From YouKnowThatThingWhere:

{{Kizor}}: Great site, guys. Should the ancient vanished precursor alien race get its own trope? The one who rose when the stars were young to heights unsurpassed until they suddenly AscendToAHigherPlaneOf Existence or get wiped out by whatever's coming to kill you, leaving behind technological wonders and more often than not humans? I'm creating such a category on Wikipedia and I've got seventeen so far...

{{Tzintzuntzan}}: They should definitely get a trope entry, and ThePrecursors seems
to be the generic name for them (although I wonder if we can come up with anything snappier).
AncientAstronauts covers a subset of this, but not the whole trope, which would also include one-shot high-tech ruins (''StarTrek'' just loves those) and Lovecraftian Elder Races. Or should those all be separate tropes in the LumperVSSplitter debate?

{{Gus}}: AlienPrecursorRace works for me. (Tzin, I saw what you did there, with the delete, you gorgeous GrammarNazi, you.)

{{Scifantasy}}: Aw. I was hoping for ThePrecursors alone, just for the Ur-Quan Masters joke...*grin*

{{Gus}}: I feel you, SF. It is just that "The-whatever" has been over-tromped. Get your {{Precursors}} on.
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{{Kizor}}: Aaaand beaten to it. My fault for leaving it hanging for so long, though, and I'm taking notes from this to improve my own writing. So thanks.

{{Kizor}}: This reference to the mentioned category was just deleted from the article, what's your take on it? Should it be included?

"* These things are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ancient_vanished_precursors all over the place]]."

LooneyToons: Have no idea why CorahsUncle took that out. I wouldn't mind seeing it back in.

{{Ununnilium}}: Took out...

Oh, and they were [[AncientAryanAstronauts almost always white.]]

...because {{Precursors}} are rarely ''human'', let alone white. Indeed, if any alien race isn't going to be a HumanAlien or RubberForeheadAlien, it'll be the Precursors.
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{{Ununnilium}}: Kizor, why'd you take out the StargateVerse link?

Kizor: Incompetence.