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Ron Perlman: The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation... but it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. For man had succeeded in destroying the world. But war... war never changes.
"In the end? Nothing ever ends."
-Dr.Manhattan, Watchmen

Something hugely nasty has happened to humanity. Be it nuclear war (which was once very popular but has gone out of vogue, in part due to The Great Politics Mess Up), plague (which currently seems to be the most popular), natural disaster (which seems the most likely to happen in the near future in Real Life) or Alien Invasion — most of humanity is gone.

The result is generally that you have the remnants of humanity either fighting to survive or trying to escape to somewhere else.

Often results in a Scavenger World full of Ghost Cities, or at least plenty of Schizo Tech and Lost Technology, maybe even Weird Science. People inevitably degrade down to Disaster Scavengers and Crazy Survivalists.

If you're really lucky you may get a Cosy Catastrophe, in which case it's best to be friendly and humane, but also adaptable and brave. Of course, that's not a bad personality in real life.

If things have started to recover, may result in a Divided States Of America, a Dystopia struggling to survive, or a Days Of Future Past with a Future Imperfect attempt to recreate happier times.

In any post-apocalyptic story created after the release of Mad Max, it is almost assured that the obvious and natural way for the world to look after a civilization-destroying cataclysm is "the Australian Outback". There is no need to explain this. Global catastrophe turns the world into Australia. It just follows logically.

Related, if not quite the same, is the period immediately after the fall of Rome; most Film and TV set in this time tend to depict it as a time of post-apocalyptic savagery. In fact, while there was a significant increase in banditry and piracy, most areas were peaceful most of the time.

Compare Just Before The End, End Of An Age, And Man Grew Proud.

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