Tags:
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus

    5.7 billion perish...

    Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by Some Guy, Sep 28, 2018.

    Civilization is shredded. Anything standing is a cheese grater. Anything underground is shattered. Freeways buckled, collapsed, strewn with vehicle wreckage. Perfectly intact homes and buildings are a deathtrap of disease, starvation, and contamination. The fortunate mangled, and the plain damn lucky, emerge from the rubble to create a new sustainable existence, civilization, and society. It must happen while the precious few children starve. It must happen in time for the third generation to produce the fifth.
    The bad news: We're gonna make it, if we choose wisely.
    There's only one chance at each decision point. Those who wish to stand around and argue get to watch a child starve to death as they waste their energy. We're all mothers and fathers, medics, labor, and engineers, now.
    When we find it, there's just enough food for 30 days.
    Oh, there are a few things in our favor. Communications is completely restored. Any group of people will have access to some kind of device. Those with the ability know exactly where to find survivors. Survivors will know where they have to go for shelter, such as it is. Once there, they move on, or create their future for the next one hundred years.
    Consider where we are now.
    What would you leave out?
    (No debating or argueing - the kids are starving!)

    (Edit: Thanks Mods :))
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2018
    John-Wayne and Artifacs like this.
  2. Artifacs

    Artifacs Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2018
    Messages:
    298
    Likes Received:
    273
    Location:
    Spain
    This setting reminds me a Zombie game for consoles I play years ago. It's thrilling.
     
    Some Guy likes this.
  3. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus
    (sorry, we can add zombies later)

    Cool, but what in a new civilization/society would you leave out?

    I would start with No Congress! (no politics: One-man-one-vote)
     
  4. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    What do you mean "leave out"? Like, what is there from this world that wouldn't survive in that world?

    I think we'd need to know the reason for the destruction before we could offer any sort of intelligent hypothesis.
     
  5. Artifacs

    Artifacs Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2018
    Messages:
    298
    Likes Received:
    273
    Location:
    Spain
    Could it be a virus? (that would make sense the raise of the zombies)
    An alien troyan? (high tecnology given away with the only purpose of human self-destruction. It should self-destruct itself afterwards, though)
    A natural disaster? (Irregular increase of some cyanobacteria population that increase the methane in tha atnosphere. A clasical Meteor with its dust blast.)
     
    Some Guy likes this.
  6. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus
    Well, (spoiler) it would be a different kind of asteroid strike. I meant the above literally. Anything standing more than a meter is full of holes. The 5.7 billion people are full of holes, but they fell down. I'm thinking the story will start in the US, but Canada helps out (thanks for that, by the way). Just a sprinkling (splattering) of planes, a couple runways (with nowhere to land, 'cept Canada). Political line of succession has one poor fed-up bastard left. He doesn't want the job, but that's too damn bad. It is good for humanity, though.
    Seriously, it's all just bits and pieces. Even more people are gonna die if we try to just put humpty back together.
    So what would you leave out? Cars? Tobacco farms? Product packaging? Bigger things? Think Big!
    Actually, I think there's a way to do without the power grid. Forever.
    So, no power grid.
     
  7. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus
    Hmm. Yer in the ballpark, but it's a surprise double-flip with a twist. The destruction is already out of Concept Draft. PM me if you want to see it, it has some parody. (Maybe it'll be zombies next time)
    Anyway, we are in the get-up-and-dust-off-and-saw-how-screwed-we-are stage.
    It's all on the chopping block. What's not ever coming back? The Alaska pipline? Manogamy? Rap?
    Challenge me.
     
  8. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    Why did the underground stuff get wrecked? How are 5.7 Billion people killed if this affects mostly the US? Are the structures still intact outside the US? Are you looking at a sort of nuclear winter scenario, with the dust from the asteroid choking out the rest of the planet?

    How are communications restored? What's powering the system with no power grid? (satellites might still be running, although I imagine the dust in a nuclear winter scenario would make them less effective, and hand-helds could be charged from generators or whatever, but what about all the cell towers? Or are you looking at satellite phones for everyone? How are there enough of those to go around?)

    I mean, in general, anything that requires transportation or central organization is going to go, right? So assuming you somehow have enough satellite phones (or whatever) to go around, how exactly are they going to be distributed? By air, maybe, but how long will it be before fuel is used up?

    There'll be a shortage of medicine, obviously, and replacement parts for any technology. Most areas will have serious food shortages - we're too specialized to have balanced diets without transportation.

    Clarification: Is this for a novel, or a video game? If it's a novel, you need to sort this all out. If it's for a video game you can probably get by with more hand-waving.
     
    J.D. Ray likes this.
  9. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    Another clarification: Are you looking for actual ideas for a creative work, or is this just an invitation for people to bitch about aspects of the modern world that they don't appreciate? Possibly I'm taking you too seriously.
     
    Iain Aschendale likes this.
  10. Azuresun

    Azuresun Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2017
    Messages:
    418
    Likes Received:
    573
    One man, one vote is a form of politics. And it's one where the majority can infalliably impose their will on the minority.

    This post doesn't make a lot of sense (and the coyness is unhelpful). You're asking us to decide things about this setting but not sharing enough information for the decision to be meaningful. Why are certain things gone for good? If I say "cars", is nobody ever able to construct an internal combustion engine ever again?
     
    J.D. Ray, Some Guy and BayView like this.
  11. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2016
    Messages:
    22,566
    Likes Received:
    25,882
    Location:
    East devon/somerset border
    also one man one vote does badly in survival situations where decisions have to be made quickly - there's a reason why states of emergency suspend the democratic process.

    People want leaders, and those tend to emerge among the strong/intelligent/better armed/resourced, then small bands of survivors team up into bigger groups with one leader emerging from each faction .. then those leaders either fight or collaborate into a ruling council ... it would be deeply unrealistic for the survivors to form an egalitarian group hug system
     
    Xoic, J.D. Ray and Some Guy like this.
  12. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus
    Eyowee! Yer all so fast! I'm astonished at the reply!
    Yeah, I'm over a hundred pages serious. I just didn't think anyone cared about really cool tricky ways to destroy the world for the umpteenth time. I can't type fast enough (4 to 7 wpm) to throw answers out singlrly, so I promise as sonoon as m y ssleeepng piil wewars off I'll have details for the beforee prebackstory prelaunch Strike an secoddnd launchh to inbund prrjectillles and fragment distribution. sssllleepnw.,.
     
  13. Maggie May

    Maggie May Active Member

    Joined:
    Jan 9, 2018
    Messages:
    162
    Likes Received:
    128
    Leave off or not bring back: Telemarketers! :)
     
    J.D. Ray and Some Guy like this.
  14. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2017
    Messages:
    5,864
    Likes Received:
    10,738
    Location:
    The great white north.
    Seems pretty simple to me, with the US gone and Canada still surviving, y'all get annexed. It was really the British Empire playing the long con all along.

    ♫
    O Lord our God arise
    Scatter her enemies.
    And make them fall
    Confound their politics
    Frustrate their knavish tricks
    On Thee our hopes we fix
    God save the Queen
    ♪
     
  15. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus
    How do you get the musical note thingies?
     
  16. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2017
    Messages:
    5,864
    Likes Received:
    10,738
    Location:
    The great white north.
    Simple math. Alt + 14 = ♫ . Alt + 13 = ♪. ♥
     
  17. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus
    I appreciate your interest. Take me seriously. My answers to your questions will not disappoint, hopefully. Yes, it is also an opportunity to invalidate(?) aspects of the modern world.

    Um, If your really interested, I'll PM you a link to the details. Basically, the composition (density), speed, angle of approach and the spin and magnetic field, distribute fragments globally. No part of the world is unaffected. I made the destruction to be like nothing I had ever seen or heard of.

    The naure of The Strike produced no nuclear winter. Dust is cleared by storms. Sorta. Solar works.
    There is a manifested entity keeping watch over all of humanity, because of a stupid mistake we made. It has attempted to prepare for a large disaster, for decades, but nothing on this scale. The satellites moved away, unexplained. It is dumb luck that a percentage of its effort was not destroyed. There are devices scattered around, making a helluva racket til found. There are enough pods activated to launch drones here and there.
    It's luck that provides any chance for survival at all, yet just the odds on the better part of 7 billion lives leave some survivors scattered. 47 million in the US, including 17million precious children. I don't have figures for Canada yet (vague anywhere else).

    Didn't see this 'fore I started typing. Yes, distribution of items will be part of the adventure. Transportation is devastated. Can you guess what mode is the only effectiv one left? Restoring it is part of the adventure. It is sorta self repairing if you add labor and what's left of fuel. Resources scattered, part of the adventure.

    Correct, and a shortage of doctors. Can you guess the precious replacement that's readily available? Yes, every single man, woman, and child will endure food shortage, forcing us to value each other greatly. Multiple people find scattered food quickly. A single person may get more food, but will die looking for it. How we produce future food changes drastically, to be sure. Any ideas?

    I'm totally new to writing, and not very good at it. Forgive me.
    Everything is gone. What stays is what we decide to restore, at the cost of lives. Failure to make those sacrifices produces catastrophic cascades, and even more poeple die. Heartbreaking sacrifices. Who would subject themselves to that responsibility. It's a major part of the story.
    I've had emotional difficulty facing the following scenario:
    Truman must face deciding to rescue 50,000 survivors, or 70,000 survivors elsewhere. The antagonist is location and time. The 50,000 cannot be sustained more than twenty-one days after rescue, the 70,000 will survive 60 days with losses of 55%. Or, you breakdown and cry (like me), or kill yourself, and 120,000 people die. It's part of the commitment of leadership. It's part of the story I have to write.

    It is absolutely essential to make decisions that prevent the 'thousand kings syndrome'. Martial Law is in effect. What little there is left is indemnified and federalized. Marauders and hoarders fail. I have an app for that. The scenario you describe would consume precious time, and no children would survive.
    You're right, in this story, every time you speak you are voting. It's gonna be a surveilance state, or we'd already be dead (kinda cool how that comes about).

    I'm reeling a bit. This story full of nightmares and triumphs has haunted me for thirteen years.
    I didn't think anybody cared about stuff like this. I'm happy to provide answers for backstory. I'm having trouble with what to save, there has to be a setting for that, too.
    *faints*
     
  18. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2015
    Messages:
    17,922
    Likes Received:
    27,173
    Location:
    Where cushions are comfy, and straps hold firm.
    Don't forget about the French, or do they not count in Canada? :p
     
  19. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus
    While the rest of the world stood like deer-in-the-headlights, the French launched all their nukes against Utah Mark I. Which jarred everyone else to launch against it. Except Russia. After two missiles blew up in fueling, they waited to pick off the remaining extinction class impactors, saving the Atlantic coast of the US. Along with Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and India, they picked off one of the Four Horseman, and several city-killers (locomotive sized needle-like shards, about 600 meters long). The US and China had enough power to turn Utah Mark I into Mark II, and keep it from turning Earth into molten Earth Mark III, along with bouncing it off the Moon (China's idea). China was correct, the Moon acted as a debris shield, and collected masses of impactors. As Utah MarkII headed out of the solar system with its irregular end gone, we reaped the reward for Earth's salvation - a cloud of needle-shards (avg bus sized at center 200m long) that rained upon civilization. The Fallen Sky.
    What happens when they hit is like nothing I've seen or heard, but I don't get out much.

    So, that cheerful bedtime tale, and a few visceral vignettes, is the beginning. The reboot.
    What happens after that was supposed to be an internet excercise for people to be Minister of... or Tyrant of the day... or whatever. BUT! I can barely put words together, and I figured I'd better just write it down. I don't have the skills or resources or ball-balls to pull something that grand off.

    Someone said cars? Yeah, cars suck.
    No more cars.
     
    Maverick_nc likes this.
  20. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus
    ... if the following were facts: (to avoid distraction in discussion)

    Civilization is gone, down to the last wall, light bulb, and toilet- literally scraped from the face of the Earth.
    A minimum and random density of people-things are left. And dwindling. Clothing can only be worn if you want abrasion, bloody rash, fever, and death.

    Big picture: The extinction of humanity depends on the unborn generation's ability to raise another generation by themselves. Too few of us survivors will live to that time to prevent a spiraling dark age - a formulaic certainty of extinction with only the amount of suffering as a variable.

    Immediate picture: As the fortunate mangled rise from the rubble, we have about 30 days of food, given certain goals are acomplished. Water is unknown because of contamination, but the 3-day clock resets when you get some.
    Nothing stays as it is. You can't just sit in your situation, good or bad. You must go where you are told, which will mostly be toward water and food. Conversely(?), you must stay where you are told. If you try to build a temporary or independent life, people will die from the mere lack of your presence. No wasted resources or effort. Everybody needs everybody, or we all die.
    Suppression will eliminate all violent/destruptive action and inaction. It may also reduce suffering.
    Communication and even entertainment media still exist, no one is alone, ever again. All knowledge is available. You do not wander blindly (for long) and you always know what you're going toward. We keep moving and survive by working together, basically.

    And on that cheerful note! What dramatic issues would arise?
    I got - temporary and long-term sanitation, keeping warm without covering, children and pregnant women, medical?
     
    Cdn Writer likes this.
  21. Kalisto

    Kalisto Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2015
    Messages:
    975
    Likes Received:
    995
    Well, you already have one. It's survival. Raw, basic survival. The basic of all human issues.

    But let's also look at other themes. I see you have this theme of suppression to eliminate all violent action and inaction. Those things come with a cost. Sooner or later, someone will get jealous. Someone will get desperate. Someone will lose sight of the big picture.

    You have no waste of resources. Well, how do people innovate then? When you experiment, you're going to use a lot of materials until you find what works. When you're learning, you're going to waste a lot of materials. Waste is inevitable. So, in the short run, it sounds good, but in the long run, you're civilization will go stagnant. It's unable to not only adapt to changing tides, but also cannot move to improve its current condition.
     
    Cdn Writer likes this.
  22. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2019
    Messages:
    5,345
    Likes Received:
    6,168
    Location:
    The White Rose county, UK
    Why?
     
    Cdn Writer likes this.
  23. Accelerator231

    Accelerator231 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2019
    Messages:
    500
    Likes Received:
    284
    Frankly, you said there's an apocalypse. So.... Who's left?
     
    Cdn Writer likes this.
  24. Maverick_nc

    Maverick_nc Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Apr 3, 2019
    Messages:
    622
    Likes Received:
    725
    Interesting question but surely the answers depends upon the character of the people who have survived - will everyone really be banding together or will it become survival of the fittest/lord of the flies? I guess it depends on our own opinions the human race.
    My view - most people just 'give up'. A few try to build for the future and the rest just ruin that for them by being lawless.
    Stories are about people - who these survivors really are will be far more significant than the events, it will be their reactions to these that excite.

    Mav

    EDIT: I might be talking utter sh*t, not too sure!
     
    Xoic and Cdn Writer like this.
  25. Accelerator231

    Accelerator231 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2019
    Messages:
    500
    Likes Received:
    284
    Also, what, exactly, caused the disaster?
     
    Cdn Writer likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice