History ApocalypseHow / Class2

** ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' has a similar endgame scenario. Class 2 is the ''best'' possible option if the Garou ''win''. And considering the title includes the word "Apocalypse" you don't want to know what would happen if the werewolves ''lose''.

** ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' has a similar endgame scenario. Class 2 is the ''best'' possible option if the Garou ''win''. And considering the title includes the word "Apocalypse" you don't want to know if the werewolves ''lose''.

** This is also what happens if the [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse Garou]] ''win''. You don't want to know what it'd be like if they ''lose''.

* The ''Literature/{{Shannara}}'' and ''Knight of the Word'' series by Terry Brooks. Humanity nearly wipes itself out in a nuclear war, some of the survivors evolve/mutate into divergent species, [[TheMagicComesBack magic is rediscovered]], the [[OurElvesAreBetter Elves]] return, and the new races slowly build back up into a MedievalEuropeanFantasy setting.

-->''"Three billion human lives ended on August 29, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines."''
---> --'''Sarah Connor''', ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay''

* By the end of ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', most people either become [[OurZombiesAreDifferent -wels-]], are absorbed into the BigBad, are eaten by -wels-, or are killed by "angels." Only a handful of people survive, clinging to life in a couple locations. The game is supposed to have a happy ending.

* The novel ''Literature/MindGames'' involves a SystemApocalypse in which magic starts working and electronics stop working. The disruption to transportation and communications networks, along with the fact that wildlife starts mutating into hideously dangerous monsters, immediately causes widespread disruption. Though the novel only takes place during the first few days of the event it is implied that this will take human civilization down several pegs.

* The future as shown in ''[[VideoGame/ANewBeginning A New Beginning]]'' is this thanks to an ecological apocalypse driven by mankind's negligence to reverse climate change. Worse, it is outright stated that things will go to Class 6 thanks to an imminent solar flare and the Earth's depleted atmosphere.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' has entire cities laid to waste, with Xen wildlife taking over and Earth under complete control of an interdimensional empire. It's unknown how few people remain, but the fact that there's still a resistance movement 20 years after the Seven Hour War implies that there's still hope, even when there's EverythingTryingToKillYou and the infrastructure is under decay.

* ''Literature/FromTheNewWorld'' features the aftermath of this scale of destruction, caused by psychic powers running rampant, 1,000 years in the future. Approximately 50,000-60,000 people live on the Japanese archipelago, and there is knowledge of the state of the rest of the world. A relatively advanced society has stood for a couple of centuries after unknown generations of unstable feudalism and tyranny, but [[SpaceAmish technologically it remains static by choice]]. Most likely because keeping even a moderate population of highly destructive psychics in check is an incredibly arduous task.

* ''Literature/ZForZachariah'', in which WorldWarIII seems to have wiped out everything but an isolated valley in America. From the sound of it it might actually border on a Class 3, since civilization and most of the population seem to have been wiped out entirely.

* Creator/SMStirling's ''Literature/ThePeshawarLancers'' centers on a set of comets hitting the North Atlantic and North America in 1878, creating tidal waves that ruin what is left of the U.S. and most of mainland Europe. Britain (having lucked out with Ireland as a waterbreak) is dealing with the nightmarish Winter that follows when a group of scientists point out to Prime Minister Disraeli that Spring will not come for another three years at best. So of course they evacuate the Army, the Royals, a chunk of the nobility and government, the contents of several Universities, as much factory gear/skilled workers they can get their hands on, and so forth over to India. The book itself starts in 2025, with the Angrezi Raj pitted against the plots of a Russian Empire run by a [[ReligionOfEvil Satanist cannibal cult]] and guided by an order of precognitive slaves.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Toba Catastrophe]] is an event that may have happened about 75 thousand years ago, when a supervolcano reduced human population to 10,000 individuals total. There's a lot of tantalizing evidence that this may have happened, but no absolute proof. In fact, evidence from a 2018 scientific study (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248417302750?via%3Dihub) states that the supervolcano event may have not reduced the human population that drastically and may have had little-to-no effect on African humans.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Toba Catastrophe]] is an event that may have happened about 75 thousand years ago, when a supervolcano reduced human population to 10,000 individuals total. There's a lot of tantalizing evidence that this may have happened, but no absolute proof.

* Planet Aether teeters between this and Class 3 in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes''. The Lumionth, which were the dominant species of the planet, saw a meteor was going to crash into their world and everything they tried failed to deter the meteor's course while their efforts also strained the planet's energy. They took shelter and waited it out. The Luminoth survived, but the meteor's impact opened a dimensional rift and let loose a race of monster beings known as the Ing. The Ing fought the Luminoth in a great war for years and stole their technology and their planet's energy to use for their own ends. With the theft of the planet's energy in several regions, the affected regions suffered a total climate change (Agon was once fertile plans and is now a barren desert while Torvus used to be a forest and is now a swamp). Not only were the Luminoth's numbers greatly reduced, but Aether was on the verge of Class X destruction with the final energy controller being in U-Mos's hands. U-Mos had put the rest of his surviving people in a deep sleep until the day they'd win the war. Samus happened to show up in the nick of time (on a mission unrelated to the war) and managed to acquire the Energy Transfer Module, which the Ing was close to obtaining and would have sealed their victory.

* The demons of VideoGame/Doom2016 want nothing more than to destroy our world and ruin our humanity. Too bad their one major obstacle happens to have [[TheDreaded already started doing that to Hell]] [[OneManArmy and is their one obstacle]].

Planetary-scale Societal Collapse. This takes an entire planet back to at least a pre-industrial age -- if not hunter-gatherer-level. Recovery may or may not be possible.

* The world in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' suffered through this. [[spoiler: After a devastating war against Akatsuki which left tens of thousands dead, Madara activates Mugen Tsukuyomi and traps the entire population in a dream and hooks them up to the [[EldrichAbomination Shinju]] which slowly begins turning them into White Zetsu's. Thankfully, Naruto and Sasuke save the day]]

* Earth in ''Series/The100'' has regressed to this level, with the descendents of the survivors of mass nuclear fallout having formed violent warring tribes. It could have been worse: the survivors on the Ark thought it was a Class 3 or 4 Apocalypse.

* Earth in ''Series/The100'' has apparently regressed to this level. It could have been worse, the survivors on the Ark thought it was a Class 3 or 4.

Planetary-scale Societal Collapse. This takes an entire planet back to at least a pre-industrial age-if not hunter-gatherer-level. Recovery may or may not be possible.

* ''Dies The Fire'' and the other Literature/{{Emberverse}} books by Creator/SMStirling, where a mysterious event causes all recent power sources to stop working at all (electricity, steam engines of any useful efficiency, gunpowder, etc.). About 95% of humanity dies off in the first year from starvation and lack of knowledge on how to survive in primitive conditions. Another large percentage of what's left dies off once cannibalism is no longer an option due to lack of other humans. By the end of the first book it's clear humanity is going to survive -- most remaining threat comes from would-be warlords and despots, who want to enslave rather than kill -- but the cultures that are springing up aren't precisely what you'd expect.
** Then there's the reborn Kingdom of Britain that shows up in later volumes. It seems the U.K. military evacuated the Royals, a solid selection of reference materials, a few thousand lucky/skilled souls, etc. to the Isle of Wright and is steadily recolonizing a Britain occupied by "Brushwood Men" (and dealing with [[RoyallyScrewedUp Mad King Charles and his Icelandic Queen]], but that is beside the point).
** Stirling's ''Peshawar Lancers'' accomplishes much the same thing with a series of cometary impacts that destroy industrial Europe and the eastern United States in the late 19th century, setting the stage for a {{Steampunk}} 21st century where the British Raj in India, an ascendant Japanese Empire, and the Empire of Brazil are the dominant world powers. France is a shadow of its former self and Russia [[spoiler: is controlled by a EldritchAbomination-worshipping death cult]].

* In Creator/VernorVinge's ''Literature/ADeepnessInTheSky'', every planet-bound human civilization goes through this at some point due to the limits of technology, and has been doing this for thousands of years. The Emergents manage to stave this off through MindControl, but the true answer as of ''Literature/AFireUponTheDeep'' seems to be to move to the parts of the galaxy where FasterThanLightTravel is possible. In the case of ''A Fire Upon the Deep'', this is the answer for poor weak sophonts of human-level intelligence. [[spoiler:The ultimate answer of beings beyond the Powers is to move the zones of space where singularity can occur closer to you.]]
* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series, an event occurs three thousand or so years previously known as the Breaking of the World. Caused by all male channelers going berserk, Human society is set back from near utopia to feudalism.
** Additionally, later on in the series, it is stated that the Choeden Kal have the power to ''crack the world like an egg'', a potential Class X disaster.

* Creator/JohnVarley's ''[[strike:Eight]] [[Literature/EightWorlds Nine Worlds]]'' stories, where an invasion of aliens had come to Earth and literally plowed human civilization out of existence, supposedly to benefit Earth's true higher life forms: dolphins, sperm whales and other cetaceans. At that time, humanity had one single developed colony on the moon. They were warned - once - never to land on Earth again. Four hundred years later, humanity had settled all the other 'junk' planets in the solar system. What continues to happen on Earth is a sweet mystery.

* Russel Hoban's ''Literature/RiddleyWalker''. It's two thousand years - we think - after a nuclear war blasted everyone back to Iron Age technology. In the two millennia since the war, mankind has been getting by in a sort of neo-tribal existence, by digging up old rusting metal out of the earth to salvage the scrap metal. All history is orally related via Punch-and-Judy puppet shows and half-remembered accounts of the war are woven together with scraps of the legend of St. Eustace. And the English language is mind-blowingly different.

* ''Literature/{{A Boy and His Dog}}'' by Harlan Ellison in which the unnamed city is divided among scavenger gangs underneath which lies a CrapsaccharineWorld that maintains a decent level of technology but which is dying out from inbreeding.
* Literature/TheFireUsTrilogy features one of these, although it's very close to being a Class 3.

* The Desolations of ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' were a cyclical example of this trope. Apparently, 90% casualties (of the entire human race) are not uncommon, and it's considered a toss-up as to whether humanity will have struggled back up to ''bronze'', let alone iron, by the time the ''next'' Desolation gets here. For various reasons, the current Desolation was delayed much longer than normal, allowing humanity to work their way much farther up the tech tree.
* The end of the second book of Henry H. Neff's ''Literature/TheTapestry'' features [[spoiler: [[BigBad Astaroth]] acquiring the [[RealityWarper the Book of Thoth]] and using it to screw around with the truenames of anything he doesn't like. This results in Earth being reduced to a medieval CrapsackWorld: all technology past the Middle Ages being destroyed and wiped from memory, the vast majority of humanity being wiped out, and the few tens of millions of survivors being subjugated by [[EvilOverlord demonic rulers]].]]

* Society is headed this way in ''Literature/{{Kronk}}''. P939 inhibits all aggression, which also inhibits most of human drive. [[spoiler:It might make its way up to a Class 3 when the Hate Plague aspects come into play]].
* Deva from ''Literature/MythAdventures'' suffered an ecological disaster many generations ago, rendering the land and seas incapable of sustaining its civilization. The native Deveels only survived by becoming the dimensions' wiliest cross-world traders, forfeiting and forgetting their pre-catastrophe way of life.
* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', the [[OmnicidalManiac Endbringers]] are slowly inflicting this on humanity over the course of decades of regular attacks, destroying cities, killing superheroes, and wiping out infrastructure. Attempts to recover between attacks can mitigate some of the damage, but every character is aware that humanity is slowly becoming extinct, and there's nothing they can do about it.
** And as of the aptly named Extinction arc, [[spoiler:Scion has pulled a FaceHeelTurn and inflicted this scale of damage on multiple alternate earths.]]
* This is considered to be the best-case scenario at the hands of the [[AlienInvasion invaders]] by many of the townsfolk in ''Literature/TheTaking'', with only small pockets of humanity surviving on a radically altered Earth. They're right, but not for the reasons they thought. [[spoiler:The invaders are actually TheLegionsOfHell, out to take the souls of the insufficiently virtuous, which apparently amount to most of humanity. Most of the rest are virtuous, but lack useful skills and are raptured as a result. This leaves only those who are both virtuous and skilled as well as the children of those who were taken to rebuild with the help of some ill-explained EasyLogistics hand-waved in during the last few chapters while the invaders and the apparent HostileTerraforming leave faster than they appeared.]]

* The exact nature of the Fall of the [[{{Precursors}} Grey Folk]] from ''Literature/TheInheritanceCycle'' is ambiguous, but it's indicated to be around this scale. All we know about it is that a [[GoneHorriblyWrong miscast spell]] caused the extinction of all but a few of the Grey Folk and the loss of most if not all written records from the time, inspiring the remaining Grey Folk to enchant the very concept of magic itself with [[LanguageOfMagic safeguards]] to prevent a recurrence. Also, the Arcaena cult (whose membership includes Heslant the Monk and [[spoiler:Jeod]]) believes that [[EternalRecurrence a similar event will take place]] in the relatively near future, and are dedicated to stockpiling information against it. There's no stated connection, however, between the Arcaena or their beliefs and the Grey Folk.