I'd like to preface this by saying that I'm totally new. This'll be my first post, so I apologize in advance if I'm not quite up to speed on certain things, or if I get things wrong. I've also got things to do today, so I only had the time/concentration to half read, half skim the first eleven or so pages, so I'm sorry too if I mention something that's been brought up before. I'll make sure to go back and read through everything at some point after this, then go back and correct myself and make amendments. Sorry if I sound overly formal, too, that's just how I get when I start typing out this kind of thing. It helps me organize my thoughts better.
Okay. My best friend and I (hi koalalou
) were sitting down for a few hours yesterday, and we spent a lot of that time talking about SSSS since she'd been highly recommending it for a couple of weeks and I'd finally gotten around to reading it a day or two before. I'd gush about how amazing it is, but I'm already off-topic enough and I'm sure you all understand without the need for words. Anyway, we got onto the subject of survival in Canada and the U.S. She's a lot more familiar with Canadian geography and other important things like that, so I'm not the right person to discuss that portion. She made a good case for places like Cape Breton being possible safe zones, and I'm inclined to believe her. Some of my points are going to rely on the assumption that there will be at least one or two thriving communities in Canada, and several more that are managing to survive in Canada and the upper U.S.
One of the big things we hit on were nuclear powered aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines (not ships that use more conventional fuels, that would become a problem fast). I know this has been mentioned before, so I'm sorry again if I retread old ground. The United States Navy has 10 active Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, all of which are nuclear powered. This means that they don't need refueling for over 20 years, if Wikipedia is anything to go by. They also have built-in water desalination plants, so water would never be a concern. In my skimming, I did notice a few very legitimate concerns that were brought up, though. Firstly, the problem of food. At the very beginning, there's no way that any of the carriers would have enough food to completely ride out the storm. I think the solution to that is fairly straightforward. As long as there are safe naval bases, that shouldn't be a problem. At first, I don't think it would be a huge issue. While the pandemic is still spreading, I think it's likely that the government would take extra care to keep it out of military bases. It wouldn't be foolproof, of course, and they would succumb eventually. It's no stretch of the imagination to say, though, that they could hold out for long enough to recognize the situation for what it really is and start stocking emergency supplies and prepare to vacate VIPs and such on carriers. That could hold each of the carriers over for quite a while--the longest a Nimitz carrier has gone without restocking was around 150 days, if I'm remembering that right. In an emergency apocalypse scenario, I'm sure that could be extended to at least half a year. Possibly more, especially if they decide to offload aircraft fuel and munitions to make way for more food. Again, though, I'm not sure they'd have the foresight for that. That might last for one, maaaaaybe two resupplies. After that would be the hardest part--when there are monsters running around, but there hasn't really been enough time for civilizations to start re-establishing themselves. The best possible solution would be for them to continue restocking at more remote naval bases. Say Guam, for example. Or even Hawaii, if it were isolated in time and survived. The U.S. has a lot of outposts in the Pacific, though I'm sure most of them aren't actually self-sufficient. If there are any surviving naval bases in Canada or Alaska, too those would work just as well, if not better. If worst comes to worst, though, they would have to make an incursion to gather resources. If they're smart about it, and if they learned enough from any experience trying to fight on land, it would be doable. Especially considering that the ships would be manned by real-deal military personnel and, if there's fuel left, they could even have a little air support. Once civilization starts to re-establish itself, this problem would ebb quite a bit. They'd be able to restock more frequently at, say, Cape Breton as well as any other places that've popped up.
Another big problem would be making sure that absolutely nobody comes aboard while sick with rash. This would be the most important thing. If even one gets it, you could lose the entire carrier. If proper precautions are taken, it wouldn't be too hard to prevent with quarantining and a screening process for anyone that comes aboard. The main problem, I think, would be that by the time they realize it's necessary, it might be too late. Personally, though, I'd give them pretty high odds of doing it in time. Like I said, earlier, I'm sure extra precautions would be taken by the government. They wouldn't want an entire carrier to be out of commission for two weeks, so even without knowing exactly how bad it is, they could still set up heavy restrictions on who's able to enter or exit.
Then comes the problem of refueling. Twenty years of safety, and then they would need to find new uranium cores. I have to be completely honest, I don't know how many the U.S. stockpile, or if they do at all. They might just make them on demand. I think chances would be that, if there are reserves of ready uranium cores, they would be located farther inland. That would mean that after the first 20 years, they would need to make a very dangerous incursion deep into old America. It would probably be proceeded by years of expeditions looking for information regarding the location, handling, and maybe even creation of these cores. Depending on their success, I think things could go three main ways from there:
- If they fail, then they'll be forced to try to retake some land through force. If they set their sights on what they need and not just what they want, I think it could be done, though I'm sure they'd have to suffer devastating losses. If there somehow is still fuel and munitions for the aircraft, then they could make things easier by bombing the area they want to control first. Honestly, though, that seems unlikely to me. If settlements have popped up along the coast, there's a chance they might be able to work with them to gain access to some old American hardware, like tanks and artillery, which would be helpful as long as they could find intact training manuals.
- If they succeed in finding a stockpile of uranium cores, but are only able to bring back what they need, then the cycle will repeat itself every 20 years until the stockpiles run out, they decide it's not worth the risk, or too many of them die too keep it going. When that happens, they'll be forced to integrate into any existing civilizations unless they have the manpower to try to retake land for themselves.
- If they succeed and manage to bring back enough cores for several refuelings, then they could transport them to a friendly, safe civilization or just carry them on board until they're needed next. This would allow many, many years of safety.
All of this would be hard, but I think it's doable. All in all, I'd give a fairly high probability of at least six or seven of the ten carriers surviving. They could easily become the Norwegians of the Americas, protecting the coast and hunting sea beasts. It could become a rite of passage for children to learn how to do their parents' jobs so that they can one day take over. When the carriers get damaged, they can simply cannibalize other ships from the defunct fleet for spare parts. It's not like there's a shortage of those. If they have operational nuclear submarines, too, they could use those as underwater scouts, warning the carriers about any incoming beasts.
Anyway, I think that's about it for now. Sorry for typing your eyes off, I hope I didn't make too much of a fool of myself.