Great Collapse

Reno's Attack

### Result

Sierra Madre detonates, setting off the nuclear stockpile across the country; the New World is burned in radioactive fire. The Gates close and the world falls into darkness

> *"The Great Collapse is not the end. It's a **beginning**. The Old World died before. Now the New World must be erased. The Next World is about to dawn...and the Great Collapse will reveal it,"*
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> -- The Man in Black describes the purpose of the Great Collapse
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The **Great Collapse**, also known as the **Second End of the World** and the **Cataclysm**, was a catastrophic event in *The Walking Dead: 'Cataclysm'* as part of the Extended Universe. It started and ended on Sunday, June 19, 2118, when nuclear weapons were launched by the Cult of the Man in Black to cleanse the New World of the weakness and the undead that plagued it. The attack lasted just one hour, according to most survivors' accounts. Once the last atomic bomb and nuclear warhead had fallen, the New World fell into the deep darkness of a nuclear holocaust.

However, the end of the New World marked the beginning of the Next World, a new age where humanity could once again rise to reclaim the world. However, as revealed by the continued thriving of nations like the Commonwealth of New Graystone, the Great Collapse ultimately did little to impede humanity's progress and even, in some cases, make humanity even further advanced.

## Prelude

The Great Collapse was planned as the ultimate goal of the Cult of the Man in Black. The Man in Black himself, realizing that humanity could not progress any further in the New World, sought out to eliminate the weak and make way for the strong. He originally formed his army to help repair a series of Old World nuclear bunkers dotted across the United States, before discovering a massive stockpile of nuclear warheads beneath the Sierra Madre Military Base, as well as a still-active network of missile silos. The Cult's mission changed: wipe out as many communities as possible and place the survivors in the repaired bunkers, in order to populate the Next World with those they considered "strong".

## Great Collapse

> *"The Great Collapse...it won't be our end. When the world falls into the flames, we will rise again. **We will rise again**,"*
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> -- A song sung by a member of the Cult of the Man in Black
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At 10:37 a.m, Thomas Trent, bleeding to death and realizing the purpose of the Cult's plan, turned his key alongside his dreaded nemesis.

Just a few minutes later, the Sierra Madre exploded in nuclear fire; its destruction activated the connected silos, launching the stored missiles. The nukes rained down across the New World, ripping apart the surface and scorching it in flames. Entire mountain ranges were created as the ground buckled and moved under the strain of the cataclysmic pressure produced by numerous, concentrated atomic explosions. Rivers and oceans were contaminated with the resulting radioactive fallout released by the relatively low-yield nuclear weapons, and the climate changed horrifically.

The west coast was the first area hit by the bombs, allowing the east coast to receive a small warning. Most major communities were devastated and wiped from the face of the earth.

## Aftermath

Just as the Man in Black had intended, there were minimal human casualties, as most of the survivors had been sealed in the Cult's nuclear bunkers. However, there was still a large number of casualties, potentially reaching into the hundreds of thousands.

The soot produced by the detonations blocked the sun for several years. Several weeks after the Great Collapse, a black rain started to fall, contaminated with radioactive soot and ash.

However, the worst affected area of the country was by far the east coast, where almost all of the already fragile societies that had been built up along the coast were wiped out in moments. The few that survived slowly broke apart into hundreds of hostile tribes fighting for territory and resources, with the east coast descending into a barbaric, medieval-like wasteland. The only major east coast community to survive the catastrophe was the Columbian Commonwealth.

## Trivia

* EDStudios has said that "the {Great Collapse} is the end of all the events and series' that occurred before it, and everything that we do afterwards is something new and marks a new age for the series,"