History ApocalypseHow / Class1

* Happens a few times in the TabletopGame/{{Exalted}} setting:

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* In ''Without Warning'', an AlternateHistory written in 2009 but beginning in 2003, an energy field of unknown type and origin called "the Wave" wipes out all primates in most of the Lower 48, the more populated eastern half of Canada, about 90% of Mexico and three-quarters of Cuba. This leads to a very different Iraq War in which Hussein goes on the offensive and is joined by Iran [[spoiler: until a threatened Israel launches a pre-emptive nuclear strike on its neighbors]], the global economy starts sliding down the toilet and the world in general starts edging into Film/MadMax territory. Also fires caused by untended fires spread, due to the lack of human intervention (although automatic sprinkler systems catch some) wiping out large chunks of entire cities with the resulting ash being spread throughout the northern hemisphere in "pollution storms" that wipe out major harvests. Four years later [[spoiler: and three years after the Wave disappears, making the area it devastated enterable again]] in the sequel ''After America'', the food and oil shortages caused by the pollution storms and [[spoiler: Israel nuking the Middle East]] have most civilized nations still on rationing, although no-one is starving, many people growing private gardens and bicycles and horses outnumbering private cars.

*** And the however many thousands of people in the airplanes which use electronics in the navigation equipment and more importantly to run the engines. No electronics, bye bye engine; no engine, bye bye thrust; no thrust, bye bye forward speed; no forward speed, bye bye lift; no lift ... oh no... we're gonna die. Most planes built during the last 15 years can't function without computers. If the computers are fried you either replace them or turn the aircraft into Coke cans.
*** The above makes it sound like as soon as the planes lose the computers they'll go into a nosedive and drop like rocks. Aerodynamics do not work like that. Every plane has a certain glide ratio, and even on manual controls a pilot can crash land a jumbo jet without power.
*** While most air passengers would likely die, modern commercial airliners are equipped with backups (most notably Auxiliary Power Units and Ram Air Turbines) that can provide some power and control in the event of engine failure and power loss. Depending on their positioning, it's quite possible that a percentage of planes would be able to ditch or land in relative safety. But yeah, it probably wouldn't work out well for most people in the air when the event happened.
*** And, in any case, avionics are designed and tested to be sufficiently insulated and shielded to render them pretty much immune to lightning strikes, which pump orders of magnitude more energy into the aircraft than a solar event ever could.

** An even bigger threat would come from nuclear reactors. They need electricity to work properly, most of which is used in complex computers and cooling systems to prevent the reactors from overheating. When the power grid goes out, their backup diesel generators can last for a few days at most. There's currently around 450 reactors worldwide.
*** The vast majority of nuclear reactors would be able to automatically shutdown without issues in the case of a mass power outage. Due to how the control rods are held in place with electric motors or electromagnets, and would drop to stop the reactor.

* GearsOfWar skirts between this and Class 2. Given 99% of the human population were wiped out by the Locust, the remaining were fighting an offensive war against them and later the Lambent, and that they had to destroy their last bastion to cripple the Locust at the end of GOW2, things didn't look too rosy. [[spoiler: Confirmed to be Class 1 at the end of Gears of War 3. Now that the Lambent and Locust were wiped out, as well as Immulsion, Humanity can finally recover.]]

* ''{{Uplink}}'' features a non-lethal Class 1, [[spoiler: that happens when the Revelation virus destroys the Internet]].

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' manages a Class 1 in the series 3 ending episodes. Human life on Earth is ordered decimated the old-fashioned way--10% of the population gets killed.
** Thankfully this gets a ResetButton.

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* In ''Without Warning'', an AlternateHistory written in 2009 but beginning in 2003, an energy field of unknown type and origin called "the Wave" wipes out all primates in most of the Lower 48, the more populated eastern half of Canada, about 90% of Mexico and three-quarters of Cuba. This leads to a very different Iraq War in which Hussein goes on the offensive and is joined by Iran [[spoiler: until a threatened Israel launches a pre-emptive nuclear strike on its neighbors]], the global economy starts sliding down the toilet and the world in general starts edging into MadMax territory. Also fires caused by untended fires spread, due to the lack of human intervention (although automatic sprinkler systems catch some) wiping out large chunks of entire cities with the resulting ash being spread throughout the northern hemisphere in "pollution storms" that wipe out major harvests. Four years later [[spoiler: and three years after the Wave disappears, making the area it devastated enterable again]] in the sequel ''After America'', the food and oil shortages caused by the pollution storms and [[spoiler: Israel nuking the Middle East]] have most civilized nations still on rationing, although no-one is starving, many people growing private gardens and bicycles and horses outnumbering private cars.

* In French film ''Film/TimeOfTheWolf'' humanity is in dire straits although it's never fully explained why. The audience only knows that the infrastructure has collapsed, uncontaminated water is scarce and livestock have to be burned. A nuclear disaster is likely. May be considered a Class 2.

* ''{{Terinu}}'s'' backstory has the Earth being subjected to an attack 500 years previously by the Varn Dominion using a titanic tractor-pressor beam to to destroy major population centers via earthquakes and tsunamis. This results in a Class 1.5 destruction as somewhere between one and a half to three billion people die in the initial attack and subsequent chaos. Australia was left intact with a functioning economy however, as a sort of human game preserve. In addition, the Vulpine suffered a 50% population loss as they were hit by the "Bloody Plagues" during the subsequent human led rebellion.
* ''TheZombieHunters'' [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture near-future]] [[AfterTheEnd Post]]-ZombieApocalypse setting finds the planet overrun by TheUndead, and the TheVirus ''did'' in fact serve as a DepopulationBomb. What [[EndangeredSpecies few humans remain]] cling ''very'' tenuously to Class 1 status, with the struggle to avoid ''[[InferredHolocaust becoming]]'' a full-bore Class 2 as a driving force in the plot. To keep their [[IslandBase Island]] [[PoliceState Military Base]] running, and the populace [[CosyCatastrophe cozy]] they [[FantasticCasteSystem depend]] on teams of [[TyphoidMary dormant]] ZombieInfectee DisasterScavengers (the eponymous "[[SuperFunHappyThingOfDoom Zombie Hunters]]") to [[ActionSurvivor venture]] out into "[[ScavengerWorld the Wastes]]" and risk getting [[ViralTransformation bitten]] to retrieve [[{{Plunder}} much-needed salvage]]. They only have two helicopters and a ship to work with. A handful of [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate doctors, scientists]], [[TheEngineer engineers]] and [[TheArmy Military]] are respectively trying to FindTheCure, keep the island's technological infrastructure running, and build a viable secondary colony on the mainland. The loss of any of these people or things, even a relatively [[WeHaveReserves expendable]] Zombie Hunter, represents a huge setback for the potential future of the human race.

* The Breaking of the World in Robert's Jordan's TheWheelOfTime series. Also borders on Class 2.

* The ten year TimeSkip in ''Anime/GetterRobo Armageddon'' has humanity ravaged by the Invaders after a hydrogen bomb combined with Shin Dragon's Getter Beam saturates the Earth with Getter Energy, allowing the beasts to roam free.
* Earth at the start of ''SpaceBattleshipYamato'' is this, verging on class 4. Humanity is barely hanging on to underground cities, with the surface uninhabitable.

* In ''Litature/TheHaremGames'' some unidentified pathogen brings humanity to the brink of extinction by wiping out adult males and severely shortening the lifespan of existing male children as well as almost destroying the viability of male children in utero to the point that live birth is a newsworthy event. Futhermore, it borders on Class 2 due to the fact that the world government falls into the hands of a group of women far more concerned with retaliating against and, in their minds, preventing, the return of the abusive patriarchal societies they came from. They enact policies that make mankind dependent on artificial insemination, and force male teens to fight each other in a tournament until one is left, after forcing them into BattleHarems, with the consent of all all parties involved being a mere courtesy, at best.

* In ''VideoGame/AMindForeverVoyaging'', the 2071 simulation falls into this class. Your town of Rockvil has become the OppressiveStatesOfAmerica, as the [[CorruptChurch Church of God's Word]] has put a stranglehold on the town, turning it into a religious, totalitarian police state, and higher-echelon Church members are allowed to own slaves; your BrainwashedAndCrazy son Mitchell leads the raid as he arrests your wife Jill for "heresy"; you are suffering all kinds of ElderAbuse; almost all animals have suffered Planetary Multiple-Species Extinction due to starvation, neglect, and torture by [[KidsAreCruel religious schoolchildren who treat you like an animal and kill you by throwing stones at you]]; all the water is becoming polluted and undrinkable; food is quickly becoming scarce (and some restaurants are either becoming expensive or reserved only for Church members); strict rationing is in effect for poor-quality food available, since the ration card should not be used twice under penalty of death; [[DisproportionateRetribution innocent people are being brutalized and even executed for minor crimes]], and executions become bloody gladiatorial matches; buildings, churches, parks and a cemetery are becoming either empty or vandalized; [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and books and all kinds of entertainment are banned or replaced by religious hate films]]. [[FromBadToWorse And it only gets way worse in the 2081 sim...]]

* In ''VideoGame/AMindForeverVoyaging'', the 2071 simulation falls into this class. Your town of Rockvil has become the OppressiveStatesOfAmerica, as the [[CorruptChruch Church of God's Word]] has put a stranglehold on the town, turning it into a religious, totalitarian police state, and higher-echelon Church members are allowed to own slaves; your BrainwashedAndCrazy son Mitchell leads the raid as he arrests your wife Jill for "heresy"; you are suffering all kinds of ElderAbuse; almost all animals have suffered Planetary Multiple-Species Extinction due to starvation, neglect, and torture by [[KidsAreCruel religious schoolchildren who treat you like an animal and kill you by throwing stones at you]]; all the water is becoming polluted and undrinkable; food is quickly becoming scarce (and some restaurants are either becoming expensive or reserved only for Church members); strict rationing is in effect for poor-quality food available, since the ration card should not be used twice under penalty of death; [[DisproportionateRetribution innocent people are being brutalized and even executed for minor crimes]], and executions become bloody gladiatorial matches; buildings, churches, parks and a cemetery are becoming either empty or vandalized; [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and books and all kinds of entertainment are banned or replaced by religious hate films]]. [[FromBadToWorse And it only gets way worse in the 2081 sim...]]

** It does apply for the original Macross. Sure, after watching the macross sequels one tends to forget how massive the destruction was, but go rewatch the series, or take a look at the exploration of the devastated earth shown in DYRL (not to be disregarded because in both the series and DYRL Earth was in pretty much the same devastated state). Of course, being a Japanese show, they know they can quickly recover just like they recovered from the devastation caused by the two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However just like we cannot deny the effort they have put to recover from that, we can't either deny the desperate efforts of the surviving humans onboard the SDF-1 Macross to rebuild Earth and quickly put civilization back to acceptable standards.