Worldbuilding

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The aftermath of an averted apocalypse (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago by early_riser@lemmy.world to c/worldbuilding@lemmy.world

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I won't take credit for this idea. It was posted on r/worldbuilding but was nuked by the mods for "asking for content", as usual only after lots of interesting discussion. Anyway...

Unbeatable aliens show up and blow up half the moon as a show of strength. They say that they'll be back in six months to annihilate the Earth. For the next six months humanity lives in the shadow of their inevitable destruction, with all that mindset entails.

Then when the time finally comes, nothing. No earth shattering kaboom, no heroic last stand, the aliens just never show. What happens next? How do you rebuild?

It's like your boss coming to you on 4:45 on Friday afternoon and telling you in a super serious tone "I need you in my office first thing Monday morning." and then completely forgetting about it on Monday.

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[–] early_riser@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The OP explicitly said to ignore the effects of the moon's destruction, the aliens only did it to put their money where their mouth is.

The original point was to examine how humanity deals with what they did over those six months, but I like your suggestions about why the aliens didn't show. That was one of my immediate thoughts as well, that we wouldn't really consider ourselves out of the woods, in fact now it's worse because we don't have a set date.

As for how we deal with the aftermath, I'm reminded of The Purge. There would be a lot of man's inhumanity to man going on, but now we have to look each other in the eyes on the bus to work.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 2 points 2 days ago

So the Moon is like this

The social questions of how people deal with it in that six months and after nothing happens is complex. If we survived ourselves to that point and realized we were overdue, would that be enough for those left to stop fighting and discuss the what-ifs, and a plan? Honestly you could have all sorts of directions with different outcomes and messages about how people can be to others.