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View Full Version : Post-apocalyptic clothing, gear, weapons etc.



Leg0las
2014-07-31, 12:36 AM
In the process of creating a post-apocalyptic Earth set in the future, I'm thinking around 2030-35, any ideas about what the survivors would be wearing, and what weapons they would use?

SiuiS
2014-07-31, 01:11 AM
"Post Apocalyptic" is almost meaningless. D&D is post apocalyptic. Start Wars is post apocalyptic. The Walking Dead is psot apocalyptic.

What kind of apocalypse? How long after? Are we in the "people from the previous era are still alive and trying to scrounge together a viable living" era or are we in the "dystopian tribal future where people don't know what plastic is but keep finding jugs buried in the earth and revere them as treasure" era?

TheThan
2014-07-31, 03:23 AM
OOOOH I love these sorts of threads (no pun intended… aww screw it, pun intended).

After the apocalypse, people are going to be wearing the same sort of clothing they had before the apocalypse, however when those clothing starts to wear out, they will start to have to replace what they have. Without factories turning out readymade clothing, people will have to revert to making their own clothing out of natural materials. By that I mean leather (not biker gang leather, buckskin leather), cotton, wool and other natural fibers.

The hilarity will ensue as people try and fail to make clothing out of these natural materials. See making clothing is a skill that is being lost to time. Not terribly long ago, people knew how to make clothing by hand; I’m not just talking about the skill of sewing but of the manufacture of the actual materials.

Foot wear is particularly going to be a problem. Hard soled shoes will become a thing of the past as getting the materials needed to make the hard soles is going to be difficult. Soft soled shoes is going to be the way people go, I expect Moccasins or Mukluks and sandals primarily maybe even clogs.

For gear and weapons could you be a bit more specific?

Guns will still be prevalent until ammunition becomes scarce. I’m not sure about crossbows, long bows, slings and other “ancient” ranged tech. Knives will be popular as well as improvised weapons, base ball bats become war clubs (tie some barbed wire around it and you’re good to go) just about anything like pry bars, tire irons, sticks just about anything as long as it provides leverage and is fairly hefty.

As far as other tech, people will have to fall back on hand tools; that means no power tools, no power drills or chainsaws, instead they’ll have to use axes and hand saws and old fashioned hand drills to manufacture the things they want and harvest it. Basically if there’s a tool that requires electricity or fuel, assume it’s not available.

So basically 19th century North America, without the steam engines. imagine nearly any cowboy movie and you're mostly there.

SiuiS
2014-07-31, 04:10 AM
I am weaving a sling out of paracord, and have a hand at the techniques involved on use. I can make a knife that could skin a buck out of a flat screen tv. I've made a successful fishing hook (successful fishing is a different matter...) out of broken wood and some twine. I'm proficient with deadfall traps, know why you fire harden wood, have a rough idea of why you would use heartwood over sapwood in certain projects, know how to laminate wood using a variety of natural or prevalent materials, could make sandals out of car tires that would last a log while, and have a few ideas on how to tan a hide (I believe the most common way involved smearing brain on the skin but it's been a while and I've never tried it). And I'm a city slicker!

These sorts of skills aren't as rare as we have been led to believe. There are enough of us crafty and psychotic folk to make this stuff prevalent. That's why the question was "what kind of apocalypse and when". Are we talking sewing old biker jackets together with catgut, making spears out of broken pocketknives and sinew and tree branches? Or are we talking "no one has seen life outside an underground tunnel system in forty years"?

Gnomvid
2014-07-31, 07:12 AM
Unless the apocalypse killed off all the adults and destroyed all books and tools and ready made materials in the world the post apocalyptic people would probably wear the same clothes and use the same weapons as right now.


and have a few ideas on how to tan a hide (I believe the most common way involved smearing brain on the skin but it's been a while and I've never tried it). And I'm a city slicker!

You boil the brain first but yes.

TheThan
2014-07-31, 10:56 AM
SiuiS, You kinda sound like a bushcrafter.

I’m not saying that these skills have been lost to time, or that they are obsolete (I think I may have sounded like that, it was unintentional). However your average person doesn’t know how to do them anymore, its’ passed out of common knowledge and into specialty knowledge. An average city dweller doesn’t learn how to dress game as part of growing up anymore, but it’s still a skill he could go out and learn. Shows like Survivor man, Man vs wild, dual survival etc showcase (yes I’m aware TV) that there’s still an interest and these skills are alive and kicking. Heck you punch in bushcraft on you tube and you’ll be surprised how many vids pop up.

What I’m saying is that the average person who may have survived the apocalypse will probably not have the skills to survive for long, he hasn’t learned them and will need to learn as he goes.

The Succubus
2014-07-31, 12:01 PM
OOOOH I love these sorts of threads (no pun intended… aww screw it, pun intended).

I totally got that.

In fact it was that film that got me reading my most recent book - Nuclear Winter. It's a compilation of various scientific studies carried out in the 1980s by Carl Sagan and other notables about the effects of a 3000 megaton nuclear war between the US and Russia and how it would impact the world. The focus is primarily on the nuclear winter effect (dust and smoke from nuclear explosions carries up into the atmosphere -> world experiences an artificial winter due to reduced sunlight) but also on the consequences of it.

It makes for extremely grim reading. Starvation would be a certainty for the majority of the world, with even non participants suffering greatly as a result. Games like Fallout and films like Mad Max present an extremely rosy pictures of a post apocalyptic world. The reality would be almost certain extinction for humanity and most other mammals.

SiuiS
2014-07-31, 12:14 PM
Interesting. Why do you boil the brain first? It's really hard for me to find tanning info that isn't about industrial chemicals or just some white guy city slicker standing in awe that colored people ever accomplished anything :smallsigh:

Really, this makes me wonder about what's been googled in the past to make this the default route for "tanning leather"... :smalleek:


SiuiS, You kinda sound like a bushcrafter.

I’m not saying that these skills have been lost to time, or that they are obsolete (I think I may have sounded like that, it was unintentional). However your average person doesn’t know how to do them anymore, its’ passed out of common knowledge and into specialty knowledge. An average city dweller doesn’t learn how to dress game as part of growing up anymore, but it’s still a skill he could go out and learn. Shows like Survivor man, Man vs wild, dual survival etc showcase (yes I’m aware TV) that there’s still an interest and these skills are alive and kicking. Heck you punch in bushcraft on you tube and you’ll be surprised how many vids pop up.

What I’m saying is that the average person who may have survived the apocalypse will probably not have the skills to survive for long, he hasn’t learned them and will need to learn as he goes.

That's just it though; it is my belief that we as a species have accidentally left so much lying around that the average person knows and can succeed at more than we all expect.

I have seen some of the most god-awful stupid people have brilliant survival ideas. I mean the people who think that tea can cure AIDS and HIV because the box said "aids elimination". It only takes two broom sticks, some empty milk jugs and a roll of duct tape to make a collapsible raft, for example. And then some wood, some floss, and a shoe string to get a basic fishing line. You will be hard pressed to find a human who doesn't know how to Gerry rig something, and hard pressed to find something without a survival application.

Plus, we have paracord, duct tape, all sorts of plastics; Home Depot, lowes and similar shops; automotive repairs and scrap yards; craft stores complete with patterns and sewing kits. These things are all just lying around because they're non-biodegradable and likely buried. We as a species found out that f you stick enough layers of cloth together with what's basically Elmer's glue you get arrow resistant armor; I trust that people will accidentally succeed quite often.

Not to say they'll be experts; there's a learning curve. But I do honestly believe every human adult has at least two relevant skills to this sort of scenario.

Jormengand
2014-07-31, 03:00 PM
Weapons will probably involve a lot of slings, petrol bombs, crude spears, knives... I'm assuming it's the typical fire-storm apocalypse that destroys most of technology and kills most people. Fine, but there will be cars lying about, and cars mean bits of metal, cars mean petrol. Pieces of clothing mean slings, which are far more deadly than you think they are.

In America, there will be guns everywhere, in England, maybe two or three people in the entire (area of importance to the novel I assume you intend to write) will have one that still works. Getting ammo will be a problem. Getting anything will be a problem.

Therefore, pretty much all weapons will be improvised. Baseball bats will actually be viable weapons (as will many other pieces of sports equipment: I've accidentally caused pretty severe bruising on someone by whacking them with a tennis racket; think of how much damage one could do by hitting someone with one deliberately).

People will steal from museums, so expect someone, somewhere, to get their hands on a replica medieval longsword, or katana, or so forth if there's a museum with any of them nearby. Someone I know actually owns swords too, so it's possible that people will use ones they have.

But, eventually, those will break too, and most people won't have access to those kinds of weapons in the first place. Again, improvised weapons will happen.

That said, weapons might be replaced with traps, or other ways of fighting that don't require shooting or stabbing people yourself.



And there's another thing: why fight? Well, usually it's to keep your hold on the limited resources, but eventually people will get used to the idea that if they don't work together, they're all going to die. They are, sooner or later, going to have the bright idea of actually working together. Sure, there are going to be disputes, but after a while people are going to have some semblance of laws, and people who kill others are going to be punished for it.

I'm going to do some maths here, so bear with me. Suppose we have 50 people, each with enough resources to last them a week. No matter who eats whose resources, if they don't produce any more resources, the total survival*people is going to be 50 weeks - if 25 people kill the others and end up with 2 weeks' worth of resources, then people*time is 50 weeks.

Now, that's pretty obvious, sure. But what it means is that if we want to last longer, we can't keep killing people and taking their stuff, because otherwise we're going to run out of stuff. Even if you're able to kill your 49 competitors in under a week, you're not gonna last the year. You're gonna have to work with other people and produce more stuff.

TheThan
2014-07-31, 03:08 PM
I totally got that.

I was actually making a clothing pun. But still I’m glad someone enjoyed it.


That's just it though; it is my belief that we as a species have accidentally left so much lying around that the average person knows and can succeed at more than we all expect.

You’re totally right people will be forced to scavenge and build. Some will be successful at it, other won’t. supplies like duct tape, working batteries, ammunition, tools etc are going to become hot communities because they’re just that useful and aren’t made anymore (at least not for a long while). A lot of knowledge of how things (take the manufacture of duct tape for instance) is going to disappear and may be re-discovered later.
People are amazingly adaptable, and can live in surprisingly harsh environments. We will find a way to survive.

On tanning leather (thank you Wikipedia)
Apparently its five easy steps

Step one: acquire hide of animal (usually deer)
Step two: scrape the outer epidermis and hair off the hide.
Step three: soak it in an emulsified fat solution (that’s where the brains come in), soak, wring out, do this three times. Apparently this infuses the fibers with fatty oil.
Step four: Then you stretch the hide out tightly in all directions. Apparently this keeps the hide soft and pliable as it lubricates the fibers of the hide.
Step five: smoke the hide, which allows you to wash it without destroying it.

I’m interested, so I’m off to youtube to find me some instructional vids.
*edit*
so apparently its slightly more complicated, but that's the layman's explanation.

Jaycemonde
2014-07-31, 11:34 PM
Humans are big-brained animals. Somebody needs to do something, they try to do it the most obvious way, that fails, they stew for a while, they look jealously at how gracefully animals do it, something clicks, and they copy that animal. Add to that the fact that even after an apocalypse we would be working off of hundreds of thousands of years' worth of accumulated Do/Don't knowledge and wouldn't need to figure things out for ourselves in most cases; camping, hiking and hunting are still huge pastimes in many countries, anybody with military experience would know the basics of survival, and the number of professionals and experts in assorted fields in first- and second-world countries is astounding to say the least. As for the third-worlders...they've already been living as if it were after the apocalypse, in most cases. I doubt they'd notice much of a difference in their day-to-day lives. Keep in mind that humans can teach other humans much more easily than many other animals can teach their own young. In addition, humans are predominately social animals and gravitate toward social structures that uphold some degree of order and safety--Mad Max-style bandits would be relatively commonplace, but most of them would be gunned down or grow tired of being unable to trust anyone else and find ways to integrate themselves with stationary communities over time.
Humanity is extremely resilient.

Anyway, onto clothes.

I like to think that we'll all be wearing something similar to this for a good decade or three past L'Event:
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100730141305/stalker/images/3/33/SCS_Clear_Sky_Concept_Art_1.png

Beyond that, we'll probably revert to clothing like this, as people above me have said:
http://media.tumblr.com/3bc508ddf404b311b048b88fd07b9b4d/tumblr_inline_mols8q45jA1qz4rgp.jpg
(As a side note, I imagine situations like this would be very common for several years after L'Event.)

Both are practical in that they offer plenty room to carry possessions and can keep you warm, which are the two most important things that clothing can do, and both would be easy to modify to suit your specific circumstances as a gatherer/hunter, or a mechanic/carpenter, or a doctor, or any kind of soldier/post-apocalyptic policeman.
The difference from the bottom image would be that we would have access to a nearly endless supply of ready-made materials from The Before Time™ that would increase the overall durability and effectiveness of the garments, such as synthetic fibers and plastics.
For example, people in Mexico and Central/South America make hard-soled shoes by building what are basically moccasins or sandals and attaching old bits of tire tread to the bottom. They're practically indestructible from the bottom up and old tires are literally everywhere cars are. With less people to use these cars, that only makes room for more shoes.

I would also like to point out to TheThan that it's actually very easy to make your own ammunition [assuming you have the basic knowledge and don't blow yourself up through the trial-and-error process], and there would be enough reloading benches and knowledgeable gun owners in the former United States and Canada alone that we likely wouldn't have any shortage of ammunition for a long, long time. At least, not as long as people were willing to make their supplies of lead and brass last by pulling the deformed bullets and slugs out of whatever they were shooting and cleaning their shells up after themselves. Jerry-rigging a bag to your gun to catch your shells takes ten minutes and is only mildly tacky, after all.
Not to say that relearning other forms of hunting tools and self-defense weapons isn't a good idea, because it certainly is. Options are good things to cultivate.

warty goblin
2014-08-01, 12:46 AM
Not to say they'll be experts; there's a learning curve. But I do honestly believe every human adult has at least two relevant skills to this sort of scenario.

There's really only two skills that matter: securing adequate food on an essentially daily basis, and figuring out how to avoid dying of exposure. The second people would probably be reasonably proficient at. The first I have very little faith in people's abilities to perform reliably. Sure a reasonable number of people know some amount, but some is not a year in year out solution to keeping oneself and those around you fed, particularly in any half-decent apocalypse scenario, which really must start with the realization that upwards of three quarters of the world's population is almost certain to die of hunger and disease and bad drinking water inside a couple months. Surviving a post industrial-agriculture world requires either being a truly proficient hunter-gatherer, of which knowing how to skin a buck or dress a carcass is really the least part, or the land, tools, and skills for subsistence agriculture. Really, in the modern industrialized world, you're looking at option two supported by option one where possible, since in a lot of places there simply isn't enough wild land to support a hunting and gathering existence.

In which case, the non-Amish among us are basically hosed. I know just enough about that sort of agriculture to appreciate I know essentially nothing useful about that sort of agriculture. Nobody with those skills and a functioning brain would bother passing them on to a dead weight like me.

SiuiS
2014-08-01, 01:06 AM
That's why "define apocalypse" matters. I believe we have progressed too far in the developed world to truly lose our infrastructure. Sure, in micro, your individual group may be roughing it, but soon enough a sustained government will form.

Existing farmland wouldn't stop producing (unless that's the apocalypse? Sudden inexplicable famine?) so you've got people who supply the food. And they need people to secure their borders, and they can pay in food.


I
I’m interested, so I’m off to youtube to find me some instructional vids.
*edit*
so apparently its slightly more complicated, but that's the layman's explanation.

YouTube! Good point. I'll YouTube things.

Asta Kask
2014-08-01, 03:45 AM
My cat is teaching me to catch mice. So, food situation covered.

SiuiS
2014-08-01, 04:08 AM
Roll them in clay when you catch them! After you bank your fire for the night, you can poke a hole in the embers and sick the ball of clay straight into the hole. When you wake up you'll have crispy delicious mouse, down to the chewy bones~

Gnomvid
2014-08-01, 04:23 AM
That's why "define apocalypse" matters. I believe we have progressed too far in the developed world to truly lose our infrastructure. Sure, in micro, your individual group may be roughing it, but soon enough a sustained government will form.

Existing farmland wouldn't stop producing (unless that's the apocalypse? Sudden inexplicable famine?) so you've got people who supply the food. And they need people to secure their borders, and they can pay in food.



YouTube! Good point. I'll YouTube things.

This was exactly my point unless all already existing tools and materials and all the libraries and for that matter all adults that's ever learned anything disappear and leave only analfabet's and children too young to have learned how to read man kind will have no problem continuing to be industrialized, not as efficient at first but without risking mass starvation, and if everything is massively irradiated beyond where life is still sustainable well then there won't be anybody around to worry about the post apocalypse, until a space ship lands and finds a lot of dessert and relics and possibly but unlikely intelligent apes running the planet...

So don't need to explain the boil the brain part then good,

Ajacks
2014-08-01, 04:32 AM
I think it kind of depends on the circumstances. If you are the last person on earth, you probably will wear rags stained with beer and who knows what because no one is around to judge you. And if you are anything like me, you would raid every pharmacy and suspected drug dealer's house and get pretty tore up.

On the other hand, if there are marriageable women about, you will probably raid the nearest abercrombie & fitch store, or the gucci one, etc, because they are are all left standing and unguarded (maybe) and everyone else is dead. You would wear the fliest threads and the most expensive cologne and bling.

On the other other hand - if everyone is really violent, you would probably wear something more akin to Jaycemonde's post. Or camo. And try to kill everyone.

Asta Kask
2014-08-01, 04:49 AM
Interesting. Why do you boil the brain first? It's really hard for me to find tanning info that isn't about industrial chemicals or just some white guy city slicker standing in awe that colored people ever accomplished anything :smallsigh:

Really, this makes me wonder about what's been googled in the past to make this the default route for "tanning leather"... :smalleek:

This (http://www.braintan.com/) is supposedly a good resource.

Gnomvid
2014-08-01, 04:55 AM
I think it kind of depends on the circumstances. If you are the last person on earth, you probably will wear rags stained with beer and who knows what because no one is around to judge you. And if you are anything like me, you would raid every pharmacy and suspected drug dealer's house and get pretty tore up.

On the other hand, if there are marriageable women about, you will probably raid the nearest abercrombie & fitch store, or the gucci one, etc, because they are are all left standing and unguarded (maybe) and everyone else is dead. You would wear the fliest threads and the most expensive cologne and bling.

On the other other hand - if everyone is really violent, you would probably wear something more akin to Jaycemonde's post. Or camo. And try to kill everyone.

Well if you are the last person on earth it won't matter what you wear as you won't last very long as pretty soon you won't care to be around anymore unless you are already really antisocial, in which case you'll be just fine but as there's only you then who cares what happens?

And again if people are able to dress like Jaycemonde's post there can't have been much of an apocalypse as that would mean most things are still intact.

Ajacks
2014-08-01, 05:00 AM
Maybe it's just me, but with the world as my playground, I could become antisocial enough to amuse myself for a good long while. A good many years I'd venture to guess.

Jaycemonde
2014-08-01, 09:11 PM
I think it kind of depends on the circumstances. If you are the last person on earth, you probably will wear rags stained with beer and who knows what because no one is around to judge you. And if you are anything like me, you would raid every pharmacy and suspected drug dealer's house and get pretty tore up.

On the other hand, if there are marriageable women about, you will probably raid the nearest abercrombie & fitch store, or the gucci one, etc, because they are are all left standing and unguarded (maybe) and everyone else is dead. You would wear the fliest threads and the most expensive cologne and bling.

Wow, you're a fun one. I'll bet any women who were still around would just be dying to be around you. Or very, very, very far away from you.


On the other other hand - if everyone is really violent, you would probably wear something more akin to Jaycemonde's post. Or camo. And try to kill everyone.

Actually, that is camouflage. It's the kind that they wear in Siberia, as well as in several East Asian countries like Korea. Blends into dark foliage better than you'd think, which makes it useful for not being shot at. Did you know most military technologies are designed with the aim of keeping soldiers alive, rather than killing other people? Amazing. Almost like war's regarded as a necessary evil instead of a recreational activity.


That's why "define apocalypse" matters. I believe we have progressed too far in the developed world to truly lose our infrastructure. Sure, in micro, your individual group may be roughing it, but soon enough a sustained government will form.

Existing farmland wouldn't stop producing (unless that's the apocalypse? Sudden inexplicable famine?) so you've got people who supply the food. And they need people to secure their borders, and they can pay in food.

My thoughts exactly. Humans naturally gravitate toward organized communities, because it's easier to survive that way.


Well if you are the last person on earth it won't matter what you wear as you won't last very long as pretty soon you won't care to be around anymore unless you are already really antisocial, in which case you'll be just fine but as there's only you then who cares what happens?

Yup.


And again if people are able to dress like Jaycemonde's post there can't have been much of an apocalypse as that would mean most things are still intact.

But you have to remember that wearing practical clothes and eating healthy is only for violent types who don't see women as property to be guarded and likely don't jump at the chance to get "tore up".


Maybe it's just me, but with the world as my playground, I could become antisocial enough to amuse myself for a good long while. A good many years I'd venture to guess.

I give you three weeks, personally. Don't come to my town asking for water.

SiuiS
2014-08-01, 11:32 PM
My thoughts exactly. Humans naturally gravitate toward organized communities, because it's easier to survive that way.
[..]
I give you three weeks, personally. Don't come to my town asking for water.

This reminds me. I've always liked toying with post apocalyptic scenarios because of what it shows about a person's character. I think I would do my best to hold together a large group of people who all still believed in the laws and principles of the United States of America, for example; the idea of an entity larger than you that you feel is worth your support as an ideal. Something that people will inherently compare themselves to as a measure of acceptable behavior other than "best shot sets the rules". In an immediate post-apocalypse situation, appealing to social inertia to keep people out of a panicked tail spin strikes me as much better than the usual 'slavery, rape and murder because that's what ba science says humans are designed to do' stuff.

Sure, such a structure is a lie. The group is just a macro-scale gangs flocking together, claiming turf and setting ground rules and self-enforcing. But it's an attempt at the Noble Lie, rather than mindless self gratification.

I should really start setting up that zombie game idea I've got floating around...

TheThan
2014-08-02, 12:38 AM
Yeah but your average suburbanite’s idea of camping is to take the fifth wheel or motor-home out to the lake for the night and get plastered at the barbeque. They really don’t know how to “rough it” or do it “the old way” (and enjoy it or make it easy).

Yes there are people who have retained that knowledge and actively teach it. Yet there are FAR more people who have no clue. These people will have to make due and learn how to survive without an infrastructure intact. No cell phones, no walmarts, no grocery stores, no hospitals none of those places we can go and buy what we need and want. Those places are gone, the stuff they had stripped clean by survivors.

Speaking of which, Survivors will have to make do with what they have and what they can scavenge. They will have to utilize the skills they already have and develop new skills as they scratch a living out of the ruins and wild places of the post apocalyptic landscape.

People will congregate together for mutual protection from others. Desert dwelling motorcycle gangs ala Road warrior are not that far off. How groups will be organized will be interesting. A lot of people will flock to a strong leader, whether this leader is somehow elected or takes charge via violence and intimidation will vary depending on the group.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-02, 01:39 AM
Well, up to a certain point, people will be just wearing clothes as we know them. So, up to a certain point, think 'hobo'. Really, it depends on how long after the end. If the Apocalypse happened tomorrow, by 2035 though, most modern clothes would be rags I'd bet. If it was a high mortality rate disaster, survivors might still have dead people's clothing, especially if they were made of non-biodegradable materials. Still, a lot of patching would be evident. I don't think guns and bullets will be basically relics, as most existing bullets would be shot or gone rot, and primers are not something you can just whip up. Even black powder requires a fairly extensive knowledge base. I expect a lot of maces, halberds and spears, shivs and machete crafted from scrap to be main weapons. For projectiles, except for the lucky bastards with relic bows and crossbows, slings would probably be the a growing presence. No, I don't mean what in England they call a 'hand catapult', I mean what Dave knocked out Goliath with. They are actually quite devastating weapons, and while they they take a lot of practice, they don't require much to make.
Lots of people remember before the End but less and less each year as the lack of modern medicine takes its tole.

Jayngfet
2014-08-02, 01:52 AM
That's just it though; it is my belief that we as a species have accidentally left so much lying around that the average person knows and can succeed at more than we all expect.

Seconding this. I mean one of the wonderful ironies about a city is that there's so much food laying around that even if conventional "food" were to just dry up a lot of people would adapt in a generation or two. A post apocalyptic city is a haven for nesting birds and burrowing mammals. Hell, a regular city with frequent extermination is still those things. Once plants start growing in the cracks it wouldn't take too long for people to figure out what's edible and what isn't, and that's a pretty long list. In a few years your nearby water sources will go from depleted to full of fish again, and seaweed is always a decent staple if it's close and easy.

In terms of agriculture, lets keep perspective here. Basically every crop you need exists in seed form in a whole bunch of stores and you can basically just pick what you want to grow and get going. With so much land free and available it'd just take a few years for everyone to just grow onions or pumpkins or tomatoes. Heck, the packaging on the back comes with instructions. You just sew those backs together and you've got a farming manual that can take some wear and tear.

Going by personal experience, improvising a simple bow isn't terribly hard. An old Ski and a bicycle inner tube works. So does a section of PVC and a few lengths of waxed bowstring. Or a metal table leg and some suitably thick rubber bands. Or literally thousands of different combinations of things people just leave lying around. Obviously if you feel like going authentic a suitable branch and a bit of twine also does the job in a pinch. We like to imagine post-apoc as being a scramble over guns but so many of them would jam or need new parts that couldn't be fabricated that within a few years most people would be forced to adapt to weapons that were easier to maintain. Besides, you can always use bullets as arrowheads if you want a satisfying bang anyhow.

Clothing wise your wardrobe is going to wear out eventually, so I'd expect everything to be a patchwork of whatever is on hand. Which seems like it'd be rough but sewing is easy to take up and bleaching and dying isn't too hard once you've got experience, and with so much cloth you'd probably be able to match material and thickness pretty easily. Wools and Leathers are probably still going to be made in some capacity, so new material will filter through once people begin trading, so it's not going to be all scavenging.

Overall I think if you could survive the first few months or first winter or two, you're basically good. You've got tools to hunt, a decently varied diet, easy access to enough clothing not to die of exposure, and enough material to build or repair anything that's not complex machinery.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-02, 03:24 AM
Only for so long. Ok, the areas themselves make good places to nest and burrow, but the big reason these critters stick around is us, or, rather, all the food we store, leave around and throw away. Take out humans and the rat and pigeons populations will eventually fall to more normal levels.

Jayngfet
2014-08-02, 03:48 AM
Only for so long. Ok, the areas themselves make good places to nest and burrow, but the big reason these critters stick around is us, or, rather, all the food we store, leave around and throw away. Take out humans and the rat and pigeons populations will eventually fall to more normal levels.

Yes, but the population has presumably fallen enough that it'll be enough for a supplement, if not a staple, pretty regularly.

One of the main things with cities and towns is that buildings have lots of really convenient places to nest away from predators and nice tight holes to breed in to do the same. Given how quickly the animals grow from babies to adulthood you basically never have to worry about running out of them since more will always crawl out of some hole or fly off some ledge.

Besides, if those levels are going to fall I'd like to remind you that fish will rise at the same time due to no overfishing or industrial fishing. Ideally you'd just transition from one protein source to another as you fish more and hunt less. You can also, again, supplement that with the also growing seaweed, as well as the also growing wild plants that'd become more prevalent within weeks and months. Along with those again easy to find crop seeds you can plant for some more reliable sources of food.

If you can survive the initial extinction event and not die within a couple of months after, food isn't going to become your main issue. Other things will still be important but starvation won't be significant once you lose the initial ick factor and manage to peg a bird with reasonable consistency.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-02, 03:55 AM
Out in the deep ocean, sure, but I doubt almost anyone in the post-apocalyptic scenario is going to be able to access those. Shore and fresh-water fish could easily find themselves overfished if they become a primary source of animal protein, especially with no hatcheries to help restock them.

Jayngfet
2014-08-02, 04:01 AM
...you're assuming current population and levels of consumption. Fishing doesn't really deplete all that much if it's not your only means of food, provided you can get a decent boat to go a mile or too out, which isn't hard to construct. People all over the world have been doing as such for thousands of years. If fishing with lines and nets and no motors for small settlements would drive the shores to extinction, they wouldn't have made it past the stone age. Even species that are currently under watch regularly get eaten by local fishermen and they don't make a real dent.

Once you've got a boat, a line, a net, and a spear your actual range isn't just a few feet from the coastline, it can actually get pretty far and you'd be amazed how much diving people can do without an air tank.

Because seriously people, Post Apocalyptic doesn't mean people stop making things. Unless all wood stops growing forever there's going to be wooden boats and carts and other such things. It's not exactly hard to do.

I mean hell, to be blunt we've been making engines and rockets for almost a thousand years. With all the spare parts lying around someone's eventually going to try something, even if it uses hand cranks or pedal power. Given the number of engineers and technically minded people alive even a 99.99% casualty rate means that we'd probably get at least limited electricity within a decade, even if it's from local generators for a precious few done "in house".

SiuiS
2014-08-02, 04:28 AM
Starvation: last I heard, though without concrete numbers so I'll check eventually, the United States produced enough food to end world hunger/feed every human being three times over. It was just logistically impossible to get that food to the world before it rotted without bankrupting the country.

Take the US population. Kill two thirds in a freak her-related apocalypse or something. Watch them decimate themselves before order is reestablished. Watch that remaining 3/10s slowly either as they work their way to functioning society for a year... Then watch everything stabilize in the heartland because the ratio of good growers/gun toters/laborers with empty bellies is just perfect.


Yeah but your average suburbanite’s idea of camping is to take the fifth wheel or motor-home out to the lake for the night and get plastered at the barbeque. They really don’t know how to “rough it” or do it “the old way” (and enjoy it or make it easy).

Yes there are people who have retained that knowledge and actively teach it. Yet there are FAR more people who have no clue. These people will have to make due and learn how to survive without an infrastructure intact. No cell phones, no walmarts, no grocery stores, no hospitals none of those places we can go and buy what we need and want. Those places are gone, the stuff they had stripped clean by survivors.

You've never really traveled with the middle ground, have you? By which I mean the homeless. The missig link. The people who can make clothing out of newspapers and duct tape and still program a computer. The people who can build a trailer out of rebar and plywood and spit (literal saliva, it was used with newspaper and dust to make caulk sealant) and take that down to the river and barbecue up whatever they catch.

Screw people who know the Old Ways. Those are valuable for their historical and spiritual weight. But what is really, truly impressive; what Jaycemonde has cottoned on to and few others get, is there are right now thousands of people creating New Ways. This is not a process that will get a shaky start after a certain amount of people die; it's a process that will continue as it always has. Because human beings are damn good at developing these things! At finding out snow is a good insulation. That a thin parchment makes exceptional blanketing. That layers of mesh can cocoon you well enough to retain body heat despite wind. That four old car tires can be cut in half and make an eight-tire long boat. That a plastic barrel becomes a mini tent.

No, the problem isn't surviving in that sense. The problem is surviving the social circles. The ones that develop around people who tend to value getting one over above investing in infrastructure. The ones who are unable to maintain a house in society because of mental illness and become predatory. The ones who would form cults of personality and on-the-streets prison gangs and press gangs to get things they want. Surviving being hungry and cold is easier than surviving someone else being hungry and cold and thinking offing you is better than real hard work.

Jayngfet
2014-08-02, 04:38 AM
snip

This post couldn't be more perfect if it somehow included a mic drop.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and it's created one mean mother of an invention after another.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-02, 06:17 AM
...you're assuming current population and levels of consumption. Fishing doesn't really deplete all that much if it's not your only means of food, provided you can get a decent boat to go a mile or too out, which isn't hard to construct. People all over the world have been doing as such for thousands of years. If fishing with lines and nets and no motors for small settlements would drive the shores to extinction, they wouldn't have made it past the stone age. Even species that are currently under watch regularly get eaten by local fishermen and they don't make a real dent.

Once you've got a boat, a line, a net, and a spear your actual range isn't just a few feet from the coastline, it can actually get pretty far and you'd be amazed how much diving people can do without an air tank.

Because seriously people, Post Apocalyptic doesn't mean people stop making things. Unless all wood stops growing forever there's going to be wooden boats and carts and other such things. It's not exactly hard to do.

I mean hell, to be blunt we've been making engines and rockets for almost a thousand years. With all the spare parts lying around someone's eventually going to try something, even if it uses hand cranks or pedal power. Given the number of engineers and technically minded people alive even a 99.99% casualty rate means that we'd probably get at least limited electricity within a decade, even if it's from local generators for a precious few done "in house".
On the contrary, it doesn't take much to put the present populations and ecosystems in serious pressure.
Even right now, people who have interest in wild foods are putting pressures on many ecosystems from over gathering, imagine what it will be like when you have a bunch of people for whom these are the only source of food. As for the rest, I don't think you are grasping how much a total societal collapse would destroy in terms of knowledge base and infrastructure. People are going to be trying too hard to survive to spend much energy on trying much, and, with time, knowledge is just going to die off. Oh, some might, but it will be scrounge and relics, and, with time, the remaining stuff is going to be too decayed to be useful.
The things you describe? Those were the work of craftspeople, experts with a long apprenticeship in a society with the infrastructure to facilitate them.
Just because tech is old does not mean it is easy.

Jayngfet
2014-08-02, 03:19 PM
On the contrary, it doesn't take much to put the present populations and ecosystems in serious pressure.


I'm speaking from experience, not conjecture. While I found personally doing it distasteful, it's a big ocean. Unless the species is in immediate concern of dying off or you're hunting for that exclusively they can usually manage a small dent on the scale of individual villages looking for any meal.

Even coastal settlements would have plenty of options, so outside of a few dedicated fishermen they'd probably have enough to get by, by the time it became viable to do on a larger scale.


Even right now, people who have interest in wild foods are putting pressures on many ecosystems from over gathering, imagine what it will be like when you have a bunch of people for whom these are the only source of food. As for the rest, I don't think you are grasping how much a total societal collapse would destroy in terms of knowledge base and infrastructure. People are going to be trying too hard to survive to spend much energy on trying much, and, with time, knowledge is just going to die off. Oh, some might, but it will be scrounge and relics, and, with time, the remaining stuff is going to be too decayed to be useful.

Did you even bother reading what I posted? Not only are seeds ridiculously common, printed instructions come with most packets. Agriculture will survive. Some crops will die off and some knowledge will be lost, but farms are going to carry on.



The things you describe? Those were the work of craftspeople, experts with a long apprenticeship in a society with the infrastructure to facilitate them.
Just because tech is old does not mean it is easy.

This isn't Fallout, the OP scenario is like, twenty years past the event at most. Existing engineers aren't going to go extinct and it'd only be a month or two before they could make themselves useful. Rigging simple things like radios and lights from whatever's lying around wouldn't be too complicated, given how much wiring and how many parts you can strip from the average house. They aren't building a nuclear reactor, they're finishing the equivalent of a third grade science project. Water Wheels and windmills would take some doing and resources, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.

The people with the skills to start it off would still be alive at this point with a while to go, and a long time to train apprentices and write down the useful bits.

Jaycemonde
2014-08-02, 08:17 PM
I'm speaking from experience, not conjecture. While I found personally doing it distasteful, it's a big ocean. Unless the species is in immediate concern of dying off or you're hunting for that exclusively they can usually manage a small dent on the scale of individual villages looking for any meal.

Even coastal settlements would have plenty of options, so outside of a few dedicated fishermen they'd probably have enough to get by, by the time it became viable to do on a larger scale.


Did you even bother reading what I posted? Not only are seeds ridiculously common, printed instructions come with most packets. Agriculture will survive. Some crops will die off and some knowledge will be lost, but farms are going to carry on.



This isn't Fallout, the OP scenario is like, twenty years past the event at most. Existing engineers aren't going to go extinct and it'd only be a month or two before they could make themselves useful. Rigging simple things like radios and lights from whatever's lying around wouldn't be too complicated, given how much wiring and how many parts you can strip from the average house. They aren't building a nuclear reactor, they're finishing the equivalent of a third grade science project. Water Wheels and windmills would take some doing and resources, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.

The people with the skills to start it off would still be alive at this point with a while to go, and a long time to train apprentices and write down the useful bits.


You and SiuiS are the only two other people who use common sense in discussions of this type.

Jayngfet
2014-08-02, 08:43 PM
You and SiuiS are the only two other people who use common sense in discussions of this type.

Generally speaking, it's quite often how you wind up looking at things.

The entire idea of post-apoc as a story is less about people getting along in the new reality and more about a narrative of one or a few super-badasses that the world must depend on, weather it's because they have magical super kung-fu or else they have the magic mcguffin that's the only thing that can get plants to grow again. For people who's only experience with the Genre is say, Bethesda's version of Fallout in particular, it gets worse since the word "messiah" gets tossed about way more than it should. Hell, when your Messiah isn't an ultra-genius by default everyone else kind of has to be really, really stupid as a result.

I mean for another example, look at Europe around the plague era. Order broke down, whole towns and cities were emptied, raiders and fiends began raping and eating across the countryside, and things generally became a great big mess everywhere. Then a while later everything calmed down and people got back to work and within a couple of generations things were better than ever. An event that kills a larger percentage would be more dramatic, but provided you steer clear of the extinction event you're basically good. That is however a really hard thing to do.

SiuiS
2014-08-03, 03:09 AM
This isn't Fallout, the OP scenario is like, twenty years past the event at most.

Uh, well, we don't know that. There is no information on what kind if apocalypse, how long ago, etc. We can conjecture and spin, but there are aituations that will make survival barely feasible. Such as something that damages the ecosystem, something that makes foodstuffs toxic, something that kills off large amounts of food population.

So far we've discussed a mostly humanocentric and population-damaging event that does not by it's nature originate in human infrastructure. Reverse that; a human-agnostic disaster that comes from human infrastructure but doesn't damage them specifically, only others. Imagine a newer, better wifi signal that goes global, but somehow irrevocably damages foundational life; weeds have their DNA changed, becoming toxic, fast growing, parasitic. By the time humans get apocalypse'd, it's because they don't have food, housing, water anymore and it's too late to reverse.


Generally speaking, it's quite often how you wind up looking at things.

I mean for another example, look at Europe around the plague era. Order broke down, whole towns and cities were emptied, raiders and fiends began raping and eating across the countryside, and things generally became a great big mess everywhere. Then a while later everything calmed down and people got back to work and within a couple of generations things were better than ever. An event that kills a larger percentage would be more dramatic, but provided you steer clear of the extinction event you're basically good. That is however a really hard thing to do.

Yeah. Most people focus on the humanocentric metric. From an outside view? Like watching an animal ecosystem, it's different. Sure, the majority of the population is dead or down to animal mentality. But the remainder won't be too bad unless they're really, really stupid. And then sample wise they stop holding back the statistics because they die and the people who aren't dumb happen to shine.

Every story about a dystopian end-time scenario you get a group of people wondering how the herd will turn out this season.

TheThan
2014-08-03, 08:52 PM
You've never really traveled with the middle ground, have you? By which I mean the homeless. The missig link. The people who can make clothing out of newspapers and duct tape and still program a computer. The people who can build a trailer out of rebar and plywood and spit (literal saliva, it was used with newspaper and dust to make caulk sealant) and take that down to the river and barbecue up whatever they catch.

Screw people who know the Old Ways. Those are valuable for their historical and spiritual weight. But what is really, truly impressive; what Jaycemonde has cottoned on to and few others get, is there are right now thousands of people creating New Ways. This is not a process that will get a shaky start after a certain amount of people die; it's a process that will continue as it always has. Because human beings are damn good at developing these things! At finding out snow is a good insulation. That a thin parchment makes exceptional blanketing. That layers of mesh can cocoon you well enough to retain body heat despite wind. That four old car tires can be cut in half and make an eight-tire long boat. That a plastic barrel becomes a mini tent.

No, the problem isn't surviving in that sense. The problem is surviving the social circles. The ones that develop around people who tend to value getting one over above investing in infrastructure. The ones who are unable to maintain a house in society because of mental illness and become predatory. The ones who would form cults of personality and on-the-streets prison gangs and press gangs to get things they want. Surviving being hungry and cold is easier than surviving someone else being hungry and cold and thinking offing you is better than real hard work.


You’re asking me If I’ve been homeless? No I haven’t fortunately.

We have some sort of disconnect here.

I’ve said that people who can improvise are going to survive and flourish.
You are saying that the people who can improvise are going to survive and flourish.

We’re saying the same thing.

However I’m saying there are people in this world that cannot improvise, and build things from nothing. They can’t cope with a change of this magnitude, they don’t have the capacity to be able to adapt to their surroundings. I’ve known people who didn’t know that the vegetables they buy at the grocery store were grown on a farm . I’ve known people who didn’t know that French fries are made from potatoes. I’ve known people who didn’t know that ham, pork, sausage and bacon all come from the same animal. These are the sorts of people I’m talking about, the sort that can’t function once you take away their smart phone or navigate the very town they grew up in without a GPS system in their car. They are not ret--- mentally handicapped, they just don’t have a clue and may not be able to adapt quickly enough to the change to survive.

Then there are those that break under pressure. There are those that crumble when they get in trouble with their boss at the office or explode for the same reason. Imagine these people trying to cope with the pressure of starvation, thirst and exposure.

People of all types will survive the initial apocalypse, those that can adapt and improvise and learn are going to be the ones to become successful in the aftermath. People who already can already are going to have a huge edge.

Heck I even agree about the social implications you mentioned, in the USA we have a gang problem already, what happens when there’s not law enforcement to handle them?

I was being a bit flippant about the “old ways”, what I should have said is “getting along without modern conveniences”. people love to visit the wilderness but few are capable of staying for more than a few days. What happens to them when their house is now part of the wilderness?


Generally speaking, it's quite often how you wind up looking at things.

The entire idea of post-apoc as a story is less about people getting along in the new reality and more about a narrative of one or a few super-badasses that the world must depend on, weather it's because they have magical super kung-fu or else they have the magic mcguffin that's the only thing that can get plants to grow again. For people who's only experience with the Genre is say, Bethesda's version of Fallout in particular, it gets worse since the word "messiah" gets tossed about way more than it should. Hell, when your Messiah isn't an ultra-genius by default everyone else kind of has to be really, really stupid as a result.


The idea of following a group of people’s “struggle for survival” has tons of merit for stories. Isn’t that the very idea behind most zombie shows?
It doesn’t matter how tough you think you are, going it alone is probably the dumbest thing you can do.

Jayngfet
2014-08-03, 09:23 PM
The idea of following a group of people’s “struggle for survival” has tons of merit for stories. Isn’t that the very idea behind most zombie shows?
It doesn’t matter how tough you think you are, going it alone is probably the dumbest thing you can do.

I'm not saying go it alone, I'm saying the opposite. In fact, the more people you have the faster and more effectivley you can divy up labor and specialize, which is key to survival.

It's just that survival won't be hard unless the event specifically targets every single useful asset and leaves only junk. If even one surviving bookstore in the area has even one book on any relevant subjects, it's an asset. Likewise if any stores selling garden seeds have survived, you can basically pick up and start agriculture of your own within weeks, since you now have hundreds of seeds and hundreds of copies of the instructions, all sealed to prevent contamination.

Heck, if we assume that zombies are an issue, it's still not a terribly large one. Any motorcycle or sporting store will have lightweight body armor and easy transportation that can outrun a light shamble. It's just that it usually takes years of story time for someone to remember this for whatever reason(in the walking dead in particular, dressing up in body armor and having dedicated warriors got taken as a sign of weirdness that took forever, nevermind things like bicycles). Heck, zombies are a temporary concern unless they're outright magic, since humans with no protection from the elements or survival instinct won't last longer than a couple of weeks at the outside, and certainly not through first winter.

This is all short term, of course. Zombies will die off naturally as fast as they begin and restarting civilization isn't going to be a huge issue considering we leave all the supplies just lying around any settlement as is. Unless every single store in every single town and city across the world died along with specifically targeting among the masses of people that died the millions that know how to handle themselves that could teach or help, it's not a real issue in a broader scheme. You may mention people who don't know where food comes from, but unless they just roll over and die right then they'll probably have to learn really quickly.

SiuiS
2014-08-04, 06:31 PM
You’re asking me If I’ve been homeless? No I haven’t fortunately.

We have some sort of disconnect here.

I’ve said that people who can improvise are going to survive and flourish.
You are saying that the people who can improvise are going to survive and flourish.

We’re saying the same thing.

Well, no, because...



However I’m saying there are people in this world that cannot improvise, and build things from nothing.

No. Impossible. There are not enough people in the world who are A) old enough to count, B) unable to adapt, to be anything but statistical outliers. Sure, people will die before they achieve anything in a disaster, but being human automatically qualifies you for the potential to improvise. It's part of your hardware.

The argument that technically a non-zero amount of people out of seven billion plus will exist who may temporarily meet the criteria so it's true isn't an actual argument. It's quibbles and obfuscation.


They can’t cope with a change of this magnitude, they don’t have the capacity to be able to adapt to their surroundings. I’ve known people who didn’t know that the vegetables they buy at the grocery store were grown on a farm . I’ve known people who didn’t know that French fries are made from potatoes. I’ve known people who didn’t know that ham, pork, sausage and bacon all come from the same animal. These are the sorts of people I’m talking about, the sort that can’t function once you take away their smart phone or navigate the very town they grew up in without a GPS system in their car. They are not ret--- mentally handicapped, they just don’t have a clue and may not be able to adapt quickly enough to the change to survive.

I've known those people too. They lack one skill. They have other useful skills.

TheThan
2014-08-04, 08:07 PM
I certainly hope so, I hate to think that people like this are as useless as they seem.

The further down the post-apoc timeline you slide, the more adaptable people will become, but the less pre apoc tech and materials will be available as they get used up.

Jayngfet
2014-08-04, 09:51 PM
The further down the post-apoc timeline you slide, the more adaptable people will become, but the less pre apoc tech and materials will be available as they get used up.

...which is where improvising comes into play. If you run out of batteries, potato and lemon batteries may be able to keep the lights on, at least for a little bit, and those fall under the "available in pure form and widely available as seeds", so by the time it becomes an issue you'll at least have some of them to set aside. If your gun jams and you can't fix it, a ranged weapon can be cobbled from basically anything. By the time you run out of clothes that can be patched up generations have passed and you can use hides and wool and whatever else comes up naturally. If your house collapses and the others are taken, you'll either repair it with wood or busted up ones, or else just resort to mud bricks and rammed earth(and after a bit longer wood would be plentiful enough to make a decent cabin anyway). You'll be able to make explosives the old fashioned way out of dung and scraps.

The further along a post-apoc timeline things go, the less materials are widely available. But the further along you go, the more alternatives get found and catch on, so it's less turning to ruin and more that the setting just resembles our own less and less year over year. By the time you get to the 2030's as the OP wanted odds are things are going to have stabilized into something that doesn't much resemble what we know, except in outward appearance.

Slipperychicken
2014-08-06, 12:18 AM
So what's stopping people from just (re)building factories to crank out all the things we need? Or from re-establishing global communication and transportation networks? And what's to stop us from simply carrying our technical knowledge and artifacts through the apocalypse?


I would also be willing to bet real money that if the apocalypse happens, some government people, survivalists, and paranoid plutocrats would be sitting it out in bunkers full of nutritious nonperishable food and other necessities, plus trained military professionals with survival skills, all manner of tools both complex and simplistic, documentation and instructions (to help do things like maintain tools, build new ones, survive in the wilderness, and to help society recover from the event), plus large quantities of ammunition and weapons to hold them over until production gets up and running again. At the very least, I'd expect a few projects like this to still exist as holdovers from the cold war, and I'd expect the inhabitants to survive for some time.

TheThan
2014-08-06, 12:58 AM
Since we don’t know what sort of apocalypse scenario the OP had in mind, the only conclusions we can come to is the apocalypse blindsided us and that we didn’t have the time to get to any prebuilt shelters or prepare for such a disaster.

But anyway the reason why we may not be able to rebuild is that it’s a matter of infrastructure.
Our capacity to build and make the stuff we have now will be greatly decreased, knowledge of how to make stuff will be lost, and the tech we use to make stuff will be lost or made mostly useless.

If power plants go down, or the people that run them die then there won’t be any electricity available for survivors to utilize. How many people know how to operate a Nuclear power plant, or a coal power plant? Not that many pre-apocalypse, probably fewer if any post-apocalypse. I wouldn’t trust just anyone with the responsibility of running and maintaining a nuclear power plant, no I want someone that actually knows how to do that.
Without electricity, mass producing anything is a much harder possess because the machines we rely upon won’t work without electricity. We could build a lot of different types of mechanical devices, water wheels, wind mills, steam engines etc, it’s actually a step backwards in the tech department, but it might be our only options for a while.

Some places may escape the apocalypse altogether or be able to rebuild fairly quickly afterwards, but it will be some time before we reach the sort of capacity we had before the apocalypse.

Slipperychicken
2014-08-06, 07:46 AM
Another thought occurred to me: Aren't there still plenty of peoples and cultures who already live mostly without modern conveniences? We have a few hunter-gatherer nomad groups left, and also loads of poor folk in third world developing economies who still don't have access to things like electricity, sanitation, or running water. Beyond a number of initial deaths, it's hard to imagine their lives being significantly effected if the meagre aid stops coming in and generators and factories go down. You also have people, even in the West, who live more or less independently of the broader society and would have a relatively easy time adapting to its disappearance.


Also, every so often you hear about individuals or small groups of people who have been stranded in the wilderness for decades and get along just fine, so that gives me hope that at a number of people would be able to make it. The first examples I can think of are some Russian family which moved out into the woods for a few decades (their son learned to run down wild animals, much like early humans were theorized to do), and the many holdouts from World War 2 (who lived in the wilderness for decades after the war was over, and thought it was still going on when they were found).

TheThan
2014-08-06, 01:54 PM
That’s the weird thing, the less modern technology you depend on, the easier survival will be because you have already been developing the skills and knowledge needed to survive an apocalypse. It makes perfect sense really. It’s just a reversal from what people have come to know and feel is necessary to survive in the modern world.

In an episode of Ray Mears bushcraft, he shows a local African that had been building coal braziers out of old oil tins. It’s clever and shows how adaptable people in developing countries are.

SiuiS
2014-08-06, 03:25 PM
So what's stopping people from just (re)building factories to crank out all the things we need? Or from re-establishing global communication and transportation networks? And what's to stop us from simply carrying our technical knowledge and artifacts through the apocalypse?


I would also be willing to bet real money that if the apocalypse happens, some government people, survivalists, and paranoid plutocrats would be sitting it out in bunkers full of nutritious nonperishable food and other necessities, plus trained military professionals with survival skills, all manner of tools both complex and simplistic, documentation and instructions (to help do things like maintain tools, build new ones, survive in the wilderness, and to help society recover from the event), plus large quantities of ammunition and weapons to hold them over until production gets up and running again. At the very least, I'd expect a few projects like this to still exist as holdovers from the cold war, and I'd expect the inhabitants to survive for some time.

Survivalists tend to be the enemy. For real. There's an entire movement of people dedicated to preemptive success in the "it's them or is!" Game, going so far as to create the Them Or Us game just to win it. The whole slavery, murder, rape thing is real. People actually advocate that stuff and train in paramilitary format to be good at it.

Modern tech has planned obsolescence. It's designed to break down sooner so you'll buy more. You could restart factories in a zombie apocalypse set up, but not in a nuclear blast one.


Another thought occurred to me: Aren't there still plenty of peoples and cultures who already live mostly without modern conveniences? We have a few hunter-gatherer nomad groups left, and also loads of poor folk in third world developing economies who still don't have access to things like electricity, sanitation, or running water. Beyond a number of initial deaths, it's hard to imagine their lives being significantly effected if the meagre aid stops coming in and generators and factories go down. You also have people, even in the West, who live more or less independently of the broader society and would have a relatively easy time adapting to its disappearance.


Also, every so often you hear about individuals or small groups of people who have been stranded in the wilderness for decades and get along just fine, so that gives me hope that at a number of people would be able to make it. The first examples I can think of are some Russian family which moved out into the woods for a few decades (their son learned to run down wild animals, much like early humans were theorized to do), and the many holdouts from World War 2 (who lived in the wilderness for decades after the war was over, and thought it was still going on when they were found).

These people A) may have died out themselves, and B) do not help the implicit "not blasted back to Stone Age" that everyone fears. They are considered to have lost before the game started because they exist now in the lose condition state.

Slipperychicken
2014-08-06, 04:52 PM
Survivalists tend to be the enemy. For real. There's an entire movement of people dedicated to preemptive success in the "it's them or is!" Game, going so far as to create the Them Or Us game just to win it. The whole slavery, murder, rape thing is real. People actually advocate that stuff and train in paramilitary format to be good at it.

Modern tech has planned obsolescence. It's designed to break down sooner so you'll buy more. You could restart factories in a zombie apocalypse set up, but not in a nuclear blast one.



These people A) may have died out themselves, and B) do not help the implicit "not blasted back to Stone Age" that everyone fears. They are considered to have lost before the game started because they exist now in the lose condition state.

The points I'm trying to make are these:

Technology and the knowledge to rebuild civilization could potentially survive a number of apocalyptic scenarios. This goes double for nuclear blasts, since there have been quite a few well-funded, organized projects made for exactly that purpose. Loads of entities, from superpower governments, to billionaires, to gun-toting rednecks have all anticipated such events and prepared for them.
People are not all completely helpless without modern conveniences. Some people never had them, some have trained to go without them, and many more can adapt to life without them. Whether you consider some of these people to be "losers" or "the enemy" isn't relevant to my point: they would survive if we lost our advanced technology.

Jayngfet
2014-08-06, 05:44 PM
Modern factories require large amounts of power and complex moving parts, both of which are hard to supply, since they rely on other factories using the same or power plants that have even more weirdly specific parts. Not to mention that if any knowledge is going to get lose, stuff like high complexity schematics will probably be first on the list.

In the short term, power is going to be a local concern with local solutions. We'd probably rely on remaining batteries, small scale generators, and whatever power sources we can make from what's on hand. I don't doubt that some people in some places will get a few plants up at a time, and eventually they may cannabilise some plants to save others with the needed parts, but they'd still be relying on a dwindling pool of parts.

What's more likely, to me, is building new plants, or else just gutting the useless and broken old ones to make different ones. A new generation of post-apocalyptic engineers is going to get their understanding of electricity from very different models, since the most common practical applications they'd be dealing with are rigging generators that work building by building, or on smaller scales. Their idea of fuel that's not scavenged will most likely come from organic sources instead of the vast oil wells of the modern day, since they have no choice but to use what can be grown or processed on hand. The most consistent things they'd ever have are water wheels and perhaps a few windmills.

Ergo, they'll probably set to work repairing the stations they can have a better understanding of(windmills, dams, other such things that rely on pre existing physical forces), and abandon things like nuclear plants they can't either puzzle out on their own. Since these are location dependent and situational, odds are the majority of survivors are going to do without even into the second generation. They might get into a stock of batteries and be able to keep a few lights on, but that's the extent of it.

TheThan
2014-08-06, 07:57 PM
Survivalists tend to be the enemy. For real. There's an entire movement of people dedicated to preemptive success in the "it's them or is!" Game, going so far as to create the Them Or Us game just to win it. The whole slavery, murder, rape thing is real. People actually advocate that stuff and train in paramilitary format to be good at it.


In my experience there’s basically three camps:

Camp 1: The Everyman, these survivalists are just normal folks who want to be self reliant and prepared for any sort of catastrophe that comes their way. They may be worried about their personal safety but they’re not the type to open fire on people without cause. They simply don’t want to become a statistic. This is the sort of prepper or survivalist that people should strive to be. They can help an entire community get back onto its feet by sharing their knowledge and acting as a coordinator, directing people and bringing them together as a community.

Camp 2: Tinfoil Hat Survivalists, these are the sorts that hides out in a cabin in the woods where they write their manifesto and think the gov’mnt’s after them. The sort that buy into any and every conspiracy theory they catch wind of and are hyper paranoid because of it.

Camp 3: The wannabe soldier, these are probably the most common sort of people you see, they are the sort of survivalist or prepper that collects military grade hardware, owns more guns than he’ll ever actually need (many of which are AR15s), and actually practices military (or pseudo military) combat drills, because he thinks he’s going to be some sort of badass Rambo that’s going to be waging a one man war against… somebody. These are the people that are champing at the bit, waiting for a disaster so they can unleash their “elite operator skills” upon their “enemies”. I fully expect the people like this without actual military training to collapse under pressure really fast when the going gets tough.



Modern tech has planned obsolescence. It's designed to break down sooner so you'll buy more. You could restart factories in a zombie apocalypse set up, but not in a nuclear blast one.

This is a good point, and something we haven’t quite touched on yet. The technology we have does break down and become obsolete. How often does Apple put out a new I phone? i think it's ridiculous that it's so hard to find a long lasting product nowadays, but those are the times we live in. I treat the things I buy as investments and try to take good care of them, I want long lasting things and don't want to live in a disposable world.

However, the materials those obsolete things are made of can be recycled. The hood of a car becomes a sled to haul fire wood on or part of a metal roof to keep the sun and rain out, the side of a computer case becomes a griddle over the fire for cooking food. A plastic laundry hamper with some twine attached becomes a basket to haul your possessions in that sort of stuff. Use your imagination and you will be surprised how much "junk" can be recycled into useful tools or components.

Jayngfet
2014-08-07, 12:40 AM
Camp 3: The wannabe soldier, these are probably the most common sort of people you see, they are the sort of survivalist or prepper that collects military grade hardware, owns more guns than he’ll ever actually need (many of which are AR15s), and actually practices military (or pseudo military) combat drills, because he thinks he’s going to be some sort of badass Rambo that’s going to be waging a one man war against… somebody. These are the people that are champing at the bit, waiting for a disaster so they can unleash their “elite operator skills” upon their “enemies”. I fully expect the people like this without actual military training to collapse under pressure really fast when the going gets tough.


Depends, I suppose. If this hypothetical wannabe is an actual survivalist then they have a decent shot. If they're the kind of people who just do day-hikes and bring all of their own food and like 30 pounds of gear every time they go outside, then yeah, I see your point.

Of course, assuming the apocalypse does happen and they somehow survive they'd still be an issue. Mainly because they have working firearms and everyone else is using cobbled together gear.




This is a good point, and something we haven’t quite touched on yet. The technology we have does break down and become obsolete. How often does Apple put out a new I phone? i think it's ridiculous that it's so hard to find a long lasting product nowadays, but those are the times we live in. I treat the things I buy as investments and try to take good care of them, I want long lasting things and don't want to live in a disposable world.

If most of your iPhone apps still function, it isn't a proper apocalypse. If internet and phone lines go down it's basically a fancy calculator/watch/camera that can do nothing that a cheaper and sturdier model can't with less power. Which is even worse, considering that with the power grid down recharging the damn thing will take time. My sisters smartphone has less than ten hours battery time, has a big, breakable screen, and she's gone through like half a dozen in the last five years. My cheap flip-phone can stay turned on for days at a time and has gone through the wash by accident unscathed many times over and taken several bad falls, without needing a single part replaced or losing any functionality whatsoever.

If it comes down to us a post apocalyptic society needing handy camera-calculators, the smartphones would have all gone dead within like a year and become useless, while the cheaper stuff would probably get a second life if they can get a generator running and find a charger. If only because the hypothetical wasteland engineer probably needs something that can take pictures and run a few calculations on the job, and a working laptop might be a bit harder to come by(Though not impossible).

Everyone else probably won't even think about their phones not working after a few weeks, or at least not consistently. It's not a necessity in the sense that a good folding knife or hatchet would be, and if you need to write something down there's probably going to be either scrap paper floating around or some other available surface.

The Second
2014-08-07, 01:00 AM
So, it' the post apocalypse and I'm living in it. No electricity, no running water, no garbage collection, can't just hop down to the supermarket for a of ranch style beans, and Calvin Kline is dead and buried.

I am a loner by choice, and have a fair distrust of people at the best of times. I won't be living in a community, but perhaps nearby a community of some sort, within a half day's walk, preferably.

I live in the southern US, where temperatures can reach as high as 102°F at mid day in the summer and 23°F at night in the winter, so I'll need seasonal clothes, lightweight canvas for the summer with pelts for the winter. There are a good number of deer and wild hogs out here, so no shortage of leather, bone and sinew for constructing a portable shelter, and it would have to be portable as I'd most likely be following the animals around.

Food wouldn't be too much of a problem; along with the wildlife, which includes squirrels, rabbits, and fish, there are dewberries, wild plums, wild grapes, and acorns in great abundance in the summer and fall months. For hunting, I'd prefer not to use a firearm - too expensive and draws unwanted attention. Instead I'd resort to trapping and bowhunting.

Personal protection: first line of defense would be the dogs. If you get past the dogs, then you have to get past the traps. If you get past the traps, I'd have at least one firearm, preferably a shotgun of some variety. If that fails, I have a great deal of faith in three feet of steel pipe. And if even that fails then a good hickory stick will do the job just as well.

For tools, so long as all the scrap metal isn't being hoarded (and why would it be?), crude knives, hatches, and other implements wouldn't be much of a problem.

D20ragon
2014-08-07, 10:26 AM
First off, I'd like to say that I'm really loving this discussion; just read all the way through it.
Second, how many of you now have a hankering to play a game based off of all this, perhaps starting with the apocaplypse, and time jumping onwards.
I know I do.
Lastly, has anyone here read Engine Summer, by John Crowly? If not, go do so. If so, then I actually really like his proposed post apocalypse, and find it fairly realistic.

Slipperychicken
2014-08-07, 11:50 PM
Second, how many of you now have a hankering to play a game based off of all this, perhaps starting with the apocaplypse, and time jumping onwards.
I know I do.

If you ask me, I'd be interested in spending time both leading up to the apocalyptic events and trying to deal with them. That way, the PCs can build some connections to the world and you can actually have some roleplaying about it beyond the usual murderhobo apathy.

Jayngfet
2014-08-08, 05:04 PM
If you ask me, I'd be interested in spending time both leading up to the apocalyptic events and trying to deal with them. That way, the PCs can build some connections to the world and you can actually have some roleplaying about it beyond the usual murderhobo apathy.

Personally I feel that a connection to the pre-apocalypse kind of kills it for me. It becomes less about survival and dealing with the matter at hand and more about pining for the world-that-was. This is also one of the reasons I prefer Fallout: New Vegas to Fallout 3.

Coidzor
2014-08-09, 03:12 PM
I saw a neat video about how to use knapping techniques to convert glass into functional arrowheads, handaxes, and "stone" knives once.

That's about all that comes to mind without some more details about the nature of the disaster and how much of the populace is killed off.

I suppose one thing that has a fair chance of coming back(at least in places where it ever actually left) would be slavery, though that'd be highly dependent upon the nature of the disaster and how many survived.

SiuiS
2014-08-09, 03:19 PM
For gaming: I've a zombie apocalypse style thing I've been tinkering with. I figure that since it's a given (for that scenario) to have society restore itself in a wounded fashion, the game would run in two parts, the immediate apocalypse terror set up, where everyone suddenly finds themselves beset by corpses which hunger, and after that becomes a sure thing (players either die or get fortified), and then fast forward to the end-game where people as a society have to finish off the threat. But I don't know that this applies to a game specifically exploring the apocalyptic world.


I saw a neat video about how to use knapping techniques to convert glass into functional arrowheads, handaxes, and "stone" knives once.

That's about all that comes to mind without some more details about the nature of the disaster and how much of the populace is killed off.

I suppose one thing that has a fair chance of coming back(at least in places where it ever actually left) would be slavery, though that'd be highly dependent upon the nature of the disaster and how many survived.

Man, that is a hell of a lot harder than it seems. >_<

I've got a bunch of bottles within arms reach for Knapping practice, but I have trouble breaking them effectively without making a mess so my technique is terrible.

My favorite is the flat screen tv that becomes a machete. That's boss.

D20ragon
2014-08-09, 03:52 PM
Hmmmmm... What game system would you use?

FLHerne
2014-08-09, 05:23 PM
I don't think you are grasping how much a total societal collapse would destroy in terms of knowledge base and infrastructure. People are going to be trying too hard to survive to spend much energy on trying much, and, with time, knowledge is just going to die off. Oh, some might, but it will be scrounge and relics, and, with time, the remaining stuff is going to be too decayed to be useful.
The things you describe? Those were the work of craftspeople, experts with a long apprenticeship in a society with the infrastructure to facilitate them.
Just because tech is old does not mean it is easy.
I think you're being overly pessimistic.

Like you say, some tech is pretty fragile and hard to reproduce. The mega-apocalypse will presumably put new-build computers out of the window for good, because you need incredibly precise, hermetically-sealed equipment to make ICs, and equipment just as precide to actually build that, and so on.
But computers will survive for decades after the apocalypse anyway. Your typical switching power supply will take an enormous range of input voltages and frequencies, and AC generators are almost trivially easy to build if you can cannibalise the windings off something else. Given a couple of days and the ruins of someone's home, I'm fairly sure the group of people I know could build you a water-wheel powered generator to charge surviving phones/tablets, and the lack of moving parts in those means they'll last almost forever if looked after. :smallsmile:
There are DC motors and 12V lead-acid batteries in every motor vehicle out there, so electric buggies/pumps are fine. Neither of those need a tech base to build - a really simple DC motor is just a coil of wire on a stick - so electric power will be sustainable indefinitely. Refined metals won't be in production, but there are vast quantities hanging about.

^it's probably obvious that I'm an electronics student. Anyone have an idea for how to run large-scale mining/quarrying without oil/coal/explosives and limited* electricity? I can't figure it out. :smallfurious:

*all the hydroelectric dams get blown up, I guess?

D20ragon
2014-08-09, 05:30 PM
*snip*

all the hydroelectric dams get blown up, I guess?

Not if it's a disease scenario, ie: dawn of the plane of the apes.
Or a zombie scenario.
Unless the zombies hate dams for some reason, they should work, provided you can fight the zombies off.

TheThan
2014-08-09, 05:32 PM
For gaming: I've a zombie apocalypse style thing I've been tinkering with. I figure that since it's a given (for that scenario) to have society restore itself in a wounded fashion, the game would run in two parts, the immediate apocalypse terror set up, where everyone suddenly finds themselves beset by corpses which hunger, and after that becomes a sure thing (players either die or get fortified), and then fast forward to the end-game where people as a society have to finish off the threat. But I don't know that this applies to a game specifically exploring the apocalyptic world.



Man, that is a hell of a lot harder than it seems. >_<

I've got a bunch of bottles within arms reach for Knapping practice, but I have trouble breaking them effectively without making a mess so my technique is terrible.

My favorite is the flat screen tv that becomes a machete. That's boss.
That does sound rather boss, maybe a bit fragile though. I’ve seen some beautiful flint knapped obsidian arrow heads and knife blades. If you can get good at it (time, energy) those things can get shaving sharp (I do not endorse trying to shave with rocks or volcanic glass).


Hmmmmm... What game system would you use?
I ran a Cadillacs and dinosaurs game once, it was post apocalyptic. I used D20 modern with the apocalypse supplement. It worked fine. Now I would go for either a converted fallout system. Or something that’s rules light like Fate. I was also working on a Left for Dead campaign but I never got around to finishing it.

Coidzor
2014-08-09, 08:52 PM
Not if it's a disease scenario, ie: dawn of the plane of the apes.
Or a zombie scenario.
Unless the zombies hate dams for some reason, they should work, provided you can fight the zombies off.

Meh. You don't need to fight the zombies off after it's been 20 years. Physics will take care of that.

Unless they're magic. But then magic is confirmed real and we're off to the ****ing Tippyverse anyway.

Jayngfet
2014-08-10, 01:55 AM
Meh. You don't need to fight the zombies off after it's been 20 years. Physics will take care of that.

You don't even need to fight Zombies after it's been six months. The human body will either starve in the case of disease or rot in the case of animation by the end of the first month. Aside from a rare straggler that's basically the whole thing taken care of.

Which is probably the "cleanest" apocalypse though, truth be told. You have a few months at most of continual death as things shut off in waves and most of the zombies run out of easy victims. The best survivors won't have a huge issue and the rare dead weight that's actually hopeless gets cut right off. If it's bad enough that only one in like ten thousand survives then things become too grim to rebuild to status quo but there's enough infrastructure left behind to rebuild to something worthwhile in less than a generation.

Scarlet Knight
2014-08-10, 05:33 PM
In which case, the non-Amish among us are basically hosed. I know just enough about that sort of agriculture to appreciate I know essentially nothing useful about that sort of agriculture. Nobody with those skills and a functioning brain would bother passing them on to a dead weight like me.

I never thought of that scenario: assuming that the cities are now unlivable(radioactive?), power is gone, populations decimated, and society has broken down, would gangs of people race to Lancaster Pennsylvania to kidnap the Amish as sages on how to survive without electricity?

Or maybe Indian reservations? I could see this as a comedy. An incompetent gang kidnaps a NY Oneida Indian, who has no woodland skills (he works as an accountant for a casino) but fakes it to keep himself valuable.

SiuiS
2014-08-11, 12:07 AM
Game system? World of darkness. It's quick, easy, free (enough), and is designed do you retelling a story and the dice come up briefly for resolution and then quickly fade away.


You don't even need to fight Zombies after it's been six months. The human body will either starve in the case of disease or rot in the case of animation by the end of the first month. Aside from a rare straggler that's basically the whole thing taken care of.

Which is probably the "cleanest" apocalypse though, truth be told. You have a few months at most of continual death as things shut off in waves and most of the zombies run out of easy victims. The best survivors won't have a huge issue and the rare dead weight that's actually hopeless gets cut right off. If it's bad enough that only one in like ten thousand survives then things become too grim to rebuild to status quo but there's enough infrastructure left behind to rebuild to something worthwhile in less than a generation.

I love that you'll believe in dead tissue being animate but not in dead tissue magically being preserved.


I never thought of that scenario: assuming that the cities are now unlivable(radioactive?), power is gone, populations decimated, and society has broken down, would gangs of people race to Lancaster Pennsylvania to kidnap the Amish as sages on how to survive without electricity?

Or maybe Indian reservations? I could see this as a comedy. An incompetent gang kidnaps a NY Oneida Indian, who has no woodland skills (he works as an accountant for a casino) but fakes it to keep himself valuable.

Pffff

Jayngfet
2014-08-11, 12:12 AM
I love that you'll believe in dead tissue being animate but not in dead tissue magically being preserved.


Hey, if you're working on some kind of brain fungus of frankenstiens monster dealie then it could work, I guess. But automatically mummifying them is kind of a bit much, isn't it?

TheThan
2014-08-11, 12:20 AM
I never thought of that scenario: assuming that the cities are now unlivable(radioactive?), power is gone, populations decimated, and society has broken down, would gangs of people race to Lancaster Pennsylvania to kidnap the Amish as sages on how to survive without electricity?

Or maybe Indian reservations? I could see this as a comedy. An incompetent gang kidnaps a NY Oneida Indian, who has no woodland skills (he works as an accountant for a casino) but fakes it to keep himself valuable.

Yeah, people without practical outdoors and survival skills, are going to be in for a very rough time at first. But those skills aren’t too hard to acquire if someone has the inclination to seek them out. It doesn’t take that long to get out of even a major US city and into the outdoors. One just needs the time and inclination and a bit of money (and not that much if one makes smart gear purchases).

Eventually the survivors will build up settlements and try to “restart” civilization. They’ll probably either try to rebuild on top of ruins or near other resources that they can use (the oil refinery in Road Warrior is actually a good example).

Hunting and fishing are two of those things that every guy thinks their good at, even the ones that never done it before.



Hey, if you're working on some kind of brain fungus of frankenstiens monster dealie then it could work, I guess. But automatically mummifying them is kind of a bit much, isn't it?

If you used magic to mummify a zombie, wouldn't that just make it a mummy?

Jayngfet
2014-08-11, 01:31 AM
If you used magic to mummify a zombie, wouldn't that just make it a mummy?

Basically. Anything that's an indefinite auto-preservation is basically magic, once you get down to it.

Though honestly I'm not fond of zombies years ago. They wore out their cultural welcome years ago.

Not to mention that I feel that it kinda goes against the ethics of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Life should either be very cheap or very valuable as the survivors of mankind try to eek out a living. If someone has to take a life then it should have a mental effect on them as they kill someone's child or sibling.

Once you make it about killing a bunch of guilt-free targets you can't communicate with, a lot of wasteland complexity goes down the toilet. You aren't killing to survive or for vengeance or pleasure, you're doing it because there's a walking cardboard cutout with no weapons running at you unsubtly.

SiuiS
2014-08-11, 01:47 AM
Hey, if you're working on some kind of brain fungus of frankenstiens monster dealie then it could work, I guess. But automatically mummifying them is kind of a bit much, isn't it?

There is no fungal or bacteriological effect that reanimates. You can have a somethig that infects people but keeps them alive, but that doesn't qualify as a zombie. You can have something that grows within a corpse, using it for incubation, but by the time it's large enough to ambulate a human corpse it's not re animation, it's something wearing a people suit.



If you used magic to mummify a zombie, wouldn't that just make it a mummy?

I dunno. I think you missed the mark though, and the sticking point was magic. I assume magic when I think undead, because it's the only logical method of undeath – something supernatural.



Not to mention that I feel that it kinda goes against the ethics of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Life should either be very cheap or very valuable as the survivors of mankind try to eek out a living. If someone has to take a life then it should have a mental effect on them as they kill someone's child or sibling.

Once you make it about killing a bunch of guilt-free targets you can't communicate with, a lot of wasteland complexity goes down the toilet. You aren't killing to survive or for vengeance or pleasure, you're doing it because there's a walking cardboard cutout with no weapons running at you unsubtly.

The point of zombies is not that you kill them, but that they exist. They are an environmental hazard; like fires, or sandstorms, or tornadoes or floods, they will always be. That was their selling point. That some faceless, non aggressive force will kill you and the best you can do is be prepared and be ready to rebuild. Zombies are a constant volcano. They are not targets, they are the threat of death. Guilt-free target is a misuse of the material, really.

I dunno though. Some good few stories are specifically about a human dealing with a faceless, non-communicative threats that manage a lot of introspection, soul searching and drama. I've seen the man alone in the jungle with a jaguar, I've see a dude in the wastes with a t-Rex, and Hell, bats basically what The lord of the flies was, a comment on how humans go to pot so fast and use an external threat as an excuse.

Jayngfet
2014-08-11, 01:59 AM
I dunno though. Some good few stories are specifically about a human dealing with a faceless, non-communicative threats that manage a lot of introspection, soul searching and drama. I've seen the man alone in the jungle with a jaguar, I've see a dude in the wastes with a t-Rex, and Hell, bats basically what The lord of the flies was, a comment on how humans go to pot so fast and use an external threat as an excuse.

If you've been around Jaguars it's obvious that while they're non-communicative, they aren't exactly dumb animals. They're pretty large, powerful creatures with a whole lot of energy and the ability to think.

Big cats out "in the wild" are probably more of a threat than any other animal. Mainly because they don't just think a bit, but they can have a twisted sense of humor about them(I remember trail biking a few times, local cougars loved to wait at the top of an overhanging cliff and leap at anyone passing. Not out of any real hunger so much as a cheap laugh at the big, noisy humans). Jaguars are basically that but bigger and thicker There's a lot of nuance you can get from even an animal that zombies don't really convey.

Though that T-Rex bit might be a more elegant solution, thinking about it. Filling the landscape with monstrous creatures or great stomping megafauna might be cool. If nothing else the image of a Tyrannosaurus Rex dealing with a pack of feral dogs is a compelling one.

SiuiS
2014-08-11, 02:22 AM
The point isn't that zombies don't have nuance, the point is that the setting is "man unprepared; land with unusual resources but no easy solutions; active pervasive threat you can't predict or outrun". The entire set up of post apocalyptic fiction is quite identical to isolation cases. YOU have a character, and you have an external effect which allows the sub consciousness to be reflected back onto that character.

Postapoc fiction is this writ large. It's not about the guy, it's about the species. It's about humanity as a whole, where each person becomes archetypal much like the different perspectives and internal processes of a lone survivor are displayed in singular stories. It's not about the zombies. It's never about the zombies. It's always been about humanity, and popular fiction missed that.

Look at the good movies. There are people who are stressed and doing things that are understandable but bad. Only when things get static, complacent, do you have zombies. Look at the bad movies. You have people running into zombies all the time for a quick audience scare or a funny death.


A story about zombies isn't a story about zombies. It's a story about people surviving an ever-present danger, like threadfall on Pern, or constant fires in the wastes, or the struggle against privation. Post apocalyptic set ups that are about how the new order works isn't really postapoc fiction, because in a post apocalypse, you're focusing on how things dont, work, the crutches that make people look civilized are gone. As they say, alignment is what you are when no one is there to judge you. That's what it examines.

Coidzor
2014-08-11, 11:18 AM
Threadfall on Pern's basically completely taken care of by, what, the 2nd book? It's the other people that one has to worry about. The people who go Full Lord of the Flies. Or Tarquin and his Empire of Blood.

People who are worse than the zombies because they could still choose to be human but remain animals and people who would make all before them into slaves.

TheThan
2014-08-11, 02:36 PM
I agree with SiuiS, the point of a zombie horror is that the humans are the ones that create the horror. The undead are just a catalyst for that horror. It’s about what terrible things people will say and do to stay alive. It’s also about despair and terror, the knowledge that you’re probably going to die in a painful and slow way. It’s all about the human element, the external threat of the zombies is just there to create the scenario where the horror takes place.

Jayngfet
2014-08-11, 11:59 PM
Which is still my main issue. Zombies are a means to an end, but not the only means. They're kind of played out as the means, honestly. It'd be better to just find something else to get the setting from point A to point B.

Coidzor
2014-08-12, 12:43 AM
I agree with SiuiS, the point of a zombie horror is that the humans are the ones that create the horror. The undead are just a catalyst for that horror. It’s about what terrible things people will say and do to stay alive. It’s also about despair and terror, the knowledge that you’re probably going to die in a painful and slow way. It’s all about the human element, the external threat of the zombies is just there to create the scenario where the horror takes place.

Which is exactly why they'd be irrelevant after a couple decades.

SiuiS
2014-08-13, 01:30 AM
Which is exactly why they'd be irrelevant after a couple decades.

Decades, sure. I just balk at the idea that people are like "the dead walk" but also "they won't last, that's unscientific!".

I have every confidence zombies would die off eventually – unless they are the cunning, hide and ambush sorts they'll get destroyed pretty quick. And if brain damage takes them out then hydrostatic shock will do them in.

I'm actually watching a show now called Survivors, a British serial about a generically weaponised superflu wiping out swathes of the population. The world is reverse decimated, twice; maybe one in a hundred or a thousand people live. But that's still enough people for drama! Notable in that with one half-exception, the convicted felon who falls back into old habits when pushed, the show presents those people who are all over survival at the expense of others in a universally bad light.

Asta Kask
2014-08-13, 02:19 AM
Now, SkyNet is another matter entirely. That's realistic. :smallwink:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1phpKQnJriE

Gnomvid
2014-08-13, 04:54 AM
Which is exactly why they'd be irrelevant after a couple decades.

It won't take Decades for the flesh to rot away and then how will the zombie be of any danger? can you get infected by biting yourself with a skull you found lying around on the ground?
Whether the cause of the zombie outbreak was a bacteria or a virus it will be long dead if there's nothing for it to feed on and that won't take that many months to happen.

TheThan
2014-08-13, 02:50 PM
I think often times zombie media gives us a psudo-scientific explanation on why the dead walk. This causes people to think scientifically about the zombies. They go “if they’re just reanimated corpses, wouldn’t they rot away?” and other such thoughts.

Now with magic, you can say just about anything, “oh the spell raises them and keeps them from rotting” and you’re fine.

The thing that gets me is that people don’t seem to realize that we can stop a zombie apocalypse. After a day or so people will figure it out and mount a defense/ offence and stop them. Heck this happened in the original night of the living dead. In the end, the sheriff, with the help of the locals were systematically destroying every zombie they came across at range. After the initial confusion and panic the threat was exterminated pretty quickly.

Jayngfet
2014-08-13, 04:59 PM
The thing that gets me is that people don’t seem to realize that we can stop a zombie apocalypse. After a day or so people will figure it out and mount a defense/ offence and stop them. Heck this happened in the original night of the living dead. In the end, the sheriff, with the help of the locals were systematically destroying every zombie they came across at range. After the initial confusion and panic the threat was exterminated pretty quickly.

Zombies only really become an issue because everyone involved usually holds the idiot ball. A dude with a gun beats a zombie nine times out of ten. If it's an assault rifle or SMG instead of a handgun his odds are much better. If you've got something heavier on a tripod and fortified you can probably kill zombies all damn day. Hell, basically any gun with a scope removes all chance of you being bitten or the target getting close. Or as I've pointed out, any kind of reinforced clothing or personal armor, of which there are many variants in large production(you don't need combat armor, hockey pads will probably stop the bite just as well).

Coidzor
2014-08-13, 07:53 PM
Decades, sure. I just balk at the idea that people are like "the dead walk" but also "they won't last, that's unscientific!".

Well, you know, rot, physical damage because they don't actually care for or heal their bodies causing them to slow, fall, crawl, and then stiffen up into sessile masses, battering away at their hands in the process of tearing through wood and metal and glass to the point where they can't grasp anything...


Notable in that with one half-exception, the convicted felon who falls back into old habits when pushed, the show presents those people who are all over survival at the expense of others in a universally bad light.

I have to admit, I'm a little behind on zombie fiction, but I believe that's usually the case because surviving as a lone human just means that humanity dies with one's self, whereas surviving with a group means that humans and culture can make a comeback, preferably one that doesn't lead to Mad Max.

SiuiS
2014-08-14, 01:23 AM
Well, you know, rot, physical damage because they don't actually care for or heal their bodies causing them to slow, fall, crawl, and then stiffen up into sessile masses, battering away at their hands in the process of tearing through wood and metal and glass to the point where they can't grasp anything...

But it's this weird, innate false dichotomy.

A friend of mine watched Abraham Lincoln: vampire hunter with me, and at one point a vampire kicks a strut which collapses a bridge with a train track (and train) on it. The scientist's response was "oh, come on! His chest cavity would implode!", and I responded with, well, he's a vampire. Super strength cannot be a simple output; there must be some system involved, to enervate that force, and to have the machines to generate it which by nature requires being able to withstand that energy.

What differentiates a vampire and a zombie? One is cunning and predatory, the other is just predatory. They're both dead. They're both unnaturally resilient (see: dead but not giving up) and they're both animated through no natural power.

But one of them will slowly be worn by mechanical entropy despite fiction having them exist for hundreds of years in the damp and the flowing fluid and the moving vermin, and the other can kick like an actual dynamite explosion without collapsing under the equal-and-opposite reaction.

Yeah, the zombie will be battered. But it's also dead already and still ambulatory beyond all science or reason. What should have stopped ambulation within hours hasn't; why should it catch up in days, weeks, months? Why not just the nonessential tissues while the core of the thing hardens and callouses like some sentient, wicked jerkey? It's a strange, strange thing to insist magical corpse A shall decompose but magical corpse B is going to be redesigned as a sparkling golem with teen angst.



I have to admit, I'm a little behind on zombie fiction, but I believe that's usually the case because surviving as a lone human just means that humanity dies with one's self, whereas surviving with a group means that humans and culture can make a comeback, preferably one that doesn't lead to Mad Max.

Ah, a mistake on my part. The show isn't zombie fiction, just superflu and rebuild. Society in micro.

But you've hit my theory on the head; human background radiation is enough that there is no apocalypse sufficient to stop society that is not also a human extinction event. You're not going to shake up everything enough to force rebuilding without destroyig the gene pool enough to kill the species.

Well, maybe if there's, like, a "100 people are kept in stasis somewhere and everyone dies" story. Had a dangling plot thread about that once, one of my random encounters in a game was a statue that was an ancient, petrified paladin. I always kept a 1% chance on each table for "random occurrences", anything from finding a coin in the road to being tempted by fiends at a crossroads to watching to Ngels feeding in a thunderhead... To, well, millennia-old lost crusaders kept in stone.

Jayngfet
2014-08-14, 01:43 AM
Vampires we tend to accept as kind of magic. It's the cuuuuuurse of the undead that makes their capes billow in the moonlight so dramatically, instead of some disease. If it's just a disease it's handled in another way entirely.

But this is kind of offtopic.

SiuiS
2014-08-14, 04:52 AM
instead of some disease. If it's just a disease it's handled in another way entirely.

I am tempted to count the number of times I said animated, magic zombies and then leave the number for comparison. Because I've been specific about magic this whole while, laughing off disease, discrediting it and discounting it routinely.


But this is kind of offtopic.

Yes and no. Specifics of the genre aren't off topic so much as tangential. I would still like to know what apocalypse OP has in mind, but will spitball my own in the meanwhile.

Jayngfet
2014-08-14, 03:09 PM
Back on topic though. Imagine you, personally, lived through some vague unspecified apocalypse and just kind of bummed around what's left of the world, circa 2030s with the event happening tomorrow with no extra prep time.

What would you carry on your person, presuming you can safely scrounge or scavenge it, or have it on hand? Bearing in mind of course that everything has a weight and mass, and you've got to lug it around in a pack all day(and this isn't a Bethesda game where you can casually lug around three hundred pounds of random crap). Being a vague adventurer isn't your only option, and however else you want to get by is totally cool.

Also baring in mind that guns might not be common in your area, and that after more than fifteen years of continual use anything could jam or break. You've got to personally repair and maintain anything you get your hands on.

SiuiS
2014-08-14, 03:19 PM
Back on topic though. Imagine you, personally, lived through some vague unspecified apocalypse and just kind of bummed around what's left of the world, circa 2030s with the event happening tomorrow with no extra prep time.

What would you carry on your person, presuming you can safely scrounge or scavenge it, or have it on hand? Bearing in mind of course that everything has a weight and mass, and you've got to lug it around in a pack all day(and this isn't a Bethesda game where you can casually lug around three hundred pounds of random crap). Being a vague adventurer isn't your only option, and however else you want to get by is totally cool.

Also baring in mind that guns might not be common in your area, and that after more than fifteen years of continual use anything could jam or break. You've got to personally repair and maintain anything you get your hands on.

I'm have a mate who does survival kits for fun, and I have actual paranoiac tendencies.

I would bring two changes of clothes, enough socks to change 3/day, my hatchet/hunting knife set, multitool, and my exercise equipment – specifically a six foot cedar pole whipped with twine and handled in excess paracord with gallon-jugs of potable water lashed to it.

I don't actually have a sewing kit but I could rig one with the multitool, and would collect glass as I go for concoidal knives and such. If I could find my old renn Faire pouch, I would have a few survival blankets and some knock knacks but if I have to run NOW then all other effort goes to a) stuff for baby B) equipment for protecting baby and C) backpack for carrying it efficiently.


E: fun fact! This is how I got all my non-geek friends to start RPing. "I wish I could just take a duffel bag, an axe and go up to to he woods. I would make my own tools and build a log cabin..." And everyone jumps in with their own preferred methods of survival in the wild like a boss. XD

Icewraith
2014-08-14, 03:58 PM
Zombies aren't really that big a deal depending on how they persist. Humans are really only good at attacking things with tools, and zombies are generally not portrayed as tool users. Go to a zoo, walk around, and ask yourself.... how many of these things could I successfully kill or even defend myself against just by flailing at them mindlessly?

No, what's scary is if the zombie humans pass their infection or urge to kill from beyond the grave or whatever onto the scavengers they'll be incapable of fighting off. Flights of unholy, ever-hungry crows. Swarms of scavenger bugs straight out of "The Mummy". Raccoons. Seagulls. Bears. Wolves. Sharks. Anything that will try to scavnege some zombie flesh given the opportunity since a dead, sick, or injured creature that wanders across its path is a free meal.

Granted this is sounding less like a zombie outbreak and more like the Hate Plague, but you get the idea. I'll take a pack of human zombies over a pack of flying zombie crows or seagulls with those beaks sized perfectly for removing eyes any day of the week.

Jayngfet
2014-08-14, 06:50 PM
New idea, how about aliens? No wait, here me out on this one!

If say, aliens were to bring about the apocalypse, it's nice and clean. One clean sweep from above destroys infrastructure, leadership, major libraries, and other such things with weapons that don't have to leave hazardous radiation. Then a designer bioweapon cleans out major population centers and wipes the planets population down to a few million before halting. If the plan is mass depopulation instead of outright extinction it could probably be done without any boots touching the ground in an initial strike that lasts less than an hour, assuming the disease is both fast spreading and lethal enough and doesn't stick around very long.

It'd basically turn Earth into Mass Effect's Tuchanka: Bombed out and hostile with a few genetically scarred survivors in the ruins.

A "designer apocalypse" is pretty effective as a reset button, all things considered.

Icewraith
2014-08-14, 07:03 PM
Forgot to relate the zombie thing to clothing: Your vision is really freakin' important, so goggles. Especially if your apocalypse is a Hitchcock-Romero lovechild.

TheThan
2014-08-14, 07:23 PM
I'm have a mate who does survival kits for fun, and I have actual paranoiac tendencies.

I would bring two changes of clothes, enough socks to change 3/day, my hatchet/hunting knife set, multitool, and my exercise equipment – specifically a six foot cedar pole whipped with twine and handled in excess paracord with gallon-jugs of potable water lashed to it.

I don't actually have a sewing kit but I could rig one with the multitool, and would collect glass as I go for concoidal knives and such. If I could find my old renn Faire pouch, I would have a few survival blankets and some knock knacks but if I have to run NOW then all other effort goes to a) stuff for baby B) equipment for protecting baby and C) backpack for carrying it efficiently.


E: fun fact! This is how I got all my non-geek friends to start RPing. "I wish I could just take a duffel bag, an axe and go up to to he woods. I would make my own tools and build a log cabin..." And everyone jumps in with their own preferred methods of survival in the wild like a boss. XD
I wouldn’t be in a tight spot either. Also that’s a inventive way of getting people into RPGs.


New idea, how about aliens? No wait, here me out on this one!

If say, aliens were to bring about the apocalypse, it's nice and clean. One clean sweep from above destroys infrastructure, leadership, major libraries, and other such things with weapons that don't have to leave hazardous radiation. Then a designer bioweapon cleans out major population centers and wipes the planets population down to a few million before halting. If the plan is mass depopulation instead of outright extinction it could probably be done without any boots touching the ground in an initial strike that lasts less than an hour, assuming the disease is both fast spreading and lethal enough and doesn't stick around very long.

It'd basically turn Earth into Mass Effect's Tuchanka: Bombed out and hostile with a few genetically scarred survivors in the ruins.

A "designer apocalypse" is pretty effective as a reset button, all things considered.
I Know I’m applying human logic to Aliens but still, they are probably going to land at some point. There’s no reason that I can think of for them to massively depopulate the planet, destroy most of it’s cities and then leave. Not without humanity pulling an Independence day and kicking them off of our planet at least.

They’re going to want to stay for some reason, the land, the water, the natural resources something. So they’re going to make landfall and start setting up shop. Now a man made epidemic that gets out of hand, that's another matter.

Jayngfet
2014-08-14, 08:27 PM
I wouldn’t be in a tight spot either. Also that’s a inventive way of getting people into RPGs.


I Know I’m applying human logic to Aliens but still, they are probably going to land at some point. There’s no reason that I can think of for them to massively depopulate the planet, destroy most of it’s cities and then leave. Not without humanity pulling an Independence day and kicking them off of our planet at least.

They’re going to want to stay for some reason, the land, the water, the natural resources something. So they’re going to make landfall and start setting up shop. Now a man made epidemic that gets out of hand, that's another matter.

H20 is built from a number of chemicals freely available in large quantities out in space, no real need to waste the resources for just that. If it's just landmasses there are presumably other planets to settle on. Unless there's some weirdly specific chemical compound they need odds are they can synthesize it or else try growing it from a sample.

The more obvious idea, I'm thinking, is that it's not for resources so much as it is to stop a potential threat before it becomes too large. A human race that's out in the stars doing it's own thing is a variable they don't want, so they'll show up a century before it's a significant issue and crunch everything while we're stuck to one planet.

Obviously earth still has lots of chemicals and organisms and whatnot that might be valuable later, so keeping the planet itself mostly functional is basically double-insurance. No potential threats while keeping the ecosystem functional enough to keep going.

They might stick around on the moon to keep watching(a large, visible station on the moon is a foreboding and powerful image), but there's no distinct reason to make planetfall in this scenario.

SiuiS
2014-08-15, 12:40 AM
I Know I’m applying human logic to Aliens but still, they are probably going to land at some point. There’s no reason that I can think of for them to massively depopulate the planet, destroy most of it’s cities and then leave. Not without humanity pulling an Independence day and kicking them off of our planet at least.

They’re going to want to stay for some reason, the land, the water, the natural resources something. So they’re going to make landfall and start setting up shop. Now a man made epidemic that gets out of hand, that's another matter.

Not really a problem, though; this is about an event occurring and people afterwards. "Alien war" and "alien cultural assassination slash genocide" are both viable because it doesn't matter how we fought them off; just that our deus ex machina happened and now we are recovering from an apocalypse.


H20 is built from a number of chemicals freely available in large quantities out in space, no real need to waste the resources for just that. If it's just landmasses there are presumably other planets to settle on. Unless there's some weirdly specific chemical compound they need odds are they can synthesize it or else try growing it from a sample.

Doesn't make sense. Space travel takes a long, long time. Long enough that maybe the aliens saw ancient cultures and didn't regard them as worth life, and launched arak with missiles on them. Or maybe the planet was uninhabited when they launched, or their scans didn't reveal humans until it was too late – it works for us, in fiction, to have missed seeing alien life in obvious places. Why not the other way around?

TheThan
2014-08-15, 02:38 PM
Not really a problem, though; this is about an event occurring and people afterwards. "Alien war" and "alien cultural assassination slash genocide" are both viable because it doesn't matter how we fought them off; just that our deus ex machina happened and now we are recovering from an apocalypse.



Yeah I was more thinking about the “They came, they kicked our butts, and then they left “scenario. It doesn’t make sense for aliens to spend all the time and resources to show up and destroy humanity only to turn around and leave.

If humanity fought off alien invaders somehow and the aftermath is post-apocalyptic then that’s pretty easy to make sense of and even write stories for.

Coidzor
2014-08-15, 03:20 PM
Yeah I was more thinking about the “They came, they kicked our butts, and then they left “scenario. It doesn’t make sense for aliens to spend all the time and resources to show up and destroy humanity only to turn around and leave.

If humanity fought off alien invaders somehow and the aftermath is post-apocalyptic then that’s pretty easy to make sense of and even write stories for.

They could be insane and have given the choice to humanity to either join them or be condemned to pre-atomic savagery? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VNul2QETPE)

Scarlet Knight
2014-08-15, 03:31 PM
Yeah I was more thinking about the “They came, they kicked our butts, and then they left “scenario. It doesn’t make sense for aliens to spend all the time and resources to show up and destroy humanity only to turn around and leave.


Unless they are so above us that they view humans as pests. They just set off a "flea bomb" in case they want to come back and went somewhere more pleasant, like Mars.

TheThan
2014-08-15, 09:38 PM
Unless they are so above us that they view humans as pests. They just set off a "flea bomb" in case they want to come back and went somewhere more pleasant, like Mars.

So a human steps in the door and the Alien female leaps up on the kitchen chair screaming?
her husband chases the human around with a broom.
wow that image is now priceless.

wilborine
2014-08-16, 02:37 AM
So a human steps in the door and the Alien female leaps up on the kitchen chair screaming?
her husband chases the human around with a broom.
wow that image is now priceless.

I doubt her husband will chase human with a broom, i guess he might use some kind of latest technology to shoot him or laser beam comes out of his eyes or something and vaporizes that human.

Coidzor
2014-08-16, 02:42 AM
The broom is a laser broom.