Questions tagged [post-apocalypse]
For questions dealing with events taking place after a catastrophic event.
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What could cause an entire planet of humans to become aphasic?
I'm working on a story in which there is some sort of planetary erosion of language. Humans lose the ability to communicate verbally (orally and written). They can remember having language, can even ...
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How to erase the cultural memory of post-apocalypse survivors
I'm writing a story that takes place after the decimation of almost all of humanity, and follows a group of survivors who, some time in the future, have formed new societies. Let's say the apocalyptic ...
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How long would it take a town to become overgrown? [duplicate]
So in my imaginary world, in the mid-to-late 2000s a lot of people die off. The reasons for this are unimportant, so I won't include them, but it has no impact on plant and animal life. So, ...
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Plausible reason why the bunker dwellers would stay in their bunker for 90+ years? [closed]
Unknown to the majority of the Wasteland, a secret behemoth of terror slept beneath the ground, only to awake with plans to reshape the Wastes in their image.
Before the Great War of 1962, a large ...
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How to prevent a fantasy world response to repeated near extinction events?
This is for a medium/high fantasy magic setting with a medieval flavor (a D&D campaign setting) and am trying to get a grasp on expected long term effects/reaction by repeated worldwide ...
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Could the location of soldiers be totally protected from radiation?
So, in my world, there is a secret group of people, known as the bunker dwellers. They see themselves as racially superior to all of the wastelanders, whom, they believe were genetically degenerated ...
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Basic amenities required for a low-tech, isolated colony to be self-sustaining [closed]
I am an indie game developer creating my first public project. This project is set in a post-apocalyptic world where there is a colony that is walled off from external threats.
Characteristics of the ...
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How to stop cannibalism because of a world's lack of resources? [closed]
Create this mental picture in your head:
A World named Gazon that used to be full of life until the Sentient Gazons you created used up all the available resources and started eating each other. Only ...
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Could the Bunker Dwellers become noticeably different from Wastelanders?
So, in my world, there are a group of people, mostly unknown to the rest of the world, who took shelter from the apocalypse 90 years ago in great underground bunkers.
Compared to the rest of the ...
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How to resettle and rebuild the Wasteland after other governments arise? [closed]
So, the Nuclear Apocalypse has come and gone. The year of 1962 wasn’t a good one for humanity, at all, but the United States government, in their eternal infallible wisdom, had a plan to outlive ...
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If fairies don't need as much food, water or space, why wouldn't they overwhelm humans in the post-apocalypse? [closed]
I'm writing a story about the aftermath and consequences of a runic magic system being mysteriously introduced to the human race by an unknown entity. Every week a new rune is given to everyone on ...
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Logical reason why would the bunker population use Wastelander DNA samples?
It’s been a little over 190 years since WWIII, AD 2157. Most of the surviving human population live in small farming settlements, tribal villages, or, if lucky, United City States. But, there exists a ...
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How realistic is it for civilization to regress to a pre-industrial era? [duplicate]
So here's a quick setup: One or two calamities hit as once. No one is spared and every nation on earth is effected by it. Soon the population dwindles to roughly the same number as the 1800's which is ...
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Unprepared and Without a Homeworld
The Scenerio
In the very near future a NASA probe returns to Earth with a soil sample from an asteroid containing a strange substance able to catalyze cold fusion reactions. The economic value of ...
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Ships as survival world (post-apocalyptic world)
In a post-apocalyptic world where the surviving people are forced off the land onto the water in ships, how would this work? How long can a large set of people survive on a set of boats without ...
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How difficult would it be to use scrap metal from a car to make armour or an effective short sword without using fire?
Tools available would be wire, bricks, hammers, a hack saw, a pair of compound snips, and flex glue. As well as the intact body of the car itself. Assume you find the tools inside or easily within ...
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I Need Help With Human Degenerative Disease (HDD) [closed]
I am currently working on a post-apocalyptic world where roughly 90% of humanity get infected by HDD (Human Degenerative Disease). HDD causes the human brain, glands and tissues to change quite ...
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Repurposing A Cargo Ship In A Post-Apocalyptic World
How would one go about repurposing a small cargo ship, no more than 50,000 tons, to run on an alternative fuel source/propulsion other than oil? And what alternative source would work best for ...
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Could a group of scientists repair a truck to run on steam?
It is currently the year 2059. 97 years ago, the Cuban Missile Crisis went hot, and nuclear war between the USA and USSR became a sudden reality. The people alive now are 3rd and 4th generation ...
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How long can an adult survive on pure carbs?
In reference to the classic Indestructible Edible Trope, how long can an adult subsist on largely junk food? I realize that "largely" is vague, so feel free to clarify as desired to give a helpful ...
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Lifespan of abandoned buildings
I'm exploring a post-apocalyptic world and want to build a realistic scenario for the condition of abandoned ruins. What would you estimate to be the lifespan of the following building types? And by ...
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How dangerous is a 500-year-old nuclear warhead?
Inspired by this question:
For several excellent reasons, a 500-year-old nuclear warhead is not going to produce an actual nuclear explosion. But that doesn't mean it's not dangerous anymore.
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Chores and tasks suitable to younger children [closed]
This is a follow up to an earlier question about a post apocalyptic ‘civilization’ created only from those under sixteen, and not many of them. Thus, anyone who can work is needed. What tasks might be ...
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Age ratio of kids to start a new civilisation
My question is this. With basic supplies and relatively little technology, what ages should I include in my post-apocalyptic situation of creating a new sort of country? And, how many of each age ...
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How fast would a post-apocalyptic population grow?
Let us assume a soft apocalypse eliminating >99% of world population without any effect on infrastructures. The 1% is irregularly spread over the world.
All the drugs, weapons, resources and modern ...
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How advanced can a stagnant civilization on a dying planet be?
Background
The concept of an old and dying red planet is common in pulp novels, comics, and gaming. What I am interested in is a world dying under a sun that has turned red and is expanding. The ...
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Noah fails his mission - what would Earth look like today and in the far future? [closed]
Assume that everything in the Bible is true up to the point when Noah built his ark and the flood came.
This happened in 2348 BCE.
Unfortunately the Ark was badly designed and sank almost ...
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What would it take to create insulin in the post-apocalypse?
In post-apocalypse fiction, diabetics, if they are ever even mentioned, are typically portrayed as utterly, irrevocably screwed. In fact there was a pretty cynical example in Dies The Fire (a book ...
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Post-Apocalypse Vessel To Sail The Great Lakes [closed]
What would be a good design for a vessel that has to transverse the Great Lakes region, from Lake Superior to Lake Ontario, and do so fairly regularly?
Some Info
Resources: a good amount ...
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How long could scavenging be economically feasible in the post apocalyptic world?
So, the world has come down to a crashing halt. Nukes rain down from the sky, after the Cold War finally became a Hot War. Now, humanity is left with a wasteland.
After the big one, cities have been ...
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Post-Apocalyptic Earth. Escape from Warehouse Moon
In its heyday Earth was a great interplanetary trading post on account of its low gravity moon which was used as a warehouse for all kinds of goods.
The Moon was covered almost entirely in large ...
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Slaves and used in the sexual profession? [closed]
I ask this question. In a world that was destroyed due to a great catastrophe. A new world order has emerged and the people are governed by a council of 12. This new world order allows slavery to ...
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In a post apocalyptic world, how long would hospital equipment survive?
In my world some scientists were put in what is basically a biodome, and have been teaching their children/grandchildren science and medicine, ect. there was a bioweapon that went haywire and killed/ ...
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How might a group (with an electrical engineer) restore downed power lines post-apocalypse?
In the scenario I'm envisioning, my group is in a city. They've got a source of hydroelectric power, but a few downed power lines/utility poles are making it difficult for them to transmit the ...
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Essentials for post apocalyptic traveler
You are a traveling across what used to be Colorado and Utah: it may be cold, it may be hot.
This is okay, you have caches of clothing and weather gear you can easily pick up. Electricity is ...
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How can I have a permanent post-apocalyptic world?
I've recently been looking into post-apocalyptic settings for a possible novel. I like the feel of people trying to survive off of the land with nothing but the clothes on their back, or banding ...
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How long would it take to revive an extinct race of people via cloning?
So there's this planet that, several decades earlier, suffered a massive famine and drought that made habitation impossible. Everyone still alive on this planet died, except for 2 escapees, both of ...
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Can a person get out of a hole by means of water? [closed]
Someone is trapped in a small room (say, 20ft by 20ft), 100 feet underground. If there is water nearby the room, how could it be used to get a human out? There is not concrete around the room, to ...
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How many years could notebook computers and phones be stored in a closed bunker/vault and still operational when found?
The idea is for some people in a post-apocalyptic future to find these bunkers/vaults and be able to turn on the computers and charge the cellphones. How many years could the equipment last if they ...
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"An Even Blacker Death", This Time in the 21st Century [closed]
Long ago, I asked a question as to how the culture of Europe would be affected if, instead of one-quarter or half of medieval Europe's population got killed by the black death but two out of three or ...
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How well would a society 35,000 years in the future remember today? [closed]
The story is set 35,000 years after the year 2024. In 2024, Donald Trump makes fun of Kim Jong Un's stupid hair, and long story short, the Earth gets nuked to the point where everything is covered in ...
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What I need to store culturally relevant data for a minimum for 1000 years [duplicate]
I want to write a story where the protagonists hunt down Apocalypse Repertory Caches, A.R.C.s. I had intended that A.R.C.s would be full to the brim with information: farming, medicine, civics, ...
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Effect of nuclear fallout on glacial ice
I'm working on building a post nuclear war society in a nuclear winter where northern countries have risen to dominance through a combination of being non-primary targets in the nuclear war and having ...
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How long would a location have to be quarantined to form a functional society?
Assuming disparate groups of people live within an indefinitely quarantined area, and initially have a vague notion of someday rejoining the rest of the world, how long would it take for people to ...
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How are post apocalyptic police/paramilitary force funded?
Background
World has had a disaster that has caused a global breakdown of society, along the lines of Fallout or The Walking Dead (90% of people have died or been turned into flesh-hungry zombies.) ...
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Why would post-apocalyptic men be twice as large as women?
I'm creating a post-apocalyptic world several centuries into the future. After the nuclear war whatever is left of humanity has regressed into the dark age.
Society:
The offspring of those few who ...
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2
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Reproduction is limited by mutation [closed]
In the year 2020, a cosmic event caused large-scale mutation in humans. Every woman could reproduce only once in her lifetime.
Two hundred years later, what would be the population and composition ...
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If modern civilization collapsed, what impact would a lack of trade and industrial base have on the next civilization centuries later? [closed]
Let's say that civilization ends due to non-globally destructive means. For instance, a rising tide that destroys ports and trade wouldn't scar the landscape of Denver the way nuclear war would. ...
4
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1
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Sailing the Endeavour out of Sydney [closed]
The apocalypse has happened - a super-virulent plague has ripped through, leaving only a small percentage of immune survivors. Luckily, for the purposes of this question at least, there is fairly ...
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Plausible way to time travel 10,000 years into a future where there is zero technology [closed]
Ideally the subject(s) would be stashed deep in a cave, and the process would be timed to wake him(them) up after 10,000 years have passed. Because of the low-tech nature of the future and the absence ...
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