Markup View

Author: MartinTheMess

Apr 10th 2012 at 8:57:54 AM

Not involving humans, but the Krell in ForbiddenPlanet bent all their societal efforts and genius towards their great project to enable telepathic control over matter and energy, all powered by a machine that fills an underground cave 20 miles cubed.  And it worked, until they fell asleep, and their subconscious dreaming minds also turned out able to telepathically control the machine....self-genocide ensued.

Directly inspired by the Krell, in BabylonFive the Vorlons apparently suckered one or more species into pouring at least most of their energies and efforts into building the Great Machine on Epsilon III...which in this case was a time machine to pull Babylon Four through time to the distant past.

Parodied in one SMBC comic, in which God decides to punish humanity by deleting sex.  Cut to a man and woman sitting upright in bed, looking nonplussed.  A montage follows of them (and of course all other humans) studying fiendishly difficult mathematics and how to engineer around physics.  This project culminates years later...as armed trans-dimensional warships break into heaven and start slaughtering God and all his Angels in revenge.  Another SMBC comic that may be on a similar trope has the Dinosaurs developing space travel and counter-attacking the planet of Asteroids, who accept their fate as just revenge for the Chixulub Event.