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 256967 times)

Snommelp

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #570 on: April 29, 2015, 10:18:48 AM »
As for the people talking about Australia.  I think internet culture has got you a bit too worked up about how lethal the place is.  Keep in mind that people were living there quite comfortably for thousands of years before modern medicine and housing.

Ah, but we're talking about whether or not trolls could survive there - or at least I was (because that's the major change that would determine if a post-Illness community could survive). So the question then becomes one of troll psychology: can trolls recognize and adapt to danger? And also troll physiology: are trolls still alive enough to be affected by venom?

From what we've seen in the comic so far, I think the only permanent change the Illness would cause to Australia would be a significant decrease in the number of mammals, because I don't think the trolls as they've been depicted thus far are adequately equipped to deal with the non-mammalian dangers of Australia. This opinion may change, as we gain more insight into how trolls, beasts, and giants function.
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Daéa Reina

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #571 on: April 29, 2015, 12:39:35 PM »
We really need to make a huge collaborative project of what happened in other parts of the world at some point.

Because I'd read that.


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snotra

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #572 on: April 29, 2015, 02:34:12 PM »
Ah, but we're talking about whether or not trolls could survive there - or at least I was (because that's the major change that would determine if a post-Illness community could survive). So the question then becomes one of troll psychology: can trolls recognize and adapt to danger? And also troll physiology: are trolls still alive enough to be affected by venom?
Trolldom versus the komodo dragons is likely going to end very one-sided. Although it's a bit out of the route from Australia and relatively close to the equator, it is an island and as soon as the komodo dragon gets to have at least one bite in, whatever gets bitten is usually done for, right?
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Superdark33

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #573 on: April 29, 2015, 03:21:51 PM »
Trolldom versus the komodo dragons is likely going to end very one-sided. Although it's a bit out of the route from Australia and relatively close to the equator, it is an island and as soon as the komodo dragon gets to have at least one bite in, whatever gets bitten is usually done for, right?

Done for without the proper healthcare, and i doubt trolls use antibiotics.
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JoB

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #574 on: April 29, 2015, 07:19:58 PM »
Done for without the proper healthcare, and i doubt trolls use antibiotics.
Actually the "germ-laden saliva causes infection" theory has been debunked and an actual venom delivery mechanism was found, the venom suppressing coagulation and upping the amount of blood lost.

Which is actually bad news for the trolls, as we know that they have some sort of antibiotic defense (see totally non-rotting bodies in "spot 24"), but likely aren't beyond needing a working circulation (at least the giant attacking the Dalahästen bled).
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BreezeLouise

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #575 on: April 29, 2015, 07:45:10 PM »
We really need to make a huge collaborative project of what happened in other parts of the world at some point.

Because I'd read that.

I would love to see that. I'm totally in favor.
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Koeshi

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #576 on: April 30, 2015, 05:59:50 AM »
From what we've seen in the comic so far, I think the only permanent change the Illness would cause to Australia would be a significant decrease in the number of mammals, because I don't think the trolls as they've been depicted thus far are adequately equipped to deal with the non-mammalian dangers of Australia. This opinion may change, as we gain more insight into how trolls, beasts, and giants function.

These are creatures that have shown themselves to be capable of throwing back organised military attacks, I think they can handle a few crocs.  As for the poisonous animals, yeah they might be an issue, but they are a threat to all the other lifeforms living there and they still get by.

Mayabird

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #577 on: April 30, 2015, 08:57:43 AM »
To be fair, emus have also shown themselves capable of throwing back an organized military attack.  The Wikipedia page on the Emu War used to list "dignity" as a casualty on the Australian side.

Koeshi

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #578 on: April 30, 2015, 09:50:44 AM »
While amusing I don't really think that Emu War can be counted as being on quite the scale of the Rash plague.

Besides the Emus didn't exactly push the military back, they just avoided dying in sufficient numbers for the operation to be considered a success.

Vafhudr

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #579 on: April 30, 2015, 12:52:34 PM »
Australia, hostile fauna notwithstanding, will suffer the same problem as any other places on the planet - it has massive population center in several key areas. Worst, Australia, unlike places with degrees of isolation that could protect small pockets of human population (Canada, Russia, Scandinavia for instance), has a wilderness that, judging from the little I know of the lay of the land, would not be very amenable to settlements.

Plus, there is no cold to deter Trolls and limit their actions.
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Nefelpitou

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #580 on: April 30, 2015, 01:43:22 PM »
Most of Australia's population lives in the cities (somewhere around 90%) and these are coastal for the most part. Australia wasn't mentioned as closing its borders early so it's likely we have infected. Also, if you're keeping track of Australian news, the last few years the politicians have been going mad over illegal immigrants arriving in boats. Considering the disease takes some time to kill it's possible we could have fresh infected arrivals landing on our shores from other countries.

In our more rural areas population is so sparse there is very little chance of a group of survivors managing to actually build a community. Lack of genetic diversity would destroy them quickly.

Australia's agriculture is a bit of a mess, since weather issues require us moving water around from other places quite often. It is not reliable due to sudden long droughts and flash floods (depending where you are). Fishing isn't a massive thing down here so that is not going to help most survivors. Keep in mind the animals like cows and pigs are too risky due to infection - there goes a lot of our food

It IS possible that because we are so spread out (~3 people per km) a larger community could have gotten by unscathed. Australia doesn't have too many wild mammals to spread the infection from population centre to population centre.


As much as I would like to say my descendants would be punching trolls in the face, I don't think Aus has a good shot at anything in the long run. My money is on Japan - they closed their borders early and have a strong fishing culture

Snommelp

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #581 on: April 30, 2015, 01:45:04 PM »
Plus, there is no cold to deter Trolls and limit their actions.

That, I think, is the big question that needs answering before we can really delve very far into the rest of the world. We know trolls (and beasts, to a lesser extent) are negatively impacted by extreme cold. We don't know how they react to extreme heat, like what you have in the Australian Outback, the southwestern United States, the Arabian desert, etc. We also don't know how much (or if) humidity might affect them.

But I do definitely agree with Koeshi that the Australian wilderness is not as dangerous to sapient creatures (i.e. humans) as the internet likes to joke about. Depending on how extreme heat and dryness affect trolls, I'd say that the small communities in the Outback would probably get along just fine.
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BreezeLouise

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #582 on: April 30, 2015, 05:34:13 PM »
As much as I would like to say my descendants would be punching trolls in the face, I don't think Aus has a good shot at anything in the long run.

In all seriousness, I do agree with this. Lots of good points raised that I didn't think of. On top of all that, too, it would be nearly impossible to retake land without very cold winters, assuming that extreme heat isn't enough to actually kill trolls. They would have to manually hunt down every single beast, troll and giant.

That, I think, is the big question that needs answering before we can really delve very far into the rest of the world. We know trolls (and beasts, to a lesser extent) are negatively impacted by extreme cold. We don't know how they react to extreme heat, like what you have in the Australian Outback, the southwestern United States, the Arabian desert, etc. We also don't know how much (or if) humidity might affect them.

Since the only information we have so far points to trolls thriving in heat, I think the base assumption should be that extreme heat wouldn't be as big a concern to trolls as cold. It's true that, no matter what you are, enough heat will kill you. However, given that we don't actually know their limit and that we do know that they prefer hotter environments, I really think we have to assume that they have a very high tolerance for heat.

As for humidity, I don't think we really have anything to go on one way or the other. The starting assumption kinda has to be that it wouldn't really affect them, at least until some more information comes up.
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Koeshi

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #583 on: May 01, 2015, 10:10:30 AM »
Considering how gloopy (being technical here) the Trolls seem to be, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that a high heat/low humidity combination could be damaging for them.  Not enough to make them hibernate like extreme cold perhpas, but possibly enough to weaken them.

In our more rural areas population is so sparse there is very little chance of a group of survivors managing to actually build a community. Lack of genetic diversity would destroy them quickly.

I'm not sure about that, the southern US states seem to cope with it quite well (I kid :P).  But in all seriousness, I think people from different settlements would group together instinctively and that would probably provide enough diversity for a century or so.  As I have said before, modern day Iceland is notoriously inbred and yet they are (kinda) thriving in Year 90.

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Amity

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #584 on: May 02, 2015, 01:33:11 AM »
The hardihood of rash-infected creatures is definitely a factor, but I think it's eclipsed by an even greater factor.

Namely, the virulence of the disease itself in its initial phase.

I want to point out the difference between Iceland and the rest of (known) Europe in this regard.  The total die-off rate from all factors for non-Iceland Europe was something like 99.9%.  It was basically TPK.

Meanwhile the total die-off rate for Iceland was under 50%.  Assuming that a large portion of the population squeeze was food-related (either immediate starvation or a more gradual controlled population decline over several generations between Y0 and Y90), that means that Iceland was essentially unaffected by the disease.

I want to reiterate that.  Iceland was by all appearances unaffected directly by the rash illness.

Which makes sense.  Because the disease is, as we've noted, basically a total wipeout.  We would know very easily if Iceland had suffered a substantial infection -- because the Y90 population would be in the 100s, top.

So that means that Europe got hit, pretty much indiscriminately, while Iceland did not get hit basically at all.  What was the difference?

If you go back and read the prelude, the difference was two days.  Two days, at most, between when the government in Reykjavík made the decision to impose absolute quarantine on the island (combined, presumably, with quarantine on all visitors who had arrived recently), and when the other governments of the world began following suit.

What difference did those 2 days make?  It was the difference between being more or less unaffected and total carnage.  That is, 2 days later was too late.  It didn't help, at all.  No, nobody was dying yet on day 3 -- but they were all carriers by then.  They were all walking around doomed, and didn't know it.

For instance, when Gøran is reading the newspaper and saying Scandinavia is likely to be infected in the next few weeks?  The paper is wrong.  Scandinavia is already infected.  Except Dalsnes because it's totally cut off.  By day 3 Denmark closes its borders, but it doesn't help.  Denmark is already dead.  The people on the ferry boat were by some freak coincidence a whisker ahead of the rash.

This is a lethal freaking disease.  Virulent, incredibly infectious, and incredibly lethal.

And it's the problem with any of the scenarios we're talking about here -- if you weren't already shut down on day 0, you're all dead.  All of you.  Everyone.

If you're an aircraft carrier and you had personnel transfer in the 48 hours between day 0 and day 3?  All dead.  Floating tomb.

Remote, sparsely inhabited island with a bed and breakfast for tourists?  All dead.  Or trolls.

100 miles of fence that you couldn't patrol constantly?  Sorry, someone got over.  You and everyone on your side are dead now, too.

So from the point of view of imagining intact societies, we're faced with an interesting situation.  In some ways it simplifies things.  It doesn't really matter so much who has what equipment or training, or which kinds of geographies help or hinder human survival.  It all really boils down to one thing:  were you cut off from the rest of the world by day 0 or weren't you?

That's not to say there won't be pockets of survivors in odd nooks and crannies -- statistically we'd expect there to be a few hundred thousand people alive spread across the USA by Y90 for example, mostly on islands in the Great Lakes or off the Atlantic coast, or in remote areas of the Rockies.  Maybe some of the smaller Hawaiian islands.  And the pre-rash American military would leave a legacy -- but it's hard to see how there could be any kind of intact society.  Look at Europe.  The nations of the mainland are all gone.  Completely wiped out.

In the end, nothing they had helped.   Nothing at all.
« Last Edit: May 02, 2015, 01:38:05 AM by AmityM »
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