Talk:Eschatology

From doktorsleepless

Nice. I can't help but think of Galacticus on the ClassX though. :) --Spiraltwist 06:07, 17 October 2008 (PDT)

i've no idea what this means. google insists Galacticus is really spelled Galactus, but i'm not sure i believe it. and ClassX? either a radio show (which might really refer to a non-Galactus Galacticus) or an X-Men reference that's over my head? if there was an emoticon that said "looking at you as if you were an alien who'd just grown a second head", i'd use it now.  :) --Taz 10:37, 17 October 2008 (PDT)

Nah, I miss spelled.  ;) --Spiraltwist 18:21, 17 October 2008 (PDT)

I know this is working from some someone elses heirarchy, but is it worth adding in levels that go beyond planetary? For instance: Solar systems can be eaten by black holes, galaxies can collide, causing huge upheaval and the entire universe could end in a Big Crunch (or more slowly via heat death). Heck if some variants on string theory prove correct you could have entire universes colliding as hyper-membranes causing even larger eschaton events. And thats not even including religious or mystical reasons.

Suggesting planetary destruction as the biggest form of apocalypse shows a severe lack of imagination.--Mark 04:05, 18 October 2008 (PDT)

@spiraltwist: you're still missing spelling.  ;) --Taz 06:07, 18 October 2008 (PDT)

@mark: ha! well, imagination doesn't really enter into it. this isn't a method to list all potential apocalypses; it's a method to categorize them by end result. by that measure, planetary destruction is the biggest: anything bigger that doesn't include planetary destruction isn't an apocalypse; anything bigger that does include it is already counted in class X. (excepting some cosmological event that kills everything on the planet but leaves the planet intact -- that's a class 5 event.)

the comments to the original post where i found this included a healthy discussion of potential classes X2 thru XN. if you're interested in that sort of thing it'll be entertaining reading.

as for religions/mystical reasons, none are precluded by this scheme, because it doesn't deal with reasons, it deals with results. if the result of the apocalypse is complete human elimination, yet (some) biosphere survival, it's a class 3 event.

frankly, i think all the interesting stuff is in classes 0-2 anyway. what good is an apocalypse story without survivors? --Taz 06:07, 18 October 2008 (PDT)

I only mentioned reasons of any kind to make the point that higher level apocolypses are conceivable. And while planetary destruction is included in higher levels, so are all the lower levels. You could even say that if I die in an apocolypse event it doesn't matter how big it is, all levels are just extensions of me dying. But then we'd lose out on all the classification systems.

I think my main gripe is that switching from 5 to X suggests that's the earth is the only thing worth considering (and if you want story possiblilties stemming from type-X, the most obvious would be something like Superman or Star Wars).

Thanks for the link though. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one wondering what you'd call the destruction of our local galactic structure. :-P --Mark 07:02, 18 October 2008 (PDT)

@Taz - Ha! (saw your addition - made me laugh)  :) Re:Typos - that's why I need my brain-to-computer interface now. --Spiraltwist 22:41, 18 October 2008 (PDT)