Survivor communities outside the known world

[Mélusine]

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.

*Begin to think of how old sites un the mountains with castle/fortified places can be re-used*

[Koeshi]

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.

As cool as that would be evolution really doesn't work that quickly.  Also living in total darkness is going to result in some serious deficiencies, such as Vitamin D, UV exposure is really needed unless you have access to a lot of sea fish.  That said, maybe a set-up like that seen in The 100 would work as long as they closed the doors before any infection reached them.  (If not we are looping back to the nightmare scenario of dealing with trolls and the infection in an enclosed and inescapable environment, not a happy place to be.)

[kapitod]

As cool as that would be evolution really doesn't work that quickly.  Also living in total darkness is going to result in some serious deficiencies, such as Vitamin D, UV exposure is really needed unless you have access to a lot of sea fish.  That said, maybe a set-up like that seen in The 100 would work as long as they closed the doors before any infection reached them.  (If not we are looping back to the nightmare scenario of dealing with trolls and the infection in an enclosed and inescapable environment, not a happy place to be.)

Well obviously they wouldn't turn into mole people, that's just nuts, but with a sufficiently small population mutations can spread very rapidly.  Generations of people living and dying underground are eventually going to have eyes becoming not completely necessary, or more likely they're adjusted to working with minimal light.  Which would make sense if electricity and fuel for fire is being rationed.

A Cold War era bunker which has been completely overrun by infectee's and them all mutating together to form a giant that fills up the whole thing like some sort of creepy mutated dragon...

[Chizu]

Well obviously they wouldn't turn into mole people, that's just nuts, but with a sufficiently small population mutations can spread very rapidly.  Generations of people living and dying underground are eventually going to have eyes becoming not completely necessary, or more likely they're adjusted to working with minimal light.  Which would make sense if electricity and fuel for fire is being rationed.

A Cold War era bunker which has been completely overrun by infectee's and them all mutating together to form a giant that fills up the whole thing like some sort of creepy mutated dragon...

90 years is not nearly enough for human body to evolve and adapt to such conditions. Some minor changes might be present, but nothing too drastic.

On a side note, what about small islands in the oceans? (sorry I haven't yet read through all the comments on this thread, so I apologise if this was already mentioned) I think there two possibilities : close-knit community results in complete extinction or better contained outbreak. Desserts as well, there a lot of tribes in those areas some really secluded...could it be possible that soe areas avoided the rash entirely?

[Gsonderling]

How about US navy? Ten carrier groups, each one of them with one cruiser, two destroyers, supply ships, sometimes submarines, almost 7000 people on board and of course carrier powered by two 100 MW reactors that can last up to 20 years. If only half of them survive there is very little they can not do.
Fishing fleets with factory ships are natural addition to any such fleet, at any time number of them is on sea. After that oil rigs and onshore refineries. Bahrain for example has few of them and it is an island so quite easy to take. Add to that Guam, atolls, Falklands, Ascension and South Georgia and you have all you need to start again.


Hmm I wonder if anyone already thought of that:

[Koeshi]

The nuclear powered carriers might be viable, depending on whether they acted fast enough.  However I can see the government ordering them to move civilians and eventually an infected will get on board.  Plus they gender ratio on military ships could result in some unpleasant scenarios, just look to the Fallout series.  Speaking of which, isn't that where the picture is from?

[Gsonderling]

Yeah it is from Fallout. Speaking of which, can you imagine how awesome would be seeing Frank Horrigan punch troll in the face?

Anyway there is very little reason to use carriers for civilian transport in case of epidemic, there are craft better suited for such operation. Instead the carriers would probably enforce quarantine around few clean areas remaining.

[Amity]

Look at how the disease spread in Scandinavia.  Literally, one day Iceland seals its borders, enforcing an armed quarantine, and the next day the disease is spreading virulently through the rest of the population.  Within like 48 hours the rash has achieved almost total saturation through all the rest of northern Europe.  That's fast.  Basically all the characters we meet are already isolated in some way or another by the time we meet them.  Everyone else already has the disease, they just don't know it.

So... sealed early, total isolation, total self-sufficiency, absolutely no contact whatsoever for days or weeks while the critical period passes,  not even personnel changes... aside from Iceland, who does that sound like?

That's why the nuclear submarines seem the most likely to me.  Carrier fleets could, too, but would they really have no contact at all for that long, not even people flying on and off?  If they would, then yeah, it makes total sense that they would start doing island defense.  Maybe some of the Hawaiian islands, near the big US naval base there?

[Koeshi]

There are also some prison ships still in use in the world.  I know that the UK no longer has any in service but the US does.  Then again, any sort of society that developed from the population of a prison ship would most likely be a rather self-destructive kind, plus they aren't exactly going to be kitted out for self sufficiency.  Again like the military carriers and the nuclear submarines above, the gender ratio will be an issue.

@Gsonderling, I do not remember who Frank Horrigan is.

[kapitod]

If they can sail the damn thing, as I assume the crew of a submarine could, they could always diversify the gene pool through some spoils of war; or to be more blunt kidnapping women from other survivor communities.  The Pacific will likely be rife with piracy and pillaging in the early days.

A friend of mine wrote a scenario about Dr. Strangelove which had an American nuclear submarine setting up a colony in Antarctica and surviving like Inuits after everything went to hell, using the nuclear power source to provide heat and light.  Where they found the women I have no idea.

Look at how the disease spread in Scandinavia.  Literally, one day Iceland seals its borders, enforcing an armed quarantine, and the next day the disease is spreading virulently through the rest of the population.  Within like 48 hours the rash has achieved almost total saturation through all the rest of northern Europe.  That's fast.  Basically all the characters we meet are already isolated in some way or another by the time we meet them.  Everyone else already has the disease, they just don't know it.

Well not everyone, Finland hadn't closed it's borders by Day 9 I believe.  Granted they have the smallest survivor community but that could be down to their lack of major natural defenses, or even being swamped by trolls from the south at some point; but that depends on whether or not trolls can migrate large distances...

Also there's the non-immune survivors in the rest of scandinavia, which are obviously descended from people who have never caught the disease.  Tuuri and Onni for example, and Emil's aunt isn't immune either.

[Koeshi]

Finland's low population could be due to their land border with Russia.  Can't exactly hope to close that and stop infected from getting into the country.  Same goes for trolls moving in that way.  If people got it into their heads that the Nords were safe then they would head their and damn the risk that they may be bringing the Rash with them.

If they can sail the damn thing, as I assume the crew of a submarine could, they could always diversify the gene pool through some spoils of war; or to be more blunt kidnapping women from other survivor communities.

That sounds like a very risky thing to do.  You do not know what the quarantine procedures are like for those communities and you could risk bringing the Rash back with you.

[Gsonderling]

I do not remember who Frank Horrigan is.

    How could you forget the most psychotic, steroid pumped, FEV mutated, Power Armored member of the Enclave?!!



Just kidding, I hope you didn't just play F3 though.

By the way does anyone know if trolls can survive high levels of radiation?

[Sunflower]

By the way does anyone know if trolls can survive high levels of radiation?

FYI, I moved the next 4 posts to "Troll Biology."  They're all titled "Trolls and Radiation."

Hope that helps!

Sunflower

[FinnishViking]

Finland was most likely boned from the very beginning.

One think that is a good question is the before stated border between what used to be Russia and Finland. If we assume that one day the infected areas will be cleared and the entirity of Scandinavia and finland purged, the border is going to be quite massive task to guard and maintain.

Luckily most areas up north are very sparcely populated, but down south near places loke viborg and St.Pietersburgh there are bound to be a constant flow of trolls towards the border and near by settlement.

[kapitod]

Finland was most likely boned from the very beginning.

One think that is a good question is the before stated border between what used to be Russia and Finland. If we assume that one day the infected areas will be cleared and the entirity of Scandinavia and finland purged, the border is going to be quite massive task to guard and maintain.

Luckily most areas up north are very sparcely populated, but down south near places loke viborg and St.Pietersburgh there are bound to be a constant flow of trolls towards the border and near by settlement.

It all depends on whether or not trolls migrate large distances.

If they migrate, then to be honest all the potential communities in Siberia will be boned by the billion odd trolls coming from Southern Asia, hell those trolls could be moving into Scandinavia by Year 90.  Same goes for Britain, potential survivor communities in Scotland will be swamped by the trolls and beasts from southern England.

But if they don't migrate and generally stay around the areas they first formed then survivor communities can last longer.  So the Finnish trolls come from St Petersburg and Helsinki, but the Finns aren't dealing with the huge numbers that could be coming there way.