Editing Post-Apocalyptic (section)

== Timespan ==
Another point of consideration for a post apocalyptic setting how long has it's been since the apocalypse happened.

===''In media res''===
The Apocalypse is now, and [[Exterminatus|nothing might come after it]]. Typically this applies to 'slow burn' apocalypses that still have worse to offer, or apocalypses that by definition leave nothing to tell after they conclude.
====Examples====
*Literally any extinction story

=== Immediate Aftermath ===
The Apocalypse has happened fairly recently. It might have run it's course yesterday, maybe it's been a few years. For brevity's sake, we'll put the cap at twenty years. Point is that most people around are people who survived the disaster and directly remember the world before. Survivors often survive by scavenging the ruins for cans of beans, ammunition, laptops and similar. Survivalists are still locked up in their bunkers. Remnants of Government authorities, military forces, corporations and other such Old-World institutions are still about with stockpiles of stuff, pursuing their own agendas. Accountants, janitors, lawyers and jazz musicians have to work out how to survive. Many of them gang up and many gangs which prey on others, sometimes [[cannibalism|literally]].
====Examples====
*Most Zombie Fiction

=== After the Aftermath ===
The Apocalypse happened between 20 years to maybe a couple centuries ago. If nothing else, a generation has grown up in this marred world. Memories of the old world have faded, as have much of it's knowledge, but are still present. A few areas have stabilized and there are trade towns, homsteads, towns which survived the end and enclaves that have consolidated under some cause (religious, political, ethnic, military, etc). Scavenged stuff is still a big deal, but people increasingly are making new things bodged together from junk and there might be a degree of localized recovery in areas. Even so whatever surviving Authorities have stumbled along their own courses, for example if two groups of US Army troops survived in Oregon and Tennessee, they'd probably have radically different ideas and not respect each other's authority if they met. There are a few peaceful areas, but other areas are torn up in war. Moreover this would not be a smattering of desperate folk clubbing each other for cans of dog-food but battle hardened hosts of warriors who've learned to survive in this hostile age. 
====Examples====
*[[Fallout]]
*[[Fist of the North Star]]

=== An Ancient Cataclysm ===
The Apocalypse happened hundreds, possibly thousands of years ago. The Apocalyptic Event is now an object of myth and legend to cultures which have emerged after the aftermath. Cultures which are as distinct from ours as [[Roman Empire]] was to us have arisen. Never the less, a Dark Age persists. Typically there are some Kingdoms and City States and maybe an Empire or two, while vast tracts of land are haunted by barbarian peoples. Much of Technology has been lost and if it has been recovered, it's not well distributed and is incomplete, with what's left of it monopolized by a few people so they can dominate others.
====Examples====
*Mortal Engines
*[[Dark Age of Technology]]
*Horizon Zero Dawn

=== The Healed World ===
The [[Noblebright]] version of Post Apocalyptia. In short, people eventually got their shit together and rebuilt. New cities emerge from the ashes and efforts are done to clean up the mess. More over lessens are learned to avoid such disasters going forward. What rises from the ashes is a better world.
====Examples====
*[[Star Trek]], the Twenty First century had nuclear wars and genetically engineered super-dudes running amok. It took until the 22nd century for people to get things in order.
*[[The Orville]], largely following Trek's lead.
*Mandalore's moon Concordia was stated to have been in ecological collapse before the excessive strip mining was banned and the environment given time to recover by the time of [[Star Wars:The Clone Wars|the Clone Wars.]]

=== The Inheritors ===
Thousands if not millions of years have passed and mankind is a distant memory. In its place, new creatures have arisen. Rats, bats, cats, weasels, seagulls, pigs, foxes, dogs, and similar small adaptable creatures persisted and diversified to fill emptied niches. Usually, at least one lineage of them has developed intelligence and tool use. To them, humans would only be skeletons in museums.

A variant of this is posthumanism, either of the natural evolution-caused variety, some alien dicks messing with humanity's genetics (an apocalypse of its own), or a post-humanity changing itself - all to the point that OG humanity is as much as a common ancestor between what breeds of posthumans exist as is the common ancestor to all mammals.
====Examples====
*Splatoon
*All Tommorows

<span style='color:purple;font-size:100%'>'''''Aaaaw, no apocalypse beyond my [[Fall of the Eldar|birthday]] for li'l ol' me? I'm hurt...and still horny.'''''</span>

[[Category:Setting Aesthetics]]