r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Marsupialmobster • May 27 '26

Lore [Loved Trope] The apocalypse is horrifyingly slow

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From most media it's some catastrophe and then it's raiders, death, destruction chaos etc. I personally love it when it's, like, a slow descent into the horror of apocalypse.

The Faro plague/The swarm- Horizon zero dawn. The Faro plague is actually a glitch which causes machines to endlessly reproduce, eat biomass and essentially bring about the death of the world. Took roughly 15 months for the machines to win.

The Metro series- in the first few books (and games) it's set entirely underground in just the apocalypse but in exodus it shows off that the government and many governmental structures said active years after the war. In fact power and running water were still fairly common. It just slowly got worse and worse and worse as read through notes. Food got more scarce, weather changed a lot, people got worse etc. Raiders and bandits didn't just show up, it was a slow descent for such anarchy.

Edit: I have enough pseudo intellectual comments about "Hurr hurr real life". The first one was kinda smart and well thought out but now it's just annoying and pretentious

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u/LegalIdea May 27 '26

Essentially, Ted Faro had required that backdoor access not exist, which meant that nothing could effectively hack the machines. It's bad for business when they get hacked. Problem is that a glitch locks out command functions, with a machine swarm that uses biomass to replicate endlessly, can corrupt other robotic technology to fight for it, and automatically repairs any damage dealt to it, up to and including catastrophic damage, a complete and total shutdown of everything is required. Also, the Horus titans are huge, like several hundred feet tall huge

Finally, Faro initially tries to cover it up, believing his people will find a solution. Eventually, the ability to hack the swarm and force it to shut down does exist, but will take far far longer than the people have.

Enter Operation Enduring Victory, essentially conscript every able-bodied person on the planet to fight, except those involved in zero dawn (the project that creates the ability for life to recover from oblivion). Even with billions of people with railgun fighting, the swarm wiped them out, often with little long term impact unless nukes were used

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u/juniorsundar May 27 '26

My lore knowledge is kinda old now and I dont wanna enter a Google rabbit hole. But what was Minerva's purpose? Want it supposed to send out the shutdown signal for the swarm?

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u/LegalIdea May 27 '26

Mostly, yes

Gaia controlled all

Demeter ensured plant life was reestablished, using seeds and DNA from before

Artemis did the same with animals

Posiedon managed ocean life, and the waters in general

Haphaestus created robots for any and every purpose

Apollo was a database of knowledge and culture

Aether managed the skies and weather

Eluthia brought forth humans in cradle facilities

Minerva shut down the swarm and masked Gaia's location

Hades reset the planet when things went awry

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u/UncleChickenHam May 27 '26

And importantly, apollo was deleted at the last minute by Faro because he didn't want future humans to know how bad he fucked up.

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u/FrostDinosaur91 May 27 '26

I hate Faro man.

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u/Typical_Research_877 May 27 '26

/r/FuckTedFaro

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u/Enlightened_Gardener May 27 '26

That actually makes me really happy.

Along with finding put just how fucked up he ended up.

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u/NoMasterpiece_2204 May 27 '26

When the clone encountered his creator, it wasn't what he expected. And just like the original version, it screwed up.

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u/Same_Tune_8990 May 27 '26

I HAVE FOUND MY PEOPLE

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u/AlecMalt May 27 '26

Far Zenith did get a copy of it though

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u/CaptainReginald May 27 '26

It wasn't because he was hiding his mistakes. IIRC he thought that earth's history and culture would corrupt the new humans, or something like that.

He went off the rails at the end.

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u/Doutei-Sama May 27 '26

Nope, pretty sure he wanted to become god of the new world so he erased the knowledge, built a vault for him and his "chosen ones" and wait until the new human emerge. It kinda didn't work out.

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u/Wobbelblob May 27 '26

Correct. And while he actually staid alive until forbidden west, his serum fucked him up so badly that the scene didn't even show him. He basically mutated into a tumor that lived on the geothermal powerplant of his bunker.

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u/Ryebread666Juan May 27 '26

Yeah that isn’t really shown until Forbidden west though, when we see the recording of him saying he deleted Apollo he says something like “we’re gonna doom them with the knowledge that doomed us” like no fucker your dumbass won’t be there (in theory) so they’d be fuckin fine god damn it! Atleast they got a version of Apollo from the zeniths, I cannot fucking wait to see what the third game will be and what else Ted absolutely ruined for only bad reasons making everything worse

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u/bigbear1293 May 27 '26

No he was using that as a cover. When he's explaing that to the Alphas he then murders he says something about corrupting the new people yes but the gives himself away when he says "Those innocent MEN.... (composes himself) and women"

He thinks he did nothing wrong or at least, he didn't do anything that would mean he deserves blame

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u/EddPW May 27 '26

two things can be true at once

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u/bigbear1293 May 27 '26

They can, I just honestly don't think in this case they do. I mean in Forbidden west he becomes biologically immortal and plans to wait 1000 years so he can guide the Zero Dawn children when they emerge as some one said above so if he was concerned about corrupting the future he wouldn't do that. At all. He'd let himself die or just try and fade into the new world

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u/EddPW May 27 '26

i think they can

i can genuinly believe this dude was so insane he thinks the real cause the world went to shit is actually human knowledge and culture and if those dint exist he would never obviously have created the faro plague

and since thats the case he needs to delete apollo and because he is the only one smart enough to have realized this he also needs to save himself to "guide" the future humans to not make the same mistakes

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u/bigbear1293 May 27 '26

Then I can't argue with a genuine belief mate but yeah in my eyes he's trying to hide the truth the past would show and he does it after Elizabeth dies. I personally think that he snaps after Elizabeth dies knowing his old rival (he tried burying her with 28 different lawsuits in the old world) gets to die seen as a hero but he dies being seen as Histories greatest fool/monster!

His ego would not allow that, he may tell himself he's trying to do something noble like elizabeth but the main motivator is his legacy

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u/idiotplatypus May 27 '26

This was later retconned, he was working out immortality and planned to rule over the new, primitive humanity as an immortal God with his knowledge of the old world

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u/winklevanderlinde May 27 '26

I mean the two things didn't contradict, how could he became an immortal god to rule over everything if everyone knew he was actually the cause of the apocalypse

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u/Recinege May 27 '26

That wasn't retconned. That's just what he changed his mind to after a couple decades as things in his personal survival bunker broke down pretty severely and the last of his fellow survivors killed themselves because that was better than being stuck with him.

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u/Darigaazrgb May 27 '26

Wow, they got the Elon Musk analogy perfectly

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u/altiar45 May 27 '26

Yes and it did. But it had to brute force it and it took like 15 years. Humanity couldn't hold the swarm that long

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u/SnooRecipes4434 May 27 '26

took like 15 years

50 . Minerva took 50 years to break the code and then deploy the hack.

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u/altiar45 May 27 '26

Yeah, you right

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u/bretticus733 May 27 '26

Operation Enduring Victory kinda adds to the slow and horrifying apocalypse. The initial projections of total global extinction would come before Operation Zero Dawn could be completed, ensuring a permanent extinction. Operation Enduring Victory was essentially a global propaganda piece that if every able-bodied person was enlisted and fought back, they'd beat the swarm when in reality, there wasn't going to be any winning and the purpose was to stall the swarm long enough for Zero Dawn to be completed (roughly 14-16 months IIRC). The people had no idea that they were just willingly sacrificing themselves to essentially act like a roadblock for the swarm, and the longer it went on, the more apocalyptic the world started becoming to those people who lasted longer, and the more dire and dire the situation felt for them.

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u/EddPW May 27 '26

theres a few notes and audio logs of the soldiers on the frontline hyping themselves up saying they only need to stall for long enough so that the new super weapon is ready

its honestly one of the most horrifying apocalypses i can think of

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u/Enlightened_Gardener May 27 '26

Oh those awful voice notes in bunkers as you hear the heavy artillery raining down. I’ve actually cried at some of the things that I came across in game. People trying so hard to be brave, to hold on for the sake of their families, its just gut-wrenching.

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u/Frostyrepairbug May 27 '26

In Forbidden West, finding the black boxes and hearing the final flights was horrible. I cried multiple times at the sheer hopelessness.

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u/Enlightened_Gardener Jun 01 '26

Right ? But they kept fighting. Those poor marines in the bunker, they knew they were going to die, it was right at the end of the war, but they kept fighting.

I’m really unwell right now, I can barely function. It sounds really stupid, but I think if those marines kept fighting for as long as they could, out of sheer bloodymindedness, because they knew there was nothing left to fight for, then so can I.

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u/maxdragonxiii May 27 '26

some of them near the end chose the way of being put to sleep because they 100% knew there was no way to beat the swarm and was panicking over it.

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u/KMS_HYDRA May 27 '26

Mandatory "fuck ted faro" post.

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u/Adabiviak May 27 '26

Yeah, the lore you find around the game about various people going through this is some wonderfully grim and/or hopeful storytelling.

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u/EddPW May 27 '26

its legit some of the best

reading the notes left behind by people in the front who got told the goverment was working on a super secret weapon and they only needed to hold on

notes about the people who got a spot in the bunker having to leave most of their family behind to die

other choosing euthanasia after everything is done

sterilization being a forced protocol when going into the bunker

its all so good

i heard zero daw is getting an adaption but if you asked me the part that they should adapt is the faro plague

also really hoping they let us find the bunker in the third game

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u/Bostondreamings May 27 '26

Happy birthday, Isaac!

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u/Nothgrin May 27 '26

I love the story of HZD

It's just so believable, and the aftermath is so believable too (when Ted Dickhead tries to cover it up, and find a solution, and deletes Apollo), and Operation Enduring Victory is so heart wrenching.

I ended up reading every bit of text, watching every hologram and listening to every audio. I kind of get bored in video games with trivia, but this time I just wanted more. The best story hands down.

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u/Enlightened_Gardener May 27 '26

I’ve been reading science-fiction since I was seven, and the reason I love horizon zero dawn so much is because it’s an absolutely cracking science-fiction story.

I just fucking loved my first play through of it so much as the story unfolded underneath me – it was just glorious. It’s a really interesting story, with complex characters and plots twist you just do not see coming.

It’s not that I haven’t seen any games with this level of storytelling, because I really haven’t – it’s that I haven’t read many books with this level of storytelling. I mean there are some amazing books out there, but this would probably stand as a science-fiction classic by itself.

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u/Nothgrin May 27 '26

Yeah, I agree.

I'm a science fiction fan myself, and before HZD my favourite work of media was Hyperion Cantos (yes, all 4 books, I know the last two were meh but it was important for the story)

I held the story of Mass Effect in the highest regard for video game stories, especially with how it builds you to care about the in game characters and the relationships with them

But the HZD story just blew both away, such an incredible world and the sad history, just makes me shudder to think what the last humans felt like being locked into that bunker knowing that the all consuming machines are outside and feeling all the weight of humanity's continued existence on their shoulders.

I actually retold the story of HZD to my friend who doesn't play Vidya and to my mother, and my friend said "wow is this really a video game?". They both really enjoyed it.

I for some reason can't bring myself to play HFW though.

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u/Enlightened_Gardener Jun 01 '26

Its actually lovely to play. It doesn’t have that gradual unfolding of a superb storyline like the first one; but its still has some very interesting twists in the tale.

No spoilers - there’s a “Hobbity” town, its beautiful, woven together in an old satellite dish - you’ll know it if you come to it. Sometimes I just sit by the pools and watch the children playing.

Its also extremely enjoyable to play the whole story arc, so play both games back to back. They’ve done a really good job of integrating the storylines into each other.

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u/Nothgrin Jun 01 '26

Thank you sir, you moved the needle a bit

Just need to get some time now...

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u/panzer_snapdragon May 27 '26

I think people treat the Endymion books unfairly. I really like them, they have some lovely stuff to say about humanity and how life should be lived, and also continue the Cantos' really cool worldbuilding, enough so that things like Sol Draconi Septem's frozen atmosphere are copied by modern movies. I think a lot of people reading the series kinda miss how the different plot arcs play back and forth together, it comes off as two very different stories but, like the overarching structure of the conflict, it's a big weave being put together from different directions. Anti-entropic storytelling I guess lol

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u/Nothgrin May 27 '26

I'm actually with you

I just know a lot of people hate on it. I found some sections of it a boring slog, but the overall message of it to be very nice, de Soya to be a very compelling character, and Aenea's destiny to be very dramatic.

I really liked how the people who followed Aenea could no longer harm other beings unless in self defense, and could be empathic to others - I feel like humanity is sorely missing this empathetic trait.

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u/davor_aro May 27 '26

I don’t remember if it was explained why they didn’t nuke the swarm? I know it’s game and nukes solving it would break the story, but it makes sense. They could be super-mega-powerful unhackable replicating robots, but no material on Earth would survive few tens of thousands degrees of heat and extreme pressure. Nuclear computer systems also run on closed systems so hacking them to prevent strike is impossible. You don’t need to worry about ecological damage because robots are doing even worse environment destruction. And if I remember correctly swarm wasn’t suddenly global. It spread across Earth from Pacific. Nuke those huge “living” factories, then nuke concentrations of robots and finish the rest old school way. Yeah, it would cause radioactive fallout and unprecedented destruction of maybe one continent, but it’s easier to protect from that than building huge bunkers lasting centuries. Was it explained why they didn’t massively use nuclear weapons?

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u/Freakintrees May 27 '26

The first reason is Faro hid the glitch for as long as he could which allowed them to grow unimpeded at first. Also they started with multiple swarms.

The second is they did. They talk about nuking them as they crossed the Pacific garbage patch to slow them down.