World Building Apocalypse: What is a good way of doing it?

[adrian_]

I can guarantee that you have been in an apocalyptic rp before, but what makes one good, specifically, the environment.
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Do you want your roleplayers to claw their way through a harsh sandy landscape? A wasteland of snow? A melancholic abandoned city? What do you think is a good setting for an apocalyptic roleplay.

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[Lost Swordlance]

First off we need to get our terms right :
We have apocalyptic worlds and post-apocalyptic worlds.
Main difference is that in apocalyptic worlds, shit is going down right now. While in a post apocalyptic world, shit has gone down and we try to survive it's aftermaths.
At that point, you probably figured what type of world you wanna do, so now we need a theme.
Here is a list of theme I thought about :
For apocalyptic worlds
"Hell's gates have opened" : Scary creatures everywhere, having weird powers and all have hunger for human flesh
"Mother nature is angry" : Apocalyptic meteorological phenomenon, volcanoes, earthquakes. Very damaging for human infrastructures. Whole countries brought to anarchy.
"First contact" : Technological superior aliens attack earth. Earth military forces wiped out. Use of parasites and diseases.
"For the motherland" : Nuclear fallout. WW3. Fights in earth's high-orbit, nature damaged and mutated as well as humans.
For post-apocalyptic worlds
"No hope" : Agriculture is impossible, all food and water sources are polluted, humanity slowly waste away or mutate to fit earth's new requirement.
"Biohazard" : Earth surface is highly toxic, most survivors are hidden underground. Those who are outside die of radiation and poisonous gazes and liquids, or survive by mutating into a new, predatory, life form. Wildlife has the same treatment.
"Out there somewhere" : Earth is destroyed or unfit to life. Survivors have left into space into one gigantic or multiple spaceship. A population cap is set and the spaceship is way more important than the life of individuals. Some mining missions using smaller spaceships, piloted mechas or remote robots. Everything may be slowly rusting away.
"Long live the computer" : Earth remaining survivors gathered into one automated city where an IA rules. Regardless of the state of the earth, the IA will not let them free and continue to obey very precise directives.

There is too many things that can be exploited or be talked about. And there is a good way to every way.
My personal preference is a post-alien-invasion society. Where humans are used as pets, slaves or workers. (Or genetic pool)

 

[Bacon is fluffy]

I've never rp'd in a apocolyptic or post apocolyptic setting. It seems like a fanscinating concept. But I've never trusted randoms with this concept as simple things like natuto and bleach are difficult for group role play.

As for my favorite setting. I'd like to rp in some sort of zombie outbreak or perhaps in a situation where it seems hopeless(like being on the defensive end of a blitzkreig)

 

[Captain Gabriel]

First off, a good apocalyptic world needs to follow basic rules of the Earth (if you do want a natural disaster as your desired apocalypse).
Take for example a very, very, very distant future. Billions of year in the future...

"The world has come to its peak. Technology as reached its limit and humanity has finally gotten to total peace. But something is happening. The sun, our beloved star, has reached its end.
Its core has reached the Iron point. Within a week, the core will melt and the Sun will explode. Humans have this week to flee the Earth and find another planet."
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I think it sounds pretty good.

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[Sentient Tree]

Well, in the lore for your story I suggest that you include the events leading up to the apocalypse.
I'll use a chemical-related apocalypse for an example in a quick, messy 1-6 timeline thing.
So, for example:

1- City opens up new chemical factory
2- Chemical factory becoming bigger and bigger
3- Chemical company opens up more factories in the city
4- Pollution becomes more serious
5- Fatal error causes chemicals to leak and damage the surrounding environments, including the city
6- Population evacuated, unknown if survivors still trapped in city

 

[Captain Gabriel]

Well, in the lore for your story I suggest that you include the events leading up to the apocalypse.
I'll use a chemical-related apocalypse for an example in a quick, messy 1-6 timeline thing.
So, for example:

1- City opens up new chemical factory
2- Chemical factory becoming bigger and bigger
3- Chemical company opens up more factories in the city
4- Pollution becomes more serious
5- Fatal error causes chemicals to leak and damage the surrounding environments, including the city
6- Population evacuated, unknown if survivors still trapped in city

This is a disaster, not an apocalypse.
There's a HUGE difference.

Disaster = An event that hits a small place, or is too irrelevant to be considered worldwide.
Apocalypse = An event so big that strikes the whole planet and / or a whole continent.

 

[Sentient Tree]

This is a disaster, not an apocalypse.
There's a HUGE difference.

Disaster = An event that hits a small place, or is too irrelevant to be considered worldwide.
Apocalypse = An event so big that strikes the whole planet and / or a whole continent.

Well, I guess I got it wrong there. But if you took this chemical situation and made it bigger, then it would be an apocalypse. I mainly put it to show events starting small and becoming bigger.

 

[Captain Gabriel]

Well, I guess I got it wrong there. But if you took this chemical situation and made it bigger, then it would be an apocalypse. I mainly put it to show events starting small and becoming bigger.

Well, chemical-related apocalypse works only with war-related stuff.
Such as a chemical bomb which fallout covers the whole earth.

 

[Sentient Tree]

Well, chemical-related apocalypse works only with war-related stuff.
Such as a chemical bomb which fallout covers the whole earth.

Yeah, or if a new type of chemical that works as a high-power fuel is discovered but it destroys 50% of the atmosphere.
Deadly UV rays here I come.

 

[Captain Gabriel]

I hereby call upon thee, o master of Roleplay.
Birdsie
Give advice.

 

[Birdsie]

Yeah, or if a new type of chemical that works as a high-power fuel is discovered but it destroys 50% of the atmosphere.
Deadly UV rays here I come.

No human scientist is stupid enough to let a chemical of a destructive magnitude of that amount through.
Believe it or not, but scientists are smart people that do research, and they would obviously realize a chemical compound that is capable of destroying 50% of the atmosphere so easily shouldn't be applied as fuel.

Using it as a military chemical weapon is more thesable, because weapons are meant to do damage. If a chemical weapon destroyed 50% of the atmosphere then the higher-ups would only rejoice at how much damage they did to the enemy... and probably themselves as a side-effect.

 

[_Line 213]

No human scientist is stupid enough to let a chemical of a destructive magnitude of that amount through.
Believe it or not, but scientists are smart people that do research, and they would obviously realize a chemical compound that is capable of destroying 50% of the atmosphere so easily shouldn't be applied as fuel.

Using it as a military chemical weapon is more thesable, because weapons are meant to do damage. If a chemical weapon destroyed 50% of the atmosphere then the higher-ups would only rejoice at how much damage they did to the enemy... and probably themselves as a side-effect.

I would honestly buy the first one more readily than the second one, because part of the point of having a Weapon of Mass Destruction (or any weapon, really) is that it'll harm the other guy and not you. No army or global body would want to put something this destructive into practice, because it would spell destruction for everybody, and not just the people you hate. There's a reason, after all, why the film Doctor Strangelove is considered a comedy.

Now, you might consider Nuclear Weapons to be similar. The issue there is that Nuclear Weapons were A.) expected to only cause harm to a single continent if applied properly, and B.) expected to only be possessed by a single side in the conflict that led to their creation (of course, both sides thought that the person who would ultimately have them all would be their own).

However, the other side of the nuclear arms race plays a part in the first paragraph, which is why I find that one more agreeable. Believe it or not, the spread of nuclear fallout on a global scale was something that was poorly understood during the initial rounds of nuclear testing and deployment. The main fear of nuclear weapons came from their initial destructive potential, and not from the possibility that their detonation en-masse could create global consequences. It was only after the potential of global destruction via the atmospheric transfer of radioactive material was considered and agreed upon as being a real possibility (mostly due to the observation of fallout from thermonuclear tests making people physically ill) that public pressure against nuclear tests and nuclear weapons began to truly mount.

In short, when it becomes clear that everyone will die, the implementation of a measure, whether for warfare or otherwise, falls away from various mainstream opinions.

If it became clear that a chemical weapon would destroy 50% of the atmosphere, the program would be immediately terminated, because that would not be a survivable situation for anyone on earth. It would have to be something more along the lines of a very, very large-scale accident, or a very sudden, very quick, Mutually Assured Destruction situation.

And if you get to the point where the cause of the apocalypse was M.A.D. between two countries, you might as well just use Nukes for your story.

 

[Birdsie]

I would honestly buy the first one more readily than the second one, because part of the point of having a Weapon of Mass Destruction (or any weapon, really) is that it'll harm the other guy and not you. No army or global body would want to put something this destructive into practice, because it would spell destruction for everybody, and not just the people you hate. There's a reason, after all, why the film Doctor Strangelove is considered a comedy.

Now, you might consider Nuclear Weapons to be similar. The issue there is that Nuclear Weapons were A.) expected to only cause harm to a single continent if applied properly, and B.) expected to only be possessed by a single side in the conflict that led to their creation (of course, both sides thought that the person who would ultimately have them all would be their own).

However, the other side of the nuclear arms race plays a part in the first paragraph, which is why I find that one more agreeable. Believe it or not, the spread of nuclear fallout on a global scale was something that was poorly understood during the initial rounds of nuclear testing and deployment. The main fear of nuclear weapons came from their initial destructive potential, and not from the possibility that their detonation en-masse could create global consequences. It was only after the potential of global destruction via the atmospheric transfer of radioactive material was considered and agreed upon as being a real possibility (mostly due to the observation of fallout from thermonuclear tests making people physically ill) that public pressure against nuclear tests and nuclear weapons began to truly mount.

In short, when it becomes clear that everyone will die, the implementation of a measure, whether for warfare or otherwise, falls away from various mainstream opinions.

If it became clear that a chemical weapon would destroy 50% of the atmosphere, the program would be immediately terminated, because that would not be a survivable situation for anyone on earth. It would have to be something more along the lines of a very, very large-scale accident, or a very sudden, very quick, Mutually Assured Destruction situation.

And if you get to the point where the cause of the apocalypse was M.A.D. between two countries, you might as well just use Nukes for your story.

It depends on the setting.

For an instance, In W40k every Mechanicus Adept would never employ such thing as a fuel, but they'd be more than fine with making superweapons that do that kind of stuff.

 

[_Line 213]

It depends on the setting.

For an instance, In W40k every Mechanicus Adept would never employ such thing as a fuel, but they'd be more than fine with making superweapons that do that kind of stuff.

Yes, but 40k is also not the sort of setting that we're talking about here. In 40k, that sort of thing wouldn't even be an "apocalypse," because it would only cover one planet when there's an entire galaxy to deal with.

An apocalyptic scenario, in order to qualify as such, must cover the entirety or majority of the known or traversable setting. An apocalypse in 40k would have to destroy the entire galaxy, so I don't think that this is a good example.

 

[Captain Gabriel]

Yes, but 40k is also not the sort of setting that we're talking about here. In 40k, that sort of thing wouldn't even be an "apocalypse," because it would only cover one planet when there's an entire galaxy to deal with.

An apocalyptic scenario, in order to qualify as such, must cover the entirety or majority of the known or traversable setting. An apocalypse in 40k would have to destroy the entire galaxy, so I don't think that this is a good example.

40k is about a future where war is the only thing that happens every day.

 

[_Line 213]

40k is about a future where war is the only thing that happens every day.

Yes, but that doesn't automatically translate to an apocalyptic scenario. People often forget that our planet has been in a state of nearly non-stop war since the 1940s, for instance.

40k is dark, yes, but I don't think it automatically translates into an apocalyptic scenario at all.

 

[Captain Gabriel]

Yes, but that doesn't automatically translate to an apocalyptic scenario. People often forget that our planet has been in a state of nearly non-stop war since the 1940s, for instance.

40k is dark, yes, but I don't think it automatically translates into an apocalyptic scenario at all.

I didnt say that.