Worst-Case Scenario

Sorry, I will try to be more helpful. I have no spleen so the germs are a problem.

I have guns, angel food cake, applesauce, blueberies
a great stash of toilet paper and three right height toilets.

Any and all are most welcome to utilize my toilets and paper but dasn't go near me angelfood cake lest I blow a hole through them with me gun.

Quote :

Many of us know what wild plants are good to eat
and have high nutrition. Mushrooms can be plentiful, and there is
always wild game. That is assuming of course that flora and fauna are
not impacted by what ever the disaster is.

I think I'll leave the flora and fauna unaffected, Zada. That way I can
sneak a little "educatin'" into the storyline. Funny, but in my "grab
bag" are several books on plants and herbs (both edible and medicinal)
and of course, my Foxfire books.

There is a better term for "grab bag" but I can't think of it... aaarrggh

Quote :

I have no spleen so the germs are a problem.

Maybe I can find an herbal replacement for that, Alice. That angel food cake sounds like a great trade item...

Grab Bag? Survival kit, maybe, Brew? I had many books of that type, but have some friends who intend to go 'wild' for real, and I gave them the books. Most of it I remember, and just in case, I know how to test a lot of things for toxins.

I truly believe that the folks who are willing to learn and depend on themselves are the ones who will survive in an instance like what you are describing, but it will be a hard lesson for many. Cooperation and communication also come into play. People will have to be willing to share information as well as necessities.

The word was a play on words, Zada. It meant the same thing, but it is perfect in its simplicity.

Know what I find funny (as in poetic justice type of funny)?

The people who are already living this way - third-world types and the very
poor - won't even notice a change - until the city fokes find out they
have food. Pretty beads and blankets may not work this time.

I have both beads and blankets, Brew. I just didn't know I might need to use them for bartering!

The hordes won't be trading, Zada, they'll be taking.

A community cannot stand against entire hordes of people migrating from the big cities. If 200,000 or 300,000 or 500,000 people leave the cities and travel mostly in one direction, they will take what they want. Pretty much every community still in existance will run out of ammo long before the hungry massess have completely passed, and the only way any one will survive them is to hide. There won't be any use fighting them, because there will be too many. It will be like locusts over running the country side. Banding together may save you from the first few people that come across you, but eventually the numbers will be more than you can deal with.

Those who want to survive will have to go underground. They'll have to seal off the entrance and hope that it isn't found. Canned goods will be the only means of surviving, because growing a crop means you will die of starvation before the harvest.

If there are groups who have banded together and have managed to stockpile a supply of food and weapons, perhaps you might have a chance if you or someone with you has enough knowledge to slip into their camp and steal enough supplies to keep you and your group alive. You will then have to reconcile yourself with the fact that if you steal their food, some of them are going to die. Not easy to live with.

The only thing that might save some will be very quick action immediately after the disaster strikes. Those who act quickly enough to loot large quanities of canned goods, weapons and ammo, and who have enough knowledge of outdoor living to find a deep cave and to conceal it, and who have enough determination not to even try to contact anyone in the outside world, just may survive long enough to actually grow some food. However, unless the hordes have passed or the situation has gotten much better, every time you go outside you run the risk of being killed. Trust and friendship will be a thing of the past for most people. Some will band together and will find that the strongest among them will still take what they want.

This is not an idea that one can take at face value and say humans will make it. Not all of them will, and unless you are among the very strongest you won't stand much of a chance.

This will require a lot of thought if it is to be worked out where the protagonist actually has a chance of living.

I know what you're talking about Don. I am really into things like this, and I do believe it has happened in past history. There have been times of which you speak. But I don't see happening what you predict, although there have been times when people have gone to caves. Study epidemics and wars, and you will see what you speak of.

I also believe those in the way out places will most likely be able to survive. I have a well, a septic system, a lake nearby. There is a small population concentration. We have prepared for floods, fire, etc. Our problems without electricity were minor. We were going to bail out to go to a hotel to take a shower because we could.

Just think about personal tragedies. To each individual, these are as great as a global tragedy. Only the writer will know how vast the devastation is. The characters will not.

Emotionally, people at first feel alone, like no one else can be effected as much as they are. Then they begin to come together, and together make plans and get creative. Also, there is the belief that when things get tough globally, people get local. They cannot even think what to do about the world, but they can think of what to do in their own locality.

Are you going to have a small little band of people survive or great numbers? If you want this to become nasty I guess you can. You can have people shooting others, etc., if you want.

I believe that in little pockets of the world, what you speak of has occurred in the hearts and minds of the people. You need to read some historic accounts through the ages. We live so comfortable today, we forget about those. I also have seen places in the world where people live pretty meager existences. And I think people in the ravaged areas of unrest in the world today experience what you are planning.

Don't forget that people will also get too tired to fight. In these situations, people just plain get tired.

Carol

And don't forget people will be on foot. In my area, if people left Chicago on foot, it would take them many months to get to the northern areas. You are giving people a whole lot of energy they will not have. They will stop. They will die. Weather will have its effects.

What's a person to do? That is a good question. I think all of what you have said. Some will become leaders. Some will become followers. Some marauders, and some healers.

Carol

Don, I know you are right, but if it were to happen right where I am now, there are only two roads to use to get to the community, and they would not be hard to defend. Going through the brush to get here would take its toll as Carol mentions.

In my scenario, prepared people will take to the caves of the Olympic mountains. Easy to defend and not easy to detect.

Gardens are easy to spot in a forest, so that will not happen. But arms and ammo will be cached beforehand (and I believe there are those who have already prepared themselves in just such manner) plus the stores that most out here have in their pantries. Silent weapons such as crossbows will come into play. If you are hiding, you don't want too much noise going on!

Don, the beads and blankets remark was very tongue in cheek! (Quite fitting here where there are so many Native American tribes!)

I guess there is a reason I am not into survival--been too busy trying to live day to day and very reliant on presription drugs.

Drugs every four hours so I can move and drugs with every meal so my food will digest.

If there are no drugs , I will have to cash it all in.

I do have a plan--since suicide is not my thing, I will point an empty shotgun at a marauder and snarl -"Get away from me angel food cake,"

He will dispatch me and eat my cake, No more worries for me.

Hell, Brew, when I started to read your original post I thought you were writing about the average weekday morning in Akron. The only thing missing was the sound of gunfire.
Anyway, it seems that you have a good story in mind.

Good morning, Mr.Stodghill,

We are twins--even on reputation points.. I feel so hoored I will bump you to 17 .

You must think of who is allowed to eat the precious and few canned goods.

Mothers, fathers and children,

Anyone over 18 without a dependent child is expendable--immedately--have a dispatching crew.

Have a humane killer bag them in their sleep-announce it ahead of time so no one will be surprsied when they wake up dead.

In fact, make them dig their own grave before they retire for the night.

I like this--it's beginning to grab me.

Phooey, I want a green thingy--I am only losing on this thread! I will have to go away. Bye Bye for now.

Alice,

That's the idea!

Along these lines, stories develop, even true ones. I'm writing about my great-grandmother who committed suicide, encouraged by Alice's picture of an insane asylum that reminded me of the place my grandmother inhabited for a time.

Her mother committed suicide after her two-year-old son fell off a woodpile and died. My relative says she thinks my grandmother was supposed to be watching this little guy when he died. Then my grandmother married my grandfather who had also been suicidal, and then she ended up in the insane asylum later in life.

See, there are grim stories all over the place. What is important is that they are written without restrictions, even true ones as mysteries appear and puzzles are put together.

So Brew, don't put limitations on the writing. Let it flow. Let it take on a life of its own.

Carol

Carol,

Welcome, you must have brought me good luck--my reputation improved.

No bullets can be wasted killing those over 18 without chidlren, anyway besides wasting the bullets the noise would be difficult and the blood and guts unsanitary

An expert neck breaker can do the trick very quietly and completely.

There is but one detail I forgot, but thank heavens remembered.

Since dead bodies are very heavy and stiff--after the grave has been succesfully dug ask the digger to sleep there,

The neck breaker can kill the person and they are already in the ground.

Efficiency is very important here. Don't forget my reputation--Thanks

I did 't mean to ruin this thread--keep it coming.

When will the book be out, Brew?


With the few survivors of the catastrophe there wll be a new way of doing things.

Without the old folks around to scare them, the young ones will be more inventive and adventuresome.

Carol Troestler wrote:

Alice,


I'm writing about my great-grandmother who committed suicide, encouraged by Alice's picture
Carol

For shame, Carol!

Dick,

Looking at a picture of me would drive most to violence of some kind.

Carol Troestler wrote:

Along these lines, stories develop, even true ones. I'm writing about my great-grandmother who committed suicide, encouraged by Alice's picture of an insane asylum that reminded me of the place my grandmother inhabited for a time. Carol

Dick, you know you shouldn't take things our of context.



Carol

Back a few years ago, my David was gone for weeks on end and just Wooffer and I were here doing the work we did with the plant nursery. Often, there was not one car that went down this dirt road in those days. Wooffer and I saw not one person for weeks on end.

I thought sometimes of the world ending and it was only Wooffer and I still alive on this earth. I thought it all out. what we would do.

I am a small woman of 105 pounds. I would need tools to accomplish most anything.
.
David has bought most everything there is to buy at Home Depot in the tool department. I just need to read the instruction manuals and I could hack, swack and saw, build, repair, zip tie most anything that needed it.

He would surely have to survive with us, because I do not know how to work his guns. He has every thing, crossbows, well, you name it and his Marine Corp heart has gotten it.

Not that we would need all that, if we were the only three on earth. David, Wooffer and myself and Sarah and Jazzmin the chickens, the five cats in the woods, all the birds.............


No. Life has to go on the way it is. Even if it is just in my yard.

Love,
Betty

Beautiful Betty.

Carol

Betty,

You make me remember.

When the kids were little, Dave would go on business trips.

I obsessed over what to do if a creep got in our house.

I devised quite a plan.

I took a 22 gun to bed with me--it was not loaded.

I figured if a creep came in, I would point the gun at him and say," Get out of my house."

I would follow him amd make him get in our car--still pointng the gun at him I would say," Toot the horn and don't stop or I will pull the trigger."

I knew the neighbors would call the cops and all would be well.

No creeps came in my house!