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<blockquote data-quote="Michael Dean" data-source="post: 3576183" data-attributes="member: 9199">A lot of the horses were from herds in Idaho and the Northwest.&nbsp; Since well over 90% of the population has died from famine and disease, the horse to human ratio isn't that out of whack.&nbsp; The Bearkillers' main lieutenant was a former rodeo rider who also has blacksmithy skills.&nbsp; They made swords by taking leaf springs out of the suspensions of cars and trucks, heating them up, and putting an edge on them.&nbsp; The key is that a lot of the survivors were people who didn't live in big cities at the time of the Change, and many of them had odd skills that were useful because they lived on the outskirts of society.&nbsp; Stirling makes the point that one of the coping skills of survivors is to mimic whatever societies they view as the best at survival.&nbsp; So for example, there are &quot;new Sioux&quot; tribes, composed of native americans and non-native americans who band together to live like the Sioux of old, or at least their version of it.&nbsp; The McKenzies are led by a wiccan of Scots-Irish decent, who used to be a folk singer that traveled to ren faires to perform.&nbsp; So their clan ended up mimicing a version of a scottish clan, even if the particulars were off from the real thing.&nbsp; And of course, the people all become wiccans because that's what their leader is. Also, the skills for doing stuff comes mainly out of (real life) books that teach how to do stuff the old way.&nbsp; I think one of the books they mentioned was &quot;Our Forgotten Arts &amp; Crafts&quot;.&nbsp; Stuff like subsistence farming, making soap, grinding flour, etc...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Michael Dean, post: 3576183, member: 9199"] A lot of the horses were from herds in Idaho and the Northwest. Since well over 90% of the population has died from famine and disease, the horse to human ratio isn't that out of whack. The Bearkillers' main lieutenant was a former rodeo rider who also has blacksmithy skills. They made swords by taking leaf springs out of the suspensions of cars and trucks, heating them up, and putting an edge on them. The key is that a lot of the survivors were people who didn't live in big cities at the time of the Change, and many of them had odd skills that were useful because they lived on the outskirts of society. Stirling makes the point that one of the coping skills of survivors is to mimic whatever societies they view as the best at survival. So for example, there are "new Sioux" tribes, composed of native americans and non-native americans who band together to live like the Sioux of old, or at least their version of it. The McKenzies are led by a wiccan of Scots-Irish decent, who used to be a folk singer that traveled to ren faires to perform. So their clan ended up mimicing a version of a scottish clan, even if the particulars were off from the real thing. And of course, the people all become wiccans because that's what their leader is. Also, the skills for doing stuff comes mainly out of (real life) books that teach how to do stuff the old way. I think one of the books they mentioned was "Our Forgotten Arts & Crafts". Stuff like subsistence farming, making soap, grinding flour, etc... [/QUOTE]

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