Sir Swigglesworth
I got two brain cells fighting for third place
So, as the title of this thread states, I want to make an apocalypse rp here on the website. A pretty big one at that, and it's an idea I've been pondering for the longest time but keep shying away from because it's a lot of commitment and work. What worries me most is that it either wouldn't catch enough interest here or it would pick up but quickly die out.
I've been working on this little apocalypse project for a fair few years, I've even been thinking of turning it into a series of books.
Regardless of whether or not I end up making it an rp thread here, here's the introductory lore I have established. It's like my third draft and is still open to being edited and updated so go ahead and give it a read, tell me your thoughts. I will happily accept any critique from the better writers out there.
In March of 2019 a viral outbreak began in Eastern Europe and quickly spread throughout its country of origin. Within weeks, it had surpassed expectations and many were labeling it as the second Spanish Flu thanks to symptoms remarkably similar to those caused by influenza. Its erratic dispersal throughout Europe came at an alarming rate, quickly earning recognition as a epidemic and having done so within mere months. Beneath the unaware noses of humanity, there was a malicious secret hidden within this ever escalating pandemic. This virus, a nightmare in its own right, was victim to a virophage; Pieces of double stranded DNA that require the reproductive properties of a virus to replicate. As this virus continued in its largely unimpeded swath of infection, it would take less than half a year to spread on a global scale and become a pandemic, causing many countries to enact whatever measures possible in hopes of reducing infection rates. Quarantines were put in place, airports were shut down, borders were monitored with scrutiny, and so much more. To the majority of society, this virus was known simply to be a mutated strain of influenza. That’s what was suspected and what they were told after all. Though many wondered why standard preventative methods, developed through decades of scientific and medical advancement, were failing. Not just failing, but failing to the point that the spread of this virus was hardly hampered. With that failure came a rising rate in unexpected, violent symptoms with no relation to what had so far been observed. Initially unbeknownst to health and research organizations around the world was that this certain virophage’s replication process left behind prions in the body; Prions merely being misfolded proteins. These types of proteins, however, are the cause for many neurodegenerative diseases, and in some cases, even cannibalistic tendencies within human victims. While humanity kept fighting back in whatever ways they could to stunt this ever-escalating pandemic, these left-over prions began causing more damage than the so-called “flu” ever had, physically and psychologically. Media outlets around the world began reporting instances of people lashing out violently, tearing into their neighbors with teeth and nails as if they were wild animals; A true to life zombie apocalypse some felt. Many thought the sudden terror to simply be evolved symptoms of the current virus that was afflicting millions worldwide, others were more skeptical...
This new development quickly forced the hand of the medical field and world governments alike, frantic to discover some possible method of curing or containing this new prion disease; Something notoriously impossible throughout medical history. Medical authorities around the world were given no choice but to reveal the cause of these vicious outbursts. One pandemic was frightening as is, two was a living nightmare. A nightmare only worsened by the fact that these two different pandemics worked hand in hand with each other, all because of a simple piece of DNA. Many countries adopted a military response to this incurable and menacing threat that had overwhelmed their civil forces. Marshall law was put into place, many were forced to relocate into secured government-supervised cities and zones. In some countries, quarantine zones were created to secure and contain anyone showing symptoms from either illness while others opted to isolate and purge in a hopeless effort to combat this biological scourge. Predictably, these sudden changes inspired protests and violent riots to breakout worldwide, causing death and extreme property damage among the slew of crime, looting, and more. Merely three months after this new prion pandemic emerged to throw gasoline on an already burning world, a third factor entered into the fray.
Videos in lesser censored countries began surfacing that showed body bags squirming, people who were declared dead showing signs of life once more, leaked footage of civilians and police forces firing upon violent attackers multiple times, only for the attacker to keep pushing forward with no care in the world about their bullet ridden bodies. Skeptics jumped on the opportunity to claim that their government was hiding the truth. In rapid response to these rumors and claims, government officials around the world put out medical statements to their citizens, claiming that these videos were merely hoaxes created to inspire panic and that no such things were occurring. Many people were distrustful of the messages their government provided though. Having already seen what infected people were capable of, it wasn’t hard for them to consider the possibilities those videos detailed. However there was one specific detail among every video that a keen eye could pick out, and that was that those being recorded all had the same appearance to themselves. Their eyes were bloodshot and bleeding, their skin was pale and sickly, it was no surprise that people would think they were walking corpses, mere husks of what was once a person. Just as they were, a horrid reality that many governments were trying so desperately to conceal. Any claims that people were beginning to turn into zombies or were reanimating had government attempts to falsify them, relating these anomalous symptoms to people simply recovering from a ‘torpor state’ that this new prion disease induced. As expected, those government messages only quelled concerns for a short time before those who were said to have recovered from that “torpor state” began rotting away as they walked. That was the beginning of the end, there were no more chances to hide the truth behind fancy scientific claims. It was clear as day, people were supposed to be dead but instead they were walking around, attacking and eating any poor soul they could get their lifeless hands on.
Before then, both the prion disease and virus were yet to be named. Neither had been discovered in the natural world and were entirely unstudied. Although officially lacking names, a distinct nickname began circulating the internet that rapidly gained popularity. Many were calling the combination of virus and disease the “Torpor Virus”, a nickname so popular that it led to the eventual naming of both entities. Panicked scientists around the world were still scrambling to understand just exactly how the unexpected interaction of those three different factors came to produce such scientific anomalies. Even if a vaccine could be developed for the virus, it would only solve just that. Every infected specimen that was studied had both the virus and the prions in their system, never were those two apart it seemed. Many were both frightened and confused on how something of this nature could occur. Until one biologist by the name of Vincent La’Croix coined the theory that the two were somehow working together in a form of symbiosis. A frightening theory, that two different factors each causing their own illness were somehow working together to create a plague that couldn’t be avoided and couldn’t be cured.
Months passed into what many were calling a true apocalypse, infrastructure around the world crumbled bit by bit as society collapsed. Many governments failed to keep citizens in order or were overrun by the millions of infected individuals who were now nothing more than a walking husk of humanity. Sadly, simple human ignorance and violence can be blamed for so many things that went wrong. Many well-developed countries, initially, were substantially more stable with the exception of China facing a massive civil uprising along with other oppressive countries. Riots and violence were more-or-less quelled by military and police response; For a short time. Inside the lesser developed countries of the world however, there was no order. Chaos was common and it was every man for themselves. For them, the apocalypse had already truly come. Law and order was either non-existent or so corrupt with power that people had no choice but to bow to the new tyranny, die fighting, or flee and survive alone. Despite how much damage was done, there was still one hope that circulated in the countries that still stood. It was assumed that as the now walking corpses of humanity decayed over the period of several months, the world could eventually have the opportunity to recover from the damages and rebuild. These walking corpses, that many had taken to calling ‘Husks’, seemingly began to defy natural science as it were. Bacteria, fungi, insects, even the body’s natural decomposition processes were halted in an act of befuddling scientific defiance. What husks had decayed were left to do so, but the ones that still stood and any new creations were now bizarre time capsules that only suffered what damage could be delivered to them, be it done by man, chance, or the environment.
This ‘Torpor Virus’, as the double-edged sword of disease and virus had been nicknamed, stunned the minds of medical science with how quickly it had developed into something responsible for wiping out more than 82 percent of the human population; and re-purposing over roughly 75 percent. A scientific anomaly that had never been seen before, one that struck both fear and awe in the hearts of those tasked with studying it. Societal collapse, violence, disease, natural disaster and more that came in the years after left merely 5.8 percent of the human population behind in a crumbling world; Little over 450 million.
By the time 2019 came to a disastrous end, in the span of only 9 months, humanity was losing their battle for survival. By 2022, the large majority of governments around the world had all but collapsed, some meagerly scraped by and only the most powerful held strong. Yet even these once powerful nations held no ability to maintain large scale control and were a mere shell of their former glory. Many European countries had been the first to fall, leaving only the strongest among them to remain. China was lost, destroyed in a terrible mix of civil uprising and massive swath of infection. Humanity was largely left alone, fending for their own devices while facing the newfound struggle for survival against themselves, nature, and a plague that still took lives with each passing day. By 2023 the world was beyond a recoverable state for the foreseeable future. But humanity never gave up, even as nations collapsed or law and order failed to exist, communities were built and practiced their own order; sometimes adopting doctrines from both ends of the spectrum and other times creating their own forms of law and order. Within the shattered remains of what was once the U.S.A exists one of the largest survivor populations from coast to coast. An estimated total of 2,374,000 individuals remain from the once large 330 million-strong population, less than one percent. The year is now 2024, closing in on 2025 in this chilled October month, you are a survivor living in the cold U.S North East.
If anyone likes this concept and would like to see it implemented into a large scale roleplay on this website, lemme know.
I've been working on this little apocalypse project for a fair few years, I've even been thinking of turning it into a series of books.
Regardless of whether or not I end up making it an rp thread here, here's the introductory lore I have established. It's like my third draft and is still open to being edited and updated so go ahead and give it a read, tell me your thoughts. I will happily accept any critique from the better writers out there.
In March of 2019 a viral outbreak began in Eastern Europe and quickly spread throughout its country of origin. Within weeks, it had surpassed expectations and many were labeling it as the second Spanish Flu thanks to symptoms remarkably similar to those caused by influenza. Its erratic dispersal throughout Europe came at an alarming rate, quickly earning recognition as a epidemic and having done so within mere months. Beneath the unaware noses of humanity, there was a malicious secret hidden within this ever escalating pandemic. This virus, a nightmare in its own right, was victim to a virophage; Pieces of double stranded DNA that require the reproductive properties of a virus to replicate. As this virus continued in its largely unimpeded swath of infection, it would take less than half a year to spread on a global scale and become a pandemic, causing many countries to enact whatever measures possible in hopes of reducing infection rates. Quarantines were put in place, airports were shut down, borders were monitored with scrutiny, and so much more. To the majority of society, this virus was known simply to be a mutated strain of influenza. That’s what was suspected and what they were told after all. Though many wondered why standard preventative methods, developed through decades of scientific and medical advancement, were failing. Not just failing, but failing to the point that the spread of this virus was hardly hampered. With that failure came a rising rate in unexpected, violent symptoms with no relation to what had so far been observed. Initially unbeknownst to health and research organizations around the world was that this certain virophage’s replication process left behind prions in the body; Prions merely being misfolded proteins. These types of proteins, however, are the cause for many neurodegenerative diseases, and in some cases, even cannibalistic tendencies within human victims. While humanity kept fighting back in whatever ways they could to stunt this ever-escalating pandemic, these left-over prions began causing more damage than the so-called “flu” ever had, physically and psychologically. Media outlets around the world began reporting instances of people lashing out violently, tearing into their neighbors with teeth and nails as if they were wild animals; A true to life zombie apocalypse some felt. Many thought the sudden terror to simply be evolved symptoms of the current virus that was afflicting millions worldwide, others were more skeptical...
This new development quickly forced the hand of the medical field and world governments alike, frantic to discover some possible method of curing or containing this new prion disease; Something notoriously impossible throughout medical history. Medical authorities around the world were given no choice but to reveal the cause of these vicious outbursts. One pandemic was frightening as is, two was a living nightmare. A nightmare only worsened by the fact that these two different pandemics worked hand in hand with each other, all because of a simple piece of DNA. Many countries adopted a military response to this incurable and menacing threat that had overwhelmed their civil forces. Marshall law was put into place, many were forced to relocate into secured government-supervised cities and zones. In some countries, quarantine zones were created to secure and contain anyone showing symptoms from either illness while others opted to isolate and purge in a hopeless effort to combat this biological scourge. Predictably, these sudden changes inspired protests and violent riots to breakout worldwide, causing death and extreme property damage among the slew of crime, looting, and more. Merely three months after this new prion pandemic emerged to throw gasoline on an already burning world, a third factor entered into the fray.
Videos in lesser censored countries began surfacing that showed body bags squirming, people who were declared dead showing signs of life once more, leaked footage of civilians and police forces firing upon violent attackers multiple times, only for the attacker to keep pushing forward with no care in the world about their bullet ridden bodies. Skeptics jumped on the opportunity to claim that their government was hiding the truth. In rapid response to these rumors and claims, government officials around the world put out medical statements to their citizens, claiming that these videos were merely hoaxes created to inspire panic and that no such things were occurring. Many people were distrustful of the messages their government provided though. Having already seen what infected people were capable of, it wasn’t hard for them to consider the possibilities those videos detailed. However there was one specific detail among every video that a keen eye could pick out, and that was that those being recorded all had the same appearance to themselves. Their eyes were bloodshot and bleeding, their skin was pale and sickly, it was no surprise that people would think they were walking corpses, mere husks of what was once a person. Just as they were, a horrid reality that many governments were trying so desperately to conceal. Any claims that people were beginning to turn into zombies or were reanimating had government attempts to falsify them, relating these anomalous symptoms to people simply recovering from a ‘torpor state’ that this new prion disease induced. As expected, those government messages only quelled concerns for a short time before those who were said to have recovered from that “torpor state” began rotting away as they walked. That was the beginning of the end, there were no more chances to hide the truth behind fancy scientific claims. It was clear as day, people were supposed to be dead but instead they were walking around, attacking and eating any poor soul they could get their lifeless hands on.
Before then, both the prion disease and virus were yet to be named. Neither had been discovered in the natural world and were entirely unstudied. Although officially lacking names, a distinct nickname began circulating the internet that rapidly gained popularity. Many were calling the combination of virus and disease the “Torpor Virus”, a nickname so popular that it led to the eventual naming of both entities. Panicked scientists around the world were still scrambling to understand just exactly how the unexpected interaction of those three different factors came to produce such scientific anomalies. Even if a vaccine could be developed for the virus, it would only solve just that. Every infected specimen that was studied had both the virus and the prions in their system, never were those two apart it seemed. Many were both frightened and confused on how something of this nature could occur. Until one biologist by the name of Vincent La’Croix coined the theory that the two were somehow working together in a form of symbiosis. A frightening theory, that two different factors each causing their own illness were somehow working together to create a plague that couldn’t be avoided and couldn’t be cured.
Months passed into what many were calling a true apocalypse, infrastructure around the world crumbled bit by bit as society collapsed. Many governments failed to keep citizens in order or were overrun by the millions of infected individuals who were now nothing more than a walking husk of humanity. Sadly, simple human ignorance and violence can be blamed for so many things that went wrong. Many well-developed countries, initially, were substantially more stable with the exception of China facing a massive civil uprising along with other oppressive countries. Riots and violence were more-or-less quelled by military and police response; For a short time. Inside the lesser developed countries of the world however, there was no order. Chaos was common and it was every man for themselves. For them, the apocalypse had already truly come. Law and order was either non-existent or so corrupt with power that people had no choice but to bow to the new tyranny, die fighting, or flee and survive alone. Despite how much damage was done, there was still one hope that circulated in the countries that still stood. It was assumed that as the now walking corpses of humanity decayed over the period of several months, the world could eventually have the opportunity to recover from the damages and rebuild. These walking corpses, that many had taken to calling ‘Husks’, seemingly began to defy natural science as it were. Bacteria, fungi, insects, even the body’s natural decomposition processes were halted in an act of befuddling scientific defiance. What husks had decayed were left to do so, but the ones that still stood and any new creations were now bizarre time capsules that only suffered what damage could be delivered to them, be it done by man, chance, or the environment.
This ‘Torpor Virus’, as the double-edged sword of disease and virus had been nicknamed, stunned the minds of medical science with how quickly it had developed into something responsible for wiping out more than 82 percent of the human population; and re-purposing over roughly 75 percent. A scientific anomaly that had never been seen before, one that struck both fear and awe in the hearts of those tasked with studying it. Societal collapse, violence, disease, natural disaster and more that came in the years after left merely 5.8 percent of the human population behind in a crumbling world; Little over 450 million.
By the time 2019 came to a disastrous end, in the span of only 9 months, humanity was losing their battle for survival. By 2022, the large majority of governments around the world had all but collapsed, some meagerly scraped by and only the most powerful held strong. Yet even these once powerful nations held no ability to maintain large scale control and were a mere shell of their former glory. Many European countries had been the first to fall, leaving only the strongest among them to remain. China was lost, destroyed in a terrible mix of civil uprising and massive swath of infection. Humanity was largely left alone, fending for their own devices while facing the newfound struggle for survival against themselves, nature, and a plague that still took lives with each passing day. By 2023 the world was beyond a recoverable state for the foreseeable future. But humanity never gave up, even as nations collapsed or law and order failed to exist, communities were built and practiced their own order; sometimes adopting doctrines from both ends of the spectrum and other times creating their own forms of law and order. Within the shattered remains of what was once the U.S.A exists one of the largest survivor populations from coast to coast. An estimated total of 2,374,000 individuals remain from the once large 330 million-strong population, less than one percent. The year is now 2024, closing in on 2025 in this chilled October month, you are a survivor living in the cold U.S North East.
If anyone likes this concept and would like to see it implemented into a large scale roleplay on this website, lemme know.
