History Main / TheEndoftheWorldasweKnowIt

This trope does not refer to the condition in [[Music/{{Document}} the song]] by Music/{{REM}} that is the TropeNamer for this trope, where Michael Stipe sings, "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." Rather, it's the exact opposite.

* The {{Trope Namer|s}}: "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" from ''Music/{{Document}}'' by Music/{{REM}}.

* The destruction of all life on Earth happened, then un-happened, at least once a season on ''Series/SevenDays''.
* ''Series/TwentyFour'': Jack Bauer and his allies have 24 hours to stop the End of the World As We Know It. Turned on its head in the final season [[spoiler: where ''Jack Bauer himself'' [[FaceHeelTurn is the one who nearly causes it]] on a [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge vengeance-fueled rampage]] and his former allies [[SaveTheVillain have to stop him]].]]
* Part of the backstory of ''Series/BabylonFive'' is the near-annihilation of Earth during the Earth-Minbari War.
** In the episode "Deconstruction of Falling Stars", it is revealed that Earth centuries in the future eventually suffers an apocalyptic event brought upon by a civil war, and the Interstellar community, led by the Rangers, are working in secret to slowly bring human civilization back.
** The Spinoff show Crusade features the Earth yet again on the brink of destruction after the Drakh infects the whole planet with a plague that will slowly kill the population in 5 years.
* The premise of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' is that this has already happened, and now the Colonials are on the run in search of a new home. When they get there [[spoiler: it had already been obliterated in a nuclear attack 2000 years in the past. They find another one though]].

* The ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}}'' series on the UsefulNotes/{{P|layStation3}}S3 features TheVirus systematically conquering and assimilating humanity in an alternate history setting.

* Upon realizing his lover's mortality in the ''Literature/VitaNuova'', [[Creator/DanteAlighieri Dante]] has a nightmare where the entire world falls apart upon her death. [[TheStarsAreGoingOut The sun goes black, the stars begin to cry]], birds drop from the sky, and the whole earth quakes, in a scene right out of the Literature/BookOfRevelation.

* In the Chapter 4 of Volume 19 of Malaysian comic book ''Profession'' ('''Chinese:''' 职业人气王 ''Zhíyè rénqì wáng),'' [[TheKlan the klans]] believe that the world disaster will coming, and the leader will promise take the entire clan to ride "their own" UFO to escape Earth to the Mars, however [[spoiler:the leader enjoying the money his klans donated to him and purchased expensive houses and cars, and eating expensive dinners, and believing that "those fools" (refering to his klans) would willing to give money to him and so he could spend all he wanted. However, when the reporters show the proof of how the leader of the klan did, the klans now think they're fooled all along, and it revealed that the UFO is just a toy. The klans, were now pissed off at their leader, decided to take him to the police station for his arrest for fraud.]]

!!Example subpages:

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt/WebOriginal
** TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt/SCPFoundation

* ''Literature/EmpireOfTheVampire'': Due to [[TheNightThatNeverEnds Daysdeath]], a perpetual shroud of dust and smog smothering the world's atmosphere, there is an acute lack of sunlight across the entire continent. Beyond the immediate problems such as crop failure, the resulting risk of {{Famine}} and the gradual decline of all natural food chains, this also allows the formerly minor and endemic threat of vampires to spiral out of control through targeted mass turnings by a handful of ancient, powerful ''highbloods''. As [[TheNightOfTheLivingMooks hordes of ravenous Dead]] sweep away the last bastions of old civilization across a starving, dying world, it seems reasonable for many characters to conclude that the End Times have come.

* ''Literature/EmpireOfTheVampire'': Due to [[TheNightThatNeverEnds Daysdeath]], a perpetual shroud of dust and smog smothering the world's atmosphere, there is an acute lack of sunlight across the entire continent. Beyond the immediate problems such as crop failure, the resulting risk of famine and the gradual decline of all natural food chains, this also allows the formerly minor and endemic threat of vampires to spiral out of control through targeted mass turnings by a handful of ancient, powerful ''highbloods''. As hordes of ravenous Dead sweep away the last bastions of old civilization across a starving, dying world, it seems reasonable for many characters to conclude that the End Times have come.

* Creator/SMStirling's ''[[Literature/{{Emberverse}} Dies the Fire]]'' and its various sequels are set in a world where every kind of "energy-dense" technology stops working, plunging the human race back in TheDungAges... forever. Not the end of the ''world,'' but certainly the end of the world ''we'' know. (And, for the overwhelming majority of people, the end of ''them'': try feeding seven billion people with twelfth-century technology.)

---> ''There was thunder''
---> ''There was lightning''
---> ''Then the stars went out''
---> ''And the moon fell from the sky''
---> ''It rained mackerel''
---> ''It rained trout''
---> ''And the great day of wrath has come''
---> ''And here's mud in your big red eye''
---> ''The poker's in the fire''
---> ''And the locusts take the sky''
---> ''And the earth died screaming''