The Rise of Apocalyptic and Survival Fiction

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

In an acute crisis, people are likely to pull together. Lord of the Flies was not written in stone.

We have plenty of examples of large-scale natural disasters to draw on. Many people pull together. Some are loners because they don't have the social skills to work with others. Some are predators. Mostly, though, people establish communities and rules quickly--but no amount of incredible social coordination will fix the fact that there are millions of people living in an area with food for thousands.

A lot of people would die of starvation. More would die of poison, disease or injury trying to obtain food or water, or consuming whatever they find even though it's spoiled. Following that, more would die of disease because none of our large cities has ways to cope with thousands of dead bodies and no mass transit.

It doesn't matter whether the apocalypse is a meteor, tidal waves, volcanoes, nuclear war, zombies, or alien invasion; if it destroys easy travel by car and the majority of the infrastructure required to get electricity to the public, the result is going to be mass death very quickly.

[Penforhire]

Agreed. I consider myself well prepared but my stored water supply would only last me a month or so. I am only fully prepared for disasters of that duration without Federal assistance. And that further assumes my neighbors don't pillage my supplies.

The loss of running water would be the most immediate and pressing need in most major disasters. There is a reason almost all early communities were near bodies of water.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by TimW

The nostalgia for a simpler time might wear off rather quickly for most.

That's a very good point right there. One lady I read about a while back lived the pioneer lifestyle for one year and hated it to death. But she came into it with wide eyed enthusiasm because she expected the clouds and got a bunch of weeds. Some of that was lack of preparation, some was failure to plan, a little bit was due to her being naive about the real nature of such a life, and other things as well. Plus she failed the golden rule of doing something new like that. She failed to acclimate herself with the systems and practice them. Oddly enough, the first settlers to America suffered the same issues. Roanoke failed for much the same reason. So unless someone was practicing living that life well in advance, the nostalgia would quickly wear off as you've mentioned and the "better life" would quickly turn into a drudgery surrounded by lots and lots of hands on OJT, and in a survival situation OJT is about as useful as expecting to survive a bullet to the head. People who are preppers at least partially have the right idea because they practice living like this all year long, so in a disaster situation they're less OJT (you'll still be learning something new all the time in a post disaster survival scenario, despite all your practice) and more DTJ that they have to do. But much to their chagrin, even they'll only be prepared for, at best, 10% of what the actual disaster will bring. lol. Oddly, they'll be 10% ahead of 99% of the world.

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

In an acute crisis, people are likely to pull together. Lord of the Flies was not written in stone.

Oh, I agree fully. The question though remains as to exactly how much, and who, given the general dependence on modern technology, and the failure to learn and understand more basic survival methods. Of course, that all goes back to the mental state of Normalacy that exists in so much of the world today.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

We have plenty of examples of large-scale natural disasters to draw on. Many people pull together. Some are loners because they don't have the social skills to work with others. Some are predators. Mostly, though, people establish communities and rules quickly--but no amount of incredible social coordination will fix the fact that there are millions of people living in an area with food for thousands.

A lot of people would die of starvation. More would die of poison, disease or injury trying to obtain food or water, or consuming whatever they find even though it's spoiled. Following that, more would die of disease because none of our large cities has ways to cope with thousands of dead bodies and no mass transit.

It doesn't matter whether the apocalypse is a meteor, tidal waves, volcanoes, nuclear war, zombies, or alien invasion; if it destroys easy travel by car and the majority of the infrastructure required to get electricity to the public, the result is going to be mass death very quickly.

DING! Spot on and well said! That's primarily why you only see about a 1 in 100 survival rate in most major EOTWAWKI disaster stories. In one story I've worked on, Stage 0 started out with an entire battalion of soldiers (it was a military focused end of the world novel) and by Stage 3 you had one squad left. In fact, if you watch Battle Los Angeles (it's a great movie that I highly recommend) they start out with an entire platoon and end up with 5 people by the end of the movie. Sure, it's all due to war and other extenuating circumstances, but even if you're dealing with a traditional disaster (volcano, asteroid, nutjob with a nuke, etc) you're still going to have massive attrition of people. It can't be avoided. However, lots of luck and some careful planning might minimize the losses.

Oddly though, I think the loss of life will be greater in developed countries than less developed due to reasons one person already iterated, which is that we'll have further to fall than they will. For example, most of NYC will either starve to death, or die from other causes, yet the Amish communities just a hundred miles away will see almost zero attrition. Well, at least until you start seeing hundreds of starving former NY'ers showing up on their doorsteps. >.<

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Agreed. I consider myself well prepared but my stored water supply would only last me a month or so. I am only fully prepared for disasters of that duration without Federal assistance. And that further assumes my neighbors don't pillage my supplies.

The loss of running water would be the most immediate and pressing need in most major disasters. There is a reason almost all early communities were near bodies of water.

Agreed. And most of those issues could be readily and easily mitigated with some simple over the counter solutions, and a wee bit of pre-planning. I mean, heck, $20 for a Brita water filter, a few spare inserts, a couple buckets and a tarp and you've got all the water you need. Well, assuming it rains regularly. But anyhow, yeah, I'm no prepper, but come on, even I could figure out something like that. Of course, I've been doing a lot of disaster survival related research for my latest couple of novels, so I'd have a bit of an edge over some others in my community because of that. Even so, $50 and a few hours of your time, if done in advance, you could have all the water you needed in a disaster.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Agreed. And most of those issues could be readily and easily mitigated with some simple over the counter solutions, and a wee bit of pre-planning. I mean, heck, $20 for a Brita water filter, a few spare inserts, a couple buckets and a tarp and you've got all the water you need.

...until you run out of filters.

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

...until you run out of filters.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...and-water-pit/

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-t...-charcoal.html

*5thWiggle prints these instructions and laminates them in preparation for the Zombie Apocalypse*

[Steven Lake]

5thWiggle: Great links!

ScalyFreak: Very true, but I was only thinking of the initial survival period related to Stage 1 and 2 of most disasters. Unless we had a complete SHTF scenario where the world basically went to hell in a handbasket and took decades, or even centuries to recover, a Brita filter and a few spare inserts would be plenty. Especially given that the debilitating after effects of most disasters (loss of power, water, access to food, etc) only last 2-3 weeks at most before normal services are restored. Of course, if you were in a Level 3 or higher disaster, I think running out of Brita inserts would be the least of your worries. haha.

Oddly enough though, I'm actually looking at including something like this in my story to sorta mix things up. IE, the initial water filtration and supply situation is sufficient to meet the needs of the founding group, but quickly become overwhelmed and insufficient once a large collection of other bodies shows up. There's nothing quite as fun as knocking your characters to the ground, and then kicking them when they're down. hehe.

[ScalyFreak]

*makes note of 5thwiggle's links, and makes mental note to expand the nylon stocking collection, to make filters*

[Steven Lake]

ScalyFreak: haha. Yeah, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to get at least something together for an emergency. While I don't see any "end of the world" type scenarios happening in my lifetime (even if one did, my health would automatically rule me out as being one of the possible survivors anyways, so why bother worrying?) despite being someone who loves writing about them (I don't expect to see interstellar FTL travel in my lifetime either, but I still write about it. lol), there are plenty of smaller scale ones that do occur from time to time that you should be prepared for. Up here in the great snowy north they typically consist of a few bad storms, both summer and winter, and that's about it. For someone out on the west coast the stakes are a little higher. But simple FEMA recommended preparations are typically enough for 99% of scenarios.

Even so, all the research I've done while writing and preparing for my doomsday books has lead to a LOT of interesting information on how to do normal day to day things better. Those in turn can both be translated into your day to day life, as well as that of your characters. Even though you're unlikely to focus very heavily on what people do from day to day in an extreme survival scenario, it's still good to know WHAT they would do and WHY. Things like collecting food and water, fending off roving gangs, dealing with formerly docile wildlife, or even naturally hostile ones such as wolves, providing heat, cooking, and just generally living without all the modern conveniences we take for granted every day.

Case in point, on the TV show "The Colony", in season one the survivors went like 9 days without coffee and when they finally got some it was like the nectar of the gods to some of the team. lol. That's also something that needs to be considered when doing your research, or building your story.

PS, if I'm overshadowing anyone here with what I know, I apologize. I'm not trying to belittle anyone or make them feel dumb. I'm just taking all the things I've learned in my research (survival fiction is a new genre to me, and not as natural to write as scifi is, hence all the homework in advance to get it right) and sharing them with you guys here in hopes that it'll help you. I know you guys have helped me a ton over the past couple years, so it's only fair that I give back a little. Even so, don't let me intimidate you. This is an incredibly fun genre to write in. It's also one of those quintessential "David and Goliath" stories where David is the survivors, and Goliath is the disaster and its aftermath. I think that's also one of the reasons the genre is so popular is because it's one of those "rooting for the underdog" type scenarios that people just love to no end.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

(even if one did, my health would automatically rule me out as being one of the possible survivors anyways, so why bother worrying?)

You, and nearly everyone else. In a world without antibiotics, open wounds become potentially fatal. Pregnancies become dangerous, as well as simple fevers... chickenpox used to kill children.

And all of that adds up to reducing that over-population problem that others have mentioned already.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

And all of that adds up to reducing that over-population problem that others have mentioned already.

Which has the inverse effect on available supplies. As long as you do not have too much of a brain drain to death, mass death makes survival/rebuilding easier.

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Even so, all the research I've done while writing and preparing for my doomsday books has lead to a LOT of interesting information on how to do normal day to day things better. Those in turn can both be translated into your day to day life, as well as that of your characters. Even though you're unlikely to focus very heavily on what people do from day to day in an extreme survival scenario, it's still good to know WHAT they would do and WHY. Things like collecting food and water, fending off roving gangs, dealing with formerly docile wildlife, or even naturally hostile ones such as wolves, providing heat, cooking, and just generally living without all the modern conveniences we take for granted every day.

For further research:
http://www.instructables.com/tag/typ...nnel-survival/
These are my kinda people!

Actually, I'm not really a survialist, but I do have the skillset to turn a pnuematic cylinder into a fire piston (and could pretty much locate said cylinder in the ruins of any major town or city). Trouble is, for a lot of people in the "information age", getting the info AFTER the internet is down. I always loved the part in "Lucifer's Hammer" (Niven and Pournelle) where Dr Forrester hid a cache of how to books in a septic tank. So, when distaster strikes, 5thWiggle is raiding the library right after the grocery and gardening stores.


[Self-Promotional blurb deleted - MODERAT0R]

[Dr. Drib]

Moderator Notice

Time for a friendly reminder, since this thread is getting long and memories may be short: Self-Promotional blurbs and links are not allowed in this thread. The only place one may self-promote on MobileRead is...(here it comes): the Self-Promotion forum.

Here is the link to those Guidelines: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90052

[Penforhire]

I loved the idea of The Colony show and wonder about how well I'd do. I have no real desire to test that ability but it is intriguing and I'll bet they had no shortage of volunteers. That Colony was a bit too synthetic for my taste and I gave it up after season one.

The issue of leadership is a recurring sore spot. So much more gets done by solitary leadership (dictator, monarchy, head-man or whatever) than by committee.

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Time for a friendly reminder, since this thread is getting long and memories may be short: Self-Promotional blurbs and links are not allowed in this thread. The only place one may self-promote on MobileRead is...(here it comes): the Self-Promotion forum.

Here is the link to those Guidelines: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90052

Just to clear things up, I have no connection with the link I posted, nor do I have a blog or have written anything worth promoting (other than the deathless prose I post here on MR ).

Sorry if the post read as such.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

I loved the idea of The Colony show and wonder about how well I'd do. I have no real desire to test that ability but it is intriguing and I'll bet they had no shortage of volunteers. That Colony was a bit too synthetic for my taste and I gave it up after season one.

Well, if my health was better, I'd probably do pretty good. I grew up on a farm and am very mechanically inclined by nature. But, it doesn't help when you've pretty much destroyed your health by eating too much fast food and more or less living behind a desk sitting on your *** day in and day out without any exercise. I guess I'd be one of those who'd get thinned when the herd got downsized. lol. As for the show "The Colony", it was in general just a well scripted soap opera. HOWEVER, it did bring up some very accurate and insightful points about post-apoc survival, two of those being security, and the acquisition of resources. Another point that was well illustrated was the need to barter. In today's "pay what's listed" society, people have lost the skill of bartering, and those who still have it will pretty much own anyone who doesn't.

The issue of leadership is a recurring sore spot. So much more gets done by solitary leadership (dictator, monarchy, head-man or whatever) than by committee.

Eh, well, in a survival situation, single man leadership is important. Sure, there's times when group votes are important, as the show demonstrated. But then there's other times when you need a single man (or person) leading the group and calling the shots. For the most part, a good leader will know when to take 100% control of things, and when to either delegate control, or possibly even surrender all control to the group for a single decision, or even a period of time. At least that's how it should work. Reality can sometimes be entirely different. ^_^;;

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Time for a friendly reminder, since this thread is getting long and memories may be short: Self-Promotional blurbs and links are not allowed in this thread. The only place one may self-promote on MobileRead is...(here it comes): the Self-Promotion forum.

Here is the link to those Guidelines: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90052

haha. I was wondering when we were gonna need this again given how tempting it is to self promote. Thanks Dr. Drib.

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Which has the inverse effect on available supplies. As long as you do not have too much of a brain drain to death, mass death makes survival/rebuilding easier.

Yeah, that always a big issue. However, I think the biggest issue is the incredible degree of specialization modern society has. Take a look at the last major collapse, which was the fall of the Roman empire. I was reading a while back that during their height, just before the fall, they had a high degree of specialization amongst the citizenry, which actually worked against them when everything fell apart. The people who actually did best were those with broad skillsets. It also meant that, with the mass die off of those with very specialized skills, you'd have a huge loss of knowledge as well, since knowledge usually transfers better between those with broader skillsets than those with narrow ones. I think if we had another major collapse like what Rome saw, you'd also see almost the exact same thing happen a second time with large groups of people dying off because their skillsets were very specialized, and thus they were unable to survive or adapt to the complex and challenging new order to things.

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

You, and nearly everyone else. In a world without antibiotics, open wounds become potentially fatal. Pregnancies become dangerous, as well as simple fevers... chickenpox used to kill children.

And all of that adds up to reducing that over-population problem that others have mentioned already.

Agreed. It's just like what I mentioned to VydorScope, our current world system is ripe for a major die off should things collapse. Add to that the huge number of unhealthy people, those who are overweight (like me), the elderly, and all those with chronic or other critical illnesses. Today's world is very conducive to letting these people live for a really, really long time, far beyond what they would otherwise live in nature or a more rustic lifestyle. Technically, only the healthy and resourceful would survive. I qualify for the "resourceful" part, but sadly not for the healthy part.