Survivor communities outside the known world

[Róisín]

Juniper: that's an interesting map!

As I may have mentioned before, I reckon that while magic may come from the gods or genetics of the Nords and Finns, I don't see why they can't make some sort of fusion magic, if only by learning techniques from one another and powering them each from their own pantheons. After all, that happened often enough in our world. You only have to look at Vodou, Santeria, even Bò, which is technical rather than theistic magic, to see how their fusion with Christianity has expanded their range, even though the purists among practitioners of those styles may not like it.

The same thing can be seen in the evolution of Anglo-Saxon traditional magic, the most accessible example being the old Nine Herbs Charm, which has been translated and extensively researched and commented upon. The successive versions over several hundred years give a very good example of how what started out as a straight invocation to Odin to provide the user with the wisdom and power to use a group of healing herbs slowly morphed into a Christian invocation of blessings on the same herbs. Which same herbs, to judge by their names and the pattern in which they are presented, probably originally were used in a Druidic spell for the same purpose.

Similar trends can be observed in the various 'Doubles' spells scattered through magical traditions from all parts of Britain. Even things like the mediaeval Christian spell for gathering vervain is reattributed to the Christ, whereas originally it was an invocation to one or more healing goddesses. That one has even retained the usage of gathering the herb into a white cloth held by a person pure in heart, and not cutting it with an iron knife, features which turn up in both Druidic and Roman herb-gathering spells.

Anyway, the point of all this blather is that fusion magic is a thing that exists, though sometimes one has to go about it very carefully and tactfully! I see no reason why Native American and Finnish magic should not be combined, were it done with care and respect for both systems. Their shamanic methods already have a lot of overlap.

[Mayabird]

I was thinking about something else I could write for the Surviving Communities Fanworks thread, and I had an idea I wanted to bounce off people before attempting to write about it. 

Someone had once mentioned a thought about if people could survive in Cheyenne Mountain if the facility was sealed in time to keep the Rash out.  There are also possibly a couple major deeply buried and hardened facilities in Russia, under Yamantau Mountain and Kosvinsky Mountain.  North Korea supposedly has a massive labyrinth of tunnels and secret underground bases all over.  Of course, if a place didn't have its own supply of water and food and something to keep the lights on and the air circulation running, it wouldn't last in the long term, but if a place was already set up with hydroponics and its own power plant, etc., might there still be tiny pockets of survivors holed up in a bunker (hope they can produce Vitamin D supplements), thinking they're the last people on Earth? 

If the Russian bunkers are as big as rumored and were sealed up in time, they could have emerged later and cleansed/fortified an area around to form a more long-term survivor state. 

From a writing standpoint I was considering a North Korean bunker, reserved for the Kim family, with huge stockpiles and facilities for indefinite survival, where the Kims never made it and the staff sealed inside just kept waiting until it became a quasi-religion among the descendants that they were waiting for the Leader to arrive. 

[Some inspiration was taken from the Fallout Vaults and the World War Z chapter where apparently North Korea just disappeared underground, there are big giant doors, and no one dares open them and look inside.]

[urbicande]

From a writing standpoint I was considering a North Korean bunker, reserved for the Kim family, with huge stockpiles and facilities for indefinite survival, where the Kims never made it and the staff sealed inside just kept waiting until it became a quasi-religion among the descendants that they were waiting for the Leader to arrive. 

That's actually kind of a neat setup

[rundrewrun]

I live in Louisville, Kentucky, and I think that there is an ok chance of a survivor pop being here. We are the international UPS air hub, but they only transport cargo, and Cinncinnatti has a better airport. The city itself would be totally ducked, as well as all of the suburbs. Now that I think about it, no one could survive here. It doesnt snow nearly enough I suppose.

[Stefan]

Someone had once mentioned a thought about if people could survive in Cheyenne Mountain if the facility was sealed in time to keep the Rash out. 
...
Of course, if a place didn't have its own supply of water and food and something to keep the lights on and the air circulation running, it wouldn't last in the long term, but if a place was already set up with hydroponics and its own power plant, etc., might there still be tiny pockets of survivors holed up in a bunker (hope they can produce Vitamin D supplements), thinking they're the last people on Earth? 

Sounds good to me Mayabird. But I think there are two problems with this idea, a minor one(actually more a risk then an actual problem) an a very big one.
The minor one would be to keep the rash out of the bunker. The only way is to keep the bunker hermetically sealed for quite some time. And that leads to the problem of supplying the inhabitants with oxygen. Storing the needed amount of oxygen is highly dangerous, so will need to get it from the outside. The most efficient way is by filtering the outside air and pumping it into the bunker. And within the filters lies the problem. The ultra fine filters you need to capture biological agents(bacteria and viruses) tend to clog up pretty quick so you need to replace them regularly. And if you pull out a used up filter you are suddenly holding a high concentration of whatever you are try to keep out in your hands. And not only that you also have weakened your your filter system and have a leak. That means every time you clean/replace filters you risk to contaminate the bunker. While there are procedures that are designed to minimise the risk they can't fully eliminate it.
The largest problem will be the future of the population, specifically the prevention of inbreeding. For this you need a sufficiently large number of people in the beginning(at least 1000) of which preferably no one is to old to either conceive or sire. Then the population should be evenly matched(equal number of females and males) to ensure the highest possible genetic viability. When planning the population the loss of individuals needs to be taken in to account. For the losses it is better to assume them to be larger then originally anticipated and plan accordingly. Also in extreme circumstances(like here with the rash) a high loss of children is to be expected for a lot of reasons.
While the first problem only requires the application of proper caution the later one requires extensive planning and preparation to overcome.
As for handling these problems story wise I would recommend handling the first problem by letting one of the characters mention it in passing(perhaps let a character say/think that he hates cleaning the filters because of the straining safety measures) and the second problem can be handled by stating that the original crew was evenly matched because of an equal opportunity policy(or something like that). If you want to write more about the solution to the problems you will have to spend a lot of energy on researching a lot of things to make sure your story stays believable.
All this aside I will be looking forward to reading your story.

[Jenny Islander]

North America has a lot of big question marks because we have a lot of very hot, dry areas.  Every form that transformed creatures take appears to be more or less, well, gooey.  If they can't handle desert or semi-desert life, then isolated outposts should exist all over western North America--wherever there's a spring and a lot of open ground (for lines of sight).  They could exist in eastern Oregon, southern Idaho, southwestern Wyoming, southeastern California, pretty much all of Nevada and Utah, a bit of Colorado and New Mexico, and most of Arizona, not to mention a long swath on both sides of the Mexican border with Texas.  These ecoregions are the Great Basin, Mojave Desert, Sonoran Desert, Chihuahuan Desert, and Colorado Plateau; they comprise what the movies call the Wild West.  They cover an area about the size of Portugal, France, and Spain combined. 

By Year 90, there could be established networks of little towns throughout the Wild West.  In the old days, people always followed watercourses when they had a choice, but unless a particular area had been confirmed clean, the people of Year 90 would go through the high desert instead.  They would probably use camels (there are camel tour companies here and there in the Wild West in 2016) and burros in preference to horses, because horses aren't as well adapted to the desert.  If there were enough people in one area, they could get together and clear out a ranch or what have you that had been taken over by the transformed.  (They would probably call them something like monsters, zombies, or Borgqueens.)

Oh, and: Las Vegas would lose most of its water when the electricity went out; it's either pumped up from deep wells or piped in.  However, it was founded near a natural spring, which was restored before 2013.  Las Vegas means "the water meadows," referring to the good grazing around the spring.  The city has miles of storm drains meant to draw off flash floods.  So imagine a team sent to salvage in 'Vegas, wandering among the silent casinos and dead neon, camels padding past the vast and fantastic buildings of the Strip, always wondering if somewhere beneath their feet a Borgqueen is sleeping, waiting for the rain.

[Juniper]

So last night I was thinking about the fact that every convent I've been to has had lots of cats around, nuns just seem to really like cats, which got me thinking about how well some convents would probably fair in Y0 onward. Not only with the cats, but also the fact that most convents tend to be very isolated, and most convents are made out of thick stone materials with very heavy doors so it might be pretty easy to reinforce until they could get a decent fence or wall up, except there's also a good number of convents especially the older ones that already have a fence or wall around them that might just need some reinforcing.

There is the issue that it wouldn't last as a survivor community past when the nuns pass away of old age because of it being not just an all female community, but a chaste all female community at that and I'm willing to bet the nuns and any priests who might be there too would hold on to their vows to the bitter end (plus most nuns are older and post-menopausal anyway) There is the possibility that there might have been people like me, just some random people staying with them who hadn't taken any sort of vows or been sworn into a convent or monastery. It's even more likely I think that as everything was collapsing and getting really bad that they would have taken in people who were fleeing from the illness and needed the sanctuary. But then there's the issue of what if they'd taken in someone who was infected, ect.

Actually this might be a really fun thing for me to write about and explore a little, maybe a few different survivor communities that started out as convents or monasteries in Y0 but lasted as a survivor community after they took in refugees from the illness ?

*adds to the list of a bajillion things I said I'd write* except I'm probably more serious about this one because it feels like a cool idea and I'm really excited about it

[Róisín]

I believe there have been monastic communities that did just that during several major wars and during the Black Death. Some of them died out as a result, some became secularised, some stuck to their vows, and in a few memorable cases (in Italy, France and England that I've heard of) some turned into dens of iniquity, debauchery and so forth because the world was ending anyway.

Might yield a few good stories.

[Danskjavlar]

Stand Still, Stay Silent by ruthszulc, on Flickr

here's a little project of mine looking at what survivor communities outside the known world might look like! of course, everyone else's "known world" is going to be different if they haven't made contact. canada hasn't fared as well as iceland, and the largest community in the otherwise safe island of newfoundland—st. john's—fell early to the rash. isolation has been cold and lonely for its survivors, who aren't quite as keen on cleansing as the swedes, but nevertheless by year 90 there are a few projects to expand into the boundaries of the silent world. and the legacy of france lives on with its tiny colonial province.

This is an old post, but would you mind reuploading this please? The link seems to be dead.

[Mayabird]

I just came back from a vacation to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, specifically the Keweenaw Peninsula off it. 



If the Rash happened, this area would seem nearly custom-made to survive. 

First: population.  It's low.  After the copper mines shut down the peninsula was depopulated.  Even the official residents often leave for the winter (which I'll get back to in a moment). The Upper Peninsula and surrounding areas (northern Wisconsin, etc.) are sparsely populated as well.  It's touristy and packed with people in the summer (which is gorgeous, BTW), but the Rash appears to hit in late autumn/early winter when that wouldn't be an issue.  There are a few small ski resorts but nothing near the levels that would cram them with people.

Second:  It is out in the middle of nowhere.  It takes a very long time to get there from anywhere by land, especially heavily populated areas.  It is over two hundred miles/320 km from the nearest majorish cities.

Third: It is jutting into Lake Superior.  They will have access to fish, sure, but with the Rash hitting in the autumn, it would be very dangerous for refugees to try to cross the lake which would be added protection from infected people.  Lake Superior is legendary for its shipwrecks, literally thousands of ships lost, and one of the most dangerous times for sailing is the autumn when it is wracked with terrible storms that can become hurricane strength. 

Fourth: Lake effect snow from Lake Superior.  The Keweenaw Peninsula gets truly ludicrous amounts of snow.  It's the snowiest location in North America east of the Rocky Mountains.



Converting to metric for folks: the all-time record low was 207 cm of snow in one winter.  The average is about 4.8 meters of snowfall.  The all-time record was nearly 10 meters.  Snow often starts in October and falls until May.  They will have cold protection from trolls, etc. (though I suspect they would be called zombies instead) plus protection from possibly infected refugees during that critical first winter - most people just wouldn't be able to make it if the roads aren't plowed. 

Fifth: for extra protection, in the middle it has a moat.  Cutting across the peninsula is a waterway that was partially natural (there was a lake) that is connected to Lake Superior on both sides by a canal.  The only land connection is a bridge, and it's a lift bridge.  It's not a full draw bridge that can fully separate, but it can lift its deck vertically to allow ships to go under, which means it can stop motor traffic and would provide a more controllable choke point to places further north.




I imagine there could be a small, healthy, but thriving civilization roundabouts Lake Superior, part Canadian, part American, part American Indian/First Nations since there are plenty of other isolated places and islands around where people could shelter, sea monsters would be nonexistent (there are otters and beavers, but no seals or whales that far inland) and the lake is huge and much of the shores are sparsely populated.  There might even be a road maintained across the eastern Upper Peninsula to reach the northernmost bits of Lake Michigan.  Lake Nipigon to the north (and connected to Superior by river) appears to have substantial islands that could be refuges like Saimaa is.  But the Keweenaw Peninsula would probably be the prize and the most densely populated place, with the greatest remaining cities and maybe some restarted copper mining.

[Possib]

I doubt it. Everyone with a boat around Lake Superior will be going for an island, the Canadian coastline to get farther north, or that particular peninsula. On top of that, everyone from Chicago/all of Southern WI will be going either north or west, and since that's probably hundreds of thousands of (well armed) people who actually make it, I don't see it happening. Its also important to remember that Duluth is one of the largest ports in the US, meaning that Lake Superior is much less isolated than it looks, and if the locks are functioning one can easily get to the Atlantic through the Great Lakes in either direction

[pinkie]

Some communities in the Rocky Mountains (especially north Idaho) might survive.  There's a lot of jumpy survivalist gun nuts, and plenty of remote mountain areas with lots of snow. 

[Mayabird]

In regards to boats, the Rash happens in late fall/early winter of Year 0, which is both the stormy season and the time when ice starts to build up in Lake Superior, so ships often need icebreakers to be able to travel.  Panicked fleeing in a time which will no doubt have fuel shortages will sabotage a large portion of the travelers, getting stuck on highways when other people run out of gas and ditch their vehicles or crash or whatever else.  A lot of the rest of the Upper Peninsula would be toast, and I'm sure there would be outbreaks, but with the timing I think it could survive along with more isolated areas along the lake's coastline (and the islands of Lake Nipigon to the north). 

[Korppi]

Re-posting this here. As I had it on a wrong thread. 

Here's a video regarding zombie apocalypses, while not exactly the same as the Rash, I'd say there are enough parallels for this to be useful.

It speculates locations suitable for survival in a zombie apocalypse. While it only outright tells what the author deemed the best location to survive one, the maps shown in the video help draw conclusions regarding other areas.

Scandinavia & Finland didn't look too bad on the maps, to be honest.

Anyway, here's the video.

[Mayabird]

"We Have Always Lived in the Bunker" wasn't working out, but I did put together a few vignettes about survivors around Lake Superior if anyone is interested.  I had traveled up there for a vacation and noted how suitable a lot of it was for surviving the Rash.