As a fan of the apocalypse, I have but one simple request.
Can we please just forget about zombies already? Zombies are boring. Zombies are the laziest, least interesting apocalyptic scenario I can think of. Seriously, not even the sun frying the planet or a big asteroid or nuclear winter is as lazy or as boring as zombies. Zombies have no depth. Zombies are zeitgeisty for all the wrong reasons. Zombies ought to be re-dead. Seriously, I’ve had it with motherfucking zombie motherfucking apocalypses.
In the interests of constructive criticism, here are some more interesting apocalyptic scenarios:
Bad luck as a contagious disease.
Infinitely malleable minions overtake their masters. (Thanks, HPL!)
Non-Euclidian geometers invade the planet.
Spread across the genome of millions of people are parts of the blueprint for an evil super-parasite. When two bearers unwittingly mate, puzzle pieces fit together until…
The world is made of words. As the meanings of words change, so does the world. The meanings of words change.
There exists a device which allows one to exchange years of one’s life with pleasure. The more years you give up, the more intense the pleasure.
Widespread infertility. Wars break out over the few people who are not infertile.
One billion years into the future, someone trips over the cord that powers The Matrix.
Thousands of years of progress in architecture and engineering has managed to miss a structural flaw that renders all buildings vulnerable if extremely obscure, unlikely climatic conditions occur. Extremely obscure, unlikely climatic conditions occur.
The world is being slowly overtaken by closed time-like curves.
Through an unfortunate genetic mutation, humans lose the capacity for empathy.
Someone invents time travel, goes back and shoots everyone’s grandfathers.
There is a flaw in the principle of the excluded middle.
It turns out all the lunatics were right after all. Rich people pay quack doctors to induce schizophrenia. The US government trains psychonauts for reconaissance missions into the aether.
There exists a substance which instantly makes those substances it comes into contact with into its own kind. (Thanks, KV!)
Carbon-based life is about to die out as iron-based life forms roam around the wilderness, robbing whatever carbon-based life still exists of its precious Fe. (Thanks, J-HRa!)
One day, you wake up and find that everyone else has hanged themselves. You don’t know if they were crazy or you are.
We are running out of organic material of the right chirality.
Mutually assured destruction. The twist: our enemies are ourselves, made out of antimatter.
Mutually assured destruction. The twist: our enemies are ourselves.
Mutually assured destruction. The twist: our enemies aren’t.
Mutually assured construction.
Ghosts are real. We are running out of space for ghosts to haunt. The world grinds to a halt due to overpopulation of the dead.
There is an opposite world inside of mirrors. This world declares war on us. (Thanks, JLB!)
Our shadows rebel.
We are zombies. We are running out of humans to eat.
Oct 23, 2012