History Main / LateToTheTragedy

* Parodied in the ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' comic story "Death to the Doctor!", which '''ends''' with the Doctor arriving at an asteroid base strewn with corpses and lamenting that he wasn't there in time to prevent whatever happened happening. In the story the reader has just been [[BlackComedy laughing at]], a group of loser villains who gathered together at the base to [[LegionOfDoom plot to kill the Doctor]] killed each other in paranoia that he was already there.

* Rick Grimes' situation at the start of the ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead'', having been rendered comatose by a shotgun blast some time before the dead... well, [[ZombieApocalypse start walking]].
* There are a couple of points in ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'' where Something Bad goes down on the ''Lost Light'' (or, in one case, a duplicate ''Lost Light''), and our viewpoint character misses it: Tailgate misses Sunder's rampage in "Speak, Memory", while ''everyone'' shows up late to the "Slaughterhouse" incident. Subverted with First Aid and the Protectobots in "The Plotter's Club", however; they're living through showing up Late To The Tragedy ''again and again'', because Getaway has trapped them in a memory loop to keep them contained.

* In the pilot episode of ''Series/{{Crusade}}'', [[TheCaptain Gideon]] arrives to Earth days after the battle with the Drakh (see ''Series/BabylonFive: A Call to Arms''). All the crew see are ship wreckage and infected Earth. Matheson comments that they were late for the party even before they jumped. Then again, there's not much they could've done with a research vessel with only enough weapons to scare off an occasional [[SpacePirates raider]] or two.

* In Creator/KirBulychev's ''The City Above'', the Earth explorers are studying the centuries-old, nuked ruins on the surface. Meanwhile, HumanAliens struggle to survive underground. A "pipe-worker" fed up with this oppressive life leaves to search for "The City Above" or die trying. The book predates ''Literature/TheBooksOfEmber'' by three decades, but resemblance is coincidental.

* The alien in ''Film/TheThing1982'' got dug up by, and slaughtered, a [[strike:Swedish]] Norwegian expedition team before it found its way into the American outpost in Antarctica. The [[Film/TheThing2011 2011 prequel film]] shows what happened at the Norwegian outpost. Given that Creator/JohnCarpenter has admitted to being a fan of Creator/HPLovecraft, this could have been based on a scene from ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'', where the protagonist arrives at Lake's camp only to find it in ruins and everyone presumably killed by the Elder-Things.

* ''Series/Foundation2021'' has the Imperial warship Invictus found centuries after it had gone missing. It lives up to its reputation as a GhostShip by having all the onboard crew dead, the result of [[spoiler:a malfunction in it's navigation system which left it [[BlindJump jumping blind]] around the galaxy. Because HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace, the crew eventually went mad once they ran out of sleep drugs, and died in a combination of mutiny and hull-breach.]] When the protagonist boards it, it proves both dangerous and creepy with corpses and automated defenses everywhere.

* ''Literature/AngelsAndDemons'' has the heroes reaching each of the four cardinals less late each time, but too late to save them nonetheless.
** In the film version, Robert Langdon actually saves the fourth cardinal.

* In the book ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'' from ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', the characters arrive at the ruins of the castle, and, over the course of the book, discover that Narnia has been overthrown by evil forces and they have been summoned to save it. Classic.
* In Creator/KirBulychev's ''The City Above'', the Earth explorers are studying the centuries-old nuked ruins on the surface. Meanwhile HumanAliens struggle to survive underground. A "pipe-worker" fed up with this oppressive life leaves to search for "The City Above" or die trying. The book predates ''Literature/TheCityOfEmber'' by 3 decades, but resemblance is coincidental.

* In Creator/KirBulychev's ''The Last War'' (from Literature/DoctorPavlysh series), a joint expedition of humans and [[LizardFolk frog-like]] aliens goes to a planet whose HumanAlien natives have recently nuked themselves into extinction. The frog aliens have a device capable of restoring/cloning a living being based on a sufficiently intact body. The goal is to attempt to resurrect the race and help them rebuild their irradiated and poisoned world (one side used nukes, the other released a poison). [[spoiler:In the second half of the novel, they discover that the military junta that has started the war have survived in an underground bunker and are pissed off at the off-worlders for making themselves at home, threatening to launch more nukes if they don't leave]].

* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_%28interactive_novel%29#Novel Portal: A Dataspace Retrieval]]'' by Rob Swigart is a novelization of the 1986 ''Portal'' game above. One-man interstellar expedition returns after a century and finds that humans left Earth. He uses a computer terminal to figure where did everybody disappear.

* A very common occurrence for Subaru in ''Anime/ReZero''. Many times Subaru will enter a situation or area already devastated in one way or another and dies shortly afterward to try to prevent it.

-->'''Sergeant Apone:''' Sir, this place is dead. Whatever happened here, I think we missed it.

* ''Film/Apollo18'' On the Apollo 18 mission's second day on the moon, Spacecraft Commander Walker and and LEM Pilot Anderson discover and follow a set of spacesuit tracks to the landing site of a Soviet LK lunar lander. From there, the tracks go in circles, leading Walker to infer that a cosmonaut must have gotten disoriented somehow. The inside of the LK lander looks as though somebody went crazy with a hammer, and an open first aid kid is visible with multiple bloody dressings. Then Anderson finds the cosmonaut's body in a nearby crater, ''with his helmet off.'' The reason for all of this reveals itself over the next two days.

* The alien in Creator/JohnCarpenter's ''Film/TheThing1982'' got dug up by, and slaughtered, a [[strike:Swedish]] Norwegian expedition team before it found its way into the American outpost in Antarctica. The [[Film/TheThing2011 2011 prequel film]] shows what happened at the Norwegian outpost.
** Given John Carpenter has admitted to being a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, this could have been based on a scene from ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'', where the protagonist arrives at Lake's camp only to find it in ruins and everyone presumably killed by the Elder-Things.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink "Blink"]]: as told from the perspective of Sally Sparrow, she is learning of actions the Doctor took decades earlier. [[TimeyWimeyBall Which he hasn't done yet.]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary "Silence in the Library"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead "Forest of the Dead"]]: the Doctor and companion (and an archaeological expedition) arrive a century after the "event".
* "Eat Me", an [[OutOfGenreExperience unusual horror episode]] of ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', had the characters arriving on a GhostShip infested with cannibalistic zombie-like creatures, discovering the horrible cause of events, and fighting to get out alive.
* At the end of ''Series/{{Fargo}}'' Season 2, a little bit after the legendary [[ResolvedNoodleIncident Sioux Falls Massacre]], [[spoiler:Mike Milligan]] shows up, surveys the carnage, [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere and immediately decides to just drive away]].

** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "The Best Of Both Worlds: Part II", the ''Enterprise''-D arrives at Wolf 359 after the battle. [[CurbStompBattle The fleet it was supposed to join has been destroyed by the Borg]]. The shot of the ''Enterprise'' moving through the burning debris, while Ron Jones' score soars ominously, is haunting. We get a glimpse at what a hopeless battle it was in "Emissary", the pilot episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.

* ''Film/DeepRising'': The mercenaries were planning to rob the cruise ship and then sink it, but when they arrive the ship is deserted. All of the passengers were eaten while they were en route by a far more dangerous sea monster that is now infesting the ship.

* ''Film/DeepRising'': The mercenaries were planning to rob the cruise ship and then sink it, but when they arrive the ship is deserted. All of the passengers were eaten by a far more dangerous sea monster that is now infesting the ship while they were en route.

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* The last two episodes of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', with the narrative arriving late and [[spoiler: Instrumentality]] being the party. It probably happened while Shinji, who is kind of an AuthorAvatar, was sleeping after the end of the previous episode. [[spoiler:The second to last episode simply starts with Shinji confronting his own mind in Limbo, after all of humanity has been AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence.]]

* ''FanFic/SonicXDarkChaos'': When Sonic and his friends leave their world to find the Chaos Emeralds, they quickly discover that the galaxy is a largely ruined CrapsackWorld devastated by the thirty-year Metarex War, fought over by JerkassGods, and nearly wholly devoured by the Shroud.
* ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'': The four are sent to C'hou, specifically the continent of Baravada, when its entire (dysfunctional anarchistic dystopian/utopian) way of life is dying out. There are hints of a much more orderly past to the planet, especially the magnificent GhostCity of Ehndris and the implied behavior of the JerkassGods some centuries in the past.

* In ''Film/StarTrek2009'', the ''Enterprise'' prepares to warp to Vulcan when Starfleet gets a distress call from the planet. The ship prepares to warp with the rest of the fleet there, but suddenly stalls. As it turns out, replacement helmsman Sulu forgot to deactivate the external inertial dampeners (or as Captain Pike refers to it, "the parking brake"). [[spoiler:While it allows Kirk and Uhura to warn Pike of what may be there, it's too late for the other ships as the ''Enterprise'' arrives to a ship graveyard, the spacecraft destroyed by the ''Narada'']].

Looks like you were late to the new edit party....Do you want some cake? I baked it. Those monsters don't want it.

* ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'': Can you say "Assemble an away team to explore the derelict/ruin"? How about "Jim, this man is dead!"?
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "The Best Of Both Worlds: Part II", the ''Enterprise''-D arrives at Wolf 359 after the battle. [[CurbStompBattle The fleet it was supposed to join has been destroyed by the Borg]]. The shot of the ''Enterprise'' moving through the burning debris, while Ron Jones' score soars ominously, is haunting.

[[folder:Film]]