Social Collapse

Social Collapse concerns the dissolution of the bonds of civilised order and a society’s fall into anarchy and barbarism. This is frequently depicted in terms of rioting, rampant lawlessness, looting and lack of individual safety. As this becomes more widespread, we see groups maintaining a tenuous coexistence or mutual defence in the absence of widespread law and order. Where any form of society regathers in the aftermath, it usually consists of small self-contained communities or is governed by warlords.

Stories range all the way from the beginning of collapse to the immediate aftermath of the fall of civilisation. Stories set after that point are dealt with under After the Holocaust. Films frequently concern a small group seeking to get to a place of safety as the world is in the process of collapsing into anarchy.

The cause of social collapse is some form of Catastrophe – be it revolution, Alien Invasion, Plague and Pandemic, a zombie apocalypse, an outbreak of Nuclear War, or circumstances that are smaller and more localised in scale.