Survivor communities outside the known world

[Róisín]

I had wondered about parts of the Snowies and some of the higher bits of the Blue Mountains. Maybe around Merigalah? That's very defensible terrain. Mind you, in Australia, the use of any such site would depend on whether or not marsupials are vulnerable to the disease.

[partofacitygiant]

Navarino Island south of Beagle Channel would be a good candidate, I think. Also West Falkland.

[Jenny Islander]

Nepal.  Kathmandu has a jet-capable airport and Janakpur has train service, so they would probably be plague pits, but outlying communities might survive.  Lhasa in Tibet has both jet and rail service, but the ruggedness of the rest of the country--China's busy road-building program notwithstanding--should save a lot of lives.

[Void Slayer]

Even if marsupials are not affected or are killed off entirely, there are plenty of rats and dogs to make life in Australia hell.

There was a more extensive write up earlier on in the thread about the Empire of Japan survivor nation, basically cut off the entire Japanese mainland and maintain a military controlled farming state.  Lots of famine, failed attempts to take back the mainland, mixture of 1940s tech and feudal japan.

[Róisín]

Yeah, lots of feral dogs, rats, rabbits etc. On the other hand, our present feral cat problem might turn out to be an advantage rather than a detriment. What we have most of around here, apart from the marsupials, is sheep, cattle, alpacas, horses.... oh, and here on the edge of our little town, feral guinea pigs, oddly enough. My cats often kill them when they come in the garden.

[matias93]

Anybody mentioned mountain ranges yet? Those could certainly house survivor communities - the Alps, Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateu, Maybe the Altai, the Taurus Mountains, definitely the Andes.. maybe more I don't know about.

It would be a harsh life for sure, with major survivor communities probably being confined to the cold of the glaciers and the very highest altitudes. But it would be possible - such places have very little in the way of vermin, it's still possible to keep some hardy types of livestock, and such places are very scarcely populated, thus limiting the Rash. That adds possible communities to South America at least, despite its southern altitude.

In the case of Chile, if the government closed frontiers and any ports soon (what is to say, less than 16 hours after the rash arrived at Barajas Airport in Madrid, the faster route I can imagine), the entire country could survive reasonably well, taking some measures:

• Closing frontiers in a really aggressive manner, with millitary forces shooting to everything that moves in each frontier pass (which are, luckily, less than 15 in the entire country)
• Erradicating mammals in all frontier zones, mainly cammelids and rats in the Andes, and sea mammals in the coasts.
• Creating internal layers or enforcing natural buffer zones, like Atacama desert, that couldn't be crossed without local support (for water, gas and so)
• Disgregating population from cities, mainly to avoid breaks of secondary infections that couldn't be controlled with only national medical resources.
• Establishing strict natality policies, which adapt the population growth to resource availability and the need to repopulate cleansed zones when it becomes possible.
• [very hard] developing reliable energy sources outside fossil fuels, that are basically absent in the territory.

Counterintuitively, Patagonia would be some of the harder places to control, because of the lack of natural frontiers with the much more probably infected Argentina. Maybe some independent communities would arise, but central Chile would certainly not know of them until radio communications are recovered.


And that's a big issue: if in year 90 nordic peoples had archived reliable radio communication, why they haven't stabilished links with other survivor settlements via long-wave radio? What is more, supposing that the rash had just one break in northern Africa, countries like Japan or Chile would have clear advantages in massive survival, and so, in keeping Old World technologies. By year 90, it would be reasonable that those settlements (or, best said, countries) would have reach Scandinavia in search of survivors decades ago.


It leads me to think that the rash could be a multifocal infection, happening in more than a break at a time, eliminating the possibility of these kind of super-developed survivor communities. Of course, just could be that the lack of fossil fuels could make feasible a massive survival rate in isolated countries, with hindered development.

[Róisín]

Good ideas. You'd have to watch the Atacama, though. The area has just had its second desert bloom in a year, after a long time without, probably because of climate change. If that kept up it would become far less of a barrier.

I was wondering about the high Andes, and also Tierra del Fuego. Both have plenty of defensible places, and should get cold enough, especially with high wind-chill, to offer some protection. And both already have a range of cold-tolerant root crops.

[Laufey]

And that's a big issue: if in year 90 nordic peoples had archived reliable radio communication, why they haven't stabilished links with other survivor settlements via long-wave radio?

Because the Y90 Nordics do not actually have reliable radio communication, as was proved by how quickly the line went bad after they left the cleansed, inhabitable areas. Copenhagen is not even a long distance away and still the troll noise made it impossible to communicate between the other end of the bridge. I'm guessing mages could help clear the noise but their powers are limited and they simply cannot reach far enough, and if they're already convinced the rest of the world is dead they might not want to use up their energy on something that is/seems futile.

[Róisín]

Good point, Laufey.

Also, if the mages were trying to push radio communication far beyond their own boundaries, presuming the difficulty of clearing the airwaves rises with distance covered, they don't want to be wearing their mages out. I'm making several assumptions here, but they seem reasonable to me:
. Kastrup to Oresund isn't that far (ten miles or so maybe)? But the black noise was still enough to interfere majorly until cleared.
. Lalli isn't highly trained, and is probably a small power as mages go. I'm assuming that if the other mages thought he was strong enough to justify the time and effort of teaching him, he would be better trained. As it is he seems to be mostly a scout with a bit of magic to help him along.
To judge by how hard Lalli found it to make the spirits shut up, even a more powerful mage might do himself serious harm trying to do that over a greater distance or for longer.
. The numbers and activity levels of trolls rise as you go south, where it's warmer, so communication would be even harder.
. Nobody wants to draw attention to themselves by being too active on the airwaves, lest trolls and other things notice them.

[SectoBoss]

Because the Y90 Nordics do not actually have reliable radio communication, as was proved by how quickly the line went bad after they left the cleansed, inhabitable areas. Copenhagen is not even a long distance away and still the troll noise made it impossible to communicate between the other end of the bridge. I'm guessing mages could help clear the noise but their powers are limited and they simply cannot reach far enough, and if they're already convinced the rest of the world is dead they might not want to use up their energy on something that is/seems futile.

Copenhagen might be a special case, as you have what was a densely-populated urban centre on your doorstep (and it presumably still is rather densely populated, in a grisly way). In other areas, without troll-infested ruins nearby, the signal may well carry much further. After all, the Dalahästen had its radio on (unless that was an intercom), and it was far away from Mora/Oresund at the time, implying they may have been expecting to be able to talk to somone.

Actually this does raise an interesting issue - how good is general communication within the known world? A postal service must surely still run between cities, using trains and ships. Is radio good enough to be relied upon? I was going to suggest that maybe Iceland made use of submarine cables, but by the looks of this map they don't have any cables going to other parts of the known world. Maybe they dug some up and repurposed them?

[Aierdome]

Actually this does raise an interesting issue - how good is general communication within the known world? A postal service must surely still run between cities, using trains and ships. Is radio good enough to be relied upon? I was going to suggest that maybe Iceland made use of submarine cables, but by the looks of this map they don't have any cables going to other parts of the known world. Maybe they dug some up and repurposed them?

Would they have the tech, know-how, time and supplies to dig up submarine cables? I suppose with trolls running around and infiltrating coastlines - not to mention problems of food supply etc. - ship communication would be deemed good enough, and sea transport between Iceland and mainland seems reliable for what we've seen of it so far. As for radio communication, I suppose even over seas, there'd still be some sort of "passive noise" from sea beasts. Moreover, with how depopulated the world is, the deamworld is probably choking with spirits, so if it's the dead who make the black noise, it's no surprise all the airwaves are blocked.

Regarding Dalahasten, my working theory is that the radio is on in case of some bypassing army/Cleanser patrol, so that the train could be warned of things like beast on rails or firefight ahead.

[urbicande]

Actually this does raise an interesting issue - how good is general communication within the known world? A postal service must surely still run between cities, using trains and ships. Is radio good enough to be relied upon? I was going to suggest that maybe Iceland made use of submarine cables, but by the looks of this map they don't have any cables going to other parts of the known world. Maybe they dug some up and repurposed them?

The main thing I expect here is that radio somehow attracts grosslings.  Even with the noise that the trolls generate, radio comms via Morse code should be available.  (Seriously. It takes very little power and unsophisticated equipment, and can be heard and understood even on very noisy frequencies.)

The main reason to not use it except in very short bursts seems to be that it draws trolls like moths to a flame.  (In which case, though, they should be using it for troll traps.  A simple transmitter just broadcasting a beep beep beep placed in a boxed-in canyon would make a dandy deathtrap for the trolls.)

[Róisín]

Yeah, I had very much got the impression that radio, like noise and lights, attracted trolls. As you say, Morse code would probably cut through the noise effectively. The concept of a troll trap is really cool - at least until they get a giant or three, which I presume is what happened to the Copenhagen expedition.

[urbicande]

Yeah, I had very much got the impression that radio, like noise and lights, attracted trolls. As you say, Morse code would probably cut through the noise effectively. The concept of a troll trap is really cool - at least until they get a giant or three, which I presume is what happened to the Copenhagen expedition.

Morse would definitely cut through the noise.  And, as I said, pretty low power is all you need, depending on the sunspot cycle and propagation.  The current QRP (low power) distance record is a bit over 2600 km with 1 millionth of a watt of power (neither of my radios are THAT low-power!).  I'm *really* surprised there isn't some effort to use that to communicate even within the Known World, and to listen in on the Silent World.

As far as troll/giant traps, you'd want to set them up in areas where people aren't, or in an area you want to cleanse.

A simple radio beacon attached to lots of explosives would do it.

[Fauna]

How far could you actually get a working radio signal to reach without satellites or huge radio towers, though? I mean... Scandinavia is a pretty terrainy place. Just going into the countryside in some areas is bound to give your car radio some difficulties, even if you stick to fairly big roads... the distance between Copenhagen and Mora is fairly flat and low terrain, and the crew STILL had to radio some professional dude with a radio mast just to get in touch with Trond and co. Since most of todays radio traffic relies on satellites and a few major transmitter towers (neither of which are likely to be maintained in y90) their radio network would essentially have to be completely re-built once the old system began to fall apart.

IDK. I feel like radio would be fairly unreliable, not just depending on troll activity but also on completely normal stuff like terrain and bad weather.