this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026
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I love the dying earth trope. Its earth, but millions if not billions of years after present day. I love thinking about what the humanity of today might leave to be discovered by whatever comes next. I think the first real exposure I had to it in media was that Artificial Intelligence movie from 2001. Its been around in fiction a lot longer, but that was the first time I really "got" it. Its so neat to me to think about how an alien (or a distantly removed human) might interpret the present day.
This reminded me of the Pern books from Anne McCaffrey. For the most part they seem to be in a medieval setting but the planet they are on was originally colonized before they lost their modern technology due to a natural disaster. One book was written about this colonization period. Most of the books are set centuries later. At some point they rediscover old ruins from the colonization and manage to reactivate an AI system.