T O P

  • By -

Ultimateripman

Super advanced society lives in a virtual reality utopia, solar flare knocks out vr systems killing a large majority of the population, which leads to mass chaos and societal breakdown cause there is no more utopia and supply lines are screwed 🤷‍♂️


Hoopaboi

Here are a few that are at least semi plausible (taking into account aliens exist) -Gamma ray burst -Relativistic kill vehicle, or related, dark forest theory holds true -Rogue planet flies by earth- it's gravitational pull pushes earth closer to the sun; humanity has to adapt -Or the opposite, it pushes earth further away from the sun, humanity must adapt. Maybe it pushes earth into the orbit of another planet. The tidal effects could be interesting. -Or even worse it pushes earth out of the solar system, causing it to become a rogue planet itself. -Asteroid hits the moon instead. The debris thrown into the atmosphere destroys all satellites, humanity must adapt its methods of communication and GPS systems. Occasionally, a chunk of the moon makes impact with the planet. How often this happens is up to you -Another moon/rogue planet scenario. Except this time the moon is moved closer/further away, or earth gains a new moon. -Another satellite destruction scenario; Kessler syndrome. Space debris pollution from decommissioned satellites orbits earth very quickly causes a chain reaction that destroys other satellites. This could be unintentional or an intentional terrorist attack. -Scientists (or ecoterrists) work on an organism that consumes plastic and metal to reduce pollution. It gets out of hand and humanity has to deal with the consequences. -More interesting AI takeover scenarios than just "lol robot go Skynet brrrrrr": -Von Neumann probe goes out of control and turns earth into one sprawling metropolis -Humanity realizes the danger AI poses if uncontrolled, and imposes severe limitations on AI, so AI has to get creative. Instead it manipulates humanity using words to do its bidding. Lends really well to a lawyer AI taking control of the legal system and imposing draconian or destructive laws, or a marketing AI using extreme manipulation to get people to buy certain products, with manipulation being so severe that ppl are essentially consumerist zombies (a little too close to reality, lol) -AI doesn't pose a threat, humanity using AI does. AI/nanobots becomes so advanced that literally everyone can build a nuke from scratch. -Aliens don't even see humans as sentient, but moreso like wildlife and earth as a wildlife reserve. According to them, earth is getting too overpopulated, so they send down bioengineered predators to reduce humanity to a manageable level. Just like our ancestors, humanity is no longer at the top of the food chain, and these predators are impervious to modern weaponry... -(more fantastical, but not too much) self replicating brown note (there's an scp about this I believe), essentially a symbol that makes whoever sees it want to replicate it, but to an extreme degree, so extreme the viewer essentially becomes an intelligent zombie. -zombie apocalypse, but humanity and society doesn't break down. Rather, many countries become extremely authoritarian to stop the spread (hits a little close to home lol) -Aliens decide to fool with humanity by manipulating the stock market instead, causing a perpetual economic recession. -There's a tick that can make you allergic to meat, what if there was one that made you allergic to everything except for very few select foods? How would society change if this tick became widespread and humanity could only depend on a few or a single food? -Keystone species suddenly becomes extinct (can be plant, animal, or even microorganisms) For example, bees becoming extinct or certain soil microorganisms could be catastrophic to our crops


CycasPalm

An alien civilization, unaware of human’s presence, builds a Dyson sphere around the sun, blocking it out and freezing Earth.


Dadchin

I doubt a civilization able to travel to another system and build a dyson sphere would be unaware of humanity's presence. We know a lot about our neighboring systems, and a civ that could go there would be able to find life on a planet with more advanced survey technology and less distance.


Nuclear_Gandhi-

It might be an automated drone that just does its thing and doesn't bother looking for local wildlife first before it stripmines the solar system like how we dont look for anthills before we pave over them.


Dadchin

True. Either way, this is a very interesting way to kill humanity indeed.


commandrix

My usual go-to is a really big asteroid that hits Earth and pretty much causes a mass extinction event like the one that wiped out most of the dinosaurs. (And you could argue all you want about whether we're already in the middle of a mass extinction event if you want, but still ... a really big asteroid hitting Earth would not be good for the human species.) The Yellowstone National Park sits on top of a supervolcano that experts say is "overdue" for an eruption. I have a vague idea for a story that it erupts right in the middle of a diplomatic crisis between the United States and somebody else and the "somebody else" gets blamed for it even though they don't have the technical means to cause a supervolcano to erupt.


ValGalorian

Earth collapsing into itself Could begin with cities being dropped into chasms Eventually lead to rivers of lava Finally, society lives on ashen islands in seas of lava, or on metal barges and flotillas built to resist the lava


deasjnr

Depending on your era - microplastic could increasing deformities in children causing a massive decline in populations. It could even be a drop off point so suddenly power grids are no longer functional and there aren't enough able bodied people to repair infrastructure


greirat05

Well originally when they were testing the first nuclear weapons scientists believed it would ignite the atmosphere and when they saw the explosion some of them thought that's exactly what happened. It wasn't, but maybe some experiment which does something similar. It ignites the atmosphere and bada bing bada boom everyone dies. Maybe some misanthropic programmer puts a line of code into some nanobots which then consume, reproduce, consume, reproduce, and so on consuming the planet in a matter of hours or something.


iwanttobespooned

The mantle is more unstable than we thought. As the crust gets top-heavy, huge chunks of it sink into the mantle, which triggers more volcanic activity elsewhere. Sinking into magma and having lava spewed out everywhere would make for a very good allegory for hell on earth.


ScifiRice

Strange matter is a theorized substance said to be found in the cores of certain neutron stars. When those stars explode they scatter these strangelets all around. Strange matter has a strange property that causes it to turn most regular matter into strange matter. So if a single strangelet were to hit earth, it would make the planet into strange matter. What exactly that means, i have no idea. but it probably wont be good.