"Soft" Apocalypse

[Ahriman238]

I recently read (in a Harry Potter fanfic, of all things) a rare sort of story, that was actually a sideline to the main plot. The Harry Potter Wizarding community is exposed to the world on the same day first contact is made with aliens (well that's one for the history books.) Understandably, some pople don't take it that well, and within the week everyone's launching their nukes.

Much suprise occurs over how many nukes everyone has, just how many nations have them, and where they're aimed (Australia launches on Indonesia.) Anyway, in this single instance the magical community is proactive, and the fissionable materials of every nuke are turned into various pie-fillings, very droll, but as a deterrent all the nukes headed for the group of people who launched first remain live, and the Mideast and other largely Islamic countries get glassed.

Now the whole world truly goes to hell, Everyone fighting major or minor wars as tensions almost no one believed existed flare up, accusations about who tried to nuke who, the Russians try to claim the irradiated deserts of the Mideast in the hopes of finally, when the radiation dies down, having a warm water port. A coalition of SOuth American countries attempt to invade the US, etc. At the same time, the economy truly turns to shit as most of the major oil pipelines and drilling sites are reduced to slag.

Every society and government in the world is either teetering on the brink of collapse, or charging headlong over the edge.

Has anyone seen more stories like that? Where all the nukes go up, but only a comparitively few people die, and they have to live in the world afterwards? Or where society collapses without the assistance of zombies/mutants/aliens/robots or turning into a radioactive wasteland?

Seems like there's a lot of storytelling potential there. Albeit at great risk of upsetting your audience if you comment on how close we may be already.

[Skgoa]

Seems like there's a lot of storytelling potential there. Albeit at great risk of upsetting your audience if you comment on how close we may be already.

Yeah, because rampant islamophobia is totally cool.

[B5B7]

Feels a bit like a Dan Simmons plotline. If Australia had nuclear missiles, why would they launch them at Indonesia? Waste of valuable weapons on a non-threat.; it would be better to keep them as a responding strike (or threat) on whoever is revealed as an enemy.
There have been stacks of post-apocalypse stories with a wide variety of alternate causes, eg Children of Men, Emberverse.

[Rabid]

By pure curiosity, could you post a link to the fanfic you're talking about, please ? The idea of the fic seems interesting (even if I sense there will be a lot of author tract in it...).

[Ahriman238]

Seems like there's a lot of storytelling potential there. Albeit at great risk of upsetting your audience if you comment on how close we may be already.

Yeah, because rampant islamophobia is totally cool.

Uhh... no? What are you even talking about?

Feels a bit like a Dan Simmons plotline. If Australia had nuclear missiles, why would they launch them at Indonesia? Waste of valuable weapons on a non-threat.; it would be better to keep them as a responding strike (or threat) on whoever is revealed as an enemy.
There have been stacks of post-apocalypse stories with a wide variety of alternate causes, eg Children of Men, Emberverse.

Maybe their missiles couldn't reach anywhere else, and they didn't want to feel left out at the end-of-the-world barbecue? In this spefic story it wasn't like the world as we know it except for magic, but somewhat AU owing to time-travel dickery. Perhaps Indonesia really was a threat, but it was given as an example where no one else suspected they had nukes, or that they'd choose to launch them there.
As an aside, who is Dan Simmons?

Oh there are many stories taking place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, I was thinking more in terms of a story showing it all falling apart. There are some of those as well, but I think a lot less when you eliminate zombies/mutants/aliens/robots/pandemic.

I'm also a bit intrigued by the idea of people psyching themselves up to push the button and end the world, telling themselves it's their duty and they won't die alone or some rot, and then nothing happens. Sort of awkward when you have to negotiate with the people you tried and failed to kill.

By pure curiosity, could you post a link to the fanfic you're talking about, please ? The idea of the fic seems interesting (even if I sense there will be a lot of author tract in it...).

There is plenty of author tract, and a lot of verbiage. One of those fics with a higher wordcount than most novels. Plus, it's a Harry Potter fic so the collapse of "muggle" civilization is a sideshow to the main story that appears in only two chapters. Here's the chapter dealing with what concerned me most, the days immediatly after the failed-nuking.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4240771/99/ ... issed_Hero

And yes, he ties the HP world into greek mythology, fairy tales and even Alice in WOnderland is a character.

[Kryten]

Yeah, because rampant islamophobia is totally cool.

Uhh... no? What are you even talking about?

and the Mideast and other largely Islamic countries get glassed

How could that not be obvious?

[Jawawithagun]

Oh, THAT particular Skysaber trainwreck.

[Ahriman238]

Yeah, because rampant islamophobia is totally cool.

Uhh... no? What are you even talking about?

and the Mideast and other largely Islamic countries get glassed

How could that not be obvious?

Lots of people objected to that, I saw it as largely incidental to the story. The point is that the nuking causes chaos that most governments are helpless to deal with. Besides maybe the US, who's removal from the global stage would cause as much disruption as the major oil-producing countries?

He didn't exactly help himself with his non-apology, but kudos for doing the research.

It wasn't obvious to me because the line he quoted was from after I'd switched gears from discussing this particular story to the story-type and it's potential.