Survivor communities outside the known world

[Vafhudr]

Yeah, nuking the f***er from orbit is not exactly an option in this situation.

Now there is a nice thought, the Rash spreading on a spacecraft...  Whole corridors blocked off by fleshy mounds, small scuttling trolls bursting out of air vents...

Dead Space.

That's Dead Space.

[BreezeLouise]

The U.S. tour of duty on the carriers is 3 and 6 months. Tours can be extended. The ships that had just left the U.S. coast and not yet made landfall in the Mediterranean or other European ports would be safe along with the carrier group ships (destroyers) that are sailing with them. The ones that they would be relieving (because of shore leave) though could be infected. Still I think that you could initially have 3 to 4 carrier groups unaffected. Two in the Pacific and two in the Atlantic.

The Brits might have one or 2 carrier groups that miss initial infection if they are in Mid Atlantic when the break out occurs. If Britain was overwhelmed before they could do anything for them they may have been ordered to Falklands to protect the colony there and insure the British culture survive in some form.

Most personnel is rotated while in port. Only occasionally is someone special flown out to the carrier group once it is in progress.

3 to 4 seems most likely to me, too. It's the number we normally have deployed at one time, so unless we decide to surge them for some reason, that's as good as it's going to get. Also, you might be right, but the research I did before stated at least six months of deployment. Not a horribly important detail, but you know.

Unfortunately, it looks like the UK only has one active carrier at the moment, and that's an amphibious assault ship. They're currently between the old Invincible class ships and the new Queen Elizabeth class. Until the HMS Queen Elizabeth is commissioned in a few years, they're not going to have any active supercarriers. Perhaps more importantly, even the newer ones aren't going to be nuclear powered, so fuel would be a constant concern.

However...the French have the Charles de Gaulle, which is currently the only non-US nuclear-powered carrier in the world. I don't know how regularly it's deployed or anything, but there is totally hope there.

[Amity]

Wow guys, there's lots of good information here about plausible survival modes.

So it's possible that a few naval bases -- or navalized civilian ports, like how in the comic the original survivors' destinations have become military outposts -- would likely have become centers of civilization and intact non-immune populations.

I could totally imagine a US carrier group staging an aggressive takeover of some small island, force everyone into 2 week isolation quarantine, and then once the infected had been identified let everyone else out, start moving their vulnerable  population onto shore, and establish a real settlement.

In terms of use of weapons, I could actually see them using nuclear warheads the way the cleansers do their work in Sweden -- explode one over Los Angeles; let the heat, shock, fire, and ionizing radiation kill off the trolls; and then move in wearing heavy protective gear to establish some kind of perimeter for the next few years while the background radiation dies down.

I want to point out that this would actually be an extraordinarily bad idea!  It would poison the soil and groundwater for quite a bit longer than a few years.  Hopefully the people in charge of those weapons would remember everything they learned in school and not be so quick to set them off.  But as someone else pointed out, they might panic, or think they were being "pragmatic" or something.

More likely, though, any intact navy would spend Y0 - Y50 preoccupied with infected whales and other survival related issues.  After that, the reactors would start running out of fuel.  Life by Y90 would really depend on how well they planned during the first few decades -- you could build a lot of wind turbines or even solar panels with all that power and machining capability, but you'd have to make the decision to start doing that early, and sustain it over many years.

Definitely food for thought!

[Koeshi]

I want to point out that this would actually be an extraordinarily bad idea!  It would poison the soil and groundwater for quite a bit longer than a few years.  Hopefully the people in charge of those weapons would remember everything they learned in school and not be so quick to set them off.  But as someone else pointed out, they might panic, or think they were being "pragmatic" or something.

That was part of my point with nukes.  Even if they did wipe out all of the infected, you don't want to choose to settle in an area that has been irradiated.

[urbicande]

Actually, thinking about it. Hawaii is a possibility IFF they closed off air travel.  (Even if the mainland US didn't, Hawaii could have.  Same with places like Fiji and Guam)

[Koeshi]

Hawaii has already been ruled out as even if they managed to shut the borders in time, they still do not have enough farm land to support the population, they rely too heavily on imported food.  Also, sea Beasts.

[Snommelp]

Hawaii did pretty all right on its own before it was discovered by Europeans, though, didn't it? There was something in the area of 1000 years where Hawaiians survived and thrived without imported food, and there were hundreds of thousands of them by the time Cook arrived in 1778. I wouldn't be surprised if the Islands could sustain a post-Illness population. The real question is the sea Beasts, since the pre-colonial Hawaiians relied so heavily on seafood.

[Koeshi]

I think you will have found the population has increased somewhat since then, 1.5 million.  Plus that doesn't take into account however many thousands of tourists are there at the time.

[Snommelp]

And the current population of Iceland is around 330 thousand, but Year 90 Iceland has only 190.6 thousand. Even the safest spot in the known world saw a dramatic decrease in population; it was cut almost in half (~57.76%). High estimates put pre-Cook Hawaii at around 1 million people. If Hawaii had a similar drastic population decline to what Iceland experienced, that puts the population comfortably back into pre-Cook levels. I wouldn't be surprised if Hawaii experienced an even greater decline than Iceland's, truth be told. But a dramatic decline is very different from complete annihilation.

[urbicande]

And the current population of Iceland is around 330 thousand, but Year 90 Iceland has only 190.6 thousand. Even the safest spot in the known world saw a dramatic decrease in population; it was cut almost in half (~57.76%). High estimates put pre-Cook Hawaii at around 1 million people. If Hawaii had a similar drastic population decline to what Iceland experienced, that puts the population comfortably back into pre-Cook levels. I wouldn't be surprised if Hawaii experienced an even greater decline than Iceland's, truth be told. But a dramatic decline is very different from complete annihilation.

Yes. Although lack of cold might be a problem, but I don't see it as insuperable.  It would be a rough few years.

Actually, what's the situation in Nuuk?

[Alpy]

That was part of my point with nukes.  Even if they did wipe out all of the infected, you don't want to choose to settle in an area that has been irradiated.

You could use a distraction to gather as many infected to an area and then nuke them.

[Sunflower]

And the current population of Iceland is around 330 thousand, but Year 90 Iceland has only 190.6 thousand. Even the safest spot in the known world saw a dramatic decrease in population; it was cut almost in half (~57.76%). High estimates put pre-Cook Hawaii at around 1 million people. If Hawaii had a similar drastic population decline to what Iceland experienced, that puts the population comfortably back into pre-Cook levels. I wouldn't be surprised if Hawaii experienced an even greater decline than Iceland's, truth be told. But a dramatic decline is very different from complete annihilation.

I think this came up 'way back in this thread's earliest days, but the island of Niihau is a good candidate for successfully isolating against the Rash.  Niihau is essentially a private "reservation" for Native Hawaiians; unauthorized visits are not allowed. 

Residents do have radio contact with the outside world and (I assume) weapons, so they might be able to stave off attempted landings by desperate or unscrupulous refugees.  OTOH, the island has only about 200 residents, so even if they succeeded with quarantine, down the road they might face the typical problems of being a very small and mostly related population. 

As for the other Hawaiian islands, they have so much tourism that they'd be Infected quickly.  But if we assume an Immunity rate of 5-10% (like in the Known World), Oahu's 1 million-plus population would drop to 50-100,000, a reasonable number for the island to feed.  (Assuming they manage to hold out against the trolls.  But there is a lot of underlying folk belief in traditional Hawaiian religion, even on cosmopolitan Oahu and much more on the other islands.  So I can picture troll hunters in salvaged armor from the many U.S. military bases, zapping trolls in the sugar plantations north of Honolulu with mana and retreating to a defensible camp on Ford Island.)

I spent much of my childhood in Hawaii, when my father was stationed at CINCPACFLT near Honolulu, so I certainly *hope* those lovely islands survive.

[Vafhudr]

Yes. Although lack of cold might be a problem, but I don't see it as insuperable.  It would be a rough few years.

Actually, what's the situation in Nuuk?

If I had to provide an educated guess, I would say that the situation in Nuuk is quite dire.

No communities in the high north, and I am thinking specifically of Nunavut and Greenland in this matter, cannot sustain settlements as we know them without serious logistical support from the south. Nunavut gets it from Canada, Greenland gets it from Denmark.

Nothing can grow and the staples of local traditional nutrition - such as seals, walruses, and whales are probably going to be infected. If they do subsist, they will revert to more nomadic/ semi-nomadic patterns of settlement.

Fishing could be done, but you don't build a diet on fish alone - nor would fishing be particularly safe with the threat of beasts lurking beneath the waves.

[Rasder]

Japan is actually a fairly likely candidate. They were the second nation to close their borders, and they have some crazy healthcare. They're also extremely far from Spain, where the first victims of  the illness were, making the chance of infection much lower. They can survive easily on fish and rice. Their biggest problem is the fact that right now they aren't having enough babies, so as old people die, the population will swiftly decrease for the next decade or so. However, in a country where the population density is already extremely high, that could be a benefit. Another problem is that the population density would make any possible tourists spread the disease extremely fast. Rural villages and other islands would be almost completely safe, though.

[Auleliel]

Japan is actually a fairly likely candidate. They were the second nation to close their borders, and they have some crazy healthcare.

Having just suffered through an experience with Japan's healthcare system (still suffering two weeks after the experience, actually), I don't believe that any of Japan's "crazy healthcare" advances have been made available to the public in any significant way. Also, after 90 years of medical research, not a single country in the Known World has found a cure or vaccine for the Rash, and my impression of Nordic healthcare is just as high as some people's impressions of Japanese healthcare, not to mention the many other countries with good healthcare that have become part of the Silent World, so having good healthcare may not be a good indicator for survival.

They're also extremely far from Spain, where the first victims of  the illness were, making the chance of infection much lower.

The first publicized cases were of refugees in Spain. We have no way of knowing where it really started. However, it is unlikely that refugees to Spain would come from a place that could also send refugees to Japan. *nods*

They can survive easily on fish and rice.

Fish and rice is not a nutritionally balanced diet, and nowadays Japan imports a lot of rice. Japanese food is supplemented by a variety of foods, many of which are imported. I think if the current generation had to suddenly survive without imports, there would be a lot of hunger and starvation very quickly.

Their biggest problem is the fact that right now they aren't having enough babies, so as old people die, the population will swiftly decrease for the next decade or so. However, in a country where the population density is already extremely high, that could be a benefit.

Yes, the population decline would become an advantage.

Another problem is that the population density would make any possible tourists spread the disease extremely fast. Rural villages and other islands would be almost completely safe, though.

Japan has a lot of tourists, especially from Europe. The chance of infection from tourists is very high.
Nowadays, rural villages aren't so rural, and are probably not self-sufficient to any significant degree.
There also is Japan's enormous coastline to consider. There are five major countries close enough to Japan for refugees to try to get to Japan, and Japan's military is not big enough to patrol the entire coastline without conscription and taking over fishing boats (neither of which are likely to happen, given Japan's current political and social climate).
Even if Japan miraculously avoided getting the Rash from tourists and refugees, the islands would likely be cut off from one another... I can't imagine anyone in Hokkaido, for instance, being able to trust that a boat arriving from Okinawa is safe. I don't think Japan would be able to stay as one country even if it survived the Rash and the initial starvation period.

Although it would be interesting to see the kind of magic that would be created with Shinto ritualistic practices.