My personal favorites are Adventure time and Fallout.

Also, dear God no one even mention anything about salad fingers. That crap gives me nightmares.

EDIT: Lulz I forgot the Hunger Games.

Terminator (the future war scenes)

The Mad Max/Road Warrior setting.

Loved the vehicular combat...

Fallout is always a great post APOC setting. I also like MadMax and the Postman (kevin kostner) setting as well. Very cool settings

Fallout and Zombieland.

Fallout: PRetty cool. I wish is had a bit less of the 50's(that decade scares me)
40k...Well technically it is. The Golden age of technology was brought down and never acheived agin. forcing others to scavenge it. If thats not a post-apoc i dont know what is.

Yea, the next Fallout game needs to be more like the originals, you know, IN THE fething FUTURE! I like the current games and all sure, but I agree, the 40s(was decent) and then the 50s , just annoy me

SM Stirling's "emberverse".

Shredsmore wrote:Also, dear God no one even mention anything about salad fingers. That crap gives me nightmares.

You just mentioned it. Just sayin'.

I'd have to say Fallout, but that's mainly because I haven't played many post-apocalyptic video games or read any stories based in a post-apocalyptic land etc.

hotsauceman1 wrote:Fallout: PRetty cool. I wish is had a bit less of the 50's(that decade scares me)
40k...Well technically it is. The Golden age of technology was brought down and never acheived agin. forcing others to scavenge it. If thats not a post-apoc i dont know what is.

Nah, i'd still consider 40k a space opera. A very dark, twisted space opera.

Fallout is a pretty awesome universe. And I really liked The Road but that isn't really a scifi universe.

Fallout is probably one of my favorites. Book of Eli has the same feeling to it. Although would be nice if it would expand more into what happens next. Like a sequel to new vegas where NCR, or Legion, or Free Vegas have won.

40K needs the same treatment (at least something with 50k).

I also like the setting of Post Nuke. It was a webcomic I used to read but I haven't really kept up with it.

Do you think that Lord of the Flies could be considered post-apocalyptic? You have a terrible disaster (plane crash) and then society subsequently breaks down. If so, that'd be mine.

I always loved all the Rifts books personally, the game was just lame, but the material was cool, although it just smashed every possible genre all together at once and any questions were glossed over by...Wizard!

Definitely the Fallout universe. The combination of future tech and 50s society is just awesome.

Plus, Liberty Prime.

sparkywtf wrote:Fallout is probably one of my favorites. Book of Eli has the same feeling to it. Although would be nice if it would expand more into what happens next. Like a sequel to new vegas where NCR, or Legion, or Free Vegas have won.

40K needs the same treatment (at least something with 50k).

I also like the setting of Post Nuke. It was a webcomic I used to read but I haven't really kept up with it.

Just started Post Nuke after reading your comment, have to say I'm enjoying it so far. Definitely reminds me of The Walking Dead with its art style and also its main character. If anyone else is interested, there's a link here: http://www.postnukecomic.com
Black and white, just like it should be.

Anyway, for favorite post-apoc universes:
Can't go wrong with Mad Max/Roadwarrior. Fallout (the older ones) are great. The future sequences of Terminator 1 and 2 are absolutely fantastic and really made an impression on me as a kid. Same with Mad Max.

Akira is pretty cool as well, and in a way I do consider it to be post-Apoc although it's primarily Cyperpunk.

My other favorite post apoc universe is (yes tooting my own horn) the one I made, Pirates of the Crimson Galaxy (or Crimson Galaxy). Basically earth gets annihilated,Mankind rebuilds from the ashes,eventually discovers faster than light travel and leaves Earth to go conquer the galaxy.

Kind Regards,
Vladsimpaler

Fallout
Resistance
What Half-Life GETS NO MENTION? HERESY!
Bioshock kinda counts I guess

Mad Max for me.

Looking at the official timeline Nintendo released, I'd have to say A Link To The Past.

Shredsmore wrote:My personal favorites are Adventure time

What? This Adventure Time?

Independence Day

Private_Joker wrote:Terminator (the future war scenes)

YES especially the ones from T2 and T3,

not the awful batman T4

Half-life and Left 4 dead, also Killing Floor gets a good mention here as well.

Ahtman wrote:

Shredsmore wrote:My personal favorites are Adventure time

What? This Adventure Time?

Adventure time takes place after a nuclear war has destroyed modern civilization (its never really directly addressed, I'll just reference the Great Mushroom War)

As for me, Mad Max ftw. Gotta love the classics.

LordofHats wrote:I'll just reference the Great Mushroom War)

Considering there is a kingdom full of talking candy I would have thought it was a war of animated mushrooms.

Ahtman wrote:

LordofHats wrote:I'll just reference the Great Mushroom War)

Considering there is a kingdom full of talking candy I would have thought it was a war of animated mushrooms.

Yeah I forget how the issue came up. Ultimately it got settled in a panel where the shows creator confirmed that the series takes place after a nuclear war (there are other references in the show but I'm not that into Adventure Time myself so I only know a few of them).

EDIT: On the other hand though, the show isn't really all that apocalyptic. Its a little cheery for that

Well, Wikipedia says this about the matter:

"Although not explicitly stated, the setting of the "Land of Ooo" is a post-apocalyptic continent,[11] after the "Great Mushroom War." According to Ward, the show takes place "after the bombs have fallen and magic has come back into the world"."

It's Wikipedia, so take it as you will. I don't watch the show, just thought I'd throw it out there.

I think for favorites I'd have to go with the Dark Cloud world. Sure, the game's entire plot is you restoring the world to its former glory, but just going through every city, seeing them completely empty of anything is kind of depressing.

Oh, and hey, I'll go with the Magic: the Gathering worlds of Lorwynn/Shadowmoor. It was really kind of a shock seeing Lorwynn so full of life and goodness, then at the end of Morningtide the entire land is plunged into darkness.

LordofHats wrote:
Yeah I forget how the issue came up. Ultimately it got settled in a panel where the shows creator confirmed that the series takes place after a nuclear war (there are other references in the show but I'm not that into Adventure Time myself so I only know a few of them).

The big one I remember was Finn and Jake finding the Ice Kings home movies describing how he was an antiquarian studying a crown he bought from a guy in Scandinavia.

I only remember the one with the movies and the one where they go into Marcelyne's (sp?) head ans see a memory of a younger her walking through a ruined city.

Fallout and/or Mad Max universe but I haven't had much exposure to different post-apocalyptic settings (despite my love for them) so I might be missing out on a lot of stuff.

KingCracker wrote:Fallout is always a great post APOC setting. I also like MadMax and the Postman (kevin kostner) setting as well. Very cool settings

The Postman is awesome! One of my favorite post-apocalyptic movies for sure!


Besides Mad Max, some of my other favorite post-apoc settings is the one from Book of Eli, and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

I'm gonna go with Real Life.

We came back pretty strong after that apocalypse that wiped out all those giant lizards. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Locclo wrote:Oh, and hey, I'll go with the Magic: the Gathering worlds of Lorwynn/Shadowmoor. It was really kind of a shock seeing Lorwynn so full of life and goodness, then at the end of Morningtide the entire land is plunged into darkness.

Awesome example. That was a truly cool block, art-wise at least. I'm not MtG enough to rate it otherwise. Nice genre-bending usage of post-apocolyptic though.

I'd say Borderlands but it depends what you class as an apocalypse...

Mad Max probably.

Gamewise it would have to be the Fallout universe but for movie-wise it would have to be Mad Max and Planet of the Apes.

Well Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star) is post apoc and I rather enjoy it. Mad Max and The Road Warrior are rather good also, although Mad Max is clearly superior

Appleseed is also a rather good post apoc show.

GalacticDefender wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:Fallout: PRetty cool. I wish is had a bit less of the 50's(that decade scares me)
40k...Well technically it is. The Golden age of technology was brought down and never acheived agin. forcing others to scavenge it. If thats not a post-apoc i dont know what is.

Nah, i'd still consider 40k a space opera. A very dark, twisted space opera.

Fallout is a pretty awesome universe. And I really liked The Road but that isn't really a scifi universe.

Yanno, I ALMOST posted the road as well, but stopped for that reason. I love that movie. Its so....dark

Definitely MLP. That's about as gritty post-human as it gets
In truth, I would say fallout.

Now here is a question I have..

Would Firefly be considered post apoc? Earth did have too many to sustain so it kind fits the idea.

Also I did forget about the Half Life universe. That does seem to be post apoc for sure.

Firefly and Half-Life are, imo, not post-apocalyptic. They're dystopic. EDIT: Actually I'm iffy on if thats even opinion

The Stand, Planet of the Apes, Fallout, in that order.

Ooo, that stand, I'd forgotten about that one...wow...the TV series really aged badly...

Jihadnik wrote:Ooo, that stand, I'd forgotten about that one...wow...the TV series really aged badly...

I didn't see the series until about 3-4 years ago and I thought it was still fairly decent. The novel is timeless. My only complaint is that it lags at points and Flagg's characterization seems inconsistent.

Oh, almost forgot Walking Dead.

Locclo wrote:Well, Wikipedia says this about the matter:

"Although not explicitly stated, the setting of the "Land of Ooo" is a post-apocalyptic continent,[11] after the "Great Mushroom War." According to Ward, the show takes place "after the bombs have fallen and magic has come back into the world"."

Exactly. It is never actually addressed directly, but Finn mentions a "Great Mushroom War" and wastelands and destroyed cities are very frequent settings. Also the episode "Susan Strong" has mutants in it.
Oh and the "Great Mushroom War" is a subtle hint at mushroom clouds most likely. Also the episode with young Marceline and the one where Ice King bought the the crown from the Norwegian dude before the apocalypse made me really realize that it was was post-apoc, but I had been somewhat expecting that.

T-T-T-TRIPLE EDIT: Also the episode where the Lich escaped and his lair was a trashed and abandoned old subway station littered with corpses.

Wall-E?

Amaya wrote:

Jihadnik wrote:Ooo, that stand, I'd forgotten about that one...wow...the TV series really aged badly...

I didn't see the series until about 3-4 years ago and I thought it was still fairly decent. The novel is timeless. My only complaint is that it lags at points and Flagg's characterization seems inconsistent.

I think its still pretty decent myself. Ill usually watch it when I see it on TV somewheres. But I agree, Flagg was all over the place in the show.

I like the Macrosse series after the Zentraedi destroy the Earth, I believe it is called Reconstruction Blues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nucnyrJUMlo

I'm also a fan of the post-apoc depicted in "The Blood of Heros" or also "Salute to the Jugger" starring Rutger Haur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blood_of_Heroes

I also like the world of the "Six-String Samurai" as it is heavy on the 50's post-apoc, and has a guitar wielding, top hat wearing, version of Death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-String_Samurai

Finally, I kind of like the version portrayed in "A Boy and His Dog". This is a film featuring Don Johnson and a talking dog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog

Waterworld

/leaves room

Waterworld was a funny one

The best around.

Ahtman wrote:

The best around.

I remember that one.

killykavekommando wrote:Oh, almost forgot Walking Dead.

I'm really liking that show.

mainly because its a classic and no one has mentioned it yet "Logans Run"

Logan's run is a dystopic not post-apocalyptic.

Random Factoid of the Day Yall

Dystopia: A society that exists in a totalitarian or socially regressive state under the guise of utopia.

Post-Apocalypse: A society that exists in a world that openly sucks as a result of large scale disaster.

LordofHats wrote:Logan's run is a dystopic not post-apocalyptic.

Random Factoid of the Day Yall

Dystopia: A society that exists in a totalitarian or socially regressive state under the guise of utopia.

Post-Apocalypse: A society that exists in a world that openly sucks as a result of large scale disaster.

Unless I'm mistaken, it's kinda both. It's a dystopian city set inside of a post-apocalyptic world. Granted, I haven't seen the movie nor read the book (read all that on Wikipedia's synopsis of both) but if it's right, then the city is set smack in the middle of an abandoned, destroyed Earth.

LordofHats wrote:Logan's run is a dystopic not post-apocalyptic

New movie idea:

Hogan's Run

Hogan's Heroes meets Logan's Run, but Schultz is the Runner.

There are often overlaps but typically speaking the themes and archetypes of the genre's are wholestically different from one another, i.e. why many dystopic stories take place after apocalyptic disasters, they are not post-apocalyptic due to lacking requisite themes and ideas integral to the setting (nominally that societies in dystopic settings are much more ordered and less desperate than is typical of a post-apocalyptic one). EDIT: I suppose though this is me talking in generalities about something that is really quite subjective, I do do that alot XD

Hogan's Run

Hogan's Heroes meets Logan's Run, but Schultz is the Runner.

I'd watch that.

Panzer Dragoon, but only if I get a dragon or weird airship - the wildlife would otherwise be intolerable.

Anyone mention 1984 yet?

killykavekommando wrote:Anyone mention 1984 yet?

Dystopic not post-apoc.

Yeah 1984 I don't think even has a disaster in its background so there's no danger of overlap for that one XD

Alraz_ka wrote:

killykavekommando wrote:Anyone mention 1984 yet?

Dystopic not post-apoc.

Arguably. Same with Fahrenheit 451

LordofHats wrote:Yeah 1984 I don't think even has a disaster in its background so there's no danger of overlap for that one XD

I thought 1984 had like nuclear war, which is why they joined into the three powers, and now they continually fight.

There was a war, but I don't think it was a nuclear war. I can't remember if any details were given about the war itself actually. Either way, the world has survived enough that modern states, trade, and society itself have not outright collapsed. The world of 1984 I think suffer a long period of political upheaval and chaos, not an apocalyptic disaster. I could be remembering the book wrong, I'm not a fan of Orwell.

If more than 10% of the population survives, it is not post apoc, imo.

Even if a big nuclear war did change everything in 1984, it's really not post-apocalyptic unless it killed most of the population. The fact that there's still three major forces around fighting each other kind of nixes that idea.

Granted, I've never read 1984 (or seen the movie). I watched like the first twenty minutes of the movie, got bored, and decided to put it away.

Amaya wrote:If more than 10% of the population survives, it is not post apoc, imo.

I think it's really going to depend on if someone believes in genre overlap. While I do believe in it, at the same time I tend to look at genre as being defined by theme and arche-type which is something that tends to be exclusive in some areas. For example, post-apocalyptic stories are about the collapse of society in the wake of disaster. Dystopia can't really use that theme because the existence of an oppressive society is kind of the whole point. In this way, I'd argue that post-apocalyptic and dystopic themes are mutually exclusive to one another (generally).

I mean my view on Star Wars is that its a fantasy. Sure it has a bunch of sci-fi stuff littered around, aliens, space ships, technology, but at its core its themes and ideas are all those of a fantasy story. Normally this is called a science fantasy or a space opera, but I tend to see the former as "fantasy in space" and the later as being more a style of story rather than a genre.

But then genre is kind of a muddled word torn to bits beyond all recognition.

I would say a lot of the post apoc universes brought up have a dystopia feel.

Anything with any sort of organized group is going to be dystopic. Look at Fallout. You had the enclave, brotherhood of steel, NCR, Legion, Mr. Vegas. All of those ruled in some sort of dystopic way.

For me, my own favorites are:


"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"
"Blade Runner"
"Book of Eli"

and the Mad Max series, though, tbh it got quite weird with "Beyond Thunderdome"

If anyone has read the short story "By the Waters of Babylon", it's freaking awesome. I would read a novel set in that universe if someone made one.

At the first part you don't even know it's post-apoc. It seems like it's set in the past or in some fantasy setting, but you pick up subtle hints. Things like "Going into the Red Lands to gather metal from the houses of the gods". Anyway, the "gods" turn out to have been modern people, and that is revealed when the main character goes to the "city of the gods" which is revealed to be New York city. I picked up on the hints way before the reveal moment though lol.

The story is set way after the apocalypse, where humanity is sort of tribal, but partially civilized. It is far enough after the Event that the people have put it into legend. "The Great Burning" is what they called it.

The Book of the New Sun (I believe thats the title) is very similar GalacticDefender. It is a post-apocalyptic novel but unless you pick up on the subtle hints you'd never know it. If you want something similar to what you described its a trilogy and won the Hugo Award, for what its worth.

Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower' series and also his novel 'The Stand', which are part of the same universe (or multiverse), although each is a stand-alone post-apoc world (nuclear/virus respectively). Also 'The Road', which was less detailed but very powerful.

I'm reading 'universe' as 'setting'.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. One of the best science fiction novels ever published, and - incidentally - an influence on Warhammer 40,000.

Oh, and Oryx and Crake/Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood.

killykavekommando wrote:

Alraz_ka wrote:

killykavekommando wrote:Anyone mention 1984 yet?

Dystopic not post-apoc.

Arguably. Same with Fahrenheit 451

Same with 40k.

40k aside.. Fallout really grabbed me, especially New Vegas. A lot of the 2000AD universe is wonderful, too.

The Book of the New Sun is probably my all-time favourite post-apocalypse/societal-decay setting. The author creates such a vivid and colourful setting, with such strikingly odd and fully-imagined concepts and creations that are often left as a puzzle for the reader to decipher from inferences and observations in the text.

English Assassin wrote:A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. One of the best science fiction novels ever published, and - incidentally - an influence on Warhammer 40,000.

Oh, and Oryx and Crake/Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood.

I'll have to look up ACfL. (Also, your avatar, yesss.)

Winterkit wrote:The Book of the New Sun is probably my all-time favourite post-apocalypse/societal-decay setting. The author creates such a vivid and colourful setting, with such strikingly odd and fully-imagined concepts and creations that are often left as a puzzle for the reader to decipher from inferences and observations in the text.

Wonderful series of books, probably the last decent (i.e. not a Tolkien rehash) fantasy novels written (possible exceptions for Neil Gaiman and China Mieville). At the risk of nitpicking, I'd say they strictly belonged to the "dying earth" subgenre, rather than the post-apocalyptic, but they are nonetheless novels which any literate fan of fantasy/sci-fi should have read.

The Stand, Day/ Land of the Dead, POTA, Mad Max/ Road Warrior, Damnation Alley, Hell comes to Frogtown.

Did you know the name of a movie that
1. narrates the adventure of a postman, doing various delivery tasks carried over from the prostponed ones (due to the nuke wars)
2. one of the settlement has a curtain wall. built of scrapmetals, and has one 105mm Howitzer guarding its entrance.
3. one of the character is a 'wasteland warlord'. stylized himself 'lord, prince, duke, king'... well i'm only watched some part of it and not a trailer.
4. and yes. it is post-apocalypse setting. the ol' mighty USA collapsed.
?

Lone Cat wrote:Did you know the name of a movie that
1. narrates the adventure of a postman, doing various delivery tasks carried over from the prostponed ones (due to the nuke wars)
2. one of the settlement has a curtain wall. built of scrapmetals, and has one 105mm Howitzer guarding its entrance.
3. one of the character is a 'wasteland warlord'. stylized himself 'lord, prince, duke, king'... well i'm only watched some part of it and not a trailer.
4. and yes. it is post-apocalypse setting. the ol' mighty USA collapsed.
?

The Postman

http://romanticallyapocalyptic.com/1 is pretty fun

3 pages in and no one has mentioned the universe inhabited by Judge Dredd? By far my favourite- the cursed earth idea had a big impact on me as a little fella (Started reading the comics aged 8).
Hell, it even has 3 apocalypses that I can think of happen in the actual comics! (Can you even pluralise apocalypse?) Necropolis, the Apocalypse War (which was AWESOME) and Judgement Day.

Book of Eli sucked balls, but The Road came out at the same time, and that was some proper, bleak post apocalypse stuff.

Overall it's my favourite sci fi setting, probably why I love the 3rd edition onwards orks so much- they borrow a lot of their look from that kind of fiction.

Also, Fallout is the game I've enjoyed the most in my entire life for just that reason.

Fallout is by far my favorite; I love the 50's Shenanigans! Aside from that?
The Road
Monte Cook's World of Darkness
Book of Eli
A Boy and His Dog
The Stand
28 Days and 28 Weeks Later
The Walking Dead

^ Thanks meow ^
There was an RTS game using the post-apoc settings. the story was set in the SAME universe and no 'dieselpunk' divergency, yes we don't really NEED that!.
yes the name of the RTS is KKnD: Krush Kill n Destroy.
made by ozzies and it was a success.
it was one of my favorites. if it's not because of its ungodly difficulty i'd beat it without needin' a cheat..
the KKnD2. the sequel. seems to be its finale. but 'ey! what happened to Melbourne House? why ain't there be any signs of KKnD3 ? isn't the KKnD2 success?

the KKnD series seems to be more or less inspired by MadMax series (Mel Gibson rose to his fame from there). the 'evolved' factions are tribal-themed. representing 'post apocalypse barbarians'. the 'survivors' represents the 'civilized' humans.. in the first settings. the Evolved gained access to motorized vehicles (which heavily influenced by Mad Max series, made of junk just like real life technicals. and decorated with skulls and spikes to scare the weak, while enrages the fearless).
personally i'd want to make a C&C: YR mod based on post-apocalypse settings. but i'm yet to design how many factions should it be? and how should each faction looks like?

Does Star Trek count?

I mean, a major event for humans in Star Trek canon is the Eugenic Wars/World War 3 on Earth, which killed 630 million people, destroyed nearly every major city and plunged Earth in to nuclear winter. It would take two generations to rebuild and even then the earliest days of Untied Earth would be haunted by it.

Other then that, I'd say Fallout and Battlestar Galactica (see what I did there).

The world of TORG.

I had a lot of fun there a long time ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torg

Zardoz and Fallout.

How did I forget Adventure Time?

Now, if there were an Adventure Time Fallout.. That would be perfect.

Fallout 3.

It's weird actually living right near where it takes place.

You can help by adding Fredericksburg to the Fallout universe

No love for Metro 2033?

Fallout

Ghost in the shell

L4D

War of the Worlds

Falling Skies (but only because we see so much about the surviving)

The book of Eli

Does War of the Worlds count? I mean, I admit it's been a long while since I read the book, but didn't the whole thing get cut off mid-apocalypse?

I would count Succession War era Battletech as 'post apocalypse' and in doing so becomes my No1 choice.

Does the C&C Tiberian series fits the Post-apoc class?

LordofHats wrote:Logan's run is a dystopic not post-apocalyptic.

Random Factoid of the Day Yall

Dystopia: A society that exists in a totalitarian or socially regressive state under the guise of utopia.

Post-Apocalypse: A society that exists in a world that openly sucks as a result of large scale disaster.

Collins Dictionary wrote:
dystopia
n an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be
(C19 (coined by J. S. Mill): from dys- + Utopia)
♦ dystopian adj, n

No totalitarian regimes or social regressiveness mentioned.

I think it would be fairer to say that Post-Apocalypticness is a subset of dystopian setting, so that while all Post-Apocalyptic settings are dystopian, not every dystopian setting is post-apocalyptic (so the point about Logan's Run still stands, and oppressive, totalitarian city-states are not incompatible with a PA world...)

Dystopia, noun.

A society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.

dictionary.com

Unfortunately dictionaries are utterly worthless for discussing something as complex as literary theme. How to define a 'dystopia' is probably gonna very but the one's we've pulled from dictionaries are so vague and abstract almost any story could fit them (except one that is utopic )

LordofHats wrote:

Dystopia, noun.

A society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.

dictionary.com

Unfortunately dictionaries are utterly worthless for discussing something as complex as literary theme. How to define a 'dystopia' is probably gonna very but the one's we've pulled from dictionaries are so vague and abstract almost any story could fit them (except one that is utopic )

I disagree.
A good definition is short and to the point, and the one posted above for a dystopia certainly fits the bill. It might not fit into how you view the subjects, but it fits them both. And it certainly doesn't fit almost any story.
Ghost stories aren't about squalor, disease, overcrowding or oppression except incidentally. In a Whodunnit the world isn't as bad as it gets before getting worse. Rise and fall of empires type epics do incorporate a lot of the themes (and then some), but the focus lies elsewhere. Love stories, coming-of-age? Let's not go there.

Also, the definition you've posted doesn't rule out post-apoc:
human misery? Check.
Squalor? Check.
Oppression (from roving warbands, local tyrants, the suddenly hostile environment)? Check.
Disease? Check - often as the cause, even.
Overcrowding? Relative to the suddenly severely reduced resources - Check .


Also, how come no one's yet mentioned I am Legend?
Keith Laumer's short story "The night of the Trolls" is also quite awesome.

Bran Dawri wrote:I disagree.
A good definition is short and to the point, and the one posted above for a dystopia certainly fits the bill. It might not fit into how you view the subjects, but it fits them both. And it certainly doesn't fit almost any story.
Ghost stories aren't about squalor, disease, overcrowding or oppression except incidentally. In a Whodunnit the world isn't as bad as it gets before getting worse. Rise and fall of empires type epics do incorporate a lot of the themes (and then some), but the focus lies elsewhere. Love stories, coming-of-age? Let's not go there.

Also, the definition you've posted doesn't rule out post-apoc:
human misery? Check.
Squalor? Check.
Oppression (from roving warbands, local tyrants, the suddenly hostile environment)? Check.
Disease? Check - often as the cause, even.
Overcrowding? Relative to the suddenly severely reduced resources - Check .

A story about urban poor in <insert major city>

Misery? Check
Squalor? Check
Oppression? China or USA?
Disease? Most definitely
Overcrowding? Yep

That the problem with bulleted lists. They'd not very useful unless someone only wants the most rudimentary understanding of something. Post-apocalyptic stories tend to be about survival with scarce resources in a ruined world. Dystopic stories tend not to be about survival at all. I'd go so far as to say that 'survival' is the most basic element of post-apocalypse. EDIT: Then again this would also depend on if we're going to separate theme from setting or if we consider them integral to one another.

This is something that is open for interpretation, but trying to boil theme down to a sentence or a checklist (as we've seen us both attempt in this thread) is proving inadequate.

Um, my definition didn't include a bulleted list - yours did, and I was trying to make the exact same point you're making now, namely that they're no good (so the bulleted list you've been supporting in the form of a sentence is just as fallacious).

And it's no surprise that a story about ghettoes is pretty darn dystopic - those are pretty darn dystopic places to have to live.

This is what happens when I think something out as I talk about it @_@

no love for KKnD series??

interestingly. KKnD released in the 1997. same year as FALLOUT. saying that one copy each other's storyline is nonsense.

LordofHats wrote:This is what happens when I think something out as I talk about it @_@

Hey, making it up as you go along is a very useful skill .
Keep practicing; you're not doing too badly.

Locclo wrote:Does War of the Worlds count? I mean, I admit it's been a long while since I read the book, but didn't the whole thing get cut off mid-apocalypse?

At least the movie doesnt.