http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeglectfulPrecursors

Grif, Red vs. Blue "That ancient race sure built a lot of weapons... I mean, did they really need to spend all their time building stuff to destroy the universe? Like, how about the galaxy's biggest movie theatre or some kind of super-advanced water park? All work and no play, guys, seriously."

Precursors; kindly ancient civilization or deadbeat parents? You decide, on today's episode of Judge Troper's Court!

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The plaintiff: The Adventurer Archaeologist claims that the Neglectful Precursor has left this galaxy and not provided a proper means of child support. He further alleges that the abundance of sealed evils with flimsy seals and easily found keys, the leaving of outstanding debts with ancient enemies bent on collecting from humanity, and the presence of civilization-shattering plagues are clear signs of neglect. The plaintiff demands that the ancients stop leaving dangerous weapons lying about for villains to acquire, or else make access to them morality-sensitive, so only heroes can use them to pay off previous debts.

The defendant: Claims that since they've become Energy Beings thousands of years ago, they have evolved past conventional morality but are nonetheless caring for humanity or "testing it", evidenced by their "wise" decisions to hold back Lost Technology until we're ready to use it, and scatter the keys to important technology so it can be used again. They defend their "long distance parenting" as character building, making sure the threats humanity faces are in line with its skill, and that there's always one more Lost Superweapon around for each. They assure the court they "always knew we would win." And finally, the defendant argues that there needs to be a cutoff point where their actions, inaction, and remaining artifacts stop being the excuse for everything bad that happens in the universe— that they did the best they could under circumstances beyond our comprehension— and where the younger races start realizing that they are responsible for their own mistakes.

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The Verdict? You decide!

See Abusive Precursors for Precursors that go beyond merely "guilty", or Benevolent Precursors for civilizations up for the "Precursor of the Eon" award.

Examples

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Anime and Manga

A brief has been filed by the Kindgom of Astimata on behalf of the protagonists in Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle. The, yet unnamed, race responsible for littering the continent, if not the planet, with numerous ruins, seven of which have been found and documented, left these structures mostly intact, only being damaged by the ravages of time. Inside these structures are large numbers of feral living weapons that attack any nearby humans with indiscriminate fury, killing them for sport, and should the humans somehow manage to defeat them, breeding chambers have been found within (at least in episode 8 of the anime continuity) which simply replace them. Absolutely no signage or warning of any kind is placed around these structures, the only documentation exists inside them. Furthermore, the only truly effective way to fight these monstrosities is the advanced, and long forgotten, weaponry and technology found within said structures, with little, if any, instructions in its use, leading to horrific, and unwilling, human experimentation, and at least one case of a massive living weapon of mass destruction, the Abyss Ragnarok being unleashed and wiping out numerous countries, and at least one case of a "ruins" structure itself being used as a weapon of mass-murder, by Hayes, an Axe-Crazy Omnicidal Maniac that the ruin's own internal systems recognized as being a blood descendant of said race. In addition, a lower-tier member of said race, Krulcifer, was also once found inside one of these structures with absolutely no idea of her heritage, or any information regarding these structures, except what she could get her own hands on, and discovered, purely by accident, that she's an "administrator" which can bypass certain security measures but would still be attacked by the living weapons mentioned above.

The prosecution would like to submit to the court the cases of a number of humans in Fullmetal Alchemist where-in they become Neglectful Precursors of much stronger beings than they are themselves. Because of bad initial appearance they dump their creations, which made them hate humanity or seek a very cruel ways to become humans, made worse when the Big Bad helps them survive and gain power by feeding them Philosopher's Stones.

Your Honor, I bring before the court the case of Al-Hazard from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. The defendant is charged with the creation of no less than twenty-one 'Jewel Seed' Lost Logia with a combined output capable of fracturing reality, with an ease of use even a child could use. They also stand accused of the creation of a fully armed inter-dimensional warship complete with an army of drone weaponry. The defendant wishes to state for the record that said warship was not of their creation, but rather the creation of the Belkan Empire. Additionally, the defendant takes no responsibility for Belka's other major blunder, namely the artificial eldritch abomination known as the Book of Darkness.

Your Honor, I would like to mention the Unnamed Aliens from Happy Seven. They were fighting so much they created a super weapon strong enough to blow up the universe, hid it inside Earth, then left. And, then they waited till there was actually less than 5 minutes left to decide to come stop the machine.

The prosecution presents it case against Humanity in the manga Hotel. Humanity are precursors to the sentient computers, one (Louis) whose task is to ensure that the DNA of all Earth life is protected and a second who's task is to protect the DNA of humans in order to colonize another world in hopes of saving the species. While the creations of Louis may or may not be independent sentient robots separate from itself the creation of his counterpart in space certainly are ... we're assholes who did nothing but cause Earth to die and died in the process ourselves leaving Earth an unlivable wasteland.

In the case of The People V. Humanity in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It engineered a vast, vast number of Weapon of Mass Destruction, which include the titanic cyborg-like God Warriors, destroyed the entire ecosystem of the whole world, and finally all but perished in the Seven Days Of Fire. But its greatest sin was to create the Heart of Shuwa , a biological computer which contains a human-like consciousness, and which, when found by the few surviving humans, dispensed just enough scientific knowledge to enthrall them. Additionally, war technology pre-Seven Days Of Fire is still scattered across the planet, including the aforementioned God Warriors.

Comic Books

The prosecution submits the case of the Celestials of the Marvel Universe to the court's attention. Let it be known that the Celestials did willingly tinker with humanity's genes, creating the Eternals and the Deviants, as well as sticking the X-Gene into humanity's genetic mix. They also happened to leave behind one of their advanced spaceships where it would be found by En Sabah Nur, one of the first mutants resulting from the X-Gene. One can guess at the sort of use he put the Celestials' technology to by the fact that he renamed himself Apocalypse. Then it turns out they let En Sabah Nur nick their stuff so he would owe them a favor

Your Honor, I present to the Court the Guardians of the Universe — while it is true they created the intergalactic police force now known as the Green Lantern Corps, and that they have had a major role in the defeat of the Anti-Monitor, Superboy-Prime and Mandrakk the Dark Monitor, there has been an ever growing list of incidents which leads the prosecution to wonder exactly what is it that the Guardians have been doing with that power. For starters, the Court is presented with evidence of the Guardians' creation of the Psions. They were given immeasurably powerful technology and isolated from the universe at large so they could strive to comprehend it without interference. Except the Psions have done just that, leading to a Vicious Cycle in which they discover their origins, Go Mad from the Revelation that their entire existence is an experiment, destroy all technology, and start anew. Furthermore, the path the Guardians set the Psions on has arguably pushed them into a spiral of abuse of other species, creating a race of Mad Scientists. The Guardians covered up the crimes of a rogue member of their collective, one Krona, namely: reprogramming and unleashing the berserk Manhunters on Sector 666, which ended in nigh-complete genocide; destroying entire universes in his mad quest to know of their creation; manipulation of the Emotional Entities; first contact with Nekron; and pouring entropy into the newborn universe, dramatically shortening its lifespan and creating the Anti-Monitor. The Guardians, in fact, have a noted record for hiding the records of their past failures, even though knowledge of this could prove critical in eventually saving the Universe as a whole, to make themselves look not completely terrible and/or incompetent. Examples of this include the sealed Apokolips campaign (in which hundreds if not thousands of Lanterns were slaughtered against Parademons), the existence of the Parallax Fear Entity (which led to the destruction of the Corps and the near-death of the universe), and most egregiously, the smear campaign against Abin Sur and Ganthet and the sealed records pertaining to the truth about Nekron and the prophecy of the Blackest Night, in which they continuously suppressed vital information and fomented discord within the seven Corps, which were all vital in the banishment of Krona and the end of the Blackest Night. When questioned by the abomination Nekron, a Guardian was asked exactly why his people had chosen to patrol the cosmos. His answer — "I don't remember". — only serves to underpin how far the Guardians have strayed. For the record, it was to atone for Krona's actions, though they quickly became enchanted with the idea of establishing themselves as the de facto authorities of the universe. In another earlier case, the Guardians chose to sentence one of their own, Appa Ali Apsa, to mortality and exile because he had decided to preserve the life of one Green Lantern over preserving the environment in a clear Catch 22 situation. While he eventually regains his immortality, Appa Ali Apsa's experiences as a result of his exile are one of the chief reasons he subsequently goes mad and brings in various cities from across the universe to use as his playthings, crossing the line himself into Abusive Precursor. Interestingly, their hypocrisy becomes more notable when earlier they elected not to strip the above-mentioned Krona of his own immortality after his repeated crossings of the Moral Event Horizon, leading to much further misery. After corraling much of the universe's mystical energy into the Starheart (mainly because they feared magic and wanted to eliminate it so they and their Green Lanterns could better police the universe), they failed to keep it properly contained, creating a dangerous abomination with a serious grudge against them. In their haste to roll out their new Internal Affairs officers, the Alpha Lanterns, the cyborg conversion surgeries they pushed deadened the volunteers' minds to the point of eliminating any form of personality due to their connection to the Book of Oa. And to add insult to injury, their so-called infallibility turned out to create perfect hosts for Apokoliptian entities during the Final Crisis and the production facilities were easily subverted by the Cyborg Superman afterwards. The prosecution wishes to alter its charge to Abusive Precursors in light of the recent revelation that the Guardians are now, in fact, trying to murder absolutely everyone



Fan Works

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Films — Live-Action

Literature

Stargate Verse

Your Honor, for unbelievable negligence, incredible incompetence, blinding hypocrisy, and a refusal to take any responsiblity at all for crimes, misdemeanors, or even basic sapient decency, the prosecution requests that The Ancients of the Stargate-verse be assessed the maximum civil and criminal penalties available under the law. A summary of their deeds and lack thereof is as follows: Refuse to help normal people ascend to Energy Beings save on their own merits, and punish those who do. Fair enough, but they also won't allow anyone who ascends to help mortals, bringing down the banhammer at the slightest sign of rule-breaking. Refuse to help any of the "lower beings" at all, including against monstrous, Always Chaotic Evil beings that will kill or enslave everything in their path. Which is EXTREMELY hypocritical considering they're directly or indirectly responsible for the creation of almost all of them in the first place. Anyone of their kind that does attempt to help are treated worse than those that attempt to help them ascend. Witness: Daniel Jackson. Rarely took security measures (and almost never left instructions) regarding the legions of Pointless Doomsday Devices they left like so much trash throughout various galaxies including one capable of exterminating all life in the galaxy and another that could not be shut off once activated. Leaving other technologies throughout the galaxy, including a means of achieving immortality that causes insanity if used, to be exploited by anyone who discovered them. This resulted in the Goa'uld transforming from a simple parasitic species to the tyrannical rulers of the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Directly responsible for the creation of two horribly powerful, ravenous, immensely destructive beings (the Pegasus Replicators and the Wraith). After exterminating their mistakes, they chose to ascend. Rather than use their ascended knowledge to fix the problems they had created they left their monstrous creations to slaughter countless millions of lives. Your Honor, I must note that important evidence has recently emerged with regard to the creation of the Wraith. It has come the prosecution's attention that the Wraith came about due to an experiment to achieve Immortality. Unwilling to test the process on themselves or their fellow Ancients, the researchers instead used a "lesser" species: humans. The majority of the test subjects did not survive the transformation. When it became clear that the survivors could only sustain themselves by feeding on the life force of humans or (more importantly in the researchers' eyes) Ancients, they imprisoned the newly-created Wraith and planned their extermination, which was prevented by the Wraith escaping and killing their captors. The Wraith Queen Alabaster and Teyla Emmagan, descended from human-Wraith hybridization experiments, can both testify to genetic memories of these events. The Wraith Old One is the only known survivor of the original Wraith and could also confirm through firsthand knowledge, but is unlikely to recognize the validity of this court and more likely to see it as a snack. It should also be noted that, in their war with the Wraith that lasted thousands of years, the Ancients with all of their superior technology never bothered to look for a way for Wraith and humans to coexist. Yet in a matter of mere years, a combined research group of Tau'ri and Wraith have developed an experimental retrovirus that allows a human to be fed upon by a Wraith without any permanent damage at all. Preliminary field tests have demonstrated that it works in at least some humans, with wider trials planned in the immediate future. Not only that, but some were able to genetically modify Wraith so they need not feed on humans at all. Had the Ancients been willing to even consider possibilities other than a war of extermination, billions of lives could well have been saved. Intentionally created, in the Pegasus Galaxy, Stargates that terminate in orbit around planets without including a warning system. In fairness, sometimes even the gates on planets opened into environments that had become non-survivable in the intervening centuries, and of course hostile beings may lie in wait at other gates, so anyone with a lick of sense will send a probe through first. One of the aforementioned Always Chaotic Evil beings managed to ascend and attempted to use the Ancient knowledge for his own benefit. Because his ascension had been aided by another the Ancients responded by only partially de-ascending him, leaving him with all of his knowledge (as well as being effectively unkillable). This was done purely for a petty guilt trip on the person who had ascended him. Even if her decision was wrong they allowed Anubis to kill millions of innocent people not only without restraint but with their explicit protection. Effectively setting a murderer loose in a building full of helpless children and then preventing anyone from stopping the killing, putatively to teach a moral lesson. It does deserve to be pointed out here that when Daniel asked Oma Desala who the other people in the space-diner were, and if they were Ancients, she replied that "some of them" were, but not all. From this, it's relatively simple to note that the Ancients were only one group among the "Others" and are entirely plausibly neither the most numerous nor the oldest of them. The justification given for their constant absence is not wanting to involve themselves with mortal affairs, believing they do not possess the right to wield such power in such a way. Yet when the Ori, beings comparable to the Ancients to whom they should have no such restrictions, set their sights on the Milky Way galaxy they are allowed to just waltz in on a technicality. In addition, they are perfectly willing to break this non-interference clause when their own well-being is at stake, sending Morgan Le Fay to stop Merlin (who at the time was descended and should have been out-of-bounds) when he made a device capable of killing ascended beings. The Morgan Le Fay case bears further elaboration, as she very carefully leaked information to the humans, while the rest of the Ancients watched her. The moment she tried to do anything but be vague, she was dragged away, never to be seen again. At least until the Ancients needed her again. The primary aspect of the Ancients non-interference pact is long as there are no ascended powers being used. That seems reasonable. Yet when Adria fully ascended, and later came down to our lowly plane of existence and acted with her full powers, did the Ancients finally stand up and say, "No"? Well, no. While Adria returned to the Ori galaxy and never returned to the Milky Way afterwards, thus the Ancients were still playing by their (pompous, overblown, immoral) rules, the very fact that their rules allow for such a loophole merely strengthens the case against them. Decided to ignore any and all precautions regarding the safeguard of their technology, or leave any kind of warning regarding their technology, even when clearly having the power to manipulate the physical environment to do so. This extends to the Ancient Library of Knowledge and the Destiny Chair, both of which are designed so that if the users aren't pure Ancient, it kills them. The defense would remind the prosecution that's what the ATA gene was for: locking out access to their technology for any non-Ancients. Dr. Rush does say in Universe that the ship Destiny pre-dates the ATA gene and genetic locks, so it's clearly something they added later on, perhaps for that very purpose (security). Unfortunately, that didn't stop sufficiently determined societies from getting around the locks (if you build it, somebody's going to find a way to tear it down), and the presence of the gene in a subset of the human population is thanks to a couple of post-Atlantis Ancients "getting frisky" during their brief time back in the Milky Way before ascending. Furthermore, there is evidence that the Ancients were effectively incompetent, as they a) were not able to cure a plague which a Goa'uld symbiote is able to cure with no side effects, b) were not able to utilize their own technology to go back into time, instead creating a time loop/trap for other races to discover, c) were not able to defeat either the Wraith or the Replicators even though the "primitive" Tau'ri were able to, and d) were not able to hold Atlantis after being given control of it back again, because of their arrogance and general incompetence. The defense argues point #3 also applies to the Asgard vis-a-vis the Replicators, and #4 is the fault of Rodney McKay editing the Asuran base code, thereby allowing them to edit it themselves and remove the restriction on attacking their creators. They appear to have laws against theoretical research or practical results of time travel, discussed in one of the Atlantis episodes when Weir went back in time. They left a time travelling puddle jumper on Atlantis. Even if they lock Atlantis and the Jumpers from activation by those without the Ancient gene, they have no idea what might happen to the city in the future which could have included the time jumper making it's way to the surface and being discovered by anyone. In a universe where meddling with time travel can drastically alter history AND existence being in a multiverse, this is a horrifyingly stupid technology to leave hanging around. Allowed one of their number (Orlin) to give advanced weaponry to a civilization attempting to defend itself against the Goa'uld — said civilization then proceeded to use this technology to plot conquest against other worlds. Then acted to prevent this aggression by committing genocide against said civilization. While leaving the advanced weaponry intact, thereby providing themselves with an excuse to murder any other race curious enough to try activating it. So, the prosecution suggests we extend the verdict to Guilty, guilty, hypocritical Lawful Stupid Energy Being scumbags. Thankfully, the Ancients turned out to be so neglectful they actually left behind the keys to creating the sangra'al, a device capable of destroying themselves. All in favor of capital punishment?

The Defense would like to point out that the reason the Ancients didn't fight the Ori or Adria was that they were in fact more powerful than the Ancients. It is stated that any human who believes in the Ori makes them more powerful on the ascended plane. As the series went on the population of the ENTIRE Ori galaxy and a large portion of the Milky Way was helping the Ori, and all that power switches from being split by a whole race to concentrated in one single being. It would've been frankly suicidal for the Ancients to directly intervene, but letting SG-1 fight in their own way kept the focus away from themselves. Also, why would the Ori need to cheat and create a human with some Ori powers that wasn't ascended? Because the Ancients were preventing them from intervening directly, which would have been a thousand times worse.



The convenient (alleged) banishment of Morgan Le Fey (a powerful Ascended Ancient) to the galaxy wherein lived the Ori, conveniently accompanying SG-1 through the Supergate, conveniently being present to heal Teal'c of mortal injury, conveniently giving Daniel Jackson the knowledge and means to sever Adria's power, and conveniently being on-hand to destroy her once her power had been severed, all while sticking exactly to the letter of their rules, should not be ignored.

Live-Action TV

Tabletop Games

Toys

The Great Beings of BIONICLE were scientist-rulers on their planet, until they created the Element Lords to take over the "ruling" part so they could focus on the "science". This is perhaps the most damning display of negligence, creating proxies so that they can safely afford to neglect their subjects. (Though it could be argued that they did act responsibly in making sure there were proper replacements.) While things were all right for a while, Unobtainium was discovered and the Element Lords led their subjects in waging a No Blood for Phlebotinum war over it, one that only ended when said Unobtainium split the planet into pieces. The Great Beings tried nonviolent solutions, all of which failed. The eventually resorted to creating baterra robots, a last-ditch doomsday weapon programmed to end the war by killing all armed combatants. However, they were released too late to prevent the disaster, and later overrode their shutdown commands. While the sheer number of safeguards ensuring Mata Nui's functioning, as well as the attempts to stop the war and the disaster, argue against negligence, the issue of the Element Lords still looms large. However, it occurs to the court that the Great Beings are only precursors to Mata Nui and his inhabitants, not to the other races that they passed off to the Element Lords. So they were precursors and may have been negligent, but not both at the same time.

Charges have been found and filed against the Transformers being known as Primus: the defendant failed to properly expunge a deadly form of reproduction from the early Transformer ancestors, leading to the creation of the Swarm, an Omnicidal Maniac Eldritch Abomination that nearly destroyed several civilizations across the galaxy, including the modern-day Transformers. The defendant also created the Fallen, a creature that oversaw the universal element of entropy, an element that the defendant's brother and eternal enemy Unicron is the embodiment of, essentially handing the Chaos Bringer his very own avatar to do his bidding with. In short, thanks to the defendant's absentmindedness, he had an indirect hand in creating two of the Transformers' worst enemies, of whom only one had been "neutralized" (although the Swarm's "purified" form of the Vok could arguably be considered just as nasty as their previous selves), while the other is still at large and continues to plague the defendant's creations, on occasion. The defendant also is highly reluctant to wake himself unless there is a significant and direct threat either from Unicron himself, or against the defendant's person, and even then, he uses proxies to do the dirty work, for him; for instance, he allowed the Transformers to wage a civil war that lasted aeons and devastated and drained their home planet - the defendant's body - almost to destruction, with very little repercussions, but when Unicron began actively hunting down and consuming the sparks of the Transformers, thus weakening the defendant's power, the defendant hired one of the remaining Transformers to form an army against Unicron, and allowed him to choose a scant 2 soldiers from time and space to fill that army with.

Video Games

Webcomics

The Dragons from The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! left behind one of the deadly Iridium Bombs from their ancient war that wiped out the dinosaurs. The government found it and human civilization almost got blown up in the ensuing scuffle.

The creators of our universe in Homestuck were caught up in other matters and never got the chance to shape it as gods. This was probably for the best, as several freely admit to wanting to abuse and exploit it. However, they definitely neglected to build it properly, thus dooming it to failure.

The people of Chel'el'Sussoloth of Drowtales would like to bring charges against the Dokkalfar kingdoms. They opened nether gates, bringing demonic beings to feast upon our life energy. They squandered their homelands and forced their descendents to live underground and be transformed into monsters! For 1100 years, they then ruled us with an iron fist from afar in their towers above our city. Had they stepped down and agreed to share what they knew, perhaps the recent Nidraa'chal "incident" would never have occurred. Now, when we need them most, they refuse to teach our heroes how to fight the darkness, instead waiting for us to destroy ourselves before deciding it is time to rebuild.

Web Original

If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: The Emperor has this view of Warhammer 40,000's Old Ones, not deigning to give every other lifeform a proper push towards evolution and fucking up every attempt at actually doing something good. Or, in his words: THESE THINGS ARE THE SHITTY NEGLECTFUL GRANDPARENTS OF ALL THAT IS LIFE

Western Animation