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
32Excavations
published
published
29Worlds
under study
under study
MMXXVIFounded
Featured ExcavationNº 0032
Excavation Nº 0032 · Observatory
The Machines That Reinvented Humanity
In NieR: Automata, humanity is long extinct and its machines rebuild villages, kingdoms and churches in its image. An excavation of the world of 11945.
- World
- Earth, NieR: Automata
- Period
- 11945 (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
0032The Machines That Reinvented HumanityObservatoryNieR: Automata● Active0031The Stations That Became NationsAnthropologyMetro● Active0030The Wilderness That Rewrote Its VisitorsEcologiesSouthern Reach● Active0029The Church That Healed Its City With the Blood of GodsReligionsBloodborne● Active0028The Kingdom That Tried to Forget Its GodExtinct WorldsHollow Knight○ Extinct0027The City That Lived Around a Single FireAnthropologyFrostpunk● 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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