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 258935 times)

Cynic

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #195 on: October 02, 2014, 08:29:16 AM »
If year zero is in the near future, there will be waay more men than women on those ships.
But that will only be a problem for the first generation ;)

JoB

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #196 on: October 02, 2014, 08:46:22 AM »
But that will only be a problem for the first generation ;)
Not quite (genetic diversity, especially mitochondrial) ... :P
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Mayabird

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #197 on: October 06, 2014, 12:06:07 AM »
If they start out with enough genetic diversity in the first place it's not going to get that bad in only 90 years.  You'd likely find more genetic diversity on a single moderately large American naval ship than you could find in the entire native Icelandic population because it's drawing from a much more diverse population with a lot of varying ancestry, versus a population descended from a small number of settlers that pretty much just interbred with each other without much outside inputs for several hundred years. 

Pessi

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #198 on: October 06, 2014, 01:08:16 AM »
I've actually been wondering how Icelandic people are doing in a world where things like Islendiga-App aren't working any more. Which is not to say that we Finns aren't quite inbred too, which would probably lead quite quickly to serious health issues in a small society like SSSS's.
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noako

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #199 on: October 06, 2014, 02:38:33 AM »
I've actually been wondering how Icelandic people are doing in a world where things like Islendiga-App aren't working any more. Which is not to say that we Finns aren't quite inbred too, which would probably lead quite quickly to serious health issues in a small society like SSSS's.


I think Minna said somewhere that she researched how many people there needs to be for inbreeding not to happen. The amount was around 500, so I think it's more or less said that it's not a problem in the world.

Pessi

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #200 on: October 06, 2014, 05:06:31 AM »
Do you know if that count was based on a society allready quite inbred? And made keeping in mind the existence of the 40 Finnish heritage diseases and the fact that they are more common in East and North Finland, which include the Saimaa area? In a small population a serious hereditary illness like Salla disease could cause much damage...
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noako

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #201 on: October 06, 2014, 10:09:43 AM »
Do you know if that count was based on a society allready quite inbred? And made keeping in mind the existence of the 40 Finnish heritage diseases and the fact that they are more common in East and North Finland, which include the Saimaa area? In a small population a serious hereditary illness like Salla disease could cause much damage...

Haha, unfortunately I don't know about that! Minna simply said somewhere she had researched it... I wonder if she took those things in consideration.
Maybe she just decided that it doesn't matter in her story?

Pessi

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #202 on: October 07, 2014, 01:05:44 AM »
Yep. A story is a story after all. Perhaps most if not all the people carrying our disease heritage got infected with the rash, and the survivers were genetically varied enough to form a healthy basis for the new dimished population - even if those Finnish heritage diseases seem to be the consequence of a "population bottleneck" 4000 years ago, which might mean that the new "bottleneck" caused by the rash could have same kind of effects.
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Anderson

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #203 on: October 07, 2014, 03:26:28 AM »
Looking at my home country (New Zealand), there's quite a few ways that something like the Rash Illness could go. Once the epidemic was realised to be super-serious, international travel via airports and ships would be banned. Since we're effectively a very large, very remote archipelago this would deal with the problem in the short term....assuming our rather small defense force could enforce the quarantine (although we're helped by our position: the Tasman Sea, South Pacific and Southern Ocean are not a group of waters known for being particularly tranquil).

The long term isn't so rosy though: New Zealand has quite high marine mammal populations, and given that at least one study has shown that TB crossed the atlantic in the lungs of seals, it's entirely possible that infected marine life would bring the disease over anyway.

So either the whole country would survive, but infrastructure would collapse and the population would drop due to a lack of food production.....or one or more main islands would collapse. The west coast of the South Island might make it...it's remote enough, has a low population that's particularly no-nonsense and hardy, and isn't connected to the rest of the country except though mountain passes that would be easy to block off with saturation bombing or just knocking a bridge or two. The other two places I'd imagine would survive (in the medium term) would be the Chatham Islands, 800km away from the mainland, and possibly Stewart Island.

And the Ross Dependency would be just fine, but Antarctica is probably not a place you want to be during the apocalypse.

The interesting thing for me (as an ecologist) is that most of the problems with the ecosystems here are caused by introduced mammals. Killing them off might actually lead to some interesting results, although replacing them with ravenous undead monstrosities is not an approach that is likely to win funding if I propose it to anyone.

ThisCat

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #204 on: October 07, 2014, 12:04:41 PM »
I've actually been wondering how Icelandic people are doing in a world where things like Islendiga-App aren't working any more.

Maybe they deal with it the same way the vikings did? Extremely accurate family registries and a rule against marrying anyone closer related to you than seven steps.

The interesting thing for me (as an ecologist) is that most of the problems with the ecosystems here are caused by introduced mammals. Killing them off might actually lead to some interesting results, although replacing them with ravenous undead monstrosities is not an approach that is likely to win funding if I propose it to anyone.

Eh, try proposing it anyways. You never know.
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Superdark33

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #205 on: October 07, 2014, 01:29:09 PM »
Some thoughts:

Tamed sharks.

Tamed lions => Zulu warriors riding lions

Tamed eagles (well thats not new).
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Sir.Orc

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #206 on: October 08, 2014, 07:39:19 PM »
Don't know if it got mentioned here, but I suggested the Hawaiian island of Niihau in the comments on the main page as a possible safe haven for survivors. The island is already rather isolated and self-sufficient.
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Sylencre

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #207 on: October 10, 2014, 07:46:39 AM »
a question about Infected bats, would the subsequent Beasts/Vermin still be able to fly?
and how would this effect settlements/surviving populations, like would it only be a concerns in areas with dense bat populations, or any where there are bats. 'cause flying carriers of the disease would be very hard to protect against.
I'm asking because I'm still not really sure if the Rash completely transforms the infected creature or if it still resembles it origin.

Richard Weir

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #208 on: October 10, 2014, 08:21:57 AM »
Word Of God is that infected bats can't fly:- the distortions and mutations caused by the infection would render them aerodynamically crippled.
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Faust

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Re: usa most likely to nuke Russia to avoid nuking its self to shift blame.
« Reply #209 on: October 10, 2014, 11:36:25 PM »
1 percent surviving and 99 percent turning few places will survive if they don't dispose of the dead and infected suitably. Many places that should survive wouldn't.

Requirements to survive:
1. Food. Need fields to farm and fish or lizards or bugs for protein.
2. Water. Freshwater that is drinkable will be a big issue to many industrial areas and down stream from them. Other areas have dry seasons and will need to know about digging wells.
3. defence. Islands or oil fields (flame throwers) or mountain ranges will be the best locations.
4. Population. Need enough people so inbreeding doesn't kill of the group, this may make them roam or send expeditions to seek each other out.
5. Trust / cooperation. Groups may kill each other for many reasons when they meet.

Off that 1 percent I expect the high optimistic number to be 5 percent surviving a decade.

Africa is actually one of the highest survivable areas in my opinion with low tech living in tribes they will have to only consider 3 and 5.

All things considered I thing the country most likely to survive as a country after the decimation is China.