10,000 Years

"AHH! After ten thousand years, I'M FREE! It's time to CONQUER EARTH!"

— Rita Repulsa, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

...can give ya such a crick in the neck!

Creators will sometimes try to make it sound like something is positively ancient by stating that it is ten thousand years old. One common example is the supposed sinking of Atlantis. Many cultures have a distinct word for ten thousand that is often used to refer to any indefinite large number — in English, for example, it's "myriad". Currently, the development of agriculture is estimated as having occurred ten thousand years ago. And the earliest example of print is much younger than 8,000 BC.

Compare Thousand-Year Reign. May be a case of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, particularly when used to suggest a Time Abyss.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Genesis of Aquarion's Reincarnation Romance occurs after 12,000 years. The direct translation of the iconic Expository Theme Tune refers to it as "10,000 and 2,000 years."^note The official English translation just calls it 12,000 years.
• Land of the Lustrous: In Chapter 95, Phosphophyllite is manipulated into taking Kongou's eye, forcing them to relive his memories and knowledge for 10,000 years.
• ∀ Gundam: Since the Dark History of space warfare ended in a catastrophe that nearly wiped out human life on Earth. It's taken that long for the land to recover enough to support a society analogous to World War I America.

Comic Books

• First Comics' Mars 1984 by Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel has the advance team of terraformers lose contact with Earth, and decide to let their robots reshape the planet Mars on automatic while they place themselves in stasis pods for ten thousand years, in hopes that Mars will be habitable by then.

Fan Works

• The Archmage's Last Bow: The last instance of Harmonic Convergence was nearly 10,000 years prior to the events of the fic, and it is a cyclical occurrence. The extinct Alicorn Empire was said to hold it in such significance that they oriented their entire calendar around it, but perished during the most recent. The few alicorn characters we meet can thus be inferred to be ten millennia old, if not even older.

Films — Animated

• Aladdin:
  • Genie states that he's been trapped in his lamp for 10,000 years. Who or what made the lamp 10,000 years ago is never explained.
    Genie: 10,000 years can give you such a crick in the neck!
  • Genie's first words upon his release are given a Meaningful Echo later on when Jafar is turned into a genie and trapped in his own lamp.
    Genie: 10,000 years in the Cave of Wonders ought to chill him out!

Literature

• Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series:
  • The Galactic Empire of Trantor has lasted for 12,069 years before the establishment of Terminus, and survives many years afterwards.
  • A prophecy is made by Hari Seldon that after the Galactic Empire collapses into chaos, said chaos would last for thirty thousand years before another Galactic Empire took control, longer than the duration of the ancient first Empire. It is in an effort to avert this extremely long anarchy that he establishes his 1,000 year plan.
• Frank Herbert's Dune: The series begins in the year 10,191 AG, after the Spacing Guild was founded and the Imperium established.
• Robert A. Heinlein's Magic, Inc.: Ditworth is sentenced to ten thousand thousand^note or ten million years of imprisonment by Satan for being defeated with white magic. Fraser notes that it's like the demonic equivalent of six months in prison.
• John Norman's Gor: Years on the planet Gor are measured by locally significant events such as Year X of King Y's reign. For the sake of stability, many locations also date their years in CA, "Contassa Ar" or "from the founding of Ar", Gor's largest city-state. In the first book, it is 10,110 CA.
• The Locked Tomb takes place ten thousand years after 'The Resurrection', a significant event which hasn't been fully explained yet but which resulted in the founding of the Empire and all the necromancers running around the place.

Live-Action TV

• Babylon 5: When Delenn explains the Shadows and the First Ones to Sheridan, she tells him the last time they made open war with each other was 10,000 years ago. The last war fought by the younger races against the Shadows, on the other hand, was a "mere" 1,000 years ago.
• Power Rangers:
  • In Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Rita Repulsa was locked up for 10,000 years in a "Space Dumpster" on the moon, as she helpfully reminds viewers in the Opening Narration sequence before every season 1 episode^note and the first two episodes of Season 2.
  • Power Rangers Jungle Fury's backstory also goes back to a great war 10,000 years ago; Wild Mass Guessing regarding whether the two incidences are in fact one and the same, and 10,000 years ago is just a rough estimate, was initially very popular.
• In Stargate Atlantis the Earth-Atlantis Expedition returns to Atlantis and the Pegasus Galaxy 10,000 years after the Lanteans lost the Wraith war, sank Atlantis, and retreated back through the Stargate to Earth.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine gives two figures for the Dominion's age. One is ten thousand, the other is a 'mere' over-two-thousand years (given the context, it's possible it simply took the Founders some eight millennia to get from planning the Dominion to actually implementing the Dominion).

Music

• In the song "I Was Born Ten Thousand Years Ago" the narrator claims to have been born 10,000 years ago, claiming to have witnessed much of the Bible's history.
  I was born about 10,000 years ago
  There ain't nothing in this world that I don't know
  I saw Peter, Paul and Moses
  Playing Ring Around the Roses
  And I'll lick the man who says it isn't so
• They Might Be Giants: "Reprehensible" is about a man who is visited in his dreams by reminders of "10,000 years of unerasable acts / and permanent facts".
• Amazing Grace:
  When we've been there ten thousand years
  Bright, shining as the sun
  We've no less days to sing God's praise
  Than when we've first begun
• The song "In the Year 2525" by the One-Hit Wonder pair of Zager and Evans chronicles what will happen to mankind as the years pass. The verses describe what will occur in the years 2525, 3535, 4545, 5555, 6565, 7510, 8510, and 9595. The song concludes by saying the end of man will occur in ten thousand years:
  Now it's been ten thousand years
  Man has cried a billion tears
  For what, he never knew
  Now man's reign is through
  But through eternal night
  The twinkling of starlight
  So very far away
  Maybe it's only yesterday

Tabletop Games

• The events of the Magic: The Gathering Return to Ravnica block take place around the Decamillennial (i.e. 10,000 year anniversary) celebration of the signing of the Guildpact - the event that began the period of relative stability in Ravnica's history.
• Mindjammer takes place 10,000 years after Old Earth started sending out Sleeper Starships to colonize distant stars. And two centuries after Earth discovered 2-space drive and began recontacting those colonies.
• The more recent catastrophic events in Warhammer 40,000 happened around the thirtieth millennium, 10,000 years earlier (the Fall of the Eldar and the rise of Chaos). The people who were alive back then (Asdrubael Vect, Ezekyle Abaddon) are noted to be among the most dangerous people in the galaxy.

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: Certain documents, including the Lore Codex, indicates the Limen Crater is over 10,000 years old with other reports claiming it brought supernatural phenomenon out into the world for centuries with scholars believing it was caused by a Magic Meteor despite no evidence being found.
• Castlevania: Judgment's final boss is the Time Reaper, Galamoth's counterpart to Death who came from 10,000 years in the future to defeat Dracula. This is a reference to the obscure Kid Dracula, where Dracula's son fights Galamoth after a 10,000 year slumber.
• In Chrono Cross, you learn at Chronopolis that the El Nido triangle was created out of open sea by researchers 10,000 years ago.
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: The last of the planet's native sentient species left it 20,000 years before the human settlers arrived.
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Calamity Ganon was sealed away for 10,000 years by a previous Link and Zelda. The Sheikah tribe developed advanced Magitek that proved useful in the battle against Ganon. But the other people of Hyrule feared that the Sheikah might turn against them with that same technology and thus forbade them from continuing to use it.
• Mass Effect 2: The Gunnery Sargent who dubs Sir Isaac Newton "The Deadliest Son Of A Bitch in Space", while driving home how shots fired keep going notes how a wild shot could go into deep space and hit something ten thousand years later.
• Skylanders: The Giants defeated the Arkeyans and were sent to Earth 10,000 years ago.
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: You encounter a droid on Dantooine that claims to be the remnant of an ancient empire. When you ask how long it's been there, its answer indicates at least 20,000 years, long before the Republic came into existence. Except, as established in the original Star Wars, the Republic was founded over twenty-one millennia before the time of Knights of the Old Republic.
• Vanguard Princess: Lilith's victory quote is "You're ten thousand Years Too Early!"
• XenoGears: The entirety of the story was set in motion 10,000 years ago during the Distant Prologue when Deus, an artificial weapon, Turned Against Their Masters in an attempt to take over the ship carrying it. When the ship exploded and fell onto the nearby planet, Deus engineered the creation of humans created humanity only as a means to obtain a new body and ascension to godhood. At the same time, Abel, Fei's original incarnation, was granted the ability turning him into the Contact to be able to destroy Deus.
• Warcraft: The first time the demonic Burning Legion invaded Azeroth was ten thousand years ago, during the War of the Ancients. This also became an important date for many related characters, including the entire night elven race (who were immortal and have been alive since then). Illidan Stormrage's time spent since the War of the Ancients was a little bit different and defines his character, as he had been imprisoned in a lightless prison since then. He tells us this himself during the cinematic:
  Imprisoned for ten thousand years. Banished from my own homeland. And now, you dare enter my realm? You are not prepared.

Web Original

• Orion's Arm currently covers up to 10,600 years of the future.

Web Comics

• xkcd: After Cueball issues a call for the sheeple to "wake up", his wish is granted literally in the form of sheep-headed men erupting from the ground:
  Ten thousand years we slumbered. Now we riiise!

Western Animation

• Avatar:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: The number ten thousand is used in many different contexts as a stand-in for the infinite. For example, Wan Shi Tong, the guardian of the Spirit Library, describes himself as "he who knows ten thousand things" (which is, in fact, the translation of his name).
  • In the sequel series, The Legend of Korra, Harmonic Convergence is an event that occurs once every ten thousand years. During this the spirit of light Raava and the spirit of darkness Vaatu battle to decide whether the next ten thousand years will be those of light or those of darkness. Vaatu also claims Harmonic Convergence is something they've experienced at least ten thousand times.
  • Several times, especially while in the Avatar State, the Avatar has claimed to have lived "ten thousand lifetimes." Since the Avatar has only existed since the last Harmonic Convergence, that means that someone is being metaphorical somewhere. Fans generally assume that the ten thousand years between each Harmonic Convergence is accurate, which would mean that the Avatar has lived somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred lives. Word of God has been silent on the subject.
• In The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode with Jeannie and Babu, the evil djinn had Jeannie trapped behind a glass wall. She told her friends that he intended to keep her there for ten thousand years.
• In Mighty Max, Virgil, Norman, and Skullmaster are all at least 10,000 years old, and the destruction of Lemuria took place roughly that long ago as well.
• In Ōban Star-Racers, the Avatar hosts the Great Race every ten-thousand years, with the winning pilot becoming the new Avatar for the next ten millennia.

Real Life

• Many East Asian languages use the phrase "ten thousand years" to wish another person or thing a long life (the English version is "Long live..."). The Japanese version of this is "Banzai!".
• Ten-thousand years ago in Earth history was referred to as the Neolithic or "New Stone Age", which lasted from approximately 10,000 BC to between 4,500 and 2,000 BC. Some of the most notable advancements in human civilization of the time were the development of agriculture, the domestication of animals and livestock, the construction of permanent buildings and settlements, and the making of pottery.
• The Holocene Calendar adds 10,000 years to the common era system (hence the year 2023 CE is 12023 HE). This puts its start very close to the current agreed upon start of the Holocene Epoch 11,700 years ago. The largest advantage of this system is that there are no major events in history that effectively have a negative year in this system, making top of the head calculations of time spans much easier. Also the Holocene calendar doesn't favor any particular human culture or civilization over another, unlike the Common Era system which is starts from the birth of Jesus (and is off by around 6 years, depending on which scholar you ask).

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