Post Apocalypse (that does not involve Nuclear War)

[Sabby]

No, I haven't! Will have to Google it.

Reviving this thread because I'm after a specific kind of story and might as well discuss post apocalyptic fiction in general.

Nuclear Apocalypse is fine this time, but there are two specific themes I'm after which I'm having trouble finding. Supernatural, and 21st century conspiracy theories. I've just started reading The Dark Tower by Stephen King, and it's had me craving a post apoc story with some more mysterious and otherworldly elements to it. I also just finished Outlanders, which dealt heavily in things like Annunaki/Ancient Aliens.

[HairyHeretic]

The Twilight 2000 RPG is sort of post apoc-ish. Basically it has a World War 3 scenario, initially between China and Russia, but escalating into Europe which drags in NATO and the US. It starts conventional, escalates with biological and chemical weapons, to 'limited' battlefield tactical nuclear weapons, and finally to intercontinental nukes. Civilisation isn't completely destroyed, but the most national level governments and a lot of infrastructure is gone.

[Oniya]

A supernatural apocalypse that has fascinated me is the idea of Earth being on sort of a cycle where the 'space between planes' gets thicker and thinner over time.  At its thickest, the denizens of other planes are dismissed as mere myth and superstition.  At its thinnest, they waltz in with impunity.  Not merely the creatures of popular legends, but also creatures of those stories that have been forgotten - or outright suppressed.

[Avis habilis]

There's an RPG out there called Summerland set in a world where the whole globe reverted to primeval forest over night. Nobody knows why, or even knows how to start trying to find out.

There's also Tribe 8, where civilization was destroyed by an invasion of spirits.

[Dovel]

A Post Apocalyptic setting I found interesting was from the novel Ill Wind. In the story a oil-eating microbe is released, designed to consume anything made of petrocarbons: oil, gasoline, synthetic fabrics, and of course plastic. It not only destroys the world's oil supply but it also consumes everything that is oil based. To give you some idea, his is a quick list of what is made from oil. Petroleum Based Products

In a matter of weeks the world is sent almost back to the stone age as everything starts to literally fall apart as its destroyed by the microbe.

[Ebb]

There is a reasonably good article about some common fictional apocalypse mistakes on cracked.com today:

http://www.cracked.com/article_21251_5-things-every-movie-gets-wrong-about-apocalypse.html

The one about gasoline particularly irks me, although I can understand the reasons for overlooking it. But realistically a couple of years down the road you're just not going to have gasoline-powered anything. Refineries aren't that easy to operate.

[Revelation]

There's the 50's era novel Day of the Triffids, where a strange meteor shower has blinded most people on earth, and a species of mobile, predatory plants native to that setting's Earth are able to grow unchecked and prey on the blind humans, with non blind humans being a minority.

[Oniya]

John Wyndham had quite a few stories along those lines.  He's also the author behind 'The Midwich Cuckoos', which was later released as the movie 'Village of the Damned'.

[Dovel]

Yes, Day of the Triffids, and Village of the Damned were both great ones. I remember watching both of those when I was younger. Wall At Edge Of World, is another good one. It takes place in a walled off city of telepaths after they destroyed the world using a biological weapon. Now only a few of the 'nulls', normal people, live outside the walls in the ruins of the old world.

[starryphantasy]

I'm not usually into post-apocalyptic stories and settings, but a manga I started kind of swayed me. It's called 7 Seeds, and I would love the chance to write something similar to it. And eventually RP a kind of AU, original version.

It has a meteor crashing on earth backdrop, but a really cool premise and setting beyond that.

[Avis habilis]

Then there was John Christopher's The Death of Grass ("No Blade of Grass" in the U.S.) where a plague wipes out all the grasses in the world - including wheat & barley. Mass starvation & anarchy ensue.

[Drake Valentine]

I only think of two things for Post Apocalypse and the first involves nuclear war. xD

A) I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. - Albert Einstein
Mass nuclear war that has left the surviving humanity's technology level in 'stone age.' There may be remains of technology, but would imagine most of them would not be as functional even if they survived. I do not know if the devastation from a nuclear blast at ground level will serve as the same as an emp if it was launched overhead, science isn't my strongest of points, but I assume it may.

B) Something on a more fantasy scale of demon and angel war on Earth; of course, I guess that can also be taken as a religious viewpoint even though I am not religious.

[BCdan]

I sort of like not-really apocalypse scenarios. Theres a great anime where it seems like a virus is killing everyone and going to destroy all civilization, but later on its discovered that it was somewhat localized and 'only' killed 20% of the population. The main plot revolves around the political fallout, as several major countries are greatly altered and society makes a very rapid shift.  But on the other hand, major technological breakthroughs also happened in response to the virus. 

I think its called Eden: Its an Endless World.  Its pretty brutal at times.

[Inkidu]

Then there was John Christopher's The Death of Grass ("No Blade of Grass" in the U.S.) where a plague wipes out all the grasses in the world - including wheat & barley. Mass starvation & anarchy ensue.

Why just wheat and barley? All cereal grains are graces, so rice and corn would be affected as well? Morbid curiosity.

[Oniya]

Yep.  In the story, the primary goal of the protagonist is a place with a potato farm (as potatoes are not grasses, and can fill that dietary niche.)

[Avis habilis]

Why just wheat and barley?

Oh, not just them. They were just the first ones to come to my mind is all.

[Thorne]

Someone above mentioned Steven King - he did a post-apoc setting, with The Stand. Plague and meta-physics rolled in.

Super storms might also do it, and there was also.. hrrrnm, Waterworld. Which I enjoyed, despite the critics...

[Mathim]

There's a movie from within the last couple of years called Hell wherein the sun just gets hotter and hotter and turns up the temperature of Earth so high that few people survive and it's a struggle to find water and gas and such. Kind of done poorly but a good idea.

[Slave2Fantasy]

What about that supervolcano thing? Something similar happened a long time ago. Let me link you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Traps

Also, I was thinking a good scenario would be during the suns expansion into 'red giant' phase. This is several billion years down the road, so I am assuming we have colonized the solar system at this point. Nonetheless, this would wreak havoc on Mars and the moons of Jupiter as well.

[Andi]

Not that I can remember who wrote it or what it was called, but I read a novel a few years ago that had the sun turn out to be cyclical not only on the well-known 12 year sunspot cycle, but also a ~12000 year nova cycle, aligned with the zodiac. In the novel, an Atlantean artifact powered by zero-point energy ends up deep-freezing earth during that sunstorm... but for a post-apocalyptic scenario, how about a world buffeted by the sun having just shed its outermost layer a century or two ago and wiped the slate (more or less literally)?

[Avis habilis]

That sounds a bit Revolution-ish. Come to think of it a storm of solar flares that was intense & long enough could cause an EMP that would wreck every modern piece of electronics in the world.

[Andi]

Yupp. Now add to that the temperature of that cloud of ejecta, and the effect the particle storm has on earth's magnetic field... any survivors better learn how to make tools from flint.

[Mathim]

Anybody (not) seen The World's End? I thought their take on the apocalypse was kind of more inventive in that it involved

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

every technological advance over the last century or so simply being 'repossessed' by the aliens who gave them to us in the first place and leaving us back in the dark ages.