History Main / TimeAbyss

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': Many SCPs would qualify for this trope, for example, [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-169 SCP-169]] is estimated to have existed since the pre-Cambrian era, which would make it over 530 million years old.

There are the old, and then there are the truly old. People usually die within a century or so. Cities and nations may last a few millennia, and we think them old, but the truly old are so much older. They are even shown to be TheOldestOnesInTheBook in some {{Literature}}.

%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

** Vaatu, the spirit of darkness and chaos, claimed to have lived 10,000 lifetimes before humans appeared. Since each Harmonic Convergence counts as a lifetime and each one is 10,000 years apart, he was at least 100,000,000 years old when humans first showed up.

* FatherTime is literally as old as time itself...[[AnthropomorphicPersonification as he's actually time.]]

** According to some philosophers, time itself is meaningless to God. He created time, [[BuffySpeak and existed before...He existed when...]]well, [[MindScrew explaining it is hard,]] though in one analogy God is like the author of a book. At what point does an author exist in his book's -- his universe's -- internal timeline? He can turn to the first page, or to the last page. He can write scenes out of order, go back and forth, and generally follow no continuity or causality.

** Tui and La, the Moon and Ocean spirits, [[spoiler:crossed to the mortal realm]] "very near the beginning" according to [[CreepyAwesome Koh]], who is himself an example, as he's the only spirit old enough to remember it. The sequel graphic novel ''[[ComicBook/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheSearch The Search]]'' has the Gaang meet Koh's mother, the so-called Mother of Faces -- the spirit who first gave humans the concept of ''identity''.

* ''Fanfic/{{Antipodes}}'': Tantalus, Celestia and Luna began life as the living embodiments of chaos, order and the void between them and predate the formation of the world. Rubidium was also alive during the fall of civilization, making him around ten thousand years old and the oldest living non-divine entity in the story.

* ''Fanfic/DaylightBurning'': The Nightmare is an ImmortalitySeeker who has been around for a very long time, predating Equestria, the Princesses, Discord and the original Three Tribes.
* ''Fanfic/ADiplomaticVisit'': Chapter 2 of the sequel ''Diplomat at Large'' reveals that Chrysalis is quite literally the ''first'' changeling Queen (not the first of their race, but the first to undergo a metamorphosis into a Queen), and as such is over a millennium old.

* Examples from ''ComicBook/{{Shazam}}'' fanfiction ''Fanfic/HereThereBeMonsters'':

* Harry Potter, or at least a version of him, in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10685852/2/On-a-Pale-Horse On a Pale Horse]]'' is old enough that he uses the Earth's age as a unit of time, such as thinking he hadn't been a hero in "about four Earths worth of time".

* In the ''Fanfic/ProjectDarkJade'' {{Recursive Fanfic|tion}} ''Fanfic/HerShadowedRealm'', due to absorbing the Dog and Horse Talismans, Jade has CompleteImmortality, and has been trapped in the Shadow Realm so long that she was ''already'' ancient by the time Egypt started the Shadow games ''thousands of years ago!''

* According to the prologue of ''Fanfic/TheSacredAndTheProfane'' the War in Heaven and the resulting mass falling is very difficult to describe in a way humans can understand because it happened before anything familiar about reality to mankind, even time itself, was invented by God. Thus, this places the ages of Caphriel and Zirah as probably over 14 billion.
* The Eternal War of ''Fanfic/SonicXDarkChaos'' has raged between the Angels and Demons for five hundred ''trillion'' years. Maledict and Allysion are even older than that; they helped create the entire universe several times over.
* In ''Fanfic/SonOfTheWesternSea'' Percy admits that his baseline for "older than dirt" is anything before the time of the Titans, and only a few beings qualify. These include the Egyptian goddess Nekhbet and a [[NoodleIncident mysterious lady who he met in Iran]]. Then in Australia he realises that the [[Myth/AboriginalAustralianMyths Rainbow Serpent]] (which just [[PokeInTheThirdEye literally hit him out of a vision]]) is far, ''far'' older than both of them and what he was seeing had happened tens of thousands of years ago. ''And was still happening''.
* Cybertronians in ''Fanfic/SparkToSparkDustToDust'', like their canonical counterparts, are extremely long lived. Their war has been going on for possibly longer than the existence of Remnant itself. When the Autobots originally crash landed on Remnant, Optimus states that the moon was still whole, which was well before the God of Darkness' genocide of mankind.

* In ''Fanfic/ThingsWeDontTellHumans'', along with the canon TimeAbyss Alpha Trion, Jetfire/Skyfire is also that old. It's heavily implied that he was the consort of one of the original Primes.
* In ''Fanfic/TopDog'', the roots of wizardry come from an ancient, powerfully magical civilization that existed on Earth about seventy thousand years ago. They created a race of {{Voluntary Shapeshift|ing}}ers to serve as shock troops in war, and, predictably enough, [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters were destroyed by them]]. Those shapeshifters later became the Amerai, and the clan heads are still almost all original created Amerai, rather than newer born.
* The Originals of ''Fanfic/TheUniversiad'' have lived for twelve thousand years.
* In ''Fanfic/TheWeaverOption'', [[spoiler:Lelith Hesperax]] is revealed to just be the [[IHaveManyNames latest identity]] of a far older being. She was born Aenaria Eldanesh and is the last living Aeldari to have fought in the War in Heaven. This makes her likely the oldest mortal being in the galaxy, and potentially older than even the Chaos Gods.
* Part of TheReveal in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/17028117/chapters/40035780 World Enough And Time]]'' is that [[spoiler: both C.C. and V.V. are this, having existed before this ''current'' version of the world did. It's complicated to the point of MindScrew in how it's presented and even C.C. isn't entirely certain how and why she's immortal as TheFogOfAges has muddled her memory.]]
* ''Fanfic/TheWorldIsFilledWithMonsters'': It's not made clear how old it is, exactly, but Blightweaver is implied to be very old indeed. If its boasts are to be taken at face value, it was already around before ponies developed civilization or even sapience.

* ''Manga/SoulHunter'': Jyoka and Fukki have been around since before human's appearance on earth. And with the reveal that [[spoiler:Jyoka have [[RestartTheWorld restarted the world]] so many times she herself lost track of the count, and the fact that we don't know exactly how old they where when they arrived on earth to begin with]], they're likely several millions years old at least.

** The Kais. The youngest-looking of them is over five million years old and has not aged visibly in that time. Old Kai is roughly seventy-five million years old, according to WordOfGod.
** The wizard Babidi, considering his father was killed five million years ago. Unlike the Kais though, Babidi does look quite old.
** ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' states that Beerus was the one who sealed Old Kai in the sword 75 million years ago. [[spoiler:As mentor of successive gods of destruction]], Whis is probably a lot older than this.
** Majin Buu, the BigBad of the Buu saga (and Babidi's DragonInChief/[[spoiler:killer]]) came into being five million years ago. [[spoiler:Or rather, that's what people believe. Buu has actually existed since time immemorial. While Bibidi (Babidi's father) ''thought'' he had created Buu, he actually only summoned him.]]

* The alien eggs found in the ancient, derelict ship in ''Film/{{Alien}}'' contain parasites that have been staying alive waiting for an oblivious victim for God knows how long, given that the alien pilot (the previous victim of the alien) looks fossilized.

* ''Fanfic/ADiplomaticVisit'': Chapter 2 of the sequel ''Diplomat at Large'' reveals that Chrysalis is quite literally the ''first'' changeling Queen (not the first of their race, but the first to undergo a metamorphosis into a Queen), over a millennia old.

* ''Film/{{Glorious}}'': Ghatanothoa has resided in the aether since the dawn of time. He acknowledges that he is a very old and very lonely god. He's very friendly though.

* The very premise of ''Film/{{Eternals}}'' is that they've been on Earth since the early beginnings of civilization, 7000 years ago. Later in the movie we find out that [[spoiler:they have had these missions before and with the exception of Ajak have been getting their minds wiped, so they've all existed for millions of years]].

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'':
** The people of Soul Society have lifespan measuring thousands of years. Most have been living for centuries, but a few take this up a notch. Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto is two thousand years old, while Shunsui Kyoraku and Jushiro Ukitake were his first students and probably not much younger than him. Unohana is also implied to be one of the earliest captains, as Kyoraku and Ukitake both refer to her as their senior. The final arc reveals that she was the very first Kenpachi, meaning she's the first captain of the Eleventh Division (the current Kenpachi is the 11th).
** A few members of the Zero Division seem to be older than Yamamoto. They are responsible for the fundamental tenets of Soul Society, so this makes sense. For example, Oetsu Nimaiya is the creator of Asauchi, the basic form of all Zanpakuto, while Ichibe Hyosube was responsible for the naming of everything in Soul Society. The novels reveal that Ichibe is ''millions'' of years old and in fact predates the creation of Soul Society itself.

** The people of Soul Society have lifespan measuring thousands of years. Most have been living for centuries, but a few take this up a notch. Shigekuni Yamamoto is two thousand years old, while Shunsui Kyoraku and Jushiro Ukitake were his first students and probably not much younger than him. Unohana is also implied to be one of the earliest captains, as Kyoraku and Ukitake both refer to her as their senior. The final arc reveals that she was the very first Kenpachi, meaning she's the first captain of the Eleventh Division (the current Kenpachi is the 11th).

* ''ComicBook/XMen'' villain Comicbook/{{Apocalypse}} was born in ancient Egypt and in various cartoons/comics boasts about things like how 20th/21st century superpowers/technology are no closer to besting him than Babylonian fire sticks were.
-->"I am the rocks of the eternal shore; crash against me and be broken!"

* Franchise/TheDCU:
** The Guardians of The Universe, source of Franchise/GreenLantern's power. They were among the first sentient races to evolve, and are several billion years old -- as individuals, that is, not just as a species. Additionally the other races that share ancestry with the Guardians, like the Zamorans and the Controllers.

* ComicBook/DoctorStrange foe [[EldritchAbomination Shuma Gorath]] and the other Many-Angled Ones were some of the first creatures to ever exist in the multiverse.
* ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'' has quite a few long-lived characters which have been around since the humans were still in their stone age (with later stories taking place in a medievalish period), but ignoring those that got there by skipping millennia still leaves some examples: Two-Edge must be pushing twenty thousand years, was a legend in two troll kingdoms that have since crumbled, and had more or less secretly significant influence on the technological advancement of humankind. His mother, [[spoiler:Winnowill]] saw her tribe of elves go from wild forest dwellers to civilised, was cut off from them and watched/played with humans for some ten thousand years. She was venerated as a goddess by two entirely separate human peoples. Timmain spent most of her time as a wolf, but probably still counts. [[spoiler:When the immortal shapeshifting aliens that were the ancestors of elves were stranded on the World of Two Moons, she had lived through their space flight, which was long enough for the marmot and butterfly like animals they brought along to evolve into sentient humanoids. Before that, she was the last of her kind who remembered that they used to breed -- which the immortals had given up due to overpopulation of their planet.]]
* In ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'', Frau Totenkinder was originally a tribal shaman in the Paleolithic era.
* ''ComicBook/GreatLakesAvengers'': All indications are that Mr. Immortal is destined to be Galactus's equivalent in the next universe. His power is being completely incapable of dying (or rather, of ''staying dead''). Not even the most powerful of omnipotent beings could [[KilledOffForReal kill him off for real]], meaning that he ''will'' be this trope, whether he likes it or not. And ''he's a JokeCharacter''.

* The Franchise/MarvelUniverse is full of this. ComicBook/{{Galactus}} is the sole survivor of the universe existing before the Big Bang. Each member of the Elders of the Universe is the last survivor of a forgotten race from billions of years ago who fanatically pursues a personal obsession such as collecting, gaming or fighting. The Proemials were born as the Universe was created, the Elder Gods emerged before life first appeared on Earth, the Eternals are a million years old (created by the even more ancient Celestials), the various Gods are thousands to tens of thousands of years old, the Master of the World is forty thousand years old, the Neanderthal Cole witnessed the sinking of Lemuria twenty thousand years ago, the mutant Selene is seventeen thousand years old, and Black Axe is almost fifteen thousand.
* The ComicBook/NewGods of the Fourth World and their predecessors, the Old Gods, who predate the DC universe.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

* [[MultipleChoicePast Depending on his identity,]] ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes' villain 's Time Trapper is this. All the incarnations show the Time Trapper was born at least during the 30th-31st century, but survived to operate ''at the end of time itself''.
* ''ComicBook/{{Transmetropolitan}}'': The setting qualifies, simply because they ''don't know how old their civilization is''. Oh, they have time travel technology, and they have fixed dates for historical events at around our present and beyond -- they just don't know what date it is ''right now''. At some point, the ridiculously advanced society simply lost track of what date it was; they currently tell time by counting the amount of years from the historical events of their own history.

* ComicBook/VandalSavage is one of these, though you'd never know it just by looking at him. He began life as a caveman, and became immortal when exposed to [[GreenRocks a mysterious meteor]]. It was revealed in ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis: Revelations'' that [[spoiler:Savage is Cain. Yes, ''[[Literature/TheBible that]]'' Cain]]. In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', [[spoiler:it was shown that he was still kicking thirty thousand years after the end of the world, which, incidentally, he caused]].
* Savage's arch-nemesis, the ComicBook/ResurrectionMan. Or maybe not; originally, every time he died, he reincarnated as a baby. Thanks to some scientific experimentation on his current incarnation, he now straight-up resurrects -- and survives in this incarnation up through the future of ''ComicBook/DCOneMillion''.
* Ananke in ''ComicBook/TheWickedAndTheDivine'' - she has been alive for well over 6,000 years, incarnating herself as a young girl (who ages into the "Crone" of the Mother-Maiden-Crone trinity) and using four gods' heads as a ritual to ensure this happens. With one exception (possibly two, if the 9th century Egypt is to be believed) she succeeds this for every 90-ish years... until 2015 when [[spoiler: Laura found the true way to end Ananke's cycle, and then Valentine [[DisneyVillainDeath jumped off a building and took Minervananke with him]], causing the end of the cycle]].

* In the 2005 film adaptation of ''Film/WarOfTheWorlds'', the Tripods used to invade the Earth were buried underground at some point in the distant past. A character in the film speculates that they may have been planted before there were any human beings on the planet, but at a minimum they precede recorded history and the oral tradition of any society with surviving descendants. This gives them a minimum age in the tens of thousands of years.

* It isn't clear how old [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Onashia]] is in ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'' (or how long she's [[TheHighQueen ruled Simulacrum]]), but [[TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask her]] [[BrokenBird personality]] [[WhoWantsToLiveForever definitely]] [[ICannotSelfTerminate qualifies]].