A different apocalypse scenario

Nellisir · Sep 30, 2012

Bullgrit said:
Comparing this to our real, modern, world, it would be like if you have any kind of commute outside your immediate town or city, you are suddenly completely disconnected from home and family. Forever.

The closest quasi-realistic scenario I can think of would be a complete failure of the internal combustion engine. On one hand, it would be catastrophic for modern civilization. On the other, we're only rolling the clock back a hundred years or so. 1900 wasn't exactly the Dark Ages.

Past that, you're looking at force fields or space/time dislocation or something.

transportation: gasoline/oil runs out so the bulk of all transportation is shut down. No cars, trucks, trains, airplanes are running because everybody lacks the fuel. Riots over fuel prices cause social disorder initially. Folks with horses/oxen start hauling supplies, slowly. Alternative fuel sources are invested in, but adoption is slow because the materials and end products can't quickly be delivered.

People power will be the big thing for some time. We just don't have the animal/human ratio we had a hundred years ago. Manufacturing will shift to be more localized, which is great for the Northeast (relatively mild climate; high population; extensive manufacturing history to learn from/exploit/revive). Rivers and railroads become primary means of bulk transportation once again, though the interstate network & paved roads make bicycles & steam vehicles faster and smoother than they were in the beginning. Ocean transportation takes the biggest hit; very, very, very few people can build a ocean-going sailing ship nowadays, and steam vessels are a) not common either, and b) reliant on coal for fuel, which will have mining and transportation issues.

ggroy · Sep 30, 2012

The scenario sounds a lot like the tv show Stargate SG-1, with the Stargates becoming disabled (ie. buried, hacked, displaced maps, etc ...) and/or the slave labor + natives not knowing how to use them.

On Abydos, the leftover slave labor society "evolved" as if it was ancient Egypt. Ditto for other leftover slave labor societies that descended from the Celts, Minoans, etc ... earth societies. (Thousands of years ago the Goa'uld brought many slaves with them to other planets through the Stargate, where the slaves are from a particular culture whose "gods" a particular Goa'uld was imitating and posing as).

Umbran · Oct 1, 2012

Nellisir said:
Manufacturing will shift to be more localized, which is great for the Northeast (relatively mild climate; high population; extensive manufacturing history to learn from/exploit/revive).

That is, after the famine kills off so many of them - the agricultural base to feed them all locally doesn't exist locally, and the infrastructure to move the food to them won't have been rebuilt yet.

Nellisir · Oct 1, 2012

Umbran said:
That is, after the famine kills off so many of them - the agricultural base to feed them all locally doesn't exist locally, and the infrastructure to move the food to them won't have been rebuilt yet.

If by "them" you mean "people in the northeast", I'd argue that it will be significantly easier here than in other parts of the country. The distances are shorter, so infrastructure is less of a concern - and there is much more diverse infrastructure already in place, or that could be returned to use; much of the land was under production in the past 100 years and could be returned to production - not optimal, but sufficient for a period; and the climate is moderate. Water does not need to be piped in. Anywhere that currently relies on irrigation for crop production is going to fail. All those things run on diesel pumps.

The New York-Chicago(-St. Louis?) infrastructure would be the most crucial for shipping food, and fortunately, that's relatively short, highly developed, with multiple avenues. You don't need oceangoing vessels to get around in the Great Lakes.

A lot would depend on exactly when disaster strikes, obviously.

Umbran · Oct 1, 2012

Nellisir said:
If by "them" you mean "people in the northeast", I'd argue that it will be significantly easier here than in other parts of the country. The distances are shorter, so infrastructure is less of a concern - and there is much more diverse infrastructure already in place, or that could be returned to use; much of the land was under production in the past 100 years and could be returned to production

You don't have time for that. Your production will not happen until the summer or autumn after the event. Your grocery stores do not have supplies for more than a few days, much less months. We cannot replace the trucks and trains with horses on short order, as the animals just don't breed that fast. And new train engines take time to build, if they'll function.

After a week you have riots and fighting. After a month you have people dying of hunger.

Nellisir · Oct 2, 2012

Umbran said:
You don't have time for that. Your production will not happen until the summer or autumn after the event. Your grocery stores do not have supplies for more than a few days, much less months. We cannot replace the trucks and trains with horses on short order, as the animals just don't breed that fast. And new train engines take time to build, if they'll function.

After a week you have riots and fighting. After a month you have people dying of hunger.

And that will happen everywhere. The Southwest, Vegas, Florida...even the Great Plains do not have greater quantities of instant food on hand. It's possible that there will be silos that afford some kind of sustenance, but the large farms are generally where the people aren't.

Janx · Oct 2, 2012

I'd also argue that if distances are shorter in the north-east, they are also more highly populated (plus the people in NYC can walk to your house in New England). I exagerate, but there's a lot more people to contend with in a smaller area.

Texas on the other hand, is so darn big that the mass of people in Houston can't really walk far enough to hassle the farmers. That means it's good to be the rural folk, if'n they're gonna survive.

Likewise, in MN, most of the people live in the Twin Cities. The rest of that is all trees, lakes, and farmland. Most of those folks will be isolated enough to have a chance to make a go of it. And with global warming, it's getting nicer in the winter. They had a 60 F day in January this year. That does NOT happen in MN (you'd be lucky to get over 20 degrees, most days are -20F in January).

Though Umbran's right that you're not going to get instant crops, a guy who has a farm probably has a garden and more food stocked up (plus cows to eat) than the average city person. My friend who owns a deer farm up there has got so much deer meat, he's been giving it away to friends because all his freezers are full. Plus all the veggies and fruit they canned.

Nellisir · Oct 2, 2012

Janx said:
I'd also argue that if distances are shorter in the north-east, they are also more highly populated (plus the people in NYC can walk to your house in New England). I exagerate, but there's a lot more people to contend with in a smaller area.

Of course. I'm not saying there wouldn't be famine, plague, violence, and the like, but the Northeast, largely due to history, likewise has the greatest concentration of resources to draw on in combating those issues. Texas could have a really high farmer survival rate, but bottom line it'll easier for people in Pittsburgh (for example) to take up farming than it will be for farmers in Texas to take up steam engine manufacturing.

Also, how reliant is Texas on irrigation?

I think every part of the US has its advantages (with the possible exception of Las Vegas). For a strong agricultural base, you're looking at the Mississippi river basin. For industry, you'd looking at the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic region.

Really, if we're just going to talk about the first 12 months, then yes. Many, many, many people are going to die. I'm not sure it's -as- many as might be thought - people can live on very little food for a long time, and do desperate things when necessary, including walk hundreds of miles. And yes, rebuilding manufacturing, industry, etc, etc, is all going to "afterwards". But that's true everywhere, and frankly, it's rather boring to just talk about how everyone is going to die.

Hand of Evil · Oct 2, 2012

Heard last week that they have found a Ebola strain that acts like rabies...zombie apocalypse does not sound that far off now!

Hand of Evil · Oct 2, 2012

Nellisir said:
Of course. I'm not saying there wouldn't be famine, plague, violence, and the like, but the Northeast, largely due to history, likewise has the greatest concentration of resources to draw on in combating those issues. Texas could have a really high farmer survival rate, but bottom line it'll easier for people in Pittsburgh (for example) to take up farming than it will be for farmers in Texas to take up steam engine manufacturing.

Also, how reliant is Texas on irrigation?

I think every part of the US has its advantages (with the possible exception of Las Vegas). For a strong agricultural base, you're looking at the Mississippi river basin. For industry, you'd looking at the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic region.

Really, if we're just going to talk about the first 12 months, then yes. Many, many, many people are going to die. I'm not sure it's -as- many as might be thought - people can live on very little food for a long time, and do desperate things when necessary, including walk hundreds of miles. And yes, rebuilding manufacturing, industry, etc, etc, is all going to "afterwards". But that's true everywhere, and frankly, it's rather boring to just talk about how everyone is going to die.

The problem, people leaving the cities. Metro pop for New York is 18+ Million, all those people leaving will be plague on the rural areas.

Then you have all those nuke power plants that will over heat and blow. Next, chemicals just wait to be released, wild fires and floods. Winter will prove to be hard on people, a good flu and we are talking population dropping to the same levels as 100 years ago.