Survivor communities outside the known world

[SlewedQuasar890]

Iceland has a lot of qualities that would make it survive better. But its interesting to think about other regions and how they could possibly survive. I think of Texas cause that's where I live. It wouldn't be able to quarantine its self as well as Iceland but it does have its own power grid desperate from the rest of the U.S. so in the rare chance that a group large enough could survive they could more easily restore the smaller grid. And possibly drill into the small amount of oil under Texas. Also Texas already has the resources to refine oil. All they would need is for enough people to survive to get it all working. Also Texas is hard for plants to grow with out proper irrigation, another big stepping stone but not impossible.

[Resender]

I think some of the reasons not much exploration is done outside the known world are:
*fuel,most of the reserves are probably still in infected area's or reserved for the military
*climate,from the evidence so far trolls don't do very well in cold environments
*own survival,setting up ounce own survival environment & increasing the environment in which it is safe is preferable in taken on extra survivors

Places where other survivors could be
Northern Hemisphere
*Hebrides
*Faroes
*Shetlands
*Greenland
*Isle of Man
*Artic

Southern Hemisphere
*Fireland (a island at the southern tip of South America,separated by the Magellan strait)
*Falklands (if Argentina didn't invade after the collapse of the UK government)
*St-George(if Argentina didn't invade after the collapse of the UK government)
*Tasmania
*New Zeeland(if they managed to isolate quick enough)
*Antartica
Other places
*Luna (well far fledged idea)

So far we've seen that all mammals except for those in the feline branch (this includes tigers,ect...) are susceptible to the pathogen.
Avian & reptilian seem to be immune.
And since Iceland seems to be still infection free almost a 100 years on I think this pathogen can't survive in salt water.

Also I suspect their might be plants that got infected/mutated in the past 9 decades to further spread the disease

[Noxyoursox]

I agree, humans are just as dangerous as trolls. Society breakdown has probably killed almost as many people as disease. Which again means that already isolated places have better chance. And those places are all over the world.

This is what I was thinking, too. One of the things that a lot of Preppers here in America forget, is that they will become targets when people get hungry. And a LOT of people would be hungry during the initial breakdown.

I think Japan has a good chance. On the one hand, they have a high population, but on the other hand, they have historically isolated themselves pretty effectively from other countries, and only recently opened up to the world. I don't think it would they would have as much trouble sustaining themselves as some other countries (especially since they rely on fish as one of their primary food sources--livestock take up too much space!). The big cities would be extremely dangerous, but in the countryside many Japanese still live traditionally and wouldn't be nearly as affected. Also, Japan may be isolated, but it also has a lot of well-educated people; that would drastically improve their chances of surviving things not related to the disease, and also perhaps recovering some of their technology and medicine once they got themselves organized.

[Fimbulvarg]

Other places
*Luna (well far fledged idea)

I can picture the astronauts/cosmonauts on the International Space Station trying desperately to stretch out what little food and water they have as the world slowly dies beneath them. Sounds like a different kind of horror story.

[Noxyoursox]

I can picture the astronauts/cosmonauts on the International Space Station trying desperately to stretch out what little food and water they have as the world slowly dies beneath them. Sounds like a different kind of horror story.

Whoa, yeah. I'm pretty sure they need coordination with people below in order to get back home safely--with the world in chaos, they might not be able to come back even if they wanted to.

[BrainBlow]

*Faroes
*Shetlands

Pretty sure the comic specifically lists those places as part of the silent world, thus I doubt there's anyone alive as I'm fairly sure the Icelanders would have at least ventured close at some point.
It'd make for an excellent quarantine zone after cleansing, though.

[Lida]

I rechecked the map, the Faroe Islands and Shetlands are indeed part of the silent world. I have to wonder why there hasn't been an effort between Sweden and Iceland to go in and cleanse the areas? They would make a good safe zone, with the possibility of resettlement. I know they have a relatively low population right now (Faroe has about 50,000 people). At the very least they could establish a quarantine facility, since Iceland's looks like it's right in the middle of the ocean.

[BrainBlow]

I rechecked the map, the Faroe Islands and Shetlands are indeed part of the silent world. I have to wonder why there hasn't been an effort between Sweden and Iceland to go in and cleanse the areas? They would make a good safe zone, with the possibility of resettlement. I know they have a relatively low population right now (Faroe has about 50,000 people). At the very least they could establish a quarantine facility, since Iceland's looks like it's right in the middle of the ocean.

Funding and allocation of resources is probably the problem.(and if they do ever get around to it, it will probably be an issue between Norway and Iceland, possibly with Danish input due to historical ownership)
The islands could make for a quarantine facility, but in general they are strategically unimportant unless the goal is to have a base of operations for expansion into the British isles, which is probably not considered very important at this point. Cleansing of Norwegian soil would be far more beneficial and easier.

[JoB]

Whoa, yeah. I'm pretty sure they need coordination with people below in order to get back home safely

Unclear. IIUC they keep one of the emptied transport spacecraft docked at all times to serve as an escape vehicle, in case of a large solar flare or somesuch, and I doubt that they trust it to run entirely on RC during such an event.

[Sparky Dragon]

I think Alaska would be a good candidate for survivorcy. Not only does most everyone have guns and good sense, but some of the places are so dang secluded that I wouldn't be altogether surprised if they never actually got infected. They don't have a lot of contact with other places, with exception of people flown in by bush plane. So, depending on how quickly the Rash spread down south, it might just be that those little places only hear about everything on the radio.

[ruth]

I rechecked the map, the Faroe Islands and Shetlands are indeed part of the silent world. I have to wonder why there hasn't been an effort between Sweden and Iceland to go in and cleanse the areas? They would make a good safe zone, with the possibility of resettlement. I know they have a relatively low population right now (Faroe has about 50,000 people). At the very least they could establish a quarantine facility, since Iceland's looks like it's right in the middle of the ocean.

if you squint, it looks like the northern shetland islands (yell and unst) have been cleansed, though there doesn't appear to be any kind of settlement or base there. it does seem a little strange that they wouldn't at least look to create a convenient anchorage halfway between iceland and the mainland.

[Esn]

How about the Solovetsky islands (aka. Solovki) in the White Sea in Russia's far north?


There's a monastery there that has a perfect defensible location between two bodies of water:


It used to be a major regional cultural centre, as well as a military fort that successfully defended against a British invasion.

We don't know whether it survived or not because those islands are totally missing on Minna's map. Perhaps their existence has simply been forgotten.

---

It seems that only settlements surrounded by bodies of water survive (even Mora; the centre of the city is on an island while the rest of the land seems to have been reconquered afterwards).

I agree that Newfoundland might be a candidate, but a more likely one is St. Pierre & Miquelon, two small French-owned islands which are just to the south:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon

also maybe Chapel Island in Bras d'Or lake in northern Nova Scotia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel_Island_%28Canada%29

Both of those places are relatively isolated and get lots of snow.

[Fimbulvarg]

The problem with that kind of outpost is that it's nice and isolated but not necessarily inhabitable. For starters the White Sea like the Baltic usually freezes over during the colder months, which means that fishing is limited to a short season. Growing vegetables like potatoes is also difficult and provides small crops. In other words, even if there were survivors there they would be few in number, probably on the brink of starvation. They would also have a difficult time fighting off any trolls crossing the ice. There is not really much there that can be turned into weapons, so they would have to conserve whatever they have.

[Headfinder]

And since Iceland seems to be still infection free almost a 100 years on I think this pathogen can't survive in salt water.

No such luck, I'd guess. Just look at this map of Reykjavík:

If the map of the Keuruu - Pori waterway is to go by, the areas in red (coastal areas) might be dangerous (to the Icelandic standards). This would explain the palisade at Bornholm, along with all the Islands that could have survived but didn't (Faroe, shetlands). Maybe these islands probably managed to seclude themselves, but couldn't stop the trolls that came eventually...

Water is still a factor in survivality though, as proven by the communities at the Saimaa lake system, although not the definitive defense.

[Mayabird]

I'm sure there were lots of survivor communities at first, since there are plenty of nowheres to be in the middle of, but the big question is how many were able to survive 90 years.  Scandinavia had communities that were able to connect with each other for mutual aid and trade.  Your wall got knocked down?  That's okay; the people in the next town can help and they also have spare people who can move in afterward to keep farming the land.  A town that's isolated in the wilderness surrounded by monsters only has to get unlucky once to be wiped out forever.  I wonder if that was another reason why Iceland went so isolationist - it was a defensive reaction to hearing cries on the radio from distant lands, and one by one listening to all those voices go quiet in the great silence.