Survivor communities outside the known world

[Róisín]

I don't really know. Apparently some human-based trolls can take to the water, like the sjodraug that nearly drowned Sigrun. And whale-beasts are mentioned somewhere (I think it was the prologue scene on the Icelandic coastguard boat?), and apparently the mammals that can become infected could include whales, seals, otters and orcas, as well as land mammals such as moose that can spend a lot of time in the water.

When a nest or other haunt of trolls has been depicted in the story, dripping water seems to feature, so it may be that the trolls need moisture? I noticed that the Finnish riverboat in the early chapters used window shields, and passengers were supposed to stay silent during the journey, so obviously there was something dangerous out on the water.

[Kitty_katie]

Personally I rather like the idea of survivors in our Australian deserts, with their extremes of heat and cold. There is water if you know where to look, and once there were too few humans to tap the artesian waters as extravagantly as at present, the aquifer should regenerate quite fast.

I can imagine people taking refuge in places like Kata Tjuta, Uluru or Mount Conner, or the caves under the Nullarbor, where there is water in good plenty. Mount Conner maybe not, because although it is quite defensible, and has water, as well as nearby good resources of minerals and wild food plants, even in our world the place is famous for the hostility of its landspirits. Though a lot would depend on whether or not marsupials are sufficiently 'mammals' to beastify. If they are, we're all doomed!

I've been working on Y90 Australia for a fanfic I plan to write, and Alice Springs is one of the major post-Rash population centres.


As you can see from the prototype map, offshore islands are also home to survivors.

[Róisín]

Looks good. Alice Springs has plenty of resources. Unfortunately, also lots of people, many of them transients, because it's a hub of tourism, as well as being an air hub for a lot of people travelling out to remote sites to work, though once cleansed it shouldn't be all that hard to hold, or to defend. I'm wondering how climate features, like the periodic flooding of the Todd River, would affect things - would it sweep the grosslings away from the walls, or bring in a mass of ravening camel and buffalo beasts from further north? And again, marsupials - any settlements out there would be in huge strife if marsupials beastify. Sure, the big ones like kangaroos would be a hazard, but in the long term I think the little ones would be a much greater danger. Consider that for every kangaroo there are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of the little guys - desert mice, hopping mice, dunnarts, marsupial rats and all that lot. Echidnas. Quokkas. Quolls. Tasmanian Devils. Wombats. And, gods help us, the Antechinus. Those things are tiny, yeah, but they already behave like a shrew on speed, and if they beastified, or fused - would be nasty.

 If I were setting up such a refuge, I might raid Alice Springs, but would be more likely to do fortified permanent bases at Kata Tjuta, Mintabie, Woomera (the old Rocket Range), Pimba (Spud Murphy's Roadhouse would make a pretty good base), Copper Hills, maybe Uluru or Coober Pedy if there weren't too many tourists there when things fell apart. But my first choice would have to be Giles. In part because the climate is extreme, in part because, being as it is the most isolated settlement in Australia, most people either don't even know it's there, wouldn't think to go there, or are likely to die on the way there. Last time I was there, on my way out to Lake Christopher and the Tanami Desert, the population was 5, I think now it has dropped to 3. But my main reasons for Giles are that if you know what to look for that land is rich - the Warlpiri did pretty well there for thousands of years; and that inland, north of Giles, is a lot of really broken country, within the curve of the Schwerin Mural Crescent, much of it still only superficially explored, or not explored at all. Very few people, and you only have to walk on that land to feel how alive it is. If magic came back anywhere, it would be there. South of there are the Mirning/Myrning people, down where the Nullarbor meets the sea, and they are folk who still have a very active tradition.

[Kitty_katie]

Looks good. Alice Springs has plenty of resources. Unfortunately, also lots of people, many of them transients, because it's a hub of tourism, as well as being an air hub for a lot of people travelling out to remote sites to work, though once cleansed it shouldn't be all that hard to hold, or to defend. I'm wondering how climate features, like the periodic flooding of the Todd River, would affect things - would it sweep the grosslings away from the walls, or bring in a mass of ravening camel and buffalo beasts from further north? And again, marsupials - any settlements out there would be in huge strife if marsupials beastify. Sure, the big ones like kangaroos would be a hazard, but in the long term I think the little ones would be a much greater danger. Consider that for every kangaroo there are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of the little guys - desert mice, hopping mice, dunnarts, marsupial rats and all that lot. Echidnas. Quokkas. Quolls. Tasmanian Devils. Wombats. And, gods help us, the Antechinus. Those things are tiny, yeah, but they already behave like a shrew on speed, and if they beastified, or fused - would be nasty.

 If I were setting up such a refuge, I might raid Alice Springs, but would be more likely to do fortified permanent bases at Kata Tjuta, Mintabie, Woomera (the old Rocket Range), Pimba (Spud Murphy's Roadhouse would make a pretty good base), Copper Hills, maybe Uluru or Coober Pedy if there weren't too many tourists there when things fell apart. But my first choice would have to be Giles. In part because the climate is extreme, in part because, being as it is the most isolated settlement in Australia, most people either don't even know it's there, wouldn't think to go there, or are likely to die on the way there. Last time I was there, on my way out to Lake Christopher and the Tanami Desert, the population was 5, I think now it has dropped to 3. But my main reasons for Giles are that if you know what to look for that land is rich - the Warlpiri did pretty well there for thousands of years; and that inland, north of Giles, is a lot of really broken country, within the curve of the Schwerin Mural Crescent, much of it still only superficially explored, or not explored at all. Very few people, and you only have to walk on that land to feel how alive it is. If magic came back anywhere, it would be there. South of there are the Mirning/Myrning people, down where the Nullarbor meets the sea, and they are folk who still have a very active tradition.

Most of my speculations assume a ban on interstate travel near the beginning, and military support when things start to go bad, as well as the extreme heat and lack of cover limiting beast activities in the case of desert communities. And cats. Plus, Y90 Australia has a population of around 88,000, with 10-11,000 people being a big city. I can post more population statistics, if you want.

And Aboriginal mages are a thing in this fic. Part of the story will be how the local mages react to the appearance of Nordic mages (and the implication of other survivor communities/nations existing).

[Róisín]

Sounds excellent! So what sort of Aboriginal mages do you plan? The Mirning who sing to the whales, down on the cliffs of the Bight? Marngits? Clever men/songmen? Kadaitje? Ngangkari/nungkerie? I'd be curious to see where you go with your story.

Have you read John J. Alderson's 'The Simple Farmers of Galley's Gully'? Excellent Australian post-apoc.

And as to cats - at last, a use for that huge feral-cat population.

[Kitty_katie]

The mage who appears most often is a ngankari/field medic in the army. The magic we get to see the most of is healing, warding, and dreamworld surveilance.

The army would breed and train its own cats once their immunity was realised, supplemented by feral cats when necessary.

[thorny]

Have you read John J. Alderson's 'The Simple Farmers of Galley's Gully'?

Google can't find that; at least, not for me. -- I did find what's probably the right John J. Alderson; but not that work.

[Róisín]

Yeah, healing would be mainly ngangkerie, they do other stuff as well but mostly healing. Did you know there is a Ngangkerie clinic attached to the Aboriginal Health Service down in Adelaide? The older healers from the desert take it in turns to come down from the desert to work there. They can't stay longer than weeks to months, depending on how strong and how well trained they are, (that's why generally the older people do it), because what they do comes out of the land in their own place and they can't be too long away from it. They do a good job.

Warding and dreamworld surveillance would mostly be the marngit. Their job is to protect people, work the weather (though all can work weather to some extent), maintain the songlines, make sure the land is able to keep providing food and water, and talk to the landspirits (though again, all the styles of Aboriginal mages do some of that).

This sounds like an excellent tale you are making!

Thorny: I know that first volume of what was intended as a tetralogy was published by a small publisher in Central Victoria, might have been in Guildford or Maldon? It was intended to be republished by a publisher down in Melbourne, (I know because I proofread it for John), but that was about the time I moved to SA, so over 30 years ago. John died not long after that, and I didn't keep track. This is the same writer who amused himself by turning folklore into hard SF? Who wrote 'Crooked Mick and the Bunyip'?

[thorny]

Sorry, Róisín; don't know that work either. -- I was never in the fandom, just a reader; and I'm about on the other side of the world from you.

-- wait a minute, is it this?
https://skullthorpe.com/writings/crooked-mick-and-the-bunyip/

That was fun --

echoes at one point of a kids' story I remember from my childhood, but that one had racist undertones I didn't recognize at the time; unless there are Australian undertones I'm not recognizing now, this one doesn't seem to.

[Róisín]

Hahaha! No, not that, though it looks as though somebody has made a funny kids' poem out of the same set of folktales! There was a set of short stories, very funny and somewhat poignant. I think some of them were published in the Paul Collins 'Worlds' anthologies, back in the 1980s.

And no, not racist. In Australian folklore the Bunyip is a dangerous landspirit, often living in water, and scary dangerous. Like the lake dragons of European folklore, it may talk to you, or test you, or tell you something important, or eat you. You never know. So, in John's reshaping of the tale, Crooked Mick is still the consummate tough bushman, but the Bunyip is a space-wrecked alien. He thinks, or pretends to think, that she is a regular Bunyip, and treats her with appropriate caution. She takes advantage of this to make him provide what she came to Earth for (music, especially Bach). It is always left ambiguous how much each actually knows about the other (much more than either lets on, I think). But they keep up the facade out of courtesy, she treating Mick as the rough dumb bushman he purports to be, despite owning a library of classical music, Mick interacting with her as if she were the monster she pretends to be, not letting on that he knows she is a vegetarian. They help each other, friendship develops, and the Bunyip is not so sure she wants to be rescued. Sweet funny stories with a slightly sad edge.

[thorny]

Whoop! Look what's in my local library system!

-- no, wait a minute, that's not the right thing after all; it's something else altogether, by Paul Collins, but it does look interesting: 

Title:
Banvard's folly : thirteen tales of renowned obscurity, famous anonymity, and rotten luck
Author:
Collins, Paul

(it occurs to me that at this point maybe we ought to be in the books thread instead.)

[ZGU]

It's unfortunate that the SSSS comic doesn't explore the lore around nations (Germany, the UK) other than the "Nordic Council" memberstates.

Although, looking at the map of the "Known World", there are apparently several Scottish isles that are declared as cleansed areas. If people still live there, that is questionable.

[Róisín]

thorny, it may be that the Paul Collins connection is that he published a number of SF anthologies, including some of John J's short stories. Looking up the work of John J. Alderson would lead you to Paul's anthologies, which would lead you to Paul's original work. He's not bad.

[JoB]

It's unfortunate that the SSSS comic doesn't explore the lore around nations (Germany, the UK) other than the "Nordic Council" memberstates

....... yet. We've seen a Checkov's armory aimed at China, for example (though that is highly unlikely to come to fruition anymore due to other circumstances).

[wavewright62]

It's unfortunate that the SSSS comic doesn't explore the lore around nations (Germany, the UK) other than the "Nordic Council" memberstates.

Although, looking at the map of the "Known World", there are apparently several Scottish isles that are declared as cleansed areas. If people still live there, that is questionable.

At this stage, anyone who wasn't directly in touch with what is now the 'Known World' over the course of the collapse would have their stories remain untold. They may someday explore and find survivors or their accounts. We don't have an omniscient-narrator situation.
The Danes are focussing their lore-gathering on pre-collapse documents.