Extinction (Postapocalypse)

A postapocalyptic setting; artwork from Open Wallpapers: Post Apocalyptic (artist and license unknown)

Of all the possible futures, sudden global extinction, or, in nerdspeak, Postapocalypse, is probably the least likely. Whilst anything from a large asteroid or comet strike to the aftermath of a nuclear war to an unforseen and highly contageous global pandemic is possible, and indeed such topics are much loved tropes of Hollywood screenwriters and blockbuster movie makers, roleplaying and video gamers, and genre science fiction writers, along with similar themes such as zombapocalypse and robapocalypse, their main sphere of influence isin the popular imagination and mass media. Interestingly, alien invasion does not qualify as post-apocalypse, the simple reason being that, despite initial victories thanks to their ridiculously only marginally superior use of technology (also the sheer economics make intestellar invasion absurd, see also Rethinking Alien Encounter), the aliens always lose.

Post-peak-oil collapse is more likely (even if popular mythopoetic adaptations are charicatures), but this probably should belong in an intermediate category, call it Soft Post-Apocalypse, as opposed to the Hard Post-Apocalypse of P-T or above grade mass extinction

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