After watching Cloverfield for the first time I was thinking, all these different apocalypse types. Which one would you and your select group be able to survive in the longest and your tactics for survival. -Giant Monster Style (Cloverfield) In The City Of New York -Nuke War Style (Adventure Time) Anywhere -Zombie Style (Zombieland) In The City Of Pittsburgh -Robot Domination Style (iRobot) Anywhere -Infection Style (I Am Legend) Anywhere -Alien Invasion Style (Independence Day) Washington DC -Natural Disaster Style (2012) Anywhere
Robot Domination Style My Tatics: say, "Don't do anything!" THE END How?: iRobot is the name of an Asimov short story collection, where the robots can easily be controlled by humans.
I have always been interested in Apocalypse Survival type scenarios. My answer is different for each one and requires way more space to write. However, I think human nature is generally one extreme or the other. To do anything you have to survive or to give up. I think that is part of what makes it interesting. Which one are you? I honestly can't answer until I was in it (let's hope that never happens). As a side note, my first book that I am currently pursuing an agent for is of the virus that wipes out the world variety, ironically the one I would least likely survive.
Zombie Style I think this one. I'd hole up in a supermarket or a shopping mall that has roof access. Then I'd take years of food supplies up onto the roof along with whatever else I needed to make my stay comfortable. Controlling the stairwell up to the roof would be easy, you would just need to create a barrier that could withstand two zombies standing side by side on the stairwell.
You said Pittsburgh for Zombie Style, but my plan is the same no matter where I am. Get in the first car I can, gather anyone I can find and some canned foods, and just head north. Zombies don't maintain homeostasis, so they're the same temperature internally as externally. Get somewhere cold and they'll freeze solid. Even if you're somewhere where it's only cold in the winter, freezer burn destroys tissue, so once everything thaws they'll just turn to mush. Zombie problem solved
I think you guys are missing on one of the key factors of every Zombie story ever created. The biggest threat in a zombie scenario are desperate, erratic, and emotional people. I think the zombie scenario would be the most difficult to survive because it is a like a natural disaster, but the only difference is that a storm will eventually subside, whereas zombies accumulate. They only stop accumulating when they run out of fuel (people). You could hole up somewhere cold, but that's assuming you have energy resources and infrastructure to generate heat lest you freeze to death yourself; and one of the reasons why civilization generally does not choose to live in the colder regions is because of limited food supply. And if you did survive, wouldn't there be competition for that resource? Again, the biggest threat in a zombie scenario are other people, not the zombies themselves. Sorry, zombie fan.
Resources are definitely an issue, but people stop being an issue early on. Sure, in the initial panic and scramble for safety/supplies you might be likely to get killed directly or indirectly by an actual person. The thing is, that initial point, where there's more than a handful of human survivors, would only last 3 to 7* units of time** based on mathematical models. Yes, I'm serious. There are studies***. I'm a scientist zombie fan *Amount of time varies based on how long the infection takes to take over. **Time units vary based on transmission speed of the infection. ***They're actually your basic epidemiology studies, but a lot of scientist have lately started to notice the attention you can get from using popular fads as examples. There's also one that calculates the equilibrium number of vampires, humans, and vampire slayers in the town of Sunnydale.
Although I would love to say that I could take on the zombies, realistically no. I have a child. Carrying a stubborn and willful 17 month old child makes you zombie bait if you cannot acquire medicine, renewable food source and shelter rather immediately. I'm not able to kill her either to save my own life so that's for sure a no go. Children only survive if they are able to make basic survival choices, shoot a gun and fend for themselves if need be. I may only be able to survive a natural disaster and that is because of my location. I live with mountains on one side and grain fields on the other. There are no volcanoes near by, no ocean, ect. If anything I only have to worry about tornado's which I have lived through.
Zombie style I'm from the south. I have land and guns... All in a very remote area. Supplies aren't hard to find, there are stores to raid and whatnot... Plus, if the animals aren't infected, the right guns and ammo will take them out. I should throw in there that my land is on a river with a high bluff and lots of trees for building and fortifying. Yesterday I took out a deer in my overly huge SUV with a bull bar - I'd try to make the trip down past the mason dixon to get where I feel I need to be for that sort of thing. Most of the zombies would probably decompose in the time it would take me to get there, anyhow. They can't regulate anything. =-P So, maybe where I am is perfect for no Zombies... But home is where the target practice is. =-D
Assuming things went down like they did in the movie and Mankind triumphed by a cosmically lucky and narrow margin, I chose Alien Invasion a la Independence Day. Major cities turned into gaping craters, or wiped off the map entirely would leave hundreds of thousands in America dazed and shell shocked. D.C. being hit the hardest, conspiracy theorists would turn rabid, infighting between power hungry politicians would supercede the needs of the nation, and the general population would turn to anarchy. I don't think I would survive long, and I don't think my husband or son would either unless we trekked to Washington state and holed-up with my dad in his favorite cave. But the scenarios that kind of event presents are interesting enough for me to think it would be worth surviving the Alien attacks to witness. Well, witnessing aliens in their spacecrafts flying low and shooting at anything with a heartbeat beats being around to experience the aftermath, but that's just me. Aliens freak me out to the point of morbid curiosity. Now, you mention 'select group' and I have to wonder, can this be a dream team? As in, a group of people selected specifically for their talents/traits/abilities and not for their familial ties or relation to me? Because if it is a dream team selection, I call dibs on Chuck Norris! If it isn't, well...Hm.
nuke war... thats what my current project is about anyway.... really all about survival once it is safe to resurface.... all about providing for yourself. you would have to assume that all stores are allready raided, so going to one would be a waste of energy and supplies..... find you a nice chunk of land with natural water, preferably a natural underground water spring, and start to rebuild
A few questions I thought of after reading your post: How long is 'long enough' to wait before resurfacing? Does the length spent underground depend on how many Nuclear bombs went off, or where they went off, or how strong/big each one was? And if this is a nuclear apocalypse, how would people have lived long enough after they bombs detonated to raid stores? Or is it that 'you' waited too long to resurface and all other survivors raided the stores before you came up for air? Also, does nuclear fallout effect the Earth's surface? I mean, the radiation that lingers, would it soak into the ground or just eventually dissipate in the atmosphere and leave the ground alone? I'm asking because if the fallout is strong/lasts long enough, I think it would effect all living organisms including the soil and so for a survivor to try and farm the lands would be impractical.
I'm a Outdoor Recreation guide in the Australian bush, so my plan for just about all of these is to head to the bush with a few supplies, and just wait it out. Probably wouldn't work for nuclear fallout, because that stuff spreads like crazy, it sticks around. My plan for nuclear war is a bullet.
Sorry, mate, but unless that chunk of land is led-lined, it's still going to be highly radioactive for about 100 years.
-Natural Disaster Style (2012) Anywhere I would move midwest, take over a disused missile silo and turn it into a solar greenhouse with crops growing on top and house on the lower floors.
