Is the human race able to survive Cataclysm?

[Bobdole44]

I am just thinking here and doing my best to read up on and understand the blob better. I love this subject:
Fungus is highly flammable. Without sufficient
rainfall the fungus would eventually catch on fire and
be burnt out by weather , heat, and thermodynamics.
Natural forest fires have been torching the earth for
billions of years before humanity even mattered. Not
counting the natural evolution of earth microfuana. We
are currently facing the threat of antibiotics being
rendered completely ineffective within 50 years due to
evolving resistant bacteria.
There would be a legitimate chance of multiple earth
bacteria/virus evolving to compete against the fungus, triffid and blob.
Both being organic, there are chemical elements that
are poisonous to them. And compounds that will killthem.
Seeing as the very atmosphere of Earth is deadly
to the Blob I don’t see them being able to compete
against the earth, triffids, and fungal to terraform
the atmosphere quick enough to survive on earth long
term.
The fungus would probably find an equilibrium with the
environment overall and completely dominate certain climates.
But by their design and biology they would also be
incapable of overrunning large portions of the globe
Some flora would, as with any fungus, develop resistance to the fungals .
As fire and commercial fungicide are toxic and deadly
to them, a small organized group with even salvaged
generators, combustibles, makeshift gas masks and/or
fungicidal products and medicines could fight back
against the fungals and easily keep a perimeter
secured.
The blob/nethrerum can only exist inside the bodies(50kg or
larger, if I remember right) of earth fauna due to the atmosphere being
toxic to them. As evidenced the bodies it inhabits rot
and break down. So with 99% of the population being
immediately consumed there is literally no way for the Blob to survive more than a few years.

[Reinhark]

Can’t the blob just enlarge the host bodies as seen with insect?(And spiders)

Given that there are more insect than humans(by weight), I would roughly estimate that even if all zombies spontaneously combust 90-95% of the blob will be unharmed.

Also, the dead body will spawn Roaches.

[Sediment]

From what I can gather from reading about the blob, humankind though largely decimated, is only clinging on by it’s fingernails because we’re not even a blip on the radar worth recognition.

If the blob decided we were any threat or even a big enough nuisance, it would just flood our world with untold numbers of horrors from untold numbers of other dimensions. Sure they’d kill each other off as well, but we’d be obliterated in the process. It wouldn’t need to fight us directly, just make the world completely toxic in every imaginable possible way.

Humans are just here, for now, because we were forgettable.

[crazykiddeath]

I get that the blob is powerful but it can’t just be because humans are “forgetable” that it doesn’t flood the planet, the blob also seems to be at war with fungals and triffids and those certainly aren’t on the decline.

[nerosshadow]

I skipped about 50 comments because I’m out of reading time rn. But are any of you familiar with the lovely concept known is existential horror?

We as a race quantify and create comparisons to various formations of matter. It becomes familiar in this way and we begin to understand it.

In the scientific community we acknowledge this has its limits. We adapt the information so that we can quantify it. 1.492×10^19 seems manageable right?

14,920,000,000,000,000,000,000

Can you tell me what that number is? I dont even know what to call it., incomprehensible maybe.

For the record, that is the distance to the Andromeda galaxy in miles.

Now humanity is a powerful entity, not a push over by any means. But if we didn’t exist in our happy little safety bubble in space I promise you we’d be slaughtered by the unforgiving void of the cosmos. One rock sent our way, one little ball of plasma ejected from our sun, the great unyielding light of a dying star.
All of these would destroy us, and there isn’t a darnned thing we could do about it.

This is the scale at which the Blob comes in.

By our standards, it is invincible.
Its size, immeasurable.
Its mind, omnipotent.
As pawns on the great chessboard, we let it into our world and allowed it to feast on our bones.

It is Ragnarok, The Book of Revalations, our end as we know it.
Those who remain will be doomed to suffer.

Who knows, maybe decay will allow new life to form over another eternity.
But it’s looking rather bleak.

[Sediment]

No, they’re not. But for all anyone knows Earth is just some podunk, backwater clump of dirt that was worth a look for now. Maybe staking a claim to deal with it later. What if all we’re seeing are just minor skirmishes so far? Maybe all that’s here (from any of the factions) is just the tip of the tip if the iceberg?

[crazykiddeath]

As I stated above,

the problems with humans writing a “unknowable alien intelligence” is inherent and usually boils down to whatever the writer wants the motives to be.

The same also goes for writing an omnipotent entity.
You either write it logically and any reasonable person can follow and infer meaning… or you don’t and it come off as poor writing. Even if the blob has access to information that we don’t (it almost certainly does) that doesn’t stop it’s actions being understandable on a conceptual level and meaning being infered. It either wants Earth because it needs it, because it benefits it in some manner or just because, none of these options are beyond understanding. The only other would be it wants it because it actively hinders it, something that is illogical but still understandable.
The example you gave is actually pretty good, it’s on a scale no human can actually imagine and yet we still have a way to convey its meaning. Another one is the concept of eternity, completely unimaginable to a mortal being as all of us have experienced a “start” but still something that the meaning of can be passed on conceptually.

@Sediment
I could actually accept that, it makes good sense. A grand scale muti-dimensional war on many fronts directed personally by a hyper intelligent being is reasonable explaination. That also gives humanity an edge to survive though, by working at playing sides off against each other and/or by making invading our little dirt ball unreasonably costly.

[kevin.granade]

Fungus is highly flammable. Without sufficient
rainfall the fungus would eventually catch on fire and
be burnt out by weather , heat, and thermodynamics.
Natural forest fires have been torching the earth for
billions of years before humanity even mattered.

You stated both the thesis and antithesis here. Yes one can burn down a stand of trees with sufficient effort, especially a young one, but that doesn’t mean forests are spontaneously annihilated by fire. The same would be true of fungal forests, outside of concerted effort, they would weather fires, possibly facing setbacks, but overall continue to grow.

There would be a legitimate chance of multiple earth
bacteria/virus evolving to compete against the fungus, triffid and blob.
Both being organic, there are chemical elements that
are poisonous to them. And compounds that will killthem.
Seeing as the very atmosphere of Earth is deadly
to the Blob I don’t see them being able to compete
against the earth, triffids, and fungal to terraform
the atmosphere quick enough to survive on earth long
term.

This isn’t the first rodeo for blob, triffids, or fungus. All of them would by necessity be highly adapted to resisting infection from native threats, and as all of them are intelligent, they would be able to respond to new threats rather than just passively enduring.

The fungus would probably find an equilibrium with the
environment overall and completely dominate certain climates.
But by their design and biology they would also be
incapable of overrunning large portions of the globe
Some flora would, as with any fungus, develop resistance to the fungals .

You’re conflating the alien fungus with terrestrial fungus. How it interacts with weather, humidity, radiation, terrestrial defenses, etc is an open question.

As fire and commercial fungicide are toxic and deadly
to them, a small organized group with even salvaged
generators, combustibles, makeshift gas masks and/or
fungicidal products and medicines could fight back
against the fungals and easily keep a perimeter
secured.

Keeping a perimeter secured is a far cry from thriving

The blob/nethrerum can only exist inside the bodies(50kg or
larger, if I remember right) of earth fauna due to the atmosphere being
toxic to them. As evidenced the bodies it inhabits rot
and break down. So with 99% of the population being
immediately consumed there is literally no way for the Blob to survive more than a few years.

What “as evidenced” are you talking about? Zombies in the game certainly alter their appearance, but if anything they become more robust and integrated over time.

In general, you’re applying some very superficial knowledge of how these organisms work, and extrapolating far beyond what is reasonable.

[Erk]

I think people are seeing rotting zombies and assuming that means the bodies decay… In fact those bodies started out rotten.

Over time we get things like skeletal zombies, brutes, feral predators, and necromancers. Zombies don’t seem to be rotting away at all.