Novels or films that feature the creation of human society anew

October 28, 2017 1:02 PM

Hivemind! Does anyone know of novels or films that feature the birth and development of human society? Perhaps astronauts arrived on a distant planet and from three of them, a small isolated population developed with its own laws and myths and religion? Or travelers are ship-wrecked on an island and create a community that lasts generations with a new language and a totally different way of social organization? I'm specifically looking for examples that last several generations, perhaps even hundreds of years, rather than castaway stories (i.e., not stuff like Lost, Lord of the Flies, etc.). Thanks!!!

It's almost like if we ask: what happens if we take a population of naked, cultureless, blank slate babies, drop them on island, and watch what happens with their society?

This is the only example that currently comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Silver_Globe_(film)

posted by mrmanvir to Media & Arts (19 answers total)

Best answer: Neal Stephenson's Seveneves is about this. It definitely covers the time scope you're looking for, although it skips a bunch of the middle. It's more in the vein of "shipwrecked travelers" than "blank-slate babies".
posted by xueexueg at 1:19 PM on October 28, 2017 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Vonnegut's Galápagos.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:22 PM on October 28, 2017

Best answer: Things to Come (1936) is the film of a H.G.Wells book , its just been added to netflix uk so may be available where you are. Its the story of the 30s world getting into a long war of attrition then being rebuilt by technocrat engineers.
posted by biffa at 1:34 PM on October 28, 2017

Best answer: Anne McCaffrey's Pern series is set in just such a place, I think; although the settlers were a lot more prepared upon arrival than 'blank-slate babies' (which I can't picture surviving unless they're very lucky and the new place's climate is very nice, even at night).
posted by Rash at 1:38 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Hyperion has a society like this in it (they're just one story line, not the whole thing). Don't recommend the book itself with great enthusiasm, but I think it's an interesting answer to your question.
posted by snaw at 2:02 PM on October 28, 2017

Best answer: Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books begin with colonists crash landing. They can be read in any order.
posted by Jesse the K at 2:37 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The Book of Dave by Will Self. The story of a new civilisation in post-apocalyptic London, which has founded a whole religion on the writings of a London cab driver from the turn of the 21st century.
posted by churlishmeg at 2:41 PM on October 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: The 100

posted by SyraCarol at 2:59 PM on October 28, 2017

Best answer: I am constantly recommending these books (seriously, I think I just recommended them a few days ago here) but this is one of the things that's so much fun about The Passage trilogy. It (SPOILERS) follows the collapse of American society/government/etc. due to a virus, and THEN jumps ahead a hundred years to follow the people who are left. The trilogy explores different ways that small bands of survivors created societies after the collapse. For instance, there's one small community of people who were descended from a group of children who were rescued - it's a really interesting exploration of what a society would look like if it was built by people who only knew our society/culture as kids. The books go on to explore other models of rebuilding, though it'd probably be too spoilery to say more.

But seriously, you want to read these books. They're exactly what you're looking for.
posted by lunasol at 3:31 PM on October 28, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best answer: The Red Mars series is about the beginnings of human civilisation on Mars. Humans arrive there with a grand plan and equipment but the novels explore how things branch out from there, the growth of a distinct Martian culture and people.
posted by giraffeneckbattle at 3:38 PM on October 28, 2017 [5 favorites]

Best answer: It's just an epilogue, not the whole film, but: WALL-E
posted by Rhaomi at 4:04 PM on October 28, 2017

Best answer: Dark Eden by Chris Beckett and its two sequels, Mother of Eden and Daughter of Eden (tw for implied incest in all books).
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 4:38 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Seeing The Book of Dave reminded me that Riddley Walker is very much in the same vein. On a shorter timeframe, Earth Abides. A Canticle for Leibowitz is another one.

Also, seconding the Red Mars series and The 100.
posted by snaw at 7:06 PM on October 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Jo Walton's The Just City and the other books in the series involve a group of scholars from throughout history who come together (with the help of a couple of gods) to gather up children and try to create Plato's Republic. In the first book the society sticks to Plato, but in later books the grown up children splinter off and create other societies.

I also thought of Pern; I think you'd want Dragonsdawn, which is not the first published, but it's the one where they land. Other books take place hundreds of years later when society is less technologically advanced.
posted by gideonfrog at 7:40 PM on October 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: This may be too far outside your request, but Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play is a play that works with this theme.

Also, the animations that accompany the closing credits of Wall-E are delightful and might qualify.
posted by Sublimity at 7:48 PM on October 28, 2017

Best answer: Came to suggest Seveneves, but since that's already there, I'll drop S.M. Sterling's Emberverse works. The first is the Nantucket series, wherein the entire island of Nantucket is sent back to ~1250 B.C, and the residents must survive/rebuild in a pre-technological world.

Those 3 books are followed by the Emberverse series, which deals with what happened "back up in the 20th" - basically all technology and high energy chemistry (eg. gunpowder, ICE's) stopped working at the point that Nantucket was transported back in time. Cue planes falling out of the sky, total overnight societal collapse and rebuilding in a world after The Change.

The Nantucket series covers about 2 or 3 decades, while the Emberverse covers 2 or 3 generations, IIRC.
posted by quinndexter at 1:43 AM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The trilogy of books starting with the Three Body Problem, by Liu Cixin. The first book doesn't deal with the rebuilding of society, but it is a major theme of the second and third books.
posted by pravit at 8:30 AM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Seconding the Emberverse series (specifically "Dies the Fire" and its immediate sequels). The latest novels hare off into some fantasy weeds with a character being/becoming an avatar or something, but the first couple of books feel very realistic (assuming you can make it over the "higher energy physics stops working" hump).
posted by yggdrasil at 11:40 AM on October 30, 2017

Best answer: Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Green Sky Trilogy takes place several generations after a small group of people colonizes a new planet.
posted by kristi at 10:49 AM on October 31, 2017