Some of you have commented here: "How Do I Supplement Oxygen Intake?." I mentioned confidentiality, but that is no longer going to be a concern. We just want to do this right.
The original concept for the show was 'Bombs dropped for some reason' and the story was a mess, so I was brought on to fix it. Only a small piece of that proposal is introduced in the above-mentioned thread, but that small piece was broken enough for me to take the entire idea off the shelf.
So I turn to you guys. I want something possible (almost LIKELY) enough to be scary. And I don't want something cliche. It is a tall order, I know. Feel free to science the crap out of this, since no amount of detail is unacceptable. Only chains of coincidence and implausibility are ruled out.
WHAT IS ALREADY WRITTEN IN:Mankind is mostly exterminated, big cities become uninhabitable, and food/clean water is hard to come by so that violent theft of food and even cannibalism occur. Funded by a French-German tech-and-pharms company, important world figures are evacuated to an underground shelter in Moab, UT to ride out the disaster. Meanwhile, the people above ground are either killed or contaminated (by some means). The healthy survivors to prioritize the 'fidelity' of the bloodline, as if breeding with the 'contaminated' can lead to the final extinction of the human race (Something incurable and potentially fatal, and likely to be passed down as a dominant genetic trait?). The layman needs to be able to survive the climate outside, but it should be haaaaard.
POSSIBILITIES:Biological warfare, manual climate adjustments, humans vs Earth, etc... are all on the table. Straight-up 'bombs drop' is overdone and Zombies are unacceptable. I would also try to rule out aliens, GMO conspiracies, and specific political leaders.
