Apocalypse How/Class 2: Difference between revisions

** After that in "Net Sphere Engineer" the last remnants of humanity are unfortunately not as safe as they would have hoped. But they have another protagonist to deal with the problems this time.

* About 500 years prior to the beginning of ''[[Dragon Ball]]'', a violent storm raged across the planet Namek, leaving only one Namekian on the ground and another escaped to somewhere in space. Even centuries later with asexual Namekian reproduction, there are only a few hundred Namekians left. During the Frieza saga, Frieza, his henchmen and Vegeta almost completely eradicate the Namekian race, aside from the Nameless Namekian who fled all those centuries ago, separated into the light side of Kami and the dark side of Piccolo. Piccolo becomes the only living Namekian on the surface alive prior to most of the race being resurrected by the Namekian Dragon Balls and transported by the Earth Dragon Balls, followed shortly thereafter by Namek's explosion.

* In ''[[Uchuu Senkan Yamato]]'' humanity is reduced to survival in underground cites that are rapidly becoming uninhabitable due to radiation thanks to the Gamilas' continual bombing of Earth.

* ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]'' takes place a thousand years after the world has been devastated by what's implied to have been a nuclear war. The survivors have organized themselves into petty kingdoms, but are still at war with one another and technology has only progressed to the late medieval period for the most part (save for some remnants of pre-deluge technology like airplanes).

 

* [[John Varley]]'s ''<s>Eight</s> Nine Worlds'' stories, where an invasion of aliens had come to Earth and literally plowed human civilization out of existence, supposedly to benefit Earth's true higher life forms: dolphins, sperm whales and other cetaceans. At that time, humanity had one single developed colony on the moon. They were warned - once - never to land on Earth again. Four hundred years later, humanity had settled all the other 'junk' planets in the solar system. What continues to happen on Earth is a sweet mystery.

* Nick Sagan [[Lampshade|lampshades]] this in ''Everfree'', saying that it wasn't really the end of the world, because insects survived and thrived. The event itself could probably be called a 2.9 (10 surviving humans.)

* In [[Isaac Asimov]]'s classic short story, "Nightfall", a planet with six suns experiences night only once every 2048 years. Each time, the darkness drives almost everyone insane and they destroy civilization. At the end the scientists are unable to convince the people of the danger and it all happens again, but they're able to save their data about the event so that the next cycle might avoid the same fate. (Of course, given that this has happened nine or ten times before, it's very much implied that all this might be for naught, as by the time the next cycle's civilization is advanced enough to understand the data, it may well have degenerated into myth.) This is the exact situation in the novel version; one of the reasons the scientists aren't believed is because it's revealed that their prediction ''exactly'' matches the apocalyptic prophecy of an ancient cult.

* ''[[Z for Zachariah]]'', in which [[World War III]] seems to have wiped out everything but an isolated valley in America. From the sound of it it might actually border on a Class 3, since civilization and most of the population seem to have been wiped out entirely.

** In ''The End of Time'', {{spoiler|the Master does this in a very creative and, admittedly, totally awesome manner: by turning (almost) the entirety of humanity into ''carbon copies of himself,'' giving rise to, aptly named, "The Master Race". We all get better shortly afterwards, though.}}

** In "Day of the Moon", {{spoiler|we learn that the Silence have occupied the Earth since the age of fire and the wheel. Canton Delaware and the Doctor trick the Silence into post-hypnotically ordering their own destruction through a message in the 1969 moon landing. As there are probably remote corners of the Earth where people haven't seen the moon landing videos, it's unlikely to be a Class 3a.}}

 

 

* ''[[Phantom Dust]]'' is a class 2 in many ways. The memory erasing dust on the surface makes long term exposure to environments that aren't pressure sealed a dangerous or even suicidal venture. The remains of humanity exist in underground shelters seemingly stitched together from collapsed subways. You only ever encounter one such lair, though it's suggested that more exist. Their government is comprised of a silent dictator and his interpreter, and their civilians/field agents are nearly all of suspect sanity. Parts of the vault seem to have technology superior to modern day tech, but the inhabitants are mostly ignorant; they have no idea how to grow crops and have to raid the surface for food and supplies. Of course, later on in the game you discover {{spoiler|That humanity has actually already gone extinct, and the protagonist and all the humans he has encountered are constructed figments created from the dust by the last surviving human, who has long since past away, making it a class 5.}}

* The Great War in the [[Fallout]] series caused one of these. Sure, it was worse in some places than in others, but humanity's pretty much been busted back to the Stone Age. Social organization is tribal in most cases and only the New California Republic even approaches [[Guns, Germs, and Steel|Jared Diamond's]] definition of a "state".

 

 

 

== Web Originals ==

* The [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|entire reason]] why the time traveler in the ''[[United States of Ameriwank]]'' visited George Washington in the first place.

{{quote|'''Time Traveler:''' "In the year 2258 the World Goes to War and with our level of technology, almost everything is destroyed. Billions die, entire nations vanish in fire, it’s a world we cannot afford to let happen.”}}