this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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Lemmy World Rules

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I just finished reading Parable of The Sower, and while it's probably one of the greatest books I've ever read, most of the book is focused on survival in a world where every random homeless person and drug user wants to kill the protagonist (you can tell it was written shortly after the crack epidemic and when there was a lot of panic about crime). It was strange that most of the book was just about survival. The protagonist knew they must build something new, but they never quite got to that point in the book.

There doesn't seem to be much aspirational speculative fiction where people start building something better after a collapse of society and speculates how that may be done or how the new society may function.

The only fiction I can think of off the top of my head that covers a little bit about rebuilding society is the movie The Postman that I watched when I was a kid (I don't remember if it was good or not). Perhaps Parable of the Talents actually does start covering the building of a better society? (But I read an excerpt, and it looks like it's going to be, very presciently, about a murderous christian nationalist movement that wants to "make America great again"). I know there's stuff like Star Trek, but that's mostly set long after the rebuild; it doesn't cover in-depth how they got to that point (AFAIK).

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[–] lime@feddit.nu 5 points 18 hours ago

this is way out there but the world of the board game Earthborne Rangers is a post-apocalyptic setting where the last effort of the old high-tech civilisation was to pour all their resources into building giant machines to re-wild the planet. when civilisation collapsed, the machines continued cleaning the water and the air, purifying the poisoned soil, planting trees and plants, breeding native animals and insects, filling mines, and so on. meanwhile, the last of humanity banded together to live in harmony with nature, getting their needs from careful stewarding rather than extraction.

it's still a dangerous post-apocalypse, because some species were irreversibly changed by the collapse, so in addition to wolf packs and horny moose you can encounter giant mutated plants or armoured eagles, or find old overgrown ruins with dangerous terrain.

even if you're not into board games, there's a beautiful art/lorebook of the world. it appears to be sold out at the moment though.