Types of Apocalypses and their root causes

Had the first session of my new campaign today (Depth of Life) and it got me to thinking about something with regard to the "causes" of the various Apocalypse Worlds that are being played.

In my, admittedly limited, experience, it often seems that the root cause of the Apocalypse is something technological or physical: nuclear war, nanotech, global climate change, bio-war, alien invasion, orbital drift, AIs, etc.

Certain things may be weird and psychic and spooky now, but has anyone run anything where a supernatural, spiritual, or non-physical cause for things getting all fucked up in the first place was discovered?  The seed of the thought was planted after watching the movie "Legion", where the world starts to end simply because "God was tired of our bullshit"... so nothing "human" in the cause, simply in the response and I thought that was interesting.

And, certainly there are apocalypses where the root cause is never known.

I look forward to a cool discussion!

(I have heard of an Apocalypse were the survivors turned out to be the casts of cancelled TV shows and the Maelstrom was the shattered remnants of the "fourth wall", so that's certainly a cool and weird one.)

I never actually thought about the cause of an apocalypse in such a "hard-wired" way. At least not in concerns of an AW setting because I imagine it to be limiting to my ideas / the behavior of my players.
That said, my group and I tossed around a few ideas that we liked quite a bit and some of those are not the typical shift of environmental circumstances. One concept is loosely based on the philosophical theory of Occasionalism. We imagined a world where everything obvious hadn't changed that much but the connection between things were just a little bit off or cut loose entirely. Places just could not be reached by going from point A to point B sometimes. Eating Food sometimes does not feed your hunger. Talking sometimes just does not produce worlds.
We ruled that concept out for probably being too random and confusing.
Another idea was a social apocalypse. For example, a world where everyone took off into space and only a small percentage of the population got left behind for various reasons. We ruled that one out because we imagined such a world not to be fundamentally "wrong" and broken enough.

I never actually thought about the cause of an apocalypse in such a "hard-wired" way. At least not in concerns of an AW setting because I imagine it to be limiting to my ideas / the behavior of my players.

Oh, I don't mean pre-planned reasons, I meant more "discovered" reasons for the apocalypse as play progressed.

I've never pre-decided what the apocalypse was as MC, but, in my experience, through play it's usually come up with a technological/physical cause, despite their being weirdness in the "present".  For example: a nuclear war caused the apocalypse, but the release of so many dying souls at once caused the psychic maelstrom.

Thinking about this is especially drawn out in my current game as there's a Quarantine in play so each session starts with a "The Past" roll which requires answers to specific questions.

Ah, then I got that wrong. I thought you assumed you set a "cause" before starting a campaign of AW, even if you don't pre-set anything. In a social contract - way of "What do we want to see / what don't we want at all."
That said: My group and I actually played / wrote that social apocalypse thingy. But not as an AW game. But I had to think off my shut-in anti-social character who left her apartment for the first time after months when she ran out of instant food, just to realize that everyone has gone into space-travel and left Earth behind. Then she decided that this was her opportunity to unite the few people left behind into a "better" society.
I had to think of her and that scenario the moment I started reading AW.
... uhm, yeah. off topic. sry. ^^;

My Hocus believes that the Apocalypse was directly caused by the psychic maelstrom itself, which is a reflection of human thought and feeling.  Perhaps the world was going to shit because of purely physical causes, like war, ecological disaster, what have you, but what really tore reality apart was that human negativity passed a threshold and started taking on its own agency.  His mission is to get enough followers to reverse the trend, not just keeping the maelstrom at bay, but changing its very nature into something positive.  Sort of a "Night of 1,000 Cats" idea.

In the game I'm currently running, I have a very clear idea about what's going on, but I can't talk about it because of my players reading this thread :)

I didn't pre-plan, but after 6 sessions it started to really crystallize, and after 12, it's all clear. At least to me.

In the game I'm currently running, I have a very clear idea about what's going on, but I can't talk about it because of my players reading this thread :)

Can you send my a PM or give a hint?  Please?

In my last apocalypse, the cause turned out to be a rogue military AI named PSIWEB which was an orbital defence/offence array with lasers and kinetic weapons... it's high energy scanners and sensors were slowly overheating the planet and accessing the psychic maelstrom was accessing the AI's information gathering and distribution system... one PC would get the answers to his queries *burned* into his flesh by precision beam weapons... another got tactical overlays of situations by looking "through" his eye-patch.

In the end, the Savvyhead was able to partially upload his personality to the AI before a kinetic weapon destroyed the location he was at.  Once in the AI, he realized it was the sensors that were causing the problems with the environment, so I asked him "What do you do?"

"Well, only part of me was uploaded... my truest part..."

"And what part is that?" I ask.

"My hatred for humanity... increase sensor power!"  *CAMPAIGN ENDS*

Everyone thought it was awesome.  *laugh*

oh, that is brilliant. everytime I go here and read stories of other people's game sessions makes me wish that mine would finally start. two more weeks. two more weeks.

But I have to say I'm suprised that everyone agreed to / liked that kind of ending. I imagine some of my players would be incredible confused and/or pissed by a campaign just ending by the decision of one player.

But I have to say I'm suprised that everyone agreed to / liked that kind of ending. I imagine some of my players would be incredible confused and/or pissed by a campaign just ending by the decision of one player.

Well, that statement was essentially the epilogue to the campaign.  The players were all part of my "Young Gamers" group and they knew we were playing a six session AW campaign before they all scattered off to college/university... *sniff*

It happened in the sixth session, after four PCs died, one "went missing", two beat a hasty retreat to (temporary) safety before the old military base they were in was destroyed by orbital weapon strikes... that the session started with a massive battle, that the mother and son PCs got resolution to their familial problems, that the Hocus found his "saviour" in a recently decanted "Quarantine" (NPC) and that the Savvyhead was able to advance his "Open your brain" to allow direct access to the AI moments before the Brainer did... just before they both died... well, it made for what *felt* like an epic campaign end... and it wrapped up better than I could've hoped.

So, that's why they were happy with it... *laugh*

Though, both of my campaigns have ended with a majority of the PCs dying at each others throats, a Savvyhead reaching a different state of consciousness, and at least one surviving PC in a better place than when they started things... and everyone extremely satisfied with the dark/bittersweet ending.  I'm excited to see how the new campaign progresses.  *laugh*

And Margolotte, thanks for the PM, that is exactly the kind of "different" apocalypse I was hoping to hear about!