Dawn of an Era

"It's a been a long road
getting from there to here
It's been a long time
but my time is finally near!"

— "Faith of the Heart" (Star Trek: Enterprise theme song)

Dawn of an Era is when the story has a moment that will change the story world in a good way.

For instance, someone, at great personal risk, not only successfully tests a practical and reliable way to travel to different solar systems as easily as sailing across the Atlantic, but aliens detect that trip and decide to pop by to say, "Welcome to the neighborhood!"

Suddenly, all realize that their lives, their world and their very view of the universe has changed forever with marvels, technology, magic, and astounding possibilities and challenges lying before them to persuade even the most despairing soul to have faith of the heart for a glorious future.

Thanks to the heroes, a brave new world has begun where the age of wonders is just beginning.

(Err, not the bad one, we promise!)

For the villainous version, see New Era Speech. For the complete opposite, see End of an Age (though the two may overlap; the end of one era means the beginning of the next, after all). For related tropes, see The Magic Goes Away and The Magic Comes Back.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Code Geass: the ending to R2 is bittersweet for precisely this reason. On the one hand Lelouch unites the entire world in hatred and fear of him, becoming the Demon Emperor, and has his best friend/hateful rival Suzaku take on the mantle of Zero and publicly assassinate him, leaving him bleeding out in Nunnally's arms, but on the other hand this paves the way for a brighter future, with Empress Nunnally, Zero!Suzaku and Geassed!Schneizel taking advantage of the temporary peace in the wake of Lelouch's death to create a better world with less hatred, bitterness and division.
• This trope is how Frieren: Beyond Journey's End begins. With the Demon King dead, the other races are living in peace, and an Era Meteor Shower happens right after. In a peaceful era, most of the adventuring tasks that are given to Frieren, Fern and Stark are of mundane nature like helping harvesting vegetables or de-rust statues. Even in arcs where things get intense, they are not dealing with portents of another conflict, rather those are remnants of that bygone time.
• The opening scenes to Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn shows the very beginning of the Universal Century, which is meant to evoke this trope Until it gets rudely interrupted by the space colony said scenes take place on being blown up.
• One Piece:
  • The Pirate King, Gold Roger, ignited the Golden Age of Piracy with his death.
  • This and the End of an Age occurred at the same time at the tail end of the Marineford Arc. Just when his death and a marine victory was poised to snuff out the Golden Age of Piracy, Whitebeard, with his dying breath, proclaimed, with the entire world watching, "ONE PIECE EXISTS!" This proclamation started an entirely new age of piracy, and the beginning of a new era. However, just minutes later, Blackbeard (the probable Big Bad of the series) makes his own declaration: that the new era that's dawning is his era.
  • Near the end of Punk Hazard, Trafalgar Law throws back Donquixote Doflamingo's previous New Era Speech claiming that by destroying the Diabolical Mastermind's operations, he and Luffy are creating a new era of their own, and that it'll be impossible to restore the previous status quo.
  • The rulers of the Mink Tribe and the Kozuki Clan believe in a concept called "the Dawn of the World", which is strongly implied to involve the One Piece and what will happen when someone inevitably finds it.
    • They believe in it so fiercely that, after he was captured by the Big Mom Pirates, Pedro ripped out his own eye and sacrificed most of his lifespan to convince Big Mom to let him go, as he wanted to ensure that if he had a role to play in the Dawn of the World he would be alive to see it through. Indeed, after he becomes convinced that the Straw Hats will lead the world to its dawn, he willingly blows himself up to stop Perospero from preventing their escape from Totto Land.
    • Whatever the Dawn of the World is, Kozuki Oden wrote about it in his journal, which ended in the hands of Yamato after his execution and the burning of his castle. Twenty years later, Yamato relinquishes the journal to Oden's son Momonosuke, telling him that he, too, is destined to guide the world towards its dawn. After reading his father's journal, Momonosuke comes to understand exactly why Wano Country closed its borders to the rest of the world and what it was that his father intended when he entrusted his vassals to open the borders once more. Yamato also states that Luffy coming to Wano must've been an act of fate since he is a D., strongly implying that the Dawn of the World is related to the Will of D.
    • The relation is all but confirmed by none other than Nefertari Cobra, who reveals that Nefertari Lili, the matriarch of the Nefertari Family at the end of the Void Century who refused to join the Celestial Dragons in Mary Geoise upon the founding of the World Government, also was a D. (and by extension so were the rest of her descendants); before her mysterious disappearance, a letter penned by her and passed down generations of Nefertari kings and queens cryptically stated that the Poneglyphs must be protected, and to "fly the flag that heralds the dawn of the world". In a final act of defiance, Cobra passes on the message written in the letter to Sabo and entrusts him to pass it on to his daughter Vivi and to Luffy, before sacrificing his own life to delay the Five Elders and Imu while Sabo escapes.
• A classical example is found in the final episodes of Stellvia of the Universe: the End of an Age of humanity living in fear of another (almost-)extinction and the Dawn of an Era of deep space exploration and, quite possibly, the more advanced aliens lending us hand. This new era was supposed to be covered in a Sequel Series but...
• The conclusion of Transformers: Cybertron. The Autobot/Decepticon war is over, the universe is saved, Cybertron is healed, the lost colonies have been brought back into the fold, and Transformers and humanity work side-by-side to explore and connect the galaxy.

Comic Books

• In Earth 2, five years after the "Age of Wonders" ended, new superheroes began to appear; creating a new "Age of Wonders".
• While there were earlier superheroes, the age of heroes in the Marvel Universe is generally considered to have begun with the appearance of the Fantastic Four, with many of the other modern heroes emerging shortly afterwards.
  • Untold Tales of Spider-Man: A minor subplot in Amazing Fantasy is how a new era of superheroes are slowly making their presence known, with Peter Parker being one of them.
• The first public appearance of Superman in The DCU. In most continuities, Superman is first introduced the world doing a dramatic save, giving the world something to hope for and kicking off the Age of Superheroes. (Or bringing back superheroes, if the Golden Age heroes are in continuity).
  • Likewise, his return in Kingdom Come is this for everyone but The Narrator (who foresees that this will be a subversion instead). However, The Narrator talking down Supes in the end is the real dawn of an entirely new era.
• "The Death of Optimus Prime" sees Cybertron becoming habitable again, a definitive Autobot victory over the Decepticons, the abdication of Optimus Prime after the emptying of the Matrix, the return of the rest of the Cybertronian race (whom many had long written off for dead), and a schism among the Autobots as Rodimus seeks the Knights of Cybertron among the stars, while Bumblebee attempts to build a stable society on Cybertron.
• The Transformers: Robots in Disguise:
  • Optimus Prime issue 10 has Alpha Trion recount the beginning of the Age of Primes when the Thirteen began uniting their tribes under one banner. The earlier released but chronologically later Robots in Disguise issue 34 deals with the end of their era, and the beginning of Nova Prime's reign, showing the beginning of the Crapsack World Cybertron would become under his successors.
• The three-issue comic book Vimanarama has the epic of Ben Rama as real, with super-science instead of magic. After the evil Ul-Shatan is defeated, the world is transformed with access to ancient philosophical truths, flying vimanas, vitamin laden air, prayer fueled refrigerators and other marvels. The series ends with the hero rescuing three young idiots who crash a two-man flying vimana into the bright face of the moon.

Fan Works

• Child of the Storm is set a couple of years after the Avengers formed and repeatedly suggests that while the triggered the beginning of the new era, the real explosion in heroes, technology and general wonder is just starting, with a lots of future heroes being name-dropped and a feeling that the magic is starting to come back and with it the start of The Un Masqued World, one in which humanity can hold its own. However, the dark side of this is amply explored, with repeated warnings that A Storm Is Coming, while Professor McGonagall observes that while the heroes are coming back, this isn't always a good thing. After all, heroes need monsters to fight...
• Code Prime: The end of R2 marks a Lighter and Softer version of Lelouch's plans from Code Geass. Megatron's threat of Neo-Ragnarok united the world against him, and in the Final Battle, almost all major Decepticon players were killed, turned coat or forced into hiding. The world is now being reorganized as a worldwide federation, and the monopoly on violence is being legislated out of existence thanks to turning all military capacity over to the Black Knights with severe restrictions. With the collapse of their enemies, the Autobots now can begin demobilizing, and with Cornelia bringing up a loss of usable resources thanks to the wars, an expansion of the human race into space is on the verge of creation. And with the destruction of all known Thought Elevators, the capacity to exploit Geass has been seemingly lost forever.
• An Empire of Ice and Fire: The War of the Four Kings, the Emperor's War and the Second War for the Dawn left deep shockwaves in Planetos, but it also opened the door to create a new era of unity and prosperity. With the return of dragons, the reestablishment of House Targaryen, the ascendency of House Stark, the destruction of the Slave Masters, and the reorganization of the old great houses, a new age of freedom, friendship, peace, and brotherhood under the new Hegemonic Empire One World Order is coming forth.
• In Heroes for Earth, when the Planeteers finally combine their powers and unleash an Eldritch Abomination, their version of Captain Planet, they create a new continent in the Pacific Ocean. This causes a new wave of environmentalism and worldwide recognition of the Planeteers.
• The Legendary Spider Man: This is what Julia Carpenter posits to Peter: that his awakening will be the start of a new era of heroes, and he'll be there to help lead them all through it.
• In A New World, this is the ultimate result of Yukari Yakumo's centuries of manipulating humans, youkai and immortals alike: a very wounded world, but one in which all fantastic creatures have returned to physical reality, no longer fearing the influence of mortal thought, and are working with mortals to restore Earth's glory.
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: The Nightmare claimed that an Age was coming to an end, believing Harmony's time was done. Its own defeat signals it to be this trope instead, and Word of God states that this new Age will be a mixture of Science and Magic.
• In My Huntsman Academia, Toshinori's rise to prominence shifted the way the world viewed Huntsmen and Huntresses, going from Grimm exterminators to protectors of the peace, acting more like specially-trained superheroes. Izuku also mentions that the invention of mecha-shift weaponry changed warfare forever and the time before it is referred to the pre-Mecha Weapon era.
• For better or for worse, Queens of Mewni who are established as Star Queens (those born just before sunrise) usher in new ages for Mewni: Estelaria starts the Age of Ascension, which saw the Butterfly Kingdom establish itself in the world, Asteria ushers in the Age of Heroes, in which the kingdom cements itself as a military power, Venus ushers in the Dark Age, which saw Mewni at its lowest points, Vesper begins the Renaissance, which saw Mewni and the Butterfly Kingdom regain the reputation it lost due to the Dark Age, and Star ushers in the Dawn Age, a period of turmoil due to her rebellious actions. Thematically, the change from the Dark Age to the Renaissance plays this trope the straightest, while the transition from the Age of Heroes to the Dark Age averts this trope as much as it can without invoking the New Era Speech trope.
• In The SuperStarr Chronicles's fourth chapter, Clara Creed hints that alongside the X-Men, several new superheroes have also debuted (mainly the Marvel heroes of the Silver Age), implying a new age of heroes is rising.
• In A Thing of Vikings, Hiccup making friends with Toothless and helping tame and train dragons changes the course of history for the better, bringing about a renaissance of peace and learning. While the chapter epigraphs make it clear that there will be growing pains and chaos in the short term, in the long term the future looks bright, with humans and dragons working together to make a better world.

Films — Animation

• The Princess and the Pea: Sebastian, the Talking Animal court historian, says that he believes a new golden age will begin now that Daria passed the Secret Test of Character and assumed her rightful place as the princess.
• Titan A.E. ends with the protagonists on a newly-created planet Bob as a new home for humans after Earth had been destroyed.
• Transformers: The Movie ends with the Autobots in charge again and Rodimus Prime predicting an era of peace and prosperity for all Cybertronians.
  Rodimus: Let this mark the end of the Cybertronian Wars as we march forward into a new era of peace and happiness! 'Til all are one!

Films — Live-Action

• 2010: The Year We Make Contact ends as humanity is faced with incontrovertible proof that not only do Sufficiently Advanced Aliens exist, but they are aware of us and are capable of drastic action in the service of protecting life.^note They crush Jupiter and turn it into a star. In the film version, the closing narration makes it clear that this has motivated the nations of the world to end their conflicts.
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind has this with aliens bringing back humans abducted over several decades. It's been a while, but it's implied the aliens choose to stay and establish closer contact.
• Star Trek: First Contact: The crew of the Enterprise foil the Borg back in time and help Zefram Cochrane make his famous test flight of The Phoenix, the first warp-capable Earth craft. As a result, an alien ship detects the ship and decides to initiate first contact. When they appear from their landing craft and reveal themselves to be Vulcans, you know that Earth's time of planet-bound turmoil and despair is over, and the planet's vibrant and hope-filled future as a space power has begun. Jerry Goldsmith's score complements it beautifully, too.

Literature

• The cycle of Arthurian mythology has this when Arthur draws the sword from the stone to become King, and the opposite trope when his power is broken at Camlann.
• The Chronicles of Amber ends with the dawn of a new era, with Oberon's death clearing the way for one of his children to inherit the throne, and detente finally being reached between Amber and Chaos.
• In Courtship Rite, the discovery and decryption of the ancient document, The Forge of War, gives the Getans new insight into their history, and information about all sorts of useful Lost Technology.
• In Echoes of the Fourth Magic, nuclear war leads to an end of modern civilization. Angelic beings rescue some of the humans, however, and the world is born anew with magic and fantasy creatures.
• The Empirium Trilogy: The Fall of the Blood Queen stifled the empirium, rendering all elementals powerless and interrupting the hold any angels had on the human bodies they possessed. This would eventually usher in the reign of Corien the Undying Empire and his army of angels. In the new timeline, elementals are still rendered powerless except for Rielle's daughter, a deliberate choice on her part since she knows her daughter may need them one day.
• The Expanse just as humanity is reaching the limits of the solar system the protomolecule turns up, upsetting everything known about biology, chemistry, and physics. And that's before it forms the Ring and opens up a thousand new star systems.
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort's death spells the beginning of a new, more benign and just, era for the Wizarding World. Fittingly, the spoiled event takes place just before dawn breaks.
• Hurray for the Dorchester!: At the end of the book, as the Dorchester is sleeping happily from successfully pulling two trains, it's stated that he "made a name for himself in history and brought the railway age to Canada", depicted by the Dorchester's dream being of a VIA Rail train.
• At the end of Clive Barker's Imajica comes the Reconciliation, allowing beings to travel freely between the five Dominions. People get used to this surprisingly fast.
• The Lord of the Rings depicts the End of the Third Age and the passing of many things both evil and good, but it is also the beginning of the Fourth Age of Mankind — which need not be a Bad Thing.
• In Warrior Cats: Bramblestar's Storm, Bramblestar adds a new rule to the warrior code: in times of trouble, Clan cats must forget their rivalries and help each other. When the danger passes, then they can split apart again. This is triumphant concerning that for twenty-four books, the Clans had been learning to work together.
• In The Wheel of Time, this is combined with End of an Age; while the current Age is coming to an end, a new one is beginning, new Talents of the Power are being discovered, and vast advances in technology are being made. One character even lampshades it while watching a demonstration of the world's first ever cannon: "The world just changed in a very big way." The point of the series, of course, is that the Wheel never stops turning.
• The ending of the The Troy Saga is combined with an End of an Age. As prophesized by many seers and Kassandra, the war between Troy and the Mykene has devastated both kingdoms and their respective allies with the volcanic eruption at Thera laying waste what's left of many of the survivors. However the Distant Epilogue reveals refugees from the war end up making a new home at place called the Seven Hills Settlement, prophesized one day to become an eternal city.

Live-Action TV

• Babylon 5 begins with Londo Mollari saying in voiceover, "I was there at the dawn of the Third Age." In the episode, "Into the Fire" where Capt. Sheridan leads a united force against both the Vorlons and the Shadows. Where at the beginning of the series, G'Kar notes the younger species of Humans, Narns etc. could no more interact with their predecessors than ants could with them, now Sheridan is able to tell two such god-like species to vamoose. Both races decide to leave, and the Third Age has begun where the younger species now live on their own terms, free of such godlike interference. This example mixes in a bit of sadness, as the departing Precursors take a great deal of wonder with them as well.
• The Deuce is set in Times Square in 1971, depicting the dawn of the Golden Age of Pornography as courts start to throw out obscenity cases against porn and a new market is suddenly wide open.
• The premise of Earth: Final Conflict is that aliens have come and helped transform the world for the better, offering solutions to famine, disease, and other ills free of charge. Not only were they not here To Serve Man, and more amazingly, we didn't attack these peaceful aliens. However; something fishy was afoot, and you don't want to know what. Trust us, it's better if you ignore seasons 2+.
• The series finale of Gotham ends with Gordon looking up at the rooftops and recognizing that he and the good cops in the GCPD now have a new friend to keep the city safe.
• Smallville: In "Absolute Justice", Doctor Fate sees Clark as the herald of a new age of heroes:
  Doctor Fate: And when you show yourself to the world, it will be a different age than ours, Clark; a silver age of heroism that will start when they look up into the sky at you with hope for tomorrow. You will help everyone embrace it.
• Star Trek: Enterprise is set in the mid-22nd century, almost a century after humanity developed warp flight and made first contact with the Vulcans as seen in Star Trek: First Contact. At the time the series begins, Earth has developed the warp 5 engine, making interstellar exploration feasible for the first time in human history, and the Enterprise NX-01 is the first Earth starship of this type. With these innovations, Earth eventually grows into a major interstellar power, leading to the formation of the United Federation of Planets.
• Star Trek: Picard: The finale ends on a new era for Starfleet, as the threat of the Borg has finally and permanently been ended. Captain Riker announces this new era in his log:
  Riker: Captain's Log, Stardate...shall we say One? The first of a new day for friends both old and young...

Myths & Religion

• According to Christian tradition, the end of the Battle of Armageddon and the binding of Satan will bring about a thousand years of peace. Once those thousand years are up, however, the Devil will break free and go on a rampage. However, he'll quickly be subdued and then finally destroyed once and for all, at which point the new Golden Age of humanity will really get started!

Tabletop Games

• The Rocket Age begins with Einstein, Tesla, and Goddard building the world's first functional Rocket Ship and travelling to Mars. This really is the beginning of a new golden age for humanity and it is widely acknowledged by everyone that humanity is the species that will shape the current Age.
• Spirit of the Century treats the beginning 20th century this way (and, in its Backstory, the dawn of each century, and millennia, for that matter).

Video Games

• Dragon Age: Inquisition features two. One happens right at the beginning when most of the old power structures in the south of Thedas are unceremoniously blown up, and you and the Inquisition are left to pick up the pieces and save the world. The second comes at the end of the DLC Trespasser which is set a couple of years after Inquisition ends and The Magic Comes Back is set up as a very ominous future.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VI ends with a combination of this and The Magic Goes Away; Kefka is dead, and the ruined world is finally free to rebuild, but the power of magic is lost forever.
  • Final Fantasy XIII covers the end of Cocoon, where fal'Cie ruled humanity and the birth of a new human civilization on Gran Pulse, free of fal'Cie (and particularly Lindzei's) rule.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: The vanilla campaign of the relaunched game, A Realm Reborn, ends with the leaders of the Eorzean Alliance proclaiming the end of the Seventh Umbral Era, a five-year-long age of calamity since the original game's Colony Drop, and the beginning of a more peaceful age, the Seventh Astral Era.
• God of War III: The end has this and an End of an Age. The age of Greek Myth, with its gods and monsters all dead, is over and the world is on the brink of ruin. Even the Fates are gone. But in his final moments, Kratos released the power of Hope, a power great enough to kill gods, to humanity. The survivors will be able to rebuild civilization free of the gods' influence and as masters of their own destiny.
• Heroes of Might and Magic IV has this as its Central Theme. In the wake of the world of Enroth's destruction, those who managed to escape in time to the world of Axeoth must rebuild without repeating the mistakes of the past:
  • In "The True Blade", Sir Lysander founds a small kingdom mostly made of refugees from Erathia but clings to the past out of honor by refusing to officially become king, insistent that only a true Gryphonheart can rule. This leads to problems when a usurper seeks to claim the throne wielding the supposed Ancestral Weapon of the Gryphonhearts. It ends with Lysander drawing the true blade, which reveals that he is a Gryphonheart. Thus begins the reign of King Lysander Gryphonheart.
  • In "A Pirate's Daughter", Tawni Balfour's goal is to surpass her infamous pirate father and become the Pirate Queen of the Seas in the new world. She succeeds and even reunites with her true father in the process.
  • In "Elwin and Shaera", Elwin would like nothing better than to spend carefree days with his lover Shaera. However, a scheming and jealous rival who would do anything to have Shaera for himself stands in his way. This eventually leads to Elwin becoming the new Elf King. When given the opportunity to execute his rival for his many crimes, Elwin instead shows mercy believing there's been enough death.
  • In "Half-Dead", Gauldoth Half-Dead must find a balance between Life and Death if he is to survive in the new world as a half undead being. After many trials and battles, he succeeds. He builds a kingdom where the dead and the living can exist side by side and whose subjects revere him as "Father Gauldoth". A kingdom which he plans to peacefully rule forever.
  • In "Glory of Days Past", the Immortal Hero Tarnum and his adopted son Waerjak must unite the scattered remnants of their people and make them into a kingdom. All without repeating Tarnum's past mistakes as Barbarian King. They succeed, with Waerjak proving himself to be a worthy ruler who is both strong and wise. Tarnum at long last earns his redemption and passage into the afterlife, only to decide that he would rather stay and spend more time among the people he's spent his entire life helping as the Immortal Hero.
  • In "The Price of Peace", Emilia Nighthaven struggles to build a better life for those who chose to follow her. Standing in her way is Gavin Magnus, the immortal former ruler of Bracada who was so traumatized by the destruction of Enroth that he has hatched upon an insane scheme to ensure nothing like that ever happens again by erasing free will, and his loyal servant the legendary genie Solymr. Solymr ultimately realizes that he cannot allow Gavin to erase free will and finds a loophole in his oath of loyalty to aid Emilia. They defeat the insane monarch, ensuring the prosperity and freedom of the new kingdom of Great Arcan.
• The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon: In the after-credits scene, with Malefor defeated and the war brought to a close, civilization can begin rebuilding in a Shattered World, and the Chronicler says that it is time for a new era to begin, and, as such, wishes to pass the title of Chronicler over to Ignitus.
• Mass Effect 3 has an opening crawl in which First Contact between humanity and the many other species of the galaxy is said to be one of those — yeah, it did start with a short and brutal war, but it was called off quickly, and thirty years later humans and turians are sort of Vitriolic Best Buds. Then the Reapers came to ruin everything. The endings, particularly in the Extended Cut, can show another dawn on a much larger scale, if Shepard really hauled ass. The krogan may have started their cultural renaissance, moving beyond brutishness. The quarians and geth may share Rannoch peacefully. Depending on the ending, the Reapers might be part of it too.
• Total War: Attila: The campaign pack Age of Charlemagne sees the rise of the eponymous King Charlemagne at the very dawn of the medieval age.
• A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: Making Somnians equal with Lydians at the end of the Time Skip. King Albus rejects the long-standing association of Balfur with the Church, and as a result (and, in fact, the primary goal) accepts Somnians into Balfur as humans, just like Lydians. So far, though, the only one who has taken advantage of this is Ivy.
• The setting of Armored Core 3 has humanity flee the surface, made unhabitable due to a terrible war, to live in an underground society where it has been ruled since times immemorial by an AI know as The Controller. In the ending, the player character destroy The Controller, who execute its final directive: it opens the shutters to the surface, letting humanity repopulate a healed Earth.
• Sonic Frontiers acts as this for its series on multiple levels. At the end of the game, after spending much of the story deconstructing the series' status quo, the story ends with Knuckles, Amy, and Tails all going off on their own individual journeys to grow in their own ways, beyond their bonds with Sonic. It also marks the beginning of a whole new storyline for the series as a whole, having dealt with the ancient evil (THE END) that caused the beginnings of the series by causing the Chaos Emeralds to end up on Sonic's world in the first place.

Western Animation

• At the end of Book Two of The Legend of Korra, Korra decides that Big Bad Unalaq had a point: Avatar Wan separating the Spirit World and the material world from each other was not necessarily a good thing. Declaring that the Avatar should no longer be the bridge between the two worlds, she keeps the portals open, allowing spirits and humans to cross freely between worlds.
  • Then at the start of Book 3, Zaheer gives a slightly Ironic Echo speech that somewhat mirrors Korra's speech at the end, saying that this era would be the end of the White Lotus and the end of the Avatar.

Real Life

• A darker example occurred on the 16th of July, 1945 (at 5:29 AM) with the successful test of the first nuclear bomb at Trinity. It would be followed shortly after by the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and with them the Cold War and arms race as the threat of nuclear war suddenly entered the public consciousness worldwide. In an interview conducted for the 1965 documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb, Robert Oppenheimer reflected on the events of that day by stating that "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent," famously comparing it to a scene from the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna reveals his dominion over death and destruction.
  "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
• Pretty much the case with a major extinction, while it is bad for the organisms undergoing extinction, good comes out of it and life radiates yet again.
  • A few billion years ago certain bacteria pumped oxygen into the air, caused a lot of life to go extinct. However, the new ones flourished in the oxygenated air. About 250 million years ago, the Permian extinction, which was caused by severe volcanic eruptions in Siberia, led to almost all land life to die out, and led to the Dinosaurs flourishing for around 200 million years afterward. An asteroid wiped out the majority of them and mammals and birds (avian dinosaurs) took over in the past 64 million years.
• The invention of the printing press, the radio, the television and the Internet. All of which has lead into a new era of entertainment that changed forever.
• Likewise to the example of life above, the Universe has seen the dawn and dusk of several eras since the Big Bang, marked by among other things the separation of the four known fundamental forces, the appearance of matter —and antimatter, the formation of stars and galaxies, and finally the emergence of dark energy.

Subversions:

Anime & Manga

• In Galaxy Express 999, the worlds of the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies mostly see the Machine Empire's rising transhumanist New Order this way. Unfortunately for them.

Film — Live-Action

• MonsterVerse:
  • In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), the return of dozens of slumbering Titans to the world is made out to be inevitable with manmade nuclear radiation and environmentally-destructive practices drawing them out of their rest, and it's only a matter of when rather than if they return, and whether humanity will find ways to cohabit the planet with the creatures or we'll secure our own destruction by them. King Ghidorah — aided in no small part by the military trying to field test their plan to kill all Titans in their sleep with apocalyptic results — forces all the known Titans around the world to wake up at once, and under his command they've destroyed cities around the world and killed millions before Godzilla manages to take back his kingship and pacify the awakened Titans. The Creative Closing Credits clarify that the calmed Titans are still roaming the globe, and their presence has halted and reversed the effects of manmade global warming and has been an ecological boon for life on the planet, also granting humanity clean, green alternative resources on which to flourish. Meanwhile, Monarch is working towards being more transparent with the public after their previous secrecy fanned the flames of distrust and skepticism towards the idea of coexisting with Titans, and the scientific community are by all accounts working toward re-discovering and learning from our prehistoric ancestors' earlier cohabitation of the world with beneficial Titans, as well as working on exploring the Hollow Earth after Monarch verified its existence during the film. In The Stinger, a Mexican fisherman comments it's "a brave new world" and refers to Godzilla's actions as "the rise of the King."
  • Five years later in Godzilla vs. Kong and its novelization: all of the pacified Titans have slunk back into the dormancy that they sprung from, humanity has since been going back to their old ways of over-exploiting the environment, the positive outlook on Titans at the previous film's ending seems to reverse in response to Godzilla's Pensacola attack, and Monarch is being secretive once more and has covered up the proof of the Hollow Earth's existence.

Theatre

• In Pippin, Pippin becoming King is presented as the dawn of a more peaceful era in the song "Morning Glow," but this impression turns out to be mistaken.

Video Games

• The main quest of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is about the End of an Age, namely the defeat of Dagoth Ur and the "casting down" of the "false gods" of the Tribunal, and the dawn of a new era for Morrowind and the Dunmeri people. Defeating Dagoth Ur frees Vvardenfell from the threat of his Body Horror-causing Corprus Disease, his nightmarish and maddening dreams, as well as destroys the Sixth House Cult which was disrupting Imperial affairs on the island (and was the official reason for the Emperor sending the Nerevarine in the first place). The Nerevarine successfully unites the three warring Great Houses of Vvardenfell as Hortator and the four Ashlander tribes as Nerevarine. The Tribunal expansion brings about the deaths of two members of the Tribunal, while the third, Vivec, disbands the corrupt and militant Church Police while promising to use his remaining divine power (allowed to him thanks to the faith of his followers) to help those in need. All is well, right? Not so much... As revealed in later works in the series, the Nerevarine cutting off Vivec from the source of his power indirectly causes the Ministry of Truth to resume its fall with its original momentum. This causes Red Mountain to erupt, destroying most of Vvardenfell while rendering much of mainland Morrowind uninhabitable due to chocking ash. The Argonians, a former Slave Race to the Dunmer, then invade southern Morrowind in revenge for centuries of slavery, forcing the remaining Dunmer inhabitants to flee. Some 200 years later, the Dunmer are still Fighting for a Homeland, with the bulk of their population now living in Skyrim as second class citizens to the native Nords or on the barren, frozen rock of Solstheim. It is a "new era" for the Dunmer people, but not one they would have wanted.
• The great conflict of Golden Sun: The Lost Age, over whether to restore the power of Alchemy to the world and risk it falling into the hands of evildoers or to let the world rot without Alchemy, is ultimately resolved in favor of restoring Alchemy by the heroes. The Lost Age ends on a relatively hopeful note: the parents come back, Alex's plans to gain the power of the Golden Sun are thwarted, and now the world can return to its former glory, right? Golden Sun: Dark Dawn begins thirty years later and stars the Spin-Offspring... fighting new evils powered by Alchemy and newly-restored ancient Magitek. Oh, and Alex is alive and well as a demi-god.
• The ending of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning sees the end of Fate. Together with the surge of magical potential among the mortal races marks the beginning of the Age of Heroes. It's not all good news though. The Fae and their magic are also slowly fading from the world. The Great Cycle has been broken, rendering them mortal for all intents and purposes. Many of the Fae encountered in-game know all too well that their time has passed.

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