Its just a dumb term I made so I could write apocalyptic-style fiction that eschews the typical gritty, violent tropes of the genre.

But I guess there's more I could talk about...

Most apocalyptic games portray this 'hyper-alpha' male playground of death, where violence is the only currency and universal language. Anytime they show communities or non-violent characters, they are always in danger of being destroyed by violent actors unless they reciprocate that violence. The overall message of these games is that positivity, community, and/or peace is a weakness, and violence is the ultimate answer to everything.

I feel like that's bullshit. Violence isn't an answer or a tool, its an event to be avoided. It does exist and happen, but its a boring plot device. 

Violence is largely one dimensional when used to drive a story forward. If used correctly, it can be a workable plot device. But overall it's boring when a game uses it as the player's only means of expressing themselves. Typically what makes violence narratively interesting are actually the events surrounding the violence of it it's used sparingly. What if we just kept the interesting events and discarded the violence. Violence was just another thing discussed, actual acts of violence never performed.

If what makes violence interesting in an apocalyptic setting is the fact that characters in the genre see it as the only agent of change...maybe get some better characters or focus on different ones.

I'm not talking about being nice to active agents of destruction like raiders who just go around killing people. What I am saying is at the bare minimum, realize that some people have the ability to listen to reason, and they just want to exist and live.

Its like if there was a game set in the Fallout universe where you played as someone who ran their community's garden. The most conflict you dealt with would be confronting someone about not helping out or resolving conflict between people in the town. You could still have guns, but makes them a tool for scaring off varmint or some kind of family heirloom. The main plot point could be trying to ready the garden for a freak storm that could wipe out the town's food supply.

Human conflict can just as easily be resolved with words and the occasional slap, but conflict doesn't always need to be a zero-sum, live or die thing. People are more complicated than that.