Whitechapel - The Apocalypse and how to cope.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T13:59:11-08:00

So with all this talk going around about the end of the world I thought I'd ask the fine people of Whitechapel a question...

If the end of the world were to happen one day and every one knew it was coming, what kind of apocalypse would you want and how would you spend your final day?

Personally I like the idea of a nuclear holocaust. There's a slight chance of survivors and with the survivors, an increased chance of mutations in the next of kin. The prospect of the world resorting to a post-apocalyptic "Mad Max" or "Escape from N.Y./LA" world, whether it happens with or without me, would put a smile on my face.

And as for what I'd do on the final day...I'd probably find a really nice spot on top of a building in whatever city I'm living in to see all the bombs go off...I think I'll just sit down, listen to some nice old music (songs like "I don't want to set the world on fire" and "We'll meet again" would be perfect. Yeah, I'm cliche but what the hell) and just watch the fireworks.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T14:13:03-08:00

Well Boston University is talking of building a sophisticated biolab in a major residential area of Boston. The kind of biolab the U.S. government uses to conduct genetic testing and research on strains of things that we don't have any cures for. This should be completed in 2016, so I'm thinking we may have a world scale Zombie Apocalypse on our hand at that point anyway.

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse would at least keep things interesting. The trick is to set up a base of operations and keep a low profile and train yourself to be in peak physical and fighting condition. Also, when the looting starts, get out and get supplies early, and get a lot of them. If driven from you home you keep on the move, watch out for bands of remaining humans who want your supplies and hope for the best.

Zombie Apocalypse would be interesting, but I think when all is said and done I'm a big fan of the sun going supernova for no apparent reason and burning the Solar System away in to an outward spreading gas cloud.

Aside from the wide scale orgies and other hedonistic pursuits, which would be obligatory to take part in, I'd try to get in touch with all of the people I've ever been in love with and not had the opportunity or courage to tell them, and finally tell them. I'd say goodbye to all of my closest friend, my family, and thank those people I admire for giving me something to enjoy in my brief stay here on earth. Finally, I'd grab some very, very expensive bottles of Scotch and other assorted delicious alcoholic beverages, head up to the top of my apartment building, preferably with a few close friends and/or my lover (whoever that may be), and kill the bottles while waiting for the show to begin.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T14:14:21-08:00

I'm counting on the world to end based on the Mayan calendar. Happy 32nd birthday to me...

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T14:17:39-08:00

"Aside from the wide scale orgies and other hedonistic pursuits, which would be obligatory to take part in.."

That's why I didn't mention it in my post. It really does go without saying.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T14:22:53-08:00

I'm not picky about the cause, but if there is an apocalypse I'd prefer it to be the kind that just kills everything. Wipe the whole damned human race from the face of the earth. A supernova seems destructive enough, and would be quite cool to watch.

I'd definitely be somewhere safe watching everyone run about in a blind panic. I'd like to go one further on the cliche-o-meter with the music though: REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)". Hell, I'd even learn the lyrics again for the occasion :P.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T14:23:00-08:00

Slowpocalypse. There's something headed our way and we can't avoid it; we have five years until the end.

First year is panic and fire, second year is bickering and clawing at each other while the remaining world powers fight for a solution, third year is panic and paralysis. Fourth year is acceptance. At the end of the fifth year, all of the remainders of humanity gather in one place and sits down together in peace, waiting for the sun to come up one last time.

I assume that this day will be marked by a great deal of outdoor fucking. So, you know. I'm there.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T14:32:49-08:00

I'll take anything that allows me to go out kicking and screaming (hey, its how I entered the world). This would include:
-Zombie Apocolypse
-Human madness and fighting on an epic scale
-Invasion by sophisticated aliens whose only weakness is being hacked apart by significantly rusted machettes

Like Robin I also like the incentive of potential survival and continuation of the speicies...I however do care about being on the winning side ; )

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T14:37:24-08:00

@ hemlock_martini

So what you're saying is we have an awesome year of getting to destroy a lot of stuff with complete disregard to order and safety, then two mediocre years with some more, but smaller scale destruction, but mostly just sitting around in disbelief and trying to ignore what is going to happen. Then we have two peaceful years where we basically just exist and work to find peace within and among ourselves. Finally a last ditch outdoor fuck-fest, followed shortly by rampant death and destruction.

That sounds awesome. Count me in. :-)

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T14:47:09-08:00

I reckon biohazards gonna kill us (just look @ the Foot & Mouth outbreak in Surrey if you think the government believes in secure research facilities).

But zombie-style could be cool. So long as I had plenty of ketamine or something.

Dying holds no terrors for me. Dying painfully, that's a WHOLE other bunch of bother while I'm still alive...

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T15:23:58-08:00

I'm more interested in post-apocalypse than apocalypse personally. I'd love a Mad Max style world, or a zombie apocalypse survival. The cause it's so much what intrigues me but surviving afterwards.

If I have to choose a cause I'd say zombies, genetic virus's that kill millions and genetically alter the survivors into "superhumans" with freakish powers or into just freaks, or general humanity going insane with mass genocide.

Also, any good post-apocalypse survival demands steampunk.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T15:34:42-08:00

Considering that I'm reading The Stand right now, definitely NOT a super flu. Choking to death on your own phlegm is definitely no where near the top of my list of ways I want to die.

I think I'll go along with bschory and say Zombacolypse or your own suggestion of nuclear war.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T17:26:41-08:00

Odd, I was going to post a thread like this when I got home. You beat me to it!

I'd go for Zombie/government collapse followed by an eventual total existence failure of the planet.

During the initial phase, I'd hijack a boat and sail into the Gulf Islands to join the probably already formed pirate armada. Would start saying "Yarr." a lot.

Would raid and pillage to my hearts content and then complete my lifelong dream of cutting down an old-growth tree and making an orchestra of out of it. The last day*months* would be one big orchestral-orgy, then a final recital as the sun came up and the world went boom. Or foomp.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T17:42:45-08:00

I vote zombie also.
Is reading the Max Brooks Zombie Survival Guide adequate preparation? Hmm...We do have a shotgun somewhere...
Probably would have to kill our Mormon neighbours for their Three-Month Supply quick-smart. That's OK, they'll be zombies anyway. Or would end up as zombies eventually. It's an act of mercy.

Definitely a fan of the post-apoc, though, however it happens. If I lived to see it, I'd want to ride around shooting stuff.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T18:09:04-08:00

The Zombie Survival Guide is FANTASTIC. He makes a lot of good suggestions for general survival (and if you press him he'll admit he researched actual zombie survival), and it also is quite entertaining. I'm really looking forward to reading "World War Z".

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T18:09:31-08:00

Anyone here Read McCarthy's The Road? If anyone has so completely imagined the suffering and anguish that comes with a post-apocalyptic loneliness, where the only thing keeping you alive is a hope as battered and ripped to shit as you are. I guess if the world has to end, I'd want it to end in a little ember of hope, I think we're annoyingly resilient fucks, us humans, and we'll take a lot of shit before we give up.

Also, there's some good old fashioned killing to stay alive and foraging in long-abandoned homes for food.

Anyway, an amazing book.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T18:16:50-08:00

I do not think I would cope very well at all. In fact, I think I would be scared, then die. Pretty much.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T18:26:09-08:00

Ooh, I have The Road in my pile of books that need reading before I can justify buying more books. It can go on the top of the pile now.
Also, I read I am Legend a few years back (pre-Will Smith movie) and really liked it. Vampocalypse!

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T18:36:06-08:00

Personally, I've always liked the apocolypse that S.M. Stirling posits in Dies the Fire. A change in the laws of physics renders internal combustion, modern electronicsm gas compression and gunpowder effectively useless, returning mankind to something like a 14th century level of technology, but without guns. I'm not an anachronist and I don't idealize that period in history, but I think that scenario at least allows for the possibility that people will survive.

I spent a lot of time in college talking to friends of mine about the end of the world and reached only one logical conclusion. Unless I plan to take up learning several very old skills and start stocking up on supplies like a Montana survivalist, essentially devoting the rest of my life to that kind of preparation, I will probably die in an apocolypse or shortly thereafter, along with everyone else I know.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T19:04:46-08:00

like a Montana survivalist

:D I grew up in Montana, maybe that's where I keep getting these impulses to learn old skills.

Truthfully though, the apocalypse still comes up in conversation with my friends. I know quite a few farmers, carpenters and other skilled laborers. We all met in University. :P The most popular train of thought is that if the apocalypse comes, we will learn the skills needed to survive by necessity. Having a garden already going and being well stocked would help if the end came quickly, but if you had no food, no infrastructure to draw off of and no skills to speak of, you'd find that starting a fire isn't that hard at all. Neither is gardening or animal husbandry. Just takes lots of patience and love. Which, admittedly is hard to imagine of most people you find in the city day to day, but crisis initiate change.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T20:13:31-08:00

I hope that we [EDIT: all happen to] blink [at the same time] and then everything is just gone. Nuclear winter and all the survivalist-type shenanigans sounds like my idea of hell.

I need a kettle, tea and electric fire within arms reach at all times

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T22:29:03-08:00

Zombie apocalypse is my first choice, but Grey Goo is a close second.

I'd probably spend the last day trying to find my friends.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T22:52:07-08:00

I've thought about it and I hope when the Apocalypse comes about I'll be standing on my roof with a bottle of Bailey's screaming "Fuck yeah! We finally get a mulligan!" Meaning thankfully there are many survivors, none of which are the arrogant type, and even if there are arrogant types...well..they'd learn real quick. Because, unfortunately, I think the Apocalypse will be the only thing to give peace a chance.

Oi. Pass that when you're thru...

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-04T23:36:25-08:00

I prefer the kind of apocalypse I get to live through. No grey goos, supernovas, or the like for me. The most immediate threat, of course, is the melting of the polar ice caps with global social collapse from the resulting decrease in land mass. This is, of course, why I always buy houses at suitably high elevations but with securable basements.

So I plan to spend the days of the panic locked in my basement with my wife and our friends, making sure that we've got everything we can get our hands on to fight off the looters so that it's NOT my last day.

If I'm sure it's my last day -- well, then I get to integrate a lot of shit in my psyche and simply enjoy life without the pressure of future expectations. But who needs an apocalypse for that?

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T03:12:39-08:00

I'm more than fairly certain that waking up one morning to fire and brimstone might be the best apocalypse ever. Forget zombies and all that rot and, even if you don't believe in it, take for a moment the bible's end of the world. Seven headed dragons with naked women riding them? Angels tearing the sky in half like a scroll? The moon turning to blood and stars raining onto the earth? It really does have something for everyone. Years of strife, of plague, of straight crazy talk in the sense of four gents on different colored horses that cut, kill and maim at their leisure. Then, once it is all said and done, one huge flying city of gold comes down from heaven as the new place for humanity to exist. Whatever John was inhaling or shooting or even just casually sipping while he wrote that, I would like to acquire it by the most shady means available.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T06:46:28-08:00

Keep your puny Earth-bound apocalypse. What about hastening the end of the universe itself simply by the act of scientific discovery? By observing dark energy we may be changing the quantum configuration of existence, causing the probability of the universe's survival to fall exponentially.

Should this occur, I may spend my final day sealing a variety of cats into a series of boxes in an attempt to create an escape pod to a safer level of reality.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T06:52:15-08:00

I'm pretty sure that when the apocalypse comes, it'll be my fault. Either directly or karmically.

I'll be going through the phone book in order offering my apologies while holding a tumbler full of scotch.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T06:58:50-08:00

You people all make it sound so enticing. Zombies? Screaming? Lots of fucking? Mutations? Wow, it all sounds like so much fun, but I'm torn. I guess I'll just go with whatever makes the world look like this:

My favourite piece of apocalyptic art "The Great Day of His Wrath" by John Martin. And really, really, you haven't seen it till you've seen it in the flesh. It's at Tate Britain. So go, then tell me you want zombies. Pfft.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T07:43:25-08:00

Should this occur, I may spend my final day sealing a variety of cats into a series of boxes in an attempt to create an escape pod to a safer level of reality.

Hahahaha! Marvelous! Fitting that it'd be cats to save our skin. The little bastards are condescending enough.

I'd have no interest in starting over again in a new world. Whatever your pleasure, Zombies, War, Aliens, Giant Sabre-Toothed Vagina Monsters from Dimension 4X, it doesn't matter to me. I'll watch the show until such a time that I'm dragged into it, then go down fighting, powered by enough amphetamines to make an elephant think it is god.
Also, I'd take up smoking again.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T11:54:57-08:00

For all Max Brooks enthusiasts who enujoyed The Zombie Survival Guide, you really should pick up his World War Z. I thought it was a pretty good read.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:08:32-08:00

I say let's Ragnarok-and-Roll.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:12:50-08:00

Can I be the the Fenris Wolf? :p

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:14:51-08:00

That depends: are you the Fenris Wolf?

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:15:43-08:00

Alas...no. I am not. I can dream can't I?

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:27:08-08:00

Sure, you can dream!

Which is fortunate because you can't be the Fenris Wolf.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:27:13-08:00

Robots. Seriously, we do enough weird shit to them, it's time they hit back, and with a vengeance.

Also, in the event that reincarnation is real, I want to come back as an immortal, all-seeing, all-feeling gleaming chrome six-armed man, run on a fusion pack the size of a Duracell.

But the Zombocalypse would be a hell of a lot of fun. The only problem is that everyone would already know what to do to survive, so it wouldn't really be much of an apocalypse.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:29:59-08:00

Dammit Chris! Made me spit my coffee!

Where's a towel...

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:31:40-08:00

@ Artemis

You're probably right but what a way to let off steam. Banding together and chainsawing some Zombies sounds like a killer Saturday night.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:37:25-08:00

Oh hell yes! There should be a game where a team of zombie hunters is sent out into the Dead Zone with only the clothes on their backs and a Black and Decker tool set, where they are required to use every single tool (including all the nuts and screws) at least once in dispatching an Undead Fiend. Points for creativity and goreificity.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-05T12:46:27-08:00

Black and Decker Zombie Wrecker tool set. Find it in all your post-Apocalyptic Ace Hardware stores.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-07T14:47:31-08:00

Zombie attack would be the way to go really.
Grab my gun, 9 assorted loved ones (10s a good number to re-start the human race isnt it), zen, dvds, books and fish then ramsack tescos and wait it out in my basement.
Which conviently is very well hidden (think like the attic in 30 days of night) but unfortunatly only 5 foot high.
Cant have everything can i.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-07T14:53:07-08:00

If I had cancer and I was on my deathbed, seeing the world erode milllions of stupid little humans off its skin would really put a smile on my face. Just walking through Downtown with ash twisting around me and skeletons on the ground... it'd be strange but it would feel right. Because the way we're going, pushing towards our own ending, that's the only way the third act of this world could end. (Or something like that.)

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-07T15:00:46-08:00

Alien invasion, more mars attacks than war of the worlds mind .

I will be hiding in the woods with an axe handle ... I've yet to find a problem that can't be solved by a good hard beating with a axe handle .... apart from algebra of course.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-07T15:06:03-08:00

In terms of my favoured apocalypse, the world getting eaten by an enormous space squirrel who mistook us for some sort of stellar nut sounds quite fun. What I'd do while the Squirrel of Doom approached... dull things, really. Try the drugs that I haven't dared to. Play some guitar. Shag. Eat. Pretty much run of the mill sensual pleasures, really.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-07T15:09:14-08:00

My choice is Robots Gone Wild. They realize that their creator-race is a bunch of fuckups and get together to develop a master plan to fix the planet. Which unfortunately involves a lot of human-killing. Maybe they could look like the robots on the Game Station in the New Doctor Who series 2 finale.

"You are the weakest link. Goodbye" - Anne Droid

And I'd be trying to look like a good, useful human, until I spotted a flaw in their plan and probably got myself killed being a smartass to the robots. Better a smartass than a dumbass.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-07T15:32:06-08:00

If I discover the Apocalypse is on its way, I'm heading to Manhattan and pulling a Spider Jerusalem. I'm going to strip off all my clothes and go running down the street on top of cars - with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of booze in the other.

Maybe I should find myself a filthy assistant first.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-08T10:33:23-08:00

bschory & RenThing--

World War Z rocked!

*bang* *pow*
"Sure is fun shootin' all them zombies, Zeke!"
*ka-blam* *ka-blooie*
"You betcha, Lloyd! Say, is that some zombie spit on your right arm?"
*POW*

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-08T15:18:40-08:00

I'm so glad that I'm not the only person that apparently hungers, veritably thirsts for the end of all things. I'm quivering in anticipation just thinking about it.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-08T16:53:41-08:00

I dunno, anything to significantly reduce the population to a manageable few handfuls spread across the world. I'm not big on causing a lot of pain, so maybe just mass spontaneous human combustion or an utterly random Loki-esque rapture style event where everybody is just whisked away. That way I can either be one of the survivors and be cool or not and I wont care.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-08T17:12:29-08:00

I want to be a part of the 5% of population that survives and further (read: start) my research in skin-eating fetishes. Outside of that I'm not terribly picky about anything else.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-08T22:43:36-08:00

I would like to see Cthulhu and Azathoth return with all the Great Old Ones, and for them to totally annihilate the earth. This would leave the remaining dregs of the human species to be kept for meat by the blind flute playing goatherds of Shub-Niggurath.

Ia Ia Cthulhu Ftagn!!!!

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-12T02:41:36-08:00

Choice A: Zombies. I love zombies. According to some internet survey thing I took, I'd survive a zombie apocalypse. So would my wife, so that's nice. One of our friends would not, so we agreed we'll keep him alive, until he becomes a burden.
Choice B: Nuclear. Somewhere between the PC game Fallout and Michael Haneke's Time of the Wolf would be nice, I think.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-12T03:10:57-08:00

Sacredchao, well as the Best Friend he's condemned to die in the closing scenes anyway.

See, for example, Shaun of the Dead.

The Apocalypse and how to cope.

2007-12-12T06:43:33-08:00

"not with a bang, but with a whimper" - T.S. Elliot