What if half of everyone dissappeared? Building/Gaming a Rapture Scenario

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Earth's "die rolls" aren't affected by anything else happening in the universe, there's just more tries happening elsewhere.

What does everyone think would be a reasonable point in time to say that everything is back to normal? The rational end-point of the campaign? Of course, that varies with your definition of normal, but let's say it's reached a point where it's fairly stable and unlikely to be interesting from here-on out.

The impact on religion would last for millennia. Such an event would produce new and possibly quite violent religions.

[chitoryu12]

Originally Posted by zoncxs

Babies being born

Oh, that would be horrific. Imagine describing a mother in labor vanishing midway through the birth, but her baby doesn't....

[Lord Azagthoth]

There are two other movies about half (more or less) people vanishing or suddenly dying. Left Behind (2014) and another one of which I cannot find the title. They clearly show the chaos from the point it happens (lots of traffic collisions, crashing planes, etc.).

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by chitoryu12

Oh, that would be horrific. Imagine describing a mother in labor vanishing midway through the birth, but her baby doesn't....

And require answering a very sticky question. At what point is a fetus a baby or at least a separate individual for the sake of this event?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by chitoryu12

Oh, that would be horrific. Imagine describing a mother in labor vanishing midway through the birth, but her baby doesn't....

It's "no more horrific" than the mother dying in childbirth. That's tragic, not horrific. In the case of a mother dying in childbirth, the child may need to be delivered by c-section - in this case the child is essentially magically delivered with no operation necessary.

While the birth mother wouldn't be available to nurse, the breastmilk banks would go twice as far with half the population, as well as infant formula etc, and other nursing mothers will find their children vanished and might choose to wetnurse.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

What if it's sex-based, and you're left with a planet with nothing but men, or nothing but women? In the former case, the human race will be extinct within a century;

A century starting in 1718 or 1818 or 1918, yes. A century from now? I suspect you'd see human cloning becoming the new reproductive system. Why, in a century from now, you might see human brains or human thought processes being hosted in non-organic devices. Maybe I should say "post-human", but it still wouldn't be extinction, IMHO.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Bruno

It's "no more horrific" than the mother dying in childbirth. That's tragic, not horrific. In the case of a mother dying in childbirth, the child may need to be delivered by c-section - in this case the child is essentially magically delivered with no operation necessary.

While the birth mother wouldn't be available to nurse, the breastmilk banks would go twice as far with half the population, as well as infant formula etc, and other nursing mothers will find their children vanished and might choose to wetnurse.

SIDS and post partum issues can make parents go off the deep end. A pregnant woman having her baby not die or even be kidnapped, but just evaporate into nothingness would not be fully trustworthy, in my opinion, due to the extreme trauma.
More than a few would simply run off with motherless babies or worse. Hospitals just wouldn't have full security to properly police it.

[Steve Jackson]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

What if it's sex-based, and you're left with a planet with nothing but men, or nothing but women?

That was what happened in Philip Wylie's The Disappearance (1951). Still a very good read.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

More than a few would simply run off with motherless babies or worse. Hospitals just wouldn't have full security to properly police it.

Given the disappearances, giving mothers in that situation the motherless babies is the pragmatic course. Hospitals will have a lot of problems that are much harder to solve.