Questions tagged [post-apocalypse]
For questions dealing with events taking place after a catastrophic event.
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How much steel could be recovered from cities a few hundred years after a nuclear apocalypse? [duplicate]
Roughly 120 years after a nuclear apocalypse, an external group that didn't experience the apocalypse (the why of it isn't going to be explained here) came to the land that did, to pull apart their ...
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What would our world look like if it only got 160 days of sun in a year?
A while ago, I encountered a YouTube and Spotify playlist called "songs for an empty world" by LAIN. The description was especially interesting to me:
Only 250,000 people left. 160 days of ...
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Why might there be no communication between continents for centuries after a civilization collapse?
Centuries ago, the world was locked in a three-way cold war scenario between three large empires with nukes. The tech level was roughly equivalent to 2000's technology in our world. Runaway climate ...
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Will a Humans Tolerance Keep Going Until Full Immunity?
Context: This is a post apocalypse low fantasy, soft science world. In it megacorps have built a protected city for citizens to survive. The world outside the walls in dangerous, with toxic gas, ...
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Can an advanced android interface with nature to repair themselves? [closed]
Context: This takes place in a soft science, post apocalyptic world. The actual time is a WIP, but technology would be advanced, post nuclear age but not quite interstellar travel. The world itself ...
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What are the best blackmail and extortion paths for haberdashers in post-apocalyptic Victorian cities? [closed]
In a Victorian city on an apocalyptic world, a haberdasher has gained social power. All things pertaining to the Victorian life circa 1880 would be proper here, save for the equine industry. He has ...
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How long would it take for a civilization to forget how it began?
In my scenario, all of current humanity on Earth and space is teleported to a whole new planet in a different universe with new laws of physics that mostly govern a magic system based on energy ...
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What traits would a human have in an oxygen rich environment?
I'm having trouble finding research surrounding this question. If humans evolved in a more oxygen-rich environment, what would their evolved traits be?
For context: I'm creating a post-apocalyptic ...
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How bad would it be, if aliens wiped out high-end processor production? [closed]
Let's imagine Contact with some space-faring civilization tomorrow. We will meet them, "shake their many appendages, <...>, and even attempt diplomacy."
The result is that in a few ...
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What wild mammals could survive a nuclear winter? [closed]
I'm writing a story that takes place after a nuclear winter that lasts for at least 25 years, and which caused much of the surviving population to become hunter-gatherers as a result of crop failure ...
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How Would Crypto Networks Function in a Post-Apocalyptic World?
In a world where civilization has collapsed, how would decentralized networks like blockchain continue to operate? Would they still be able to provide services such as currency, contracts, and record ...
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Books for rebulding after the apocalypse [duplicate]
In my story humans, as of 2020s are faced with a cataclism that will go over the planet for several weeks and then leave it. A group of them, a couple of hundred random NYC habitants, is planning hide ...
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Post-apocalyptic automotive fuel for a cold world?
I am writing a scifi story in which Earth's orbit has been altered, making the planet generally colder. This has made the northern hemisphere, as well as most of the southern, practically inhospitable....
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What's a good way to give a character a realistic edge in a post-apocalypse setting? [closed]
What's a realistic way to give a protagonist character a fighting edge against enemies with great numerical superiority, without making them superheroes? What's something believable?
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How does the world rebuild after an apocalypse? [closed]
140 years ago, the world was nearly torn apart as rifts to other realms sprung up across the continent. Former societies of elves, humans, dwarves, halflings, and more were devastated, and now new ...
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Radios and walkie-talkie [closed]
In a solar punk if there are radios and walkie talkies being used regularly by a very poor post-apocalyptic society...does it sound believable that there are no airplanes and flying vehicles nor cars, ...
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How much would a population be able to recover after half of them being killed? [closed]
In a medieval setting, a kingdom had about 50% percent of its population killed (this includes all ages). About 50% of infrastructure was in need of repair, and a separate 25% of infrastructure needed ...
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Why would humans carry around live plants in a post-apocalyptic world?
A while ago I saw this brilliant 3d render of a post-apocalyptic world in which a human carries around a live plant in a capsule, connected to the plant via a respirator:
(credit: Stephen Grimm via ...
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How would remnant tech impact the formation of a tribal "big man" government?
Big man refers to a phenomenon that happens in especially small communities when a population falls below a certain population (approximately Dunbar's Number). You see it a lot in isolated tribal ...
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Ideal Apocalypse for Raising Well Adjusted Children
I have a setting I'm trying to get started on where the vast majority of mankind has been killed off, and all that is left is a speckling of small villages pieced together from the wreckage of society....
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How long would it take for Mesoamerica to recover, if at all, had colonization never happened? [closed]
So, to give of context, the setting I am writing is very out-there. But I still wanna take a realistic approach to demographics and similar issues. In the setting, a very fantastical apocalyptic event ...
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Feasibility of the distributed prison [closed]
Sometimes an idea comes to you and resonates for what it represents and how it shapes the story rather than how logical or technologically inevitable it might seem. That's the current status of the ...
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How much and how powerful would a "phlebotinium" bomb launched from orbit be to create an artificial sea? [closed]
I am writing a setting for an unspecified goal, whether I will end up doing a video game or a novel out of it all, but I am still working on the worldbuilding aspect.
Lore-introduction, (you can skip ...
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What is the most important objective for survival in a post-apocalyptic society?
Let's say the world as we know it has been brought to an end by a nuclear apocalypse.
Our perspective centers on a small group of survivors in one area, benefiting from a shelter of some kind. These ...
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Would improvised motor vehicles be feasible a century after the fall of industrial civilization?
I'm working on a TTRPG system that takes place about a century after an apocalypse event. I've hit a point where a bit of world building is required, and so I'm going down the list of technologies (...
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Preservation of knowledge in the event of apocalypse [duplicate]
I am trying to think of a good way for an effectively all-powerful organization to preserve humanity's knowledge for when the inevitable apocalypse happens so that, when the time comes for survivors ...
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Where to find various metals from collapsed city after long enough timeline
Alright, so to set the stage: the setting is 3-5k years after civilization as we know dissolved. The dissolution happens about a hundred or so years from the present day (+/1 2123) after we have ...
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What kind of training would an agent responsible for surviving in a hostile, apocalyptic world need to go through?
The premise of my story is that we have discovered a parallel Earth (let's call it E2) lying next to ours (let's call this E1). Something has gone wrong on E2 - at some point in its past, it went ...
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How long can a shattered Dyson Ring support life?
Now I recently had an idea for a setting and villain backstory and thought might as well get it vetted.
Once, there was a mighty Empire that had conquered its home system and converted most of the ...
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How long would it take for an AI to build spaceships if it starts from 0? [closed]
I am writing a story were an AI, 1000 years in the future, wants to build spaceships to go into deep space.
It has all the information available for humans until the year 2100, when the global ...
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Would it be possible for modern firearms, such as an AR-15, of any variation to survive an apocalypse?
German here.
I have essentially no idea of the working of guns.
I've been on a bit of a Zombie/Apocalypse trip lately. Watching the walking dead, playing fallout blablabla. I'll stick to the example ...
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Where to choose to rebuild after a population reducing event? [closed]
I am trying to come up with a cohesive and easy to understand set of rules for finding where to "start over".
The setting is a group of hikers come out to a world that has collapsed for an ...
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Is "too few people left" a credible explanation for a global knowledge loss of this magnitude?
My setting is what I would call "post-post-apocalyptic", meaning that our civilization doesn't exist anymore, but the collapse has happened in a past distant enough that people aren't really ...
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Cannibalizing modern buildings in the Pacific Northwest [closed]
A nuclear apocalypse destroys the world and most major cities are destroyed. Urban centers range from smoldering craters to almost untouched due to lack of strategic importance. What I'm concerned ...
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Weapon building in post apocalyptic situation? [closed]
Let's suppose that some part of population survives an almost massive extinction event that also destroys most of the planet's infrastructure (nuclear war, whatever) but still preserving some of ...
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Why would a dangerous form of magic be kept alive in a post-apocalyptical scenario? [closed]
This question is in the same universe as my last one, How to raise an army against the dark lord when everyone thinks he was already defeated?
In this universe, magic is powered by the energy of ...
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Is it possible for turbojet to share parts with turbopropeller or turbocharger?
The situation is the following:
there is slowly rebuilt postapo world
there is knowledge of "ancient" turbojet engine (including books and possibly even some parts left, though mostly from ...
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Starting population to reach 1 billion people in a post apocalyptic scenario
Let's assume a post apocalyptic scenario, specifically a world which's sentient population was critically reduced due to a series of calamities, such as a sudden climate change chain reaction caused ...
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Is this asteroid apocalypse scenario realistic?
So, in response to my own earlier question: Disasters to prompt the bettering of civilisation, I have decided to go with an asteroid impact which decimates much of civilization, with an added twist ...
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What kind of public works/infrastructure projects can recent high school graduates perform in a post-post apocalyptic setting?
My science-fantasy world has been devastated by monster attacks coming from various enormous pits in planet . The first lead to a total collapse of civilization and the next one, some 300 years later, ...
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How fast would supplies become rare in a post-electric world?
I've created an alternate Earth where recurring G5 geomagnetic storms have eliminated the use of electricity. This means no major manufacturing and no shipping of everything from basic household ...
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What catalyst would make redtail catfish rise from the rivers and lakes and gain sentience? [closed]
so, writing up a post-apocalyptic fantasy world where humanity has left Earth and all it's cities and factories and farms behind, and, due to unknown catalyst, a race of amphibious humanoid catfish ...
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Would feudalism work in a post-industrial society?
In my world, World War 3 happens and most countries are devastated. Nuclear weapons are used and there is widespread anarchy in many places. Some countries are untouched but many countries completely ...
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In a post-nuclear apocalypse society, assuming knowledge and skill, what are the key supply chains needed to rebuild modern electronics?
I'm building an RPG game set in a post nuclear apocalypse. The twist is it's been almost a hundred years since the war, and the world has rebuilt but unevenly. The way I imagined it, technology ...
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An RV that can survive a Nuclear Bomb. Basically a mobile fallout shelter
I have this idea for a post-apocalyptic setting where my characters live in these RVs made during the pre-war era. That are basically mobile fallout shelters. Also, the setting takes place in my world'...
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How can I make combination weapons widespread in my world?
I'm writing a low fantasy fiction in a XVIII century-tech kind of world.
The reason of the setting is that I love early modern muzzleloading weapons, and I think guns can make fantasy more interesting....
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Would fish survive a Nuclear winter?
Following a Nuclear war in a project I’m working on, the only surviving land animals are a few mutant or genetically altered insects, (earthworms, scorpions, locusts, cockroaches) and sapient rats ...
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If most of the glaciers melted suddenly how long before humans could begin resettling and advancing?
Climate change research has shown that the Greenland/Arctic ice cap is melting at an even higher rate than the Antarctic ice cap and since most of human civilization is at the equator or above the ...
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Where in the American West Would a New City Arise? [closed]
It's been 20 years since a global pandemic wiped out over 99% of the world population, and America was not spared. Of the 330 million people in the country (give or take a few million), only about 1.5 ...
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Are there radio systems that allow people to talk simultaneously?
I'm currently writing a story set in a post apocalypse. It would be based in the current year . This story takes place from the perspective on one person who is speaking to a group of people, all in ...
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