I'm planning a story that takes place in a sort-of post-apocalyptic setting but I'm not quite sure exactly what kind of event it was. All I have so far is that it caused a lot of death and destruction, but there are survivors fighting for resources not too long after it happened. I don't know if that's even possible in an apocalypse scenario, so I would love some suggestions on what may have happened.
Well, here's some ideas I found on pinterest.
Warfare and Mass Destruction
Massive Nuclear Wipeout/Fallout
Total Event Collapse
Disease
Electrical Failure
Another Disease
Water Evaporation
More Disease
Artificial Intelligence take over (Though honestly, all you'd have to do is throw water on them)
BONUS: Justin Beiber
Hope this helps…. :D
Lavender Owl, AI could not be stopped by water. Though there are two different ways you could go with that. THe first is the obvious one, we make a computer so smart it takes over the world and kills or enslaves the humans. (an evil computer would probably think we're a waste of space and kill us). Or, the computer is only doing what its programmed to do and tries to help humanity in a way that is not helpful, like in I, Robot.
Oh, idea on how to make them all be fighting for resources soon afterwards. Fun fact, cats are basically the only thing that keeps rodent population from exploding. If they were all gone, two things would happen. Well, three. First, the number of rats grow exponentially, until there's more rats then humans on the planet. Two, rats are filthy, everyone would get really sick, and three, the rats would eat all the food.
(what i meant by water is that they would malfunction. I mean, think phones.)
@The_Lavender_Owl, oh I get it now.
@TheLavenderOwl
You forgot one:
Sentient Virus infects human with virus (literally causing him to die, and the virus uses the corpse of a dead man as a host) who then goes on to escape capture, infect a crap-ton of people with a modified version of the virus because he doesn't want any of them to be more powerful that him, and win the war against humanity, thus pushing humanity to the brink of extinction in the process.
Oh yeah, That's a good one.
I'm actually writing apocolyptic/post-apocolyptic, and that's the cause of humanities fall. XD
Also maybe consider this: Is your end of the world scenario a slow approaching one or a fast one? For example the Fall of the roman empire happened over decades upon decades. In the walking dead it happens in like a week. I'm assuming it would be a fast end of the world event if there is a lot of death and destruction (Like in the video game series Fallout, where the whole world gets nuked in a day.) Things that generally tend to cause a quick fall: rapid disease spread without infection protection-like an engineered virus or newly mutated bacteria or other plant/animal life form that was once non-lethal is now murderous to humans. (As in the premise of the book The Girl with all the Gifts, 'I am Legend' or the video games 'The Division' and 'The Last of Us'.) Maybe the population is dwindling and fewer children are being born as this literally causes people to lose their damn minds. (ie The Handmaiden's Tale or movie Children of Men). Sometimes military regimes over taking a failing government can make you feel like an intruder in your own country. IF there was a mass kill off over a slower amount of time-like decades-ie dwindling resources like oil, clean air, or water-you'd have some pretty vicious survivors. I don't think there would be any 'good guys' so to speak. Also, if the kill off of the end of the world takes decades, people might not even be 100% what even triggered the beginning of the end (kind of like the book to movie adaption 'The road' or 'Book of Eli'. Hell even 'Mad Max Fury Road' They never really discuss the exact cause of the end of the world or collapse of society, but they do point out contributing causes for it. Other books that focus on that are 'Oryx and Crake' by Margret Atwood.) I think knowing what kind of end of the world time frame you want might help shape your ideas, story, characters, and world. A slow end means people had time to organize and prepare-you might have more cult like societies to deal with in addition to other violent random situations on your quest. A quick end usually mean more chaos and blood up front along with a lot of personal and mental issues. Hope this helps.