History Main / AbusivePrecursors

* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', it turns out the species that run the galactic wormhole network has been running their nefarious sentient trafficking operations for longer than any other living galactic civilization has been around. [[CloningBlues Every time someone goes through a wormhole, a gate clone is created.]] [[MoralEventHorizon Gate clones are fully aware, sentient, and retain the original's memories. Each gate clone is interrogated, killed, and dissected, not necessarily in that order. The knowledge is leveraged to manipulate things behind the scenes]]. The Gatekeepers justify these acts as necessary sacrifices to the apex predators of the Andromeda Galaxy, the [[EldritchAbomination Pa'anuri]], by ensuring that the Milky Way is a police state in a CosmicHorrorStory and the Pa'anuri don't view any of them as a threat. But the Gatekeepers are exactly as sociopathic, amoral, and greedy as you'd expect from a race that can kidnap, torture, and murder anyone they want on tap.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', [[{{Satan}} Unicron]] is this for all life on Earth. [[spoiler: He IS planet Earth (or at least, the center of it), and views the organisms that have come to live upon him while he slept much the same way as if you or I were to wake up covered in mosquitoes.]]

** The [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] and their [[ReligionOfEvil Dragon Cults]] ruled over mankind very early in Tamriellic history. The [[SinisterMinister Dragon Priests]] dominated and brutalized their mortal subjects in the name of their dragon overlords, particularly Alduin, the BeastOfTheApocalypse and "first born" of the dragons. Eventually, mankind prayed to the [[OurGodsAreDifferent Divines]] for aid and their prayers were answered when they were taught how to use the [[MakeMeWannaShout Thu'um]], the draconic LanguageOfMagic, against the dragons. Alduin was [[SealedEvilInACan cast out of the timestream]], the vast majority of his dragon minions were slain (albeit [[ResurrectiveImmortality temporarily]]), and the cults were overthrown. Thousands of years later, Alduin's return would lead to the return of all dragons and the events of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''.

*** Militant Isolationists/Fanatic Xenophobes are the most unambiguous. They ''will'' declare war on you if you colonise a planet too close to their borders, and they will genocide the population. If they awaken into Jingoistic Reclaimers, they'll actively try to conquer the galaxy, vassalising all the younger races and preventing them from making new colonies.

** Three of the precursors in-story were not nice at all. The Yuht attempted to exterminate all other intelligent life out of extreme xenophobia, the Irassians were so despised by their myriad vassals that they wiped them out with a plague, and the Cybrex were essentially genocidal robots, [[spoiler:though they had a moment of realisation and allowed the organic lifeforms to wipe them out of penance, and the survivors in the Contingency Crisis will make their own amends by helping you destroy the rogue machines.]]
** Even your star nation can become this through VideoGameCrueltyPotential. Primitive civilization? [[CurbStompBattle Destroy their military]] and enslave the populace. Pre-sentient life? Uplift them and use them as labourers or fodder in your wars. If you go the route of biological ascension, you can nerve staple them and permanently remove their ability to think. You can even genetically modify them to suit your purposes, be it assimilating them into your hive mind or combining the "Delicious" trait with wide-scale nerve stapling to turn them into docile livestock to provide food for your citizens!

[[folder:Real Life]]
* The "Deadly Probes Scenario", one explanation for the UsefulNotes/FermiParadox, is along these lines - there aren't any aliens because some ancient alien race released robots programmed to seek out and destroy intelligence. Mentioned [[http://www.davidbrin.com/xenology2.htm here]].
* Many (perhaps '''most''') of our ancestors (or [[AbusiveParents parents]]) would count as this [[ValuesDissonance by our standards]].
** It's very likely that WE may end up counting as this when our descendants study our lives and (hopefully) learn from our mistakes, and clean them up... or [[EvilCannotComprehendGood if they end up even worse and see our virtues as weakness]].
** If we drag our feet long enough about permanent radioactive waste disposal it will definitely be us. Some of the stop-gap solutions in place weren't even supposed to last this long.
** And now you can add climate change to the list of abuse.
[[/folder]]

** The very first red flag you encounter is the fact that ''they employ mind control with little to no restraint''. If you're wondering what the Corrupted are in Orokin towers? That's why.

** Humanity survived due to a rare exception: using Spiral powers, it was winning the war - until the Anti-Spirals explained the apocalyptic threat of the "Spiral Nemesis" scenario to the human leader. So they struck up a truce: the human leader killed his ''entire'' fleet, bombed Earth back to the stone age, and forced the survivors to live underground. The surviving human population would be culled so it never exceeded only one million worldwide, and in return the Anti-Spirals would leave the planet alone.

* The unknown alien species from ''Film/{{Supernova}}'' is smart enough to be able to encase "9th-dimensional matter in a 3rd-dimensional shell". This shell's energy has the effect of [[spoiler:a FountainOfYouth]] when touched. (Better than candy!) The real use for this artifact? To [[spoiler: blow up any civilization advanced enough to have developed star drive and reach the places where they've hidden these supernova causing weapons.]]

* ''Literature/TheExpanse'': The race that created the Protomolecule, [[spoiler:as well as the ring network, nicknamed the Ring Builders. As far as can be told, they were a hive-mind that was extraordinarily advanced, to the point that they were able to create wormholes and solar-system wide engineering. They did this by hijacking local ecosystems and using it to produce more Protomolecule, which would then create a ring for them to reach the star system with, though when they launched the Protomolecule towards Earth no complex lifeforms existed, and it's implied that the Protomolecule has had to make do with humans to rather horrific effect. They then got wiped out by [[PrecursorKillers the as-yet-unnamed, even more advanced precursor race]] capable of instantly destroying consciousness across entire solar systems. They've turned their sights on humanity as of Tiamat's Wrath after the Laconians sent an antimatter bomb at them.]]

** The Thrint in ''Literature/WorldOfPtavvs''. When their empire was threatened by a successful slave revolt, they went out in a blaze of spite, sending a telepathic blast that killed almost every intelligent being in the entire galaxy -- including themselves. It took ''a billion years'' for sentient life to evolve again. One story suggests they were not only abusive back then, but they also wanted to make sure they would get any pockets hiding for a thousand or million years after. This weapon exists until the modern day, and goes off from time to time, no longer able to kill all vertebrates, just anything that is sentient... The Thrint were notoriously stupid -- they relied on mindslaves for any task requiring much thought ''or'' effort. They were about as emotionally mature as you would expect from someone waited on hand and foot since birth by entire planets, too, explaining the vindictiveness.

* The Aldenata from Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/LegacyOfTheAldenata'', with new abuses added with every new novel. Some are negligent, some are abusive. They took the Space Elves and made them unable to kill, but did nothing to their instincts to dominate and control, so instead they [[CorruptCorporateExecutive seek economic domination of everyone]]. They convinced most of the other races if they wish to ascend they have to be PerfectPacifistPeople, knowing this is not only false, but other races who use rage in their mental powers exist and are actively looking for races to use as cannon fodder and slaves. They also convinced those child races that modifying a race against its will is a good thing, and they are doing it to humans. Oh and then there is the Posleen, where they took a race that was something like Ancient Greece and made them into a HordeOfAlienLocusts by making them breed often and quick, and so that 9/10 would be born with a form of intellectual disability except for genetic memories and gifts for things like agriculture. And when this [[GoneHorriblyWrong went horribly wrong]] they tried to shove them off on a prison planet, and after they escaped it became even worse as they started to actively harm them to try and contain them more. Like wrecking their cultural memory so instead of actively looking for their foes, they loot and breed and plunder everyone.
* Curiously mostly averted by the various {{Eldritch Abomination}}s (and semi-related StarfishAlien species) of Creator/HPLovecraft, most of whom are either too indifferent or too incomprehensible to truly qualify as "abusive on purpose". It's also not always clear how many of them (other than Azathoth, who apparently created the universe more or less by blind accident, and the Elder Things who in ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'' are credited with likewise somewhat accidentally being responsible for organic life on Earth) can truly claim "precursor" status.
* The Elder Races in ''Literature/LucifersStar'' are a bunch of SufficientlyAdvancedAlien post-Singularity races which have godlike powers as well as dwell near the galactic center. They're also tremendously ''bored'' with their lives and spend their time amusing themselves by screwing with the younger races ForTheEvulz.

* Francis Carsac's short story "In the Mountains of Destiny" is about a planet whose natives are going extinct from apathy. Turns out that there is a "temple" planted on their planet which shows every person their fate. Part of their initiation ceremony is going to it, after which [[PrescienceIsPredictable many commit suicide]]. Turns out it was an EvilPlan by a race which was about to go extinct, and didn't want anyone to replace them. The planet in question was at the level of Earth's sixteenth century by then. More advanced civilizations were destroyed outright.

* The Wolves/Inhibitors from Creator/AlastairReynolds' ''[[Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries Revelation Space]]'' novels ''seem'' to be this. They deliberately transformed themselves into (usually) nonsentient machines which act to prevent sentient life from spreading through the galaxy--typically by way of genocide, though they're sometimes willing to overlook planetbound life-forms. They do have a noble-sounding motivation--[[spoiler:they're trying to ensure the collision with the Andromeda Galaxy doesn't wipe out intelligence permanently and don't believe a multiple-species society can pull together to prevent the chaos ahead]]--but they've been slaughtering for billions of years, there are billions more to go, and it's questionable whether they really intended to end up this way.

* ''Literature/TheSalvationWar'': [[JerkassGods God]] created monotheistic religion to the sole purpose of being adored by the souls of the people lucky enough to be admitted in Heaven after death, and everyone who didn't adore him enough ended up in Hell to be tortured. Around a thousand years ago, he saw we were thinking with our heads and casting doubt on his word, so he closed the gates of Heaven to everyone (although this might have had to do with the fact that Earth stopped being CrapsackWorld enough for new arrivals to be happy with what was offered to them as "heaven"). Then, in the early 21st century, he [[KickTheDog ordered all of Mankind to lie down and die for our heresy]]. [[CurbStompBattle After kicking ass on]] TheLegionsOfHell, [[RageAgainstTheHeavens Man fought back with extreme prejudice]].

* In the ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series, the punishment for being Abusive to your client species is often extermination. Also, way back in prehistory, there was description of a group called "the Lions" who ignored the rules, ruled without any care of the potential species for millions of years (causing mass extinctions, which is tantamount to genocide for the Galactic Society of the Uplift universe), destroying lots of information about the past, and had to be put down by an alliance of Sentient Species which would have to rebuild so much lost information on Galactic Civilization and put in new safeguards.

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': The ancestors of the Southlanders stood with Morgoth in the War of Wrath a thousand of years before the current events. As such, their descendants lost their status, kingdoms and live in filthy towns, being watched by the Elves to make sure they don't repeat the mistakes of their precursors. The southlanders of the past build the watchtower of Ostirith holding a power fashioned for those tainted by the Shadow. Said power turns out to be an ArtifactOfDoom with which, Waldreg, a Southlander, managed to provoke Orodruin's eruption by activating an elaborate device hidden in Ostirith.

** In ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', the Iconians [[spoiler: aren't so extinct]] and apparently have been involved in [[spoiler: the [[Film/StarTrek2009 destruction of Romulus]], and the Undine and Borg issues plaguing the Alpha quadrant as of late.]] Even more, [[spoiler: The Guardian of Forever, the Prophets and even Kahless know of them and all agree that they're a bunch of dicks. So much so that the Guardian refuses to let them use him.]]

** The Illithids (Mind Flayers) in certain incarnations. [[{{Cthulhumanoid}} Squid-headed]] [[BrainFood brain-eating]] power-hungry masters of a multidimensional empire brought down by their own slaves. At least one story suggests they are actually thrown out of time. In one source book dealing with different blood ancestry gifts (stuff like having dragon descendants, etc.), Illithid blood powers are in the people who are the Illthids' ancestors. Thus, some humans are Abusive Precursors.

*** The demon Overlords were the first lords of the world, and some of their ruins still dot the land to this day. They were also immortal, inescapable {{Anthropomorphic Personification}}s of all the worst aspects of mortality, like endless war and a winter that kills all things. The only reason why mortals managed to survive at all is because most Overlords wanted to keep them around to give some meaning to their existences--the Rage of War could send his demons against other demons, but they were all immortal so it wasn't ''real''. They were bound by the sacrifice of the couatls, aided by the dragons.

** [[SpaceElves The Eldars]] are NeglectfulPrecursors who created the Eye of Terror and are now trying to survive and pay the price of their hubris in the past. The Dark Eldars though, are definitely Abusive as they do not seem to get that memo and instead continuing on their depravity of eons past. It's telling that in a setting populated by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, HordeOfAlienLocusts, {{Killer Robot}}s, and more, they remain as one of the vilest, most sadistic faction there is. Even their tagline reflects this: "Pray they don't take you'' ''[[FateWorseThanDeath alive]]''."

** Among humans, the Netherese started out [[FromNobodyToNightmare a collection of simple farmers and fisherfolk]]. When they started learning magic from the elves, they realized they had an incredible talent for it. They grew into one of the most powerful magical empires the Realms has ever seen, as well as one of the cruelest and most tyrannical. They were TheMagocracy, ruled by spectacularly powerful wizards who dwelled in flying cities, lorded over the lower classes they abused and enslaved. The Netherese wizards' hubris became so great that one of them even tried to [[AGodAmI become the god of magic]], usurping the role from the goddess in charge of it. He had no idea how to handle his divine status, and caused a magical apocalypse that completely destroyed the Netherese Empire. A few Netherese wizards survived and haunt the Realms even today, such as the [[OurLichesAreDifferent undead wizard Larloch]] and the Princes of Shade, who fled to the Plane of Shadow before the rest of the empire was destroyed and returned in the present day.
* The world of {{TabletopGame/Greyhawk}} has the wicked Suel Imperium. The Suel Imperium was much like the Realms' Netheril, ruled by powerful mages that made deals with {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and treated the lower classes like chattel. They fell in a violent magical war with the more benign Baklunish Empire when they tried to wipe the Baklunish out with [[ApocalypseHow the Invoked Devastation.]] The enraged Baklunish survivors retaliated with the Rain of Colorless Fire, which vaporized most of the Imperium and turned it into the lifeless Sea of Dust. The surviving Suel fled eastward into the Flanaess, forming new states in the present day. Most modern Suel people aren't as nasty as their ancestors, but some of them like the Scarlet Brotherhood are ANaziByAnyOtherName and want to recreate an empire where the pale-skinned Suel rule over darker-skinned humans and all the world's non-human races.

** The Allagan Empire is responsible for a large chunk of the things you have to deal through. A (non-exhaustive) list: The [[WeaponOfMassDestruction Ultima Weapon]] faced as the FinalBoss of ''A Realm Reborn'', the massive solar generator/HellGate that is the Crystal Tower, the floating laboratory/[[MundaneUtility part-time zoo]] Azys Lla, and a [[ThatsNoMoon fake moon]] containing a [[SealedEvilInACan very angry Bahamut]]. The Allagans also had a whole TakeOverTheWorld thing going on for them, but a Calamity put an end to them before they could.
** From ''Shadowbringers'', we have a race of ancient beings introduced about halfway through the story. They were a race of people gifted with near-immortal lifespans, and vast aetheric manipulating abilities that allowed them to [[CreatingLife create just about anything]] on a whim. Combine this with their culture valuing discussion and philosophy and their naturally peaceful dispositions, their world never once knew conflict or violence. Then one day [[ApocalypseHow a series of horrifying calamities brought about by their powers suddenly going haywire with little idea of what was causing it]], and they were left with no other option but to willingly sacrifice half of their population to summon a being embodying the will of The Star itself to save them. If you're wondering how these beings could possibly be abusive to anyone, that's because they're actually [[spoiler: the ''[[GreaterScopeVillain Ascians]]''. The very same black-robed sowers of discord you've been fighting throughout the whole game, are actually [[TheRemnant the last remnants]] of the original world that existed before it was split into The Source and it's thirteen Shards. The reason why the Star was sundered was that Hydaelyn shattered it in her battle against Zodiark, and the original race of Ascians was practically wiped out as a result. The Ascians of today now seek to trigger Calamities that will destroy the Shards and have their aether remerge with The Source, and once they are all reunited they plan to summon Zodiark once again to restore the original world and all of its inhabitants at the cost of all life remaining on The Source.]]

* ''VideoGame/FreedomPlanet2'' reveals that [[spoiler:the earth dragons, initially presented in [[VideoGame/FreedomPlanet the first game]] as the BenevolentPrecursors, are revealed to have actually enslaved the planet's indigenous species, the water dragons, and forced them to build their spaceship Bakunawa, with them working under horrible and unsafe conditions without any rest. And when the water dragons tried to rebel, the earth dragons responded by genociding the race with the use of Bakunawa; to date, there are only two known still-living water dragons. The reason why the earth dragons are believed to be benevolent beings in the present day is because they were the ones who painted themselves that way [[WrittenByTheWinners once they rewrote the history in their favor while portraying the water dragons as unjust and violent aggressors]].]]

* In ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'', [[Characters/HorizonZeroDawnTedFaro Ted Faro]] and his global mega-corporation absolutely count as this, creating the robot plague that destroyed the biosphere and [[spoiler: purging the APOLLO archive of all of humanity's collected art, culture, science and technology, dooming future humans to ignorance and primitive existences to hide his crimes]]. Elisabet Sobeck and the rest of Project Zero Dawn, on the other hand, are BenevolentPrecursors, even if things didn't turn out quite how they intended.

** The ''ComicBook/DawnOfTheJedi'' comic is set while the Rakata were at their prime, and has them as the {{Big Bad}}s. They're ''horrifying''. Even worse, it's revealed early on that a kinder species [[NiceJobBreakingItHero misjudged them when teaching them how to use the Force]].
** [[spoiler:The Iokath Species]] are more BlueAndOrangeMorality than outright abusive, but they still count. Their whole race was dedicated solely to the construction of [[WeaponOfMassDestruction Weapons Of Mass Destruction]], which they tried to perfect by testing them on over 70 unique worlds. They were also the creators of [[spoiler:the Eternal Fleet, the Gravestone, and the Old Gods]]. However, despite their dedication to weapons, they were not actually violent and expansionist in nature, and provided survivors of their weapons with reparations so that they would be able to rebuild their civilizations, if only so they can be tested again at a later date. They eventually all died in a civil war where both sides employed thier superweapons and automated armies against each other, only to completely lose control of them.

* ''VideoGame/TheLastFederation'' has Hydral. They were first into space and created lots of tech that much, much more powerful than anything else others have. They also actively prevented anyone else getting into the space, destroying anything bigger than a satellite. Their died when they were hit by DepopulationBomb and one of the species dropped a moon on them. The problem is that the game consists of you, on your own, trying to bring all those abused races together to form a federation, and they have ample reason to distrust each other thanks to the Hydral's manipulations. And also to distrust ''you'', since you're the last of the Hydrals.

** The ''Leviathan'' {{DLC}} introduces the Leviathans, the species that built the intelligence which built the Reapers. The Reaper's MindControl ability, is copied from the Leviathans own ability which they used to enslave the rest of the galaxy, turning them into thralls to serve their needs.

* In ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VIII'', a non-malfunctioning Ancient construct, Escaton tries to destroy the world. As there doesn't seem to be any reason for that, this would appear to make the Ancients fit into this trope (especially as they ''are'' still out there, just rather busy at the moment)... [[spoiler: but as it turns out, [[SubvertedTrope there is a reason]]: the Ancients, rather reasonably, put failsafes into Escaton to keep him from being subverted by the Kreegan, one of which was an inability to willingly stop destroying a world once he had started. As he only started doing it if he deemed a world unable to defeat the Kreegan, that generally worked out, but in this one case he happened to underestimate the inhabitants...]]

* Want to know why the Origin system in ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' is so messed up? It's all thanks to the Orokin Empire. Don't let the Corpus propaganda or the obsession with [[GoldAndWhiteAreDivine white and gold]] fool you, the Orokin were [[LightIsNotGood rotten to the core]]. While there are a small number of known Orokin characters who are actually good people, by and large the picture of the Orokin as a civilization is ''horrifyingly vile''. Just how bad were they? Let us count the ways.

** The leader of the Holdfasts implies that not only did the Orokin outlaw religion, it wasn't because they were aetheists, it was because ''[[AGodAmI they wanted to replace the old gods with themselves]]''.
* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', players learn of the Titans, the race of {{Precursors}} who seeded much of the life on Azeroth. But when their creations were corrupted by [[EldritchAbomination the Old Gods]] with the "[[CursedWithAwesome curse]] [[TheCorruption of]] [[FleshVersusSteel flesh]]," they set up a ResetButton or two, most notably in the Halls of Origination, in case the corruption got too great. "Reset Button" should be read as "EarthShatteringKaboom." That said, the ''Chronicles'' book goes into detail into the thinking behind this and reveals the Titans weren't so much "Abusive Precursors" as "Precursors Trying to Keep the Universe Safe".

*** It should be noted that all of this is a NecessarilyEvil and GodzillaThreshold however because the Old Gods corruption would not only corrupt all life on the planet [[spoiler:if left unchecked they would corrupt [[GeniusLoci the slumbering Titan world-soul of Azeroth itself]] and turn it into a FetusTerrible that would [[OmnicidalManiac corrupt and destroy the entire universe]]]].

* The Titans from ''Webcomic/{{Erfworld}}'' built the eponymous universe with laws of physics which seem designed to make peace impossible. However, recent events indicate they may be still active.

** Sburb is created by the Genesis Frog, [[spoiler: a frog that contains the entire Universe and all alternate timelines, as a means to reproduce and create new Universes. The kids' sprites' prototypings shapes the new reality.]] Therefore, Billious Slick and all Genesis Frogs before him are the Abusive Precursors.

* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', it turns out the species that runs the galactic wormhole network have been running their nefarious sentient trafficking operations for longer than any other living galactic civilization has been around. [[CloningBlues Every time someone goes through a wormhole, a gate clone is created.]] [[MoralEventHorizon Gate clones are fully aware, sentient, and retain the original's memories. Each gate clone is interrogated, killed, and dissected, not necessarily in that order. The knowledge is leveraged to manipulate things behind the scenes]]. The Gatekeepers justify these acts as necessary sacrifices to the apex predators of the Andromeda Galaxy, the [[EldritchAbomination Pa'anuri]], by ensuring that the Milky Way is a police state in a CosmicHorrorStory and the Pa'anuri don't view any of them as a threat. But the Gatekeepers are exactly as sociopathic, amoral, and greedy as you'd expect from a race that can kidnap, torture, and murder anyone they want on tap.

** Humanity's ancestral AncientAstronauts, the Pak, who would kill us all if they met us today; a fleet had to be sent out to head them off and wipe them out before they could realize what had happened to us. They're violently xenophobic, and we've mutated far too much to [[UncannyValley smell right]], and our culture is too different for them to accept.

An abundance of SealedEvilInACan with flimsy seals and easily found keys? They did it on purpose. They even labelled the can as ''[[HappyFunBall Happy Fun Time For All!]]'' [[SchmuckBait to make sure you'd open it]] - or [[MayContainEvil "Evil Inside, Do Not Release"]] just relying on humanity's inability to ignore SchmuckBait. Sometimes, odds are that THEY are the evil in the can. [[ThePlague Plagues]]? [[PointlessDoomsdayDevice Oh, they made it]]. Then even stored it with crates of candy to make sure you'd catch it. They did not just leave a LostSuperWeapon for villains to acquire; they gave them a manual, tech support, and a 10,000-millennium powertrain warranty.

** The Old Ones qualify too. In fact, they're responsible for most of the horror of 40k. They refused to help the Necrontyr who were all dying horribly from radiation that wasn't even their fault, despite the fact that such an undertaking would be quite easy for them, prompting the war and the Necrontyr becoming Necrons. Granted, the Necrontyr's ''true'' motivation for declaring war was to [[GenghisGambit project the simmering hatreds they had for ''each other'' on to another target]] -- the Old Ones not making them immortal was just the pretext. And during the war, the Old Ones created other races to fight the Necrons. Half-finished races like [[SpaceElves Eldar]], who they told were their favorites and would inherit all they left behind before shoving them out as cannon fodder, and [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Orks]], whom they decided to rush into production ''before'' creating a psychic RestrainingBolt which they never got around to making before they vanished, to fight and do the dying for them. They also dabbled in humanity, giving us psykers that can't quite control themselves. And all of these angry warlike races and galaxywide genocides transformed the warp from a peaceful, idyllic place to [[HyperSpaceIsAScaryPlace space hell]]. And the War in Heaven gave birth to the first Chaos God. Well done, Old Ones.

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': The ancestors of the Southlanders stood with Morgoth in the War of Wrath a thousand of years before the current events. As such, their descendants lost their status, kingdoms and live in fealty towns, being watched by the Elves to make sure they don't repeat the mistakes of their precursors. The southlanders of the past build the watchtower of Ostirith holding a power fashioned for those tainted by the Shadow. Said power turns out to be an ArtifactOfDoom with which, Waldreg, a Southlander, managed to provoke Orodruin's eruption by activating an elaborate device hidden in Ostirith.

* In ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'', Ted Faro and his global mega-corporation absolutely count as this, creating the robot plague that destroyed the biosphere and [[spoiler: purging the APOLLO archive of all of humanity's collected art, culture, science and technology, dooming future humans to ignorance and primitive existences to hide his crimes]]. Elisabet Sobeck and the rest of Project Zero Dawn, on the other hand, are BenevolentPrecursors, even if things didn't turn out quite how they intended.

* The Titans in ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', especially Kronos.
** Continued in the sequel series ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' with the new BigBad [[spoiler: Gaia, aka Mother Earth]].

* The backstory of ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' involves an Ancient Civilization with incredibly advanced weapon-making and bioengineering technology. They were powerful enough to treat Elder Dragons like cattle; the Tower from ''Monster Hunter 2'' and the Sky Corridor from ''Monster Hunter Frontier'' were made from the parts of ''dozens'' of Kushala Daora. They met their end after [[PoweredByAForsakenChild slaughtering hundreds of Elder Dragons]] to create living weapons known as the Wyvern Machine Soldiers, which led to the Great Dragon War and the end of the Ancient Civilization.

* The Sarrukh "Old Ones" in ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights''. Powerful magical humanoid reptiles forced into dormancy by a cooling climate... for now.
** Elaboration in the [[TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms tabletop game]] revealed that the Sarrukh, one of five Creator Races, had begun fairly non-abusive, but (mostly) began to slide into evil as their god fractured and fell into somnolence and an excuse was made for sacrificing non-Sarrukh (sacrificing honored volunteers are one thing. Mass sacrifices of slave races, another).

* One proposal for SCP-001 is that the entire ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' universe is created by a group of abusive precursors for entertainment purposes. [[spoiler:"God is real. [[NoticingTheFourthWall And He's a bunch of horror writers.]]"]]

* One proposal for SCP-001 is that the entire ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' universe is created by a group of abusive precursors for entertainment purposes. [[spoiler: "[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou God is real. And He's a bunch of horror writers.]]"]]

** It's very likely that WE may end up counting as this when our descendants study our lives and (hopefully) learn from our mistakes, and clean them up.

* The Anti-Spirals from ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' wait around watching to make sure the universe doesn't develop too many intelligent beings capable of creating or controlling Spiral Energy, including humans. Once they decide there are too many, they sweep in and KillEmAll. They do it with a really snotty attitude, too, which adds insult to injury. And the reason? Paranoia that too much Spiral Energy will create the so-called "Spiral Nemesis".

* ''WesternAnimation/BlakeAndMortimer'': Turns out the Easter Island statues were built in the image of an alien-made original, a beacon to detect if any civilization rises on Earth (or on coutless worlds seeded with such a probe) so they can send a xenocidal hit squad. Humanity only lived as long as it did because the previous hit squad was killed by the islanders' god. [[spoiler:The "volcano god" erupted with tremendous noise, hitting the aliens in their vulnerability to sonic damage.]]

* ''Comicbook/BlakeAndMortimer'' AnimatedAdaptation: Turns out the Easter Island statues were built in the image of an alien-made original, a beacon to detect if any civilization rises on Earth (or on coutless worlds seeded with such a probe) so they can send a xenocidal hit squad. Humanity only lived as long as it did because the previous hit squad was killed by the islanders' god. [[spoiler:The "volcano god" erupted with tremendous noise, hitting the aliens in their vulnerability to sonic damage.]]

** The Pa'anuri are a straighter example; they're completely sociopathic because civilization's most important technology ''tortures them to death'', so they murdered all sentient life in the Andromeda galaxy and spent eons finding ways to murder everyone in the Milky Way galaxy just to ensure their survival.