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 257727 times)

ruth

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #45 on: September 03, 2014, 03:55:28 PM »
That's really cool ruth!
I've been trying one myself since yesterday (over 9000 hours in paintGIMP, do not steal  :P), but I still can't find the right place for the settlements...


(Click for a biger one)

Something's clear though: It shouldn't be bigger than Mora, it should be away from the coast (The most densely populated areas, specially in the mediterranean, after the capital's surrroundings), and it should be In the northwest and north, because of the temperatures. Then there's things like castles, small walled towns, little villages in the mountains... The only two places I've found are Almeida (Portugal) and Ciudad Rodrigo (Spain), one next to the other, and I hope to find something in the Pyrenees...

Care to share any tips?

hey! this sounds very cool, i can't actually access your dropbox file since i'm getting a 403 error, but if you're looking for an isolated place to put a few settlements in the pyrenees i think val d'aran (on the spanish side) and formiguera on the french side. la val d'aran is i think the only part of spain on the northern side of the pyrenees, and formiguera is a ski resort.
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Headfinder

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #46 on: September 03, 2014, 06:53:38 PM »
Your picture appears to be broken.
hey! this sounds very cool, i can't actually access your dropbox file since i'm getting a 403 error, but if you're looking for an isolated place to put a few settlements in the pyrenees i think val d'aran (on the spanish side) and formiguera on the french side. la val d'aran is i think the only part of spain on the northern side of the pyrenees, and formiguera is a ski resort.
*swears profusely*
I edited the post, It should work now (If it doesn't, here's the link). I'll check Formiguera and Val d'Aran (Is that in the catalonian Pyrenees?) tomorrow, though, it's getting late here. Thanks anyway.

Fralambert

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #47 on: September 03, 2014, 09:43:01 PM »


Stand Still, Stay Silent by ruthszulc, on Flickr

here's a little project of mine looking at what survivor communities outside the known world might look like! of course, everyone else's "known world" is going to be different if they haven't made contact. canada hasn't fared as well as iceland, and the largest community in the otherwise safe island of newfoundland—st. john's—fell early to the rash. isolation has been cold and lonely for its survivors, who aren't quite as keen on cleansing as the swedes, but nevertheless by year 90 there are a few projects to expand into the boundaries of the silent world. and the legacy of france lives on with its tiny colonial province. :)

Ruth, thanks for the great map!. Newfoundland is sure a good candidate for a surviving comunauty, but I think you are a little over generous for the population. A realist surviving rate is propably more the 10% (50000). If I thnk by ressource, the essentials places are Port au Basque (the only agriculture of the Island), Corner Brook (Hydro-electricity, forestery) and Come By Chance (The only refinery of the island, near the "wall" of Avalon.). You should also a oil platform, like Hibernia of Terra Nova.

For Quebec the number of survivor sould not be bigger that the one of Sweden, so we shoud have 20000 - 25000 peoples max. The actual population of Anticosti Island is only 200 peoples (vs. 300000 deers), even if survivors migrate to the Island, I dont think it sould be bigger the 2000 - 3000 peoples. Magdalen Islands, who actual population is 14000 is probably a best "safe harbour". They aslo have the same soils that Prince Edward Island and the Acadian coast of New Brunswick, so it explain the colonization. For the resource, we sould add the Fermont iron mine (and the railway to Port-Cartier), probably one of the numerous hydroelectric generating stations of the Manicouagan River.

For Saint-Pierre, I think the population is correct.

wr4ith0

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #48 on: September 03, 2014, 09:50:25 PM »
Is anyone else taking into account the return of pre-christian scandinavian pantheons? The scandinavian mages seem like a pretty major leg up.

  I'm assuming the reason it was called the "silent world" was due to a lack of telecommunications broadcasts (which with the right setup can be bounced to the other side of the globe).  While it doesn't rule out less technologically advanced survivors, everyone else is either dead or neurotically isolationist.


Also while fishing seems like a useful means of collecting meals, has anyone considered what happened to all the whales...


ruth

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #49 on: September 03, 2014, 09:58:26 PM »
Ruth, thanks for the great map!. Newfoundland is sure a good candidate for a surviving comunauty, but I think you are a little over generous for the population. A realist surviving rate is propably more the 10% (50000). If I thnk by ressource, the essentials places are Port au Basque (the only agriculture of the Island), Corner Brook (Hydro-electricity, forestery) and Come By Chance (The only refinery of the island, near the "wall" of Avalon.). You should also a oil platform, like Hibernia of Terra Nova.

For Quebec the number of survivor sould not be bigger that the one of Sweden, so we shoud have 20000 - 25000 peoples max. The actual population of Anticosti Island is only 200 peoples (vs. 300000 deers), even if survivors migrate to the Island, I dont think it sould be bigger the 2000 - 3000 peoples. Magdalen Islands, who actual population is 14000 is probably a best "safe harbour". They aslo have the same soils that Prince Edward Island and the Acadian coast of New Brunswick, so it explain the colonization. For the resource, we sould add the Fermont iron mine (and the railway to Port-Cartier), probably one of the numerous hydroelectric generating stations of the Manicouagan River.

For Saint-Pierre, I think the population is correct.

hey fralambert, thanks for the feedback!

i agree with a lot of your revisions. i'm embarrassed to say i don't know a great deal about the smaller communities of NL & QC, so some of it was based more on a few wild hypotheticals (i.e., that anticosti's population would consist mostly of people coming from the shore, deciding that a "clean" island would be better than trying to tough it out on cleansed coastline) and just ignorance (14k on îles-de-la-madeleine?? no way!). the madeleines would definitely feature as a safe harbour, though i think they probably would not be able to support a population of more than a couple thousand either, just like st. p. & miq. and those are good calls on the iron mine & railway & hibernia oil field. i didn't know about those, but they would definitely be highly useful to this little gang of survivors.

in the end, i think like you said, 75,000 is probably a more realistic population for this group, with 50,000 in NL, 20,000 in QC, and 5,000 in SPM. there's probably a little more i can do to tweak the choice of cleansed areas/population centres/focus, and in the next revision i'll add some more of the hydroelectric power generating stations in manicouagan, newfoundland, and the other resources, like iron and oil.

Is anyone else taking into account the return of pre-christian scandinavian pantheons? The scandinavian mages seem like a pretty major leg up.

the canadians worship their mythical war god, tim horton, and hold great feasts of doughnuts in his honour.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2014, 10:00:46 PM by ruth »
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Lida

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #50 on: September 03, 2014, 10:05:59 PM »
What are the chances that the Nordic council knows about other survivor communities, but is just keeping quiet about it in an effort to control their own people? Maybe the risk of bringing in struggling survivors to their tightly formed society is too great? Iceland could very well have spent the last 90 years listening to radio broadcasts around the world go dark, not willing to step in and intervene. It's not like any regular citizens would have the technology to catch on.

Haverberg

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #51 on: September 04, 2014, 12:00:55 AM »
I think in the part of the world I'm from (upper midwest) You would see some scattered survivor communities in the boundary waters/wilderness areas. Its filled with a multitude of glacial lakes with easily defensible choke points, and enough fish and game to support small communities. There would also be the Ojibwa Indians at Red Lake and other, smaller communities in North Dakota (oil, grain, & livestock). I don't know much about further west, but I think anything along the Snake River canyon in Montana and Idaho would be a good choice as well.

Twin Cities and points east (Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, rust belt) and south (bread basket) would be a death zone, more than likely. Just enough people, transit, open land, and productive land to succumb early and become a breeding/hunting ground for trolls and giants. It wouldn't fall as fast as the coastal cities, but there's nothing to stop the virus from rolling over it.

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BrainBlow

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #52 on: September 04, 2014, 05:38:45 AM »
Also while fishing seems like a useful means of collecting meals, has anyone considered what happened to all the whales...
The comic says that Norwegians hunt "sea beasts." I'm kind of assuming this means whales got infected somehow. Tragic if that's the case, though that would then make me wonder how the Icelanders could possibly be safe at all.
You just need one dead carcass to wash ashore...
« Last Edit: September 04, 2014, 05:40:31 AM by BrainBlow »


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Annie

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #53 on: September 04, 2014, 06:57:40 AM »
Quote
You just need one dead carcass to wash ashore...

That makes the red hash-lines on this map http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=56 make a lot more sense. If you could get whales, dolphins, seals, etc. coming on shore, you'd want to keep the general population well away.
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RaeSeddon

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #54 on: September 04, 2014, 08:53:42 AM »
Caught a really interesting documentary on the Inca last night that got me thinking. The Inca were phenominal engineers-- they landscaped mountains. If like the Nordic countries the natives went back to pre-Christian ways, their instincts would have been to retreat pretty much as high as you could safely get into the mountains, probably repopulating a lot of the old mountain cities and estates like Machu Pichu (which was so well constructed it's been sitting on top of a mountain, between *two* fault lines and gets twice as much rain in a year as Chicago and has never once flooded). It doesn't get very cold, and while disease is one of the reasons the original empire eventually collapsed, with modern technology and engingeering not a whole heck of a lot could get to them up there. Survive communities would be very small, as the most a place like Machu Pichu could hold was about 1,000 people, give or take, but as a last resort stronghold, it's probably the best bet they'd have of surviving to Year 90. 

tesseract

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #55 on: September 04, 2014, 03:53:20 PM »
Hi, guys! I've summarized some of the fan speculation on this thread over at the Wild Mass Guessing page for Stand Still Stay Silent on TvTropes:http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/StandStillStaySilent Right now it's just a list of places, but more detail would be great. Would any of you like to come over and make a case for your favorite stronghold of humanity?
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Headfinder

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #56 on: September 04, 2014, 09:47:39 PM »
I think we should set a guideline of the best qualities for a settlement's survival.

I made a list, separated in natural and cultural characteristics before the Rash started spreading, leaving aside mages and the country's behaviour, which are harder to determine



  - Natural barriers: Water, mountains, anything that keeps the place isolated. This is quite obvious.

  - Cold temperatures: Freezing temperatures are needed for cleansing. Expec this in the north, the mountains and maybe even some regions of the sahara desert at night.

  - Deforestation(/Aridity/Visibility?): A village in the middle of the forest will have a harder time that one in the plains. The trolls will be harder to spot, and might hide from the sunlight. This isn't too different from what cleansed areas we've been shown around Björköfjärden - Mora's train tracks. This is a plus for the mildly arid places

  - Food sources: Whether by plow, bolt or hook, provide for your dwarves people.

  - Resources: Mainly building resources, for palisades and walls.



  - Old world fortifications: Walled cities, castles, bunkers and any other prebuilt  fortifications will save you some time  from building your own fortifications

  - Weapons: Quite obvious, too. The best thing might be guns and rifles, either from humters, nearby military bases or places wwhere a war has happenned "recently". The more recent the better, you don't want a 120 years old rifle from the spanish civil war (but it might work good enough). Maybe, where immunity is commonplace, closer range, more traditional weapons could be an alternative for the beasts and smaller trolls. And a guy wielding a sword against a troll would be cool too. Since the disease only remains active for a few hours, this might be actually doable (But dangerous).

  - Old world resources: Nearby factories, powerplants and mines will be good to have around. These will be essential for further cleansing.

  - Warnings: Be it either by radio, tv or newspapers, your settlement should be aware of the trolls. Being isolated from the disease and the people that bring it is no guarantee against beasts and trolls. A settlement that lost contact with the outside world too soon won't get ready against the trolls. The Amish might fall victim of this.

  - Low, dispersed population: Saimaa holds 5500 inhabitants, distributed through many little villages at the lake system. We might expect successful settlements "exposed" to the silent world to range from 300 to 3000 inhabitants, if their inhabitants are all concentrated in one place. A good example is probably Aurland (pop:3600) which, unlike Mora and Rønne (16550 and 5150), is exposed to the silent world. Then you have Älvdalen (900) which is more "exposed".

Of course, settlements with an original population of "tens of thousands" might be doomed from start.

We should take into account that the original population might have been bigger. A settlement that started with 500 and lost 200 to the rash will have it easier than one which started with 300 and ended with 180 inhabitants. Too many and you'll die, too few and you die too

  - Transport: Saimaa wouldn't work like it does if it wasn't because of all that water that eases transport. Things would be definitely harder if all transport had to be done by land



What do you think?
« Last Edit: September 04, 2014, 09:56:41 PM by Headfinder »

Stereo

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #57 on: September 04, 2014, 10:09:37 PM »
I saw Alaska mentioned a few times, and having lived here for a few years feel like sharing a few things about Alaska.

Alaska, despite being the biggest state in the entire United States of America, is a very undeveloped state, more so than any other. Most of the land in Alaska is owned by the federal government (The percentage goes to 70% or 75% according to some.). As such, we do not have highways connecting all of the population centers (Oddly enough, many of us have to take a ferry to get to our capital of Juneau.). And even if we could get roads to connect all of Alaska, we have unique problems involved with building, or doing much of anything (Namely one problem that I care to mention, but there are others.). For us to construct on federal land, we have to ask permission and wait for however long it takes for them to approve or deny it. So development is incredibly slow here in Alaska.

The largest population center is Anchorage, and that is 230,000 of our total 700,000 population. After that, the next largest cities are our capital and Fairbanks, both clocking in 31,000 people. But past that, all of the remaining 408,000 people are scattered throughout the entire state, and with a rate of 1.26 people per square mile, there are a lot of areas where there are literally no people. Even with all of this land, we barely use any of it because we simply do not have the population to have a town every few hours from each other. In most cases we have to take bush planes to some of the smaller towns and villages, and the only major way to get into Alaska without getting a plane or a ferry, is to go through Canada on the Alkan Highway, and that highway is long as balls, and the only time to negotiate it easily is during summer or spring.

Winter is cold and it is long, and we basically go through Summer and Winter with no Spring or Autumn. You might think this is awesome, and that we get tons of snow, but such is not true. We do not get as much snow as you think, although that depends where in the 5 regions of Alaska you live (The Interior and North Slope are what I will be referring too, but the West Coast, the South East area, and the Islands usually get pretty heavy snow.). The snow in most places is useless, acting more like watery-icified-sand, with no real value besides covering the ground. The air itself is so dry that the moisture from the snow is literally sucked from the snow that falls, contributing to the uselessness of our snow. Also during winter, we lose a great deal of our day-light. During the earlier and mid-summer months, we have almost 24 hours of straight sunlight. Yes, the sun almost literally never sets. However, because  of Alaska's place on the Earth, during winter, we get only about 8 or 6 hours of daylight, and when the sun is down, the temperatures drop even colder. Where I live, the cold is so intense that it prevents much of the exhaust from furnaces and cars from escaping, and visibility and air quality plummet during those days. Although it wouldn't be a problem if most of the people died and turned, it is still an issue (Mostly for those living in natural "bowls".)

I saw someone earlier mention that Alaska has lots of guns and common sense. Yes, this is true. Many Alaskans own guns, and many of us are smart enough to not go outside naked during mid-winter. However, another thing about Alaska is that it is incredibly isolated, especially if you are putting forth an SSSS situation. We import basically all of our foods, and many other things because we don't have them here. That is part of why living up here is so expensive (But we also have higher wages than people in the lower 48 [Any state that isn't Alaska.] to balance this out!). Should mammalian life turn with the affliction, then much of the food that we have up here is going to be gunning to kill us, and thus makes much of Alaska easy pickings for the Silent Lands. I regret to say, but guns and ammunition are not edible. Although the native Alaskans would probably have a better time making it to the year 90 mark, much of Alaska would be Silent Lands and it would stay that way for a loooong time after, especially with how large and rugged we are here.

Although we have a very large military presence here, we do not have as many personnel or toys as we used to. We used to have a cracker ton of F-15's, but the lower 48 put them elsewhere in the states, taking with it all of the personnel who work and maintain those planes. We still have stuff up here, like A-10's and Bradley's, but not as many as there were at one point. And should the refineries, the pipeline, or the rigs lose too many people, there is no way to fuel all of those machines. Even now, the Alaska Pipeline is going to have to be replaced entirely in a few years because the steam from the oil is rusting the pipes from the inside out. So if someone wanted to claim all of the neato weapons of mass destruction we have up here, they'd need to devote a lot of time (And I am talking years if no touches those things for 90 years) and a lot of man power to reclaim those missile and nuke silos, and get those vehicles rolling again. Who is to say they'd even be useful (Although the APC's might be useful.) during the illness.

If anything, people would be surviving the 90 year mark on the coastlines near river mouths, or a little ways upstream. And they'd more than likely be Alaskan Native. (Imply there are no weirdo zombie whales!)

I could have gone on, but I wanted to make tacos, and I like tacos.

Fenris

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #58 on: September 04, 2014, 11:16:10 PM »
A fairly interesting map on global pandemic risks: http://www.ptaci-chripka.cz/dokumenty/map1.pdf

Bhutan seems like it might retain surviving communities, being a (relatively) sparsely populated mountainous country, with adequate farmland and rivers & natural barriers. Apart from the three largest 'cities' (which are 20-60k in population), their towns seem to already be at a fairly small size. It only has a single international airport, so initial outbreak might be contained to a decent degree even if they are late in doing so.

I also think the estonian islands might contain survivors, depending on the actions of the estonian government. Especially the western estonian archipelago, with a total area of roughly 4,000 km squared, a modern day population of less than forty thousand, food production capabilities, electricity production, ferries and timber. Quite a few of the smaller islands have permanent populations of about a hundred.

Sue D Nym

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #59 on: September 05, 2014, 01:38:10 AM »
I've noticed that a lot of people are writing like the virus has gone completely airborne, but I think it still retains its original method of transference. Meaning that outside the body, the virus doesn't last long. If you take that into account, just by closing off their borders quickly islands have a much better chance. This means that some islands that are not as far north, like Hawaii, might have some chance of surviving. Also, while some of these islands get most of their food imported now, they still have the ability to grow food as well as having access to lots of fish. *pondering* However, I think troll-dolphins could still be an issue.
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