things weren't perfect, it was a good time to be alive though surprisingly From Cataclysm to Myth is almost never brought up. From Cataclysm to Myth is part of the game, and gets referenced from time to time (such as the pre-cataclysm military organization NEMA that fought to save people during the cataclysm being remembered as "the Neemans", a group of heroic Demigods), but it is generally presented as things that the uneducated common people know, while the populace of the major nations have a less mythical understanding as a result of actively recovering knowledge. Since player characters tend to be from the later group, and those nations and organizations play a large role in the over arcing plot lines, such myths have become less focused on over its publication.
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Rifts (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_e66a25a9
The Beforetimes / int_e7e37776	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_e7e37776	comment	Those living in the Firefly 'verse speak of Earth That Was (and is in fact the Trope Namer), humanity having long since left Earth in pursuit of more sustainable planets. Most instances of Earth That Was are either this trope, or From Cataclysm to Myth, depending on whether or not the exodus has been forgotten. Those that don't fit either tend to be Earth That Used to Be Better.
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Firefly	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_e7e37776
The Beforetimes / int_eb46e06a	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_eb46e06a	comment	Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is the specific Trope Namer, although many other series provide similar names. A group of children born shortly before or after societal collapse commit their history to memory, beginning with the words "I'm looking behind us now, across the count of time, down the long haul, into history back."
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Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_eb46e06a
The Beforetimes / int_f186f924	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_f186f924	comment	Horizon Zero Dawn takes place over 900 years after human civilization collapsed in the mid-late 21st century. A large part of the story is the heroine trying to uncover what happened to "the Old Ones" and why humanity regressed to a primitive state (and where those giant robot animals came from).
The Beforetimes / int_f186f924	featureApplicability	1.0
The Beforetimes / int_f186f924	featureConfidence	1.0
Horizon Zero Dawn (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_f186f924
The Beforetimes / int_f2ca5c43	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_f2ca5c43	comment	The Windup Girl. Anderson views an old picture of a Thai farmer showing a fat tourist his array of fruit and vegetables, and is furious over their total ignorance of their good fortune. In his world where most food crops have died out from plagues, pests or competition from genetically-engineered strains, such a stockpile of diverse calories would represent enormous wealth. In a related story by Paolo Bacigalupi, a character has a sign advertising a global business placed on his wall like art. In the Post-Peak Oil world he lives in, it's impossible to maintain a business on that scale.
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The Windup Girl	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_f2ca5c43
The Beforetimes / int_f9603330	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_f9603330	comment	Gamma World: In 1st and 2nd Edition, the period before the apocalypse that destroyed civilization was known as the Shadow Years. In 3rd Edition the time before the end was called the Age of Glory.
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Gamma World (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_f9603330
The Beforetimes / int_ffc9bcc1	type	The Beforetimes
The Beforetimes / int_ffc9bcc1	comment	Soylent Green has Sol telling about how things were better in the past, the air was breathable, food was plentiful and the world wasn't as overpopulated. Thorn just thinks he's just grousing until he's able to see a film of the world as it was circa 1970, and is shocked to discover Sol was right.
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Soylent Green	hasFeature	The Beforetimes / int_ffc9bcc1

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Beforetimes	processingCategory2	Apocalyptic Index
Antipodes (Fanfic) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome / int_15e3b2fb	type	The Beforetimes
Soylent Green / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
The Music Of The Spheres / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
The Wandering Earth / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
By the Waters of Babylon / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
City of Bones (1995) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
City of No End / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Little Mushroom / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Riddley Walker / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
The Giver / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Xenos / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
TheBeforeTimes	sameAs	The Beforetimes
Dr. STONE (Manga) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Firefly / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
It Could Happen Tomorrow / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
The War of the Worlds (2019) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Rifts (Tabletop Game) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Chronicles of Elyria (Video Game) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Hylics (Video Game) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden (Video Game) / int_15e3b2fb	type	The Beforetimes
My Time at Portia (Video Game) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Stand Still, Stay Silent (Webcomic) / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes
Xyber 9: New Dawn / int_17a6a31b	type	The Beforetimes

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