History Main / ViciousCycle

-->-- '''Samuel Vimes''', ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''

RegularlyScheduledEvil is a special case of this. SubTrope of ChangeVsStatusQuo. Not to be confused with CycleOfRevenge (though such a cycle is often called this, and with good reason). Contrast MayItNeverHappenAgain.

RegularlyScheduledEvil is a special case of this. Not to be confused with CycleOfRevenge (though such a cycle is often called this, and with good reason). Contrast MayItNeverHappenAgain.

* In a ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' novel, there is a planet called Ennth. Because of the moon's odd orbit, every eight years the planet and moon get so close together that their atmospheres collide, causing groundquakes, tidal waves, and volcanic eruptions, destroying everything on the planet. The people of said planet usually get away and live on colonies until the disasters pass, but there are always casualties. Once done, they move back in and rebuild until the next cycle.

* In ''Literature/TheBrokenEarthTrilogy'', catastrophic seismic events that cause an apocalyptic volcanic winter called "Fifth Seasons" happen every few hundred years. It turns out that [[spoiler: it was not always that way, but the seasons were caused by GaiasVengeance over losing the moon, and when the moon is restored at the end of the series the seasons end.]]
* In J.V. Jones's "Cavern of Black Ice," [[spoiler: the Endlords, chaotic beings seeking to dissolve the very universe into a hell of anarchy, are locked in a dimensional prison. Every 1,000 years someone is born who, if they lose control of their mind for a moment, can unlock the prison, unless they do it in the eponymous cavern. The longer they resist the temptation to lose control, the more their body fails, until they die and in doing so unlock the prison anyway.]]

* Literature/{{Discworld}}'s Death's master, Azrael, references this. [[AC:"I remember when all this shall be again."]]

* In ''Creator/StephenKing'''s ''Literature/{{It}}'' the eponymous monster manifests itself in Derry every 27 years or so.
** Likewise, in ''Literature/WolvesOfTheCalla'' the wolves visit Calla for harvest every 30 years.
* In Creator/FredricBrown's story "Letter to a Phoenix", the entire plot is a man telling about how humanity repeatedly destroys its own civilization and has to start anew every 30,000 years or so -- therefore, while all other races reach their peaks and after that must decay and die, humanity can survive forever, thus making it the eponymous Phoenix.
* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheIsles'' series by Creator/DavidDrake. The powers are building to a thousand-year peak. Ordinary wizards find themselves with out of control powers that brought down the kingdom during the last peak. In its current shattered state another such error will destroy civilization.
* In ''Literature/LunaMarine'' by Creator/IanDouglas, David Alexander comes up with a possible explanation for the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox Fermi paradox]], especially given the discovery that the galaxy is teeming with sentient life. Moreover, at least three alien races have [[AncientAstronauts set up colonies on Earth in the past]]. He speculates that star-faring races arise periodically and expand out into the galaxy every few thousand years or so. But, at their peak, they're discovered and wiped out by a predatory species, so-called "Hunters", whose mindset is "kill them before they kill us." Then, the Hunters usually destroy themselves through internal warfare or multiple Hunter races destroy one another. This clears the stage for another few millennia until another "generation" of races makes their way into space. David fears what may happen if new Hunters discover Earth before humans are ready to fight them, while his nephew speculates that [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans may be the next Hunters]].
* In Creator/StephenBaxter's novel, ''Literature/ManifoldSpace'', the Galaxy works on a so-called "Reboot cycle", where life, intelligence and civilizations appear practically ''everywhere'' in some form (that is, even as lichen colonies on the surface of stars, or giant crabs living of rogue planets). These civilizations advance, and begin a bubble-expansion at increasing speed. From there, the bubbles either collide resulting in omnipresent wars, or collapse in on themselves when they hit the lightspeed barrier and can no longer sustain the expansion. These events lead to massive technological backsteps and extinction events (which is why everyone is bound by lightspeed; nobody has time to get really ''smart''). In addition to this, each cycle ends with the Galaxy getting sterilized by colliding neutron stars releasing ''massive'' amounts of radiation, blasting everything back to pond scum.
** The protagonists actually ''fail'' to prevent the current cycle from completing, but succeed in buying some time for the ''next'' iteration of the cycle by building a massive solar sail that would stop a neutron star collision.

* In ''Literature/TheMoteInGodsEye'', [[spoiler: The Moties' biology means they must have children [[ExplosiveBreeder frequently]] [[MateOrDie or die]], this trapped them in a never ending cycle where overpopulation inevitably resulted in a world destroying war blasting them back to the stone age]]
** One of their enduring mythological figures is "Crazy Eddie", who is reborn (figuratively, at least) time and time again, each time attempting to bring the cycle to an end. Sometimes he's almost successful (in the sense "it would have worked but for..."), but he's ''always'' crazy (and the "but for..." is usually some fundamental physical constant of the universe, or at least of Motie psychology).
* In a ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' novel there is a planet called Ennth. Because of the moon's odd orbit, every eight years the planet and moon get so close together that their atmospheres collide, causing groundquakes, tidal waves, and volcanic eruptions, destroying everything on the planet. The people of said planet usually get away and live on colonies until the disasters pass, but there are always casualties. Once done, they move back in and rebuild until the next cycle.
* In the ''[[Literature/TheWheelOfTime Wheel of Time]]'' series, the eponymous Wheel is a metaphor for seven distinct ages, each of which ends after several thousand years. The last (Second) Age ended in the Breaking of the World, and the Third Age is prophesied to end similarly; presumably this happens every age. More sinisterly, [[TheDragon Ishamael]] appears to have been meddling on a smaller scale this Age -- about a thousand years after the Breaking, he sent the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Trollocs]] to ravage the world, and another thousand years later he triggered the "War of the Hundred Years" by preventing [[Myth/KingArthur Artur Hawkwing]] from having a living heir. (It looks as if his intent was to [[MedievalStasis keep the technology level down]].)

* In the novel ''Decipher'', the sun reaches its peak resonance every 12 millennia, causing TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt due to the solar flare from Hell. To avert it, the heroes have to reach Atlantis so it can quasi-crystallise the planet to protect against the gravity wave.

* In Creator/StephenBaxter's novel, ''Literature/ManifoldSpace'', the Galaxy works on a so-called "Reboot cycle", where life, intelligence and civilizations appear practically ''everywhere'' in some form (that is, even as lichen colonies on the surface of stars, or giant crabs living of rogue planets). These civilizations advance, and begin a bubble-expansion at increasing speed. From there, the bubbles either collide resulting in omnipresent wars, or collapse in on themselves when they hit the lightspeed barrier and can no longer sustain the expansion. These events lead to massive technological backsteps and extinction events (which is why everyone is bound by lightspeed; nobody has time to get really ''smart''). In addition to this, each cycle ends with the Galaxy getting sterilized by colliding neutron stars releasing ''massive'' amounts of radiation, blasting everything back to pondscum.

** One of their enduring mythological figures is "Crazy Eddie", who is reborn (figuratively, at least) time and time again, each time attempting to bring the cycle to an end. Sometimes he's almost successful (in the sense "it would have worked but for ..."), but he's ''always'' crazy (and the "but for ..." is usually some fundamental physical constant of the universe, or at least of Motie psychology).

* "In The Ghetto", which has been covered by many artists including Music/ElvisPresley, implies this, when the baby born at the beginning of the song dies as an angry young man while another baby is born, implied to be doomed to the same fate.

[[folder:Film]]

* The song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" by Pete Seeger examines how the cycle of war seems to cause nothing but suffering. After asking the titular questions, the song answers as followers: flowers are picked by young girls, the young girls give themselves to young men, the young men become soldiers, the soldiers get sent to graveyards, and the graveyards of soldiers have flowers grow across them. Cue the cycle starting all over again.

* The song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" by Pete Seeger examines how the cycle of war seems to cause nothing but suffering. After asking the titular questions, the song answers as followers: flowers are picked by young girls, the young girls give themselves to young men, the young men become soldiers, the soldiers get sent to graveyards, and flowers grow across the graveyards of soldiers.

* The first two albums by ''Music/{{Dragonland}}'', "The Batle of the Ivory Plains" and "Holy War", take place in a setting in which every century there's a war orchestrated by the goods between the forces of the light (humans, [[OurElvesAreDifferent elves]], [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]], and [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]]) and the forces of the night ([[OurOrcsAreDifferent orcs]] and the like)

* ''Series/TheWire'': The series finale closes on the implication that there will be another iteration of the past five seasons starring a new generation of people just like those in the [=MCU=], the Barksdale Organization, and even stick-up boys in the vein of Omar, possibly forever. The message being that bureaucratic mismanagement has turned Baltimore into a kind of closed ecosystem of crime, with a neverending supply of people to fill the niches in a cops-and-crooks ecology that no one has the power to change.

RegularlyScheduledEvil is a special case of this. Not to be confused with CycleOfRevenge (though such a cycle is often called this, and with good reason).

* ''LightNovel/TheZashikiWarashiOfIntellectualVillage'': The Hishigami men and women are part of an endless cycle of growth and destruction. The men build up great financial or political institutions and propel Japan towards the future, but they slavishly follow the "common sense" of Japan which can lead them astray. When the Hishigami men begin to lead Japan down a ruinous path, the women will step in and destroy the institutions, only for a new generation of men to start over.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "To Tell the Truth", Dr. Larry Chambers determines that the Janus system's sun is a pulsating star which flashes over once every 1,000 years and that it is scheduled to happen again in several days' time.

* The Grail War in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' occurs every 60 years, when there is enough magical energy in Fuyuki to activate the Grail. The system was arranged many years ago by the three mage families in order to determine the Grail's possession. The thing is, the war was supposed to have ended on [[LightNovel/FateZero the fourth iteration]], but it's eventually revealed that the process merely sped up, allowing the next Grail War to start fifty years early. [[spoiler:The Grail War system was eventually dismantled in the Heaven's Feel route.]]

* ''Anime/QueenMillennia'': If the title isn't enough indication, for every 1,000 year period, a woman from the planet La-Metal is sent to secretly rule over the Earth and lead the underground organization that secretly controls the entire planet.