(I guess this is the right place for this...)

Hey all! I'm considering turning a detective story of mine into a sort of post-post apocalyptic story. By this, I mean an Earth-bound setting in a world that has already experienced "an apocalypse" of sorts. (by war, technological failure, bombs, virus, etc.) Far enough past the actual event that humanity has started to gather itself. (no more just surviving, ultra-chaos) Governments are reestablishing, schools are coming back, and actual law enforcement is beginning to gain hold over vigilante-like lawmen. The thing is, I need things like hospitals to be more-or-less functional at this stage, with technology in place--it can be rare/difficult, but it needs to exist. Other technologies as well. In case you haven't guessed, this is still very much in the plot bunny stage, but I'm curious how much reworking it would take to make this happen. So. Question:

Which "kind" of apocalypse would be best to use, in order for the world/nation to sort of rebound after a few generations? Considering the far-reaching, long-lasting effects of any apocalyptic event, is it feasibly possible to have this set up?

Thoughts, questions, speculations, scientific and speculative articles, and randomness welcome!

~Cae

Well the most common apocalypses I know of are via (as you mentioned) war, virus, and bombs.

Now for your post-a story, one likely is war; I mean everything would still be working, all it will need is the jump start, whether electric dams or solar panels.

The virus apocalypse is rather hard, you'd have to address why the survivors even survived. Did they build up the immunity to the virus? Or was the virus not spread all over the world?

Bombs, specifically nuclear, are the ones where everything is totally wiped out, a start from zero; no plants, no animals (again, not unless some parts of the world were unaffected).

There are several others, aliens is one, and electricity shut down. But the question about the latter is how long would it take for the governments to take control over (people's) fear?

Just my thoughts.

XD Thanks, Blayne!

I'm hoping to keep this as 'grounded' as possible, so probably avoiding both viruses and aliens. I'm leaning toward war at this point... The thing is, this is the setting, hook, and (good grief there's another term I want to use but can't think of) the thing that sets it apart and makes it its own and also provides the foundation for the general plot. But it's still going to be about detectives solving crimes. XD That's the boring bit.

I like the idea of electricity shut down, but I don't want to write another 'Revolution' so maybe it's best to avoid that route.

Definitely go for an EMP or something. The internet and global connections are lost, and the only thing anyone has is local and in print. That would make it easy for some technology to come back quickly. The hardware and buildings are there so if you can start from scratch as long as you have the books and knowledge to begin again.

Certain pieces of technology might not pick up as quickly though. If everything is restricted to locality, newly established governments would be very local and might not be interesting in becoming part of colossal nations again if they are self sustaining. Horrible crashes during the outages might make some very hesitant to use air transportation or perhaps even cars much. Medicine would be an important one to establish, and the people would know it. Depending on the location of the story (city, suburb, boondocks) people might have different forms of government or feelings about government. People who formed a town in Texas who had farms some twenty miles apart might have a very practical government that focuses on survival and fairness, while anyone who survived in D.C. might have to fight to survive amidst numerous power grabs and exploitation.

You could go six ways from Sunday with that, depending on how you want to spin it.

LOL Thank you, and the various ways I can go is precisely what's holding me back, but also holding my intrigue.

I'm perfectly okay with cars not working--probably because of gasoline shortage more than anything else. And also cellphones. Internet can also go. But I would want things like basic electricity to be available, at least to most places, maybe not to some homes and small businesses.

And it would be city/suburb as far as location is concerned, with the occasional trip out of the city limits into more rural areas, but centered in the city definitely.

Electricity would be easy to get going. The Ten Boom family actually generated electricity for listening to the radio by riding a bicycle with not wheels that they kept in the house. Without oil or coal, power plants would be out, but people could have wheels in streams, windmills, bicycles, dogs treading in giant hamster wheels, maybe even solar, though there might be a shortage of the cells.

If all computer systems immediately went down + a large scale war in 2nd-3rd world countries would temporarily devastate the world for a few generations at minimum.

In the first world countries - people would panic after running water would stop. People would loot stores - guns are used - panic - until the military arrived chaos would ensue. Bands of raiders form and attack military installations - the loot is too good to miss! This is their chance to claim land!

One electro-magnetic pulse wave (electronic and most large scale communications would go out - so that's another way of devastation for an apocalypse.

And wouldn't computer-run nuclear plants be destabilized by a global electromagnetic pulse?

You could have irradiated areas.

That would be bad.

Oooh, these are all excellent ideas, thank you! There's an online serial I was following called Falls the Shadow, and that story had something similar: everyone was so dependent upon technology that when a massive virus infiltrated and essentially ate it, everything down-spiraled. A part of me really likes this kind of plot device, and a part of me wonders if it's a bit overdone these days?





I've been considering the affects of radiation, possible nuclear fallout, but that road is always messy. Along those line, I wondered if the actual usage of a hydrogen bomb would cause those effects. But in light of recent news, I don't really want to get arrested for putting in a Google search for "how does an h-bomb work" at the moment. XP

Sorry. I didn't mean world wide irradiation, just localized stuff.

I really like the idea of localized issues, maybe certain small countries or states which have been heavily affected, which adds to the chaos.

I guess my real problem is there are so many roads to take for this. XD

If it was your story and you wanted the world/country to have recovered sufficiently for a few hospitals and plants to begin working again, and organizations to just start coming back together (government agencies, politicians, precincts), what would you use or really like to see done? I don't need a complete apocalypse here, a partial one will do as long as it's large enough to affect the world at large still. What plot line would interest you?

My question would be--how big of an area do you want to be reestablished? Are we talking about a small community, or a large country? Is the world at a whole recovering, or are there just pockets of civilization rebuilding while being surrounded by wilderness?

If you want examples of how areas recover from disaster, you might look at how southern cities rebuild after hurricanes, or Japanese towns rebuild after tsunamis. You might also look at how some of Europe rebuilt after WWII--Germany, the Polish, and the like.

Excellent question, thanks! For the practicality of the story, I'm thinking that the US, much of Europe, Australia, and probably Canada as well, are recovering the most quickly, with China and the greater parts of Asia right behind, depending upon where I want my Big Disaster to have taken place, the far reaching after effects of which have caused so much chaos and breakdown across the rest of the globe. Now that doesn't mean that everywhere in the US and etc. are all back up and running properly, or even at all, but several greater locations in them are--some city groups, as well as patches of more rural country which had become something of a shelter.

Also, those are great ideas. I hadn't even considered researching that until now, so thanks a lot!