What's Your Apocalypse Theory

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Redlin5_v1legacy

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Fiction loves apocalypse. Fallout is entirely based on it and most of us adore the feel of emptiness and despair of a dead world. So let's talk about two things when cooking up an Apocalypse Theory.

1. What do you think is the most likely extinction event humanity will face.

2. What apocalyptic event would you like to survive?

Will you be with your small circle of friends against zombies or will you imagine yourself into Mad Max like pretty much everyone who watched Fury Road did? You decide! What a lovely day!
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Sep 16, 2014
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Something big hitting us from space.

We don't have the budget or equipment to monitor the sky and at the rate we're going we're never getting off'a this dirt ball.

Captcha: aluminum foil. That's just hurtful Captcha.
 

Redlin5_v1legacy

Better Red than Dead
Aug 5, 2009
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G.O.A.T. said:
Even if I fail, I'd take comfort in knowing that I fucked up rather than couldn't keep up with regulation 1227G(a) in the government's guide to filling out arbitrary form 426-S on dog vaccinations.
And don't even get started on the Goat registry. Its like they think we don't know how to use them safely.
 

Sniper Team 4

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Apr 28, 2010
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Honestly, I think we're going to kill ourselves. Either war, or damage the planet so badly that we're done.

And I would not want to survive, to be honest. I am too comfortable with my lifestyle as it is right now. I am too soft to be able to adapt to the end of the world. I would want to die in the first few seconds of it.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Jun 5, 2013
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1. I saw this archived interview once, I believe it was John Lennon, where the question was "What do you think the apocalypse will be like?" and his response was roughly "What makes you think we're not already living in a post-apocalyptic world?"
And that's always stuck with me. I know that America walked away from WW2 roughly unharmed compared to the rest of the world, but the 70+ years since then haven't exactly been great.
One could make the argument that the apocalypse already happened and the world is still piecing everything back together.

2. Well I've been playing the shit out of State of Decay the last few days. Seriously, I think I'm addicted to a game for the first time since Bioshock Infinite. I keep wanting to check on my little enclave and take people for walks to clear their heads and kill some Zeds.
Also fuck the big tough tank bastards! I ran into a glitch when I had a Hunt mission. I got to the target area, and I swear this was true, there was over 100 of the tank bastards. Just a rolling huge fuck me why didn't I bring a nuke mass of them. And this was...oh two hours into the game, where I was lucky to have 10 shots for a pistol.
Quit, reloaded and it was gone.

Also, zombies. I want to survive a zombie apocalypse.
 

Thomas Barnsley

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Mar 8, 2012
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I think climate change is most likely to kill us all! Well, maybe not all of us immediately, but it would certainly destroy many things we take for granted, and that seems to be more what the modern view of the apocalypse is about.
The beauty of this particular apocalypse is that nothing really needs to happen for it to proceed. We wouldn't need a buildup of political tension leading to nuclear war, nor would we need to get insanely unlucky such that a meterorite wipes us out, we'd just need to keep things the way they are...

In terms of what I'd like to survive however... I reckon zombies would be fun. You get to perform brutal murder inconsequentially, you get to watch the natural world reclaim cities, and depending on the type of zombie it isn't really all that life-threatening.
 

GabeZhul

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Mar 8, 2012
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Define apocalypse.

If it's societal destruction, that could be achieved with small things. Nuclear war, asteroid impact, getting hit by a corona mass ejection, etc. Human civilization is robust, but it is also very finely balanced. We are always on the edge of just making enough food for one/two years, none of our cutting-edge technology is time-proof, most of our knowledge can be lost precisely because they are stored on non-time-proof storage media and so forth.

Now, for an actual species level apocalypse, that one I doubt will happen unless it is some insane event, like the planet getting hit in the face with a gamma ray burst or getting hit by a comet that makes the asteroid that led to the extinction of large dinosaurs look like a pebble. Unless it is something that either wipes off the surface of the planet or alters the environment to such a degree that we had no time to adapt, humanity as a species would survive. Most people don't really think about it, but we are ridiculously hardy. We have conquered the planet starting from a tiny population and without any of the mountain of technology and knowledge we gained in the last century. If 99.9% of humanity were to be wiped out, I am reasonably certain we could do it again. It would probably take a long time, but we would still have a head start, so a few centuries should get the job done (though it would be a very different civilization from what we know).

As for how I would fare in an apocalypse scenario... Probably surprisingly well. I know how to farm and I have all the tools necessary to do it manually, without mechanized help. I am also familiar with masonry and carpentry, and I have the tools for that too, so I can build stuff if necessary. Finally I also have access to a gun in a country where gun ownership is highly regulated, meaning I could forage for food or defend my stash from scavengers if necessary. My only two concerns would be preparing food (I can't cook at all) and disease. Seriously, most modern people have no bloody idea just what a disease-free paradise we are living in right now because of vaccinations and health-care. Suddenly allergies and drug-side-effect won't seem so bad when you and all of your loved ones keep dying from dysentery, tetanus and toenail-infections...
 

FPLOON

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We rebel against our own clothing, this starting the never-ending battle between S.H.I.R.T.S vs S.K.I.H.N.S....

Other than that, ever heard of "Too Many Cooks"? Basically that and then some...
 

Sleepy Sol

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Environmental damage and valuable resources drying up.

Or a giant space thing smacking us. Either seems fine.

I'd rather not survive any manner of apocalyptic event. Too annoying to bother to continue living anyways.
 

KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime

Lolita Style, The Best Style!
Jan 12, 2010
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Probably the only thing that will be a serious threat to the planet will be when our sun starts dying and becomes a red giant, the heat and proximity of that will probably be what wipes life off this planet. Meteor and Comet strikes? Those will probably be survivable in the long run, they'll have mass die outs, but even the worst we can do to our selves is survivable on a species wide scale.

I wouldn't want to survive a real world shattering apocalyptic event. I'm trans and disabled physically to an extent, so the mobs would most likely just kill me if I survived anyways. Better to die instantly than trying to survive horrific beatings and other abuse, or just plain old starvation. Besides I'm not sure I could to work up the nerve to just commit suicide in such a situation to prevent the pain.
 

Scarim Coral

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Oct 29, 2010
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1. What do you think is the most likely extinction event humanity will face.

Too put it loosely, hatred. Human arguing over feminism, SJW, GG or racism etc will meet a boiling point and they turned on each other. Ok I know this will never happened but imagine a ray gun that amipfy the hate!

2. What apocalyptic event would you like to survive?
Probably a fallout of zombie apocalyptic. I like to imagine I am a loner, being able to survive on his own and don't rely on others. In saying so I know for a fact that I would be the first to died or soon died afterward during the apocalyptic since I have no survival skills what so ever (don't know how to make a fire with sticks alone or knowing how to hunt animals or even fishing).
 

FalloutJack

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Nov 20, 2008
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{1} Oh, it's likely to be the Fallout scenario. War never changes.

{2} The zombies, of course. I'm from Pittsburgh.
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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Silentpony said:
1. I saw this archived interview once, I believe it was John Lennon, where the question was "What do you think the apocalypse will be like?" and his response was roughly "What makes you think we're not already living in a post-apocalyptic world?"
And that's always stuck with me. I know that America walked away from WW2 roughly unharmed compared to the rest of the world, but the 70+ years since then haven't exactly been great.
One could make the argument that the apocalypse already happened and the world is still piecing everything back together.
Wow. Makes sense though, if you look at the state Europe was in after the war... England 'won', but was totally messed up, Germany... Was a pile of rubble, the surrounding countries had been hit pretty hard too...

It took England more than 20 years to recover in any sense from the war...
So it makes sense someone like John Lennon might say that...

Hmm... I don't know... Apocalypses are boring. So... Mini black hole disaster?
Time travel messing up our evolution, and wiping us out before we existed?
Reality shattering paradox tearing the universe apart?

Nyeh. A war between humans and sentient squid people... Yes... >_>
 

Thaluikhain

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Depends what you mean by apocalypse. To someone that lived 200 years ago, the present would likely be very frightening, perhaps enough to qualify.

But, there's always wars for more general apocalypses, even though most of them are fairly localised. Neutral countries might be ok, but they you get failed states in other continents.
 

Evonisia

Your sinner, in secret
Jun 24, 2013
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Probably some space rock shenanigans, or somebody fucking up nuclear technology and wiping a whole bunch of people out in the process.

I have absolutely no survival skills. My best chance would be a slow moving (or just not sprinting) Zombie apocalypse and lucking out by encountering a group, and best case scenario ending up in an advisory role to the inevitable dictator of the group. Can't kill the person putting poisonous whispers in your ear after all, and thus will be less inclined to send me out to pick up old tins of spaghetti.
 

Frezzato

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Oct 17, 2012
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I suspect it's going to be something very small or something very big. What I mean is either a bug (biological) or an asteroid.

Eh, it'll probably be a big rock that does us in.

No, scratch that.

.


My guess is that the rock will simply set off a chain of events, and we'll do the rest.
 

Mikeybb

Nunc est Durandum
Aug 19, 2014
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I love apocalypse.

1) Most likely? my guess is, barring any bolts from the blue (or black given the scary things space likes the throw around)
A slow apocalypse.
We'll unknowingly or accidentally help create over a period of time a situation where our culture and species find survival an untenable goal.
Our numbers will dwindle slowly but noticeably, then sharply when the panic takes hold and after which our drastically reduced numbers will slowly decrease to a point we are no longer viable as a species.
It will take a long time for us to reach extinction.
We may not even reach it fully, but what crawls from the ruins will not be recognisably completely human by our current definition either by physiological changes minor or behavioral ones drastic.

The Death of Grass, The sheep look up, The road for examples.

Of course, we're racing yellowstone caldera to set ourselves down this path, but I've got faith in humanity.
We'll be able to wipe ourselves out before that volcano decides to pitch in.
We can do it, you guys!
Go team human!

2) What I'd like to survive or live through?
Genetic Inviability.
That being our species reaches a point where procreation becomes increasingly difficult to achieve.
Fresh births slowly trickle to a zero point.
I suspect it'd be a little more quiet than the situation portrayed in children of men.

Yes, it'd be horribly lonely toward the end and frankly depressing, but not so likely to result in violence until societal collapse happens due to the top heaviness of the aged population.
I don't find the idea of mad max on mobility scooters and zimmer frames as threatening as the younger, more energetic version would be.


However, there is something I'd like to add.
You don't really survive an apocalypse, even if you're still living at the end.
Even the most socially isolated human is still tied to many others in ways too long to list.
Your life and what it was is over.
Something new may continue, but it will be vastly different to what you would imagine of yourself.

On a slightly related note, find a way to read "World without End" by F.Gwynplaine Maclntyre for a nice short story about how being able to survive isn't the mercy some may think it is.