History Main / CityInABottle

* ''Film/LogansRun'', the TropeCodifier. In the year 2274, the remnants of human civilization live in a sealed city contained beneath a cluster of geodesic domes, a utopia run by a computer that takes care of all aspects of life, including reproduction. The citizens live a hedonistic life but, to prevent overpopulation, everyone must undergo the rite of "Carrousel" when they reach the age of 30. There, they are killed under the guise of being "renewed" When Logan and escape the dome, they discover that they have been lied to and that life exists outside the dome, and that it is possible to live past 30.

* Walled City 99 in ''VideoGame/{{Stray}}'' was originally built as a metropolis-sized bunker to protect its human inhabitants from [[spoiler:a major plague ravaging the world outside and generally making it unlivable for civilization]]. However, by the time the game begins the humans have already died out, leaving behind their robotic successors in complete isolation. Many outright consider "Outside" to be nothing more than fantasy, with there being very few exceptions.

* Nancy Farmer's ''Literature/TheEarTheEyeAndTheArm'', set in futuristic Zimbabwe, includes an area cordoned off - much like in ''Film/TheVillage'' - where the people chose, generations ago, to live apart from the modern world, and where they have turned into a shamanistic backwards tribe that believes in boogey men and kills certain unwanted babies ([[spoiler:specifically twins - or, rather, ''one'' of the twins, the girl if it's a split-gender pair]]).

* ''Film/TheVillage'': The film is about a village whose population lives in fear of creatures inhabiting the woods beyond it, referred to as "Those We Don't Speak Of". It is revealed that the village was founded in the late 1970s. Edward Walker, then a professor of American history at the University of Pennsylvania, approached other people he met at a grief counseling clinic, all suffering the crime-related death of loved ones. He asked them to join in creating a place where they would sustain themselves and be protected from any aspect of the outside world. They built Covington in the middle of a wildlife preserve purchased with Edward's family fortune. The head park ranger tells Kevin that the Walker Estate pays the government to keep the entire preserve a no-fly zone, while also funding the ranger corps who ensure no outside force disrupts the preserve.

* The city of [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Glie/Guri]], where ''Anime/HaibaneRenmei'' takes place. Nobody is allowed to leave, only a few chosen people are allowed to interact with outlanders carrying supplies, and they must do so with sign language.

* 2005 film ''Film/TheIsland''. The last remnants of humanity hope to win a state-run lottery to be resettled on an island paradise. Actually, [[spoiler: they are clones harvested for body parts by an unscrupulous corporation.]]

** In Creator/GaryGygax's original ''Castle Greyhawk'', there was a room on one of the dungeon levels that included a city within a bottle that adventurers could enter. It was here that the original freeing of the demigods Zagyg had kidnapped happened, at least according to Rob Kuntz' ''The Original Bottle City''.

* ''Film/CityOfEmber'', an underground city with tons of lights, which became a new home for civilization AfterTheEnd, and it turns out fine...until the power generators start to go out.
* Turned on its head in the dystopian SciFi movie ''Film/DarkCity'' (1998). Everyone in the city is subtly programmed to ''believe'' that there is an "outside" to their [[CityNoir monstrous city]] (which is locked in [[AlwaysNight everlasting night time]]), the beautiful sun-lit Shell Beach. Everyone is utterly certain they know the way to Shell Beach, but if someone actually tries to find it, the only train that supposedly goes to Shell Beach never stops at any train station, all roads going there [[ClosedCircle simply go in circles]] or end in front of walls or canals, and in the end, [[spoiler:Shell Beach was only an illusion.]] In reality, [[spoiler:the city is all there is, a huge edifice drifting in the darkness of outer space, created and controlled by The Strangers, aliens who abducted humans from... some other place no-one can remember anymore, because The Strangers control their memories.]]

* In AndreyLivadniy's ''Ark'', the protagonist turns out to be the last "pure" descendant of the human crew of a Moon-sized (it's literally made out of the Moon) GenerationShip, drifting in space for millennia, during which the alien inhabitants of the various biospheres (who mutinied against the humans long ago), as well as the other human descendants (who have their own Earth-like biosphere), have forgotten that they're on a ship and reverted to more primitive technology. After millennia of lack of maintenance, the ''Ark'' is beginning to fall apart at the seams, with more and more systems shutting down. The ship's A.I. is unable to affect repairs in most areas. This, however, is not the biggest twist of the novel.

* Creator/ArthurCClarke's novel ''Literature/TheCityAndTheStars'' is the UrExample of this trope. And its original version, ''Against The Fall of Night''. Both have a remarkably utopian vision compared to most examples, however. Diaspar really has achieved a technological utopia, so why leave? And then, of course, we're [[spoiler:introduced to Lys, the ''other'' utopian vision...]]
* ''Literature/TheCityOfEmber''; a small town completely surrounded by darkness on all sides. The only light the residents have ever known is the harsh glow of the town's street lights. [[spoiler: Until the citizens find their way out and realize that the world has gone on without them]].
* The Creator/HGWells story, "The Country of the Blind" is about a mountaineer who, while visiting Ecuador, stumbles upon a lost population of people living in a valley that has been cut off from the rest of the world. Thanks to a disease that rendered their citizens blind and unable to produce sighted children, the entire population is now sightless. They have no concept of how vision works -- and no idea of what eyes are for. The visitor thinks, because of his extra sense, that he will be able to easily take over the valley, but it turns out the villagers' ''other'' senses have [[DisabilitySuperpower compensated for their loss of vision]] and they remain virtually unimpaired. (They also regard his "vision" as something of a curse, which is driving him crazy, and decide there is only [[EyeScream one medically sound solution]].)

* Koholint Island in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening''. The citizens (except for Marin) believe there is nothing beyond the sea and don't understand the concept of "when" they came to the island. This is because [[spoiler:the island is AllJustADream]].

* Thneedville in ''WesternAnimation/TheLorax'' is a lesser version -- it hasn't been closed-off for hundreds of years, but it's been at least a generation, possibly longer, since anyone traveled beyond the walls. Also, the residents are aware that there's a world outside their town, but they don't know or care about what it's like, since they're perfectly happy where they are.

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* In AndreyLivadniy's ''Ark'', the protagonist turns out to be the last "pure" descendant of the human crew of a Moon-sized (it's literally made out of the Moon) GenerationShip, drifting in space for millennia, during which the alien inhabitants of the various biospheres (who mutinied against the humans long ago), as well as the other human descendants (who have their own Earth-like biosphere), have forgotten that they're on a ship and reverted to more primitive technology. After millennia of lack of maintenance, the ''Ark'' is beginning to fall apart at the seams, with more and more systems shutting down. The ship's AI is unable to affect repairs in most areas. This, however, is not the biggest [[TheTwist twist]] of the novel.

* Agatean Empire (an {{Expy}} of China) from Literature/{{Discworld}}. It is completely surrounded by a high wall and general population only knows outside as a desert wasteland populated by homicidal vampire ghosts. Their word for foreigner also means ghost -- until Twoflowers' (Discworld's first [[{{HawaiianShirtedTourist}} tourist]]) book "What I did last summer" kick-starts a revolution.

* Elizabeth Bear's ''[[Literature/JacobsLadderTrilogy Dust]]'' plays with the "stranded generation ship" version.

* The planet Krikkit from ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything'' was originally one of these totally by accident. [[spoiler: Well, maybe not ''totally'' by accident...]]
** Worth noting that the Krikkiters' response when they ''did'' discover there was an outside universe was to decide, with chilling logic, that the truth must be restored by destroying it. [[OmnicidalManiac ALL OF IT]].

* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': Airstrip One is generally considered to be one of these. Opinions vary on what the rest of the world might hold.

* Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Truckers}}'' features inch-high people known as 'Nomes' who live in a large Store and refuse to believe that there is any such thing as 'the Outside'. When the Store Nomes are visited by Nomes who are from the Outside, one of the Store Nomes' leaders actually pretends not to be able to see them.
** A recurring metaphor throughout the series is the RealLife bromeliad plant, which, to the frogs who live inside, is the entire world. Indeed, ''Truckers'' and its sequels, ''Diggers'' and ''Wings'' are collectively known as ''The Bromeliad Trilogy''.

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* Jim Henson's 1980s children's show ''Series/FraggleRock'':

* ''Series/TheOrville'' episode "If the Stars Should Appear" has the crew encounter a huge bioship that has a giant ecosystem inside it with a single city and lots of farmland. The people believe that this are is the entire universe, created by their god. To believe otherwise is heresy, punishable by death. In fact, the leader admits there is a possibility their beliefs are wrong, but he doesn't want to cause a panic (and lose power). After getting to the bridge, the crew see a message left by the ship's captain, who reveals that the ship's journey was supposed to only last for a century, but a NegativeSpaceWedgie knocked out the engines, leaving the ship adrift for two millennia. The dome is also designed to open to simulate night but hasn't been opened in a long time. They open it to show the people the stars for the first time in their lives.

* ''Series/StargateSG1''
** The episode "Beneath the Surface" has a magnificent city in a frozen wasteland. The city is being powered by slave force working in mines underneath the city. Those in the city know the truth, those in the mines think the mine is all there is. SG-1 isn't pleased by this, so the local administrator abducts them, gives them FakeMemories, and forces them into being part of that slave labor force. It's implied the other members of the slave labor are also people given fake memories, possibly a sentence for criminals or those the people in power don't like.
** In "Revisions", the stargate was inside a dome created by a force-field, and the atmosphere outside actually was toxic. The twist was that the computer controlling the dome was running out of power, and had to slowly shrink the dome and kill off some inhabitants (mind control through their neural links to make them walk outside) in order to save the rest. Eventually the humans were all evacuated to another planet.
** In "The Gamekeeper" SG-1 encountered a planet where the population was inside a greenhouse-like building. They were all hooked up to a Matrix-like simulation to preserve them indefinitely while their planet repaired itself from an extreme industrial disaster. The computer/caretaker that was also in charge of helping repair and maintain the outside environment kept telling them that it wasn't safe to leave yet, as it believed that they would simply destroy the environment yet again if set loose in the real world.

** The episode "For The World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" featured this on a [[GenerationShips generation ship]].
** In "Spock's Brain", Captain Kirk has entered the UndergroundCity and asks one of the beautiful but childlike inhabitants where they are. She just responds in confusion, "This place is here!" With the exception of men used for servants and procreation whom they lure from the surface when needed, they don't require anything else as the city provides it all.

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** Of course, this film is an unacknowledged remake of ''Film/PartsTheClonusHorror'' which is about a colony of people who similarly hope to be resettled in a paradise known only to them as "America." [[spoiler: And who are likewise clones raised to provide spare organs for the rich and powerful.]]

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "A New Life", approximately 40 young people who are tired of the rat race join a religious community in an isolated wooded area. It turns out that the 20 square mile area surrounding their village is part of a massive spaceship and that aliens intend to sell their descendants into slavery, after humanity's rebellious traits have been bred out of them.

* ''VideoGame/{{Cholo}}'': This is the background premise: the radiation from the nuclear holocaust has mostly died down, but you must take control of robots on the surface and crack the exit open from the outside before anyone can leave. (BTW, there's a free PC version available now!)

Compare CrapsaccharineWorld, HiddenElfVillage (especially if the inhabitants are PerfectPacifistPeople), LostWorld, SpaceAmish, and SpaceElves (of the ProudScholarRaceGuy sort). Contrast TheOutsideWorld. See also SpaceBrasilia.

* Wiki/{{SCP|Foundation}}-[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-756 756]] is a miniature solar system contained within a 10x10 cell; most of the planets have no knowledge of the world beyond- except for the fourth planet, which converted its entire surface into a battery of ICBM launching stations to defend itself from imagined attacks by [[HumansAreCthulhu the nightmarish giants from beyond the "stars"]].

* ''Film/LogansRun'', the TropeCodifier. In the year 2274, the remnants of human civilization live in a sealed city contained beneath a cluster of geodesic domes, a utopia run by a computer that takes care of all aspects of life, including reproduction. The citizens live a hedonistic life but, to prevent overpopulation, everyone must undergo the rite of "Carrousel" when they reach the age of 30. There, they are killed under the guise of being "renewed.” When Logan and escape the dome, they discover that they have been lied to and that life exists outside the dome, and that it is possible to live past 30.

* ''Series/TheOrville'' episode “If the Stars Should Appear” has the crew encounter a huge bioship that has a giant ecosystem inside it with a single city and lots of farmland. The people believe that this are is the entire universe, created by their god. To believe otherwise is heresy, punishable by death. In fact, the leader admits there is a possibility their beliefs are wrong, but he doesn't want to cause a panic (and lose power). After getting to the bridge, the crew see a message left by the ship's captain, who reveals that the ship's journey was supposed to only last for a century, but a NegativeSpaceWedgie knocked out the engines, leaving the ship adrift for two millennia. The dome is also designed to open to simulate night but hasn't been opened in a long time. They open it to show the people the stars for the first time in their lives.

* ''Film/LogansRun'', the TropeCodifier. In the year 2274, the remnants of human civilization live in a sealed city contained beneath a cluster of geodesic domes, a utopia run by a computer that takes care of all aspects of life, including reproduction. The citizens live a hedonistic life but, to prevent overpopulation, everyone must undergo the rite of "Carrousel" when they reach the age of 30. There, they are killed under the guise of being "renewed.” When Logan and escape the dome, they discover that they have been lied to and that life exists outside the dome, and that it is possible to live past 30.

* ''Series/TheOrville'' episode “If the Stars Should Appear” has the crew encounter a huge bioship that has a giant ecosystem inside it with a single city and lots of farmland. The people believe that this are is the entire universe, created by their god. To believe otherwise is heresy, punishable by death. In fact, the leader admits there is a possibility their beliefs are wrong, but he doesn't want to cause a panic (and lose power). After getting to the bridge, the crew see a message left by the ship's captain, who reveals that the ship's journey was supposed to only last for a century, but a NegativeSpaceWedgie knocked out the engines, leaving the ship adrift for two millennia. The dome is also designed to open to simulate night but hasn't been opened in a long time. They open it to show the people the stars for the first time in their lives.

* Crysta in ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}''.

** [[http://magiccards.info/hl/en/132.html Feroz's Ban]] takes this UpToEleven with an entire world in a bottle, to represent the magical seal placed by the Planeswalker Feroz around the Homelands.

** Residents of Stockholm take this UpToEleven, with some old-school Stockholmers considering everything outside "the tolls" (i.e. the city's medieval toll gates) to be a wasteland, and take pride in never having been there. Over five sixths of modern Stockholm is "outside the tolls".

* ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' features a literal case: the majestic city of Baghdad is sealed inside a bottle at the request of its king and given to Dream to take care of; this allows the city to continue forever in dreams, even when the city is war-torn and battered in reality.

** One episode has the SG-1 team mind-swapped with some stored memories about working in a mine. Said mine was actually underneath a magnificent city and was used to keep said magnificent city running. But it was sold as a city in a bottle. They were told they kept it going or else the cold freezing air above the mine would kill them all. They thought that nothing else was above them. They thought that if they didn't work, they'd die, or at least, no longer get fed. It wasn't as bad as normal cities in bottles, but it was pretty bad.
** In one episode, the stargate was inside a dome created by a force-field, and the atmosphere outside actually was toxic. The twist was that the computer controlling the dome was running out of power, and had to slowly shrink the dome and kill off some inhabitants (mind control through their neural links to make them walk outside) in order to save the rest. Eventually the humans were all evacuated to another planet.
** SG-1 encountered a planet where the population was inside a greenhouse-like building. They were all hooked up to a Matrix-like simulation to preserve them indefinitely while their planet repaired itself from an extreme industrial disaster. The computer/caretaker that was also in charge of helping repair and maintain the outside environment kept telling them that it wasn't safe to leave yet, as it believed that they would simply destroy the environment yet again if set loose in the real world.

* ''ComicBook/LegendsOfTheDeadEarth'': In ''[[ComicBook/RobinSeries Robin]]'' Annual #5, the inhabitants of the GenerationShip Gotham believe that it is the sum total of the universe.

* In the Malibu Comics' ''[[ComicBook/TheUltraverse Ultraverse]]'' continuity, the Fire People were an offshoot of humanity that lived in a hidden community BeneathTheEarth for so long that the "world of light and air" was considered a myth.

* In ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverse'' by Beth Revis, the remainder of humanity is riding aboard a single, city-sized spaceship to their new home planet. The trip will take generations, so the important people have been cryogenically frozen while the rest are ruled by Eldest and his protege, Elder.

* Rapture in ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock}}'' was created to become this eventually, either when the surface world destroyed itself in a nuclear war or when citizens stopped recommending colleagues from the surface to recruit, whichever came first. Official propaganda depicts the surface as a dystopia to discourage any thoughts of leaving, and anyone who tries to leave anyway is met with violence. By the time you arrive, however, only a decade and change has passed since its founding and everything has already gone to hell.

* Rapture in ''VideoGames/BioShock'' was created to become this eventually, either when the surface world destroyed itself in a nuclear war or when citizens stopped recommending colleagues from the surface to recruit, whichever came first. Official propaganda depicts the surface as a dystopia to discourage any thoughts of leaving, and anyone who tries to leave anyway is met with violence. By the time you arrive, however, only a decade and change has passed since its founding and everything has already gone to hell.

* Rapture in ""VideoGames/BioShock'' was created to become this eventually, either when the surface world destroyed itself in a nuclear war or when citizens stopped recommending colleagues from the surface to recruit, whichever came first. Official propaganda depicts the surface as a dystopia to discourage any thoughts of leaving, and anyone who tries to leave anyway is met with violence. By the time you arrive, however, only a decade and change has passed since its founding and everything has already gone to hell.

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* The premise of ''Dialect'' by Thorny Games, is that the players exist in this sort of community and have developed their own language. They reconnect to the outside world, and the rest is exploring the changes in language.
* [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=904 City in a Bottle]] from ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', which blocks out all other cards from the ''Arabian Nights'' expansion (which was about 20% of all cards when it came out, clearly not nearly as useful today).
** [[http://magiccards.info/hl/en/132.html Feroz's Ban]] takes this UpToEleven with an ''entire world'' in a bottle!
* In the early [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons D&D]] module ''The Lost City'', the few residents of the underground city who aren't drugged out of their minds by the evil priesthood are still convinced there's nothing but desert on the surface, and nothing but unbeatable monsters in the surrounding tunnels.

* The early SF RolePlayingGame, ''TabletopGame/MetamorphosisAlpha'', is set on a lost and damaged [[GenerationShips generation ship]] packed with mutants.
* Alpha Complex in ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}''. OK, so most people are aware that there is "an Outdoors", but all info on it is ''very'' heavily restricted, to the point that showing that you know that grass is green is grounds for execution.
** Unless you're rank Green or above, of course.

* A non-scifi example in ''VideoGame/BlackSigil'', where Bel Lenora voluntarily sealed itself off from the rest of the world then forgot that the rest of the world existed.
* In the underground world in ''Videogame/BreathOfFireDragonQuarter'', the existence of 'the surface' is a legend, a myth - after all, how could it even be possible for a place to have ''no roof''?
* This is the background premise to the 8-bit era game ''VideoGame/{{Cholo}}'': the radiation from the nuclear holocaust has mostly died down, but you must take control of robots on the surface and crack the exit open from the outside before anyone can leave. (BTW, there's a free PC version available now!)

* The city of Palm Brinks in ''VideoGame/DarkChronicle'' was cut off from the outside world by a giant stone wall, the only exits being the train station and main gate. This was actually done by the mayor to [[spoiler: protect the citizens from the villain. He was after a mystical artifact called the Atlamillia (actually three jewels but the city has the red one), and he didn't want to destroy the city with the artifact floating around in there somewhere. The male hero, Max, has been carrying the jewel around for some time now, and no one noticed.]]

* This is a perfectly legitimate strategy in ''Videogame/DwarfFortress'', and in fact was used on a regular basis in the 2d version-which has been described as a Nintendo Hard, single-player version of Korean Starcraft. In 40d it was much less necessary for the experienced player-due to 40d being ridiculously easy-but it is back, to a certain degree, in the 31 series. Depending on your supplies, it is perfectly possible to survive for a hundred in-game years (consider that at 50 FPS a season will take ''two to three hours'') off incest, kittens, and Plump Helmets.
** Some players generate worlds with no surviving civilizations to embark with this trope invoked. Embarking to an isolated island a simpler method. In either case, after the first wave of immigrants, there will be no contact with the outside world, or evidence that it exists.
* Vault 101 in ''VideoGame/Fallout3''. It and the other "Vaults" were constructed to shelter a human population safely underground in the event of a nuclear war. In theory, as radiation levels decreased the Vaults would open to the outside world and the survivors would rebuild civilization, but Vault 101 remained closed for two hundred years, and the Overseers tell the population that the surface is still inhabitable. Whether or not it remains a CityInABottle depends on the player's decisions.[[note]]It wasn't always sealed, despite it being the main focus of the "experiment". There were ''several'' expeditions that gradually expanded the knowledge of the outside world (that and radroaches). Eventually, James brought the Lone Wanderer there to raise them in safety before he had to leave 19 years later.[[/note]]

** There is a slightly more conventional example in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', Nellis Air Force Base with its population of explosive-loving Boomers. They trace their origins to Vault 34 and have a strict isolationist policy, enforced upon the outside world with artillery fire. The Boomers make everything they need inside the airbase, and only have one goal outside its walls. Unlike a HiddenElfVillage, they are pretty ignorant of the outside world. While they have gathered some intel through binoculars, they are surprised that the courier even speaks the same language when he or she drops by.