5 Kinds of Apocalypses

Congratulations, you survived the end of the world. That means you’re very capable, pretty clever, or extremely lucky. Regardless of how you survived, not dying is just the beginning, and life after the apocalypse is not going to be easy. Be prepared for the end of the world as we know it and the post-apocalypse with Wasteland Hacks. 

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What Fresh Hell Is This? 

Based on some of my hate mail, many people are convinced that there is only one kind of apocalypse possible. I don’t know exactly what they have in my mind but I have been assured that there is nothing funny about it.

The truth is, there are many possible apocalyptic events and when you first step out of your bunker, you’d better know what kind of end-of-the-world scenario you’re dealing with pretty damn quick.

The ‘Splody Kind

If everything looks like Australia, people are wearing tires and there’s a sudden abundance of leather BDSM costumes around, you’ve got yourself a nuclear apocalypse. Now, the chances are this one made quite a racket when it was happening so it probably won’t come as a surprise. But even if you somehow slept through the exchange of intercontinental ballistic missiles, it should be easy to identify. There’s going to be lots of rubble, lots of craters and lots of road warrioring going on. This is also where you’re going to get your giant scorpions.

The Sneezy Kind

With a biological attack, there is going to be less devastation to the infrastructure. That’s the good news. The bad news is that one cough could be the end of you. It’s easy enough to hide from bloodthirsty raiders, but hiding from an airborne bug that turns your insides to goo is a little more difficult.

The cities are going to empty out in short order as people attempt to spread out. You’re going to get a lot of nature reclaiming the urban landscape which will ultimately lead to dangerous animal encounters in shopping malls and such as wildlife proliferates.

And plant people. I don’t know why you get plant people. You just do.

The of the Third Kind

An alien invasion is going to be pretty easy to identify because of all the aliens. They could be gray, green or hidden inside giant tripods, but they will be decidedly not human. They’ll flatten the cities first as per the Wells-Emmerich protocols so most of the remnants of humanity will be hiding out and trying to develop a virus (biological or computer) to defeat the invaders. A good portion of the survivors could possibly be enslaved if the aliens need to look extra cruel. One final way to know if it’s an alien apocalypse is all the probing. There’s going to be a lot of probing going on because aliens can’t seem to get enough of it.

The Flesh-Eating Kind

Honestly, in about 6 out of 10 apocalypses you’re going to get some form of zombie. You could have radioactive mutants that act like zombies or biological agents that make people crave human flesh and so on. What we’re talking about here is the old-fashioned magic kind of zombies. The ones that climb out of their graves and start biting the slowest and the dumbest among us. The infection then works its way up the food chain until almost everyone is running around looking for a bite of brains. The biggest clue you’re in a proper zombie apocalypse is that there are no clues. It’s very rare that anyone knows what caused it, they just stepped outside one day and there were zombies everywhere.

The Clanky Kind

If you’re being pursued by a murderous robot, chances are good you’re in a robot apocalypse. Even though the actual uprising will feel sudden, this is one apocalypse we should have seen coming. We let the robots drive our cars, pick our music and give us viewing recommendations. They know everything about us and even have permission to view our calendars. We’re easy pickings. And if you’re thinking, I’ll be fine, I was an early adopter and computers are my friend, just think about how you speak to Alexa or Siri when no one else is listening. Yeah, you deserve it just like the rest of us.