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
30Excavations
published
published
27Worlds
under study
under study
MMXXVIFounded
Featured ExcavationNº 0030
Excavation Nº 0030 · Ecologies
The Wilderness That Rewrote Its Visitors
Area X in Annihilation is a pristine coast that copies and transforms everyone who enters it. An excavation of the Southern Reach and its living frontier.
- World
- Area X, Southern Reach
- Period
- Some thirty years after the Event (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
0030The 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● Active0026The Civilization That Died TwiceExtinct WorldsThe Matrix Online○ Extinct0025The Tribe That Worshipped a Machine’s DoorReligionsHorizon● 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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