Poll

What do you think the state of things is beyond Scandinavia?

More of the Silent World: Trolls, beasts and giants everywhere
7 (16.7%)
A few groups of humans, but mostly wilderness
14 (33.3%)
USA and other superpowers are relatively intact
0 (0%)
Scorched Earth: nothing, not even grosslings, is alive
0 (0%)
Plenty of places like Scandinavia, but isolated
21 (50%)

Total Members Voted: 37

Voting closed: July 03, 2015, 03:28:37 PM

Author Topic: Survivor communities outside the known world  (Read 257286 times)

Gwyrion

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Re: I expect that USA would be able to withstand the rash disaster
« Reply #180 on: September 24, 2014, 06:04:56 PM »
For some reason, i see a US spinoff of SSSS as a mcguffin quest, in which a character is sent with a sacred amulet (Nuke key) to activate The Great Temple (Nuke silo) and bring salvation (Nuking a place in russia, initiating a cold war era protocol automatic chain reaction that nukes a lot of the big cities, essentialy cleaning them from the diesesed, and putting humanity a few steps closer to defeating the apocalypse.)

[sure, this relies on lots of artistic license and idiocy but whatevs]
That sounds pretty freakin' neat! There should be a book or something about that, that'd make for a great story.
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Gwyrion

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Re: I expect that USA would be able to withstand the rash disaster
« Reply #181 on: September 24, 2014, 06:06:41 PM »
Sorry, I was making a tongue-in-cheek remark that was just supposed to be a one-off.  The context of my statement was from an earlier post that said the Rash would turn the Government into a shambles.

I quoted that, then said that America would probably run better WITHOUT the gov't.  I should have left it there, but then got a little preachy.
Sorry, everyone.
It's okay, I just thought you were trying to spin the thread into a debate about American politics, which noone should want. And though it was tongue in cheek, America could probably run fairly well without an organized government, so if it failed the US wouldn't be entirely screwed.
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ruth

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #182 on: September 25, 2014, 12:53:27 AM »


SSSS · Nihon by ruthszulc, on Flickr

here's my take on japan! keep in mind this is just one way it might pan out, and i've been somewhat harsher than most as far as population and cleansed land are concerned for the sake of a different kind of story. either way, feedback and critique is definitely appreciated!



it would be easy to see the statistics and think that japan, among all the nations to survive the rash, is among the more fortunate. while less than 2% of their population has survived the ravages of the deadliest disease that has ever struck humankind (to say nothing of other mammals), the large majority of japan's northern island, hokkaidou, has remained pristine and untouched by the hideous monsters created by the rash. but scratch deeper than surface level and darker truths emerge of the survival of the country.

it begins with the system of government. while the nation of japan before the fall ranked among the world's most prominent democracies, the people who live on its soil today are by no means free. there are some vague gestures at the system, of course; it is hard to revoke a right that has already been granted, after all, but the people's advisory council is widely understood to be powerless compared to the real source of power: the daimyou, and above all the shougun.

japan was the first nation to seal off its borders after news of the rash became public. japan soon found, though, that even as they escaped the first pass of rapidly escalating chaos of the disease, their problems would not be solved with this unilateral act. the most pressing, and most dire situation, was the state of their food supply. on a caloric basis, japan was roughly 40% self-sufficient. and as the months dragged on, even with brutal rationing, millions began the slow, agonizing process of starvation. but this, the japanese would soon find, would be the most merciful part of the long dark period of their nation.

in march 2015, with the nation in the throes of the greatest famine in its history, dozens of whaling vessels left port, intent on bringing back as much as they could carry, to feed the nation with whatever they could. what they encountered in the open sea, however, were not whales but something entirely different. though one was brought on board to attempt to identify it, it was quickly determined that the mutated, deformed creatures were simply not edible. starving, isolated, and entering a desperate stage of disconnection from reality, the whalers did not make the connection between the deformed whales and the rash that had covered the planet in its entirety. the sailor generally identified as japanese patient zero (JP0) visited tokyo four days later, and the inevitable fall began.

by the time the national government realized what had happened, establishing a quarantine cordon around tokyo was impossible. hundreds of thousands of people were dying every day, if not from the rash illness, then from the famine that became even more entrenched as communication and transportation of food between different areas became impossible. it grew so desperate that the governor of the most isolated northern prefecture, hokkaidou, shut down all traffic into the province and established a strict quarantine zone in the densely-populated capital, sapporo, and the southern port town hakodate, and not a moment too soon: though isolated cases would crop up in the countryside, the most severe outbreaks were held to sapporo and hakodate.

however, the aftereffects of this absolute seclusion, within the boundaries of the two quarantine zones, were nothing short of disastrous. cut off from all outside food, and with the self-defence force soldiers shooting any attempting to escape, more than two million died in what would later come to be known as the "sacrifice zones." the government ordered the total razing of sapporo and hakodate, and though they likely saved the rest of the island from infection, their tenuous authority crumbled as the populace became aware of the scorched-earth techniques used. an alternative provisional government based in asahikawa, supported by a large contingent of disgruntled SDF soldiers and—most importantly—makiko sen, a descendant of emperor taishou and distant member of the royal family, organized a largely bloodless coup, declaring sen empress and assuming responsibility of what is, for all they know, the last remaining safe area on earth.

having the legitimacy of someone on the chrysanthemum throne is an immense psychological boost for a population desperately needing something to cling to, and through this the new provisional government of asahikawa is granted sweeping powers to allow it to begin the slow process of reorganizing japan to survive and sustain itself. however, the immense centralized power of the new government starts to show signs of totalitarianism. armed with the impeccable credentials of restoring the monarchy, few are able to stand in its way as rights and freedoms are slowly rolled back to make way for aggressive de-industrialization, and a return to immense investment in agriculture. those with money and power are able to consolidate it, and those without slide inexorably into what is really a glorified neo-feudal society. it takes some time, but eventually even the government comes clean, adopting the archaic terms of medieval japan to describe their new state. the military junta is headed by the seii taishougun, the commander of the japanese self-defence force and overlord of the ten daimyou, who each rule over a fief contiguous with the old pre-meiji provinces.

though much of the technology of the modern world remains, many of the ideas have been cast aside to make way for the new order. the nation has returned to the old policy of sakokuron, or "isolation doctrine," which prohibits any outsider from landing in japan and prohibits any citizen from leaving. with the abbreviation of the country to the northern island, with the exception of a small military base in mutsu, everyone beyond the tsugaru strait separating hokkaidou from honshuu (the main island), is unwelcome in the empire of japan. a small class of military nobility known as bushi or samurai enforced the social contract, swearing loyalty to a daimyou. while the weapon of a samurai today is a rifle rather than a longsword, there are many eerie parallels with the japan of hundreds of years ago, and the idea that all people are equal has long since given way to the notion that everyone has a given place in society. if you're one of the common folk in year 90, it probably isn't a great living. but the harsh, stark decisions made by the asahi shougunate have also made japan one of the safest havens in the world from the rash.



some stats, beyond the little blurb in the box:

empire of japan, population 2,107,500
capital: asahi-teito (asahi imperial city)
provinces: 10

ishikari province, population 407,600
capital: asahi-teito, population 209,900
major settlements: chitose, fuukagawa, iwamizawa, eniwa, chitose
teshio province, population 73,100
capital: rumoi, population 25,300
major settlements: teshio, nayoro, shibetsu
oshima province, population 122,200
capital: hokuto, population 50,500
major settlements: yakumo
shiribeshi province, population 188,700
capital: otaru, population 66,500
major settlements: kutchan, yoichi
iburi province, population 341,100
capital: tomakomai, population 140,800
major settlements: muroran, date, noboribetsu
hidaka province, population 67,400
capital: urakawa, population 19,900
major settlements: erimo, shinhidaka
tokachi province, population 309,000
capital: obihiro, population 144,300
major settlements: honbetsu, shimizu, otofuuke
kitami province, population 305,500
capital: kitami, population 118,800
major settlements: abashiri, wakkanai, monbetsu
kushiro province, population 173,400
capital: kushiro, population 149,200
major settlements: akkeshi, shibecha
nemuro province, population 66,700
capital: nemuro, population 24,800
major settlements: shana, furukamappu
improvement districts (i.d.), population 2,000
military bases: sapporo i.d., hakodate i.d., aomori-honshuu i.d.

government: feudal monarchy
head of government: seii taishougun asahi akinori
head of state: empress masako
currency: koku (278.3 cubic litres of rice)
« Last Edit: September 25, 2014, 03:31:05 AM by ruth »
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Hrollo

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #183 on: September 25, 2014, 09:57:46 AM »
Ruth > *_*

Will you marry me?

This is super awesome stuff!
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Thorin Schmidt

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #184 on: September 25, 2014, 11:51:24 AM »
I do doubt the totems-as-fences..
yes, well, Like a lot of my posts, I had a brainstorming moment there.  it went sort of like (I only have fuzzy memories of the actual sequence) hmm. If tribal magic was resurrected like Scandanavian and Finnish majic, then possibly their devices might begin to function as well.  Dream Catchers, using peyote to enter the spirit world, and the use of various types of stone to ward individuals, malachite, in particular, as well as a few others that enhace magic and psychic abilities... so.... maybe they could enhance malachite and create "Monster catchers", large constructs surrounding a settlement that Monsters would get tangled in, much like bad dreams get tangled in a dream-catcher.  The sun is said to purify the dreamcatcher every day, which is why you hang it in a window facing east.  anyway, I thought all that, and condensed it to "totems".... and hey, a monstre tangled in the confusion of a Monster-catcher would be stuck out in the sun, all day.  Wonder what happens to them if they are caught like that?

tesseract

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #185 on: September 25, 2014, 03:30:10 PM »
Wow, Ruth! That's really dark, but really creative.

Do you suppose people turn back to Shinto, the way several of the Nordic nations decided to readopt the old gods? I'm even more curious, do the nature spirits start showing up again?
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Stefan

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #186 on: September 25, 2014, 03:50:30 PM »
Japan's oil consumption would obviously drop as population numbers sink drastically, and even bans on unnecessary fuel usage would be enforced.
And when the option is to get their hands on some oil(and tenable land for the starving masses, remember) or to get none, it becomes a forced choice, especially if the rash doesn't beset Sakhalin.
You can't simply skip jump straight over to renewable energy sources. If it was that simple, Japan would already have done it IRL.
I am quite embarassed that I missed the possibility that Sakhalin could become a breadbasket for Japan. Because Sakhalin can provide between 7000 and 15000 km2 of land which is suitable for agriculture(at least if I didn't mess up with the maps). And depending on how much grain can be harvested from this land Sakhalin could become quite an important pillar of Japans food supply(the only number I have for how much can be harvested per area is for wheat in germany with 8t/ha or 800t/km2 in 2012 which would result in a harvest of between 5600000t and 12000000t for Sakhalin). But I still doubt that Japan would go because of the oil, but it would be an added benefit of taking Sakhalin. Also I don't think Japan would conquer Sakhalin because it would be more efficient to 'ask' the people of Sakhalin to join something like a trade union. But all of this depends on that Sakhalin is free from the rash. Before I forget I also had accounted for Japans oil consumtion to drop significantly mainly because a great part of the consumption is in manufacturing of export goods. Additionally I had calculated the effort it would take to build a pipeline from Sakhalin to the industrial centers of Japan and found it to be too big.

Most of the process you mention still require a source of hydrocarbons — I simply had overlooked that coal is also such a source.

And this doesn't even get even  byproducts. Hydrocarbon sources are also where we get most of our hydrogen and sulfur from.
Well you don't need hydrocarbons, you can use water and carbondioxide to produce syngas(for an example look here: http://energy.sandia.gov/wp/wp-content/gallery/uploads/S2P_SAND2009-5796P.pdf). Also I have to admit that I didn't pay any attention to the byproducts of oil and when I did look at them I was quite suprised. And I can see that sulfur could become quite a problem despite Japan having so many volcanos.

ruth

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #187 on: September 25, 2014, 04:38:08 PM »
Wow, Ruth! That's really dark, but really creative.

Do you suppose people turn back to Shinto, the way several of the Nordic nations decided to readopt the old gods? I'm even more curious, do the nature spirits start showing up again?

well, it's arguable whether it would be considered "turning back to" shintoism, since at least on paper the majority of people in japan practise particular rites and traditions of it. but it absolutely develops a more religious rather than simply cultural component! practices like harae come to be of paramount importance in a society that develops a paranoid obsession with purification and cleanliness. the maneki-neko (beckoning cat), already a symbol of good fortune, becomes a staple of every household when people come to learn of the felines' ability to identify danger, and becomes inducted unofficially into the shinto pantheon as well. furthermore, as japan enforces cultural homogeneity, they assimilate what remains of ainu society completely into the mainstream, with many aspects of ainu shamanism and magical practices becoming commonplace.

like the icelandic mages, the japanese miko—principally shrine maidens, but now closer to their probable original social role as shamans—are predominantly female. in a world where magic is (maybe) very real, though, they take on a much more active, aggressive role in society. they are especially important for performing exorcisms in and purifications of different areas of the "improvement districts," where, for many years, large groups of trolls have remained, presenting an ever-present danger to the inhabitants of hokkaidou. over the years, they have used magic and controlled fires to clean the city street-by-street. when their goal is complete (though it might be done by year 90), sapporo and hakodate will have been completely razed to the ground, and someday ready for repopulation.
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Tazzie

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #188 on: September 26, 2014, 10:02:59 AM »
Hey ruth, a few questions.

1 - Why are so much rice as a currency?
2 - Why is the map written in Japanese >.<''

But awesome map.

ruth

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #189 on: September 26, 2014, 04:11:42 PM »
Hey ruth, a few questions.

1 - Why are so much rice as a currency?
2 - Why is the map written in Japanese >.<''

But awesome map.

the koku is actually an old japanese unit of measurement that is supposed to be equivalent to the amount of rice needed to feed one person for a year. it was used as payment for some samurai and nobles, and fiefdoms were measured in the size of their rice output. even though hokkaidou's rice growing is pretty lean, koku as a classical feudal unit can still be used to measure other quantities—as wikipedia says, it is still used for forestry, so adapting it for use with hokkaidou's other crops like wheat and soybeans would be completely reasonable.

as for why it's in japanese, it's for the flavour! i tried to make it look like a 19th-century meiji japanese map and i wanted to make it as authentic-looking as possible. but don't worry, you're not missing out on any information! it's just the names of the towns, the rivers, and the provinces.
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Haverberg

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #190 on: September 27, 2014, 11:41:54 PM »
More possible survivor communities:

Falklands - has probably been mentioned already

Switzerland - they have been prepared for over 50 years to blow the bridges and tunnels and hunker down in case of "the big one".

The 1,864 islands in the St Lawrence Seaway (thousand islands). Yes, it borders Ontario and New York, but some of these have castles, Damn it!

US Navy Carriers. Yes, they'll run out of food eventually, but they'll have at least six months to think of something and a compliment of U.S. Marines to "secure" necessities. Fleet deployments also include tender vessels full of food, fuel, and expendables, and they've likely teamed up with whatever container vessel, barge, fishing trawler or any other ship in communication range when things went down.
   I wouldn't be surprised if the president and other cabinet officials and essential personnel were transferred to a carrier when people realized how out of hand things had gotten. Galatica 2103!!

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Cynic

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #191 on: September 28, 2014, 03:49:03 AM »
...Switzerland - they have been prepared for over 50 years to blow the bridges and tunnels and hunker down in case of "the big one". ...
Swizz hadn't closed the boarders before Iceland and have MUCH higher level of intternationall visitors than Iceland. So if they every clsoed the boarder the illness was alrday spread inside the country. So the possibility for Swizz to holdlike one unit is zero. But it di have a lot of small weel isolated places so minor holdouts in rural swizz that have reunite (like in Norway,Swedeb and Finland) seems very possible.
....US Navy Carriers. Yes, they'll run out of food eventually, but they'll have at least six months to think of something and a compliment of U.S. Marines to "secure" necessities. Fleet deployments also include tender vessels full of food, fuel, and expendables, and they've likely teamed up with whatever container vessel, barge, fishing trawler or any other ship in communication range when things went down.
   I wouldn't be surprised if the president and other cabinet officials and essential personnel were transferred to a carrier when people realized how out of hand things had gotten. Galatica 2103!!...
The one to where the infection didn't reach should have a good chance. But unless the US govermnet accted well before anyone else in the comic realised the danger the ones they tried to transfer would in many/most cases have brought the infection with them and thus doomed the carriers they where transfered to.

Sera

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #192 on: September 29, 2014, 09:37:56 PM »
More possible survivor communities:

US Navy Carriers. Yes, they'll run out of food eventually, but they'll have at least six months to think of something and a compliment of U.S. Marines to "secure" necessities. Fleet deployments also include tender vessels full of food, fuel, and expendables, and they've likely teamed up with whatever container vessel, barge, fishing trawler or any other ship in communication range when things went down.
   I wouldn't be surprised if the president and other cabinet officials and essential personnel were transferred to a carrier when people realized how out of hand things had gotten. Galatica 2103!!

My issues with the survival of carrier strike groups... Sure, if you're already underway when all of this breaks out you're safe from the initial issues presented by the rash, but if you're anywhere near friendly anything and running air operations, you'll run into the risk of bringing back someone from the air det who's carrying the rash. Even if you lock that down and say 'fine, we won't pick up the air det, they can all go die in the rash', then you're probably also not going to be up for resupply from anyone. You don't carry 6 months' worth of food during normal peacetime ops when you're running under the assumption that you can resupply as needed. Maybe, maybe, 3 months worth at the outside.

And if the aquatic life is being...transformed... by the rash, that's also going to pose a problem- sure they probably can't do structural damage but if a mutated hideous whale-blob does a number on your engines, you're going to have to put divers in the water to try and fix things, if that's even possible and if they don't get eaten by wildlife.

So, best case scenario if you want a CSG to survive in the aftermath of this rash- have it already set out prior to the rash, get orders to standby until further notice, and be far enough away from shore that no one is disembarked and no air ops are currently running.
But I still don't like it. A CSG, without any kind of heads-up, is a very specific military component which needs its logistics just as badly if not more so than other military components to survive. It's the farthest thing from self-sufficient for long periods of time. 3-5k people have all got to eat, sleep, poop, work and live in some very tight space.

Now, an Akula class submarine... does Russia still have any of them? They might come in handy during the rash for a short period of time. Longer than the carrier anyway.

Mayabird

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #193 on: October 01, 2014, 10:45:05 AM »
A few naval ships of whatever countries might have struck out for or crashed on islands or other remote locations here and there hoping for a safe haven.  Who knows?  Further explorations to Greenland or the Azores might find an isolated and remote community sheltered by the hulk of a beached aircraft carrier. 

tesseract

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #194 on: October 01, 2014, 03:32:49 PM »
If year zero is in the near future, there will be waay more men than women on those ships.
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