Apocalypse

Summary:

Everything ended a long time ago.

Apocalypse

dracodiablo99 22 Jan 2023 18:41

Now, I'm just throwing this out there, but who likes apocalypse stuff? What if you pair it with magic and futuristic technology? Anyone have ideas?

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My entire life has boiled down to this moment. This keyboard. What I write to you now is my blood, shed for your amusement.

Re: Apocalypse

dr nepalwala 23 Jan 2023 10:36

Here are my thoughts

Since it is 'Everything ended a long time ago', I will take that it is at least 500 years into the future and this apocalypse is non-zombie or stuff related to that genre. I would like a setting where people actually live around a center of power, like a presidential or governor's palace or a parliament since, at least for me, occupying these places can help validate your faction's rule since it used to the place where rulers used to rule before the apocalypse. The buildings around this center are maintained well and people live there, or at least supporters of the faction. Other parts can be your usual ruins.

There can be factions who try to show themselves as the successor of the nation's government or a religious body or led by what remains of the military. You can have city-states, villages and fringe colonies. You can have warlords who believe that it is their divine duty to reunite the nation (Given that a long time has passed and survival is no longer a main focus), or want to preserve their rule by resisting other warlords or usually choose peace and trade with others.

Now, for technology. It will depend when this apocalypse occur, far future and only Earth has been affected, you may have humans from other planets returning back to settle on Earth. Present, innovation stalls for sometime but eventually will continue, as the population would begin to increase again and new (or old) nation arise.

Magic. Magic can be tricky. In case it is powerful (not just firing fireballs but bending time) then why wasn't the apocalypse was avoided at first. Was the apocalypse magical or normal but the magic wasn't that developed to prevent it? Is the magic is assessable to everyone or few? Has the non magic factions developed technology as the response? What kind of magical animals are there?

Last edited on 23 Jan 2023 10:39 by dr nepalwala Show more

Re: Apocalypse

Vishardsh 23 Jan 2023 11:30

Literally half of what I've written for the site is either apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic, so I'll give my small opinion:

Dead worlds are (sometimes) easy to worldbuild. One thing I discovered when writing All the Dust of Yesterday was that I could convey a sense of a world that was, in recent history, bustling with life without having to actually deal with the consequences of the character having to interact with that world. The old world is gone, so you only need a few melancholy reminders of it. Especially if you only have one character still alive.

Secondly, you could use an incredibly hostile world as a backdrop for goofy shenanigans. Showing a society dealing with a set of ludicrous problems through equally ludicrous means (IE, cybernetic enhancement and underground cities to deal with a planet where the sun vanished) can be really fun if you do it right, I think. I haven't actually pulled this off though so that's very much open for debate. I suppose SCP-3008 also captures this vibe, having people adapting to hostile circumstances in creative ways can be very entertaining, especially when it gains an element of "I'd do this and that if I was in that situation!" for the reader.

Thirdly, apocalypses can be used to set up really interesting dynamics between characters and to explore how people behave when everything goes wrong. I Am Legend by Richard Mathesonis is a good example of this- the book isn't really about the apocalypse, it's about the way the protagonist deals with it and what that says about human nature.

Fourthly, apocalypses are pretty good at criticising things if you want to go down that route because you can literally say that a thing ended the world. Can't have a more obvious theme than that.

As for answering your specific questions, if everything ended a long time ago you are definitely going to have to rationalise why things haven't gotten better again. And magic and technology are always fun if handled right, but that's a complex thing in of itself which I'm not really qualified to answer.

Good luck with your apocalypse!

Re: Apocalypse

dracodiablo99 23 Jan 2023 12:12

I should have clarified. In my mind, it was five years ago. In this world, magic is pretty common. It's more likely to meet someone with a small amount of magic rather than someone with none.
Things haven't gotten better because there are those that rule the undead, and they're still "alive".
There are definitely factions vying for power, but most of what they're trying to do is survive, as they're in what was once a bustling city.

To be honest, I was inspired by DnD, Borderlands, and Dying Light 2 when I was thinking of this. Further note of importance: Humans never existed in this world and dwarves went extinct a long time ago.

Thank you for your help.


With regards,
dracodiablo99

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My entire life has boiled down to this moment. This keyboard. What I write to you now is my blood, shed for your amusement.