History Main / TheMorlocks

* The Falmer of ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' are an almost perfect example of Morlocks. Thousands of years ago, they were [[OurElvesAreDifferent a race of Mer (Elves)]] with a sophisticated culture who ruled over the lands of Skyrim. However, they would clash with the ancestors of the [[HornyVikings Nords]], who were arriving on their shores in droves from the [[GrimUpNorth freezing-over continent of Atmora]]. Ysgramor, an Atmoran leader, would rally 500 of Atmora's greatest warriors and lead them on a crusade to [[FinalSolution exterminate the Falmer]]. He succeeded in destroying their civilization, driving the survivors to beg for help from another subterranean race of elves, the [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Dwemer]]. The Dwemer agreed to take them in, but dosed them over the course of generations with a [[DevolutionDevice special toxic fungus]] that turned them into a blind, half-witted SlaveRace. They eventually TurnedAgainstTheirMasters, though the revolution suddenly ended when all the Dwemer AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. The Falmer spent the next several millennia dwelling in the decaying ruins of the Dwemer's underground cities and occasionally raiding the surface, but never regained their eyesight or intelligence.

** In the supplement ''Races of Destiny'', there are the Sharakim, who look like horned orcs and are seen as sub-human because of it, but are a subversion. They actually are "tainted" humans and are generally LawfulGood, while having a thriving arts and culture to show their difference from ''normal'' orcs.
** Grimlocks, originally from the 1E ''Fiend Folio'', are a more straightforward version of this trope, though it's not entirely clear if they were originally human (it's usually a DependingOnTheWriter thing). They have stone-gray skin, sharp teeth, and [[EyelessFace no eyes whatsoever]]; they rely on SuperSenses of touch, smell, and hearing to get around in the darkness. Their [[ToServeMan cannibalistic tendencies]] and lack of sight make them popular servants with {{medusa}}s (who like having minions that can't get turned to stone by their gaze) and [[{{Cthulhumanoid}} mind flayers]] (who only eat the brains of their victims and leave the rest to the grimlocks).

** Albino wyrms are descended from dragons who got trapped in the Underdark, and are now pale creatures with vestigial wings and no magic beyond their BreathWeapon. Though still brilliant, to some degree, albino wyrms are so far gone that they can barely express a coherent thought.

** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'': The skulks arose in much the same fashion as Morlocks, being descended from humans who escaped slavery at the hands of various evil Underdark creatures but couldn't find their way back to the surface. An enigmatic Neutral deity of caverns and darkness taught them a spell granting superior stealth and senses, the better to endure their incredibly-hostile new environment, but overuse turned its recipients permanently into skulks.
** Also from the ''Realms'' are maurs, the descendants of a band of [[OurGiantsAreDifferent storm giants]] who were banished to the Underdark for a long-forgotten crime. Thousands of years spent underground have left them stooped albinos... but in a subversion of this trope, they've worked to retain as much of their former culture as possible, and are nowhere near as savage as they appear. Given sufficient room, maurs can even straighten up to their full height ("an agonizing, joint-popping experience," though one that they relish) and gain hefty stat boosts, and can also use their ancestors' signature [[ShockAndAwe lightning magic.]]

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': The lower levels of the global city that covers Coruscant are an all-too-literal underworld of collapsed buildings, flooded passages and lightless spaces, which the residents of the upper layers avoid for a large number of reasons. One of these reasons is the presence of the Cthon, ghoulish humanoids descended from humans who were forced to live in the city's depths and eventually degenerated into eyeless, pale-fleshed and primitive beings, which now haunt the deepest, lightless parts of the planet's urban sprawl and will readily try to catch and eat any surface-dweller who stumbles into their gloomy domain.

* In ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'', the Outcasts are a tribe living beneath [[DownTheDrain Freeway 42]]. They are the remnants of their former selves that survived [[UnwillingRoboticization Mechanika Virus]] deadly effects, and chose to remain in their UndergroundCity without any advancement towards the surface and before long, some of them are DrivenToMadness when their bodies become too unstable.

* In the anime of ''Literature/FromTheNewWorld'' the Bakenezumi are anthropomorphic rodent beings which live in servitude to the psychically powered humans, [[spoiler: then it is revealed that they've been aiming to overthrow humans all along, and furthermore it's revealed that they are the mutated descendants of the percentage of humans who didn't have psychic abilities.]]

* The Trench of ''Film/Aquaman2018'' are this together with a side-serving of XenomorphXerox, in that they are claimed to be descended from a lost tribe of Atlantis who subsequently devolved into more feral, omnivorous beings. They are so devolved that the Trident of Atlan can command them the same way it does the other non-sapient aquatic life.
* The mutants in ''Film/BeneathThePlanetOfTheApes'' are subterranean humans, but they get unusual psychic abilities and are explicitly the product of nuclear fallout.
* The creatures in ''Film/{{CHUD}}'' are morlock-like.
* The monsters in ''Film/DarkHeritage'' are a particularly animalistic version of this subterranean trope.
* In ''Film/DeathLine'', a CannibalClan is hiding in the London underground system, the result of an 19th-century dig accident trapping a bunch of male and female workers in the tunnel system. By the time of the events in the film, there are only two exceedingly sickly, barely-human descendants remaining.

* The Hunters in ''Film/{{Pandorum}}'' are very similar to the Morlocks, and even used [[PropRecycling the heads of the Morlock costumes]] from ''Film/TheTimeMachine2002''. [[spoiler:Their evolution was manipulated and their ancestors were trapped on a ''spaceship'' rather than underground.]]

** The Cynidiceans, from ''Basic D&D'' module "The Lost City", can be considered the in-universe ''precursors'' to this trope: formerly surface-dwelling humans who have adapted to life underground by developing infravision and the loss of pigmentation, but haven't (yet) degenerated so far as to turn cannibal. They ''do'' spend most of their lives drugged out of their minds on fungal narcotics and are dominated by the cult of an EldritchAbomination that's urging on their decline, so barring intervention from outside, they'll probably sink that low eventually.

* The Morlocks in ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'', the TropeNamers, are actually the more advanced race, providing all the food and luxuries the mentally deficient Eloi depend on, essentially farming the child-like Eloi like cattle. They're supposed to be descended from the working classes of modern-day societies, who, as class divides grew sharper, spent more and more time underground tending to industry and machinery. Over time, they evolved into a race of pallid troglodytes who kept the machines running out of instinct as much as anything, still tending to the descendants of the indolent upper classes (who they over time adapted to feed on).
* Subverted in ''Literature/TheTimeShips''. After the time traveler accidentally changes history, advanced Morlocks live on the outside surface of a Dyson sphere, living in darkness because it allows a better view of the universe. Meanwhile the "new Eloi", basically standard humans, are busy blowing themselves to bits in pointless wars on the interior of the sphere (where they can see the sun). At the end of the book, the time traveler [[spoiler: vows to try and view the original Morlocks as potential sapient allies and goes to try and deal with them]].

* The Trench of ''Film/Aquaman2018'' are this together with a side-serving of XenomorphXerox--in that they are claimed to be descended from a lost tribe of Atlantis who subsequently devolved into more feral, omnivorous beings. They are so devolved that the Trident of Atlan can command them the same way it does the other nonsapient aquatic life.

%%

* ''Film/TheDescent'' has the Crawlers, pale carnivorous hominids who have adapted to living underground but have become mindless predatory animals. H.G. Wells also happens to be one of Neil Marshall's favorite writers.

* The Hunters in ''Film/{{Pandorum}}'' are very similar to the Morlocks, and even used [[PropRecycling the heads of the Morlock costumes]] from the 2002 adaptation of ''The Time Machine''. [[spoiler:Their evolution was manipulated and their ancestors were trapped on a ''spaceship'' rather than underground.]]
%%* [[Film/TheTimeMachine1960 1960]] and [[Film/TheTimeMachine2002 2002]] adaptation of ''The Time Machine'' of course.
* The Trench of ''Film/Aquaman2018'' are this together with a side-serving of XenomorphXerox--in that they are claimed to be descended from a lost tribe of Atlantis who subsequently devolved into more feral, omnivorous beings. They are so devolved that the Trident of Atlan can command them the same way it does the other nonsapient aquatic life.

* Creator/HPLovecraft:
** The creatures in "Literature/TheLurkingFear" are somewhat like Morlocks as they are carnivorous de-evolved apelike humans. However, [[spoiler:it's not social class and evolution that turned them into this, but [[InbredAndEvil generations of inbreeding]]]].
** One of Lovecraft's earliest stories, "The Beast in the Cave", tells of an encounter between a lost cave-explorer and an ape-like subterranean creature he ''thinks'' is this trope -- [[spoiler:at least, until the dying creature utters a few final sounds, revealing itself to be an ordinary man who'd been lost in the vast, pitch-black caverns so long that he'd reverted to animal-like behavior]].
** They certainly didn't ''build'' the place, but the pre-human Antarctic ruins from ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'' are home to hulking, eyeless, albino bipeds that creep out members of the expedition who encounter them. [[spoiler: They're giant penguins, and much less bizarre than the city's actual builders.]]
* The "Children of the Night" from Creator/RobertEHoward's stories are the degenerate subterranean descendants of a primitive people driven underground by the arrival of the Picts in the British Isles. Many of Howard's period stories from Celtic times features these dwarfish, hissing mini-Morlocks as a menace, and by the 20th century [[spoiler: they've diminished and inbred until only one remains, which looks more like a ''snake'' than a human.]]

* In the writings (and [[ConspiracyTheory conspiracy theories]]) of Creator/RichardSharpeShaver, the Earth was once inhabited by [[BenevolentPrecursors the Titan and Atlan races]], but they abandoned the planet after the sunlight became too toxic to them. However, some of them - already corrupted by the toxins - remained on Earth as the degenerate, shriveled creatures known as "dero". Over the centuries, humans started discovering the ancient [[UndergroundCity cavern-cities]] of the Titans and Atlans and experimenting with their technology, but - not properly understanding how to use it or maintain the all-important radiation filtration devices - they were gradually corrupted into new generations of deros. "Dero" is short for "detrimental robot", because, while still organic life forms, they have a robot-like lack of free will, and are slaves to the impulse rays and corruptions of the detrimental energy they have absorbed. Driven entirely by unthinking malice, the deros use the ancient technology to wreak as much havoc as possible on the surface world.
* ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'':
** The Morlocks in the original novel, the {{Trope Namer}}s, were actually the more advanced race, providing all the food and luxuries the mentally deficient Eloi depended on, essentially farming the child-like Eloi like cattle. They were supposed to be descended from the working classes of modern-day societies, who, as class divides grew sharper, spent more and more time underground tending to industry and machinery. Over time, they evolved into a race of pallid troglodytes who kept the machines running out of instinct as much as anything, still tending to the descendants of the indolent upper classes (who they over time adapted to feed on).
** Subverted in ''Literature/TheTimeShips'' by Creator/StephenBaxter. After the time traveler accidentally changes history, advanced Morlocks live on the outside surface of a Dyson sphere, living in darkness because it allows a better view of the universe. Meanwhile the "new Eloi", basically standard humans, are busy blowing themselves to bits in pointless wars on the interior of the sphere (where they can see the sun). At the end of the book, the time traveler [[spoiler: vows to try and view the original Morlocks as potential sapient allies and goes to try and deal with them]].

[[folder:Live-Action Television]]
* ''Series/BlakesSeven'': The artificial planet Terminal is created to [[EvolutionPowerUp study the future evolution of Mankind]]. Turns out it's a [[FuturePrimitive vicious ape-like creature]]. In an inversion of this trope, the scientists who study them live in an underground base, while the Links roam the surface.

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' has the more dangerously primitive Orcs of the Second Age, who are pale-skinned and sensitive to sunlight, living underground and having to cloak themselves when venturing above ground. Their origins are quite sinister, they were once Elves from subcontinent of Beleriand, who got enslaved, tortured and experimented on by Morgoth. Galadriel calls them "Moriondor", meaning the first Orcs.

** The much-maligned episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E1SpocksBrain Spock's Brain]]" also inverts the TropeNamer. The Eymorg, a LadyLand of [[BrainlessBeauty beautiful but childlike women]] who live in an automated UndergroundCity, abduct the Morg, the male {{Future Primitive}}s who live on the desolate surface of the planet (though it appears they use them for servants and procreation rather than food). The women aren't simple because they're women, but because thousands of years in a physical LotusEaterMachine has atrophied their intelligence; otherwise, it takes MenAreStrongWomenArePretty to an extreme.

* The thematic play ''Theatre/{{Brand}}'' by Creator/HenrikIbsen has a vision how of regular humans will evolve. It starts out with an idea of "eartbound thralls", gradually devolving into something similar to Morlocks (Brand actually uses the term Dwarfs, but the description fits), all in the mind of the titular character, who has a really grim view of where history is leading mankind.

* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'', the Falmer of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' are an almost perfect example of Morlocks. Thousands of years ago, they were [[OurElvesAreDifferent a race of Mer (Elves)]] with a sophisticated culture who ruled over the lands of Skyrim. However, they would clash with the ancestors of the [[HornyVikings Nords]], who were arriving on their shores in droves from the [[GrimUpNorth freezing-over continent of Atmora]]. Ysgramor, an Atmoran leader, would rally 500 of Atmora's greatest warriors and lead them on a crusade to [[FinalSolution exterminate the Falmer]]. He succeeded in destroying their civilization, driving the survivors to beg for help from another subterranean race of elves, the [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Dwemer]]. The Dwemer agreed to take them in, but dosed them over the course of generations with a [[DevolutionDevice special toxic fungus]] that turned them into a blind, half-witted SlaveRace. They eventually TurnedAgainstTheirMasters, though the revolution suddenly ended when all the Dwemer AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. The Falmer spent the next several millennia dwelling in the decaying ruins of the Dwemer's underground cities and occasionally raiding the surface, but never regained their eyesight or intelligence.

* ''VideoGame/TimeSlip'' have a stage set in a BadFuture where you travel to New York, decades ''after'' humans lose a war to the Tirmatian aliens. The city is in ruins and the streets are crawling with furry, shaggy-haired Morlocks who used to be the citizens, for starters.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'''s ''Warlords of Draenor'' expansion introduced the Pale orcs, inhabiting many of the planet's cave systems. In a ritual intended to connect a new orc shaman with the elemental spirits, some initiates inadvertently contact evil voices from the darkness instead. This destroys their sanity, and their clans exile them into the wilds out of fear of their mental state. Over time the exiles gathered into loose underground colonies, and after tapping into a direct source of the same magic that touched their minds, have been grotesquely transformed. The previously hulking orcs have inherited the build and posture of [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Gollum]], their deep brown skin has lost most of its pigment, and they possess GlowingEyesOfDoom, {{Throat Light}}s, and VolcanicVeins. They are known to eat captured surface-dwellers alive.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': Spoofed through the Dumblocks is the episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS6E7TheLatePhillipJFry The Late Philip J. Fry]]". The gang is on a forward-only time machine looking for a backwards time machine, and comes to the year 5,000,000, when humanity has split into two races: a foot-tall, bright pink and highly advanced species and the Dumblocks, "stupid, vicious brutes, who live underground." The Eloi-like race says they could have a backward-going time machine ready in five years. The gang returns five years later to find that the Dumblocks have taken over and killed all the other humanoids.

* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': In "Rickdependence Spray", Rick and Morty seek help from cannibalistic horse people living underground for assistance in killing all the evolved sperm.
* In one episode of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'', "The Conquerors of the Future" they meet {{exp|y}}ies of Morlocks, called Barlocks. They are otherwise identical and trying to break in and attack the [[DomedHometown domed cities]] of the normal-looking people of the year 3000.

Morlocks are a monster archetype like [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]] and [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies]]. In contemporary versions, Morlocks (also called [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons grimlocks]], [[Literature/TheDescent hadals]], [[Film/TheDescent crawlers]], [[Film/{{Pandorum}} hunters]], Film/{{CHUD}}s,[[note]]short for "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers"[[/note]] etc.) are usually descended from humans who became trapped underground by mischance or were driven into hiding there by their enemies. The low-light environments where these creatures live often lead them to develop InnateNightVision (perhaps enabled by {{glowing|EyesOfDoom}} and/or bulging eyes), or to lose their eyesight (sometimes [[EyelessFace along with their eyes!]]) in favour of BizarreAlienSenses like echolocation. Another common Morlock trait is albinism (since less sun means less need for melanin), which tends to overlap with AlbinosAreFreaks.

Morlocks are almost AlwaysChaoticEvil. They are often the byproduct of a SufficientlyAdvanced Society.

Compare their cousins the MoleMen, as well as FuturePrimitive and BatPeople. If your HumanSubspecies looks atavistic not because it's adapted to subterranean life but because it's retained ancestral primate features, see FrazettaMan. Also see CannibalClan and MadwomanInTheAttic.

This concept [[StealthPun evolved]] from the trope-naming Morlocks in ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'', hideous troll-like beings that haunt the night while the innocent Eloi culture sleeps. This situation was created as a blunt commentary on class division and the dehumanizing nature of industrial society. Morlocks continue to be applied towards similar ends in modern science fiction and fantasy. Morlocks may represent everything that science and art cannot redeem in the working class, a somewhat insidious remnant of Victorian phrenology and its ideas of EvolutionaryLevels that has left a huge impact in genre fiction. As literal embodiments of the dehumanized working class, they often [[PersecutionFlip prey on their former oppressors]].

** The much-maligned episode "Spock's Brain" also inverts the TropeNamer. The Eymorg, a LadyLand of [[BrainlessBeauty beautiful but childlike women]] who live in an automated UndergroundCity, abduct the Morg, the male {{Future Primitive}}s who live on the desolate surface of the planet (though it appears they use them for servants and procreation rather than food). The women aren't simple because they're women, but because thousands of years in a physical LotusEaterMachine has atrophied their intelligence; otherwise it takes MenAreStrongWomenArePretty to an extreme.
** In the episode "The Cloud Minders", the world of Ardana seems to be headed this way. The Troglodites are still recognizably the same species as the inhabitants of Stratos, but constant exposure to Zenite gas is gradually destroying their higher mental functions.

* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'', the Falmer of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' are an almost perfect example of Morlocks. Thousands of years ago, they were [[OurElvesAreDifferent a race of Mer (Elves)]] with a territory covering Skyrim and Solstheim, and who had a civilization that rivaled even the Altmer (High Elves). However, they would clash with the ancestors of the [[HornyVikings Nords]] who were coming over to Skyrim in droves from the [[GrimUpNorth freezing-over continent of Atmora]]. Ysgramor, an Atmoran leader, would rally 500 of Atmora's greatest warriors and lead them on a crusade to [[FinalSolution exterminate the Falmer]]. He almost succeeded, driving the survivors to beg for help from their [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Dwemer]] cousins. The Dwemer agreed to take them in, but forced them to eat toxic fungi that rendered them blind and decayed their minds, and which their physiology became dependent upon to survive.

** They certainly didn't ''build'' the place, but the pre-human Antarctic ruins from ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'' are home to hulking, eyeless, albino bipeds that creep out members of the expedition who encounter them. [[spoiler: They're giant penguins.]]

* In the anime of ''LightNovel/FromTheNewWorld'' the Bakenezumi are anthropomorphic rodent beings which live in servitude to the psychically powered humans, [[spoiler: then it is revealed that they've been aiming to overthrow humans all along, and furthermore it's revealed that they are the mutated descendants of the percentage of humans who didn't have psychic abilities.]]

* ''Comicbook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen '': An issue of ''Allan and the Sundered Veil'' deals with Morlocks.

* ''FanFic/KaijuRevolution'': [[https://www.deviantart.com/transapient/art/Kaiju-Revolution-Races-MORLOCK-834066907 The Morlocks]] are descended from members of an ancient and highly advanced human civilization who fled into space and formed an artificial planetoid around Jupiter after their original civilization collapsed when they tried and failed to control Earth's kaiju. Living in space for eons has caused them to develop a highly utilitarian insect-like FantasticCasteSystem with the different castes arising from a combination of natural selection and deliberate genetic alteration: The males serve as workers and soldiers with an animalistic intelligence on par with chimpanzees who [[MonstrousCannibalism consume their weak and dead]] in the name of efficiency which makes them closest to the traditional depictions, some individuals are cybernetically augmented to better specialize them for certain tasks. The females have their non-vital organs removed and become blind, immobile [[BabyFactory baby factories]]. Finally, there are the Controllers who claim to be the original founders of the Morlocks, they are able to extend their lifespans through various means (but this leaves some looking more inhuman) and consists of both males and females, they are also able to use telepathy to control the lesser castes. They are actually the most technologically advanced group in the setting as they posses ships capable of FasterThanLight travel and are heavily implied to be the source of Earth's UFO sightings.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3288 SCP-3288]] ("TheAristocrats") is a species of these dwelling in the underground of Central Europe, and one of the rare ''upper class'' cases. They are led by an [[AdiposeRex especially fat entity]] known as "Emperor Maximilian the Great".

Compare their cousins the MoleMen, as well as FuturePrimitive and BatFolk. If your HumanSubspecies looks atavistic not because it's adapted to subterranean life but because it's retained ancestral primate features, see FrazettaMan. Also see CannibalClan and MadwomanInTheAttic.

Compare their cousins the MoleMen, as well as FuturePrimitive. If your HumanSubspecies looks atavistic not because it's adapted to subterranean life but because it's retained ancestral primate features, see FrazettaMan. Also see CannibalClan and MadwomanInTheAttic.

Compare their cousins the MoleMen, as well as FuturePrimitive. If your HumanSubspecies looks atavistic not because it's adapted to subterranean life but because it's retained ancestral primate features, see FrazettaMan.

* In ''Literature/TheBookOfTheNewSun'', the mines in Severian's homeland are worked by completely nocturnal, aggressive ape-creatures. When Severian is attacked by a pack of them, he is shocked to see that they still have human eyes. Like many other things in the series, this may be a deliberate ShoutOut to classic science literature (in this case, to ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'').

* ''Series/TheGifted2017'', being set in the Marvel-verse, prominently features the Morlocks in the second season.

* In ''Literature/TheBookOfTheNewSun'', the mines in Severian's homeland are worked by completely nocturnal, aggressive ape-creatures. When Severian is attacked by a pack of them, he is shocked to see that they still have human eyes. Like many other things in the series, this may be a deliberate ShoutOut to classic science fiction (in this case, to ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'').