The Falcon & Winter Soldier

[Psyren]

I agree with pretty much everything BRC is saying.

Also, to put a coda on the "Snap affected animals" discussion - In Endgame, Cap mentions to Black Widow seeing a pod of whales in the Hudson because there are fewer ships out there, and that the bright side of human civilization being scaled back was that nature was on the rise. Doesn't seem that would be possible if the Snap hit every lifeform on the planet just like it hit us.

As for Tony - I think the assumption that he had (a) access to the same facilities and resources in a post-Snap world as he did before it and (b) the same drive to use them on people's behalf even if he did, to be a bit baseless. He has some pretty sweet tech in his cabin, but I just don't think he had the billions of dollars or private manufactories laying around either. Even the Time Heist was done using tech they threw together in the Avengers' compound - i.e. SHIELD property, not Stark's.

[Cikomyr2]

It's also worth pointing out that Sarah is a widow who has been raising two boys by herself for the past five years, on top of trying to keep the family business afloat. I think she mentioned her husband died five years ago, which means he died around the time of the Snap, but apparently did not die of the Snap, or else presumably, he'd be back in the picture now.

Can you imagine if a close one did not die of the snap, but his death was caused by the snap?

Like, all these car crashes, plane crashes, etc.. that probably actually decreased the world population by a lot more than 50%

[hungrycrow]

Can you imagine if a close one did not die of the snap, but his death was caused by the snap?

Like, all these car crashes, plane crashes, etc.. that probably actually decreased the world population by a lot more than 50%

With all emergency services crippled at the same time? Yeah, millions would have died in the aftermath.

[theNater]

I realize I communicated poorly, so let me clarify: I'm not saying Tony Stark would single-handedly fix everything. I'm saying that Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and Samuel Sterns and Riri Williams and Amadeus Cho and Victor von Doom and Reed Richards and Curt Connors and Otto Octavius and the vast array of SHIELD-trained scientists and the Wakandan scientific community and all off the thousands upon thousands of other producers of super-technologies could, between them, have a significant impact.

[Vrock Bait]

I realize I communicated poorly, so let me clarify: I'm not saying Tony Stark would single-handedly fix everything. I'm saying that Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and Samuel Sterns and Riri Williams and Amadeus Cho and Victor von Doom and Reed Richards and Curt Connors and Otto Octavius and the vast array of SHIELD-trained scientists and the Wakandan scientific community and all off the thousands upon thousands of other producers of super-technologies could, between them, have a significant impact.

Well, first of all, the movies don’t have as many geniuses as the comics. It’s what? A few villains, plus Banner/Stark/Shuri/Pym? Not much to go around.

Plus, you also have to remember that even with a huge scientific community, everybody is still human. In the comics, there was a storyline called Time Runs Out which involved the slow death of the universe. You had a multiversal council of Reed Richards who couldn’t solve it, gods who couldn’t solve it. The main plot followed the Illuminati, which is chock-full of super-geniuses, and until the end they were too focused on offense and didn’t think of creating arks to survive multiversal collapse until it was too late to take the entire human race. Out of all the universes in Marvel, only one person, the Maker, thought of creating an ark from the start. These people are human, they don’t come up with the most logical solution immediately.

[Cikomyr2]

I realize I communicated poorly, so let me clarify: I'm not saying Tony Stark would single-handedly fix everything. I'm saying that Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and Samuel Sterns and Riri Williams and Amadeus Cho and Victor von Doom and Reed Richards and Curt Connors and Otto Octavius and the vast array of SHIELD-trained scientists and the Wakandan scientific community and all off the thousands upon thousands of other producers of super-technologies could, between them, have a significant impact.

You need an industrial base to enact whatever good idea these genius might have had. And that's the point, the industrial base of the world collapsed. Changing the entire economy to implement a Super genius Project Manhattan/Marshal Plan is something that would be hard before the snap. After the snap? The world would have barely enough to feed itself in the first year.

[Kornaki]

Okay, but most of this is with the assumption that she’s in a small town with no access to anywhere else. The location given is Delacroix, Louisiana correct? Looking at Google maps here, it’s 15-20 miles from New Orleans (about an hour drive), which even post-Snap should have around 200,000 people in it to sell to. And the infrastructure collapse makes it more likely that people will migrate towards the bigger cities, precisely because they can’t get anything anywhere else. So plenty of people to sell to. And not that far away for replacement parts, either.

Cities require infrastructure and civilization to survive. New Orleans probably only has enough food to survive a week or two, and has to import a ton of it every day, which is going to be tough post snap. I think the cities would depopulate.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Cikomyr2
Like, all these car crashes, plane crashes, etc.. that probably actually decreased the world population by a lot more than 50%

Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
But how are they getting back with no infrastructure? There can’t be that many planes running with half the pilots dusted and a non-zero number of crashed planes.

Very good points here. I’d say that at a minimum, 25% of planes in the air would have crashed, those being the odds for both pilot and copilot to have been dusted in any given plane. There would also have been airport catastrophes and midair collisions, because suddenly you have only half as many ATCs to keep track of everything.

So probably 25-30% of the commercial fleet would have been lost on the first day, and that plus losing half of all workers would cripple the industry.

However, far fewer private aircraft would have been lost, simply because a smaller percentage of private aircraft are in the air at any give time. Half of their pilots would be gone—but the other half would suddenly be in a position to provide charter flights, right when other air travel is virtually impossible.

There would still be substantial issues with fuel and repair services, but in the immediate aftermath of the Snap, private pilots would likely be busy flying people wherever they needed to go. Half the ATCs and airport staff will be gone, but VOR stations and GPS will still be functional, so for private pilots with an eye for profit, charter flights will suddenly be a booming sector.

Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
I also gather Tony just kind of gave up on everything after the Snap, judging by his behavior in Endgame. So he might not have been interested in trying to fix the problem even if he could conjure up the resources.

I definitely had the impression that Tony and Pepper retreated from the world. Tony in particular would have felt like he tried the hero thing, it didn’t work out, so he’s focused on the dad thing.

Originally Posted by theNater
…Victor von Doom and Reed Richards and Curt Connors and Otto Octavius….

Assuming Doom survived, I can’t see him doing anything other than expanding his own power at the expense of everyone else’s, because that’s kind of Doom’s thing. Hard to see Doc Ock going all humanitarian either.

(That said, my main exposure to Doom is when he fought the X-Men way back when, and I only know the comics Doc Ock from the Secret Wars miniseries. So maybe Ock is reformed now?)

Originally Posted by theNater
…the Wakandan scientific community….

This is the real wild card, because if ever there was a time for Wakanda to step up and engage with the outside world, it’s after the Snap.

However, Wakanda lost its leading proponent of outside engagement, as well as its leading tech innovator, and my hunch is that Wakanda retreated in on itself again, since they bore the brunt of fighting Thanos’ armies directly. They were already weakened by Killmonger’s attempted coup and the brief civil war, and then weakened further by losing many of their people in the hours before the Snap.

So Wakanda may have the tech, but they were also shaken and grieving far beyond what other nations were going through, and their instinct may have been to pull back and hide away again.

[Psyren]

I realize I communicated poorly, so let me clarify: I'm not saying Tony Stark would single-handedly fix everything. I'm saying that Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and Samuel Sterns and Riri Williams and Amadeus Cho and Victor von Doom and Reed Richards and Curt Connors and Otto Octavius and the vast array of SHIELD-trained scientists and the Wakandan scientific community and all off the thousands upon thousands of other producers of super-technologies could, between them, have a significant impact.

The majority of those aren't in the MCU (yet or ever), and the few that were can be reasonably expected to have been impacted by the Snap and bleak half-decade following it too. Stark is dead, Banner is likely retired (and was never wealthy), Wakanda and Pym have their own problems etc.

And quite honestly, even if Reed or Xavier or Rand or Doom or Osborn/Octavius/etc do show up later to fill that void, I'd rather have stories like this one where former Avengers might need to apply for a loan (and even get declined for believable reasons) rather than stories where a super-rich benefactor can snap their fingers and render all such struggles obsolete. It plays to Marvel's core strength - their heroes are regular people first and icons second rather than the reverse, like DC's are. Marvel certainly has heroes that don't need to worry about money or employment - Strange, Thor, and Captain Marvel come to mind as quick examples - but those heroes also tend to operate in spheres where they face entirely different problems that money couldn't really deal with anyway.

[theNater]

Well, first of all, the movies don’t have as many geniuses as the comics. It’s what? A few villains, plus Banner/Stark/Shuri/Pym? Not much to go around.

SHIELD reliably has tech significantly ahead of anything the real world has; this implies a training-working-retired pipeline that will be full of super scientists who don't dress up in costumes to punch people they don't like. (Hank Pym and Bill Foster are at the retired step of this, but they're presumably not the only ones).

You need an industrial base to enact whatever good idea these genius might have had. And that's the point, the industrial base of the world collapsed. Changing the entire economy to implement a Super genius Project Manhattan/Marshal Plan is something that would be hard before the snap. After the snap? The world would have barely enough to feed itself in the first year.

I'm not trying to suggest a coordinated effort, but a bunch of folks making their own contributions to keeping things running. Somebody releases a self-driving car program or a self-flying plane program, that both gets a lot of work done and frees up the people who were doing those jobs to do other things.

Assuming Doom survived, I can’t see him doing anything other than expanding his own power at the expense of everyone else’s, because that’s kind of Doom’s thing. Hard to see Doc Ock going all humanitarian either.

Doom can't rule people who can't receive his orders, and Doc Ock varies between building science projects so he can more effectively perform criminal activity and performing criminal activity so he can fund his science projects. Each of them benefits from electricity continuing to flow.

This is the real wild card, because if ever there was a time for Wakanda to step up and engage with the outside world, it’s after the Snap.

However, Wakanda lost its leading proponent of outside engagement, as well as its leading tech innovator, and my hunch is that Wakanda retreated in on itself again, since they bore the brunt of fighting Thanos’ armies directly. They were already weakened by Killmonger’s attempted coup and the brief civil war, and then weakened further by losing many of their people in the hours before the Snap.

So Wakanda may have the tech, but they were also shaken and grieving far beyond what other nations were going through, and their instinct may have been to pull back and hide away again.

It may have been! Or it may not have been! This is just one example of something that would completely change how bad the collapse would have been. That's why we can't assume Marvel Earth's collapse would necessarily have been as catastrophic as our Earth's would, under similar circumstances.

[Psyren]

SHIELD reliably has tech significantly ahead of anything the real world has; this implies a training-working-retired pipeline that will be full of super scientists who don't dress up in costumes to punch people they don't like. (Hank Pym and Bill Foster are at the retired step of this, but they're presumably not the only ones).

I agree with your general point that the collapse may not have been as hard in the MCU that it would have been in our world, but it being "hard enough" that our protagonists and their loved ones are struggling in its aftermath is still believable.

As for SHIELD's tech specifically, we saw plenty of it on display in Natasha's office in Endgame, but she was still reduced to mournfully eating peanut butter sandwiches in a mostly dark compound. Put another way - I suspect that if tech wasn't useful as a weapon or for espionage purposes, SHIELD wasn't that interested in it, and whatever minimal research they were doing on projects not related to one of those two things likely became even more sparse post-Snap, if it still existed at all.

[theNater]

I agree with your general point that the collapse may not have been as hard in the MCU that it would have been in our world, but it being "hard enough" that our protagonists and their loved ones are struggling in its aftermath is still believable.

That general point is my only point. I'm not sure why you feel the need to add that but there.

As for SHIELD's tech specifically, we saw plenty of it on display in Natasha's office in Endgame, but she was still reduced to mournfully eating peanut butter sandwiches in a mostly dark compound. Put another way - I suspect that if tech wasn't useful as a weapon or for espionage purposes, SHIELD wasn't that interested in it, and whatever minimal research they were doing on projects not related to one of those two things likely became even more sparse post-Snap, if it still existed at all.

Similarly, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Natasha is eating peanut butter sandwiches in the dark because she's depressed, not because the lights and/or stove are broken.

[Cikomyr2]

I'm not trying to suggest a coordinated effort, but a bunch of folks making their own contributions to keeping things running. Somebody releases a self-driving car program or a self-flying plane program, that both gets a lot of work done and frees up the people who were doing those jobs to do other things.

But that's the thing. How do go from a semi collapsing industrial base to the coordination of the manufacturing power that will funnel the raw material and energy where you want them to manufacture these automated cars at a rate thats actually consequential?

I will tell you the answer: you can't. At best, this self driving car or self driving plane initiative might have put, say, 100,000 of such drones in the economy in the 5 years following the Snap, and about 40% of these were deployed in the final snap year because you probably needed to bootstrap this project.

You sadly did not really changed the world with these 100,000 automated vehicles. You helped economies get back on their feet, but that was a small bucket in a massive ocean.

The most genuine impact you had on the world history was spearheading the manufacturing effort of a new generation high tech industrial base, and the world will most likely follow in your steps eventually, so in 50 years these new techs might actually be the norm in all industries around the world, assuimg society hasnt stopped existing.

However, be reassured that whatever high end military that still exist probably enthusiastically appropriated your techniques for their end. So I can see SWORD having their own industrial base.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Cities require infrastructure and civilization to survive. New Orleans probably only has enough food to survive a week or two, and has to import a ton of it every day, which is going to be tough post snap. I think the cities would depopulate.

But we just established that there are still a bunch of independent fishermen not an hour’s drive away, who have no reason not to continue fishing since they need to eat themselves, and we have now established they have a potential customer base to sell to on top of that. Plus the infrastructure - docks, cranes, etc. - weren’t Snapped, and would be problematic to replace or rebuild somewhere else post-Snap.

Additionally in the Endgame trailer, we see a hoard of boats huddled around New York, suggesting people congregated there - no reason for people around other big cities to behave differently.

There would still be substantial issues with fuel and repair services

This I can see being a big problem in general actually - gas to get from point A to point B. Electricity maybe too, though there was enough power for Mr. Lang’s TV to work at the end of Ant Man and the Wasp.

(That said, my main exposure to Doom is when he fought the X-Men way back when, and I only know the comics Doc Ock from the Secret Wars miniseries. So maybe Ock is reformed now?)

Spoiler: Re: Doc Ock

Show

I think he is, there was a story a while back where he got body-swapped with Peter and decided he was going to be a ‘Superior’ Spider-man. I’m sketchy on if he stuck with trying to be a hero afterwards though.

It may not matter for the MCU; we haven’t see any sign of him so he may not be a bad guy in the first place yet. At least one previous incarnation of his character started out as a decent man who went supervillain after a lab accident. I don’t say it’s a guarantee that he’d be in his lab trying to save humanity after the Snap, but it’s not out of the question.

This is the real wild card, because if ever there was a time for Wakanda to step up and engage with the outside world, it’s after the Snap.

However, Wakanda lost its leading proponent of outside engagement, as well as its leading tech innovator, and my hunch is that Wakanda retreated in on itself again, since they bore the brunt of fighting Thanos’ armies directly. They were already weakened by Killmonger’s attempted coup and the brief civil war, and then weakened further by losing many of their people in the hours before the Snap.

So Wakanda may have the tech, but they were also shaken and grieving far beyond what other nations were going through, and their instinct may have been to pull back and hide away again.

We did have Okoye meeting with the Avengers in Endgame, so Wakanda is at least still involved there.

[Cikomyr2]

But we just established that there are still a bunch of independent fishermen not an hour’s drive away, who have no reason not to continue fishing since they need to eat themselves, and we have now established they have a potential customer base to sell to on top of that. Plus the infrastructure - docks, cranes, etc. - weren’t Snapped, and would be problematic to replace or rebuild somewhere else post-Snap.

"A bunch of independant fishermen" can't feed a whole city by themselves. And if they did, they'd have become a lot more wealthy than the poor ass fishermen we see in F&WS. You need a whole agricultural base to sustain the Urban AND suburban environments that exist across America. That's vegetable growing, but also all the cattle slaughtering and processing. The entire distribution, refrigeration. All of that need gasoline, which require oil, which require refineries with qualified workers, etc..

You see my point? People like to imagine their simple ass solution to a society collapsing, but they hardly conceive the degree of complexity modern society is. We are at the peak of the Bronze Age; the most intricately weaved tapestry that can achieve literal wonders like coming up with a vaccine and distributing it to the entire population TWO YEARS after the emergence of a brand new virus.

But if you pull enough tread out of this tapestry, it can't sustain itself.

[Psyren]

That general point is my only point. I'm not sure why you feel the need to add that but there.

My "but" is saying that "the Snap likely had softer impact than our world" doesn't actually mean anything. Clearly this world's infrastructure and economy have been decimated despite all their science, and it's believable.

Similarly, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Natasha is eating peanut butter sandwiches in the dark because she's depressed, not because the lights and/or stove are broken.

I didn't say "the lights/stove are broken." I'm saying that if it couldn't be used to shoot aliens, track down metahumans or help their agents steal secrets, SHIELD probably wasn't interested. Bringing up that their tech is more advanced than our world doesn't necessarily mean anyone in that world would be better off overall.

[Tyndmyr]

"A bunch of independant fishermen" can't feed a whole city by themselves. And if they did, they'd have become a lot more wealthy than the poor ass fishermen we see in F&WS. You need a whole agricultural base to sustain the Urban AND suburban environments that exist across America. That's vegetable growing, but also all the cattle slaughtering and processing. The entire distribution, refrigeration. All of that need gasoline, which require oil, which require refineries with qualified workers, etc..

You see my point? People like to imagine their simple ass solution to a society collapsing, but they hardly conceive the degree of complexity modern society is. We are at the peak of the Bronze Age; the most intricately weaved tapestry that can achieve literal wonders like coming up with a vaccine and distributing it to the entire population TWO YEARS after the emergence of a brand new virus.

But if you pull enough tread out of this tapestry, it can't sustain itself.

Weirdly enough, fishing is pretty good as sustaining communities. There are sea-living semi nomadic communities that live entirely off the sea that still exist today.

A generation of, say, shrimp, will reach maturity in 4-5 months, so while there's gonna be some wonkiness with the longer lived species, that are probably reduced by half in tandem with the people, some markets are going to be back to normal literally within the year, if not higher than normal due to lack of predation. Generally speaking, you'd expect fishing to be able to support a higher proportion of the remaining population.

The whales thing is a little odd. Whales have a much longer life cycle. They probably wouldn't change all that much in five years. Especially near the US, where they are not normally hunted. More food helps them some, but if they're swimming in the Hudson, that probably means that they're lost and getting beached or something. I think the writers were intending to show nature rebounding, but hadn't thought about the details.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

"A bunch of independant fishermen" can't feed a whole city by themselves. And if they did, they'd have become a lot more wealthy than the poor ass fishermen we see in F&WS. You need a whole agricultural base to sustain the Urban AND suburban environments that exist across America. That's vegetable growing, but also all the cattle slaughtering and processing. The entire distribution, refrigeration. All of that need gasoline, which require oil, which require refineries with qualified workers, etc..

Okay, if you prefer to argue that the people would leave the big cities with pre-existing infrastructure and at least one food source provided, go ahead. But answer me these:

1. Where are they going instead? This isn’t a local problem they can avoid with distance. Everywhere on Earth is suffering from the same scenario.
2. Why are they going there instead? What can they get in *checks map* Kentwood or Bogalusa that isn’t in New Orleans, or likely to go there first? Because if any of the major aid organizations are working at all, they will go to the major population centers first, to help the most people possible. If they’re not, then there’s no difference, but also no disadvantage in staying put.
3. How are they leaving? Because no gas means they have no gas to drive somewhere else, too. Fewer planes is going to make it difficult to get out of state, never mind for almost 200,000 people.

The whales thing is a little odd. Whales have a much longer life cycle. They probably wouldn't change all that much in five years. Especially near the US, where they are not normally hunted. More food helps them some, but if they're swimming in the Hudson, that probably means that they're lost and getting beached or something. I think the writers were intending to show nature rebounding, but hadn't thought about the details.

TBH I just read that as a result of less human traffic. Though this being the MCU, maybe a few movies down the line we’ll find out the whales were part of an Atlantean scouting party...

[Traab]

I agree with pretty much everything BRC is saying.

Also, to put a coda on the "Snap affected animals" discussion - In Endgame, Cap mentions to Black Widow seeing a pod of whales in the Hudson because there are fewer ships out there, and that the bright side of human civilization being scaled back was that nature was on the rise. Doesn't seem that would be possible if the Snap hit every lifeform on the planet just like it hit us.

As for Tony - I think the assumption that he had (a) access to the same facilities and resources in a post-Snap world as he did before it and (b) the same drive to use them on people's behalf even if he did, to be a bit baseless. He has some pretty sweet tech in his cabin, but I just don't think he had the billions of dollars or private manufactories laying around either. Even the Time Heist was done using tech they threw together in the Avengers' compound - i.e. SHIELD property, not Stark's.

Not necessarily. Animals increase in population RAPIDLY compared to humans. Primarily because they tend to reproduce every season they can, and they mature in a couple years rather than a couple dozen, meaning the kids born after the snap among animals were reproducing for the last 3-4 years as well as the kids THOSE kids had. Its entirely possible every species of plant and animal was also cut in half but over the course of 6 years, that could still end up with a vast surge in overall population in relation to people.

[Psyren]

Not necessarily. Animals increase in population RAPIDLY compared to humans. Primarily because they tend to reproduce every season they can, and they mature in a couple years rather than a couple dozen, meaning the kids born after the snap among animals were reproducing for the last 3-4 years as well as the kids THOSE kids had. Its entirely possible every species of plant and animal was also cut in half but over the course of 6 years, that could still end up with a vast surge in overall population in relation to people.

Regardless of the impact to endangered species (which over half of whale species are), food chains, ecosystems etc? If we believe whales got snapped, on top of struggling even before then, is 5 years enough to explain what Cap saw? Nah, I don't buy it.

And if you do extend the Snap down to non-intelligent life, where does it end? Did insects get snapped too? Bacteria and fungi? Are we adding the RNG of Ratvenger surviving at all, on top of the RNG of it being in the right place to free Ant-Man on top of the RNG of him being down in the QR when it took place to begin with?

It's a lot simpler to just conclude Thanos used imprecise language when explaining what his wish would be. It's not like his "grateful universe" line was meant to include cows and chickens after all, so I don't see any reason to believe his speech applied to literally every living thing.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
We did have Okoye meeting with the Avengers in Endgame, so Wakanda is at least still involved there.

True, but that was more to do with hero-level threats (or not, if you include the undersea earthquake). Okoye was sharing information with the remaining Avengers, probably because she knows them and has fought with them, but Wakanda as a nation doesn’t seem to have changed its isolationist stance.

Originally Posted by Tyndmyr
Generally speaking, you'd expect fishing to be able to support a higher proportion of the remaining population.

In the short term, this is certainly true—but the higher harvesting pressure, combined with a probable lack of any regulatory enforcement, may lead to some fast declines and even collapses of some fisheries. There will probably be much greater reliance on “trash” fish like skates, as well as fish like menhaden which are less appealing for human consumption.

Also, I’d expect everyone who can lay their hands on a trap to start trapping neighborhood wildlife—rabbits, opossums, raccoons—as well as shooting whatever birds they can bring down. Neighborhood duck populations will disappear pretty quickly.

Originally Posted by Tyndmyr
The whales thing is a little odd. Whales have a much longer life cycle. They probably wouldn't change all that much in five years.

Very true. If a whale species lost 50% of its individuals, it would take centuries if not longer to recover. Whales are a good example of a K-selected species, along with elephants and humans, and they wouldn’t be bouncing back anytime soon.

As for Steve’s mention of the whales, he was talking about seeing whales in cleaner water, rather than making any broader statements about whale populations.

Originally Posted by Traab
Animals increase in population RAPIDLY compared to humans.

Not all of them do. Large-bodied animals like whales, hippos, elephants and other primates all have long lifespans and long generation times, and typically only a single young born at a time, so their populations will take an extremely long time to recover.

Some smaller animals also have similar life histories, especially bats, which only have one young per year.

[Tyndmyr]

In the short term, this is certainly true—but the higher harvesting pressure, combined with a probable lack of any regulatory enforcement, may lead to some fast declines and even collapses of some fisheries. There will probably be much greater reliance on “trash” fish like skates, as well as fish like menhaden which are less appealing for human consumption.

It can if you go too crazy, sure. But given that the human population has diminished by half and the physical space has not, overconsuming natural resources is less of a problem than before, even if those resources were also diminished by half.

And if those resources were not diminished...say, if plants were not snapped, then things get WAY brighter. The apple orchard is still there, still producing roughly the same quantity of fruit.

Yeah, there will be chaos of all sorts, but a raw shortage of production? Probably not. Starvation shouldn't be that big of a deal, though I could easily see transportation breakdowns. You may not have bananas readily available in new york city until the supply chain got fixed.

Also, I’d expect everyone who can lay their hands on a trap to start trapping neighborhood wildlife—rabbits, opossums, raccoons—as well as shooting whatever birds they can bring down. Neighborhood duck populations will disappear pretty quickly.

That's something I would expect for most apocalypses, but not a pure vanishing. There's little reason to expect a food shortage.

Just about all animals bred for food have a relatively quick maturity rate and decent production rates...often optimized far beyond what's normal in the wild. Farmed chickens produce eggs at an insane rate, a fifty percent loss rate could be recovered fully in a few months.

So, it's an apocalypse, but one that doesn't destroy housing, mostly. Nor is there a lack of food, and stored supplies are even more effective than one would normally expect, going twice as far. The sheer scale of the death and emotional trauma would be pretty insane, but nobody should be starving over the five year timescale. They might when everyone comes back, though.

After all, five years with half the customers, lots of those chicken farms are gonna close. Production will eventually scale to meet the new needs. Supporting double the population is a lot harder than supporting half of it.

That could maybe make a good reason for why some people think life in the snap was better. All these abandoned houses to move into, cheap food...you could make a case for someone who enjoyed a very good life due to the snap, and then lost it all when it was undone.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Tyndmyr
…I could easily see transportation breakdowns.

There will probably be several stepwise collapses in transportation. The airline industry will almost certainly lose 25% of its fleet in the first few hours after the Snap, along with tens of thousands of passengers, as planes crash on landing, takeoff or when they run out of fuel.

This will close down the major commercial carriers on the first day, and the disappearance of half their pilots will cripple any attempts to return to normalcy. Most carriers will either suspend operations or try to file for bankruptcy, and airports will become refugee camps as tens of thousands of people are stranded a long way from home.

Meanwhile, there will be cascades of failures in fuel supplies worldwide. As just one example, there will suddenly be half as many harbor pilots in ports around the world, so oil tankers and cargo ships will be stacked up outside ports. There will also be half as many crane operators, truck drivers and other skilled workers, which will mean further delays in landing and loading cargo. And beyond this, there will be half as many ordering and logistics personnel in the food distribution network, and the survivors will be very quickly overwhelmed with trying to rebuild that network on the fly.

Anyone relying on food from grocery stores will be subject to interruptions in availability as the entire system buckles and falls apart. Even if there are local surpluses, the inability to deliver those surpluses will cause shortages everywhere else.

So in some locations there will be an abundance of some foodstuffs and other commodities, but other locations will be much harder hit. People who were in poverty before will still be in poverty—and if the financial system collapses, they may not have any support at all.

Originally Posted by Tyndmyr
That could maybe make a good reason for why some people think life in the snap was better. All these abandoned houses to move into, cheap food...you could make a case for someone who enjoyed a very good life due to the snap, and then lost it all when it was undone.

There will probably be some areas which are able to support themselves semi-independently, and in some cases to a higher standard of living than before, so in those corner cases there would be people who thought life after the Snap was improved.

These and other people would likely be prone to romanticizing the situation, especially those who pride themselves on surviving without modern conveniences in the first place. This is why a series set right after the Snap would be so interesting, because we could explore how different characters in different regions, with wildly varying degrees of scarcity, would all react to their new situation.

[hungrycrow]

People have mentioned boats and planes, but what about cars? Every major road in the world would be suddenly full of empty cars. That's a temporary problem sure, but it'd play havoc with whatever the initial response to the crisis was. Plus, it'd mean trucks aren't delivering anything for a while.

[Tyndmyr]

There will probably be several stepwise collapses in transportation. The airline industry will almost certainly lose 25% of its fleet in the first few hours after the Snap, along with tens of thousands of passengers, as planes crash on landing, takeoff or when they run out of fuel.

It'd be far less. It'd be *bad* of course, but a substantial percentage of the fleet is not in the air at any given time. Exact numbers depend on aircraft type, but for commercial airliners, half is a reasonable estimate. All other types of aircraft spend a far lower proportion of time in the air.

A substantial number of airlines also run three pilots. Two is required, but three is very common, and will be the case on *all* flights over 12 hrs for shift tradeoff reasons. Additionally, there is a non zero chance of a pilot flying as a passenger on jump flight.

All told, you're looking at 5-7% loss rates here. Less if a passenger can land the plane, as has happened several times.

That's a ton of deaths, an insanely chaotic day, and probably a couple of weeks shutdown, but it doesn't make transportation collapse. At the end of the day, you still have an awful lot of aircraft left, and fewer people to haul. Same goes for cargo aircraft. You end up oversupplied on equipment relative to the number of people.

These and other people would likely be prone to romanticizing the situation, especially those who pride themselves on surviving without modern conveniences in the first place. This is why a series set right after the Snap would be so interesting, because we could explore how different characters in different regions, with wildly varying degrees of scarcity, would all react to their new situation.

I do agree about this...it's fascinating world building material right there, and it's a kind of apocalypse that's notably different from the zombies, etc that we usually see.

People have mentioned boats and planes, but what about cars? Every major road in the world would be suddenly full of empty cars. That's a temporary problem sure, but it'd play havoc with whatever the initial response to the crisis was. Plus, it'd mean trucks aren't delivering anything for a while.

It's a pain in the butt initally, but they mostly still work, and they all have the keys in the ignition. It's not like an EMP scenario where they become immobile scrap...you just have a lot of wrecks to clean up, and probably most of the cars can be simply driven off the road into the ditch in the short term.

[Cikomyr2]

.
It's a pain in the butt initally, but they mostly still work, and they all have the keys in the ignition. It's not like an EMP scenario where they become immobile scrap...you just have a lot of wrecks to clean up, and probably most of the cars can be simply driven off the road into the ditch in the short term.

Since everyone who was snapped was snapped with whatever he wore or carried, I am sure there is quite a number of parked cars whose only key got dusted.

[Sapphire Guard]

I'm almost certain that none of these things will ever be explored, because Disney would need to set up some kind of giant thinktank to work through all the implications.

[hungrycrow]

It's a pain in the butt initally, but they mostly still work, and they all have the keys in the ignition. It's not like an EMP scenario where they become immobile scrap...you just have a lot of wrecks to clean up, and probably most of the cars can be simply driven off the road into the ditch in the short term.

It's still a major traffic jam everywhere at once, and half of the people that would normally move cars/wrecks out of the way are gone. It'd take a fair bit of time to fix.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I do agree about this...it's fascinating world building material right there, and it's a kind of apocalypse that's notably different from the zombies, etc that we usually see.

Is it bad that I want to play in a game set post-Snap?

Since everyone who was snapped was snapped with whatever he wore or carried, I am sure there is quite a number of parked cars whose only key got dusted.

I wouldn’t worry about the parked cars so much. Those are presumably off to the side out of the way. They may end up a permanent part of the landscape, since I expect once the roads are clear people will find higher priority things to do than move them.

Slightly related, I could easily see bicycles becoming popular post-snap, both for fuel reasons and because it would be simpler to get around any remaining wrecks/derelicts.

[Cikomyr2]

Is it bad that I want to play in a game set post-Snap?



I wouldn’t worry about the parked cars so much. Those are presumably off to the side out of the way. They may end up a permanent part of the landscape, since I expect once the roads are clear people will find higher priority things to do than move them.

Slightly related, I could easily see bicycles becoming popular post-snap, both for fuel reasons and because it would be simpler to get around any remaining wrecks/derelicts.

How many nuclear reactor in the world can be abandoned with minimal measures taken by a half trained staff?