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 257612 times)

Róisín

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #930 on: January 24, 2016, 02:52:51 AM »
A lot of the agricultural techniques we use here in South Australia would work well in post-apoc California - direct seeding, swales, winter crops, drought-resistant crops such as olives and grapes.
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prof_marvel

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #931 on: January 24, 2016, 09:46:42 PM »
Hurray!
Minna has just established new canon for small safe zones:

http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=457
"The fort is protected by water on all sides, making it a relatively safe sancuary....
 Small immune colonies are known to thrive in spots like these."

There is clear hope for those of us outside of the Nordic Lands, based on the above premise!

now to scout out some old forts, oxbows, river islands, and other likely spots.
chortle chortle chortle ....

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prof_marvel

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #932 on: January 24, 2016, 09:57:49 PM »
Our Minna has just established new canon for small safe zones:

http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=457
"The fort is protected by water on all sides, making it a relatively safe sanctuary.... at least for small animals.
 Small immune colonies are known to thrive in spots like these."

with this definition in place we can surmise some good possibilities, such as Macinack Island, Michigan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island
9.8 sq kilometers of populated island accessible only by ferry. This one is perfect!

and various U.S. Historic forts based on river or lake islands ....

more later

yhs
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edited to correct the quote
« Last Edit: January 25, 2016, 02:48:39 AM by prof_marvel »
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Purple Wyrm

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #933 on: January 24, 2016, 11:14:58 PM »
http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=457
"The fort is protected by water on all sides, making it a relatively safe sancuary....
 Small immune colonies are known to thrive in spots like these."

Are we sure Mikkel didn't mean "Small immune colonies of animals are known to thrive in spots like these"?

I hope I'm wrong, but it's something we should consider.

...and I've just gone back to check the page and (if I'm not mistaken) Minna has just changed the text to maker it clear that he means animals, dagnabit!
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Róisín

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #934 on: January 24, 2016, 11:25:11 PM »
Islands are good. I have great hopes of King Island, Kangaroo Island, the numerous Bass Strait islands, plus Philip Island, Lord Howe Island and of course Tasmania. I'm sure there are lots more.
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Athena

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #935 on: January 25, 2016, 12:18:05 AM »
Islands are good. I have great hopes of King Island, Kangaroo Island, the numerous Bass Strait islands, plus Philip Island, Lord Howe Island and of course Tasmania. I'm sure there are lots more.

Maybe Vancouver Island or some of the smaller islands surrounding it? Most of the islands are pretty self-sustaining, with access to large areas of agricultural land, and ferrys could take survivors from the mainland.
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Solokov

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #936 on: January 25, 2016, 02:13:48 AM »
overhunting and generally pushing the land beyond its carrying capacity, I can see it as a place where the magic would come flooding back fairly quickly.

From an ecological standpoint most of America is actually underhunted, with the removal of the northamerican grey wolf and major culling of the other wolf populations, the Americas are actually severely lacking in apex predators (even with the botched execution of introducing the Canadian Timber Wolf into the United state which was a terrible idea and ended up putting people's lives at risk because it's a larger and more predatory predator than the grey wolves were), additionally due to urban encroachment, the environmental lobbying groups and other factors in the US there is an overabundance of large prey species like deer and elk have actually flourished in areas and in some areas considered a danger to public safety.

Just my 2cents anyway as a forest service employee anyway.
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prof_marvel

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #937 on: January 25, 2016, 02:45:23 AM »
Are we sure Mikkel didn't mean "Small immune colonies of animals are known to thrive in spots like these"?

I hope I'm wrong, but it's something we should consider.

...and I've just gone back to check the page and (if I'm not mistaken) Minna has just changed the text to maker it clear that he means animals, dagnabit!

more than likely is was a misquote from me, as I was trying to type it out... no cut & paste ...

I agree with Róisín to the extent that the land has been overrun and overused, and also agree with Solokov that many regions are underhunted .... east of the Mississippi road kill deer & other critters an enormous problem, and in some regions hunters are allowed 6-10 license to fill and STILL the deer population is nearly out of control.

At the same time I quit hunting in the Rocky Mountain regions due to the number of "slob hunters" wack jobs and nut cases in the wilderness during the seasons.

yhs
prof marvel

yhs
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prof_marvel

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #938 on: January 25, 2016, 03:01:02 AM »
Maybe Vancouver Island or some of the smaller islands surrounding it? Most of the islands are pretty self-sustaining, with access to large areas of agricultural land, and ferrys could take survivors from the mainland.

The important question is if the island was able to close the borders and enforce it prior to any contamination.
even one human plague victim could infect an entire island.  Some good examples are Legionare's Disease (airborne), the Pneumonic form of the Black Plague, or the Flu epidemic ( Influenza A ) of 1917-1919. That flu epidemic was also airborne, spread like wildfire, and at the time only quarantine of entire towns or counties ensured their safety.

The difficulty with this rash plague is that it also affects animals - one can declare a quarantine but how does one stop animals from entering - thus the need for a water barrier, palisade, or other effective barricade.

yhs
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« Last Edit: January 25, 2016, 03:04:01 AM by prof_marvel »
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Róisín

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #939 on: January 25, 2016, 04:55:39 AM »
Solokov: I've been following the progress of the wolves released around Yellowstone, and see what you mean. I think the whole release thing was not so well thought out as it might have been. Same problem here in Australia, with some regions (like the forest outside my town) severely overhunted, and others, like the bush about 500 miles north of here, or the timber-reserve forests about an hours drive south of here, just as badly underhunted. We have a terribly underfunded and overworked parks service which is being steadily cut back and isn't managing well at all. In my area it's exacerbated by last years huge Sampson Flat bushfire, which came close enough to have us evacuated for a week, and from which the forest has nowhere near recovered. And of course the urban sprawl. The forest reserve across the road from me is being cut down and cleared to put in housing, and I'm sixty miles out of the nearest biggish town.
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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #940 on: January 25, 2016, 08:25:41 PM »
The Mediterranean model, basically: it suits the climate in both regions.

BTW, before contact with Europeans, the local crop was oaks.  Yes, crop.  There were oak plantations.  Acorns were the staff of life.  They were planted with close attention to the perfect microclimate for oak seedlings, so they weren't done in neat straight lines--hence the European settlers didn't even notice most of them.
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Róisín

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #941 on: January 25, 2016, 10:25:15 PM »
Yep, I know how to prepare the acorns to make a quite palatable flour. Not all acorns are good to eat, so you need the right varieties. None are actually poisonous that I know of, but some taste really bad, and unless you leach the tannins you'll be constipated! The oaks have a lot of other uses too, tanning, dyes, medicine, hosts for edible symbiotic fungi, food plants for other useful creatures, and of course wood and fibre. My own taste is more for beechmast, but it's harder to gather. And pine nuts, of course.

Here in Australia the plants grown like that in the desert are mainly Santalum species (quandong, sandalwood). They don't look farmed, not in straight lines (though I do remember seeing one lot out north of the Breakaways that ran perfectly straight for more than a mile, because it was following a straight crack in the rock, and the seeds had been planted along the crack where the soil and water were. Because these plants are hemiparasites, some of their host plants had been put alongside.

Then there was firestick farming, which was used in the forested areas and in spinifex country. This used controlled burns, usually in winter, to stimulate new growth and in the case of open forest country, to keep it open. It encouraged grass growth which drew grazing animals to where they could be hunted, and also the regrowth and seed germination of edible plants.
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Hrollo

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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #942 on: January 26, 2016, 05:24:56 AM »
That's a bit misleading. Native americans did have crops, but oaks were not among those — the oaks were not domesticated nor intentionally sowed. Rather, the natives engaged in forest gardening, allowing the oaks to thrive and multiply by killing competitor plants through controlled use of fire.

But that's different from the selective breeding and intentional cultivation that they did practice with tobacco, sunflowers, strawberries, squashes, little barley, marshelder, wild rice, mapple sugar, etc.
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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #943 on: January 26, 2016, 06:28:33 PM »
The problem with farming in any arid climate is that the crops you'll be planting in the ground are not necessarily supposed to be there, and will affect the surrounding areas badly. In Australia, the farming of the soil with crops that are not naturally supposed to grow here tends to leave the soil barren afterwards, so farmers have to move on and further into the territory. There are all kinds of problems with this, including encroaching into important natural sites and sacred Indigenous sites, and leaving a swathe of used-up soil behind you.
While there are techniques to restore the soil afterwards, these often don't work quickly enough to prepare the soil for the next batch. And then the livestock, cows and the like, just raise all kinds of other issues.

Basically, farming in arid climates is difficult. You're better off just reverting to cannibalism and eating grass to ward off scurvy (said sarcastically, of course)
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Re: Survivor communities outside the known world
« Reply #944 on: January 26, 2016, 06:39:39 PM »
That's why herding exists really; if all that can be grow in a place is grass, well you raise cattle and goats, and eat their offals to get vitamins.
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