Survivor communities outside the known world

[kapitod]

As for the survival in the British Isles idea.  Much as I like the thought of my home surviving, I just don't see it happening, definitely not on the scale you are suggesting.  As I've said before, this country is far too international to make any attempt at quarantine effective, plus our politicians are too timid to enact martial law to maintain order.  If there were survivors it would just be tiny groups that were forgotten about/passed over rather than a population the size you are suggesting.  Still the thought of us reverting to a monarchy makes me smile.

Well in the comics I recall that Sweden and Finland implemented their closed borders rather late in the day, around day 9 I believe, I get the feeling that they did so because other larger EU members were beginning to do the same.  France borders Spain where the infection would be strongest, hence they'd close their borders, Italy and Portugal would be likely follow suite, then once Germany does it the whole of Europe will go into lockdown.  Britain may stay open for an extra day or two just for the sake of image but the government is bound to realise that at some point that maintaining trade whilst the infection is in full swing is simply damaging to themselves and to the rest of the world.

As for martial law, as an Irishman I think your underestimate your governments willingness to shoot its own civilians

There will be terribly huge infection rates and deaths, but like the Redeker Plan in WWZ I believe a small "vital" population could be protected in the more inaccessible areas of Scotland, whilst other Britons are evacuated to infection free Ireland.  Though even this won't be perfect since the evacuated population will be too large for the designated survival to support, hence there will be famine, sickness and lots of fighting.  I like dystopia though so I think that's cool (:

I had actually been thinking of the Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish royal families at the time.  Minna hasn't mentioned them and the only government we've heard of has been the "Nordic council", but I'm sure they're alive somewhere.  And this of course got me thinking, and I eventually came up with the image of King Haakon VIII, the Troll Hunter.  And if the Scandinavians are protecting their monarchs then you Brits will probably keep your beloved pensioner safe  during the crisis.  Her issue is just taking a more hands-on "old school" approach to government, which also involves flogging thieves and "evisceration" for traitors (that's getting your stomach cut out.)  Monarchs/dictators work best in a crisis, that is if they're smart anyway, and the British monarchs have been raised as military leaders, hence they're pretty smart.

Kapitoid, that's some pretty interesting speculation about the state of the British Isles you've got there (nice map too). While I'm not sure whether I share Koeshi's concerns about martial law being viable in the UK or not, I do have one question: how have the British and the Nordics not made contact yet? I'm looking at google maps now and the areas you've marked as safe/cleansed aren't too far away from one of the shipping lanes on the Page 66 map. I would have thought at least one British trawler or something might have run across a Nordic ship in 90 years or so.

That's the one major flaw with this isn't it?   I'm gonna say sea beasts, which is a cop out but I get the feeling that the Nordics are focused on keeping the trade lanes open and not on exploring the islands to the south which to their knowledge are likely crawling with Trolls and Giants just waiting to eat them alive.  I don't believe the British would even have the military resources in Year 90 to go exploring, I imagine their life as very day-to-day just trying to survive and stop the Union collapsing into a civil war.  You remember the Nordic Council lady who said the expedition was a waste of time?  The British government is definitely in agreement, and they have a reason to say that.  If they go off their respective beaten tracks Sea Beasts which live in "uncleansed" waters will nom on your little boat.

Though the British government is likely aware that there would be other survivor communities around the world.  Just they imagine they're probably doing worse than themselves and contact would just lead to hundreds of people begging to be evacuated.

Also, why on earth did that navy ship you mentioned go rogue?

As Koeshi suggested, a captain eventually decided that enough was enough.  The British navy is huge compared to the Icelandic one, and unlike the Icelandic one they are killing the civilians they are supposed to be protecting to keep a completely different country free from infection (never mind that 400,000 English people are already being kept safe there).  Dissent is bound to take hold on at least one ship, in this one it just happened to be off the coast from Dublin where it let two fishing boats through and nearly sunk an Irish ship to let them make land fall.  In fact I wouldn't be surprised if more Royal Navy ships just decided to go pirate and sail off for the Caribbean.  War is hell yo.

[Koeshi]

Well in the comics I recall that Sweden and Finland implemented their closed borders rather late in the day, around day 9 I believe, I get the feeling that they did so because other larger EU members were beginning to do the same.  France borders Spain where the infection would be strongest, hence they'd close their borders, Italy and Portugal would be likely follow suite, then once Germany does it the whole of Europe will go into lockdown.  Britain may stay open for an extra day or two just for the sake of image but the government is bound to realise that at some point that maintaining trade whilst the infection is in full swing is simply damaging to themselves and to the rest of the world.

Yes, but London is one of the most, possibly the most, internationally trafficked country in the world.  With the sheer amount of people we have entering and leaving the country both legally and illegally the Rash would be rampant in no time.  The Nordic countries are saved by having large areas of land with very few people.

I agree it would be interesting to find out what has happened to Nordic royalty.

As for martial law, as an Irishman I think your underestimate your governments willingness to shoot its own civilians

And I think that is a topic for another time, rather than derailing this thread for everyone else.

[kapitod]

Yes, but London is one of the most, possibly the most, internationally trafficked country in the world.  With the sheer amount of people we have entering and leaving the country both legally and illegally the Rash would be rampant in no time.  The Nordic countries are saved by having large areas of land with very few people.

You do have large areas with little settlement, parts of Scotland and even parts of Wales and northern England are sparsely populated and inaccessible enough that strongholds could be created that could survive for a time, not necessarily until Year 90 but still for a while.  Also there's whether or not Trolls migrate.  If they don't then southern Scotland would be relatively safer than southern England due to the previous population density.

And I think that is a topic for another time, rather than derailing this thread for everyone else.

It only derails the thread if it goes into nationalistic ball bashing, which it doesn't need too, just the fact still remains that for any government to survive once there are infectee's in the country they're going to have to cull a substantial number of their own civilians, either directly through summary executions (like in the Walking Dead) or through abandonment (like the Germans in WWZ).  You obviously don't think much of the British government, but they're still just as capable of letting millions die as any other nations government.

[Koeshi]

You do have large areas with little settlement, parts of Scotland and even parts of Wales and northern England are sparsely populated and inaccessible enough that strongholds could be created that could survive for a time, not necessarily until Year 90 but still for a while.

Yes, but the issue is the amount of people already within the borders.  To make a comparison the population density of the UK is 661.9 per square mile, whereas for Norway it is 35.  There just isn't as much space to share and spread out through.  Any isolated areas will most likely be flooded in no time by those fleeing more urban environments.

[snotra]

Considering that the British line of succession spans some 3000 persons from the Queen herself down to one obscure german princess called Karin Vogel, I think that line is not likely to die out any time soon, but whether or not some parts of that line can be found out for securing and protecting is a different matter, though.

[Mayabird]

Though IIRC weren't there canonically some Scottish survivors who migrated to Norway in the decades after the Rash? 

[Sunflower]

Though IIRC weren't there canonically some Scottish survivors who migrated to Norway in the decades after the Rash?

Yes.  Way back in September, Fimbulvarg captured some of Minna's comments from Disqus and recorded them here:

http://ssssforum.pcriot.com/index.php?topic=24.msg1591#msg1591

[Koeshi]

Cool, hadn't seen that.  I thought the only mention of Scottish survivors were in Ruth's fanfic.  Either that or I read both and got confused about what came from where.

[princeofdoom]

Hello I'm new to the forum. I was reading through this (although I haven't read everything, mostly the start and end) and I thought I'd make a short comment before I head to work.
Someone in the first few pages made maps of survivors and such. One included Japan. I think it was down to the northern most northern island Hokkaido. While I think Hokkaido would be the most likely island in Japan to survive for many reasons, I also think that the number of survivors would be extremely low compared to the population now, BUT with a high rate of immunity.
Culturally, the Japanese are very clean (physical purity being a component of spiritual purity) and are very cooperative. Cats have also been protected under imperial law and into today, so combined with felines being naturally immune, the Japanese would probably have training programs for them as well. Likely, the plague monsters there would be likened to youkai from myths. Shinto priests and priestesses would be the majority of youkai hunters, using the traditional bow and arrow to kill monsters from a distance.
Interestingly, Japanese language is an isolate the used to have sister languages on nearby island, and people were uncertain how the family of languages connected to others in the world, since they were different from their closest neighbors. Linguists looking at a lot of factors believe that it's closest relative now is Finnish. So maybe there could be connections culturally and metaphysically. (I don't think anyone from Japan would be able to contact folks in Finland, but who knows?)

[kapitod]

Interestingly, Japanese language is an isolate the used to have sister languages on nearby island, and people were uncertain how the family of languages connected to others in the world, since they were different from their closest neighbors. Linguists looking at a lot of factors believe that it's closest relative now is Finnish. So maybe there could be connections culturally and metaphysically. (I don't think anyone from Japan would be able to contact folks in Finland, but who knows?)

I thought it was derived from Chinese, or is that just the writing system?

If Japanese has connections with Finno-Urgic languages (there's a lot of them in Siberia that are likely closer to Japanese than Finnish) then that means that the native Japanese islanders have a origin from the far north rather than crossing from China or Korea as I had assumed.  Very interesting if it's true.

[ruth]

I thought it was derived from Chinese, or is that just the writing system?

If Japanese has connections with Finno-Urgic languages (there's a lot of them in Siberia that are likely closer to Japanese than Finnish) then that means that the native Japanese islanders have a origin from the far north rather than crossing from China or Korea as I had assumed.  Very interesting if it's true.

japanese is a language isolate—it's only the writing system that was borrowed/developed from chinese.

linguists have proposed a lot of hypothetical connections between japanese and other languages, probably the largest of which has been "macro-altaic" (turkic, tungusic, mongolic, korean, and japanese), but none have been proven to anything like the satisfaction of the linguistics community at large.

[princeofdoom]

linguists have proposed a lot of hypothetical connections between japanese and other languages, probably the largest of which has been "macro-altaic" (turkic, tungusic, mongolic, korean, and japanese), but none have been proven to anything like the satisfaction of the linguistics community at large.

From what I've read, Japanese and Korean's connection have mostly come from borrowing from each other through history. Like how English is a Germanic language but shares a lot of similarities with Romance languages (especially French) because of heavy borrowing from the 1000's forward.

Plus, if say, Finnish and Japanese are related and were both more conservative in their changes from their common ancestor, and the rest of the relatives were more innovative, then they would be more similar despite the extra physical distance. There could be other reasons they'd be more similar, but that was the first I could think of. Granted, I'm only an amateur linguist and get most of my info from a constructed language board. Still, I think it would be cool if it turns out to be true.

But I guess we're a tiny bit off topic now.

[BelleNotBella]

If no one's said this yet, Switzerland would probably implement the same self-isolation policy as Iceland did, so I'm thinking they'd get through virtually unscathed.

[kapitod]

If no one's said this yet, Switzerland would probably implement the same self-isolation policy as Iceland did, so I'm thinking they'd get through virtually unscathed.

They're right in the middle of the most heavily populated countries in Europe.  If Scotland and Ireland can't get away with even minor survivor communities then neither can the Swiss!

However I do think the French, German, Italian, Austrian, and Swiss/Liechtenstein governments could create small safe zones in the mountains with survivors living in fortified villages built on top of deeply fortified bunkers.  Give it another 100 years and you may have people who have permanently adapted to the darkness.

[SectoBoss]

Give it another 100 years and you may have people who have permanently adapted to the darkness.

And so the Morlocks were born...