The Red Plague is:
"'...lethal, and has an unknown incubation period, and has now attacked some of our men. Do you see? It could kill off whole populations, bring down whole civilizations.'" (p. 66)
Might the next mutated virus kill everyone on Earth or, the next worse thing, kill so many people that civilization collapses? There are many currents threats. This could be another of them. Of course, it has happened in sf:
Survivors (TV series);
The Last Man by Mary Shelley;
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.
For The Last Man on the blog, see here; for Earth Abides, see here. (Scroll down.)
A pleasant thought! I will try to put it aside while I drive my daughter and granddaughter to photograph deer on a country estate on this English Sunday afternoon.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
This is not a totally impossible idea, alas, even in real history! The Black Death of 1346-48 seems to have killed off as much as forty percent of the entire population of Europe. And it was apparently just as bad in the Near East as it was spreading westwards from China along the trade routes.
One way to avoid the complete collapse of civilization due to a plague would be for mankind to finally get SERIOUS about getting off this rock and colonizing other worlds! Because it would no longer mean keeping all our eggs in the only basket we now have, Earth.
Ad astra! Sean
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