I emerged onto a landscape destroyed: The husks of old, burnt out cars littered a broken highway, the distant skyline was populated only by the crumbling shells of what I assumed were once gleaming skyscrapers, and the air itself was the ruddy color of worn concrete. No birds chirped, no animals stirred; it was a world completely devoid of life.
“Jesus, I wound up in Baltimore.”
—Robert Brockway on waking up in the dystopian future (though he doesn't know it yet).
Zaphod: I can just slouch about, taking a look at the local scenery...
Gargravarr: Have you seen the local scenery?
A blast door grinds open, wind howls mournfully
Zaphod: Ah. Okay. Well, I'll just slouch about then...
Gargravarr: Have you seen the local scenery?
A blast door grinds open, wind howls mournfully
Zaphod: Ah. Okay. Well, I'll just slouch about then...
— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978), "Fit the Eighth"
The glass dome was shattered, smoke pouring from the damaged buildings within. The buildings on the outside were crushed under the wrecks of hundreds of Dalek saucers. Gallifrey was in ruins.
— Just one of many examples from The Last Great Time War
Turlough: Desolation. I think that word must have been invented to describe this place.
Natalia Pushkin: In its own way, Ember has a bleak sort of beauty, an endless vista of ruined stone and corroded metal from horizon to horizon.
Alexei Korolev: People must have lived here, once. There must have been life - real life - living and breathing... once upon a time.
Natalia Pushkin: In its own way, Ember has a bleak sort of beauty, an endless vista of ruined stone and corroded metal from horizon to horizon.
Alexei Korolev: People must have lived here, once. There must have been life - real life - living and breathing... once upon a time.
It's quaint. Very post-apocalipstick.
— Lugo commenting on a sandstorm-wrecked Dubai, Spec Ops: The Line
Today, the Kingdom of the Dead is a wilderness of sand. The Great River is poisonous and blood-coloured, providing no relief to the thirst of travellers. It is true that the cities are empty of life, crumbled ruins on the edge of the great necropolis. It is true that the roads have long been buried by the shifting sands, leaving only a few toppled statues and wind-eroded monuments to mark their presence. The few travellers who have returned speak only of emptiness and desolation, and the terrible horror and melancholy that filled their hearts.
—Warhammer: Undead Army Book (4th edition)
There were no archaeological traces of the city she had hoped to find, only bodies of water where none had been before and a featureless landscape in which it was impossible to guess where the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building once stood.
Everywhere the doves looked, the destruction was the same. Penetrating the perpetual cloud clover with their imaging radar, sampling and analyzing the air with their filters, and landing occasionally, they became a gallery of windows on a denuded Earth.
In all of Jerusalem, not a single brick lay atop another brick. The Temple Mount was cracked down its center and springs bubbled forth from the cleft. A stream now flowed from the Mount all the way down to the Dead Sea.
Further west, two doves had found pyramid-shaped mounds near the place where Cairo used to be. Perhaps because they had not been directly under an epicenter, together with their combination of resilient geometry and immense bulk, the Pyramids had withstood the planetary shocks. Just barely.
On the entire surface of the Earth, they appeared to be the only evidence that mankind had ever existed.
"Can you imagine this place in its time? Hordes of bugs travelling about the Kingdom; stag bells ringing; the station bustling with activity and life. Now only our like even know it exists. That's a special thing I suppose, to cherish these sights, even in their decay. Is it that, just faintly, you can still hear the echo of the bells?"
— Quirrel, Hollow Knight
"They were on the enormous, metal-plated dock of what must have surely been the most impressive structure the First House had ever built. It might have been the most impressive structure anyone had ever built. Gideon didn't have a lot to go on. Rearing up before them was a palace, a fortress, of white and shining stone. It spread out on the surface of the water like an island. You couldn't see over it and you could harly see around it. It lapped back in terraces of what must have once been fabulous gardens. It rose up in gracious towers that hurt the eye with their slenderness and precision. It was a monument to wealth and beauty.
Back in its day, at least, it would have been a monument to wealth and beauty. In the present it was a castle that had been killed. Many of its white and shining towers had crumbled and fallen down in miserable chunks. Jungling overgrowth rose from the sea and wraped around the base of the building, both green slimes and thick vines. The gardens were great, filmy canopies of dead trees and plants. They had overtaken the windows, the balconies, the balustrades, and clung there and died; they covered much of the frontage in a secretive mist of expired matter. Gold veins shone dully in the dirty white walls. The docking bay must have also been elegant in its era, a huge landing swath that could have held a hundred ships at a time; now ninety-two of the cradles were desolate and filthy. The metal was caked with salt from the water, salt that now assaulted Gideon's nose: a thick, briny scent, overpowering and wild. The whole place had the look of a picked-at body. But hot damn! What a beautiful corpse."
Back in its day, at least, it would have been a monument to wealth and beauty. In the present it was a castle that had been killed. Many of its white and shining towers had crumbled and fallen down in miserable chunks. Jungling overgrowth rose from the sea and wraped around the base of the building, both green slimes and thick vines. The gardens were great, filmy canopies of dead trees and plants. They had overtaken the windows, the balconies, the balustrades, and clung there and died; they covered much of the frontage in a secretive mist of expired matter. Gold veins shone dully in the dirty white walls. The docking bay must have also been elegant in its era, a huge landing swath that could have held a hundred ships at a time; now ninety-two of the cradles were desolate and filthy. The metal was caked with salt from the water, salt that now assaulted Gideon's nose: a thick, briny scent, overpowering and wild. The whole place had the look of a picked-at body. But hot damn! What a beautiful corpse."
