History Main / ApocalypseAnarchy

* In ''The Survivalist'' series by Jerry Ahern, the protagonist John Rourke does a CrashCourseLanding when World War III breaks out, only for the other passengers to be massacred by one of the outlaw biker gangs that spring up in the aftermath, while Rourke's family have to kill some rapists who try attacking them. However the upcoming [[InvadedStatesOfAmerica Soviet invasion]] means everyone soon has a vested interest in restoring law and order, either to fight the invaders or (for the Soviets) maintaining the appearance of control, and the gangs are either absorbed into LaResistance or destroyed.

* ''Series/TheStrain'': As the vampiric plague spreads, New York collapses into chaos, with multiple scenes of looting used to demonstrate this in the back half of Season 1. It gets worse in Season 2, as on top of the looting and violence, there are numerous fires shown to be burning out of control at any given point, and things get so bad that the city ultimately declares martial law. By Season 3, the only parts of the city not reduced to scavengers fighting over the remaining supplies are the ones being run like a PoliceState.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E75TheMidnightSun The Midnight Sun]]", Earth is moving closer and closer towards the Sun. A radio report warns people to be careful outside due to widespread looting and wandering maniacs on the streets. [[spoiler: It's all a fever dream the main character is having, but reality isn't much better, as Earth is actually moving AWAY from the Sun and is slowly freezing over]].

* ''Series/TheXFiles'': "War of Coprophages" has people in one town think that they are all going to be killed by cockroaches which got there either due to GovernmentConspiracy and their experiments, or that they are alien robotic invaders. Chaos ensues. It's most apparent in one scene in a convenience store where everybody is trying to grab whatever supplies they can and two ladies fight over the last can of insecticide.

* While it doesn't happen for the world, Phil Connors in ''Film/GroundhogDay'' [[DiscussedTrope discusses with a couple of guys]] what they would do if there was no tomorrow. Their enthusiastic answer is that they could do whatever they wanted, now with no consequences. Inspired by this, Phil decides he's going to live his GroundhogDayLoop in the most outlandish way possible.

* ''Manga/GyaguMangaBiyori'': One episode takes place in the last hour before [[ColonyDrop a giant meteor slams into Earth]], and people are rioting in the streets. A variety show host tries to stage one final performance and invites several celebrity guests, but they don't feel like cooperating; a singer [[NakedPeopleAreFunny inexplicably streaks]] and goes on a rant about how he hates the music he's known for, a [[GenkiGirl cutesy idol]] turns out to be a {{Gasshole}} who's older than she claimed, a ventriloquist beats up his dummy because it [[CreepyDoll freaks him out]], and a magician reveals [[spoiler:he's [[NotSoPhonyPsychic a real sorcerer]]. The ventriloquist demands he prove it, and he does so by deflecting the meteor. When everyone realizes the danger is gone, they suddenly try to go back to their old personas]].

* ''Manga/GyaguMangaBiyori'': One episode takes place in the last hour before [[ColonyDrop a giant meteor slams into Earth]], and people are rioting in the streets. A variety show host tries to stage one final performance and invites several celebrity guests, but they don't feel like cooperating; a singer [[NakedPeopleAreFunny inexplicably streaks]] and goes on a rant about how he hates the music he's known for, a [[GenkiGirl cutesy idol]] turns out to be a {{Gasshole}} who's older than she claimed, a ventriloquist beats up his dummy because it [[CreepyDoll freaks him out]], and a magician [[spoiler:is [[NotSoPhonyPsychic a real sorcerer]], who demonstrates by deflecting the meteor. When everyone realizes the danger is gone, they suddenly try to go back to their old personas]].

* Shouran Academy during the zombie outbreak in ''Manga/ApocalypseNoToride''.

* ''Literature/MoonCrashSeries'': "The dead and the gone" - stealing from corpses on the street to get food on the black market.

* ''VideoGame/DeadRising'': The protagonists have to deal with a lot of looters and psychopaths who pop up with the ZombieApocalypse.

* ''VideoGame/AfterTheEndAPostApocalypticAmerica'': Varies from region to region. Some parts of America have descended into tribalism -- Viking raiders ply the Great Lakes, pirates descend from Canada to harass the East Coast, nomadic horsemen run rampant in regions of the Midwest not brought to heel by the more civilized Native Americans, and savage tribes worshiping the gods of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos dominate New England -- but others, including Mexico, the Holy Columbian Confederacy, the Anabaptists, the Native American tribes of the Midwest, and the Caribbean Empire, have managed to rebuild into large-scale feudal societies.

* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' had a comic tie in showing what the survivors did before the zombie outbreak happened. In Francis's case, he decided to loot a store when everyone was rioting during the beginning of the Green Flu outbreak. When Francis sees zombies are real and they are coming for him, he has his friends haul up a jukebox to the roof of the bar and blast music while he and his friends have some fun by shooting zombies on the streets below.

->''It all gets pretty crazy, bedlam all around\\

* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': TriggerHappy [[AxCrazy lunatic]] Van Zant decides to go on a killing spree when Majin Buu goes on his rampage, apparently with the rationale that, since Buu was going to destroy the world either way, he wants to go out [[JustForPun with a bang]]. However, he soon drops this and decides to kill Majin Buu so he would be able to go on killing people himself, which [[AssholeVictim doesn't end well for him]].

* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWarsDaysOfRuin'', a game set after a meteor strike wrecked the world, has as its first villain the Beast, a former SociopathicSoldier who leads a group of heavily-armed raiders, attacking the few remaining enclaves of civilization and looting them of everything valuable. [[spoiler:He's being secretly funded by Caulder, a MadScientist using the apocalypse as a testbed for various unethical experiments.]]

* ''Film/{{Evolution}}'' goes with the first version, except it's more of a drunken frat party and one girl with a [[MustNotDieAVirgin "I Don't Want To Die A Virgin" placard,]] among other more adolescent displays of anarchy.
--> Orlando Jones: (on smoking again after he'd long quit) Not much of a point to clean living anymore.

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

* In ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' as Dr. Forrester drives a truck full of equipment meant to help find a weakness to fight the martians, the equipment never makes it to a lab set up in the mountains. While driving through Los Angeles, a mob of rioters throws off the equipment from the truck, beat up Dr. Forrester when he tried to fight them off, and drive off with anyone who could hang on. When someone tried to bribe his way on, [[MoneyIsNotPower he was told his money was no good anymore, and thrown off.]]

* ''Film/TheDayTheEarthCaughtFire'' (1961). Water rationing is imposed as the Earth hurls toward the Sun. At one point, the protagonist has to fight his way through a street full of teenagers high on drugs having a water fight. He eventually makes his way to the apartment of his LoveInterest, and they spend a more quiet time together.

* [[AfterTheEnd The world has ALREADY ended]], and civilization is gone. All that's left are survivalist compounds, roving bands of brutal raiders, chaos and despair, [[Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar martial artists who can rend the flesh of the wicked with a single press of a pressure point]], gangs of [[BadassBiker badass bikers]] and their motorbikes, and [[Film/MadMax a lone anti-hero with a cool car.]]

* The protagonists of the ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' franchise have to deal with a lot of looters and psychopaths who pop up with the ZombieApocalypse.

* Varies from region to region in ''VideoGame/AfterTheEndAPostApocalypticAmerica''. Some parts of America have descended into tribalism -- Viking raiders ply the Great Lakes, pirates descend from Canada to harass the East Coast, nomadic horsemen run rampant in regions of the Midwest not brought to heel by the more civilized Native Americans, and savage tribes worshiping the gods of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos dominate New England -- but others, including Mexico, the Holy Columbian Confederacy, the Anabaptists, the Native American tribes of the Midwest, and the Caribbean Empire, have managed to rebuild into large-scale feudal societies.
* The first villain in ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars: Days of Ruin]]'', a game set after a meteor strike wrecked the world, is the Beast, a former SociopathicSoldier who leads a group of heavily-armed raiders, attacking the few remaining enclaves of civilization and looting them of everything valuable. [[spoiler:He's being secretly funded by Caulder, a MadScientist using the apocalypse as a testbed for various unethical experiments.]]

* In ''ComicBook/ApocalypseNerd'', North Korea bombs Seattle, and while a "nerd camp" and a feminist commune seem to be weathering being cut off by the U.S. government in the Cascade mountains just fine, outside the camps, there are raving gangs of big city refugees and Native Americans looting small towns and other settlements of any useful supplies.

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]

* In an episode of ''[[Series/{{Mash}} M*A*S*H]]'' when they think that they are all about to be killed, several of the [=NCO=]s get together for a high-stakes poker game. One of the neophytes asks, "So, what are the stakes again?" After explaining that they're basically a year's wages for the cheap chips, he asks, "And if we don't die tomorrow?" "Whites are a cent, blues are a quarter, and reds are a dollar."

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' is an extended exploration of this trope, with the first two seasons basically breaking Rick down and forcing him to abandon civilized behavior.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E75TheMidnightSun The Midnight Sun]]", Earth is moving closer and closer towards the Sun. A radio report warns people to be careful outside due to widespread looting and wandering maniacs on the streets. [[spoiler: It's all a fever dream the main character is having, but reality isn't much better, as Earth is actually moving AWAY from the Sun and is slowly freezing over]]
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': "War of Coprophages" has people in one town think that they are all going to be killed by cockroaches which got there either due to GovernmentConspiracy and their experiments, or that they are alien robotic invaders. Chaos ensues. It's most apparent in one scene in a convenience store where everybody is trying to grab whatever supplies they can and two ladies fight over the last can of insecticide.

* In ''Literature/TheRoad'' the world has descended into chaos. It's the law of the jungle.

* In ''Literature/TheCyberDragonsTrilogy'' this is a DownplayedTrope as the Eruption of the Yellowstone caldera results in the Collapse, which ends with a billion people killed globally and ten years of anarchy. It's a downplayed trope because eventually society gets, mostly, back on its feet and becomes a {{Cyberpunk}} {{Dystopia}}.

** This is an ongoing problem in ''Literature/CthulhuArmageddon'' as human society has been reduced to a bunch of WIld West towns and fortress cities that are more or less independent because travel is incredibly perilous. The Great Old Ones continue to stomp around along with their creatures, warping reality along the way that humanity is guaranteed to go extinct unless they find a way to escape or change.

* ''Literature/TheStand'': As [[TheVirus Captai** This is an ongoing problem in ''Literature/CthulhuArmageddon'' as human society has been reduced to a bunch of WIld West towns and fortress cities that are more or less independent because travel is incredibly perilous. The Great Old Ones continue to stomp around along with their creatures, warping reality along the way that humanity is guaranteed to go extinct unless they find a way to escape or change.
* In ''Literature/TheCyberDragonsTrilogy'' this is a DownplayedTrope as the Eruption of the Yellowstone caldera results in the Collapse, which ends with a billion people killed globally and ten years of anarchy. It's a downplayed trope because eventually society gets, mostly, back on its feet and becomes a {{Cyberpunk}} {{Dystopia}}.n Trips]] sweeps across the U.S and quickly grows out of control, society begins to increasingly break down, but things don't get ''really'' bad until information leaks to the public that not only is the U.S military using lethal violence to supress protests and cover up just how bad the outbreak is, the government ''created the superflu in the first place'' and the entire disaster is their fault. Desertion becomes rampant as soldiers turn on their officers, civilians form into mobs, there's widespread looting, rape and murder everywhere, the only reason things aren't even worse is because the flu kills almost everyone. Even afterwards, survivors engage in this, such as a group of Army deserters forming a travelling rape gang with captive women.

* ''Literature/TheStand'': As [[TheVirus Captain Trips]] sweeps across the U.S and quickly grows out of control, society begins to increasingly break down, but things don't get ''really'' bad until information leaks to the public that not only is the U.S military using lethal violence to supress protests and cover up just how bad the outbreak is, the government ''created the superflu in the first place'' and the entire disaster is their fault. Desertion becomes rampant as soldiers turn on their officers, civilians form into mobs, there's widespread looting, rape and murder everywhere, the only reason things aren't even worse is because the flu kills almost everyone. Even afterwards, survivors engage in this, such as a group of Army deserters forming a travelling rape gang with captive women.
* In ''The Survivalist'' series by Jerry Ahern, the protagonist John Rourke does a CrashCourseLanding when World War III breaks out, only for the other passengers to be massacred by one of the outlaw biker gangs that spring up in the aftermath, while Rourke's family have to kill some rapists who try attacking them. However the upcoming [[InvadedStatesOfAmerica Soviet invasion]] means everyone soon has a vested interest in restoring law and order, either to fight the invaders or (for the Soviets) maintaining the appearance of control, and the gangs are either absorbed into LaResistance or destroyed.

** 2161: 84 years after the bombs fell begins ''VideoGame/Fallout1''. Civilization is reduced to shantytowns struggling to make an agrarian existence on the soil. There is trade between towns, especially to and from the Hub, but roving raider gangs as well as [[NuclearNasty mutant animals]] pose a constant threat outside of city walls. The closest there is to Pre-War society is the Vaults, such as Vault 13. The only "superpower" is an army of Super Mutants [[spoiler:that have ties to the Children of the Cathedral]].

* [[AfterTheEnd The world has ALREADY ended]], and civilization is gone. All that's left are survivalist compounds, roving bands of brutal raiders, chaos and despair, [[Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar martial artists who can rend the flesh of the wicked with a single press of a pressure point]], gangs of [[BadassBikers badass bikers]] and [[Film/MadMax a lone anti-hero with a cool car.]]