History ApocalypseHow / Class4

* ''[[WallE WALL-E]]'': While (an unknown percentage of) humanity escapes into outer space, the biosphere of Earth completely collapses, with only two living species seen in the film proper: the cockroach, and a small plant (and both seem to be very rare). It appears that no humans survive on Earth itself. The fact that human civilization ''does'' survive (in a way) aboard the starliners makes this a bit of a toss-up between Class 4 and Class 1 -- but really, it's simply a case of humans ''fleeing'' from a Class 4 event.

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* Sergej Luk'yanenko's ''Линия Грёз'', set in the MasterOfOrion universe, describes the destruction of the Sakras: the human Empire went for planet-wide meson bombardments on all planets that belonged to the Sakras race or were about to be conquered by them. Technically a class 6 for those Sakras on the receiving end, the bombardment burns the atmosphere and boils the oceans. Several decades later a human refugee remarks that there is hope for her homeworld - the oceans are about to stop boiling and the planet might be repopulated. The genocide of an entire race is unique in the books, and frowned upon by other races in the games, but repopulating and terraforming planets which were previously rendered sterile is par for the course. It is possible to win the game by becoming the only remaining sentient species.

** In [[Anime/Pokemon2000 the following movie]], the disruption of the harmony of fire, ice and lightning starts similar world-threatening storms.

* Mewtwo attempts this in ''[=~Pokémon: The First Movie~=]'' via a self-produced global hurricane with the eye around his island. He creates a few dozen clones of the strongest Pokemon he could get, intending to repopulate the world with [[HumansAreBastards human-free Pokemon.]] Eventually he changes his mind.
** In [[{{ptitlel8caxut9}} the following movie]], the disruption of the harmony of fire, ice and lightning starts similar world-threatening storms.

* We're currently in the middle of a mass extinction surpassed by only "The Great Dying" in terms of species extinction (yes, we've surpassed the K-T extinction). Worse, it's caused by ''us''.

* Nightmare Moon attempted to do this twice in ''MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', since nothing can live without the sun. She was stopped both times, however.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has had several mentions ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace The Ark in Space]]", "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E02TheBeastBelow The Beast Below]]") of a 29th century disaster where enormous solar flares roasted the Earth. Humanity may well recover (they had warning and were able to evacuate), but the biosphere is implied to be long gone.

* We're currently in the middle of a mass extinction surpassed by only "The Great Dying" in terms of species extinction (yes, we've surpassed the K-T extinction).

* At the end of the Ordivician, Devonian and Triassic, a large number of animal species were wiped out.

* In the RiftwarCycle by Raymond E. Feist, Kelewan gets this, not once, but '''twice'''. '''''In the same book.''''' First it starts getting swallowed by an ever-expanding portal to what amounts to the second circle of hell, powered by the deaths of the army trying to stop it. Then, to put an end to ''that'' threat, [[AWizardDidIt Pug]] [[ColonyDrop created a gigantic rift portal that basically slammed a large part of Kelewan's moon into its urface at extreme speed.]] Luckily, a good part of the population escaped to another world.

* In a three-part story arc at the beginning of John Byrne's post-Crisis {{Superman}}, (issues #20-22, 1988) three renegade Kryptonians from an AlternateUniverse do this to their dimension's Earth. The enormity of their crime drove Supes to break his non-killing oath and give them a Kryptonite shower. [[{{Understatement}} Much controversy ensued]].

* ''{{Homestuck}}'': Every planet that starts a session of Sburb ends up with asteroids killing everyone who didn't escape.

* In ''DownToASunlessSea'', the last nuclear war wipes out almost everyone, except two planeloads of people, who have to run [[spoiler:to Antartica to start over]], then they discover that [[spoiler:the nuclear weapons have knocked the planet off its axis, meaning that Antartica is soon going to be in the tropics]]. Depending on which ending your copy has, either it's the end of the world, or they will go out to rebuild the world.

* Second Impact in ''Film/RebuildOfEvangelion'' melted the Antarctic icecap and generated tidal waves that inundated coastal regions, wiping out cities and large tracts of arable land. Simultaneously, the oceans were poisoned and left barren and the axis of the Earth shifted. What species survived only endured due to humanity's intervention to maintain the terrestrial ecosystems. Third Impact is expected to escalate the situation to Class 5.

* Happened at the end of the Archean, when a nasty horrible toxic-waste-spewing ecosystem-destroyer evolved, and gradually poisoned the atmosphere for almost every other life form of its day. The culprit? Cyanobacteria. The toxic waste? Oxygen. Humans may manage to do the same thing over a period of thousands of years by replacing the biosphere and lithosphere with artificial structures while living on without a biosphere to support them, [[{{ForGreatJustice}} because that's how we roll]].

* ''DoctorWho'' has had several mentions ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace The Ark in Space]]", "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E02TheBeastBelow The Beast Below]]") of a 29th century disaster where enormous solar flares roasted the Earth. Humanity may well recover (they had warning and were able to evacuate), but the biosphere is implied to be long gone.

* The [[AfterTheEnd pre-series]] apocalypse in ''AdventureTime'' seems to have been partially this, and partially version 3A: "Mushroom War" (name of the war that destroyed all humans [[TheHero but]] [[LastOfHisKind one]]...maybe) suggests that humans [[NukeEm blew each other to bits]], but there is also a distinct lack of normal wildlife in Ooo (about the only exception is Jake's family (dogs); everything else is anthropomorphic candy, [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot part-rainbow]], etc.) which sends it up to this class.

* ''{{Homestuck}}'': Every planet that starts a session of Sburb ends up with asteroids killing everyone who didn't escape.

* In the fourth season of ''Series/TeenTitans'', [[{{Satan}} Trigon]] arrives and turns every organism on the planet into stone. [[spoiler:Until the heroes hit the ResetButton.]]

** In the ''Robot'' series R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard discover that [[spoiler:a spacer plot leads to the Spacers deliberately making the Earth grow radioactive to destroy the Settler society, but the robots accelerate the process to force the Earthers to spread out]].

* In the fourth season of ''TeenTitans'', [[{{Satan}} Trigon]] arrives and turns every organism on the planet into stone.