There is nothing more humbling against human hubris than Nature herself.

Even at humanity's peak expansion, technology, sophistication, education, or intelligence, all it takes for its eradication is for the earth to sneeze in just the right way.

Nature cannot be beaten or tamed. It can only be appeased: to avoid disaster, humans have to find a way to manage natural phenomena in such a way that they and their basic infrastructure can survive.

Usually, Nature is dormant and extremely tolerant. It's very rarely that a volcano erupts enough to eradicate even a single civilization, hell, even a single city. Earthquakes are a thousand a day, but the one to level every building happens once every few centuries or so. The climate changes, but incrementally and following specific rules… unless of course someone messes with it.


Global-mean temperatures since 1850 that constantly rise, and totally have nothing to do with human activities over the years

But even when humanity messes with it, changes usually happen over generations and therefore ignored. As Nature is messed with more and more, human generations sleep on a ticking time bomb they've mistaken for a pillow, and it's anyone's guess which generation will be the lucky one to experience that bomb go off.

So how does one write such an overpowered, god-tier adversary as an angry Nature that finally snaps, causing a chain reaction of insurmountable calamities upon the human world? (because the earth isn't in danger, mammalian/human habitat is)



Usually within a story or plot that involves survival. Humans cannot avert the disaster once it has begun; only weather it in some fashion.

Maybe it only involves getting away from ground zero- leave the volcano's range, avoid the tsunami, go underground to avoid the twister, and so on.

In other variations, the disaster strikes about halfway through the story, after scientists (of any type/tier/level/rank) have been ignored by other scientists in higher positions of power or politicians or technomagnates or a combination of all three. Then the story becomes a warning tale as well as a survival story, of not ignoring Nature's warning signs that humanity's about to get clobbered.

In all such cases though, the key is that Nature is brutally, cruelly impartial. It will destroy the good ones along with the bad if they happen to be in its path. It won't hurry or delay to help the protagonist or anyone else. The only differentiation lies not with Nature as the antagonist, but with how the protagonists (and cast in general) deal with and handle it. If Nature is respected and studied by the characters then their chances of survival exponentially increase. If Nature is ignored in any way (bonus points for a human having a god complex about bending Nature to his/her/their will) then that character's demise is a lot more guaranteed.

Not because Nature cares, but because their actions will define how well they adapt and are able to avoid perilous situations before, during, and after a natural disaster.

Have your characters ever had to handle Nature as their basic Antagonist?

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