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Seventh Dwarf
2009-03-30, 11:38 AM
I would ask my players not to read this.

I have created a post-apocaltypic world run in 3.5 - kind of a Thundarr the Barbarian set-up. Global warming happened much more quickly than anyone in the 21st century thought, creating great floods when the ice caps melted. Soon thereafter, the earth was slammed with a string of ice comets, which both added a small amount of water and cooled the earth when they put a huge amount of particulate matter into the upper atmosphere. When the climate re-stabilized, the earth ended up with sea levels that were 300 or so feet higher than 20th century, lots more carbon dioxide, but cooler weather. It is now the 29th century, and the temperate zones of the earth are covered in a fast growing deciduous rain forest, similar to that of modern day southeast Asia, but with oaks, maples, hickories, etc. The surviving humans went back to nature and abandoned the cities. (I am not looking on comments on my science).

With that as a basis, what survived from the 21st century? I assume roads and overpasses, while crumbling, would have survived 800 years of decline, even within an agressive rain forest (after all, we still can identify roman roads today). I think that multi-story buildings would still exist in some form, even if pancaked. How about cars? 2-story commercial buildings? Private homes? Landfills? Nuclear plants?

Would anything resembling modern technology still work? Can some enterprising sentient fire up a coal powered electricity plant? While no doubt o-rings and seals would deteriorate, could someone rig up replacements, and run a water wheel?

In short, how long would what we have created today on earth last if we abandoned it tomorrow?

Tempest Fennac
2009-03-30, 11:55 AM
I'd guess that most of the smaller buildings, as well as cars and roads, would end up being engulfed by forests with only relatively tall ones surviving. While I know this isn't the same thing, a log of the buildings on the now-abandoned Battleship Island, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_island , it doesn;'t seem to take long for buildings to decay (to be fair, it was abandoned in the '60s so buildings which are more modern may be tougher).

Rhiannon87
2009-03-30, 12:03 PM
A book was recently written on this subject, and here's the website: http://www.worldwithoutus.com/did_you_know.html The site looks like it might be useful. Hope this helps!

Seventh Dwarf
2009-03-30, 01:06 PM
Rhiannon87 - Thank you - exactly what I needed.

ericgrau
2009-03-30, 02:23 PM
With that as a basis, what survived from the 21st century? I assume roads and overpasses, while crumbling, would have survived 800 years of decline, even within an agressive rain forest (after all, we still can identify roman roads today). I think that multi-story buildings would still exist in some form, even if pancaked. How about cars? 2-story commercial buildings? Private homes? Landfills? Nuclear plants?

Would anything resembling modern technology still work? Can some enterprising sentient fire up a coal powered electricity plant? While no doubt o-rings and seals would deteriorate, could someone rig up replacements, and run a water wheel?

In short, how long would what we have created today on earth last if we abandoned it tomorrow?

Ugh, your science makes my head hurt, but I'll refrain from comment on that as requested. Most modern things are designed to have constant maintenance and thus would be heavily detoriated

Roads: These would more or less survive, though they may be uneven.

Homes: Entirely destroyed, collapsed and rotted from water damage.

Multi-level buildings: Likewise rotted, but the frame should remain. Floors are prone to collapsing if they haven't already. The steel I-beam frame would be heavily rusted from the salt water and would be weakened. It might fail, but it's probably still more than strong enough to stay up.

Power plants: These run on turbines with ultra fine tolerances and require a crew of several men to keep running. The turbines are likely to be damaged beyond repair, and cannot be remade without sophisticated modern machinery & computers. They're gone man. Natural sources of power like geothermal, solar and wind are simpler, though, and could be fixed with a lot of time, some tools and simple replacement parts.

Cars: There's no way you could get a car running again but with a lot of part pulling & fixing (& time) you could make a go kart. It'll be noisy, smelly and inefficient. You'd need to run the engine on distilled alcohol.

Misc: Digital electronics are likely to be beyond repair. Simpler things like radios could be fixed. All batteries would be destroyed, and finding metals that survived the flood to make new crude batteries would be difficult. A hand crank generator could be crafted, however. Most explosives would survive. Propane torches would survive. Burnable fuel would survive (but not in a good enough condition to use in a vehicle). Guns would not.

hamishspence
2009-03-30, 02:26 PM
There was a documentary "Life after people" that went into this in great detail.

Ellisande
2009-03-31, 07:52 AM
...the earth ended up with sea levels that were 300 or so feet higher than 20th century...

This would, if I'm not mistaken, put most major cities underwater. I'm envisioning a situation in which skyscrapers remain... but halfway covered in water. Communities have taken up residence in what remains of the higher floors, even if all that remains of the original structure is the steel frames.

This image captured my imagination, and I wanted to share it.


Would anything resembling modern technology still work? Can some enterprising sentient fire up a coal powered electricity plant? While no doubt o-rings and seals would deteriorate, could someone rig up replacements, and run a water wheel?

Very little technologically will remain functional, even if their metal shells are still common. It seems to me that the only modern technology will be indigenous copies/imitation of today's technology, quite possibly in forms very different from their present use.* More likely, pre-cataclysm items are more valued for their metals than their items, being melted and remade.

*Assuming, in accordance with your premise, that a technological society doesn't survive the crisis as such.

Lapak
2009-03-31, 08:40 AM
The book recommended above is probably the best resource on this subject, but I wanted to add an item that hasn't been listed yet: while some of the roads might still be in passable condition, depending on exactly how destructive the climate changes turn out to be, a great many modern bridges will go down within a decade without constant human maintenance. Pretty much every suspension bridge needs constant attention to avoid having its cables rust/corrode and eventually collapse - iconic examples like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate would go down in a couple of years, I'm given to understand.

So major rivers in your post-apocalypse are probably significant barriers, even if you can follow a road right to where a bridge used to be.

Seventh Dwarf
2009-03-31, 08:49 AM
Thanks to everyone. The rivers comment by Lapak I had not thought of at all. Rivers, particularly during a rainy season, will be a serious barrier to commerce and travel.

Farlion
2009-03-31, 08:59 AM
For german speaking people, there is a very nice post apocalyptic RPG Setting found here:


www.degenesis.de


Cheers,
Farlion

archmage45
2009-03-31, 11:24 AM
You really need to read the world without us. You might also be interested in reading Life As We Knew It (http://www.amazon.com/Life-Knew-Susan-Beth-Pfeffer/dp/0152058265). It'll give you a nice non-standard post-apocalyptic setting. Plus its a fun read!

MickJay
2009-03-31, 03:20 PM
On the other hand, if there are still enough animals around, rivers could become (again) the major routes: goods and people float downstream on boats and rafts and get pulled back upstream by oxen or mules.

Satyr
2009-04-01, 03:52 AM
There is one region on earth today, which has been more or less completely abandoned by humans, even though it was once cultivated and partially urbanized - Chernobyl. I have seen at least one book and perhaps two documentations of the development there after 20 years, but those were all in German; but I thinkt it's quite likely tofind any material on it in English as well. Have a look at it, it is very plastic and shows how much can change in quite a short time (not even 25 years).

ghost_warlock
2009-04-01, 04:17 AM
As pointed out in World Without Us, the book a couple others have mentioned, anything that's not underwater or still maintained may well have succumbed to fire. Large buildings, steel frames or no, are likely to be nothing more than burned-out husks after 800 years.

MickJay
2009-04-01, 06:07 AM
One problem with using World without us as a reference is that its basic premise is that there are no more humans around. In case of the world where even a major cataclysm happened, people might well have re-organised themselves quickly and re-build a civilisation over the ruins (or incorporated the leftovers into the new society). Nothing on a large scale, probably, and there likely would be great differences in the level of technology available to different groups of people. There would be whole regions barely affected by rising sea levels which would be hit more by lack of international trade. After such a long time, technology levels could drop to pre-industrial or early industrial levels, but not necessarily so. People would probably re-settle the old cities (assuming they all left) after some time and start farming there as more of the soil became exposed; that would especially be true of the older cities, which were built in places that were chosen because of their good location (by people using simpler than modern technology).