Designing an apocalypse to order

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Bengt

A Chixulub sized meteor wouldn't even be an extinction event for 2020 humans would it?

We'd have a couple years of no crops, so an awful lot of people would wind up dead, but good chance some survivors.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

We'd have a couple years of no crops, so an awful lot of people would wind up dead, but good chance some survivors.

Between stored food supplies and the option of using grow lights, I'd imagine quite a good many people would survive provided cooperation. That last bit is important; without it, the survivors will be those who were most effective at raiding their neighbors and stocking up.

For a setting with space colonies, provided the colonies aren't reliant on food supplies from Earth, chances are good they could provide sufficient humanitarian aid to avoid an apocalypse. So, it might be a good idea for the setting's purposes for the colonies to be partially reliant on Earth for food, having them experience some serious lean times in the wake of Earth's crisis.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Anthony

We'd have a couple years of no crops, so an awful lot of people would wind up dead, but good chance some survivors.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Between stored food supplies and the option of using grow lights, I'd imagine quite a good many people would survive provided cooperation. That last bit is important; without it, the survivors will be those who were most effective at raiding their neighbors and stocking up.

For a setting with space colonies, provided the colonies aren't reliant on food supplies from Earth, chances are good they could provide sufficient humanitarian aid to avoid an apocalypse. So, it might be a good idea for the setting's purposes for the colonies to be partially reliant on Earth for food, having them experience some serious lean times in the wake of Earth's crisis.

Food is not very valuable on a per-pound basis, which makes it expensive to ship to space colonies. Plus, my goal here is to kneecap Earth relative to the colonies, so I don't particularly want the colonies to experience lean times. I'm thinking I might go for a fairly grim comet-impact scenario: an extinction level event where nation-states manage to secure the food supplies and then basically have to decide who lives and dies until the sun comes back. You might expect that wouldn't work because people would fight back but in a lot of historical famines it has turned out that starving people often don't have the energy to fight. Say combined death toll knocks humanity down to about 750 million. After two hundred years, humanity has recovered to 4-odd billion. That gives me roughly the setup I want. It requires some sociological assumptions that could be questioned but I don't think its too wildly implausible as things go.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Food is not very valuable on a per-pound basis, which makes it expensive to ship to space colonies. Plus, my goal here is to kneecap Earth relative to the colonies, so I don't particularly want the colonies to experience lean times. I'm thinking I might go for a fairly grim comet-impact scenario: an extinction level event where nation-states manage to secure the food supplies and then basically have to decide who lives and dies until the sun comes back. You might expect that wouldn't work because people would fight back but in a lot of historical famines it has turned out that starving people often don't have the energy to fight. Say combined death toll knocks humanity down to about 750 million. After two hundred years, humanity has recovered to 4-odd billion. That gives me roughly the setup I want. It requires some sociological assumptions that could be questioned but I don't think its too wildly implausible as things go.

Well, you could also go with the people fighting back and failing... or fighting back, winning, and then discovering they have to make the same hard decisions as their predecessors (indeed, the fighting can contribute to the mini-apocalypse). Also, while food may normally not be economical to ship through space, those stuck on Earth may very well be willing to pay enough to make it viable, as might wealthy philanthropists (or even groups of less-wealthy ones, GoFundMe is a thing). It’s probably best if either the disaster makes travel to Earth fairly unfeasible or the colonies are unable to generate enough surplus food to help.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Varyon

It’s probably best if either the disaster makes travel to Earth fairly unfeasible or the colonies are unable to generate enough surplus food to help.

The orbital debris field would help there. It could be so bad that only really brave groups (i.e. PCs) in small and maneuverable ships can make it safely through the flak surrounding Earth. Regular supply runs to the surface wouldn't be feasible because of the accumulated risk of multiple trips up and down.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

You might expect that wouldn't work because people would fight back but in a lot of historical famines it has turned out that starving people often don't have the energy to fight.

The problem is when it becomes apparent that there's limited supplies that are ground for conflict. If it happens after starvation, there's weakness, but a disaster like this would be obvious before starvation occurred.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The problem is when it becomes apparent that there's limited supplies that are ground for conflict. If it happens after starvation, there's weakness, but a disaster like this would be obvious before starvation occurred.

Folks would notice the rapid dwindling of available food before they reached actual starvation levels. They would probably start rioting before they got to the point of being too starved to fight.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Bengt

A Chixulub sized meteor wouldn't even be an extinction event for 2020 humans would it? I mean lots of species survived the original Chixulub and we are ruthless bastards with technology to mitigated the effects.

Tech won't save 99% of the people when 99% of the farms have burned all at the same time around the world, and there's a 6+ month night.

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by Varyon

It’s probably best if either the disaster makes travel to Earth fairly unfeasible or the colonies are unable to generate enough surplus food to help.

That sparks another idea - perhaps a low-orbit network of satellites (similar to the Starlink series) goes awry, resulting in a Kessler cascade. Several cities are damaged or destroyed when satellites crash into them, but enough debris remains in orbit to make approach to Earth extremely dangerous, if not infeasible.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Irish Wolf

That sparks another idea - perhaps a low-orbit network of satellites (similar to the Starlink series) goes awry, resulting in a Kessler cascade. Several cities are damaged or destroyed when satellites crash into them, but enough debris remains in orbit to make approach to Earth extremely dangerous, if not infeasible.

Bonus: Some of the satellites were secret tactical space-to-ground weapon platforms with kinetic kill warheads. The Kessler cascade triggers automated programming in the launchers and they rain kinetic slugs down on various cities and other locations. The confusion of the orbital mess means that a tactical kinetic strike could come down pretty much anywhere on the planet. This gives the localized yet widespread damage you were looking for.