Since these topics tend to be rather central to TCB, I thought I'd share this bit from the afterword to John Ringo's post-apocalyptic anthology Black Tide Rising (part of a "realistic" zombie apocalypse series that I rather enjoyed).

"There is something about the destruction of civilization that connects with the modern reader." --Gary Poole

Humanity has become a mass of ciphers gathered together in huge lumps called cities and countries. No individual human, from a person working in a mall to the President of the United States has any real control over his or her existence and even presidents have little long term effect on history.

People go through life affecting little or nothing save, if they so choose, by having children who may or may not have more effect. By the same token they live lives of quiet ineffect in relative security and generally free from violence. This is the nature of a truly "good" civilization. That it is boring and humdrum. When it ceases to be so it is by definition "bad things happening."

But humans are not designed for "boring." We evolved in small tribes, constantly on the ragged edge of destruction and scrabbling for survival against both the environment and other humans. In World War Two, the height of human misery and violence since the Age of Agriculture, approximately five percent of the planet's population died due to violence. The current rate, despite how it might seem, is below one percent.

Early human hunter-gatherers on the other hand died from violence twenty percent of the time, four times the rate during the years 1937-1945, and for hundreds of thousands of years. The history of the Paleolithic is a history of constant warfare to make Mad Max pale in comparison.

It is also a history of small groups gathering together to defeat well-nigh impossible odds. It is that, in my opinion, that is the resonance to every "post-apocalyptic" story, a harkening to an age when things were simply do or die and everyone in the group knew each other and had the choice of cooperate to survive or die.

There is no "every man a cipher" aspect to post-apocalyptic fiction as there was none to those early tribes. Good guys or bad guys, every character knows every other character, their good side and bad, their strengths and weaknesses. Every individual of the tribe must strive with their last ounce of everything to ensure the tribe's survival. Every character is important to the survival, for or against, of every other.

Apocalyptic is pre-medieval.

Apocalyptic is...primal.

Thus as long as humans maintain boring, humdrum civilization, post-apocalyptic or apocalyptic fiction will remain popular. Because it is who we are in our hearts.

At our core, we are all savages.

On the best examples of that is from the film Zombieland, where Tallahassee (the Woodie Harrelson character) gets enormous joy out of destroying zombies by any means possible, but especially the more savage ones (slamming a zombie by purposefully opening the door of a speeding truck, for example)!

5316048 I adored Zombieland! I just thought that was such a fantastic zombie movie.

Can see where this person is coming from. Though, I'm more for the "...humans are not designed for "boring." and the "every man a cipher" is bad angle instead "At our core, we are all savages."

Most end of the world adventures are boring and stressful for long stretches of time. Scavenging and fighting is tedious. Mean I like scavenging but got better things could do. Fighting for realize means your doing it wrong. Regular life is just dull instead. My experiences could be wrong. Apocalyptic is stressful. Way too stressful. The only thing more stressful is trying to manage a harem in an anime. Still have figurative nightmares about Love Hina even though it's not really a good example of a harem or anime. Rather fight the devil's minions than watch it again.

Getting to know people and knowing them is the best. I could see the whole less people to worry about would make your life simpler. It's nice being more special because there is less of you. Plus less people to compete for stuff. Then again there less people to help out on stuff. Figure that being special has it's own downsides (...you're the only one of us that has a dick... time to lock you up to keep you safe!). Not too sure if simpler is always the best. Then again, been told hell is other people and more people could mean more hell. I'm not really a people person.

The whole "At our core, we are all savages" thing don't scribe to. I believe at our core, we are all protagonists.

edit: Love Hina... don't want.

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I think stress is a constant of the human experience. We were made to worry. Animals who worry aren't complacent, they keep an eye out for the wolf or the tiger, and they already have a tree lined up for climbing before the bear shows up.

No, if you take the immediate dangers out of the situation, people find other things to chew their nails over, even the most unimportant things. There's a great quote from Winston Churchill about staff infighting at colleges: "Academic politics are so deadly precisely because the stakes are so low!"

Zombie movies erase all our real-life worries by making them momentarily trivial, If only for an hour or two. As soon as the credits role, we pull out our phones and check our e-mails to see who else is trolling us, expecting a response, or just wanting to make us envious of their lives (sharing is scaring!).

No individual human, from a person working in a mall to the President of the United States has any real control over his or her existence and even presidents have little long term effect on history.

well, this alone should be real reason to worry, no? Ah, it need some correction: not just any individual human, but any group up to whole humanity .... for whatever may come, humans fear that they shouldn't fear that much, and not fear what they really should fear to the point of doing things about this danger ...

PS: just found my 'endless' newsfeed can overflow 32-bit browser after just 3 years of history.