Line #58 Main/ApocalypseHow


1	[[WMG:[[center:[-'''Apocalypse How'''\
2	[[ApocalypseHow/Class0 0]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/Class1 1]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/Class2 2]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/Class3A 3a]], [[ApocalypseHow/Class3B 3b]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/Class4 4]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/Class5 5]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/Class6 6]]\
3	[[ApocalypseHow/ClassX X]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX2 X-2]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX3 X-3]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX4 X-4]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX5 X-5]] \| [[ApocalypseHow/ClassZ Z]]-]]]]]
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5	%% Image replaced per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1303718113005946400
6	%% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.
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8	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/apochow.png]]
9	[[caption-width-right:350:[[Creator/RobertFrost Fire, ice]], [[ColonyDrop asteroid]]... [[SwirlyEnergyThingy gamma rays]] -- [[SublimeRhyme There are just so many ways]]!]]
10
11	->''"God gave Noah the rainbow sign,\
12	No more water, the fire next time."''
13	-->-- "Mary, Don't You Weep," author unknown, but [[OlderThanRadio known to be]] of [[UsefulNotes/AntebellumAmerica antebellum]] origin
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15	While TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt is very common in fiction, there are a wide variety of ways in which it can actually manifest; this can be measured on two sliding scales, depending on the size of the "world" in question, and to exactly what extent it "ends". This is derived in part from [[http://www.openthefuture.com/2006/12/an_eschatological_taxonomy.html Bruce Sterling's analysis]] of ways in which the RealLife world could theoretically end.
16
17	[[AC:Severity]]
18	* '''Societal Disruption:''' Civilization survives intact, but is forever altered. This may be due to the sheer amount of damage lowering the standard of living, or it may be a result of people being forced to adapt to the new threat(s) they face.
19	* '''Societal Collapse:''' Humanity backslides within the affected area, regressing to pre-industrial levels at best and pre-agricultural at worst. Civilization may recover on its own [[ApocalypseNot eventually]], but not for centuries at the least.
20	* '''Species Extinction:''' A dominant or major species is either wiped out completely or reduced to such a low population level that its recovery is virtually impossible barring intervention by an outside force.
21	* '''Total Extinction:''' Life itself ends. No living organism of any kind exists within the affected area.
22	* '''Physical Annihilation:''' The affected area physically ceases to exist as it did before, but remnants of it can still be found. It is [[AtomicHate nuked into glass]], [[{{Atlantis}} sunk into the ocean]], or [[EarthShatteringKaboom blasted into asteroids]].
23	* '''Metaphysical Annihilation:''' The affected area ceases to exist totally, without remainder, or perhaps even to have ''ever'' existed. This usually involves [[RetGone erasing it from time]]. This may go up to the elimination of even the ''possibility'' of the existence of anything like the affected area, if for instance the basic system of reality is changed or wiped out. This may get highly abstract, depending on how fundamental the metaphysical destruction is.
24
25	[[AC:Scope]]
26	* '''Local Area:''' a small localized area undergoes a species-level or higher apocalypse. The rest of the world at large is totally unaffected, maybe not even knowing of the events happening in the affected area unless someone managed to record or document its destruction. Still, you wouldn't want to be there.
27	* '''City:''' a city or the vast majority of one, or an area of equivalent size is pretty much vaporized.
28	* '''Regional:''' a part of a continent or landmass, be it a province/state, geographical region, or sub-continent (e.g. "California", "Uganda", "Sub-Saharan Africa", "India", etc).
29	* '''Continental:''' an entire continent or even an entire landmass ("Oceania", "North America", "Eurasia", etc).
30	* '''Planetary:''' an entire planet, or the vast majority of one. (If the given setting does not involve space travel and/or other worlds, then the scale effectively stops here, or skips up to Multiversal if the other worlds are not elsewhere in space, but do exist.)
31	* '''Stellar:''' a solar system, every planet orbiting a star, the star itself, or the star plus everything in its orbit.
32	* '''Galactic:''' a galaxy, most or all of its stars, up to all mass associated with it.
33	* '''Universal:''' the entire universe, all or most galaxies within it, or all major galaxy filaments or equivalent highest-level structures.
34	* '''Multiversal:''' TheMultiverse, or whatever that exists outside of the setting's native universe (includes whichever flavor of AnotherDimension or AlternateUniverse is on offer).
35	* '''Omniversal:''' the totality of {{The Verse}}/{{Series Franchise}} (if said totality exists beyond a Multiverse), containing all alternate dimensions, planes of existence, parallel universes, possible universes, timelines, alternate continuities, realities, and Multiverses. This goes up to some abstract ontological limit if the setting includes explicit metaphysical stipulations.
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37	Not to be confused with the comedy survival guide by Rob Kutner, which gives advice for surviving the relatively low-severity events, or the Discovery Channel series by the same name which explores various scenarios in which this could play out.
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39	[[AC:Related Tropes (assorted causes)]]
40	[[index]]
41	* AlienInvasion
42	** HordeOfAlienLocusts
43	** PlanetLooters
44	* ApocalypseWow
45	* AssimilationPlot
46	* BizarroApocalypse
47	* CivilizationDestroyer
48	* ColonyDrop
49	* CosmicHorrorStory
50	* DepopulationBomb
51	* DoomsdayDevice
52	* EarthShatteringKaboom
53	* TheFamine
54	* FloodedFutureWorld
55	* GaiasVengeance
56	* GhostInvasion
57	* GlacialApocalypse
58	* HellOnEarth
59	* HorsemenOfTheApocalypse
60	* HostileTerraforming
61	* InTheirOwnImage
62	* MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds
63	* NaturalDisasterCascade
64	* NukeEm
65	** NuclearOption
66	* OmnicidalManiac
67	* OrbitalBombardment
68	* ThePlague
69	* PlanetaryCoreManipulation
70	* PlanetDestroyer
71	** PlanetEater
72	* SterilityPlague
73	* WorldSundering
74	* WorldWarIII
75	** WorldWarWhatever
76	* WorldWreckingWave
77	* ZombieApocalypse
78	[[/index]]
79
80	See also: SlidingScaleOfVillainThreat, EvilOnlyHasToWinOnce and JustForFun/WhyYouShouldDestroyThePlanetEarth. If they actually show it, then you have an ApocalypseWow. Contrast with UnspecifiedApocalypse. See also StoryboardingTheApocalypse, which involves an InUniverse examination of one of these playing out should the protagonists fail.
81	Not to be confused with [[Film/ApocalypseNow the movie]] on whose title this trope is [[{{Pun}} a pun.]]
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83	%%[[Administrivia/TypeLabelsAreNotExamples Please don't identify by the numbers anymore]] -- they are only there for older users of this site to compare the new scale to.
84	----
85	!!Examples by class:
86	[[index]]
87	* [[ApocalypseHow/{{Class 0}} Class 0: Regional Scale, Societal Disruption or Collapse]]
88	* [[ApocalypseHow/{{Class 1}} Class 1: Planetary Scale, Societal Disruption]]
89	* [[ApocalypseHow/{{Class 2}} Class 2: Planetary Scale, Societal Collapse]]
90	* Class 3: Planetary Scale, (single dominant) Species Extinction
91	** [[ApocalypseHow/{{Class 3A}} Class 3a — Cause engineered]]
92	** [[ApocalypseHow/{{Class 3B}} Class 3b — Cause natural]]
93	* [[ApocalypseHow/{{Class 4}} Class 4: Planetary Scale, (multiple) Species Extinction]]
94	* [[ApocalypseHow/{{Class 5}} Class 5: Planetary Scale, (all multicellular) Species Extinction]]
95	* [[ApocalypseHow/{{Class 6}} Class 6: Planetary Scale, Total Extinction]]
96	* [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX Class X: Planetary Scale, Physical Annihilation]]
97	* [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX2 Class X-2: Stellar Scale, Physical Annihilation]]
98	* [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX3 Class X-3: Galactic Scale, Physical Annihilation]]
99	* [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX4 Class X-4: Universal Scale, Physical Annihilation]]
100	* [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX5 Class X-5: Multiversal Scale, Physical Annihilation]]
101	* [[ApocalypseHow/ClassZ Class Z: Omniversal Scale, Physical or Metaphysical Annihilation]]
102	[[/index]]
103	----
104	!!Examples by work:
105	* ApocalypseHow/MarvelCinematicUniverse

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