Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomical, such as an impact event; destructive, such as nuclear holocaust or resource depletion; medical, such as a pandemic, whether natural or human-caused; end time, such as the Last Judgment, Second Coming or Ragnarök; or more imaginative, such as a zombie apocalypse, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics or alien invasion.

The story may involve attempts to prevent an apocalypse event, deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself, or it may be post-apocalyptic, set after the event. The time may be directly after the catastrophe, focusing on the psychology of survivors, the way to keep the human race alive and together as one, or considerably later, often including that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been mythologized. Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in a non-technological future world or a world where only scattered elements of society and technology remain.

Various ancient societies, including the Babylonian and Judaic, produced apocalyptic literature and mythology which dealt with the end of the world and of human society, such as the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', written c. 2000–1500 BC. Recognizable modern apocalyptic novels had existed since at least the first third of the 19th century, when Mary Shelley's ''The Last Man'' (1826) was published. However, this form of literature gained widespread popularity after World War II, when the possibility of global annihilation by nuclear weapons entered the public consciousness.

Themes

The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; natural, such as an impact event; man-made, such as nuclear holocaust; medical, such as a plague or virus, whether natural or man-made; or imaginative, such as zombie apocalypse or alien invasion. The story may involve attempts to prevent an apocalypse event, deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself, or may be post-apocalyptic, and be set after the event. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, the way to maintain the human race alive and together as one, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten (or mythologized). Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in a non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of society and technology remain.

Other themes may be cybernetic revolt, divine judgment, dysgenics, ecological collapse, pandemic, resource depletion, supernatural phenomena, technological singularity, or some other general disaster.

The relics of a technological past "protruding into a more primitive... landscape", a theme known as the "ruined Earth", have been described as "among the most potent of sf's icons".

Ancient predecessors

The biblical story of Noah and his ark describes the end of the corrupted original civilization and its replacement with a remade world. Noah is assigned the task to build the ark and save the lifeforms so as to reestablish a new post-flood world.

The Biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah also has post-apocalyptic elements. The daughters of Lot, who mistakenly believe that the destruction had engulfed the whole world and that they and their father were the only surviving human beings, conclude that in such a situation it would be justified - and indeed vitally needed - to have sex with their father in order to ensure the survival of humanity. Such situations and dilemmas occur in modern post-apocalyptic fiction.

Numerous other societies, including the Babylonians, had produced apocalyptic literature and mythology which dealt with the end of the world and of human society, many of which also included stories that refer back to the Biblical Noah or describe a similar flood. The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', written ca. 2000–1500 BC, details a myth where the angry gods send floods to punish humanity, but the ancient hero Utnapishtim and his family are saved through the intervention of the god Ea.

A similar story to the Genesis flood narrative is found in the 71st Chapter of the Quran. However, unlike the Biblical story, the Quranic account explicitly claims that the deluge was only sent to the tribe of the Prophet Nūḥ (نُوح) ("Noah" in Arabic), and therefore, the deluge did not engulf the entire world. While the Islamic narrative of Noah is not a true post-apocalyptic tale (as only Noah's tribe was affected and not the entire human race), it can nevertheless be read with post-apocalyptic themes since Noah builds the ark and escapes the destruction of his tribe along with a handful of the believers and the animals of his tribe.

Even in the Hindu Dharmasastra, the apocalyptic deluge plays a prominent part. According to the Matsya Purana, the Matsya avatar of Lord Vishnu, informed the King Manu of an all-destructive deluge which would be coming very soon. Matsya Purana, Ch.I, 10–33 The King was advised to build a huge boat (ark) which housed his family, nine types of seeds, pairs of all animals and the Saptarishis to repopulate Earth, after the deluge would end and the oceans and seas would recede. At the time of the deluge, Vishnu appeared as a horned fish and Shesha appeared as a rope, with which Vaivasvata Manu fastened the boat to the horn of the fish. Variants of this story also appear in Buddhist and Jain scriptures.

The 1st centuries AD saw the recording of the Book of Revelation (from which the word apocalypse originated, meaning "revelation of secrets"), which is filled with prophecies of destruction, as well as luminous visions. In the first chapter of Revelation, the writer St. John the Divine explains his divine errand: "Write the things which thou hast seen, the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter" (Rev. 1:19). He takes it as his mission to convey—to reveal—to God's kingdom His promise that justice will prevail and that the suffering will be vindicated (Leigh). The apocalyptist provides a beatific vision of Judgement Day, revealing God's promise for redemption from suffering and strife. ''Revelation'' describes a new Heaven and a new Earth, and its intended Christian audience is often enchanted and inspired, rather than terrified by visions of Judgment Day. These Christians believed themselves chosen for God's salvation, and so such apocalyptic sensibilities inspired optimism and nostalgia for the end times.

In society

Such works often feature the loss of a global perspective as protagonists are on their own, often with little or no knowledge of the outside world. Furthermore, they often explore a world without modern technology whose rapid progress may overwhelm people as human brains are not adapted to contemporary society, but evolved to deal with issues that have become largely irrelevant, such as immediate physical threats. Such works depict worlds of less complexity, direct contact, and primitive needs, threats and behavior. According to Professor Barry Brummett, it is often the concept of change as much as the concept of destruction that causes public interest in apocalyptic themes.

Such fiction is studied by social sciences and may provide insights into a culture's fearsas well as things like the role imagined for public administration.

Since the late 20th century, a surge of popular post-apocalyptic films can be observed.
Christopher Schmidt notes that, while the world "goes to waste" for future generations, we distract ourselves from disaster by passively watching it as entertainment. Some have commented on this trend, saying that "it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism".

Pre-1900 works

Lord Byron's 1816 poem "Darkness", included in '' The Prisoner of Chillon'' collection, on the apocalyptic end of the world and one man's survival, was one of the earliest English-language works in this genre. The sun was blotted out, leading to darkness and cold which kills off mankind through famine and ice-age conditions. The poem was influential in the emergence of "the last man" theme which appeared in the works of several poets, such as "The Last Man" by Thomas Campbell (1824) and "The Last Man" (1826) by Thomas Hood, as well as "The Last Man" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes. The year 1816 was known as the Year Without a Summer because Mount Tambora had erupted in the Dutch East Indies in 1815 that emitted sulphur into the atmosphere which lowered the temperature and altered weather patterns throughout the world. This was the source for Byron's poem.

Mary Shelley's novel, ''The Last Man'' (1826), is a continuation of the apocalyptic theme in fiction. The story follows a group of people as they struggle to survive in a plague-infected world. The story centers on a male protagonist as he struggles to keep his family safe but is inevitably left as the last man alive. However, Shelley's novel is predated by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville's French epic prose poem '' Le Dernier Homme'' (English: ''The Last Man'' (1805)) and this work is also sometimes considered the first modern work to depict the end of the world. Published after his death in 1805, de Grainville's work follows the character of Omegarus, the titular "last man," in what is essentially a retelling of the Book of Revelation, combined with themes of the story of Adam and Eve. Unlike most apocalyptic tales, de Grainville's novel approaches the end of the world not as a cautionary tale, or a tale of survival, but as both an inevitable, as well as necessary, step for the spiritual resurrection of mankind.

Edgar Allan Poe's short story " The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1839) follows the conversation between two souls in the afterlife as they discuss the destruction of the world. The destruction was brought about by a comet that removed nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere; this left only oxygen and resulted in a worldwide inferno. Similarly, Giacomo Leopardi's short dialogue " Dialogue between a Goblin and a Gnome" (1824) features a world without the presence of the human beings, most likely because they "violate the laws of nature, and entcontrary to their welfare".

Richard Jefferies' novel ''After London'' (1885) can best be described as genuine post-apocalyptic fiction. After a sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature and the few survivors return to a quasi-medieval way of life. The first chapters consist solely of a description of nature reclaiming England: fields becoming overrun by forest, domesticated animals running wild, roads and towns becoming overgrown, London reverting to lake and poisonous swampland. The rest of the story is a straightforward adventure/quest set many years later in the wild landscape and society, but the opening chapters set an example for many later science fiction stories.

H.G. Wells wrote several novels that have a post-apocalyptic theme. ''The Time Machine'' (1895) has the unnamed protagonist traveling to the year 802,701 A.D. after civilization has collapsed and humanity has split into two distinct species, the elfin Eloi and the brutal Morlocks. Later in the story, the time traveler moves forward to a dying Earth beneath a swollen red sun. ''The War of the Worlds'' (1898) depicts an invasion of Earth by inhabitants of the planet Mars. The aliens systematically destroy Victorian England with advanced weaponry mounted on nearly indestructible vehicles. Due to the infamous radio adaptation of the novel by Orson Welles on his show, ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'', the novel has become one of the best known early apocalyptic works. It has subsequently been reproduced or adapted several times in comic books, film, music, radio programming, television programming, and video games.

Post-1900 works

Aliens

'' Childhood's End'' is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke, in which aliens come to Earth, human children develop fantastic powers and the planet is destroyed.

Argentine comic writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld's comic series '' El Eternauta'' (1957 to 1959), an alien race only mentioned by the protagonists as ''Ellos'' ("Them") invades the Earth starting with a deadly snowfall and then using other alien races to defeat the remaining humans.

In Alice Sheldon's Nebula-winning novelette " The Screwfly Solution" (1977), aliens are wiping out humanity with an airborne agent that changes men's sexual impulses to violent ones.

Douglas Adams's ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' series (1979–2009) is a humorous take on alien invasion stories. Multiple Earths are repeatedly "demolished" by the bureaucratic Vogons to make way for a hyperspace bypass, to the chagrin of the protagonist Arthur Dent.

In Gene Wolfe's '' The Urth of the New Sun'' (1987), aliens (or highly evolved humans) introduce a white hole into the sun to counteract the dimming effect of a black hole, and the resulting global warming causes a sea-level rise that kills most of the population (though this may be redemptive, like Noah's Flood, rather than a disaster).

In Greg Bear's '' The Forge of God'' (1987), Earth is destroyed in an alien attack. Just prior to this, a different group of aliens is able to save samples of the biosphere and a small number of people, resettling them on Mars. Some of these form the crew of a ship to hunt down the homeworld of the killers, as described in the sequel, '' Anvil of Stars'' (1992).

Al Sarrantonio's ''Moonbane'' (1989) concerns the origin of werewolves (which he attributes to the Moon, which is why they are so attracted to it), and an invasion after an explosion on Luna sends meteoric fragments containing latent lycanthropes to Earth, who thrive in our planet's oxygen-rich atmosphere. ''Moonbane''s tone is reminiscent of H. G. Wells' ''War of the Worlds'' (1897).

Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski's novel '' The Killing Star'' (1995) describes a devastating attack on a late-21st-century Earth by an alien civilization. Using missiles traveling at relativistic speed, they are determined to destroy the human race in a preemptive strike, as they are considered, after watching several episodes of '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' which shows human domination in space, a future threat.

In the video game ''Chrono Trigger'' (1995), the giant alien creature Lavos collides with the earth in prehistoric times, subsequently hibernating beneath the earth. As millions of years pass, the monster feeds on the energy of the earth, eventually surfacing in 1999 to wreak complete destruction of the human race, atmosphere, and general life on the planet in the form of a rain of destruction fired from its outer shell, known as the "Day of Lavos".

In the video game '' Half-Life'' (1998), hostile alien creatures arrive on Earth through a portal after a scientific experiment goes wrong. In its sequel, ''Half-Life 2'' (2004), it is revealed to the player the creatures encountered in the first game are merely the slaves of a much more powerful alien race, the Combine, who have taken over the Earth to drain its resources after subduing the entirety of Earth's governments and military forces in only seven hours.

In the 2000 Don Bluth animated film '' Titan A.E.'', Earth has been destroyed by the Drej, due to a human experimental discovery called Project Titan, which made them fear “what humanity will become”.

The 2011 TV series '' Falling Skies'', by Robert Rodat and Steven Spielberg, follows a human resistance force fighting to survive after extraterrestrial aliens attempt to take over Earth by disabling most of the world's technology and destroying its armed forces in a surprise attack. It is implied that the attacking aliens are in reality former victims of an attack on their own planet and are now the slaves of an unseen controller race.

The television series '' Defiance'' (2013–2015) is set in an Earth devastated by the "Pale Wars", a war with seven alien races referred to as the "Votan", followed by the "Arkfalls", which terraforms Earth to an almost unrecognizable state. Unlike most apocalyptic works, in this one Earth is not inhospitable, and humanity is not on the verge of extinction.

'' The World's End'' is a 2013 British-American comic science fiction film directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan and Rosamund Pike. The film follows a group of friends who discover an alien invasion during a pub crawl in their hometown.

In the 2018 horror film ''A Quiet Place'' and the 2021 sequel ''A Quiet Place Part II'', society has collapsed in the wake of lethal attacks by extraterrestrial creatures who, having no eyesight, hunt humans and other creatures with their highly sensitive hearing; the scattered survivors live most of their lives in near-silence as a result.

Astronomical

In Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer's novel '' When Worlds Collide'' (1933), Earth is destroyed by the rogue planet Bronson Alpha. A selected few escape on a spaceship. In the sequel, '' After Worlds Collide'' (1934), the survivors start a new life on the planet's companion Bronson Beta, which has taken over the orbit formerly occupied by Earth.

In J. T. McIntosh's novel '' One in Three Hundred'' (1954), scientists have discovered how to pinpoint the exact minute, hour, and day the Sun will go " nova" – and when it does, it will boil away Earth's seas, beginning with the hemisphere that faces the sun, and as Earth continues to rotate, it will take only 24 hours before all life is eradicated. Super-hurricanes and tornadoes are predicted. Buildings will be blown away. A race is on to build thousands of spaceships for the sole purpose of transferring evacuees on a one-way trip to Mars. When the Sun begins to go nova, everything is on schedule, but most of the spaceships turn out to be defective, and fail en route to Mars.

Brian Aldiss' novel '' Hothouse'' (1961) occurs in a distant future where the sun is much hotter and stronger, and the human population has been reduced to a fifth of what it had been.

J. G. Ballard's novel '' The Drowned World'' (1962) occurs after a rise in solar radiation that causes worldwide flooding and accelerated mutation of plants and animals.

Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven's novel, ''Lucifer's Hammer'' (1977), is about a cataclysmic comet hitting Earth and various groups of people struggling to survive the aftermath in southern California.

Hollywood—which previously had explored the idea of the Earth and its population being potentially endangered by a collision with another heavenly body with the '' When Worlds Collide'' (1951), a film treatment of the aforementioned 1933 novel – revisited the theme in the late 1990s with a trio of similarly themed projects. '' Asteroid'' (1997) is a NBC-TV miniseries about the U.S. government trying to prevent an asteroid from colliding with the Earth. The following year saw dueling big-budget summer blockbuster movies '' Deep Impact'' (1998) and ''Armageddon'' (1998), both of which involved efforts to save the Earth from, respectively, a rogue comet and an asteroid, by landing crews upon them to detonate nuclear weapons there in hopes of destroying them.

Characters in the six-part ITV television drama serial '' The Last Train'' (1999) awaken from a cryogenic sleep after an asteroid the size of Birmingham strikes Africa, causing a worldwide apocalypse.

K. A. Applegate's 2001–2003 book series, '' Remnants'', details the end of the world by asteroid collision. The first book, ''The Mayflower Project'' (2001), describes Earth in a sort of hysteria as 80 people are chosen by NASA to board a spacecraft that will go to an unknown destination away from the destroyed Earth. The later books deal with the few survivors waking up from a 500-year hibernation and succumbing to both strange mutations and the will of a strange alien computer/spaceship that they land on. Eventually they return to Earth to find a couple colonies of survivors struggling on a harsh planet completely different from the Earth the Remnants knew.

'' Melancholia'' (2011), the middle entry of filmmaker Lars von Trier's "depression trilogy", ends with humanity completely wiped out by a collision with a rogue planet. The depressed protagonist reverses roles with her relatives as the crisis unfolds, as she turns out to be the only family member capable of calmly accepting the imminent impact event.

In id Software's video game '' Rage'' (2011), Earth is heavily damaged, and humanity nearly wiped out, by the direct collision of the real asteroid 99942 Apophis with the Earth in the year 2029.

Marly Youmans' epic poem ''Thaliad'' (2012) tells the story of a group of children after an unspecified apocalypse from the sky, perhaps connected with solar flares or meteor impact, resulting in people and animals having been burned and the skies having filled with ash. The children survive only because they were together on a school visit to a cave.

In the obscure 2013 Australian film '' These Final Hours'', a massive asteroid hits the Atlantic Ocean dooming all life. The film follows James, who decides to head to the 'party-to-end-all-parties' and there spend the last 12 hours before the global firestorm reaches Western Australia.

In the 2020 film ''Greenland'', a massive comet, Clarke, is set on a collision course with Earth, with only a few people permitted into a massive complex of bunkers in Greenland. The film follows the Garrity family's attempts to reach these safe havens after they were unable to board the transport aircraft to the bunkers. Clarke collides with Earth, leaving the planet devastated, however, there are survivors throughout the world, implying that Humanity can still survive. A sequel is now in development called '' Greenland: Migration.''

Cozy catastrophe

The "cozy catastrophe" is not an intentional style of post-apocalyptic science fiction, but rather a criticism of certain apocalyptic works that were not considered as believably harsh enough for the critic's stated preferences. Stories subject to this criticism generally involve some sort of catastrophe wherein civilization comes to an end with mass deaths, but the main characters survive relatively unscathed and are freed from the constraints of vulgar civilization in their hideaway, perhaps finding a kind of quiet happiness in the changed world. The term was coined by Brian Aldiss in ''Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction'' (1973). Aldiss was directing his remarks mainly at English author John Wyndham, especially his novel ''The Day of the Triffids'' (1951), whose protagonists did not suffer enough associated hardship from the collapse of society for Aldiss's taste, as well as other British books in the era following the Second World War. The genre has been defended though as being a valid take on more low-key catastrophes of an ecological sort, and other books have been questioned if they qualify at all - Margaret Atwood defended ''The Day of the Trifflids'' as not as "cozy" as alleged, for example.

Environmental disaster

'' The Purple Cloud'' (1901) by M. P. Shiel is a novel in which most of humanity has been killed by a poisonous cloud issuing from volcanic eruptions.

In Alfred Walter Stewart's 1923 novel ''Nordenholt's Million'', an engineered strain of bacteria denitrifies almost all plants, causing a collapse of food supply. The plutocrat of the title establishes a haven in central Scotland for a chosen group of survivors, while deliberately wrecking all alternative refuges.

In Alfred Bester's story " Adam and No Eve" (1941), an inventor takes off in a rocket whose propulsion uses a dangerous catalyst. From outer space he sees that the entire world has been destroyed by fire in a runaway reaction caused by the catalyst. Fatally injured in a crash landing, he crawls to the sea so that the bacteria in his body can initiate new life on Earth.

In John Christopher's novel '' The Death of Grass'' (1956), a mutated virus kills cereal crops and other grasses throughout Eurasia, causing famine.

Kurt Vonnegut 's novel ''Cat's Cradle'' (1963) ends with all the bodies of water turning into " ice-nine", a fictional phase of ice that forms at room temperature.

In J. G. Ballard's novel '' The Burning World'' (1964, expanded into ''The Drought'' in 1965), pollution in the oceans creates a surface layer that resists evaporation, bringing about a worldwide drought.

John Brunner's novel '' The Sheep Look Up'' (1972) describes an environmentally-degraded world rapidly collapsing into social chaos, revolution, and anarchy.

Richard Cowper's three-volume novel ''The White Bird of Kinship'' (1978–82) envisions a future in which anthropogenic global warming has led to a catastrophic rise in sea level. Most of it takes place two millennia later.

Ursula K. Le Guin's novel '' Always Coming Home'' (1985) takes place long after worldwide disasters—apparently largely environmental though nuclear war may also be involved—have drastically reduced the population. It paints an admiring picture of a primitive society that will not repeat the mistakes of civilization. It won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and was a runner-up for a National Book Award.

Palladium Books' '' Rifts'' roleplaying game (1990) features an apocalypse caused by various natural disasters including the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano which releases a large amount of magical energy that is amplified by deaths of millions occurring during a solstice, at midnight, during a planetary alignment, creating the titular rifts that bring forth various beings and monstrosities from throughout the Megaverse.

In Octavia Butler's 1993 novel '' Parable of the Sower'', climate change and corporatism are the human-caused reasons for societal collapse.

In the film ''The Day After Tomorrow'' (2004), based on Whitley Strieber's speculative non-fiction novel '' The Coming Global Superstorm'' (1999), extreme weather events caused by climate change invoke mass destruction across the planet, and eventually result in a new ice age.

The video game ''The Long Dark'' (2017) depicts survival in the wilderness of northern Canada during winter after a geomagnetic disaster has disabled all modern technology.

Failure of modern technology

In E. M. Forster's novelette " The Machine Stops" (1909), humanity has been forced underground due to inhospitable conditions on Earth's surface, and is entirely dependent on "the machine," a god-like mechanical entity which has supplanted almost all free will by providing for humankind's every whim. The machine deteriorates and eventually stops, ending the lives of all those dependent upon it, though one of the dying alludes to a group of humans dwelling on the surface who will carry the torch of humanity into the future.

In René Barjavel's novel '' Ravage'' (1943), written and published during the German occupation of France, a future France is devastated by the sudden failure of electricity, causing chaos, disease, and famine, with a small band of survivors desperately struggling for survival.

Fred Saberhagen goes one better than Barjavel with the ''Empire of the East'' series which starts, in the 1968 book ''The Broken Lands'', sometime after the "Change" (with sincere nods from Boyett and Stirling), in which a defense designed to temporarily make nukes inoperative, permanently changes some of the laws of science for magic.

Steve Boyett's novel ''Ariel'' (1983, sub-titled "A Book of the Change") also has all technology—including electricity, gunpowder, and some physics principles—ceasing to function, while magic becomes real. He also contributed to the 1986 Borderland series, which investigates a return of the Realm of Faery to the world.

'' The Quiet Earth'', a 1985 New Zealand movie notable for its visually stunning ending, follows a scientist's descent into madness after he wakes up to a world where every single member of the kingdom Animalia has seemingly disappeared. After recovering and finding other people, he realizes his experiments with energy transfers through the Earth's magnetic field are to blame, and that unless he shuts down the experiment, it will destroy the planet.

S. M. Stirling also takes a swipe at the inconstant-physical-constants field with the ''Emberverse'' series. '' Dies the Fire'' (2004), '' The Protector's War'' (2005), and '' A Meeting at Corvallis'' (2006), depict the world's descent into feudalism after a sudden mysterious "change" alters physical laws so that electricity, gunpowder, and most forms of high-energy-density technology no longer work. Civilization collapses, and two competing groups struggle to re-create medieval technologies and skills, as well as master magic. Like Boyett's novel, Stirling's features Society for Creative Anachronism members as favorably disposed survivors, and a hang glider attack against a building.

'' Afterworld'' (first aired in 2007) is a computer-animated American science fiction television series where a network of satellites firing persistent electronic pulses, combined with a strange nanotechnology, has not only destroyed most electronic technology on the planet, but also caused the deaths of 99% of humanity, and is now causing strange mutations to occur in lower forms of life.

NBC's ''Revolution'' (2012–2014) also revolved around a "change" after which the principles of electricity and physics are inoperable. However, the focus of the story was how a group of protagonists tried to get the power back on while opposing the efforts of a tyrannical militia leader to understand it first (so that he can take absolute power).

The web series '' H+: The Digital Series'' (2012-2013) depicts in part, the aftermath of a world in which a computer virus that infected a popular brain-computer interface killed one-third of the population, leading to a breakdown in order and the lack or shortage of electricity and other modern conveniences.

'' All Systems Down'' (2018) is an American novel which describes a cyber war that cripples Western infrastructure, resulting in the collapse of society.

Robert Harris's novel ''The Second Sleep'' (2019) is set in a fundamentalist agrarian society several centuries after the collapse of global civilisation, which is inferred to be the result of a sudden breakdown of the internet, possibly as the result of cyberwarfare.

Technological singularity

The topic of technological singularity, also known as “singularity,” was first coined in 1993. Since then, the idea of the term has been used to produce countless major motion pictures and earn Hollywood producers millions of dollars at the box office. The "singularity" refers to a future moment in human history when science and science fiction, religion and philosophy, and hope and fear converge. The mathematician and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge coined the term to denote a juncture when artificial intelligence (AI) equals, and then in an intelligence explosion, far exceeds man intelligence.” In laymen’s terms, technological singularity is the theoretical future moment when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and becomes aware, autonomous, and potentially threatening to humans.
* ''The Matrix'' (1999), The plot involves Neo ( Keanu Reeves), a mild-mannered software author by day, a feared hacker by night. He's recruited by a cell of cyber-rebels, led by the profound Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and the leather-clad warrior Trinity ( Carrie-Anne Moss). They've made a fundamental discovery about the world: It doesn't exist. It's actually a form of Virtual Reality, designed to lull us into lives of blind obedience to the "system." We obediently go to our crummy jobs every day, little realizing, as Morpheus tells Neo, that "Matrix is the wool that has been pulled over your eyes--that you are a slave." The rebels want to crack the framework that holds the Matrix in place and free mankind. Morpheus believes Neo is the Messianic "One" who can lead this rebellion, which requires mind power as much as physical strength. Arrayed against them are the Agents, who look like Blues Brothers. The movie's battles take place in Virtual Reality; the heroes' minds are plugged into the combat. (You can still get killed, though: "The body cannot live without the mind")…The Agents function primarily as opponents in a high-stakes computer game. The movie offers no clear explanation of why the Matrix-making program went to all that trouble. Of course, for a program, running is its own reward—but an intelligent program might bring terrifying logic to its decisions.
* '' The Terminator'' (1985), James Cameron directs this science-fiction thriller about a futuristic killing machine called the Terminator ( Arnold Schwarzenegger), which is sent back to the year 1984 to assassinate a young woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). The cyborg comes from the year 2029, following a nuclear war that has devastated the better part of civilization. Computer defense mechanisms have turned on their creators, starting another war, in an effort to eliminate the human race altogether. Man's valiant rebel leader is John Connor, Sarah's son. John is destined to help the human race win this war, and the Terminator is the only thing standing in the way. Sent back to the present, the cyborg must kill Sarah before John is born. It systematically eliminates every Sarah Connor in the city of Los Angeles. But Sarah escapes with the man sent to protect her, Kyle Reese ( Michael Biehn) before the Terminator can get to her. What follows is a massive chase that will eventually end in victory for mankind. Co-writer William Wisher Jr. has a cameo as a police officer.
* '' Transcendence'' (2014), about a dying computer genius ( Johnny Depp) who uploads himself in computerized form and achieves a problematic digital afterlife, is real science fiction. It explores its ideas with sincerity, curiosity, and terrifying beauty (its director is Wally Pfister, longtime cinematographer for Christopher Nolan)… Caster is wounded in the 9/11 style, multi-pronged attack, taking a radiation-laced bullet and dying a few weeks later…What we've got here isn't just a "Frankenstein"-like parable of scientific hubris run amok, but also the story of a grieving spouse who's reluctant to let go of her mate and tries to prolong his life artificially. The film's script, credited to Jack Paglen, takes its sweet time confirming whether the being uploaded into the neural network Will Caster or merely a digital copy, and if a copy, what sort.
* ''Her'' (2013), The futuristic premise sets the stage for an unusual love story: one in which Theo, still highly damaged and sensitive over the breakup of his marriage ("I miss you," a friend tells him in a voice mail message; "Not the sad, mopey you. The old, fun you"), falls in love with the artificially intelligent operating system of his computer. The movie shows this product advertised and, presumably, bought in remarkable quantity, but focuses on Theo's interaction with his OS, which he gives a female voice. The female voice (portrayed by Scarlett Johansson) gives herself the name "Samantha" and soon Samantha is reorganizing Theo's files, making him laugh, and developing something like a human consciousness.
* '' Autómata'' (2014), opens with onscreen text explaining the future 30 years from now. Solar storms have turned the Earth into a radioactive desert, killing 98% of the population in the process. As a result, the ROC company created “primitive robots to help build the walls and mechanical clouds that protect the humans.” There are millions of robots, all of which are controlled by two protocols: they cannot harm any form of life and they can neither repair themselves nor alter another robot in any fashion. “These rules are unalterable,” the screen says in boldface. Of course, this is not a true statement.

Fossil fuel supply scarcities

The film ''Mad Max'' (1979), directed by George Miller, presents a world in which oil resources have been nearly exhausted. This has resulted in constant energy shortages and a breakdown of law and order. The police do battle with criminal motorcycle gangs, with the result being the complete breakdown of modern society and nuclear war as depicted in '' Mad Max 2'' (1981). The opening narration of ''Mad Max 2'' implies that the fuel shortage was caused not just by peak oil, but also by oil reserves being destroyed during a large scale conflict in the Middle East. The remnants of society survive either through scavenging, or in one notable case, as depicted in the third sequel ''Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome'' (1985), by using methane derived from pig feces.

James Howard Kunstler's novel ''World Made By Hand'' (2008) imagines life in upstate New York after a declining world oil supply has wreaked havoc on the US economy, and people and society are forced to adjust to daily life without cheap oil.

Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland's book '' Player One'' (2010) deals with four individuals taking refuge in a Toronto airport bar while a series of cataclysmic events occurs outside.

Alex Scarrow's novel ''Last Light'' and its sequel ''Afterlight'' narrate the fall of British civilization after a war in the Middle East eradicates the majority of the Earth's oil supply.

The backstory of the video game series '' Fallout'' revolves around the so-called "Resource Wars", beginning circa 2050, when oil supplies become depleted, leading to a disastrous series of wars that include Europe going to war with the Middle East before disintegrating into warring nation-states after all available oil is used up, the United Nations collapsing, the U.S annexing Mexico and Canada, and finally total nuclear war between the U.S and China in 2077 after over 25 years of war.

Pandemic

Comics

'' Crossed'' by Garth Ennis is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a bodily fluid-borne virus has destroyed civilization. Carriers of the virus develop a cross-shaped rash on their faces and act without inhibitions, raping, killing and torturing the few remaining uninfected humans.

'' Y: The Last Man'' by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra deals with the lives of Yorick Brown and his monkey Ampersand, after a plague wipes out all but three male life forms on the Earth, leaving the whole planet to be controlled by women.

'' The Walking Dead'' is a comic book series from IC and was written by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. It was started in 2003 and concluded in 2019. The story follows a group of survivors in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The apocalypse in this series was brought about by zombies, and it is strongly suspected that the zombies are victims of a virus. '' The Walking Dead'' television series is based on the comic books. They have also spawned a motion comic.

Kamandi is an American comic book character, created by artist Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics. In the eponymous series, Kamandi is a teenage boy on a post-apocalyptic Earth that the textual narrative describes as "Earth A.D. (After Disaster)". The Earth has been ravaged by a mysterious calamity called the Great Disaster. The precise nature of the Great Disaster is never revealed in the original series, although it "had something to do with radiation" (in the series' letter column, Jack Kirby and his then-assistant Steve Sherman repeatedly asserted that the Great Disaster was not a nuclear war, a fact confirmed in issue #35). The Disaster wiped out human civilization and a substantial portion of the human population. A few isolated pockets of humanity survived in underground bunkers, while others quickly reverted to pre-technological savagery.

'' Xenozoic Tales'' (also known as ''Cadillacs & Dinosaurs'') is an alternative comic book by Mark Schultz set in a post-apocalyptic future starring mechanic Jack Tenrec and scientist Hannah Dundee. Earth has been ravaged by pollution and natural disasters and humanity survived by building vast underground cities. Some 600 years later, mankind emerged to find that the world had been reclaimed by previously extinct lifeforms (most spectacularly, dinosaurs). In the new 'Xenozoic' era, technology is extremely limited and those with mechanical skills command a great deal of respect and influence.

Killraven (Jonathan Raven) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by co-plotters Roy Thomas and Neal Adams, scriptwriter Gerry Conway, the Martians from H. G. Wells' ''The War of the Worlds'' return in 2001 for another attempt at conquering the planet (later retconned as extrasolar aliens using Mars as a staging area). After humanity's enslavement, men not used as breeders or collaborators are trained and forced to battle gladiator-style for the Martians' amusement; women are used as breeders to supply infants, which are eaten by the Martians as a delicacy. Jonathan Raven, dubbed Killraven as his gladiatorial nom de guerre, escapes with the help of the gladiatorial "keeper", but without his brother, Deathraven. Killraven joins the Freemen, a group of freedom fighters against Martian oppression.

Deathlok is a Marvel comic book character created by Rich Buckler and Doug Moench. Colonel Luther Manning is an American soldier who was fatally injured and reanimated in a post-apocalyptic future (originally given the date of 1990) as the experimental cyborg Deathlok the Demolisher. He verbally communicates with his symbiotic computer, to which he refers as the abbreviated "'Puter". He battles the evil corporate and military regimes that have taken over the United States, while simultaneously struggling not to lose his humanity.

Hercules, as portrayed in the DC comic book series titled ''Hercules Unbound'', featured the adventures of Hercules in a post-apocalyptic future. It made use of characters and concepts, such as the Atomic Knights and the intelligent animals from Jack Kirby's ''Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth'' series as an attempt to tie in some of the future series.

''Judge Dredd'' is set in a future Earth damaged by World War III, a nuclear war instigated by corrupt U.S. President "Bad" Bob Booth in 2070. The majority of the world was left an irradiated wasteland filled with hostile mutant lifeforms, with the surviving population being centralized in the so-called Mega-Cities, massive urban sprawls covering entire states created to deal with overpopulation during the 21st century. Further massive conflicts during the comics' present, such as the "Apocalypse War" against East-Meg (the government of the former Soviet territories) and the "Day Of Chaos" has caused even more destruction.

'' Axa'' is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 2080. Axa is a woman who, having grown sick of the regimented and stifling society inside a domed city, flees into the untamed wilderness. The strip mixed elements of science fiction and sword-swinging barbarian tales (the lead character herself bears more than a casual similarity to Red Sonja).

''Meltdown Man'' (SAS Sergeant Nick Stone) finds himself flung into the far-future by a nuclear blast, where the last remaining humans are led by a merciless tyrant called Leeshar and rule over the eugenically - modified animal castes known as 'Yujees'. Accompanied by catwoman Liana, bullman T-Bone and loyal wolfman Gruff, Stone is intent on ending Leeshar's dark reign by leading the slave-like Yujees in rebellion.

'' Mighty Samson'' was set in the area around New York City, now known as "N'Yark", in an Earth devastated by a nuclear war. The series featured Samson, a barbarian adventurer, and was created by writer Otto Binder and artist Frank Thorne.

''Druuna'' is an erotic science fiction and fantasy comic book character created by Italian cartoonist Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri. Most of Druuna's adventures revolve around a post-apocalyptic future, and the plot is often a vehicle for varied scenes of hardcore pornography and softcore sexual imagery.

Films and television

Director George A. Romero's '' Night of the Living Dead'' (1968), and its five sequels, including '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978) and ''Day of the Dead'' (1985), popularized the concept of a zombie apocalypse, focusing on the breakdown of American society in a world where the dead are re-animating as mindless, undead cannibals due to some unknown disease, implied to be extraterrestrial in origin, and anyone bitten but not eaten will soon become a zombie as well.

The BBC
...