Institute for Fictional Civilizations · Est. MMXXVI
The study of civilizations that never existed.
Games, novels, films and myths are our field sites. Their societies, faiths, ecologies and collapses are our subject.
07Departments
27Excavations
published
published
24Worlds
under study
under study
MMXXVIFounded
Featured ExcavationNº 0027
Excavation Nº 0027 · Anthropology
The City That Lived Around a Single Fire
Frostpunk builds a city around one coal Generator and asks what laws people will accept to survive. An excavation of New London and the price of its fire.
- World
- New London, Frostpunk
- Period
- 1886 onward (in-world)
- Status
- Active
The Departments
Seven ways of reading an imagined world.
Every Excavation is filed in one of the Institute's departments. Open a drawer to see what it holds.
The Register
Recent excavations
0027The City That Lived Around a Single FireAnthropologyFrostpunk● Active0026The Civilization That Died TwiceExtinct WorldsThe Matrix Online○ Extinct0025The Tribe That Worshipped a Machine’s DoorReligionsHorizon● Active0024The City That Lost the War and Kept Its PoliticsAnthropologyDisco Elysium◐ Contested0023The Toxic Jungle That Was Healing the WorldEcologiesNausicaä of the Valley of the Wind● Active0022The People Who Outlived the BombAnthropologyFallout● Active
The Institute's thesis
Fiction is not escapism.
Humanity keeps imagining other civilizations. The Institute studies what they reveal about power, belief, survival and ourselves.
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