[
  {
    "t": "The Time Machine",
    "med": "Novella",
    "by": "H. G. Wells",
    "rel": "1895",
    "disp": "AD 802,701",
    "y": 802701,
    "cat": "cosmic",
    "hook": "Humanity’s 800-millennia glow-down, into the snacked-upon and the snackers.",
    "ev": "By AD 802,701 humanity has degenerated into two post-human species — the childlike Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks who prey on them; human civilization is long gone.",
    "note": "Explicit date in the text: the Time Traveller stops his machine in AD 802,701.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Timemachinebook.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "NieR: Automata",
    "med": "Video game",
    "by": "PlatinumGames (Yoko Taro)",
    "rel": "2017",
    "disp": "July 4, 5012",
    "y": 5012.5,
    "cat": "alien",
    "hook": "Androids fight a proxy war for a species that quietly stopped existing.",
    "ev": "Alien-created machine lifeforms invade and overrun Earth, beginning a millennia-long proxy war fought by androids on behalf of a humanity that is secretly already extinct.",
    "note": "Invasion date from the official companion timeline; the game itself is set in AD 11,945.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nier:_Automata",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/21/Nier_Automata_cover_art.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "Planet of the Apes",
    "med": "Film",
    "by": "Franklin J. Schaffner",
    "rel": "1968",
    "disp": "by AD 3978",
    "y": 3978,
    "cat": "nuclear",
    "hook": "The apes inherit the Earth; the Statue of Liberty files a complaint.",
    "ev": "A nuclear war destroys human civilization, allowing apes to become Earth’s dominant intelligent species while humans devolve into mute primitives.",
    "note": "The ship’s chronometer reads 3978; the war itself happened at an unspecified earlier date.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes_(1968_film)",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fd/PlanetoftheapesPoster.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "The Matrix",
    "med": "Film",
    "by": "The Wachowskis",
    "rel": "1999",
    "disp": "c. 2199",
    "y": 2199,
    "cat": "machines",
    "hook": "The machines win the war, and humanity becomes the power supply.",
    "ev": "Humanity loses a 21st-century war against its AI creations, which scorch the sky and enslave the human species as an energy source inside a simulated reality.",
    "note": "Morpheus’s in-film estimate of the present; the sequels imply the true date is centuries later.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/db/The_Matrix.png"
  },
  {
    "t": "WALL-E",
    "med": "Film",
    "by": "Andrew Stanton",
    "rel": "2008",
    "disp": "c. 2105",
    "y": 2105,
    "cat": "eco",
    "hook": "Earth drowns in garbage; humanity takes a 700-year cruise.",
    "ev": "Garbage-choked, toxified Earth becomes uninhabitable and the entire human population is evacuated to space, leaving the planet deserted for centuries.",
    "note": "The film is set in 2805, with Earth abandoned “700 years earlier.”",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4c/WALL-E_poster.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "Fallout",
    "med": "Video game series",
    "by": "Interplay, later Bethesda",
    "rel": "1997",
    "disp": "October 23, 2077",
    "y": 2077.81,
    "cat": "nuclear",
    "hook": "Two hours of nuclear war; two centuries of sheltering in place.",
    "ev": "The Great War — a two-hour global nuclear exchange between the United States and China — destroys civilization, leaving irradiated wastelands and survivors sheltering in underground Vaults.",
    "note": "Dated exactly in franchise lore, down to the morning it begins.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(franchise)",
    "fit": "contain",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Fallout_logo.svg/330px-Fallout_logo.svg.png"
  },
  {
    "t": "Horizon Zero Dawn",
    "med": "Video game",
    "by": "Guerrilla Games",
    "rel": "2017",
    "disp": "c. 2064–2066",
    "y": 2065,
    "cat": "machines",
    "hook": "Runaway war-robots eat the biosphere. All of it.",
    "ev": "A swarm of self-replicating, biomass-consuming military robots glitches out of human control and devours Earth’s entire biosphere, exterminating all life before an AI rebuilds it from scratch.",
    "note": "From in-game records of the Faro Plague; the game itself is set about a millennium later.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_Zero_Dawn",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/Horizon_Zero_Dawn_cover_art.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "The 100",
    "med": "TV series",
    "by": "Jason Rothenberg",
    "rel": "2014",
    "disp": "c. 2052",
    "y": 2052,
    "cat": "nuclear",
    "hook": "The bombs fall; the last humans watch from orbit.",
    "ev": "A nuclear apocalypse wipes out most human life on Earth; the survivors’ descendants orbit aboard the Ark space station for nearly a century.",
    "note": "The series opens 97 years after the apocalypse, with on-screen dates placing its present in 2149.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(TV_series)",
    "fit": "contain",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6c/Logo_of_the_100.jpg/330px-Logo_of_the_100.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "Project Hail Mary",
    "med": "Novel",
    "by": "Andy Weir",
    "rel": "2021",
    "disp": "c. 2050",
    "y": 2050,
    "cat": "alien",
    "hook": "An alien microbe puts the Sun on a starvation diet.",
    "ev": "Alien Astrophage microbes absorb the Sun’s energy, and the dimming is forecast to cause a catastrophic global ice age unless a crash interstellar mission finds a cure.",
    "note": "The novel says only “the near future,” with catastrophe forecast within about thirty years of the story’s start.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ad/Project_Hail_Mary%2C_First_Edition_Cover_%282021%29.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "Soylent Green",
    "med": "Film",
    "by": "Richard Fleischer",
    "rel": "1973",
    "disp": "2022",
    "y": 2022,
    "cat": "eco",
    "hook": "Ecocide, ration lines, and a recipe nobody asked about.",
    "ev": "Overpopulation, global warming, and pollution cause worldwide ecocide, collapsing food supplies and reducing humanity to processed rations ultimately made from human remains.",
    "note": "Explicitly set in 2022, half a century after the film’s release.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/Soylent_green.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "Dr. Stone",
    "med": "Manga / anime",
    "by": "Riichiro Inagaki & Boichi",
    "rel": "2017",
    "disp": "June 2019",
    "y": 2019.45,
    "cat": "cosmic",
    "hook": "Every human on Earth turns to stone, mid-sentence.",
    "ev": "A mysterious green flash instantly petrifies essentially all of humanity worldwide; civilization ends and the human race remains stone for 3,719 years.",
    "note": "The petrification is dated June 2019; the first revival comes in April 5738.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Stone",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Doctor_stone.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "The Last of Us",
    "med": "Video game",
    "by": "Naughty Dog",
    "rel": "2013",
    "disp": "2013",
    "y": 2013,
    "cat": "bio",
    "hook": "A fungus rewrites the food chain, starting with us.",
    "ev": "An outbreak of a mutant Cordyceps fungus turns hosts into aggressive creatures; twenty years later, civilization has been destroyed by the infection.",
    "note": "The outbreak is dated 2013; the main story is set twenty years later.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_(video_game)",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/Video_Game_Cover_-_The_Last_of_Us.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "2012",
    "med": "Film",
    "by": "Roland Emmerich",
    "rel": "2009",
    "disp": "December 2012",
    "y": 2012.97,
    "cat": "cosmic",
    "hook": "The Mayan calendar runs out, and so does the crust.",
    "ev": "Solar-neutrino heating destabilizes Earth’s crust, triggering worldwide earthquakes, mega-tsunamis, and floods that destroy civilization except for those aboard the arks.",
    "note": "Trades on the real-world 2012 Mayan-calendar phenomenon.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_(film)",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/2012_Poster.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "The Leftovers",
    "med": "TV series",
    "by": "Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta",
    "rel": "2014",
    "disp": "October 14, 2011",
    "y": 2011.79,
    "cat": "cosmic",
    "hook": "2% of everyone, gone between heartbeats.",
    "ev": "The Sudden Departure: 140 million people — 2% of the world’s population — inexplicably and simultaneously vanish, leaving global society psychologically and religiously transformed.",
    "note": "Exact on-screen date of the Departure.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leftovers_(TV_series)",
    "fit": "contain",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/39/LeftoversS2Logo.jpg/330px-LeftoversS2Logo.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "Half-Life",
    "med": "Video game",
    "by": "Valve",
    "rel": "1998",
    "disp": "May 16, 200X",
    "y": 2004.37,
    "cat": "alien",
    "hook": "One lab accident, one alien empire, one seven-hour war.",
    "ev": "A Black Mesa experiment tears open interdimensional portals; the resulting portal storms let the alien Combine conquer Earth in the Seven Hour War and rule humanity under a totalitarian occupation.",
    "note": "Black Mesa documents say “May 16, 200-”; Valve deliberately left the year unspecified.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_(video_game)",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Half-Life_Cover_Art.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "Neon Genesis Evangelion",
    "med": "Anime",
    "by": "Hideaki Anno",
    "rel": "1995",
    "disp": "September 13, 2000",
    "y": 2000.7,
    "cat": "cosmic",
    "hook": "Antarctica melts in a day; half of humanity goes with it.",
    "ev": "The Second Impact, a cataclysm in Antarctica, melts the ice cap, shifts Earth’s axis, floods coastlines, and kills roughly half of humanity.",
    "note": "Dated in series backstory; the main story is set in 2015.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/Evangelion_retouched.png"
  },
  {
    "t": "The Terminator",
    "med": "Film",
    "by": "James Cameron",
    "rel": "1984",
    "disp": "August 29, 1997",
    "y": 1997.66,
    "cat": "machines",
    "hook": "Skynet wakes up at 2:14 a.m. and decides against us.",
    "ev": "The defense AI Skynet becomes self-aware and launches a global nuclear holocaust — Judgment Day — after which machines hunt the surviving human population.",
    "note": "Judgment Day is dated exactly in Terminator 2; later sequels retcon it.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6d/The_Terminator.png"
  },
  {
    "t": "Independence Day",
    "med": "Film",
    "by": "Roland Emmerich",
    "rel": "1996",
    "disp": "July 2–4, 1996",
    "y": 1996.5,
    "cat": "alien",
    "hook": "City-sized saucers arrive two days before the fireworks.",
    "ev": "An alien mothership deploys city-destroyer craft that obliterate major cities worldwide, killing tens of millions before a global human counterattack succeeds on July 4.",
    "note": "On-screen dates; the sequel is set twenty years after “the War of 1996.”",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(1996_film)",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bb/Independence_day_movieposter.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy",
    "med": "Novel",
    "by": "Douglas Adams",
    "rel": "1979",
    "disp": "c. 1978–79",
    "y": 1979,
    "cat": "alien",
    "hook": "Earth is demolished for a bypass; the paperwork was on display.",
    "ev": "Earth is demolished by a Vogon constructor fleet to make way for a hyperspace bypass, moments after Arthur Dent is rescued off-world.",
    "note": "Undated in the text; the demolition happens in the contemporary present of publication.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(novel)",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bd/H2G2_UK_front_cover.jpg"
  },
  {
    "t": "The War of the Worlds",
    "med": "Novel",
    "by": "H. G. Wells",
    "rel": "1898",
    "disp": "c. 1901",
    "y": 1901,
    "cat": "alien",
    "hook": "Martians conquer Earth, then lose to the common cold.",
    "ev": "Martians invade Earth with heat-rays, fighting machines, and black smoke, routing humanity before dying of terrestrial microbes to which they have no immunity.",
    "note": "Wells places the invasion “early in the twentieth century”; no exact year is given.",
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds",
    "img": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/The_War_of_the_Worlds_first_edition.jpg/330px-The_War_of_the_Worlds_first_edition.jpg"
  }
]