K, we didn't end up all dying in December of 2012. What Post-Doomsday scenarios are still available to reference once the Mayan's and Nostradamus and all these other 'prophets predictions' turn out to be false. Revelations has been study and translated to the nth-degree. I'm half thinking it would be a good time to come up with a whole new story that the next generation can be afraid of coming true. Currently thinking some ancient hocus pocus magic has protected our universe from the wrath of an ancient foe and Dec. 2012 wasn't the mark for the end of the world but a warning, that our ancestor's magic will begin to weaken and a worm-hole or something is about to be reopened.
There have been many doomsday plots that do not revolve around the Mayan calendar. They will simply continue.
Y2K Death! I mean we still have Armagedon to look forward to. Who knows maybe we will find another ancient civilization who got bored writting calanders.
I hope that after 2012 doomsday scenarios will die off. I mean, if the world ends, everything will die off. If it doesn't (which is vastly more likely), then the biggest apocalypse scare since. . . 2000. . . will have been wro. . . It's never going to end is it? Oh god.
I was just thinking about the hocus pocus magic the witches put over hogsmith in happypotter and if I took that concept and placed it over our solar system. We might not think anything happened in 2012 but it really was the date a worm-hole opened and now allows an ancient foe to return and kill us...since that is what all aliens want to do right?
I thought aliens wanted to manipulate our governement and make us slaves? Or according to new commercials all they want is Coke Zero.
I hope doomsday plots don't go away. The post-apocalyptic genre is running dry at the moment. Some new doomsday plots might give those guys some inspiration to think of new ways for us to survive the aftermath. (<-- I'm a Zook and my bread is butter side down with sarcasm) -DR. Suess
Say the world doesn't end, and it won't, you can quote me on that, the all the people who swore on whatever was dear to them that it would end in 2012 will disappear from public scrutiny and most people will kinda forget about it. Several years later, another deluge of prophets will descend upon humanity screaming that we only have two years left and that the end of the world will come in March of 2019, or whatever, and people will moan and make wills and the cryogenics business will thrive, and then in March of 2019, surprise, it won't end, and the process will repeat. As long as there are humans, there will be frightened humans, who, for whatever reason, want you to think that you're going to die. Yes, you. And I could go into the reasons they might have, from actually believing it to wanting everyone paranoid, but that's really the subject of such intellectual books as are, hm, maybe eight feet away from me at this moment. And so, if you set a book from 2013 onward, while before December of this year you may lose a few readers who think the whole thing is silly that there might be a world after then, most people will find it quite believable.
Doomsday predictions have been happening for a long, long time. Even before the birth of Christ. So ... no. They'll never go away. Some people just enjoy the idea of watching the world burn and disappear into ash. And we still have the atomic bomb.
We all survived the onslaught of Beiber Fever. An interesting Doomsday scenario is important but what trumps all is hope.
There have always been doomsayers, and there always will be, until, well, doomsday. Some get better press than others. After the Mayan doomsday clock/odometer rolls up to zero, there will arise new predictions of global expiration dates. Someday, the sun will rapidly expand, and this little piece of rock will become a sterile cinder. So cheer up. The end WILL come.
I don't know if time travel exists where you live, but as far as I know December 2012 hasn't come to pass yet... We've lived through the apocalypse this year though... and I feel bad for all those religious zealots who sold all their belongings because they believed "the end is nigh." Regardless, people find these types of stories fascinating. Maybe it's a control thing? i.e. if I can predict the end then I'll be prepared for my own death (something none of us have any control over). Your idea sounds interesting.
It will only end when it ends. That one person will have the satisfaction that he/she was the only one in millions of doomsayers that was right. We all should party like it's 1999.
Yes, they will all be irrelevant. In fact, we'll have major re-writes and film editing to do once the Mayan date passes. For example, take the movie 'Terminator.' The premise is already unwrapping as we speak. And now another dooms-day stepping stone might fail. Egad, just imagine the cost of the CGI corrections alone! There's probably dozens of films paritally in the can. Now what? The movie '2012' is going to be the laughing stock of the industry. As for us, it might be easier. I would guess that most of our stories are on flash-drives or some form of computer word processing program. We'll all have to sit down and re-write key scenes. Any mention of Mayans, a 2013 calendar, the Christmas of 2012, and your drunken uncle's early parole will be incorrect and effect your ultimate plot. But, oy, what about tense end-game negotiation with your publishers! Lots of us will get rejections, or our paychecks will be canceled until "more appropriate re-writes" are submitted. Think of all of the "gloom" in teenage poetry that will turn into limericks when there is no "doom." Every stinking one of us will have to re-read our stuff line-by-line and start inserting the word "future" in a desparate feeble attempt to salvage our story lines. It's a nightmare, I tell ya,' a freaking nightmare!
It's fairly easy to come up with a story line where the Earth is destroyed... or at least civilization. We just need to be hit by a suitably large rock from space. It will happen eventually. It's only a matter of time. Considering that we'll probably see the rock coming some months (years?) ahead, there would even be plenty of time for people to panic.
I agree! That's like saying we should stop doing fantasy after Harry Potter. There will be many, many stories involving the end of the world, long after December 2012. That's just in our nature; always obsessed with the 'what-ifs', and events that could occur after the end of all civilization as we know it is one of them. But I also think they're so fascinating with people because there is that underlying theme another poster brought up. Hope. Hope that just because we (or something else) destroyed the world, it isn't really the end. Plus, it fills us with that "HELL YEAH" feeling about our own kind. Old civilizations may be gone, but we can sure as hell build new ones! All it takes it time and patience. And, I also agree with Cogito. Even after December 2012, there will be others that claim they know the true date, that we got the Mayan calender wrong. HISTORY TEACHING MOMENT!! Back in the years before 1000 AD, people were damned convinced that the world would end come January 1st, 1000. When that date became ever nearer, they released all the prisoners and began mass pilgramiges to Jerusalem. So, yeah, people will always think they know when the world will end.
My take on the end of civilization revolves around assimilation of our species with the invasion of another race. Doomsday is the raise of a flawless human, thus making us obsolete and no longer "Human". That is what my stories revolve around. I think we as writers have to be even more creative than our predecesors. Remember War of the Worlds? That is still classic end of days at present time.
Well, you can always simply make up your own doomsday prophecy based on the new, recently-discovered Mayan calendar which spans several thousand years into the future!
I agree with some people here. Doomsday plots will never be irrelevant unless there are no people believing them any more. And achieving that would be quite difficult i would think.
I'd also like to point out that even if you don't buy into the ravings of bewhiskered street corner doomsayers, that does not spell an end to doomsday stories. You need not believe in prophecies if a massive chunk of planetary real estate is detected on a collision course with the Earth, or some brilliant idiot manages to create a singularity (black hole) in close proximity to our planet. We live on a rugged piece of rock that is hardly perturbed by the foolish antics of the thin smear of biocarbon compounds on its surface, but which is still only one minuscule grain in a harshly impassionate universe.
You could always make up your own doomsday prophecy Edit: Looks like someone else suggested that. Well you can go back and time and relive other doomsdays... like the Dinosaurs. They had a pretty good one.
You know what's funny about the "Mayan" calendar (it should be called the "Maya" calendar, since "Mayan" only refers to the language the Maya speak...)? No one ever asks where it STARTS! The Maya calendar begins in 3114 B.C., so unless you think the world was created then, I'd say you're probably safe. Also, they didn't really say anything about when their calendar ends. It's mentioned only once and the text is illegible. My professor in college said that it's possible that the Maya just didn't want to add another digit to their calendar, because the way Maya numbers worked, December 21, 2012, was kind of the equivalent of 9999, and the Maya probably just couldn't picture the world lasting long enough for them to need a 10,000. Anyway, sorry about that rant. But no, I don't think doomsday plots will ever be obsolete. Even after the Maya calendar ends, we still have all the other things: global warming, nuclear war, plagues, zombies, etc. Something there is about a reader that loves an apocalypse.
