After the End
Mar. 23rd, 2015 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo this morning I dreamt a plague apocalypse that killed up to 97.5% of people. I was thinking that was maybe too many. As in, the stories kind of run out if there's no longer a self sustaining population.
But GURPS Space reckons a colony world can be self sustaining with a population of 10K (see page 90). It's a guess, but we can work with it. It also has some ideas about tech levels and how they may or may not work after major population crashes, see page 180. It reckons TL8, which we have now, needs a population of 100 million or more, and since they're talking space colonies they're presumably talking planetary. Lower tech levels require smaller populations, and a town of a few thousand can be self sufficient and self sustaining at TL4.
I'm kind of interested though, if the crash leaves those towns with a few thousand each, does it require TL8 levels of global interconnection via communications and transport just to count the larger population as one population? I mean, if you had two towns on opposite sides of the planet, they're fending for themselves, they're too far apart to help each other.
But by the GURPS Space suggestion it's possible for 2.5% of the current global population to retain the current tech level, seeing as there'd be 182.5 million. They'd lose, like, everyone they knew, except kin with the same genetic quirks that make them immune, but they'd retain their tech level. I'm just thinking though, it seems a bit... ambitious, in the short term. The immediate aftermath of a loss on that scale is going to crash hell out of existing systems. TL8 is defined by personal computers and global systems, and sure, the computers will work as long as the electricity does, but the networks? If only 2.5% of the people who keep global communications running are still standing when the dust clears, how are they going to manage to keep up? And some places depend heavily on a couple of key people. I'm just thinking like Dreamwidth, it doesn't have enough workers to have a % of them survive. So networks are going to be slashed to ribbons, because the people keeping them going just won't be there of a sudden. I'll grant that there'll be enough people somewhere on the planet to get things up and running again, but how do they connect it all up?
Plane travel too, if only 2.5% of pilots, air traffic control, ground crew, mechanics and so forth survive, what are the chances enough of them survive at the same location to keep an airport running? Like, Heathrow would have the most workers, so the most chance of having enough workers to keep a plane going, but it would also have the most mess. You kind of epically don't want to be in London if there's Plague. History is pretty clear on that. Also, if you're down to 2.5% of firefighters, all it takes is 1 candle and wow a city is going to have big problems.
I saw a page once talking about resilience of the power infrastructure in the event of zombie apocalypse. This morning's dream did not involve zombies, just apocalypse.
Huh, google found it swiftly
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2165/when-the-zombies-take-over-how-long-till-the-electricity-fails
I like how it starts "Believe it or not, this is a question I've been asked before."
Because this is just the sort of thing you wonder, right?
It brings up again the problem where it's hard to do complex technical stuff when you've lost more than 90% of trained personnel.
If it's global plague that's the problem it's the option 2 in that question, where humans take all the steps they can to make the power systems more resilient and able to run longer, sacrificing some safety. They reckon hydro plants would last forever, nukes for a year, coal for six months, and gas for... a couple of days maybe, they're fragile.
Their recommendation though is to just use gasoline in generators for a year or more, since there won't be anyone else using it. That's not really long term thinking though, on account of expecting to get ate by zombies. If the disaster is a one off then you need another attitude.
If you don't have to dodge zombies, could you get a nuclear refueling team together eventually? Seems unlikely you'd need to, if there's only 2.5% of the demand for power there was a minute ago. Don't know if that would work that way though.
There's more solar panels around lately, there's some on the roofs on the way in on the bus.
My post apocalypse plan remains the UEA though, they've got a biomass power plant you can run off trees for however long you can get transport. And an interest in teaching people how to use the thing. And a big library. So you could probably figure it out even if the relevant training becomes a bit light on the ground.
Oh, here's another one about water supply
http://www.quora.com/After-the-Zombie-Apocalypse-how-long-will-water-gas-and-other-amenities-keep-working
nifty.
... three weeks of water, that's a bit of a problem then. and a lot of that is because underground pipes leak, so the sudden decline in use would not help.
You know, the main thing you learn when researching the end of civilisation is it don't seem all that difficult to break it all. We're remarkably fragile, as it stands. I'm kind of thinking that any serious plague apocalypse just kills everyone. Like, everyone everyone. Because what the plague don't kill the sudden collapse of infrastructure will.
That answer hasn't much story in it though.
Okay, so the story in this is that civilisation will cluster up around the water and power sources. The power is needed to keep the water flowing. You could have little islands that are doing pretty okay, and they'd have people flock to them, if they heard about them. So then you get actual overcrowding problems in a world with 2.5% of the population? Assuming they get past the transport problems. Slight lack of buses, probable surplus of abandoned cars blocking the roads.
I know I thought about all this when that 'Survivors' rubbish was on TV.
I haven't watched the current zombie apocalypse things. I'm not generally interested in zombies. They seem mostly an excuse for solving problems with violence.
The appeals of post apocalyptic civilisation are kind of the same as a widespread space colonisation effort, only everyone starts off with horrible trauma and nowhere else to go. There's lots of material resources lying around for the taking, just probably not very safely. And every group of survivors will come up with their own rules, due to the existing rules having failed really hard. Or, like BSG, they'll concentrate on trying to keep the old rules going, even if it means swearing in the lowest local government dude as the president.
Would the communications systems fail hard? Like, cell phones, broadband, all that. Radio will work if you've got the kit and the power, but who even does? Even the police are using cell phones in some emergencies.
I think this morning's dream is from a couple of generations after the big crash. Some places would have gathered around generators and water supplies and kept up their basically TL8 society, probably staying in contact around the world. Others would be more isolated, hence more likely to get quirky fast.
Food supplies would look a lot more 1800s century, at best. Much more local much more quickly. Except modern food production relies a lot on chemicals in an ongoing race against insects, so quite possibly they wouldn't get 1800s levels of production out of the same land. Plus a lot of that land has had the topsoil stripped off by rubbish farming methods, or got built on because it was convenient to the shops.
It seems to me like dropping tech levels or losing the global transport network even for a little while would be seriously more difficult than just surviving at that lower level was in the first place. The resources got torn up and used up, it's a different landscape now.
The sort of immediately post apocalypse story that concentrates on looting for survival and the sort where there's significant rebuilding kind of have a really big gap in between.
Also it's all well and good to say that a space colony can survive with that many people, but they've probably had some degree of planning go into it, and recruited appropriate specialists. If only 2.5% of the world's doctors survive, how is medicine, in general, going to manage? Pharmacy? Production plants? Global distribution of meds?
I mean there's disaster relief agencies, but they kind of tend to assume there's somwhere that's not a disaster, to stand on and send stuff out from. Also that their employees, like, still exist.
A generation after a big crash is an excuse to have whatever patchwork you can think up.
Like, there'll be places where tech pushed ahead, places with progress, but they'll depend on far fewer thinkers and are likely to be quirky.
Like if Tony Stark was a whole number percentage of local surviving scientists, tech develops in a more strongly Stark influenced way. Except there's more than 250 scientists in New York so that's probably not going to apply? But Stark Tower would definitely be one of the places survivors congregate around, because power supply. Don't know what he'd do for water though. With that much power, probably purify it out of the nearby big water?
But there'll also be other places that just held on by dropping back to SCA type levels. Places that are locally medieval, just down the road from places with all the bells and whistles, purely because the populations that would have done the transport and kept everyone in contact have just gone. Also for cultural reasons, especially if the plague is a bit mysterious, they'll have reacted in ways meant to protect themselves and the survivors will assume they worked, and that can get quirky like lucky socks or awful like horror stories, depending what you want to tell.
If you want a perfectly ordinary world in the bit of the city the protagonist lives in, but have it be in contact with... anything you can dream up, then that's plausible enough to be going on with.
Also, if the plague is making people magic, that... that makes the odds do whatever you want. The large scale effects of a Purify Water spell would be just like having your own generator. Civilisation would clump around magic users too, if they could provide for them. A very different civ than the ones blaming the magic users for the plague, of course, and plenty close enough to put them in conflict.
I still reckon cities would mostly empty out though. Between fires and disposal issues they're going to be really nasty really fast. But then at some point they'd be down to smouldering wreck the scavengers have been at. Would people even want to move back in? Depends what kinds of shinies are still there, I guess.
But GURPS Space reckons a colony world can be self sustaining with a population of 10K (see page 90). It's a guess, but we can work with it. It also has some ideas about tech levels and how they may or may not work after major population crashes, see page 180. It reckons TL8, which we have now, needs a population of 100 million or more, and since they're talking space colonies they're presumably talking planetary. Lower tech levels require smaller populations, and a town of a few thousand can be self sufficient and self sustaining at TL4.
I'm kind of interested though, if the crash leaves those towns with a few thousand each, does it require TL8 levels of global interconnection via communications and transport just to count the larger population as one population? I mean, if you had two towns on opposite sides of the planet, they're fending for themselves, they're too far apart to help each other.
But by the GURPS Space suggestion it's possible for 2.5% of the current global population to retain the current tech level, seeing as there'd be 182.5 million. They'd lose, like, everyone they knew, except kin with the same genetic quirks that make them immune, but they'd retain their tech level. I'm just thinking though, it seems a bit... ambitious, in the short term. The immediate aftermath of a loss on that scale is going to crash hell out of existing systems. TL8 is defined by personal computers and global systems, and sure, the computers will work as long as the electricity does, but the networks? If only 2.5% of the people who keep global communications running are still standing when the dust clears, how are they going to manage to keep up? And some places depend heavily on a couple of key people. I'm just thinking like Dreamwidth, it doesn't have enough workers to have a % of them survive. So networks are going to be slashed to ribbons, because the people keeping them going just won't be there of a sudden. I'll grant that there'll be enough people somewhere on the planet to get things up and running again, but how do they connect it all up?
Plane travel too, if only 2.5% of pilots, air traffic control, ground crew, mechanics and so forth survive, what are the chances enough of them survive at the same location to keep an airport running? Like, Heathrow would have the most workers, so the most chance of having enough workers to keep a plane going, but it would also have the most mess. You kind of epically don't want to be in London if there's Plague. History is pretty clear on that. Also, if you're down to 2.5% of firefighters, all it takes is 1 candle and wow a city is going to have big problems.
I saw a page once talking about resilience of the power infrastructure in the event of zombie apocalypse. This morning's dream did not involve zombies, just apocalypse.
Huh, google found it swiftly
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2165/when-the-zombies-take-over-how-long-till-the-electricity-fails
I like how it starts "Believe it or not, this is a question I've been asked before."
Because this is just the sort of thing you wonder, right?
It brings up again the problem where it's hard to do complex technical stuff when you've lost more than 90% of trained personnel.
If it's global plague that's the problem it's the option 2 in that question, where humans take all the steps they can to make the power systems more resilient and able to run longer, sacrificing some safety. They reckon hydro plants would last forever, nukes for a year, coal for six months, and gas for... a couple of days maybe, they're fragile.
Their recommendation though is to just use gasoline in generators for a year or more, since there won't be anyone else using it. That's not really long term thinking though, on account of expecting to get ate by zombies. If the disaster is a one off then you need another attitude.
If you don't have to dodge zombies, could you get a nuclear refueling team together eventually? Seems unlikely you'd need to, if there's only 2.5% of the demand for power there was a minute ago. Don't know if that would work that way though.
There's more solar panels around lately, there's some on the roofs on the way in on the bus.
My post apocalypse plan remains the UEA though, they've got a biomass power plant you can run off trees for however long you can get transport. And an interest in teaching people how to use the thing. And a big library. So you could probably figure it out even if the relevant training becomes a bit light on the ground.
Oh, here's another one about water supply
http://www.quora.com/After-the-Zombie-Apocalypse-how-long-will-water-gas-and-other-amenities-keep-working
nifty.
... three weeks of water, that's a bit of a problem then. and a lot of that is because underground pipes leak, so the sudden decline in use would not help.
You know, the main thing you learn when researching the end of civilisation is it don't seem all that difficult to break it all. We're remarkably fragile, as it stands. I'm kind of thinking that any serious plague apocalypse just kills everyone. Like, everyone everyone. Because what the plague don't kill the sudden collapse of infrastructure will.
That answer hasn't much story in it though.
Okay, so the story in this is that civilisation will cluster up around the water and power sources. The power is needed to keep the water flowing. You could have little islands that are doing pretty okay, and they'd have people flock to them, if they heard about them. So then you get actual overcrowding problems in a world with 2.5% of the population? Assuming they get past the transport problems. Slight lack of buses, probable surplus of abandoned cars blocking the roads.
I know I thought about all this when that 'Survivors' rubbish was on TV.
I haven't watched the current zombie apocalypse things. I'm not generally interested in zombies. They seem mostly an excuse for solving problems with violence.
The appeals of post apocalyptic civilisation are kind of the same as a widespread space colonisation effort, only everyone starts off with horrible trauma and nowhere else to go. There's lots of material resources lying around for the taking, just probably not very safely. And every group of survivors will come up with their own rules, due to the existing rules having failed really hard. Or, like BSG, they'll concentrate on trying to keep the old rules going, even if it means swearing in the lowest local government dude as the president.
Would the communications systems fail hard? Like, cell phones, broadband, all that. Radio will work if you've got the kit and the power, but who even does? Even the police are using cell phones in some emergencies.
I think this morning's dream is from a couple of generations after the big crash. Some places would have gathered around generators and water supplies and kept up their basically TL8 society, probably staying in contact around the world. Others would be more isolated, hence more likely to get quirky fast.
Food supplies would look a lot more 1800s century, at best. Much more local much more quickly. Except modern food production relies a lot on chemicals in an ongoing race against insects, so quite possibly they wouldn't get 1800s levels of production out of the same land. Plus a lot of that land has had the topsoil stripped off by rubbish farming methods, or got built on because it was convenient to the shops.
It seems to me like dropping tech levels or losing the global transport network even for a little while would be seriously more difficult than just surviving at that lower level was in the first place. The resources got torn up and used up, it's a different landscape now.
The sort of immediately post apocalypse story that concentrates on looting for survival and the sort where there's significant rebuilding kind of have a really big gap in between.
Also it's all well and good to say that a space colony can survive with that many people, but they've probably had some degree of planning go into it, and recruited appropriate specialists. If only 2.5% of the world's doctors survive, how is medicine, in general, going to manage? Pharmacy? Production plants? Global distribution of meds?
I mean there's disaster relief agencies, but they kind of tend to assume there's somwhere that's not a disaster, to stand on and send stuff out from. Also that their employees, like, still exist.
A generation after a big crash is an excuse to have whatever patchwork you can think up.
Like, there'll be places where tech pushed ahead, places with progress, but they'll depend on far fewer thinkers and are likely to be quirky.
Like if Tony Stark was a whole number percentage of local surviving scientists, tech develops in a more strongly Stark influenced way. Except there's more than 250 scientists in New York so that's probably not going to apply? But Stark Tower would definitely be one of the places survivors congregate around, because power supply. Don't know what he'd do for water though. With that much power, probably purify it out of the nearby big water?
But there'll also be other places that just held on by dropping back to SCA type levels. Places that are locally medieval, just down the road from places with all the bells and whistles, purely because the populations that would have done the transport and kept everyone in contact have just gone. Also for cultural reasons, especially if the plague is a bit mysterious, they'll have reacted in ways meant to protect themselves and the survivors will assume they worked, and that can get quirky like lucky socks or awful like horror stories, depending what you want to tell.
If you want a perfectly ordinary world in the bit of the city the protagonist lives in, but have it be in contact with... anything you can dream up, then that's plausible enough to be going on with.
Also, if the plague is making people magic, that... that makes the odds do whatever you want. The large scale effects of a Purify Water spell would be just like having your own generator. Civilisation would clump around magic users too, if they could provide for them. A very different civ than the ones blaming the magic users for the plague, of course, and plenty close enough to put them in conflict.
I still reckon cities would mostly empty out though. Between fires and disposal issues they're going to be really nasty really fast. But then at some point they'd be down to smouldering wreck the scavengers have been at. Would people even want to move back in? Depends what kinds of shinies are still there, I guess.