Need a new theory for a storyline.

[FrostyBoy]

I'm trying to come up with a theory to explain an event that will be a major part of a story I am working on.



What happens is, everyone on the planet disappears instantly and simultaneously. Clothes drop to the ground, cars will crash, and so on.

Except the thing is, one man does not disappear, he's alone on the planet.


Now my question is, can anyone come up with a reason that this has happened? You also have to explain how they come back (much much later in the future). Don't say Rapture, I have already thought of that and it won't work.

Coming up with new theories is fun, but damn hard.

[Verto]

What is the Baptist/Christian thing...Left Behind, bla bla...

Anyway, say that happens.

Oh, Rapture, I see.

Well. Let me think.

[Immortal Wombat]

The ETs which seeded Earth with life as part of a life-propogation experiment 4 billion years ago have come to collect the results. Humans were of sufficient intelligence to be taken and used as slave-footsoldiers in the War, but not deemed intelligent enough to rebel. All humans within given genetic parameters (possibly chimps go too) are simultaneously beamed aboard the migration ship and carted across the galaxy.

The one man is left behind because he has some kind of screwed up genome, or possibly he was in a lead box at the time, or in space, or in a deep-sea sub. Whatever. They missed him.

[Verto]

Make it a comedy.

[Immortal Wombat]

Deep Thought blue-screens and wipes out the Homo sapiens subroutine. The guy survives because he has transcended and is the incarnate version of The Answer.

[Verto]

The one guy surviving was the only real human. Everyone else was an illusion created to interact with him for higher beings to study.

[Immortal Wombat]

It's not all of humanity that is gone, it's the Survivor who has been transported to another universe, or virtual reality, or replica Earth, or realised dream, or unrealised dream.

[Immortal Wombat]

It's a worldwide conspiracy to set up a surprise birthday party for him.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Verto
The one guy surviving was the only real human. Everyone else was an illusion created to interact with him for higher beings to study.

I really like this answer, as it opens up so many avenues to expand upon the story.
Another plausible answer would be that the one individual experienced a "time displacement" where he was temporarily out of phase with the rest of humanity. Later on he came back into phase - the classic questions of Sci-Fi that are "why", "who", and "how" are now easily interjected at this point.



D

[Sandman]

It's all a dream.

[Ted Striker]

See Night of the Comet for Inspiration:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087799/

Also see the Twilight Zone Episode 8:

Episodes: "Time Enough at Last" (Ep. 8, November 20, 1959) - A bookworm (Burgess Meredith) yearns for more time to read--then a nuclear holocaust leaves him alone in the world with lots of time, plenty to read, and one ironic twist! "

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004RFAY/102-9578874-3024139?v=glance

[DaShi]

Someone wished for world peace.

[Adagio]

He became insane. For him it looks like everybody is gone, but in reality they're still there. At one point some people are probably going to drag him to those insane places, but for him it seems like he goes there for himself because something unknown is 'waiting' for him there, could be something he imagines as the answer might be in that place to why the people suddenly left


Or maybe this guy was some scientist working at some secret lab below sea level. One day some secret experiment was taking place where one guy should work down there while everybody else works above (or at least not that far down as him)... and as usual the experiment fails and all organic goes away in a blink of the eye. Only those protected by being far enough below sea level survives
At the beginning it looks like everybody has gone, but later he discovers that the deadly waves of the experiment didn't go all around the world

[Whaleboy]

Adagio:

You have several options, depending on what you want to do with the novel. Is it psychological or a gothic horror of some kind? A thriller with nuclear superpower wars or whatever? Some elemental or religious struggle between good and evil with a customary twist? A comedy, a sci-fi, or a comedy sci-fi like Hitchikers Guide?

[Dr Strangelove]

OK, tyr this: Everyone who had an interesting life, good or bad, was taken to the afterlife by the supreme being, who has suddenly decided he's hace enough of the "reality series" thing and has decide to call all of his homies back to home. The remaining guy was soooooo boring that he was forgotten.