Labeling the scale -- scope vs. severity (Crowner swapped Aug.21): Apocalypse How

This isn't a major problem, but I noticed that the latter half of the scale feels like it's gauging something different than the first half: Classes 1-X measure the severity of the catastrophe, but 0 and classes above X measure the scope. This can cause a bit of confusion when an event is small in scale but severe in impact, or large in scale but with relatively minor severity. For example, in I Miss The Sunrise, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story, the cataclysmic event that kicks off the plot is only a class 1 in terms of effect, but, since the story is set in the space age, it can be seen that the event affects the entire galaxy at least, possibly the entire universe. So is it a class 1, or a class X-3? A class 1-X-3?

What I propose is to separate the scale into two — one for scope and one for severity. Perhaps one could be measured in numbers, one in letters (and to label the actual catastrophe, one would combine them — so a regional catastrophe wherein the ecosystem is destroyed would be a class A-4 or 1-D, for example, but one where civilization is only knocked back a century or so would be a class A-1 or 1-A).

Thoughts? I apologize if this has been mentioned before, I haven't done a very thorough search of the forum...

edited 13th Aug '11 7:25:35 AM by FoolsEditAccount

It might have to do with the fact that above class X, severity is usually fixed as far as I can tell(besides, even a localized class 0 - say, something that destroys only Germany - would have a pretty large effect on the modern world).

I suppose the intention of classes X-2 and above is supposed to be "class X but with a larger scope", but the scale is still measuring two things, which makes it kind of hard to categorize certain events. Again, the I Miss The Sunrise example — massive scale, but relatively low severity. Is it correct to simply classify that as a class 1? Or does the fact that it affected such a large area matter? It's this confusion that drives me to question this. I doubt such subtle distinctions will appear often, but it would be nice to have something to easily categorize them.

For your hypothetical example, there is still the question of how badly Germany is affected. Is Germany's technology and culture completely destroyed while being cut off from contact with other countries? Is its population completely wiped out? Is it reduced to an inhospitable wasteland where not even bacteria can survive? Regardless of the severity it would probably have affects on the world at large, yes, but in terms of measuring the event itself, it's important to figure these things out.

I understand I may just be being overly picky, but I think there is merit in re-examining the scale a bit.

edited 13th Aug '11 3:45:36 PM by FoolsEditAccount

Well, it is Apocalypse How, so if it doesn't result in The End of the World as We Know It, it probably doesn't belong in the article. Still, it's probably worth separating things out.

I'd split it up like so:

• Scope
  • Regional: a sizable part of a single planet (a large country or a continent)
  • Planetary: an entire planet, or the vast majority of one
  • Stellar: a solar system
  • Galactic: a galaxy
  • Universal: the entire universe
  • Multiversal: multiple universes (whichever flavor of Another Dimension you prefer)
  • Omniversal: all universes; reality itself.

• Severity
  • Societal Collapse: Humanity backslides within the effected area, regressing to pre-industrial levels (most people are forced to be subsistence farmers) at best and pre-agricultural (most people are hunter-gatherers) at worst. This may be caused by death on a massive scale (since a certain population base is necessary to maintain our current level of technology); otherwise it will cause death on a massive scale (since a certain level of technology is required to maintain our current population). Civilization may recover on its own, but not for centuries at the least.
  • Human Extinction: Humanity dies off within the effected area, but other species survive just fine. Likely caused by a Depopulation Bomb or The Plague that only affects humans for some reason (otherwise, any event catastrophic enough to kill off humanity would almost certainly cause mass extinction).
  • Mass Extinction: A large number of species within the effected area die off, but life continues in some form. If humans are among the survivors, expect to see them resorting to things like Soylent Soy (unless they've undergone a societal collapse themselves). See also Gaia's Lament.
  • Total Extinction: Life itself ends. No living organism of any kind exists within the effected area.
  • Physical Destruction: The effected area itself ceases to exist; it's sunk into the ocean, blasted into asteroids, or made to never exist in the first place.

On a semi-related note, doesn't having both Apocalypse How and The End of the World as We Know It seem a little redundant? I'm not really sure what the difference is.

edited 13th Aug '11 4:41:02 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Apocalypse How is only concerned with ranking the various events. It's a scale.

The End of the World as We Know It is the page that's directly about the idea of using an apocalyptic setting. It's a trope.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

My point is, do we really need both? They seem redundant to me.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

They don't conflict. It's like the Sliding Scale Of Anti Heroes. It doesn't conflict with tropes like Anti-Hero Substitute, Byronic Hero, Classical Antihero, and Heroic Sociopath. It can't replace them and they can't replace it. They complement each other.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Right, but Apocalypse How only has one trope on the scale: The End of the World as We Know It. Other sliding scales are useful for comparing similar tropes, but Apocalypse How only compares different implementations of a single trope. Why couldn't everything under Apocalypse How be mentioned in The End of the World as We Know It? Even just a short addition along the lines of "the threat may be varied in scope and severity from major casualties in a single region to the complete annihilation of all space and time in every universe that is, was, or would have been, depending on the scale of the story" would seem to cover basically everything in Apocalypse How (though it lacks neat labels for people to argue over what fits where — which I can't bring myself to consider a bad thing).

edited 13th Aug '11 6:25:32 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

That's because the supertrope The End of the World as We Know It is the equivalent of the supertrope Anti-Hero, while the scale on Apocalypse How is eqivalent to the Sliding Scale Of Anti Heroes.

One is a scale of how the various subtropes relate to each other, the other is the trope.Saying that the scale is a duplicate of the trope is like saying that the Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness is pointless because we already have all the classifications that are used on it.

edited 13th Aug '11 6:47:45 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Except that The End of the World as We Know It isn't currently presented as a supertrope, and Apocalypse How isn't presented as a sliding scale. If that's how we want to handle it, then that's fine, but they need to be changed to that. Right now, though, The End of the World as We Know It is "when something really bad happens, from the collapse of civilization to the planet exploding" and Apocalypse How is "when something really bad happens, like: 1) the collapse of civilization, 2) human extinction, 3) the planet exploding, etc".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

This is a perfectly valid discussion, but right now, it's getting off-topic and belongs somewhere else.

I've added a single proposition crowner now, so vote on what you think. Hopefully I didn't mess anything up and it'll appear here...

Edit: *facepalm* Argh I'm an idiot. Sorry. Regardless, the proposition is here.

Edit 2: Huh, apparently it's alright. Okay... Anyway, I'm kind of new here, so how long should I keep the poll open before acting on the consensus?

edited 16th Aug '11 12:15:57 PM by FoolsEditAccount

Regarding the proposed reorganization, is "Regional" limited to an apocalyptic disaster hitting only one specific region, or does it also include far-from-Planetary-yet-definitely-multiregional apocalyptic catastrophes?

Also, a previous thread on an almost indentical issue, for the interested and for the sake of possibly implementing some of the unused suggestions.

edited 14th Aug '11 11:07:20 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I'd count "regional" as "anything sub-planetary". For the NGE example, I'd call that planetary (since it effected coastal areas worldwide), but it obviously didn't cause society to collapse, so maybe we need a new category on the low end of the severity scale.

On an unrelated note, I'd recommend against giving them number/letter designations. Saying "28 Days Later is A-2 on the Apocalypse How scale" doesn't mean anything, but saying that "the Halos threatened Galactic Mass Extinction" gives some information even if you're not familiar with the scale. With that in mind, I'd use this as the new scale:

• Scope
  • Regional: a sizable part of a single planet
  • Planetary: an entire planet, or the vast majority of one
  • Stellar: a solar system
  • Galactic: a galaxy
  • Universal: the entire universe
  • Multiversal: multiple universes (whichever flavor of Another Dimension you prefer)
  • Omniversal: all universes; reality itself.

• Severity
  • Societal Change: Civilization survives intact, but is forever altered. This may be due to the sheer amount of damage caused lowering the standard of living, or it may be a result of people being forced to adapt to the new threat(s) they face.
  • Societal Collapse: Humanity backslides within the effected area, regressing to pre-industrial levels at best and pre-agricultural at worst. This may be caused by death on a massive scale; otherwise it will cause death on a massive scale. Civilization may recover on its own, but not for centuries at the least.
  • Human Extinction: Humanity dies off within the effected area, but other species survive just fine. Likely caused by a Depopulation Bomb or The Plague that only affects humans for some reason (otherwise, any event catastrophic enough to kill off humanity would almost certainly cause mass extinction).
  • Mass Extinction: A large number of species within the effected area die off, but life continues in some form. If humans are among the survivors, expect to see them resorting to things like Soylent Soy (unless they've undergone a societal collapse themselves). See also Gaia's Lament.
  • Total Extinction: Life itself ends. No living organism of any kind exists within the effected area.
  • Annihilation: The effected area itself ceases to exist; it's sunk into the ocean, blasted into asteroids, or made to never exist in the first place.

edited 14th Aug '11 12:53:15 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Jovian, not that your scale isn't good, but why can't we use the designations already on the Apocalypse How page? There might be some tweaking needed, but if we just separate the two scales we should be alright.

And actually, plenty of examples do just say "this cataclysm is a class [number]" already. I often find myself having to check the page to figure out where the number falls, but since it's going to be right next to a Wiki Word or Pot Hole, I don't really see the problem. Shorthand is easier than having to write out the full designation every single time.

WWIII in Star Ocean The Last Hope didnt cause societal collapse even though 5.5 billion people died and people have to live under the earth's surface or on the moon.

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

...because they don't distinguish between scope and severity? IE, the exact issue that you started the thread over? I have no idea why you would ask that after you were the one who raised the issue in the first place.

In terms of the letter-number labeling vs. short-phrase labeling, one of the complaints that the wiki gets is that it's inaccessible to newcomers because of the amount of jargon it uses (ie, TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary). The less of that we have, the better off we'll be. Saying "A-2" and "Regional Societal Collapse" is the same thing, but the latter is better because it doesn't require you to click off your current page to figure out what the hell it means.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I have to agree. Remembering "Regional/Human extinction" is easier than remember A-2 (or would Human extinction be A-3?) For most people it's easier to remember concepts by associating them with words than it is to remember them when they're only associated with numbers.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Quite certainly, keyword labels for each stage are far more memorable than number/letter designations.

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

I see, point taken and agreed.

Also, Jovian, what I meant was that the scale does measure both scope and severity (0 and everything from X onwards measure scope, everything in-between measures severity), they're just mixed up (sort of like how the lower numbers in the Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality relate to the cast, but the higher numbers relate to the setting as a whole, making one of them a non-sequitor). It would be fine if we could just separate them, though like I said, more tweaking might be needed.

Edit: I've now updated the proposition with the points made in this thread.

edited 16th Aug '11 5:30:46 AM by FoolsEditAccount

^ Which preposition? "With"? "In"?

Hehe.

edited 16th Aug '11 7:27:48 AM by Stratadrake

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Ah, I didn't notice that. Thank you for pointing it out.

Editing the proposition after they've been up for a while is considered bad form — the people who voted on the earlier version might not feel the same way about the new one.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Ah...my apologies. I'm new to this. Should I revert it back to the original?

I changed it back. But yeah, don't make changes to the proposal that change what people have already voted on, once voting starts.

edited 16th Aug '11 4:58:23 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Assuming the proposition is "two separate scales" rather than "two scales measured by A1 labels", I would vote up.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.