/lit/ Apocalypse (Step 1)

[Anonymous No.4115379]

So in another thread, I came up with the idea of /lit/ as a community creating a post-apocalyptic scenario, laying out the whole situation and reasons for why we're in this position. For example if we were to come up with 'Fallout 3's setting we'd have a list of things like: nuclear war actually happened; so culture is pretty stuck; there are some towns littered around, there are also nomads/wanderers; the conclave existing etc.

Then, when we have the whole world set up, anyone can come along and write a passage. Eventually, we get them all together and present it as an account of living in this world. There'd be lots of different writing styles, anyone's welcome, hell we could even have a 'Lost Letters' section for people who'd want to write a letter.

So here's step 1: brainstorming and discussion of ideas. Just post anything from "I think zombies" to a long paragraph laying down some important foundations of how the new society would exist. Along with this: leave feedback on others posts. Don't have any inhibitions if you have an idea just post it, and after some time, we'll have a vague consensus on what we want to do. Then for Step 2 we can make a new thread with the base idea, we build on this, flesh it out, and from there, we write.

Go ahead and throw some stuff down

[Anonymous No.4115407]

>>4115379
I'll get to you in a second, bro; I'm trying to make a recording for >>4112180 that doesn't make me sound autistic.

[Anonymous No.4115410]

>>4115407
Sure, I suppose to get the thread moving I should probably start posting some ideas too.

Haha I remember when I was recording myself reading some poetry and I couldn't shake the way I pronounced this one word that just sounded so unnatural, took me like 5 attempts.

[Anonymous No.4115415]

So here's a list of common themes from wikipedia:
nuclear warfare, pandemic, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural phenomena, divine judgment, runaway climate change, resource depletion, ecological collapse.


I think we should be looking for something that's not been done so much, and allows for lots of different perspectives. For example if we did nuclear warfare, everyone would be limited to being totally fucked. Whereas with something like resource depletion we can have people writing from a country that is fucked, or one that's still fine but it's slowly creeping in etc.(I'm personally not too keen on actually using the resource depletion idea; I like apocalypse stories to have a slight fantasy/sci-fi/'something out there' side to them, like what you would get in a cybernetic revolt).

[Anonymous No.4115418]

>>4115415
In fact if we did do a cybernetic revolt, there could be passages from the cybernetic point of view as well, lots of possibilities. This could be a real congregate of context, mindset, and subjectivity.

[Anonymous No.4115420]

>solar flare
>all semiconductor-based electronics destroyed
>apocalypse ensues

[Anonymous No.4115438]

>>4115420
So when I see this I'm thinking
Perspectives to be written from
>everyday person (ofc.)
>diary of scientist monitoring the Sun when it happens
> " trying to get everything in working order again
>the CEO of an electronics corporation
>people who went without electronics anyway

[Anonymous No.4115449]

>Afterlife *supposedly* proven to exist by scientists
>"Well it must be true because SCIENCE!"
>World enters a state of total leisure culture
>People stop giving a fuck, stepping in front of trains and falling off buildings for fun
>Global economic collapse

[Anonymous No.4115452]

>>4115449
Could be cool as a first-person single-narrative story in which the afterlife genuinely were 'proven', but it's not right for this.

[Anonymous No.4115458]

Whatever the cause, it also needs to justify the emergence of mutants such as tentacle beasts.

[Anonymous No.4115459]

>>4115452
Yeah it has the possibility of every story being very similar, sounds interesting though.

>>4115458
but of course
If you reall do want this you can always come up with a scenario yourself that captures attention - it could be the one we end up using.

[Anonymous No.4115473]

Planetwide plagues are admittedly fairly cliche, but if we added that there were some kind of explanation for the survival of those who do survive, other than happenstance immunity, well, we could do something interesting, and we could have a lot of flexibility; from cosy apocalypse settings to crazy monstrous settings.

But if we wanted to go with a recent fashion, or to even be vaguely political, we could treat those who believe that the world could possibly move into another 'dark age' as having somewhat merited opinions, and follow up on that doom prophecy - or we could do underpopulation (a favourite of mine, though it leaves less space for monsters).

[Anonymous No.4115488]

>Research-grade gene transfer retrovirus accidentally released from a laboratory
>Due to random mutations, a strain emerges which infects a host and copies a bunch of genes from it
>The retrovirus differentiates into phenotypes that either go on to infect more hosts and replicate further, or alternatively splice the excised genes into other organisms
>Mutants
>Monstergirls
>Tentacle beasts
>etc

[Anonymous No.4115490]

>>4115473
Yeah, a specific immunity opens up a lot, something that comes to mind is possibly a conspiracy-type-thing where those in on it were given injections. This way, not only could we have some good macro stories (that a phrase?) written from those generally affected, we could have the occasional one that hints at some overall plot - perhaps someone who twigs onto the conspiracy and is trying to uncover it? If we really work together we could even get some cameos of the "twigged on person/group" into some of the everyday stories.

I think the dark age has a lot of prospect too, /lit/ would be very good at (sometimes humorous) references to a 'lost culture.'


If anyone is thinking of writing for this later on, it would be great if you could put any kind of input in now, even a simple "yeah I like the sound of this" will help /lit/pocalypse come to a decision.

[Anonymous No.4115497]

You guys ever read Malevil? Pretty good relevant read, despite being written by a French guy.

[Anonymous No.4115502]

>>4115488
This is what I'm talking about with different styles. If you were to write something for this, it seems like it would be full of genetic (and whatever else) knowledge. And then the next passage could be something completely different. I think mutants/monsters is a very good idea as this is a community effort, the amount of different mutations and monsters will be huge and exciting.

[Anonymous No.4115506]

>>4115497
From the plot summary it does sound very relevant. Anyone wanting to just freely write a short story within our world can do so, but anyone who really wants to work on a bigger picture can do that as well. It can be a collection of first person accounts to great stories of entire towns.

[Anonymous No.4115509]

>>4115490
>conspiracy-type-thing where those in on it were given injections
Or where there were just key groups that were administered whatever necessary medicinal programs, entirely single-blind type, against their awareness - some kind of purging strategy, or something more than that. But there is something that connects these people, even if not every single one of them to each and every other one - but just that, if you were for some reason chosen, there are others out there who were chosen for the same reason.

[Anonymous No.4115521]

>>4115509
Oh yes I like where this is going.

A concerted effort to come up with a whole plot of what kind of people were saved, and why, would be great. Anyone wanting to be a part of this plot (rather simply have a good time writing within our /lit/ created apocalypse world) could get together and work out ways to link each others pieces.

Remember other themes are still open to discussion if you can come up with something.

[Anonymous No.4115523]

Just do an alternative history book were the cuban missile crisis escalates into a nuclear war.
Parts of america still have life but most of the surface is a wasteland inhabited by deformed cannibal mutants.
The cities that are still left have massive walls built around them to keep the mutants out (they of course still get in sometimes) and the society that is left on the inside is reminiscent of the wild west, except there are still artifacts of 20th century technology and knowledge buried underground and hidden in various places.
Each city or "zone" was taken over by various opportunist in the chaos of a post nuclear world, one zone is controlled by the former Italian mafia, one by the hells angels, another my a Charles Manson like cult leader.

[Anonymous No.4115527]

>>4115523
>Wild West
Oh man has there ever been a major wild west apocalypse story? That sounds awesome.

[Anonymous No.4115528]

>>4115527
New Vegas tbh

[Anonymous No.4115539]

>>4115490

Maybe some transhumanist cult releases the virus from >>4115488
as a way to catalyse the next stage of human evolution. (Although of course, a selected sample of the population is inoculated against potentially deleterious effects while they assess the virus's potential).

[Anonymous No.4115547]

>>4115523
isn't that the story behind judge dredd or whatever that comic is called? Minus the whole wild west thing that is.

[Anonymous No.4115550]

>>4115521
Well, let's start: why did the bring on the apocalypse?

Possible reasons:

1984-style secret-fascism 'because they could'-type explanation.

Non-human superior species that had been living with human species decided that humans were nearly ready for 'ascension', but that first it was necessary to 'cut the fat'. Those left represent those with the necessary acumen or intelligence - or preciousness by dint of their genetic rarity - to cut it in the post-isolate era of human existence.

An alien race was moving in on the planet and had about 98% similar physiology to the human race; human scientists developed a disease which they knew would kill 98% of humanity but which would also kill 100% of the aliens, if the entered the atmosphere, thus the 'apocalypse' (this would probably be a no-go as it would exclude the possibility of intentional selection).

[Anonymous No.4115553]

>>4115550
*they
woops

[Anonymous No.4115558]

>>4115547
Of course.
But mine has the wild west element!

[Anonymous No.4115560]

>>4115547

It's the story of about 600 post-apocalyptic fictions.

[Anonymous No.4115562]

>>4115558
But the greatest both steal and get away with it. I doubt we'd get away with that.

[Anonymous No.4115573]

>>4115550
I like the second one, I can already see characters, like a guy who's really kind of a douche but he got selected for his genes. It would hit him how shitty he is when he's surrounded by more... virtuous/intelligent/whatever people, and he'd find it tough to live as well as he had been doing.

Can't stress enough to everyone that all suggestions are welcome still, this is just checking out one particular pathway.

[Anonymous No.4115574]

>>4115573
*still welcome

[Anonymous No.4115581]

>>4115558

I thought t.s. eliot said that

[Anonymous No.4115583]

>>4115415
what about divine judgment? I feel like that hasn't been done much, and it leaves a lot of room for various interpretations by different people. nobody necessarily knows whether or not it was "God," just some greater power that kicked the shit out of us.

[Anonymous No.4115586]

>>4115573
I was thinking, though, that the world had been kind of changed into a killing ground, with the emerging monsters and changes in nature used as things which the superior beings expected people to adjust to, if they wanted to qualify for movement into the next phase. Some of the mutations, also, could have 'improvement' effects on those to whom they were administered, and people either very, very eligible or just a little short of eligible could be given these, and some of the mutative effects could be a little more monstrous and a little less superheroesque. And I don't think it would do to make the causes for all of it too immediately explicit; make it more psychological or action-based, I think, and we can allow the larger opera of the universe to emerge through the stories' combination.

[Anonymous No.4115587]

>>4115550

Perhaps it was the reptilians, preparing the world for their return from the centre of the hollow Earth through the hole in the arctic.

[Anonymous No.4115590]

>>4115587
top lel - but i was thinking more like the dark ones, as from metro 2033, or the aliens in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

[Anonymous No.4115599]

>>4115583
I think if we did divine judgement, we really would have to remove the reasoning aspect of it, like you suggested. But it has great potential for epic (the internet's ruined that word but I'll use it here anyway) scenes.

>>4115586
Read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch! I love that book and you've just made me realise it's entirely possibly to use the idea of evolution in that in our /lit/ world. As a simple example: huge heads that would be considered unattractive but increase intelligence vastly. There's even a bit far in the future where the average person IIRC is rather translucent and elongated.

[Anonymous No.4115609]

>>4115599
I meant to explain why I thought we should go without the reasoning aspect: it's so abstract I don't think we would be able to agree on a reason - for me, I would want to implement what my interpretation of 2001 is, except instead of advancement, it would be a destruction. Obviously we wouldn't be able to use the obelisks, but if we jsut go with that for a moment, instead of being attempts at getting into our three-dimensional world as friendlies (again this is my interpretation of the film), they would be weapons. But I can also think of divine judgement by a more Christian God, or perhaps the idea of some huge karmic backlash. There's so much it might be hard to decide on something. Of course if someone has an idea feel free to post it though.

I think what's developing here that I quite like is the idea of some slightly intricate, overall plot, that can be participated in, or not. Whatever you want to do.

[Anonymous No.4115618]

>>4115583
>>4115609

Divine judgment is probably irreconcilable with sci-fi like elements, things could get very weird.

[Anonymous No.4115621]

I don't know, I'd just rather work inside existing settings.

My favourites ones are The Zone and Moscow Metro from 2033/2034.

[Anonymous No.4115631]

>>4115621
The problem with that is everyone would have to read them which I'm willing to do but I'm not sure about anyone else, we might lose some contributors. You could always sneak it in by just outlining what they're like in this thread and everyone can consider them as another idea.

[Anonymous No.4115632]

>>4115621

>fanfiction

You are the worst kind of person

[Anonymous No.4115637]

>>4115632
But Dmitri Gluhovski asks his fans to do write novels set in the metro universe, which then get canonized if he likes them and all.

They have like 20 Metro novels that way, telling us tales of Archangel, Rostov-on-Don, Glasglow and so.

[Anonymous No.4115781]

I was going to write something for this thread, but I didn't.

[Anonymous No.4115885]

>>4115781
Just do it when you can be bothered, all ideas are appreciated

[Anonymous No.4116118]

>Many-tentacled beasts from beyond the stars emerge through dimensional portals to conduct breeding experiments on human females. The resulting cults of hybrid monsters stalk the earth collecting fresh prey for their masters.

[Anonymous No.4116299]

>>4116118
Yeah, you guys should really just make this porn.

[Anonymous No.4116388]

>>4116299

At least people might actually read it then.

[Anonymous No.4116447]

>>4116388
I know I would.

[Anonymous No.4116452]

One thing that hardly ever gets done is how completely dark and cold and dead the world would be. No sunlight, no weather.. Like that British movie Threads.

I'm not really interested in the post-apocalyptic anarchist retro-techno-society that's been done to death in Mad Max and Waterworld and games like Fallout and Rage and Borderlands. I want stories of the couple thousand people actually eking out a pitiful existence in a dead cold world with nothing left but death to look forward to. I'd love to hear the stories of people who were locked naked in the basement of cannibals in The Road. Like what's their story, how did they get there.

[Anonymous No.4117633]

Well this sure took off, didn't it?

[Anonymous No.4117788]

>>4117633
OP here, I'm British so I was asleep and I guess this dropped off the early pages. There's no time constraint to this, discussion can come and go, and when there's been an adequate amount of it I can make a thread for Step 2. And maybe some people won't even join in until it gets to the writing stage, but by the end of it I do believe we'll have at least 20 pieces together. It doesn't need to hold interest, this is an anonymous board, it's just how it goes, I'm sure some people who have participated in this thread might not appear again until the end when they'll just be like "oh yeah I remember this, let's check the brief and write something."

If you've read the OP and like the sound of it, get rid of that mindset of "I don't want to interrupt the dormancy," there is no dormancy however inactive it seems. Post your idea, or comment on something that might have been suggested even at the start of the thread, eventually we'll build something up that we can bring to the next step, and then again, and then again until we have a thread detailing a huge world and layout that can simply hang around for ages, and whenever it appears on that front page and a bump, or an update, or someone linking a pastebin of what they've written. a new person could see it and want to join in. Perhaps you'll be that person, or perhaps you've had thoughts about such a world, share them now, contribute to the scene that will later capture peoples attention and cause them to bring up their word processor and start writing with furore.

[Anonymous No.4117789]

>>4117788
*with a bump

[Anonymous No.4117969]

>>4115527
Well, I started writing one about an accident in the far future that distorts timelines and drops chunks of all different worldlines together in a hodgepodge like a huge patchwork quilt. It's viewpoint character/narrator is a settler in a western town about 1870. Here's a chunk:
http://pastebin.com/WNeL5UzE

I haven't got back to it lately

[Anonymous No.4118612]

>>4116452
I'm not sure why the world would be dark and cold and dead. It would depend on the disaster wouldnt it? the two great decimations in human history, the black plague and the pandemic deaths of the American Indians from small pox, measles etc, left the world greener and nicer almost immediatley. and plants are alot hardier to radiation than animals, though obviously not immune to it.

[Anonymous No.4118643]

I started a post-apocalypse story awhile ago but haven't worked on it in months The focus isn't so much on what or how it happened, just that it's happened and now our hero is trying to survive day to day. He's completely alone except for the strange creatures that emerge at night.

His daily activities include things like reinforcing his perimeter fence, scavenging through destroyed gas stations for food and bringing up gas out of the underground tanks, hoping to get enough to fuel his car so he doesn't have to walk or cycle everwhere. He's only able to get it one soupcan at a time. Oh yeah and he seems to be slowly going insane, He'll be walking along a destroyed road, and he'll start hearing footsteps behind him or muffled voices, only to turn and see nothing there. Or he'll be be somewhere and see signs of recent activity but can never find any people.

The roads are all wrecked, asphalt is cracked and jutting upwards, all the grass is dead, the trees are dead. The buildings are wrecked and rusted. Shelves inside the remaining buildings are knocked over, shattered glass lays everywhere. Scorched skeletons litter the streets of the cities, so many that you can't help but step on them.

[Anonymous No.4118797]

>>4116388
>>4116447

Apocalypse pron?

http://pastebin.com/RnHQh3p1

continue y/n

[Anonymous No.4118847]

I started writing a similar story, there were tribes of different people searching the world for whatever left-overs they could find to survive. They started to mark houses with a giant X to show that it has been searched and sacked, and my story begins with two kids finding a "virgin" (a house without the X)

[Anonymous No.4118904]

>>4115379
I already had the idea, as many others did, of using fallout 3 as a jumping off point for a story. So far I have about a quarter of a novel. I want it on record in case I get published

[Anonymous No.4118972]

>5000 years into the future
>All poverty, crime and diseases are cured
>All humans have every material thing they want
>People realize that even if they have everything they want, they won't be free from suffering and that life is meaningless
>Massive suicide wave

[Anonymous No.4119153]

>>4118972
>massive suicide wave
Careful with those edges son

[Anonymous No.4119680]

In the near-ish future a catastrophic stellar event is seen heading towards Earth. Will bask the entire one side of the planet in gamma radiation ( or some other similar exotic but deadly effect ).

Super computers calculate the exact time it will impact the Earth and the locations that will be least effected ( as being on the 'dark' side at that time ).

Massive mega-city is constructed in the anti-epicenter. Wars fought over migration rights to the new territories ( for convenience located on largest land mass/Russia ).

Nu-Xanadu is height of dystopia. Desperate immigrants doing all they can to enter the society that will rebuild humanity.

Third world countries left out entirely, resources left behind as the migration spans years.

On the day of the event, the magnetic field deflects the exotic radiation uncannily, in an unpredected manner. Some of it bleeds through rendering certain parts of the landscape unrecognizable.

Majority of the damage is inflicted on nu-xanadu itself as the radiation is funneled straight onto the survivor state by a fluke in the fields.

Those left behind are the unwanted, ill-prepared and unlearned. They have boundless modern technology at their disposal but not the expertise with which to continue mass-manufacture or design.

Neo-Tech tribes emerge and fight over the remains of civilzation. The strange exotic space-shit causes mutations and is harnessed to create truly mindboggling machines by the few geniuses left behind.

[Anonymous No.4119865]

>>4119153
>cut myself accidentaly
>go to the hospital
>doctor asks me what happened
>"I was just too edgy doctor"

[Anonymous No.4119876]

>>4118972
Autumn Angels, and East Wind Coming

[Anonymous No.4120207]

>>4119680
Fuck dude that's actually good

[Anonymous No.4120937]

I came up with an idea about the underworld, after the apocalypse - and an area of Hell is sectioned for gay people.
> Gay men from across time lumped into one city
>Sprawling, overcrowded, slum-like conditions.
>Full of hedonism
>Gay protagonist characters often wonder if the lifestyle actually has anything to do with their sexuality.
>Demons book appointments with the homosexual men to convince them to turn straight.
>Explores a world of gay men and the negative aspects of living like a homosexual are reflected in the growing society.