End of the world ideas

I'm planning a sci-fi story about the end of the world, but I'm not sure how it should happen. I don't want to entertain cliches of asteroids, plagues, floods. I was thinking of something involving electricity/lightning. Any suggestions on what this could feasibly be? It would have to wipe out all life on Earth, but the Earth itself could survive it in some form. It could be some technology gone awry in a catastrophic way, maybe...thoughts?

 

The possibilities are endless, but sometimes I think it's best to follow our gut reactions. So, if you've got an idea try to make it work. I had an idea for a similar type of story. I liked my idea or concept, but it just wasn't coming out right. It took about a month of playing with my idea, but then it clicked and I ended up writing my story very quickly. My idea was for a short story. I'm new to branching out into science fiction. What helped me was being reminded that I still have to tell a good story, regardless of how crazy genre allows you to get with everything else.

 

I was thinking about this story last night, and then I got hit with an entirely new sci-fi story about the sun, which just flowed out from nowhere with a synopsis, character names and a plot. Think that's the first time I've ever had that. Must be inspiration from WF!

 

"...then one day the sun got hungry, and pacmanned the earth
like a little dot. The End."

 

The first image that sprang to my mind was that of a massive, earth-wide lightning storm
Depending on how far you want to go into the future and how developed technology will be, how about this:

Humanity has finally managed to get rid of that nuisance called ozone layer and in order to keep their precious breathing air in and the deadly rays of the sun out, they have built an artificial ozone layer that encloses the planet. Through some events there is a fatal failure and a massive discharge happens, either outright grilling everything on the planet's surface or evaporating all water into outer space.

Second thought, while typing the first: some cosmic cataclysm has caused the atmosphere to, more or less, suddenly evaporate/vanish which would mean instant death to anything above microbic levels.

Just ideas of course, nothing scientifically solid

 

Wiping out all life on the planet while the planet itself remains is highly implausible. Life exists at the bottom of the deepest ocean, on the top of the highest mountain, and in pretty much everything in between. And probably also in other places we don’t know about. Killing all of that would mean destroying the entire planet, with nothing meaningful left.

The only thing you could do to kill all life everywhere while leaving the planet itself physically intact would be to somehow strip all water from the planet. This would probably result in the death of all life on the planet. Though it’s possible that some life-forms which can survive without water for a very long time (tardigrades spring to mind) could survive and even adapt (though the latter is quite unlikely).

 

It's great when that happens. I think often we get initial ideas to lead us to even better ideas. It happens all the time for me. At first it seemed hard to abandon my first ideas for a story, but I would say always for me the second idea that springs out from the first is always better. And I can always tell if I'm onto something good or headed in the right direction by how fast I write it. Not that I never get stuck or have to pause and think, but the process in general is smoother and easier. It looks like you're on the right track with your sun story. Is it going to be a novel or short story? Good luck!

 

@deadrats I'm not sure what it will turn into as yet, need to start actually writing it properly. I scrawled down a lot of other sci-fi ideas earlier too, so I'll see if I can spin any of those into the sun story to give it multiple layers, and more interest. Started thinking about what the aliens would look like, as there will most likely be a romance within the story, so it will have to work physically. That's pretty fun. I'm avoiding green/grey men with huge heads.

 

@mashers I'm glad you said implausible, not impossible. It's probably going to have to involve some sort of damage to some as-yet-uncreated technology, damage to the ozone/atmosphere to cause it, I'd guess. Think I'll pursue my sun story for now though.

 

I think writing anything truly original is hard these days in fiction, but perhaps more so in sci-fi because there are 101 armageddon, alien invasion, moving to a new planet stories already out there. Trying to find a new perspective can be difficult too.

 

Fish couldn't die from lightning for a start, unless they were on the surface!
Looks like it would have to be the death of all land based life...I think I can live with that.

 

I'd guess that involves electric nets?

 

Here's an idea: It would be a good thing.

 

I am actually looking forward to the end of the world. Just think of the sh*t you wouldn't miss anymore. Bet there's more than stuff you would.
I'm not really into humans as a collective. Give me animals and nature any day.

 

Well, end the world, end the suffering. That's what I say.

 

I was quite struck by your idea about the artificial ozone layer. That's quite original, and, sadly quite believable as well. You can just see corporations and their paid-for scientists coming up with that one, can't you? It's okay to destroy the ozone layer because 'technology' makes it something we don't need any more. We can just create an artifical one, electronically.

Then it all goes BAD. Like many grandiose techy-focused ideas often do, or will do, especially when driven by corporate greed and not genuine need.

However, that might not fit in with your other story ideas about aliens, romance, etc. Good idea, though.

 

My sun story has aliens, not the armageddon one. The government are planning to sell the sun to a race of aliens called the Ce'tains (still not sure how I'll spell this).

 

Why is the government selling the sun to aliens? Do they feel obligated to stop at
the local inhabited planet near it, and throw out some numbers until the locals
hear one that sounds good to them?

Sorry the concept is quite humorous to me.

 

It's pretty simple really...what is the reason that the government usually sells anything?
It's possibly a front for something more sinister though, but I haven't developed that far as yet. Evil Ce'tians!
Exploitation. They want to use it's power.

 

how about a weather machine gone wrong. For a long time people have speculated that various govts have been trying to develop weather control technology. I could definitely see some version of nano tech/nanites run wild due to a hack or computer virus start replicating and then set off some type of cataclysmic world wide electrical storm that grinds around the hemisphere for a year or two until the nanites are destroyed in the storm of their own making. Just a suggestion.

 

Jumping back to your original post, I see an obvious answer, and it could almost dovetail into your follow-up idea about the sun: a massive solar flare or solar storm. If a strong enough solar flare lashed out from the sun, it could conceivably knock out electric power on a massive scale or even cause damage to living tissue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare#Hazards

You can write a story about a solar flare on an unprecedented scale. (Was it predicted? Did anyone have plans to stop it and were they listened to? Did it take a long time for everyone to die off, or did it happen all at once?) When the storms subside and most of everything dies of radiation sickness or cancer or what have you, you have an empty world of dead technology and crumbling cities. Nature starts to reclaim the land, and eventually we're just a mythical once-upon-a-time species that were here before.

You had another idea about aliens. (Cetains? Cetaceans? Certainties?) Maybe they had something to do with the flare, either intentionally or not, maliciously or not.

 

@soupcannon It's strange that you should mention solar flares, as that was something I had thought about for a story somewhere-possibly the Ce'tain sun story.