Saint Crow - 1st of the Radio Kings & Post Apocalyptic Warlord. King's Currency: Wasteland Salvaged Records, Turntable, and Speakers MEGAPOST!!!

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Also, realistic characters have always been beyond the two-dimensional, white-or-black-hat portrayal - in truthful representation to man’s inherent complexity; shades of gray, per se.  Or as Walt Whitman had put it, "I contain multitudes..."


I suppose that my point here is that, given the degree of unavoidable similarity of circumstances, themselves; the challenge of originality truly depends upon one’s vision for that which has not been so predetermined by situation - but rather, the conceptualization of new responses and new situations…  

Just pondering aloud.   [/quote]


There are only so many apocalyptic scenarios we can think of; Nuclear war, alien invasion, asteroid strike, global warming and or global resource depletion, plague, zombies, scientific experiment gone awry, massive coronal ejection from the sun, rise of the machines.....

But all of these really only serve a purpose, which is create a setting for the protagonists of our stories to live or die by. At the end of the day, we can only milk the cause of the disaster so far and it's the interactions between the humans, be they the heroes or villains of the story or both that give depth to the story. An asteroid crashing into the Earth, a nuclear weapon exploding over your home city, a plague....these things have no feelings, no thoughts. Simply destructive power without a purpose and indifferent to what lies in its path. So regardless of the originality of the concept, if indeed such a thing still exists, what makes a story enjoyable would be the quality of it's characters.

My personal favorite PA stories are either hundreds of civil wars on a global scale, or multiple EMP attacks that wipe out anything and everything run by electricity.

Stryker2011 wrote:My personal favorite PA stories are either hundreds of civil wars on a global scale, or multiple EMP attacks that wipe out anything and everything run by electricity.

In the case of the first, we are talking about a gradual descent into chaos, in the case of the second, all the lights going out at once.  Both have potential as backgrounds. In my Kamiko Takahara DAZ 3D stories, it's pretty much a case of the first, including the United States which breaks into complete anarchy right around a constitutional crisis in 2019.  Kamiko is an American woman of Japanese ancestry, who some say is watched over by the kami--her name translates into "Little Goddess"--who ends up right in the middle of it. She has a knack for finding her way into chaotic situations, plus the luck of the devil.  I am planning to try to make a Kamiko figure and integrate her into my current 1/6th scale story line, but without the excessive eroticism of my DAZ stories.  I've ordered a head that looks sort of like her and then I have to cut the hair to match her bob-style haircut and do a few other things.  If I succeed, she'll eventually become a part of my pin-up patrol.

ThePhotogsBlog wrote:There are only so many apocalyptic scenarios we can think of; Nuclear war, alien invasion, asteroid strike, global warming and or global resource depletion, plague, zombies, scientific experiment gone awry, massive coronal ejection from the sun, rise of the machines.....

But all of these really only serve a purpose, which is create a setting for the protagonists of our stories to live or die by. At the end of the day, we can only milk the cause of the disaster so far and it's the interactions between the humans, be they the heroes or villains of the story or both that give depth to the story. An asteroid crashing into the Earth, a nuclear weapon exploding over your home city, a plague....these things have no feelings, no thoughts. Simply destructive power without a purpose and indifferent to what lies in its path.  So regardless of the originality of the concept, if indeed such a thing still exists, what makes a story enjoyable would be the quality of it's characters.

Well, that’s rather my point - however, I do believe that there is yet room for originality, although it often seems discarded for the sake of expedience; what constitutes the genre is perhaps not as limited as the several scenarios that you’ve mentioned, but rather, the relatively original ones have not yet been proposed...  

And I wholly agree that it’s thoughtful development of quality characters that truly distinguishes any story, regardless of genre.  

In any event, your story sounds intriguing, TPB.


Stryker, Isn’t it unsettling to consider how reliant we’ve become upon technology, that something like an electromagnetic hiccup could quite literally, ultimately, wipe out all of humanity?  

Indeed, such were never an issue with which 19th century settlers had to contend.  All these scenarios seem indicative of an entirely new era in which we find ourselves currently upon the doorstep...

Telltale fears of a world shifting amidst tremendous transition...

I keep going back to this diorama as it's serving as inspiration for one I want to create myself detailing as section of Alex and the Pin-Up patrol's nuclear missile silo bunker. It's having all the little details that make it come to life and you've certainly done that here. It has just what it needs in detail; no more, no less. Enough to think it could be a real living space, but not so much as to detract us from the figures and their interactions which are all masterfully posed. Bravo!

Wow! as a lead character and protagonist this guy is just amazing! Not only is he kitted out for anything he may come across in this broken world, but he also has a kick ass pad and two lovely ladies to keep him company! I love all the small details, the records are a really touch!
Everything about this post is spot on. This world you have created for your figures to live in is just breath taking!

ReverendSpooky wrote:But I think it's really dependent on what the cause of the collapse of civilization is.  Is it a pandemic?  

Could you ever have imagined, when you tapped out these lines on your keyboard in January 2019, that one year later just such a pandemic would be unleashed upon the world?

ReverendSpooky wrote:In the case of Radio Kings, it's about creating a horrible future caused by unbridled greed, selfishness, and shortsightedness, and then creating characters that hopefully can build something contrary to that out of the ashes.  

Your "fictional" story, unfortunately, eerily parallels current world events. Like a handful of Sci-Fi (I know, I know, it's SF now...) authors of the past – Clarke, Heinlein, Gibson, Bradbury – it appears that your predictions regarding the near-term future may be all too terrifyingly accurate, with your themes mirroring exactly what is happening in the world right now, today.

And here I intended merely to ask you about the 1/6 scale records, but after reading through the entire post and the follow-up comments... I may not sleep well tonight.