History Main / StoryboardingTheApocalypse

->''"ComicBook/{{Darkseid}} goes all out. A lot of villains tell everyone about their plan, but Darkseid filmed an elaborate dramatization of it. Look at those special effects. He didn't just have a computer-rendered picture of what his battle station will look like, he got actors to run around on an airfield while planes were getting vaporized."''

* [[Literature/TheWordAndTheVoid The Knights of the Word]] in Creator/TerryBrooks's overarching meta series have these occur to them every time they fall asleep.

* Although the hero of the ''Literature/{{Pendragon}}'' books is always trying to prevent whatever world he's in from falling apart, Bobby gets a good, long, disturbing look at what will happen if he fails in the third book [[spoiler:and the Nazis win World War II]].
* Subversions abound in the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse, where such visions often lead to the [[SelfFulfillingProphecies very events they depict]]. Jacen Solo's are the most specifically apocalyptic; his visions of what the future will be like turn him to the Dark Side in order to prevent the galaxy from lapsing into unending war. Ironically they all involve him killing Luke Skywalker, but it never occurs to him to kill himself.
* An early ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' book has the Ellimist showing the heroes a supposedly inevitable Yeerk-dominated world, and then actually ''giving'' them the opportunity to [[RefusalOfTheCall Refuse The Call]]. However, this wasn't a message of doom, an easy out, or even a possible future, but a BatmanGambit on the Ellimist's part to show the heroes where the location of a generator (which no longer needs to be hidden in the BadFuture) that will cripple the alien invasion for a short time is.

---> '''Lord Downey:''' Well, we can get along without magic for two years, can't we?
---> '''Ponder:''' No. The sun will crash and burn. The seas will dry up and vanish. The turtles and the elephant might cease to exist altogether.
---> '''Downey:''' All that'll happen in two years?
---> '''Ponder:''', No, all of that'll happen in the ''first ten minutes''. Magic isn't just coloured lights and balls; magic holds the world together.

* ''Series/TwentyFour'' will often feature a Presidential adviser or a CTU analyst using a [=PowerPoint=] presentation to literally storyboard what will occur if the terrorists' plot succeeds. The second season premiere shows [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent President]] [[BaldOfAuthority David]] [[BenevolentBoss Palmer]] staring in shocked silence at a computer projection of the "worst case scenario" death toll if the nuclear bomb goes off in LA.

* In the season opener for ''Series/{{Galactica 1980}}'', Doctor Zee shows a simulation of what a Cylon invasion of Earth would look like. The destruction was recognizable to viewers as Cylon fighters superimposed over stock footage of the movie ''Earthquake'' -- but that makes sense in-universe, as Doctor Zee could have easily captured the footage from TV airings of the movie!
** For some reason promotional material for the movie that was made from that opener seemed to draw almost exclusively from this attack.

** In "Doomed", after Giles reveals that the MonsterOfTheWeek wants to open the Hellmouth and end the world, everyone groans "Again?" and Xander comments that it's lost its impact. At which point Giles proceeds to remind them exactly what that means. In detail.
-->'''Xander''': "Hmm. Feeling the impact again."
** In the seventh season the First Slayer gives Buffy a vision of the inside of the Hellmouth. An entire army of the Ubervamps that are nearly impossible to kill. Only they're [[ConservationOfNinjitsu strangely not, anymore.]]
* In the finale of ''Series/MahouSentaiMagiranger''/''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'', the Rangers are zapped by the BigBad to a barren world where he has taken control. Its precise nature wasn't exactly clear - we never saw much of it beyond a small cave - but it seemed to be less of an outright AlternateDimension than a mere taste of what was coming.
** In ''Magiranger'', N. Ma claimed to be "devouring time", aging the entire planet except himself and the Rangers.
* A few [[TheSeventies 1970s]] ''Series/DoctorWho'' examples:
** "Inferno" sends the Doctor into a {{Dystopi|a}}c MirrorUniverse where Project Inferno (ongoing in his reality) has progressed a few days faster and proceeds to destroy the world, thus giving him extra motivation to shut down his world's Project Inferno.
** "Day of the Daleks" has a future AlternateHistory where a nuclear holocaust happens and the Daleks take over. Hearing about the averted timeline gives additional incentives for various diplomats to get it right.
** In "Pyramids Of Mars", the Doctor takes the TARDIS to 1980 to show Sarah Jane the lifeless Earth that will result if Sutekh isn't stopped in 1911.
* ''Series/SevenDays'' operate similarly to the ''Series/DoctorWho'' examples above: show what happened, then use TimeTravel to go back and fix things.

* The last story arc of the first season of ''Series/StargateSG1'' began with this. Even though it had been less than a season, the [[BigBad Goa'uld]] might have already been looking a bit [[HarmlessVillain harmless]]. Their foot soldiers had apparently attended the ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy and wore [[ArmorIsUseless Useless Armor]]. The SG-1 team was threatened inadvertently by {{Human Alien}}s, StarfishAliens and {{Negative Space Wedgie}}s as often as by the Goa'uld intentionally. But in the episode "There But For the Grace of God", Daniel visits an AlternateUniverse and learns that if the Goa'uld ever made it to Earth ''in ships'' (at least, ships without saboteurs inside) Earth would be screwed. Apparently, the Goa'uld don't need good aim when they are bombarding Earth's cities from orbit.
** Another episode was later devoted to this, showing a future where Daniel received the knowledge of the Goa'uld, and also their evil.
* Although the deadliness of the Xindi threat was stated often in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''; the episode "Twilight" demonstrates EXACTLY what would happen if they made it to Earth.
* In the aptly named ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode "The End", the angel Zachariah shows Dean a BadFuture where Sam is [[DemonicPossession possessed by Lucifer]], the angels are all either fallen or missing, and Dean himself has become [[DarkerAndEdgier harder and more cynical]] because of the ongoing ZombieApocalypse.
* Sometimes happens on ''Series/TheXFiles'' when the ArcWords "the timetable has been set" come up. Particularly memorable are Dr. Kurtzweil's ramblings in TheMovie, where he reveals the first steps in [[spoiler:the impending eradication of humanity and the subsequent alien colonization of Earth]].
* Burt on ''[[Series/{{Tremors}} Tremors: The Series]]'' did this a few times, describing how failure to eliminate a Graboid or shrieker quickly will snowball into mass destruction if they breed and/or metamorphose.
* The series ''Series/LifeAfterPeople'' examines what would happen to our cities (and everything else) if all humans were to suddenly and simultaneously vanish.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In Don Rosa's [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse "The Universal Solvent"]], Huey explains to Uncle Scrooge what will happen to the Earth if they don't find a way to retrieve the universal solvent that Scrooge recklessly spilled before it dissolves its way to the Earth's core.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'': arguably the entire series is Doctor Strange storyboarding this, or rather, doing his best to storyboard the ''aversion'' of this. In the final chapter of the first book when called on to explain himself for his schemes and manipulations, he proceeds to detail exactly how things would have turned out if he had not acted, or if he had acted earlier, quoting the original ForWantOfANail poem.

** ''Film/TheTerminator'' gave us a glimpse of the future where humanity is being hunted down by [=SkyNet=].
** ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' also showed us Sarah Connor's nightmare of a city being destroyed, just to remind us of the nuclear holocaust, quite disturbing for those who remember the UsefulNotes/ColdWar days.
** ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'' showed the apocalypse happening as nuclear missiles rained down on cities

* The story of ''Videogame/EarthBound'' involves aliens invading the future as we see it in the title of the game. This sends Buzz-Buzz to the present day to find the 4 heroes who can stop BigBad before that happens. The team never go to the future for an observation of the BadFuture, [[spoiler:as BigBad is actually in the past, controlling the world's destiny from there.]]