History Main / ApocalypseNot

* The ''Literature/MortalEngines'' novels suffered greatly from this, to the point that it seemed that the only thing that civilization had lost was the technology of the WaveMotionGun and modern era CD-Roms.

*** New Vegas itself, which is already considered to be relatively civilized, CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot entirely if it wasn't for a stroke of bad luck: [[spoiler: Mr. House saw the apocalypse coming, and actively prepared to defend the city from missile attack, but missed the deadline by one day. His defenses weren't running at full capacity. Regardless, he shot down every missile heading for Vegas except 11 (out of hundreds), and none of those hit densely populated areas. If his upgrades had finished, he would've had them all]].
** Incidentally, a number of people have pointed out that ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'''s devotion to the ScavengedPunk aesthetic [[FridgeLogic doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense]], given that it supposedly takes place ''two centuries'' AfterTheEnd; more than long enough for the descendants of survivors to be numerous and well-organized enough to start quarrying stone or making bricks.

** Invoked even more explicitly in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. In sharp contrast with the crumbling urban wasteland of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', the Mojave desert has clean water, vegetation, and plentiful (if unusually dangerous) wildlife. The primary reason the region still suffers is the conflict between its factions: the swiftly advancing Legion invests much (if not most) of its resources in warfare, and the New California Republic's outposts have overextended and unreliable supply lines to (the entirely rebuilt) California. For their part, the Followers are actually using the supplies to help other people, such as the poor around Vegas (itself a relatively civilized place), most of whom lost their money to organized crime, drugs, and gambling, as opposed to roving bandits and the like.
*** Vegas in general CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot if it wasn't for a stroke of bad luck: [[spoiler: Mr. House saw the apocalypse coming, and actively prepared to defend the city from missile attack, but missed the deadline by one day. His defenses weren't running at full capacity. Regardless, he shot down every missile heading for Vegas except 11 (out of hundreds), and none of those hit densely populated areas. If his upgrades had finished, he would've had them all.]]

* Arguably happens in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}''; at the beginning, humanity seems to have reverted to Stone Age tribalism, and it's not until the second town that you even find an actual gun available for sale. By the end, all the {{Mooks}} have PoweredArmor and energy weapons out the ass.
** The fact that civilization has mostly rebuilt itself is explicitly stated more than once, and is actually a significant element of the setting. The quality of life in San Francisco and the New California Republic is shown to have nearly reached prewar standards, and poor frontier towns like Modoc generally have some sort of government.
** Made even more explicit in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. In sharp constrast with the crumbling urban wasteland of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', the Mojave desert has clean water, vegetation and plentiful (If unusually dangerous) wildlife. The primary reason the region still suffers is the conflict between its factions: The Legion advances switftly and invests much of its resources in warfare, the New California Republic soldiers have overextended and unreliable supply lines to the (Entirely rebuilt) California, and the Followers are actually using the supplies to help other people, such as the poor around Vegas, most of whom lost their money to organized crime, drugs and gambling.
** Vegas in general CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot if it wasn't for a stroke of bad luck: [[spoiler: Mr. House saw the apocalypse coming, and actively prepared to defend the city from missile attack, but missed the deadline by one day. His defenses weren't running at full capacity. Regardless, he shot down every missile heading for Vegas except 11 (out of hundreds), and none of those hit densely populated areas. If his upgrades had finished, he would've had them all.]]
** Incidentally, a number of people have pointed out that ''Fallout 3'''s devotion to the ScavengedPunk aesthetic [[FridgeLogic doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense]], given that it supposedly takes place ''two centuries'' AfterTheEnd; more than long enough for the descendants of survivors to be numerous and well-organised enough to start quarrying stone or making bricks.
** The Commonwealth presented in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' is even better off than New Vegas. During the Great War, in contrast to the utter carpet bombing Washington DC received, only ''a single'' nuclear missile was fired at Boston, and said missile ''missed'', landing several miles southwest of Natick instead of hitting the city proper. Skyscrapers are mostly intact and quite a few places even have running water and electricity, making the city and surrounding area a bastion of civilisation rivalling the NCR on the west coast. However, the regional flora and fauna was still horribly mutated by the Black Rain, and the area the missile hit is now this nasty bit of irradiated wasteland called "the Glowing Sea" where exploring without some serious radiation protection is ill-advised.

* The final arc of ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' develops quickly into this, possibly because the post-apocalypse episodes (which take place two years after the end of the previous arc) were [[PostScriptSeason made in a hurry after the series was lengthened]]. The franchise explains this by stating that mass cloning was used following the war. Also, it's worth noting is that, unlike many other media, no critical technical knowledge was lost in the apocalypse, just industrial capacity, which was ''quickly'' made up for when the survivors began capturing Zentraedi Factory Satellites. However, there are some passing mentions of certain cultural information being lost due to the devastation of specific ethnic groups and the fact no one probably thought it overly critical to preserve copies of Lady Gaga songs, lolcats memes, etc. in hardened military databases.

* More generally, HumansAreSurvivors; as long as we had a functioning ecosystem and enough survivors to avoid problems with inbreeding, we'd rebuild eventually.

* The final arc of ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' develops quickly into this, possibly because the post-apocalypse episodes (which take place two years after the end of the previous arc) were [[PostScriptSeason made in a hurry after the series was lengthened]]. The franchise explains this by stating that mass cloning was used following the war. Also worth noting is that, unlike many other media, there is no real indication any critical knowledge was lost, just industrial capability, which was ''quickly'' made up for when the survivors began capturing Zentraedi Factory Satellites. However, there are some passing mentions of certain cultural information being lost due to the devastation of specific ethnic groups and the fact no one probably thought it overly critical to preserve copies of Lady Gaga songs, lolcats memes, etc. in hardened military databases.

** In fact, the ''Anime/Macross'' shows set after the original all take place either on reasonably well-off colony fleets, or on one of the thousands of hospitable planets up for grabs that were recorded in the Zentraedi databases.

* The final arc of ''Anime/SuperDimensionalFortressMacross'' develops quickly into this, possibly because the post-apocalypse episodes (which take place two years after the end of the previous arc) were [[PostScriptSeason made in a hurry after the series was lengthened]]. The franchise explains this by stating that mass cloning was used following the war. Also worth noting is that, unlike many other media, there is no real indication any critical knowledge was lost, just industrial capability, which was ''quickly'' made up for when the survivors began capturing Zentraedi Factory Satellites. However, there are some passing mentions of certain cultural information being lost due to the devastation of specific ethnic groups and the fact no one probably thought it overly critical to preserve copies of Lady Gaga songs, lolcats memes, etc. in hardened military databases.

* ''Anime/{{Macross}}'' suffered from this, possibly because the post-apocalypse episodes were [[PostScriptSeason made in a hurry after the series was lengthened]]. Explained in the franchise that mass cloning was used following the war. It's also notable that unlike many series there was never any real indication any critical knowledge was lost, just industrial capability, and ''that'' was quickly made up for when they began capturing Zentraedi Factory Satellites. There are some passing mentions though of certain cultural information being lost due to the devastation of ethnic groups and the fact no one probably thought it overly critical to preserve copies of Lady Gaga songs, lolcats memes, etc in hardened military databases. Notably, the Earth is still portrayed as a desolate wasteland whenever it appears in later series: it's inhabitable, and the environment is slowly returning, but it's going to take a very long time to become the verdant world it used to be.
** But hey, there's thousands of hospitable planets up for grabs recorded in the Zentran databases.
** Only the area in the immediate vicinity of the Macross itself are shown in the later series, and that area does appear to be an arid desert even fifty years later. Scenes from the original series, however, show verdant jungles complete with wildlife only two years after the cataclysm, suggesting that the surface devastation was not as universal as it might otherwise appear.

* Unfortunately works in the CelestialBureaucracy's favor in DemonFist: Opening Pandora's Gate combined heaven and hell with earth, destroying all civilization and most of the population in the process. 3,000 years later, the CorruptChurch controls half of the world through advanced technology and mass propaganda, while the other half is controlled by various demons ranging from NobleDemon to CompleteMonster. Humanity has never been so technologically progressed and the Earth has almost fully recovered from industrial pollution, yet the average human is now stuck in their lot in life while demons and angels plot world domination with unexplained and dangerous artifacts that threaten the planet, if not the solar system.

* Arguably, ''AdvanceWars: Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict'' goes like this halfway through. The beginning of the game implies worldwide destruction, with few survivors and no hope. However, we later see functioning cities, functional industry and many soldiers on our way, implying there isn't such a shortage of people after all. It's mostly GameplayAndStorySegregation though, since the cutscenes still give the apocalyptic feel.

* At the end of ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', JC Denton shuts down global communications, triggering the Great Collapse and throwing humanity into a Dark Age. Twenty years later, a number of cities have not only been rebuilt, but are once more engaged in cutting-edge research into emergent technologies. However, most of the world is either a) devastated or b) the same Illuminati-controlled dystopia the first game started with.

* The ''MortalEngines'' novels suffered greatly from this, to the point that it seemed that the only thing that civilization had lost was the technology of the WaveMotionGun and modern era CD-Roms.

* Arguably part of the background for ''{{Terinu}}'', as five hundred years previous to the story's start the Varn Dominion destroyed human civilization and scattered them to re-education camps among the stars. Things Got Better and humanity eventually took the Earth back, after the Varn were nice enough re-terraform it and remove all the nasty pollution.

* ''{{Macross}}'' suffered from this, possibly because the post-apocalypse episodes were [[PostScriptSeason made in a hurry after the series was lengthened]]. Explained in the franchise that mass cloning was used following the war. It's also notable that unlike many series there was never any real indication any critical knowledge was lost, just industrial capability, and ''that'' was quickly made up for when they began capturing Zentraedi Factory Satellites. There are some passing mentions though of certain cultural information being lost due to the devastation of ethnic groups and the fact no one probably thought it overly critical to preserve copies of Lady Gaga songs, lolcats memes, etc in hardened military databases. Notably, the Earth is still portrayed as a desolate wasteland whenever it appears in later series: it's inhabitable, and the environment is slowly returning, but it's going to take a very long time to become the verdant world it used to be.

** The world of Draenor was already on its way to become a completely barren planet when it exploded at the end of ''VideoGame/WarcraftII:: Beyond the Dark Portal'', the shattered fragments ending up in the [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Twisting Nether]] as an easy target for demons and other interdimensional threats. But in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft: The Burning Crusade'', several regions seem relatively untouched. Nagrand is particularly noticeable as lush GhibliHills full of life.

** Made even more explicit in VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas. In sharp constrast with the crumbling urban wasteland of VideoGame/Fallout3, the Mojave desert has clean water, vegetation and plentiful (If unusually dangerous) wildlife. The primary reason the region still suffers is the conflict between its factions: The Legion advances switftly and invests much of its resources in warfare, the New California Republic soldiers have overextended and unreliable supply lines to the (Entirely rebuilt) California, and the Followers are actually using the supplies to help other people, such as the poor around Vegas, most of whom lost their money to organized crime, drugs and gambling.

** Made even more explicit in VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas. The only people having a difficult time making ends meet are the N.C.R., who are that way due to overextending themselves, the Followers, who are actually using the supplies to help other people, and the poor around Vegas, most of whom lost their money to drugs and gambling. This, however, is justified. [[spoiler: Mr. House saw the apocalypse coming, but missed it by one day. His anti missile defenses weren't running at full capacity. He shot down every missile heading for Vegas except 11. If his upgrades had finished, he would've had them all.]]

* Both played straight and subverted in ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' and its sequels: Paul Muad'Dib establishes an environmental program to turn the originally hellish-desert planet Arrakis into a more verdant and fertile place to live... only to have his son disrupt the process, showing how a verdant Arrakis would create its own hellish political climate... only to, during his own reign over the universe, turn it into a verdant world with only a thin strip left of the original desert... ''only to turn it back into its original desert harshness'' as part of his plan for the continued preservation of the universe. Honestly, Arrakis goes back and forth from temperate to desert climate so often that it's impossible to tell whether a given situation is upholding this trope or setting it on fire and tossing it out the window.

* [[VideoGame/{{Borderlands}} Pandora]] is a complicated example. In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' the planet is arguably ''[[UpToEleven more]]'' of an environmental disaster area, featuring even more dangerous bandits, a mutated human subspecies, and 2-3 times the amount of deadly creatures. However, in the first game, most of the CrapsackWorld-iness came from the fact that the planet was a backwater's backwater's backwater, with only few (if any) attention from outside the planet. By the beginning of Borderlands 2, however, it's made clear that five interplanetary and even intergalactic megacorporations have (or had) holdings and major settlements on it, one of which even has an ongoing business selling wood, and the world actually has some semblance of normal life there besides survival. And the rest of the human population in the Borderlands world ''knows'' about Pandora by now. Although, it's debatable whether or not the increased attention from the various {{Mega Corp}}s has actually ''improved'' life on Pandora at all or just [[CrapsackWorld made it worse.]]
* Without explanation, the CrapsackWorld of ''CommandAndConquer: Tiberian Sun'' has somewhat improved, in contradiction of what the backstory says, by the sequel ''CommandAndConquer: Tiberium Wars''.
** ''Somewhat'' justified. Around the time in Tiberian Sun, GDI had little means of stopping Tiberium spread and not even the most advanced cities were protected from Tiberium spread or Ion Storms. In addition, GDI had not yet assumed the role of government, leaving most civilian services crumbling and national governments barely keeping control. When the situation got too bad, GDI would simply mass-evacuate citizens to its un-touched arctic colonies. The change we see in Tiberium Wars is the combined result of discovery of sonic weapons' effectiveness against Tiberium, the decision to wall cities up (blue zones) and GDI assuming the role of government, and the aid of the Tacitus' secrets after ''Firestorm''.

* The world in ''BoboboBobobobo'' supposedly got rocked by an apocalypse in the year 3000, but the worst it did was reduce the world to much fewer cities, and made snack foods come to life. Even places ruled by Hair Hunters seem completely fine. Of course, since the show is one big parody of ''FistOfTheNorthStar'', this is a gimme.