Battle Circle is a trilogy of science fiction novels by Piers Anthony . Originally published separately, the trilogy was later combined into a single volume.
99-405: The novels take place on a post-apocalyptic Earth. The history is not given in detail, but the landscape is filled with the ruins of the previous civilization, and large areas (referred to as the "badlands") are still deadly because of radiation, presumably from nuclear war. In North America, there are three main civilizations: the crazies, the underworlders, and the nomads, who are the main focus of
198-514: A pandemic , whether natural or human-caused; end time , such as the Last Judgment , Second Coming or Ragnarök ; or any other scenario in which the outcome is apocalyptic, such as a zombie apocalypse , AI takeover , technological singularity , dysgenics or alien invasion . The story may involve attempts to prevent an apocalypse event, deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself, or it may be post-apocalyptic, set after
297-594: A supervolcanic eruption , a natural pandemic , a lethal gamma-ray burst , a geomagnetic storm from a coronal mass ejection destroying electronic equipment, natural long-term climate change , hostile extraterrestrial life , or the Sun transforming into a red giant star and engulfing the Earth billions of years in the future . Anthropogenic risks are those caused by humans and include those related to technology, governance, and climate change. Technological risks include
396-490: A drastically inferior state of affairs. Existential risks are a sub-class of global catastrophic risks, where the damage is not only global but also terminal and permanent, preventing recovery and thereby affecting both current and all future generations. While extinction is the most obvious way in which humanity's long-term potential could be destroyed, there are others, including unrecoverable collapse and unrecoverable dystopia . A disaster severe enough to cause
495-452: A future threat. In the video game Chrono Trigger (1995), the giant alien creature Lavos collides with the earth in prehistoric times, subsequently hibernating beneath the earth. As millions of years pass, the monster feeds on the energy of the earth, eventually surfacing in 1999 to wreak complete destruction of the human race, atmosphere, and general life on the planet in the form of a rain of destruction fired from its outer shell, known as
594-485: A global, rather than a "local or regional" scale. Posner highlights such events as worthy of special attention on cost–benefit grounds because they could directly or indirectly jeopardize the survival of the human race as a whole. Existential risks are defined as "risks that threaten the destruction of humanity's long-term potential." The instantiation of an existential risk (an existential catastrophe ) would either cause outright human extinction or irreversibly lock in
693-704: A grant of 55M USD from Good Ventures as suggested by Open Philanthropy . Other risk assessment groups are based in or are part of governmental organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) includes a division called the Global Alert and Response (GAR) which monitors and responds to global epidemic crisis. GAR helps member states with training and coordination of response to epidemics. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has its Emerging Pandemic Threats Program which aims to prevent and contain naturally generated pandemics at their source. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has
792-463: A group of friends who discover an alien invasion during a pub crawl in their hometown. In the 2018 horror film A Quiet Place , the 2021 sequel A Quiet Place Part II , and a 2024 movie A Quiet Place: Day One society has collapsed in the wake of lethal attacks by extraterrestrial creatures who, having no eyesight, hunt humans and other creatures with their highly sensitive hearing; the scattered survivors live most of their lives in near-silence as
891-498: A heavy flail—a spiked ball on a chain). Sos, originally named "Sol the Sword", is forced to give up his name and weapon after being defeated by Sol of All Weapons, and learns to use a non-standard weapon: a metal cable with weights on the end of it. Var wields sticks, essentially two batons, also made of metal. Neq wields a traditional sword. Despite the fact that the weapons are deadly, fights are rarely fatal. Combat ceases when one man
990-487: A higher marginal impact of work on resilient foods. Some survivalists stock survival retreats with multiple-year food supplies. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is buried 400 feet (120 m) inside a mountain on an island in the Arctic . It is designed to hold 2.5 billion seeds from more than 100 countries as a precaution to preserve the world's crops. The surrounding rock is −6 °C (21 °F) (as of 2015) but
1089-521: A horned fish and Shesha appeared as a rope, with which Vaivasvata Manu fastened the boat to the horn of the fish. Variants of this story also appear in Buddhist and Jain scriptures. The 1st centuries CE saw the recording of the Book of Revelation (from which the word apocalypse originated, meaning ' {{{1}}} ' ), which is filled with prophecies of destruction, as well as luminous visions. In
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#17327717499591188-468: A major civilization-wide loss of infrastructure and advanced technology. However, these examples demonstrate that societies appear to be fairly resilient to catastrophe; for example, Medieval Europe survived the Black Death without suffering anything resembling a civilization collapse despite losing 25 to 50 percent of its population. There are economic reasons that can explain why so little effort
1287-706: A multinational effort is put in place to construct an ark for the preservation of Humanity, built around the International Space Station . Brian Aldiss ' novel Hothouse (1961) occurs in a distant future where the Sun is much hotter and stronger, and the human population has been reduced to a fifth of what it had been. J. G. Ballard 's novel The Drowned World (1962) occurs after a rise in solar radiation that causes worldwide flooding and accelerated mutation of plants and animals. Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven 's novel, Lucifer's Hammer (1977),
1386-496: A multiplanetary species in order to avoid extinction. His company SpaceX is developing technology he projects will be used to colonize Mars . The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (est. 1945) is one of the oldest global risk organizations, founded after the public became alarmed by the potential of atomic warfare in the aftermath of WWII. It studies risks associated with nuclear war and energy and famously maintains
1485-466: A new Heaven and a new Earth, and its intended Christian audience is often enchanted and inspired, rather than terrified by visions of Judgment Day. These Christians believed themselves chosen for God's salvation, and so such apocalyptic sensibilities inspired optimism and nostalgia for the end times. The Norse poem Völuspá from the Poetic Edda details the creation, coming doom, and rebirth of
1584-413: A non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of society and technology remain. Other themes may be cybernetic revolt , divine judgment , dysgenics , ecological collapse , pandemic , resource depletion , supernatural phenomena , technological singularity , or some other general disaster. The relics of a technological past "protruding into a more primitive... landscape",
1683-404: A one-way trip to Mars . When the Sun begins to go nova, everything is on schedule, but most of the spaceships turn out to be defective, and fail en route to Mars. In Neal Stephenson 's novel Seveneves , The Moon is destroyed by an unknown agent, forming a massive debris cloud. This cloud threatens to produce a White Sky , which then causes a massive bombardment of Moon fragments. Due to this,
1782-576: A result. In Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer's novel When Worlds Collide (1933), Earth is destroyed by the rogue planet Bronson Alpha. A selected few escape on a spaceship. In the sequel, After Worlds Collide (1934), the survivors start a new life on the planet's companion Bronson Beta, which has taken over the orbit formerly occupied by Earth. In J. T. McIntosh 's novel One in Three Hundred (1954), scientists have discovered how to pinpoint
1881-470: A school visit to a cave. In the obscure 2013 Australian film These Final Hours , a massive asteroid hits the Atlantic Ocean dooming all life. The film follows James, who decides to head to the 'party-to-end-all-parties' and there spend the last 12 hours before the global firestorm reaches Western Australia. Global catastrophic risk A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario
1980-410: A sea-level rise that kills most of the population (though this may be redemptive, like Noah's Flood , rather than a disaster). In Greg Bear 's The Forge of God (1987), Earth is destroyed in an alien attack. Just prior to this, a different group of aliens is able to save samples of the biosphere and a small number of people, resettling them on Mars. Some of these form the crew of a ship to hunt down
2079-438: A sharp definition", and generally refers (loosely) to a risk that could inflict "serious damage to human well-being on a global scale". Humanity has suffered large catastrophes before. Some of these have caused serious damage but were only local in scope—e.g. the Black Death may have resulted in the deaths of a third of Europe's population, 10% of the global population at the time. Some were global, but were not as severe—e.g.
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#17327717499592178-401: A spacecraft that will go to an unknown destination away from the destroyed Earth. The later books deal with the few survivors waking up from a 500-year hibernation and succumbing to both strange mutations and the will of a strange alien computer/spaceship that they land on. Eventually they return to Earth to find a couple colonies of survivors struggling on a harsh planet completely different from
2277-458: A special challenge in designing risk mitigation measures since humanity will not be able to learn from a track record of previous events. Some researchers argue that both research and other initiatives relating to existential risk are underfunded. Nick Bostrom states that more research has been done on Star Trek , snowboarding , or dung beetles than on existential risks. Bostrom's comparisons have been criticized as "high-handed". As of 2020,
2376-547: A technological catastrophe. Most of the research money funds projects at universities. The Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (est. 2011) is a US-based non-profit, non-partisan think tank founded by Seth Baum and Tony Barrett. GCRI does research and policy work across various risks, including artificial intelligence, nuclear war, climate change, and asteroid impacts. The Global Challenges Foundation (est. 2012), based in Stockholm and founded by Laszlo Szombatfalvy , releases
2475-570: A theme known as the "ruined Earth", have been described as "among the most potent of [science fiction]'s icons". Ancient Mesopotamian texts containing the oldest surviving apocalyptic literature , including the Eridu Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh , both of which date to around 2000-1500 BCE. Both describe angry gods sending floods to punish humanity, and the Gilgamesh version includes
2574-468: A transaction exists. Numerous cognitive biases can influence people's judgment of the importance of existential risks, including scope insensitivity , hyperbolic discounting , availability heuristic , the conjunction fallacy , the affect heuristic , and the overconfidence effect . Scope insensitivity influences how bad people consider the extinction of the human race to be. For example, when people are motivated to donate money to altruistic causes,
2673-578: A yearly report on the state of global risks. The Future of Life Institute (est. 2014) works to reduce extreme, large-scale risks from transformative technologies, as well as steer the development and use of these technologies to benefit all life, through grantmaking, policy advocacy in the United States, European Union and United Nations, and educational outreach. Elon Musk , Vitalik Buterin and Jaan Tallinn are some of its biggest donors. The Center on Long-Term Risk (est. 2016), formerly known as
2772-481: Is a humorous take on alien invasion stories. Multiple Earths are repeatedly "demolished" by the bureaucratic Vogons to make way for a hyperspace bypass, to the chagrin of the protagonist Arthur Dent . In Gene Wolfe 's The Urth of the New Sun (1987), aliens (or highly evolved humans) introduce a white hole into the sun to counteract the dimming effect of a black hole , and the resulting global warming causes
2871-579: Is a hypothetical event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, even endangering or destroying modern civilization . An event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's existence or potential is known as an " existential risk ". In the 21st century, a number of academic and non-profit organizations have been established to research global catastrophic and existential risks, formulate potential mitigation measures and either advocate for or implement these measures. The term global catastrophic risk "lacks
2970-510: Is a proposed alternative to improve the odds of surviving an extinction scenario. Solutions of this scope may require megascale engineering . Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking advocated colonizing other planets within the Solar System once technology progresses sufficiently, in order to improve the chance of human survival from planet-wide events such as global thermonuclear war. Billionaire Elon Musk writes that humanity must become
3069-470: Is about a cataclysmic comet hitting Earth and various groups of people struggling to survive the aftermath in southern California. Hollywood—which previously had explored the idea of the Earth and its population being potentially endangered by a collision with another heavenly body with the When Worlds Collide (1951), a film treatment of the aforementioned 1933 novel – revisited the theme in
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3168-493: Is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism ". Lord Byron 's 1816 poem "Darkness" , included in The Prisoner of Chillon collection, on the apocalyptic end of the world and one man's survival, was one of the earliest English-language works in this genre. The sun was blotted out, leading to darkness and cold which kills off mankind through famine and ice-age conditions. The poem
3267-431: Is essentially a retelling of the Book of Revelation , combined with themes of the story of Adam and Eve . Unlike most apocalyptic tales, de Grainville's novel approaches the end of the world not as a cautionary tale, or a tale of survival, but as both an inevitable, as well as necessary, step for the spiritual resurrection of mankind. Edgar Allan Poe 's short story " The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion " (1839) follows
3366-572: Is forced to the Mountain and Sos is ordered by the underworld to dismantle the empire. Rather than dismantling the empire Sos leads an attack on the Mountain and it is eventually destroyed. His (and in her mind Sol's) daughter escapes with Var and, pursued by both Sol and Sos, they flee via the Aleutian Islands to China , which has reconstituted an imperial civilization. Reconciled with Sol and Sos, they start back to America. Pursued by
3465-538: Is further underlined by an understanding of the interconnectedness of global systemic risks. In absence or anticipation of global governance, national governments can act individually to better understand, mitigate and prepare for global catastrophes. In 2018, the Club of Rome called for greater climate change action and published its Climate Emergency Plan, which proposes ten action points to limit global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Further, in 2019,
3564-587: Is going into existential risk reduction. It is a global public good , so we should expect it to be undersupplied by markets. Even if a large nation invests in risk mitigation measures, that nation will enjoy only a small fraction of the benefit of doing so. Furthermore, existential risk reduction is an intergenerational global public good, since most of the benefits of existential risk reduction would be enjoyed by future generations, and though these future people would in theory perhaps be willing to pay substantial sums for existential risk reduction, no mechanism for such
3663-432: Is greatly impressed by his opponent's astuteness. Sol offers part of a name (Sos) in return for becoming his adviser. For Sol has a grand dream: to forge an empire from the many small tribes. It is revealed that the people in the Mountain, a remnant of the ancient civilization, produce goods that the crazies give to the nomads, thus stabilizing the society. Eventually Sol, along with Sos' daughter (who Sol claims as his own),
3762-474: Is heavily damaged, and humanity nearly wiped out, by the direct collision of the real asteroid 99942 Apophis with the Earth in the year 2029. Marly Youmans ' epic poem Thaliad (2012) tells the story of a group of children after an unspecified apocalypse from the sky, perhaps connected with solar flares or meteor impact, resulting in people and animals having been burned and the skies having filled with ash. The children survive only because they were together on
3861-410: Is inevitably left as the last man alive. Shelley's novel is predated by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville 's French epic prose poem Le Dernier Homme (English: The Last Man [1805]), and this work is sometimes considered the first modern work to depict the end of the world. Published after his death in 1805, de Grainville's work follows the character of Omegarus, the titular "last man," in what
3960-445: Is obviously defeated, either because he cannot defend himself or because he has left the circle, voluntarily or otherwise. Combat can also be between teams, either fighting together in pairs or in multiple single matches. In the latter case, strategy can become involved choosing whom to put in the circle against a particular opponent. The nomads have a very particular naming convention . Men choose their own first name , which follows
4059-539: Is reminiscent of H. G. Wells ' War of the Worlds (1897). Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski 's novel The Killing Star (1995) describes a devastating attack on a late-21st-century Earth by an alien civilization. Using missiles traveling at relativistic speed , they are determined to destroy the human race in a preemptive strike, as they are considered, after watching several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation which shows human domination in space,
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4158-544: Is subject to a unique set of challenges and, as a result, is not easily subjected to the usual standards of scientific rigour. For instance, it is neither feasible nor ethical to study these risks experimentally. Carl Sagan expressed this with regards to nuclear war: "Understanding the long-term consequences of nuclear war is not a problem amenable to experimental verification". Moreover, many catastrophic risks change rapidly as technology advances and background conditions, such as geopolitical conditions, change. Another challenge
4257-636: Is the general difficulty of accurately predicting the future over long timescales, especially for anthropogenic risks which depend on complex human political, economic and social systems. In addition to known and tangible risks, unforeseeable black swan extinction events may occur, presenting an additional methodological problem. Humanity has never suffered an existential catastrophe and if one were to occur, it would necessarily be unprecedented. Therefore, existential risks pose unique challenges to prediction, even more than other long-term events, because of observation selection effects . Unlike with most events,
4356-510: The 1918 influenza pandemic killed an estimated 3–6% of the world's population. Most global catastrophic risks would not be so intense as to kill the majority of life on earth, but even if one did, the ecosystem and humanity would eventually recover (in contrast to existential risks ). Similarly, in Catastrophe: Risk and Response , Richard Posner singles out and groups together events that bring about "utter overthrow or ruin" on
4455-541: The Biological Weapons Convention organization had an annual budget of US$ 1.4 million. Some scholars propose the establishment on Earth of one or more self-sufficient, remote, permanently occupied settlements specifically created for the purpose of surviving a global disaster. Economist Robin Hanson argues that a refuge permanently housing as few as 100 people would significantly improve
4554-651: The Doomsday Clock established in 1947. The Foresight Institute (est. 1986) examines the risks of nanotechnology and its benefits. It was one of the earliest organizations to study the unintended consequences of otherwise harmless technology gone haywire at a global scale. It was founded by K. Eric Drexler who postulated " grey goo ". Beginning after 2000, a growing number of scientists, philosophers and tech billionaires created organizations devoted to studying global risks both inside and outside of academia. Independent non-governmental organizations (NGOs) include
4653-800: The Genesis flood narrative is found in the 71st Chapter of the Quran ; however, unlike the Biblical story, the Quranic account explicitly claims that the deluge was only sent to the tribe of the Prophet Nūḥ ( نُوح ) ( ' Noah ' in Arabic ), and therefore, the deluge did not engulf the entire world. In the Hindu Dharmasastra , an apocalyptic deluge plays a prominent part. According to
4752-574: The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (est. 2000), which aims to reduce the risk of a catastrophe caused by artificial intelligence, with donors including Peter Thiel and Jed McCaleb . The Nuclear Threat Initiative (est. 2001) seeks to reduce global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical threats, and containment of damage after an event. It maintains a nuclear material security index. The Lifeboat Foundation (est. 2009) funds research into preventing
4851-645: The Matsya Purana , the Matsya avatar of Lord Vishnu , informed the King Manu of an all-destructive deluge which would be coming very soon. The King was advised to build a huge boat (ark) which housed his family, nine types of seeds, pairs of all animals and the Saptarishis to repopulate Earth, after the deluge would end and the oceans and seas would recede. At the time of the deluge , Vishnu appeared as
4950-455: The electrical grid , or radiological warfare using weapons such as large cobalt bombs . Other global catastrophic risks include climate change, environmental degradation , extinction of species , famine as a result of non-equitable resource distribution, human overpopulation or underpopulation , crop failures , and non- sustainable agriculture . Research into the nature and mitigation of global catastrophic risks and existential risks
5049-511: The "Arkfalls", which terraforms Earth to an almost unrecognizable state. Unlike most apocalyptic works, in this one Earth is not inhospitable, and humanity is not on the verge of extinction. The World's End is a 2013 British-American comic science fiction film directed by Edgar Wright , written by Wright and Simon Pegg , and starring Pegg, Nick Frost , Paddy Considine , Martin Freeman , Eddie Marsan and Rosamund Pike . The film follows
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#17327717499595148-467: The "Day of Lavos". In the video game Half-Life (1998), hostile alien creatures arrive on Earth through a portal after a scientific experiment goes wrong. In its sequel, Half-Life 2 (2004), it is revealed to the player the creatures encountered in the first game are merely the slaves of a much more powerful alien race, the Combine, who have taken over the Earth to drain its resources after subduing
5247-507: The Air , the novel has become one of the best known early apocalyptic works. It has subsequently been reproduced or adapted several times in comic books, film, music, radio programming , television programming, and video games. Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke , in which aliens come to Earth, human children develop fantastic powers and
5346-553: The Babylonian and Judaic, produced apocalyptic literature and mythology which dealt with the end of the world and human society, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh , written c. 2000–1500 BCE. Recognizable modern apocalyptic novels had existed since at least the first third of the 19th century, when Mary Shelley 's The Last Man (1826) was published; however, this form of literature gained widespread popularity after World War II , when
5445-595: The Club published the more comprehensive Planetary Emergency Plan. There is evidence to suggest that collectively engaging with the emotional experiences that emerge during contemplating the vulnerability of the human species within the context of climate change allows for these experiences to be adaptive. When collective engaging with and processing emotional experiences is supportive, this can lead to growth in resilience, psychological flexibility, tolerance of emotional experiences, and community engagement. Space colonization
5544-499: The Earth the Remnants knew. Melancholia (2011), the middle entry of filmmaker Lars von Trier 's "depression trilogy", ends with humanity completely wiped out by a collision with a rogue planet . The depressed protagonist reverses roles with her relatives as the crisis unfolds, as she turns out to be the only family member capable of calmly accepting the imminent impact event. In id Software 's video game Rage (2011), Earth
5643-489: The Emperor of China, the two older men die so that the others can escape. With the Mountain in ruins nomadic civilization is collapsing into barbarism. Working with the remaining crazies Neq attempts to reconstitute his society. Through a misunderstanding he kills the returning Var, but establishes a relationship with the daughter of Sol and Sos. In time the Mountain is restored under Neq's leadership and without secrecy. At
5742-564: The Foundational Research Institute, is a British organization focused on reducing risks of astronomical suffering ( s-risks ) from emerging technologies. University-based organizations included the Future of Humanity Institute (est. 2005) which researched the questions of humanity's long-term future, particularly existential risk. It was founded by Nick Bostrom and was based at Oxford University. The Centre for
5841-534: The Moon, or directly evaluating the likely impact of new technology. To understand the dynamics of an unprecedented, unrecoverable global civilizational collapse (a type of existential risk), it may be instructive to study the various local civilizational collapses that have occurred throughout human history. For instance, civilizations such as the Roman Empire have ended in a loss of centralized governance and
5940-561: The Study of Existential Risk (est. 2012) is a Cambridge University-based organization which studies four major technological risks: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, global warming and warfare. All are man-made risks, as Huw Price explained to the AFP news agency, "It seems a reasonable prediction that some time in this or the next century intelligence will escape from the constraints of biology". He added that when this happens "we're no longer
6039-401: The ancient hero Utnapishtim and his family being saved through the intervention of the god Ea . The Biblical myth of Noah and his ark describes the destruction of the corrupt original civilization and its replacement with a remade world. Noah is assigned the task to build the ark and save two of each animal species in order to reestablish a new post-flood world. The Biblical story of
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#17327717499596138-477: The atmosphere which lowered the temperature and altered weather patterns throughout the world. This was the source for Byron's poem. Mary Shelley 's novel The Last Man (1826) is a continuation of the apocalyptic theme in fiction and is generally recognized as the first major fictional post-apocalyptic story. The plot follows a group of people as they struggle to survive in a plague-infected world. The story's male protagonist struggles to keep his family safe but
6237-436: The chances of human survival during a range of global catastrophes. Food storage has been proposed globally, but the monetary cost would be high. Furthermore, it would likely contribute to the current millions of deaths per year due to malnutrition . In 2022, a team led by David Denkenberger modeled the cost-effectiveness of resilient foods to artificial general intelligence (AGI) safety and found "~98-99% confidence" for
6336-640: The close of the book the inhabitants of the Mountain are developing trade with a similar site in Latin America . It will take a long time, but slowly civilization is being rebuilt. Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change ; astronomical, an impact event ; destructive, nuclear holocaust or resource depletion ; medical,
6435-563: The concept of destruction that causes public interest in apocalyptic themes. Such fiction is studied by social sciences , and may provide insights into a culture's fears, as well as things like the role imagined for public administration . Since the late 20th century, a surge of popular post-apocalyptic films can be observed. Christopher Schmidt notes that, while the world "goes to waste" for future generations, we distract ourselves from disaster by passively watching it as entertainment. Some have commented on this trend, saying that "it
6534-440: The conversation between two souls in the afterlife as they discuss the destruction of the world. The destruction was brought about by a comet that removed nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere; this left only oxygen and resulted in a worldwide inferno. Similarly, Giacomo Leopardi 's short dialogue " Dialogue between a Goblin and a Gnome " (1824) features a world without the presence of the human beings, most likely because they "violate[d]
6633-452: The crazies for their own inexplicable reasons. A dispute breaks out when they discover they share the same name. Sol of All Weapons insists that Sol the Sword change his name. When the latter refuses, they enter the battle circle. Sol the Sword nearly wins with an ingenious maneuver, but his opponent is superlatively skilled and defeats him. Now nameless, the loser is honor-bound to trek to the Mountain to end his life. However, Sol of All Weapons
6732-407: The creation of artificial intelligence misaligned with human goals, biotechnology , and nanotechnology . Insufficient or malign global governance creates risks in the social and political domain, such as global war and nuclear holocaust , biological warfare and bioterrorism using genetically modified organisms , cyberwarfare and cyberterrorism destroying critical infrastructure like
6831-494: The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah also has post-apocalyptic elements. The daughters of Lot , who mistakenly believe that the destruction had engulfed the whole world and that they and their father were the only surviving human beings, conclude that in such a situation it would be justified - and indeed vitally needed - to have sex with their father in order to ensure the survival of humanity. Such situations and dilemmas occur in modern post-apocalyptic fiction. A similar story to
6930-513: The elfin Eloi and the brutal Morlocks. Later in the story, the time traveler moves forward to a dying Earth beneath a swollen red sun. The War of the Worlds (1898) depicts an invasion of Earth by inhabitants of the planet Mars . The aliens systematically destroy Victorian England with advanced weaponry mounted on nearly indestructible vehicles. Due to the infamous radio adaptation of the novel by Orson Welles on his show, The Mercury Theatre on
7029-544: The entirety of Earth's governments and military forces in only seven hours. In the 2000 Don Bluth animated film Titan A.E. , Earth has been destroyed by the Drej, due to a human experimental discovery called Project Titan, which made them fear “what humanity will become”. The 2011 TV series Falling Skies , by Robert Rodat and Steven Spielberg , follows a human resistance force fighting to survive after extraterrestrial aliens attempt to take over Earth by disabling most of
7128-463: The event. The time may be directly after the catastrophe, focusing on the psychology of survivors, the way to keep the human race alive and together as one, or considerably later, often including that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been mythologized. Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in a non-technological future world or a world where only scattered elements of society and technology remain. Numerous ancient societies, including
7227-421: The exact minute, hour, and day the Sun will go " nova " – and when it does, it will boil away Earth's seas, beginning with the hemisphere that faces the sun, and as Earth continues to rotate, it will take only 24 hours before all life is eradicated. Super-hurricanes and tornadoes are predicted. Buildings will be blown away. A race is on to build thousands of spaceships for the sole purpose of transferring evacuees on
7326-426: The extinction of the entire human species, seem to trigger a different mode of thinking... People who would never dream of hurting a child hear of existential risk, and say, "Well, maybe the human species doesn't really deserve to survive". All past predictions of human extinction have proven to be false. To some, this makes future warnings seem less credible. Nick Bostrom argues that the absence of human extinction in
7425-485: The failure of a complete extinction event to occur in the past is not evidence against their likelihood in the future, because every world that has experienced such an extinction event has gone unobserved by humanity. Regardless of civilization collapsing events' frequency, no civilization observes existential risks in its history. These anthropic issues may partly be avoided by looking at evidence that does not have such selection effects, such as asteroid impact craters on
7524-564: The first chapter of Revelation, the writer St. John the Divine explains his divine errand: "Write the things which thou hast seen, the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter" (Rev. 1:19). He takes it as his mission to convey—to reveal—to God's kingdom His promise that justice will prevail and that the suffering will be vindicated (Leigh). The apocalyptist provides a beatific vision of Judgement Day, revealing God's promise for redemption from suffering and strife. Revelation describes
7623-417: The homeworld of the killers, as described in the sequel, Anvil of Stars (1992). Al Sarrantonio 's Moonbane (1989) concerns the origin of werewolves (he attributes it to the Moon, which is why they are so attracted to it), and an invasion after an explosion on Luna sends meteoric fragments containing latent lycanthropes to Earth, who thrive in our planet's oxygen-rich atmosphere. Moonbane ' s tone
7722-455: The impact and consequences of the event itself, or may be post-apocalyptic and set after the event. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, the way to maintain the human race alive and together as one, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten (or mythologized). Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in
7821-607: The key features of extinction and unrecoverable collapse of civilization: before the catastrophe humanity faced a vast range of bright futures to choose from; after the catastrophe, humanity is locked forever in a terrible state. Psychologist Steven Pinker has called existential risk a "useless category" that can distract from threats he considers real and solvable, such as climate change and nuclear war. Potential global catastrophic risks are conventionally classified as anthropogenic or non-anthropogenic hazards. Examples of non-anthropogenic risks are an asteroid or comet impact event ,
7920-513: The late 1990s with a trio of similarly themed projects. Asteroid (1997) is an NBC-TV miniseries about the U.S. government trying to prevent an asteroid from colliding with the Earth. The following year saw dueling big-budget summer blockbuster movies Deep Impact (1998) and Armageddon (1998), both of which involved efforts to save the Earth from, respectively, a rogue comet and an asteroid, by landing crews upon them to detonate nuclear weapons there in hopes of destroying them. Characters in
8019-584: The laws of nature, and [went] contrary to their welfare". Richard Jefferies ' novel After London (1885) can best be described as genuine post-apocalyptic fiction. After a sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature and the few survivors return to a quasi-medieval way of life. The first chapters consist solely of a description of nature reclaiming England: fields becoming overrun by forest, domesticated animals running wild, roads and towns becoming overgrown, London reverting to lake and poisonous swampland. The rest of
8118-526: The near future and early reproduction, and little else. Disasters of a magnitude that occur only once every few centuries were forgotten or transmuted into myth." Defense in depth is a useful framework for categorizing risk mitigation measures into three layers of defense: Human extinction is most likely when all three defenses are weak, that is, "by risks we are unlikely to prevent, unlikely to successfully respond to, and unlikely to be resilient against". The unprecedented nature of existential risks poses
8217-479: The novels. The nomad society lives by a strict code of conduct . Conflicts over anything, a perceived slight or the right to sleep with a woman, are settled by combat in the battle circle. Often skilled fighters will fight to recruit men into their tribes. Each man is known by the weapon(s) he wields, hence the names of the title characters. Most men wield one of the six traditional weapons: sword, club, sticks, staff, daggers or morning star (more commonly known as
8316-422: The outside world. Furthermore, they often explore a world without modern technology whose rapid progress may overwhelm people as human brains are not adapted to contemporary society, but evolved to deal with issues that have become largely irrelevant, such as immediate physical threats. Such works depict worlds of less complexity, direct contact, and primitive needs. It is often the concept of change as much as
8415-426: The past is weak evidence that there will be no human extinction in the future, due to survivor bias and other anthropic effects . Sociobiologist E. O. Wilson argued that: "The reason for this myopic fog, evolutionary biologists contend, is that it was actually advantageous during all but the last few millennia of the two million years of existence of the genus Homo... A premium was placed on close attention to
8514-525: The pattern consonant-vowel-consonant. As mentioned above, their last name is the weapon(s) they wield. Women are inherently nameless, and when they are bound to a man (a situation which is breakable at any time by either party) her name is the man's name plus a . Children take the name of their father plus i . So if Var had a wife, she would be Vara, and if they had children, they would all be known as Vari until they achieved adulthood. Two wandering warriors meet at an isolated hostel, one of many maintained by
8613-502: The permanent, irreversible collapse of human civilisation would constitute an existential catastrophe, even if it fell short of extinction. Similarly, if humanity fell under a totalitarian regime, and there were no chance of recovery then such a dystopia would also be an existential catastrophe. Bryan Caplan writes that "perhaps an eternity of totalitarianism would be worse than extinction". ( George Orwell 's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four suggests an example. ) A dystopian scenario shares
8712-562: The planet is destroyed. Argentine comic writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld 's comic series El Eternauta (1957 to 1959), an alien race only mentioned by the protagonists as Ellos ("Them") invades the Earth starting with a deadly snowfall and then using other alien races to defeat the remaining humans. In Alice Sheldon 's Nebula -winning novelette " The Screwfly Solution " (1977), aliens are wiping out humanity with an airborne agent that changes men's sexual impulses to violent ones. Douglas Adams 's Hitchhiker's Guide series (1979–2009)
8811-557: The possibility of global annihilation by nuclear weapons entered the public consciousness. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change ; natural, such as an impact event ; man made, such as nuclear holocaust ; medical, such as a plague or virus, whether natural or man-made; religious, such as the Rapture or Great Tribulation ; or imaginative, such as zombie apocalypse or alien invasion . The story may involve attempts to prevent an apocalypse event, deal with
8910-501: The quantity they are willing to give does not increase linearly with the magnitude of the issue: people are roughly as willing to prevent the deaths of 200,000 or 2,000 birds. Similarly, people are often more concerned about threats to individuals than to larger groups. Eliezer Yudkowsky theorizes that scope neglect plays a role in public perception of existential risks: Substantially larger numbers, such as 500 million deaths, and especially qualitatively different scenarios such as
9009-431: The six-part ITV television drama serial The Last Train (1999) awaken from a cryogenic sleep after an asteroid the size of Birmingham strikes Africa, causing a worldwide apocalypse. K. A. Applegate 's 2001–2003 book series, Remnants , details the end of the world by asteroid collision. The first book, The Mayflower Project (2001), describes Earth in a sort of hysteria as 80 people are chosen by NASA to board
9108-465: The smartest things around," and will risk being at the mercy of "machines that are not malicious, but machines whose interests don't include us." Stephen Hawking was an acting adviser. The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere is a Stanford University-based organization focusing on many issues related to global catastrophe by bringing together members of academia in the humanities. It
9207-428: The story is a straightforward adventure/quest set many years later in the wild landscape and society, but the opening chapters set an example for many later science fiction stories. H.G. Wells wrote several novels that have a post-apocalyptic theme. The Time Machine (1895) has the unnamed protagonist traveling to the year 802,701 A.D. after civilization has collapsed and humanity has split into two distinct species,
9306-420: The vault is kept at −18 °C (0 °F) by refrigerators powered by locally sourced coal. More speculatively, if society continues to function and if the biosphere remains habitable, calorie needs for the present human population might in theory be met during an extended absence of sunlight, given sufficient advance planning. Conjectured solutions include growing mushrooms on the dead plant biomass left in
9405-520: The wake of the catastrophe, converting cellulose to sugar, or feeding natural gas to methane-digesting bacteria. Insufficient global governance creates risks in the social and political domain, but the governance mechanisms develop more slowly than technological and social change. There are concerns from governments, the private sector, as well as the general public about the lack of governance mechanisms to efficiently deal with risks, negotiate and adjudicate between diverse and conflicting interests. This
9504-400: The world's technology and destroying its armed forces in a surprise attack. It is implied that the attacking aliens are in reality former victims of an attack on their own planet and are now the slaves of an unseen controller race. The television series Defiance (2013–2015) is set in an Earth devastated by the "Pale Wars", a war with seven alien races referred to as the "Votan", followed by
9603-487: The world. The world's destruction includes fire and flood consuming the earth while mythic beasts do battle with the Aesir gods, during which they all perish in an event called Ragnarök . After the destruction, a pair of humans, a man and woman, find the world renewed and the god Baldr resurrected. Such works often feature the loss of a global perspective as protagonists are on their own, often with little or no knowledge of
9702-565: Was founded by Paul Ehrlich , among others. Stanford University also has the Center for International Security and Cooperation focusing on political cooperation to reduce global catastrophic risk. The Center for Security and Emerging Technology was established in January 2019 at Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service and will focus on policy research of emerging technologies with an initial emphasis on artificial intelligence. They received
9801-528: Was influential in the emergence of "the last man" theme which appeared in the works of several poets, such as "The Last Man" by Thomas Campbell (1824) and "The Last Man" (1826) by Thomas Hood , as well as "The Last Man" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes . The year 1816 was known as the Year Without a Summer because Mount Tambora had erupted in the Dutch East Indies in 1815 that emitted sulphur into
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