1. chance of pants-, uhh, sullying (CPS),
2. wake of destruction (WOD),
3. badass requirement for survival (BRS).
If you didn't catch the first installment, read it first! At the end of
this post you can find a table useful for comparative analysis. You are
welcome to agree - or disagree! - with my conclusions, provided you've
already accepted that your conclusions are wrong. So, without further ado...
Earthquake (tremor): the shaking of the ground caused by a sudden release of seismic energy in the earth's crust.
CPS 80% A fissure in the ground itself - reaching to the very depths of hell??
No one's comfortable with the idea of falling down one of them. Worse
than that is the distortion of reality. Everything around you shaking.
You can't see the danger, you have no idea where it might be safe - and
these come without warning, despite ongoing efforts to discover a
scientific means of prediction. The moment a vibration begins, you
freeze like a deer caught in headlights, trying to figure out if it's
just a passing truck. Aww, shit. It's not.
WOD 50% We've
been told that the Big One is going to sink half of California. Not to
mention earthquakes can in some cases cause volcanic eruptions,
tsunamis, avalanches, and probably wildfires, too, if power lines were
to fall down. However, a single earthquake isn't gonna do it all -
either tsunamis or huge gaping fissures, not both. You'll probably still
be able to drive your car - just be extra careful of potholes.
BRS 70% Sorry, kids, but hiding underneath your school desk just isn't going to cut it. Without working electricity, water and gas,
the world is essentially turned into a post-apocalyptic zombie fest.
While it's happening, you have to jump from side to side to avoid heavy
things crushing you. And afterward, cleaning up sucks, but you may not
even have the option if a gas line has been ruptured and your home
suddenly catches fire. And if you're away from civilization, as we know
from Descent, even a simple cave-in can trap you in the darkness with dozens of hungry human-like creatures.
Total score: 200
Total score: 200
CPS 80% Depends what the virus does, and so many possibilities exist. Children of Man came slowly but decisively; 28 Days Later and I Am Legend came
swiftly and biting your face. Most seem to turn ordinary postal workers
into violent and angry denizens of an ever-growing zombie army. (Well,
maybe not so unfamiliar after all!) Regardless, a virus is another
invisible foe, and worse still, one who attacks from the inside and the
outside. The flu isn't scary, but the flu that causes you to eat your
dog's genitals is another matter.
WOD 50% Human
civilization? Gone. Everything else? Eerily intact. The only hope is to
establish a quarantine area in time, but by the time you've slowed down
an epidemic you've typically let it spread to multiple continents.
BRS 100% This
has the potential to be absolutely the most demanding survival test of
all time. Not everyone's infected, but the majority are, but you can't
always see who is and who isn't. You have to become completely
self-sufficient, yet still looking for friends. And once they've all
died off, you are king of the world!
Total score: 230
Total score: 230
CPS 30%
No one talks about this one. There's not really anything we could do
about it. If it were to happen, we'd see a bright light flash,
equivalent to a second sun. People would make inquiries, and our leaders
would be reluctant to tell us what happened - at least until we had
trouble breathing. Suffocating at an almost imperceptibly slow speed
without knowing why might not be a bad way to go, actually.
WOD 100% In
the unlikely event that a burst were to occur close enough to our solar
system to affect us, the Nitrogen Oxide produced would destroy the
Ozone layer. Just apply more sun block, right? Tell that to the
countless trillions of photosynthetic plankton in the oceans that
provide well over half of earth's oxygen. After that, the food chain
must somehow reconstitute itself, a process that probably won't happen
fast enough to stop us all from starving to death.
BRS 10% Even
the biggest badass needs food to survive. The only human beings that
might survive this one are scientific minds who find a way to turn rocks
into hamburgers, or figure out how to individually coat each little
plankton with sun screen. It'd have to be the water-proof kind, too -
none of that cheap stuff.
Total score: 140
Total score: 140
CPS 60% People
who are afraid of giant flying bugs (and that's most people) will be
absolutely horrified. Thankfully, you can shut the door until they pass.
But that doesn't stop the incessant buzzing, which I doubt many home
stereo systems could block out. Not to mention the particularly biblical
flavor of this disaster - Prince of Egypt-style, right? If you believe God's out on a warpath, you're going to be trembling even if you're safely inside.
WOD 60% Locusts
eat their body mass each day. Which means a swarm a billion strong,
each weighing about two grams, consume two million kilograms daily. They
will consume nearly any food crop, including pearl millet, rice, maize,
sorghum, sugarcane, barley, cotton, fruit trees, date palm, vegetables,
rangeland grasses, acacia, pines, and banana. Did I mention their feces
are toxic? Can you imagine how much there'd be? Bleh. The famine that
follows will devastate any pre-industrial civilization. I guess that
means we're ok.
BRS 30% Well,
I guess you're gonna be hungry, and you might starve unless you can
stomach locust droppings or kill that fatted calf in the back yard.
Scrounging for food doesn't sound very badass to me. Eating grasshopper
poop even less so. No wonder there's never been a successful film about
it.
Total score: 150
Total score: 150
CPS 70% Since this has never happened in our lifetime it's difficult to be afraid. Or maybe it's that much easier. Deep Impact, right?
Humanity panics, riots break out, the government starts putting all the
scientists and professors and artists (only the good ones) in caves.
People who aren't chosen are entitled to soil themselves. Still, you
might not even see the asteroid coming, much less hit. And its effects
would take hours to manifest themselves over the entire planet.
WOD 90% Well, life as you know it is over. If a big one hits (think Melancholia). Thankfully, none
is expected until 2880, and hopefully the scientists are right. But what
do they care? They know they'll be safe in the underground bunkers a
mile below the surface with six gazillion frozen dinners. This remains the most likely cause
of the human race's extinction. If the asteroid hits land, a dust cloud
blocks out all sunlight for years, basically equivalent to a global
nuclear winter - extinction. If it hits water, we get tsunamis and a lot
of extra rain, minor earthquakes and volcanic eruptions - no
extinction.
BRS 90% In the worst case - a ground impact - I'm thinking something like The Postman,
where the world's a desert inhabited by violent tribal societies?
Governmental control goes to hell after the bullets and the hot dogs run
out, and after fifty or a hundred years of rotting inside a cave,
people get impatient and come back out. Then we finally get down to business - survival of the badassest.
Total score: 250
Total score: 250
| Chance for Pants-Shitting | Wake of Destruction | Badass Requirement for Survival | Total | |
| tsunami | 90 | 60 | 40 | 190 |
| hurricane | 40 | 80 | 20 | 140 |
| tornado | 100 | 30 | 50 | 180 |
| wildfire | 50 | 30 | 80 | 160 |
| eruption | 90 | 70 | 80 | 210 |
| earthquake | 80 | 50 | 70 | 200 |
| epidemic | 80 | 50 | 100 | 230 |
| gamma rays | 30 | 100 | 10 | 140 |
| locusts | 60 | 60 | 30 | 150 |
| impact event | 70 | 90 | 90 | 250 |
Runner-up: viral epidemic.
Scariest : tornado.
Most destructive: gamma ray burst.
Most challenging: viral epidemic.
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