History Main / InferredHolocaust

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': "Northwest Mansion Mystery" ends on a high note [[spoiler:except for the apocalyptic prediction made by [=McGucket=]]] with the townspeople now enjoying the party that had been promised to them generations ago, and Pacifica lifting a 150-year-old curse on her family. But as we've seen, her parents psychologically abused her into responding to a bell behind closed doors. So what do her parents have in store for her once everyone goes home for the night?

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' has this. In the wake of [[spoiler:Orphan]]'s death, [[spoiler:Cocoon falls quite a distance, which would have killed thousands, if not millions of people. Carbuncle, the fal'Cie which grew most of Cocoon's food, died]]. While Gran Pulse itself is not a wasteland, how quickly can a formally city dwelling people learn to live off the land without knowing what is safe to eat while fending off the many monsters than inhabit the surface? However, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' turns it into NoEndorHolocaust, which is subverted in ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'' by Vanille, who mentions the thousands of people that died due to her actions, which implies that there ''were'' casualties during the fall. ''XIII-2'' also confirms that people died in the fall. One sidequest involves bringing rare flowers to a man to give to his deceased niece.

The subversion of this trope is if the heroes [[WhatTheHellHero fully realize the effects of their actions]]... and [[IgnoredEpiphany choose to follow through anyway]]. Maybe they are [[SociopathicHero amoral sociopaths]] who do not care, maybe the OmniscientMoralityLicense makes it such that [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans the ultimate consequences will be preferable to the status quo]], or maybe things are beyond the GodzillaThreshold and so anything goes.

* Subverted and parodied by ComicBook/PlasticMan in ''Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'' ("Thank God for this crummy economy, or we'd never have [[ConvenientlyEmptyBuilding abandoned buildings]] to smash!") but also played straight in the same StoryArc, when Franchise/TheFlash saves an entire city from destruction without anyone thinking of the after-effects and homelessness of the inhabitants. Though the JLA was actually in the process of helping to rebuild the country at the end of that story; it's the reason that Plastic Man hadn't seen his son in months.

* In ''Film/EscapeFromLA'', Snake Plissken stops all electricity over Earth. Actually, it does not seem like anyone could really consider there to be any "winners" in that movie, unless you think that cutting the power was going to stop the world[[note]]and by 'the world' we mean 'the United States'[[/note]] from tearing itself apart. In the [[Film/EscapeFromNewYork original film]], Snake destroys the [[MacGuffin nuclear fusion tape]], sabotaging the post-war conference between the United States, the Soviet Union and China. (The novelization, [[AllThereInTheManual which gives a lot more background and character detail]], subverts this neatly: said tape in question is what the slimeball US President is hoping to use as an ace in the hole to force the Soviet Union and China into doing what ''he'' wants. Plissken's destruction of the tape isn't going to cause another war: it's just going to ensure that the balance of power remains unchanged and business carries on as usual.)

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' has this. In the wake of [[spoiler:Orphan]]'s death, [[spoiler:Cocoon falls quite a distance, which would have killed thousands, if not millions of people. Carbuncle, the fal'Cie which grew most of Cocoon's food, died]]. While Gran Pulse itself is not a wasteland, how quickly can a formally city dwelling people learn to live off the land without knowing what is safe to eat while fending off the many monsters than inhabit the surface? However, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' turns it into NoEndorHolocaust, which is subverted in ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'' by Vanille, who mentions the thousands of people that died due to her actions, which implies that there ''were'' casualties during the fall.
** ''XIII-2'' also confirms that people died in the fall. One sidequest involves bringing rare flowers to a man to give to his deceased niece.

* ''VideoGame/OdinSphere.'' Hoo boy, ''Odin Sphere''. Don't get too attached to the beautiful land of Erion, because it's gone at the end of the game, along with nearly everyone in it. Only four people are left alive, with the faint glimmer of hope that Gwendolyn and Oswald can at least re-populate the world. Might be a subversion though. We do get confirmation that they succeeded and the world was repopulated, during a secret scene in which Cornelius and Velvet likewise finally become free of the Pooka Curse.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'':
** In Episode 2 Old Man [=McGucket=] claims that he's [[spoiler:gone on murderous rampages in robots many times before and hasn't been caught]].
** Candy remarks that Several Timez "won't last a week" in the woods after Mabel lets them go. Subverted in that they live on garbage and have become scavengers.
** "Northwest Mansion Mystery" ends on a high note [[spoiler:except for the apocalyptic prediction made by [=McGucket=]]] with the townspeople now enjoying the party that had been promised to them generations ago, and Pacifica lifting a 150-year-old curse on her family. But as we've seen, her parents psychologically abused her into responding to a bell behind closed doors. So what do her parents have in store for her once everyone goes home for the night?
** At the end of "Not What He Seems", [[spoiler: some of Gravity Falls was destroyed, the government agents are still after Stan and now everyone in Gravity Falls is fully aware of the town's supernatural secret from the gravity anomalies]]. It does become subverted in the next episode when [[spoiler:the Pines (now including Ford) use the Memory Gun and a fake story to stop the government agents. The town rebuilds and the weirdness becomes an OpenSecret among the townspeople by the GrandFinale.]]

** Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'', and used as a source of major angst for the well-meaning but clumsy Bulkhead every time somebody needs a cheap excuse for him to get depressed. The humans of Detroit seem to actually waver between welcoming the Autobots as heroes and fearing them for all the property damage they cause, and one episode shows the Autobots helping to rebuild a bridge ''they'' destroyed.
** Lampshaded in a G1 parody in ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'', where Optimus proudly states that ''only'' fifty humans were killed in the crossfire of their latest engagement, a new record.

* {{Invoked|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne''. [[MultipleEndings Each ending]] (even the happiest of them all!) has some rammifications on either the main character, humanity or both. Though it's left up to the player to decide which path is the best and follow it.
* Similarly to ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', this was present in every ending of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney''. Chaos created a world of MightMakesRight where only the strong survive, which between the demons and the fact that anyone you meet might kill you to avoid you killing them, doesn't bode well for humanity. Law created a world where humanity was enslaved to simply worship God by Zelenin's song, but even beyond the death of free will, the song is not perfect. The angels themselves say it didn't work for them because humanity's heart changed too much, and in gameplay, it's simply an extremely powerful, high-chance Charm effect and vulnerable to all the usual counters to that. So what happens to the people it doesn't affect? Neutral strongly implies the Schwarzwelt will return, and that humanity will have grown too complacent from their previous victory to resist it. The updated rerelease for 3DS changes them from "inferred" to "canon" and offers you a chance to prevent them, with endings where, while things might still go badly for humanity, it's no longer the certainty it seemed in the original endings.

The subversion of this trope is if the heroes [[WhatTheHellHero fully realize the effects of their actions]]... and choose to follow through anyway. Maybe they are [[SociopathicHero amoral sociopaths]] who do not care, maybe the OmniscientMoralityLicense makes it such that [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans the ultimate consequences will be preferable to the status quo]], or maybe things are beyond the GodzillaThreshold and so anything goes.

* Between ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' and ''VideoGame/MOTHER3''. Because of the "End of the World" revealed by Leder, everyone from ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' and ''[=EarthBound=]'' died, excepting a select few. This includes the lovable Tendas, Ness and Ninten's families, Teddy, Ana, Paula, Loid, Jeff, Poo, and possibly the innocent Mr. Saturns, although it's possible that the Mr. Saturns came on their own "White Ship", or that the Tendas hid in the Lost Underworld. Because of the purposely ambiguous ending, it's left to the player to decide whether all these people come back to life or not. Of course, this all depends how long after ''[=EarthBound=]'' ''MOTHER 3'' takes place. So we KNOW about the Holocaust, it's just the inferred part is who died because of it.

**  In Sailor Moon R, Prince Endymion tells the present-Senshi and Tuxedo Kamen that one day a great disaster will overcome the Earth. He can't tell them when or where, only that Sailor Moon uses the Silver Crystal to save everyone, transform into Neo-Queen Serenity, and create Crystal Tokyo. It's highly possible that it may have wiped out the girls' families, given they are nowhere in sight in Crystal Tokyo. The Senshi miss the implications because Sailor Moon is more shocked that she will be Queen of the Earth. Endymion proceeds to outline that the Black Moon tried attacking twice, and were successful the second time in laying waste to the city. We see the damage, but no bodies or such. It is a bit sobering, however, that the other Inner Senshi are revealed to be the only intact survivors -- Endymion and Neo-Queen Serenity got badly knocked out and were rendered comatose, with Endymion using a hologram to talk to the Senshi and comfort Chibi-Usa. 

** In the [[Manga/SailorMoon manga]], at the end of the "Dream" arc, it's revealed that [[spoiler: the Amazoness Quartet are the Asteroid Senshi]]. Saturn was the only one who knew this before they [[spoiler: got purified]]. Afterwards, they reveal that they're [[spoiler: not supposed to be awake yet]], implying that their [[spoiler: celestial bodies]] are ''significantly'' younger than [[spoiler: the rest of the solar system]]. Again, ''Saturn was the only one who knew who they were'', and making things ''even better?'' She went in with the ''express purpose'' of [[MamaBear rescuing them.]]

** Galaxia´s conquests in general. Even a typical planet can have millions or billions of sentient people on it. The Milky Way has hundreds of billions of planets in it. Just how many quintillions of people did Galaxia murder along her devastating journey over so many sextillions of cultures, civilizations, nations, and ecosystems?