I want to destroy almost all human life on Earth... Will you help me?

reddog · Dec 4, 2009

I want to write a story about a man trying to survive on Earth after a massive catastrophy that has destroyed almost all human life. Like 99+%. But I am having a difficult time coming up with a way to do it. Here are a couple 'requirements' for my story.

1. The event cannot be the result of aliens.
2. The event must leave the planet livable within a short period of time. I thought about using somehting like a world war where nuclear weapons were used, but that would make survival on the planet afterwards extreemly difficult for years and years to come. I don't want life to be quite that difficult.
3. The event could be biological or chemical, but I don't want it to be too "The Stand"ish.
4. The event could be a natural disaster of some sort.
5. The event could be some sort of space born disaster. Like maybe a solar event.
6. The event could be some sort of naturally occuring disease.

Any ideas?

-Mike

nitaworm · Dec 4, 2009

I love plagues...

MGraybosch · Dec 4, 2009

I used nanotech to cull the human race in my own WIP.

Zoombie · Dec 4, 2009

A mass spread of neural networks that allow for instantaneous operation of all wireless equipment. It works fine, till a religious extremist releases an intelligent super virus that caues all neural networks to overload and fry their brains. The results are quite gory, what with super pressurized blood boiling out of people's eyesockets, but 99% of everyone dies, the remaining people being those without neural nets and those who were lucky enough to have their nets off, or disconnected till after the virus had run its course.

MGraybosch · Dec 4, 2009

Zoombie said:
A mass spread of neural networks that allow for instantaneous operation of all wireless equipment. It works fine, till a religious extremist releases an intelligent super virus that caues all neural networks to overload and fry their brains. The results are quite gory, what with super pressurized blood boiling out of people's eyesockets, but 99% of everyone dies, the remaining people being those without neural nets and those who were lucky enough to have their nets off, or disconnected till after the virus had run its course.

Too Hollywood. :evil

blacbird · Dec 4, 2009

The two obvious real examples are:

1. A big bolide strike, like the Chicxulub event 65 million years ago that is generally regarded as the major incident extinctifying the dinosaurs (along with pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ammonites, inoceramids and many other animal groups).

2. A big volcanic event, like the eruption of the Siberian trap basalt flows 250 million years ago that is reckoned to have caused the largest extinction event in geologic history. A much smaller event, the Toba caldera eruption of around 73,000 years ago is thought by many to have nearly wiped out the worlds human population:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34277023/ns/technology_and_science-science/

A major Yellowstone eruption would have similar possibilities. Unfortunately for your scenario, both these things have already been done to death in book and film.

caw

Zoombie · Dec 4, 2009

MGraybosch said:
Too Hollywood.

But how many times do you get to use the old boiling brains gag?

Also, I was thinking the entire virus could work so well because of how the neural nets are designed: Think about something, the net DLs the relevant info. Remove the filters, and think of one thing and it DLs all the relevant info for that, then the relevant info for everything it DLs, and so on and so on. The hardware heats up as processing speed goes way over the saftey threshold and BOOM!

Squirting blood out your eyes.

Zachariah · Dec 4, 2009

A massive solar flare could flash-fry the place down to a few centimetres of topsoil. That would see most of us off but give the plant life a chance at recovering. Or if you don't want to blame the sun, a nearby star could go nova.

Mac H. · Dec 4, 2009

reddog said:
I want to write a story about a man trying to survive on Earth after a massive catastrophy that has destroyed almost all human life. Like 99+%. But I am having a difficult time coming up with a way to do it.

But would your MC really know the real reason?

Sure, he might know it was a chemical/biological problem, but he might not know the details. Especially with the distrust of the government, most of what he believes might actually be wrong. So he might be boiling all meat he catches because he's heard it makes it safe - even though the science doesn't really support it.

But to answer your question, I'd go for something involving prions. They haven't been overused yet.

This is basically what mad cow disease involves, and that's the interesting bit - it might have been lurking in our food supply for generations until for some reason people might start dying from it in their millions.

Is it the prions at fault? Or some chemical / biological problem that made us suddenly susceptible to them? Everyone would have a different theory.

I'd also point the finger at species we are deliberately wiping from the face of the earth. What if the virus eco-system relied on things like the polio virus which we decided to deliberately make extinct?

Now we've done that, we might discover that it was actually preventing something much worse.

Mac

Rhys Cordelle · Dec 5, 2009

Run awaaaay

DrZoidberg · Dec 5, 2009

I'm with Blacbird. Statistically a massive comet should hit earth every 30 000 years, wiping out a sizeable part of earth's species. It's late. So that's a pretty believable disaster to use. If this is a new comet, not recorded before, we're also likely to receive about a five minutes warning before the impact blackening the sky for years.

bettielee · Dec 5, 2009

You could do the whole computers come alive thing, where they THINK they've managed to set up their own energy source to remain alive after killing off most of the human race, but remaining humans (possibly the last remaining army folks) mange to short circuit it, leaving the computers "dead" - it might have been a suicide mission, killing the army guys, leaving the remaining humans on their own, scattered, with no leadership. Your world should be left intact and livable, but with no electricity or modern amenities.

Kaiser-Kun · Dec 5, 2009

The Emberverse series tell us about the Change, which rendered all technology and weapons inoperable. Poof: Goodbye society!

Julie Worth · Dec 5, 2009

A rapture event that takes everyone except those who happen to be in the Vatican at the time. Even the tourists there are left behind.

Zoombie · Dec 5, 2009

Is that really in the realm of SF? Or is it more a fantasy/religious thing?

Kaiser-Kun · Dec 5, 2009

Julie Worth said:
A rapture event that takes everyone except those who happen to be in the Vatican at the time. Even the tourists there are left behind.

So that was his plan! =O

STKlingaman · Dec 5, 2009

Already did it, in my just finished story
'Time Sweep' but I'm not telling how.

maxmordon · Dec 5, 2009

Julie Worth said:
A rapture event that takes everyone except those who happen to be in the Vatican at the time. Even the tourists there are left behind.

Um, Catholic don't believe in Rapture...

Port Iris · Dec 5, 2009

Mac H. said:
But would your MC really know the real reason?

Unless the reason is integral to the plot, you have plenty of room to skirt around the method by which the human race has dwindled. Cormac McCarthy's The Road was very enjoyable with little details on how the world 'comes to an end.'

As far as suggestions go, have you thought of some sort of invasive organism that either outcompetes humans for resources or causes a disease. If you go for the latter, you may consider the effects of global warming for why the organism has spread outside of it's isolated location, such as the case of the chytrid fungus with increased amphibian mortality in recent years.

ReneC · Dec 5, 2009

Hmm, something new, huh? How about a gamma burst from a pulsar? Let's say a pulsar just zips by the solar system (perhaps flung out of orbit by a black hole or another star) and hits the Earth with a gamma burst in a strafing run. This would cause serious cellular damage to everything exposed and also destroy much of the ozone layer. The survivors would be faced with a hostile environment to say the least.

For another possibility, how about something big hitting the sun? It would cause the mother of all solar flares, and if Earth were in the path it would have widespread effects.

small axe · Dec 5, 2009

Gamma Ray Burst.

One goes off within 600-1000 lightyears (I think I recall it right, but check on the distance) and we're bugzapped. Could happen anytime. What warning would we have: sky turns a pretty green before we're fried. Hide in the mineshaft, still you die. Those not irradiated quickly are irradiated slowly because the gamma rays cook off the atmosphere's ability to protect us from solar radiations.

I think I'm remembering the scenario rightly. Doublecheck the details though, it was an old TV show. Gamma Ray Burst: it's the worst.

DWSTXS · Dec 5, 2009

by the sheer magnitude of loss of life, would it really even be possible to know how it happened (for the survivors)? Because with no one to explain what had happened, and disseminate that info out to the survivors.

They wouldn't, unless it was an event that was forseen, or if it was a plague of some sort that was fought and fought but the final survivors just happened to live through it.

That was one reason I liked The Road so much, because it was realistic in that no one knew what had happened. Or if they did, it wasn't talked about anyway.

DWSTXS · Dec 5, 2009

Maybe a combo platter of two or three events could be the cause.

For instance, a limited nuclear exchange knocks out communications and fiscal infrastructure across the planet, and then because of some growing societal breakdown, a virus gets loose and eliminates the remainder of the population.

Mara · Dec 6, 2009

Yes! I'll help! Crush all the puny hu-mans!

...Wait, you just mean in fiction?

If you want an alternative to traditional nukes, maybe something like neutron bombs (which actually exist) would work? They kill people with intense radiation while leaving buildings mostly intact, and they don't leave behind a lot of fallout. I don't know how long it takes for an area to recover from a neutron bomb, though. But maybe something that quickly kills people and then dissipates. (I'm sure other energy forms could possibly exist today.)

maxmordon said:
Um, Catholic don't believe in Rapture...

That's what makes it ironic, I guess.

defcon6000 · Dec 6, 2009

Zoombie said:
A mass spread of neural networks that allow for instantaneous operation of all wireless equipment. It works fine, till a religious extremist releases an intelligent super virus that caues all neural networks to overload and fry their brains. The results are quite gory, what with super pressurized blood boiling out of people's eyesockets, but 99% of everyone dies, the remaining people being those without neural nets and those who were lucky enough to have their nets off, or disconnected till after the virus had run its course.

MGraybosch said:
Too Hollywood.

Yeah, Bruce Willis's latest move Surrogates has that same premise...except everyone doesn't die. *snaps fingers*

Oooh, I like Mara's idea with neutron bombs, those are freaky.

Perhaps Iran or Pakistan got a hold of a few of them?

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