Top Five Ways for the World to End

Five Ways I’d Like to See the World End (and the Zombies that would hopefully come with it)

Apparently, from what I’ve been told, this is the year the world is going to come to an end.  Ignoring for a moment that the Mayan calendar most likely ended because they weren’t around to continue it, let’s take a look at some possible ways the world as we know it will n longer exist.

1:  Natural Disaster

This one is kind of broad, as it could be anything from forest fires to floods to asteroid impacts.  Anything that does not occur as a result of humans screwing with the natural order of things (something we’re a little too good at.)  But on the scale large enough to wipe out the majority of life on earth, I’d say at least earthquakes and tsunamis would be needed.

Call this a test run...What, too soon?

Sadly this wouldn’t really result in zombies so much as a crapton of bodies, but a man can dream can’t he?  Yes, a man can certainly dream.

2:  War

This is a pretty basic one, but mankind is very good at killing things, especially each other.  And over the years we’ve only gotten better at it.  War used to be a tiresome effort involving men stabbing, and later shooting each other one at a time.  Not so anymore.

Now we have smart bombs, dumb bombs, and satellite lasers that can decimate entire populations at a time with no fallout.

Well, maybe a little fallout.

Obviously the radiation would infuse the dead, those not flash-fried in the initial explosion that is, with a twisted unlife.  This would result in shambling hordes wandering the wastelands.  Provided you survive both the explosions and the radiation, the good news is that the undead will be easy to spot, and you won’t even need a nightlight.

3:  Socio-Economic Collapse

Yet another thing people are good at is screwing each other over, are we seeing a trend yet?  As we’re aware of, unless you live under a rock, from movements like Occupy Wall Street people in America are more than a little upset over the current spread of income and the lack of jobs.  And what happens when people are upset?  Well if it’s handled poorly it can lead down a very bad road.

Although it's considered polite to let them riot first.

For this to really end the world it would have to impact multiple countries at once, something that is unlikely even in the worst case scenario.  And again this one wouldn’t really result in zombies.  More like waves of angry, angry people only out for themselves.  Think “28 Days Later” but with less biting

4:  Supernatural

This is the one that most everyone is banking on.  The Apocolypse, The End of Days, The Second Coming…Other Religious Events I’m Not Aware Of!

Every culture has its own version of the end times but the formula is mostly the same.  World ends, the good are rewarded and the wicked punished.  Personally I just want to see the looks on the faces of people who don’t get the good ending they’re expecting.

As with others on this list we won’t be seeing any zombies.  Just gaping pits leading to the abyss and pillars of light reaching upwards, and if you don’t qualify for either of those then you’re dead anyways and/or in some version of Purgatory.

Not bad, not great but not bad.

5:  Plague

Something of a combination between War and Natural Disaster as, in all likelihood, the plague that wipes out the majority of humanity will be grown in a weapons lab.  This is the scenario I’m most hoping for.

For starters it allows for a small percentage to be immune or resistant enough to avoid the first waves of death.  After that either the dead or people who die later will be revived as zombies for the rest of the survivors to deal with.  This is the set-up that best leads into a zombie apocalypse (As seen in pretty much any zombie movie ever.)

No fallout, no explosions, no disasters.  Just you, a gun and the undead hordes looking to eat your face.

I just really like this picture.