Synopsis
When the world ended, it came in the form of an Ecophage--colossal clouds of self-replicating nanomachines, created by some ancient alien race, long extinct. The Ecophage first targeted all biomass, disintegrating people in the streets, consuming forests and animals in order to convert their raw materials into more nanite swarms.
Jeremy Braxton and a handful of survivors find sanctuary in a billionaire's retreat: limestone caves that go deep underground, and are fully stocked. But with society destroyed, all human history and knowledge is lost...except for Jeremy's DVD player, and a copy of the Star Wars trilogy. This novella will take readers through a hypothetical world-ending scenario of SRPs (self-replicating probes), diving into the minds of characters who realize everything we took for granted is absolutely gone, and explore what happens when something that was once "just a good fantasy story" becomes the sole campfire story being told to the human remnants...and what happens if a primitive people start to believe the stories of Luke, Leia, Darth Vader, and the Death Star are real.
This story is inspired by the Toba Event, a real volcanic event that took place about 74,000 years ago, during the Late Pleistocene, and nearly wiped out all of humanity, leaving only 2,000-3,000 humans alive on Earth. My question was, "What if that happened today?" This story is a possible answer.
Table of Contents
- 1PART 1: The Book of Jeremy - CHAPTER 1: The Ecophage2024-11-13
- 2Chapter 2: Jedi Master2024-11-13
- 3Chapter 3: When the World Ends, Where Will You Be?2024-11-13
- 4Chapter 4: "How's a Diabetic Supposed to Survive the End of the World?" and Other Tragedies2024-11-13
- 5Chapter 5: Finding Community at the End of the World2024-11-13