Line #57 Main/FuturePrimitive


1	[[quoteright:350:[[Film/TheTimeMachine1960 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/time_machine_1960_1.jpg]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Behold the future of humanity: savage, cannibalistic predators and meek, effete prey!]]
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8	->''The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence.''
9	-->-- ''Literature/TheTimeMachine''
10
11	Evolution isn't [[GoalOrientedEvolution goal-directed]]. Sometimes the directions it takes, in RealLife and in fiction, can be surprising. Certain species of New World monkeys, for example, re-evolved secondary claws from their fingernails, having lost their true claws earlier in their evolution from more prosimian-like ancestors. Similarly, in fiction, a species (often but not limited to humanity) will sometimes evolve into a more feral, less civilized, sometimes even non-sapient variety, regaining "primitive" characteristics. These "primitive" characteristics can include behaviors and/or physical traits. Whether or not the result of this evolution is still recognizably related to the parent species varies from work to work and species to species.
12
13	This trope tends to be expressed in a matter of degrees. Most basic is the scenario common to post-apocalyptic settings AfterTheEnd, where humanity (or another species) is still physiologically more or less the same, but society has collapsed and technological and cultural regression have set in. The people are living a more primitive existence than their more technologically and culturally advanced ancestors. They may even intentionally evoke a "tribal" aesthetic, and may raise a BarbarianHero or two. The scruffy survivor of a ScavengerWorld is usually not an example of this trope, but the tribe of abandoned feral children he meets in the wasteland — well, they're headed down this path.
14
15	In more extreme scenarios, the population may have evolved into a new subspecies or another species altogether with more "primitive" or "feral" behavioral and physical characteristics than their more "civilized" ancestors. The change may be subtle [[FrazettaMan (like increased muscle mass, more body hair and a neanderthal-like face)]] or [[BizarreHumanBiology much, much more radical]]. Whether these changes in the population constitute a new species or are simply a variation or subspecies of the original depends on the work, but typically most ScavengerWorld-type future settings are not far enough removed from the PresentDay for natural selection to favor such drastic changes.
16
17	May overlap with WasOnceAMan. Sometimes, it's the motivation of an EvilutionaryBiologist to try and take control of evolution in order to avert this fate. For more extreme cases, where higher intellect is lost altogether, see FormerlySapientSpecies.
18
19	Common to AfterTheEnd settings. Likely to exist in HumanitysWake, and primitives of the ice age sort are likely to turn up in the wake of a GlacialApocalypse.
20
21	Contrast EvolutionaryLevels, UltimateLifeform and TheSingularity (all of which tend to assume evolution's [[GoalOrientedEvolution a linear, goal driven process]]). Has nothing to do with the effects of a DevolutionDevice. The change must be a result of cultural and/or biological evolution; it cannot be the result of a DevolutionDevice or other similar transformation on an individual or a group.
22
23	Please note that for an example to fit this trope, it must feature an entire population subjected to evolution (whether that evolution is cultural or also physiological). Isolated persons raised by animals or left to fend for themselves in the wild would not count. Neither would any creatures created by a MadScientist by combining human and animal traits (such as in ''Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau'' and its various adaptations and homages in science fiction works). A virus with the same effect on individuals as a DevolutionDevice would not be an example of this trope. This trope applies to populations, not individuals or groups with too small a gene pool for viable reproduction. However, evolution does not have to be portrayed realistically for this trope to apply. "Evolution" can work however the writer wants it to work in his/her [[TheVerse 'verse]], so long as it's stated to be evolution, and not the result of some other process or event, like a MadScientist's experiments, a DevolutionDevice, or a transformative virus. However, if a gradual change began with experimentation, or a virus, etc., which altered the terms of natural selection, resulting in a dramatically altered evolutionary trajectory, it '''would''' count as an example.
24
25	Also note that in RealLife, as already stated, evolution is not goal directed; the only "value" of a trait in evolutionary terms is how much that trait enhances the fitness of an organism or its offspring. Like this trope, real evolution can involve the loss of traits as well. For example, parasitic leeches often lack many traits in comparison to their free-living cousins, which include other annelid worms like earthworms and beachworms. This is because these traits, unnecessary for the parasitic lifestyle, had no fitness advantage; it's possible they even detracted from a parasite's fitness. This does not mean that parasitic leeches are any more or less "evolved" than non-parasitic annelid worms. In evolutionary science, "primitive" simply means "retaining ancestral traits." And events like Anthropoid monkeys evolving secondary claws from their fingernails are the rare exception, not the rule.
26	----
27	!!Examples
28	[[foldercontrol]]
29
30	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
31	* ''Manga/DrStone'': After waking up from being [[TakenForGranite being petrified for 3700 years]], Senku encounters a village of 40 people living in stone age condition. They have access to craftsmanship, beer brewing, fishing, and dog domestication, but see any science like flame testing and static electricity as sorcery. [[spoiler:They are the descendants of astronauts that escaped the petrification of Earth by being on the International Space Station, before landing on an island, near Japan and starting a new human society]].
32	* ''Manga/{{Ryu}}'': Nuclear war laid waste to the world, and the Doma IV supercomputer meant to salvage civilization decided that it'd be for the best to let the remaining humans grow absolutely ignorant so that it'd never happen again. All remaining knowledge was left with the family of Doma's creator, which ruled over a tyrannical medieval kingdom for three centuries. By the time Ryuji manages to fulfill his role as a savior and becomes the new king, two of the most thriving cities aside from Doma have been destroyed and little technological resources remain in Japan.
33	[[/folder]]
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35	[[folder:Comic Books]]
36	* ''ComicBook/{{Kamandi}}'', a comic book adaptation of ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'' with the SerialNumbersFiledOff: instead of just apes, all sorts of animals have become more advanced, while humans act like savage animals.
37	[[/folder]]
38
39	[[folder:Fan Works]]
40	* ''Fanfic/NobledarkImperium'': Many Exodites shun the advanced technology of the Eldar in order to lead deliberately stone-age lives. Illic Nightspear left Alaitoc over a thousand years ago to become an Exodite and developed a profound fascination with the hunt, particularly the very low-tech kind done on his adopted planet, wears animal skins and ash and hunts using a simple stone spear, bow, and flint arrows. He would be considered a joke, if it weren't for the fact that he can reliably navigate the webway and that the hunting trophies that he adorns himself with include body parts taken from genestealers, squiggoths, and a necron.
41	* ''Fanfic/SharingTheNight'': The dragons are noted to be something rather like this. While the details of life in the ancient dragon empires are somewhat vague, they are known to have had formal rulers, a complex multi-species society, an interest in aesthetics, and the ability to craft powerful magical artifacts. This civilization died alongside the ancient world, and the modern Smaug-like loners who live in caves and hoard piles of gems are essentially barbaric savages with no trace of their ancestors' culture.
42	[[/folder]]
43
44	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
45	* ''Film/FightClub'': {{Discussed\|Trope}} in Tyler's vision for things to come:
46	-->'''Tyler:''' In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.
47	* ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'': After 500 years of mind-numbing media and natural selection favoring large numbers of poor-quality offspring over smaller numbers of higher quality offspring, humanity has become rather stupid, and struggles on with only two things in mind: loads and loads of sex and cheap entertainment.
48	* ''Film/ItTheTerrorFromBeyondSpace'' (1958). The crew theorizes that the monster could be part of the remnant of a Martian civilization that somehow destroyed itself and returned to prehistoric barbarism.
49	* ''Film/{{Pandorum}}'': The man-eating Hunters are presumed to have evolved from people who caught [[SpaceMadness space madness]] and turned into cannibals. Their evolution into feral predators was "accelerated" by artificial means, as the crew were meant to settle on another planet and given an enzyme that would help them adapt to it. In this case, they adapted to the conditions existing on the spaceship they were trapped on.
50	* ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'': In the original movie, humans in the far-distant future have regressed to animalistic mutes hunted and enslaved by the Apes.
51	** The female love interest starts to speak in the second movie, implying that there was no physiological change (IE muscular or neurologically-related loss of speech faculties).
52	** In the original book version of ''The Planet of the Apes'', Ulysse (the equivalent character of Taylor) teaches Nova how to talk and their son can talk from the get-go. Also TheReveal that [[spoiler:many many years ago apes were servants to humans]] is discovered through GeneticMemory in humans; when a certain portion of the brain is stimulated via electricity they can talk, recounting the stories of their ancestors which lead up to the [[spoiler:ape takeover]]. Also in the original book the humans run around nude rather than clad in skins (which no doubt was done to get the film past the censors).
53	* ''Film/TeenageCaveman'': Both the 1958 and 2002 versions feature a post-apocalyptic world where the descendants of human survivors have regressed to primitive tribalism. The '58 version is an almost direct adaptation of ''Literature/ByTheWatersOfBabylon'', below.
54	* ''Film/YorTheHunterFromTheFuture'': A plot twist halfway through reveals that it is not set in the distant past, but a post-apocalyptic future. At least it would be a twist if the title of the movie didn't explicitly state it was set in the future. In the cases of both ''Yor'' and the above ''Teenage Caveman'', however, the plot twist doesn't explain why there are dinosaurs running around in what is supposed to be the future.
55	[[/folder]]
56
57	[[folder:Literature]]
58	* ''Literature/AllTomorrows'': [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens the Qu]] genetically engineer humans into a variety of non-sapient, animalistic forms and scatter them across the galaxy. Over time, many of them manage to re-evolve sapience.
59	* ''Literature/ApeAndEssence'': New Zealand and equatorial Africa remain untouched by WorldWarIII because they were simply "too remote to be worth anyone's while to obliterate". Therefore, while a remnant of Western civilization has survived in New Zealand, Europe has been repopulated by the tribes of DarkestAfrica. This is zig-zagged with the main setting of the post-apocalyptic story, the Los Angeles basin, where the inhabitants retain barely enough trappings of civilization to call themselves a "democracy", yet radiation-induced deformities have become increasingly common to the point that the rulers have adopted the rites of HollywoodSatanism in a desperate attempt to ward off the extinction that will surely happen in a hundred years.
60	* ''Literature/ByTheWatersOfBabylon'', a 1937 short story by Creator/StephenVincentBenet, is likely the TropeMaker for the "postapocalyptic future all along" twist ending version of this trope. In the story, a young man of the primitive Hill People tribe travels to the forbidden "Place of the Gods", violating his tribal taboos. The Place turns out to be a bombed-out New York City, and he realizes that the gods were actually human beings who were [[AndManGrewProud overwhelmed by their own power]], raising the question of whether his own pushing at boundaries is [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow such a good idea]]. The protagonist John decides that once he's the priest of his tribe "We must build again" though.
61	* The first part of ''Literature/ACanticleForLeibowitz'' shows a postapocalyptic Utah that greatly resembles Dark Ages Europe, with all the superstition and fear that implies. As the story goes on through a number of time skips, it gets increasingly less primitive, resembling the High Middle Ages and then, finally, the actual future again... [[spoiler: before World War IV bombs us all back to the Stone Age ''again''.]]
62	* In ''Literature/CthulhuArmageddon'' by Creator/CTPhipps the human race has degenerated into frontier towns and tribes. The Great Old Ones destroyed most of the human race in the Rising but a handful of humanity has carried on with scavenged technology or living like hunter gatherers. The fact that magic has returned to the world helps.
63	* ''Literature/{{Diaspora}}'': Among the various {{Transhuman}} and post-human factions in the far-future setting, the Dream Apes {{Invoked\|Trope}} this trope by using genetic engineering to remove their capacity for conscious thought.
64	* ''Literature/{{Galapagos}}'' describes descendants of the human survivors of a global epidemic, stranded on the titular islands, evolving into a non-sapient, semi-aquatic, furred, seal-like species, due entirely to natural selection.
65	* ''Literature/{{Hothouse}}'': In a distant future, Earth will become tidally locked with the Sun, resulting in eternal day on one side and eternal night on the other. Human civilization will collapse, and survivors will mutate into a number of species. The story tells about a group of humans who are small, green-skinned, and live on tree branches on the day side. It's basically a DeathWorld with not even a semblance of civilization.
66	* ''Literature/KnownSpace'': The Thrintun ("Slavers") ''seem'' to be this trope to the extreme, as their only living descendants are the Grogs: sessile creatures whose limbs degenerate into useless stumps when they reach adulthood, and which weren't even recognized as sentient when first discovered. Then we find out [[spoiler:the Thrint "[[MindControl Power]]" became so developed that [[WeWillNotHaveAppendixesInTheFuture the rest of their bodies atrophied]]. They're sessile because you don't need to move when you can glance at a prey-animal and ''tell'' it "get in my mouth"]].
67	* ''Literature/LastAndFirstMen'' sees this happen a few times:
68	** After the fall of the First World State, a combination of the sheer devastation of the collapse of civilization and the indolence induced by millennia of decadence cause mankind to regress to a barbaric existence, spending millennia afterwards as struggling, tribal farmers, petty warlords and roving bands of raiders and brigands, before the eventual rise of the Patagonian civilization.
69	** The seventh men of Venus were designed with wings by the preceding sixth men, and did not care about technology. However, the "wingless mutants" who evolved into the eighth men did, and over time formed their own civilization and completely displaced the seventh men.
70	** The tenth through fourteenth men were all examples of sentience briefly re-emerging from the ecosystem of animals that evolved from the ninth men on Neptune. The fifteenth men manage to restore civilization to humanity though.
71	** Further, there was a variety of animalistic subhumans that developed from the various human races during and after the various collapses of civilization. Besides the Neptunian varieties, there were also the baboon-like subhumans that evolved from the first men (our own species) after the collapse of their last civilization and the predatory seal-like humans of Venus, who often competed with the sixth men.
72	* ''Literature/ManAfterManAnAnthropologyOfTheFuture'': Invoked, as far-future biologists re-stock Earth's denuded ecosystems with engineered humanoids of animal-like intelligence. Some of them re-evolve sapience, but in most cases remain limited to primitive hunter-gather lifestyle.
73	* ''Literature/OrphansOfTheSky'': By the time the novel takes place, the Crew has become so backward that they think the ship is the whole Universe, and live in what is essentially a feudal society consisting primarily of subsistence farmers ruled by a priestly caste of "Scientists", a nobility descended from the officers, and a king-like Captain. Even the concept of discrete time units has been lost, without days or seasons with which to divide timekeeping. The only reason that the ship still works is that its reactor[[note]]the secondary reactor, actually, the main one having gone kaput during the mutiny[[/note]] can convert any matter into energy at pretty much 100% efficiency. Everything that is no longer useful, including the dead, is used as fuel for the reactor. The Muties of the upper decks have regressed even farther, and now live as a loose scattering of raiders, squatters, and scavengers.
74	* ''Literature/PastwatchTheRedemptionOfChristopherColumbus'': A scientist reveals to the main characters that [[spoiler:this is the most likely future of humanity. Earth is not recovering from the ecological disaster as the public believes. Human efforts are failing, and eventually civilization will collapse and a new ice age will start. While some humans will survive, there will no longer be a chance for them to develop beyond the Stone Age, as all easily accessible resources are gone]].
75	* ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'': The original novel features primitive, mute humans on a planet dominated by a civilization of intelligent apes.
76	* ''Literature/RiddleyWalker'': 2000 years after a nuclear war, life in Great Britain resembles the Iron Age, with people scavenging the ruins for metals to make their tools.
77	* In ''Literature/TerreEnFuite'', the DecoyProtagonist learns that human civilization is destined to be destroyed by an unspecified cataclysm (likely an ice age), although we will have visited Mars and Venus by that point. Only small primitive enclaves will survive in the equatorial regions. After the ice ages (yes, plural) end, humanity will resettle Earth (or Hellera as they will call it) and will even evolve better brains. However, this trope will be true for many hundreds of thousands of years before that happens.
78	* ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'': The morlocks (ape-like violent savages) and eloi (docile, indolent and meek) are the TropeCodifier, if not the UrExample as well. The Time Traveler theorizes that morlocks are the descendants of the working class, who over millennia of servitude and life tending to underground machinery have evolved into pale troglodytes who still keep the machines going out of instinct and habit, while the eloi are the descendants of the upper class, having been tuned into dull-minded and child-like organisms by millennia of indolence and lifestyles that required neither strength nor intelligence. An interesting result of this arrangement is that the workers ended up being the ones in control, with the brutish and bestial morlocks farming the otherwise helpless eloi like cattle. A brief visit even farther into the future (omitted in some editions of the text and restored in others) sees humans evolved into gray rabbit-like animals, preyed on by giant insects.
79	* ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'': In the second trilogy, intelligent beings (the descendants of starfarers who are trespassing in the galactic equivalent of a "nature reserve", including some humans) are trying to revert to a non-sapient state: if the law enforcement of the Five Galaxies don't discover them until their culture has collapsed, they won't be "purged" for their ancestors' crime.
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82	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
83	* ''Series/The100'': The Ark and Mount Weather have maintained much of the technology and civilization from before the nuclear apocalypse, but the Grounders have reverted back to a tribal, hunter/gatherer society.
84	* ''Series/BlakesSeven'': In "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS3E13Terminal Terminal]]", Servalan claims that the savage, ape-like Links, products of "accelerated evolution" on the artificial planet Terminal, are humanity's future. Presumably their name derives from the phrase "missing link". Many other episodes feature primitive descendants of old Earth colonial expeditions; a few of them are genuinely HumanAliens, though, and would not count as this trope, and there were a few other ambiguous cases, having descended to barbarism after war or sociological collapse.
85	* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
86	** One of the Fourth Doctor's companions is Leela, a savage from a hunter-gatherer culture left over from a collapsed human space colony in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E4TheFaceOfEvil The Face of Evil]]". Her arc was meant to be a PygmalionPlot, made more complicated by the fact that the Doctor is the worst possible person to teach her etiquette.
87	** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E3TheCurseOfFenric The Curse of Fenric]]", Haemovores are vampiric, feral creatures that might be the evolutionary result of humanity living in a world taken over by the demonic Fenric.
88	** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E3Gridlock Gridlock]]", the Macra have "devolved" (in the Doctor's words) since their first appearance in (classic) season 4 from powerful, mind-controlling creatures to beasts who are living only to feed. More justified than most examples, since the second appearance is ''BILLIONS'' of years later; these creatures could have evolved from a few random cells a Macra tourist unknowingly left behind in that time.
89	** The Futurekind from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia Utopia]]" are a savage, cannibalistic race from the end of the Universe. It is hinted that they are the early stages of humanity turning into the [[BitPartBadGuys Weevils]] from ''Series/{{Torchwood}}''.
90	** The monstrous "Dregs" from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E3Orphan55 Orphan 55]]" are [[spoiler:the descendants of humans who were abandoned on Earth when the planet became uninhabitable due to environmental disasters and a nuclear war. They evolved into questionably sentient carnivores capable of photosynthesizing to create oxygen from the high-[=CO2=] atmosphere, although they still need to eat meat.]]
91	* ''Series/LandOfTheLost1974'': The Sleestaks are the savage descendants of Enik's people, the Altrusians. At first, Enik refused to believe this, and thought he had traveled into his people's past. When he saw the ruined Lost City, he realized he had been wrong, and that he was actually in the future relative to his own timeline. Sleestaks and Altrusians look similar but with a few key differences such as height (Altrusians are shorter), skin color (Altrusians are brown, Sleestaks are green), and the presence (in Altrusians) or lack (in Sleestaks) of a third opposing digit. Altrusians are also more intelligent and able to function in daylight, whereas Sleestak are nocturnal and require low-light conditions. In one episode where Will is thrown into a pit by the Sleestak, he meets an intelligent member of their race who tells him that on occasion throwbacks to their days as the civilized Altrusians are born and are usually ostracized.
92	* ''Series/{{See}}'' takes place several hundred years after a plague reduced Earth's population to just two million people and left the survivors completely blind. Without their sense of sight, humans can no longer build or operate advanced technology, and the world has settled into an Iron Age level of development.
93	* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
94	** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E1SpocksBrain Spock's Brain]]", the ''Enterprise'' visits a planet where an ancient catastrophe split society in two: the [[LadyLand female]] Eymorg, a technologically advanced, automated subterranean civilization; and the male Morg, who live a Stone Age existence on the frozen surface. Thousands of years in an UndergroundCity where all their needs are catered for has reduced the intelligence of the Eymorg till they have little more than childlike intelligence. However they still abduct the Morg (unlike TheMorlocks TropeNamer) for sexual reproduction and slaves.
95	** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': Tom Paris's "accelerated evolution" into a non-sapient salamander-like creature in "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E15Threshold Threshold]]", where a working Transwarp Drive is built on a shuttlecraft. The writer stated that his idea was that, in the distant future, humanity would evolve beyond the need for sapience due to technology providing for all our material needs.
96	* ''Series/TheTribe'': Child and teenage survivors of an [[OnlyFatalToAdults adult-killing]] [[DepopulationBomb virus]] wear facepaint and form social units called "tribes", intentionally invoking this trope (despite the series taking place only TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture).
97	* ''Series/WaywardPines'' has an unspecified global disaster (or war, or both) cause the fall of civilization, followed by the mutation of the survivors into feral primitives called Abbies (from "abnormals"). The only one to have foreseen the collapse of civilization (but not the mutation into Abbies) was a scientist named David Pilcher, who built an ElaborateUndergroundBase in a mountain in Idaho, got a bunch of volunteers and kidnapped a bunch more people and froze them all to be woken up in 2000 years (except for one man who woke up periodically to maintain the systems). Pilcher was shocked to find Abbies where he expected only nature and RuinsOfTheModernAge. He and his people wiped out an Abby group and built a town surrounded by large electrified walls next to the mountain.
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
101	* ''TabletopGame/RedDwarf'': According to the official rule book, in the universes where the rabbits evolve and become a civilisation, humans (instead of becoming extinct as in the other universes) become ignorant savages, being mainly used as medical experiments and slaves.
102	* Applies to some planets in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', known as [[https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Feral_World feral worlds]]. These planets are generally under very little control by the [[TheEmpire Imperium of Man]], who at most might recruit (or more accurately, kidnap) some of the people for use in the army.
103	** The Imperium as a whole is this. As advanced as some of their equipment may seem, technologically and ''especially'' culturally, they're a pale shadow of humanity's achievements in the Dark Age of Technology. An AI from the Dark Age that was accidentally awakened by Imperial tech priests spent most of its time in the story expressing its complete disgust with how primitive its captors were compared to humanity it knew.
104	[[/folder]]
105
106	[[folder:Video Games]]
107	* ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'': Ogres are speculated to be the descendants of a race of giants who lived in ancient times, but have since become extinct. Ogres are a good deal smaller than their ancestors (the average ogre is about 2m tall, the length of a giant's thighbone), and while giants were civilised and intelligent enough to use magic, ogres are savage and feral.
108	* ''VideoGame/{{Battleborn}}'': Phoebe's DLC Story Operation reveals this to be the apparent case for the Tempestian Grayhorns of which the Thralls are derived from. Apparently the Thralls are [[spoiler:actually the [[{{Precursors}} ancient Aztanti]] at least on a genetic level. Based on some findings by Beatrix and the others over the course of the operation, it's uncovered that the once great Aztanti purposely de-evolved themselves into feral beasts. In the ancient past, the Aztanti were able to open a portal connecting to the Varelsi's universe. Although they were able to shut close the portal, they decided on a drastic course of action in hopes of preventing another open portal to the Void. They figured that even if they erased all records of how they opened a portal to another universe, their people would still be around to accidentally make the same mistake again in the future. So using a bespoke retrovirus tailored to rewrite segments of their genetic code, the Aztanti de-evolved themselves into feral beasts no different than mere animals. These beasts however retained dormant Aztanti traits that had the potential for greater strength, intelligence, and lifespans. In [[UpliftedAnimal force evolving]] the Thralls into their current state, Beatrix simply reawakened these dormant traits but just enough to make them into a SlaveRace for the Jennerit.]]
109	* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' features a {{Downplayed\|Trope}} version. AfterTheEnd, the remnants of humanity huddle in filthy shelters, hiding from the killer robots and mutants that roam the ruined cities. Very little food remains, and the survivors, dressed in tattered rags and with wildly unkempt hair, are largely reliant upon {{Autodoc}}s to keep them alive, though this does nothing about their gnawing hunger.
110	* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'': Humans are the descendants of an ancient race known as the [[{{Nephilim}} Nephalem]], who are described as a half-breed race born from forbidden unions between angels and demons, with [[ImmuneToFate no fixed destiny]] and limitless potential that even the mightiest Demon Lords and Archangels felt threatened by. The angels and demons who sired them became so afraid of them that they modified an artefact called the Worldstone into a PowerLimiter, causing the second generation on Nephalem to be born considerably weaker and with much shorter lifespans than the first. At the end of ''Videogame/DiabloII'', the Worldstone is corrupted and shattered, and 20 years later, [[HumansAreSpecial a small number of humans were starting to regain their Nephalem-like potential.]] Unfortunately, thanks to the actions of a renegade sect of angels, the vast majority of humanity was wiped out, severely slowing the restoration of humanity's ancestral potential. As of ''Videogame/DiabloIV'', fifty years afterwards, there have been no new cases of humans awakening Nephalem powers yet seen, forcing what remains of human society into the most primitive and diminished state it had been in thousands of years.
111	* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
112	** The Falmer were originally the graceful [[OurElvesAreDifferent Snow Elves]] with a culture rivaling the Altmer (High Elves), but after facing near-extinction at the hands of the [[HornyVikings Nords]], the Falmer turned to their estranged [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Dwemer]] kin for aid. The Dwemer agreed to take in the surviving Falmer, but only if they blinded themselves with poisonous mushrooms. For centuries the Dwemer used the Falmer as servants and [[EnslavedElves slaves]], and may have performed experiments on them that caused them to further mutate into their present form. When the Dwemer abruptly vanished from Nirn, the Falmer were left behind as a race of blind, subterranean, [[TheMorlocks Morlock]]-like beasts with a [[AlwaysChaoticEvil primitive, xenophobic tribal culture]]. So significant was the de-evolution of the Falmer that it affected their very souls, turning them from "black" sapient souls into the "white" souls of creatures.
113	** The Dreugh, a race of [[FishPeople aquatic humanoid octopi]], once ruled the world in a previous kalpa, or cycle of time. However, that was one of the 12 worlds which were destroyed and the remnants pieced together to [[CreationMyth create Nirn]]. The Dreugh of early Nirn were still intelligent, but that diminished over time as their civilization fell and their intelligence devolved. Now, like the Falmer, their de-evolution from an intelligent, sapient race with their own civilization has included their souls becoming white, like those of animals.
114	* ''VideoGame/Fallout2'': You start out in a tribe founded by the first game's protagonist. They have all the tropes associated with primitive tribes (spears, loincloths, face-paint), but they live in the post-apocalyptic future.
115	** "Tribals" have become a mainstay of the franchise, usually characterized by mistrust of advanced technology and an inherent tendency to [[AllHailTheGreatGodMickey respond to random things with religious reverence]]. These traits even seem to apply to "domesticated" tribals like [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas Benny]], who actually acts a lot more urbane and sophisticated than many other characters.
116	* The post-apocalyptic setting of ''VideoGame/{{Horizon Zero Dawn}}'' is this, where humans have regressed back into tribes with primitive technology, such as spears and bows. Learning what happened to the {{Precursors}} (the humans of 2060 AD) is one of the big mysteries of the game -- that and why there are all kinds of cybernetic animals running around.
117	* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': The krogan are portrayed as once being a more civilized race. After turning their homeworld into a nuclear wasteland, only the toughest and most psychotic krogan survived. In fact, krogan able to go into the now infamous "blood rage" were once only a small part of the population -- and they were medicated for it!
118	* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' features a few pre-generated planetary systems whose inhabitants fell victim to this trope. In one, a civilization was able to colonize its moon, only for a dispute between the homeworld and colony to go nuclear and drop both societies into barbarism -- by the time you find them, the two groups have diverged enough that the species look entirely different. In another, a species was able to achieve an advanced civilization with the help of bonded [[TheSymbiote brain slugs]], only to suddenly reject the slugs and fall back into non-sapience, leaving the brain slugs to await the day another species accepted their offer.
119	* In ''VideoGame/{{Rimworld}}'', lack of FasterThanLightTravel means tech levels can vary wildly from star system to star system. In the eponymous rimworlds, this frequently means devolution to early industrial, or even nomadic tribal, societies picking through the remains of the space-faring ancestors who colonized the world centuries or millenia ago.
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121
122	[[folder:Web Original]]
123	* ''Website/OrionsArm'': This happens several times:
124	** It's fairly common for baseline reserves -- isolated planets reserved for baseline humans, which are a fairly endangered species in the far future -- to have their technological and cultural levels kept strictly at a Neolthic to medieval level.
125	** The Epimethian Movement was a group who voluntarily removed their higher cognitive abilities to revert back to simian intelligence.
126	** Abdication happens when a post-singularity entity descends to a lower singularity level for various reasons.
127	* ''Website/TaerelSetting'': In the Age of Shattering, the zu'aan tribes are the kin'toni clans are brought back to the stone age to iron ages. The cities don't fare much better, being ancient era at the most tech wise.
128
129	[[/folder]]
130
131	[[folder:Western Animation]]
132	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
133	** Parodied in "[[Recap/FuturamaS2E19TheCryonicWoman The Cryonic Woman]]", when Fry and his recently-unfrozen 20th Century girlfriend go back into cryogenic stasis to try to find a time they can both be happy, only to emerge from their pods in a post-apocalyptic wasteland inhabited by violent primitives. Except they're not in the far future, [[TakeThat their pods just got dumped in L.A.]]
134	--->'''Fry:''' So you're saying these ''aren't'' the decaying ruins of New York in the year 4000?\
135	'''Farnsworth:''' You wish! You're in Los Angeles!\
136	'''Fry:''' But there was this gang of 10-year-olds with guns!\
137	'''Leela:''' Exactly, you're in L.A.\
138	'''Fry:''' But everyone is driving around in cars shooting at each other.\
139	'''Bender:''' That's L.A. for you.\
140	'''Fry:''' But the air is green and there's no sign of civilization whatsoever!\
141	'''Bender:''' [[LampshadeHanging He just won't stop with the social commentary.]]
142	** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS6E7TheLatePhillipJFry The Late Phillip J. Fry]]", ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'' is parodied when it is shown that in the year 5,000,000 AD human evolution has diverged into two species. A unnamed race of small pink and purple creatures "advanced in intellect and morality", and the "Dumbloks", "stupid vicious brutes who live underground". The montage song "In the Year 252525" displays some less extreme examples such as medieval-looking knights riding ostriches.
143	* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': {{Exaggerated}} in "Guided Mouse-Ille". Tom, living in a futuristic facility, prepares an incredibly potent explosive to deal with Jerry. The explosive is apparently so strong that when it goes off and the smoke clears, Tom and Jerry are both cavemen living in a prehistoric jungle.
144	[[/folder]]
145
146	[[folder:Real Life]]
147	* In real life, anatomical mosaics are where an organism has traits that are considered modern and archaic at the same time. This usually applies to fossils.
148	** With the ''Homo'' genus, ''Homo naledi'' applies, since they lived at the same time as Neanderthals and early modern humans, yet have some traits with Australopithecus and modern human beings. Some think they were another species, others think they were an unusual subspecies of ''Homo erectus''. With that in mind, some of these [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Deer_Cave_people Red Deer Cave people]] lived at around the time [[OlderthanDirt Jericho was built]], yet have cranial features that would not be out of place 2 million years ago.
149	[[/folder]]
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Context Main / FuturePrimitive