Resistance of Civilization to Die-off

[tom]

Suppose a virus breaks out which kills everyone it infects, spreads rapidly around the world (a few weeks at most) and suppose nobody goes nuts and pushes the button. How would our society survive different levels of virulence? Suppose the virus infects and kills the following percentages:
A)1%
B)5%
C)20%
D)50%
E)80%
F)95%
G)99%
At what letter do the lights go off, so to speak?

[Doctor What]

Suppose a virus breaks out which kills everyone it infects, spreads rapidly around the world (a few weeks at most) and suppose nobody goes nuts and pushes the button. How would our society survive different levels of virulence? Suppose the virus infects and kills the following percentages:
A)1%
B)5%
C)20%
D)50%
E)80%
F)95%
G)99%
At what letter do the lights go off, so to speak?

A) It's seen by the world much the same way as a really bad flu epidemic (sort of how SARS was seen but this time for real)--a few weeks of shrill screaming and panic, a few months of nervousness and concern, then it becomes a trivia question within a few years later

B) Much of the same as above, only somewhat worse--society takes a few extra months to get back onto pre-virus levels. Some of the third world governments might end up falling or changing hands as various dictators and wannabe dictators take advantage of the chaos.

C) Months of chaos for much of the western world. Martial law of some kind will have to be declared in most countries--if for no other reasons than to prevent looting and bury the bodies. Economy tanks completely. The bad thing about Bureaucracy is its 'everyone fits into a pigeonhole and it's the job that counts, not the person' mentality. This is also a good thing in the event of a large number of deaths like this--as the mechanisms of all the goverment institutions are still there--you just gotta find the warm bodies to fill them. Once whatever is left of the goverment gets its act together post-virus, there will be a 'Marshall Plan' mentality in place--"We survived, let's rebuild!".
Western nations, generally speaking, will get through this (more or less) intact--but expect things not to get back to normal for years. Third world nations (and some of the smaller or weaker first and second world nations for that matter!) will be no-go zones for a very long time.

D) Things get really scary. Assuming nobody pushes the button (BIG if IMO), most countries are pretty much in anarchy for a year or so. Whatever is left of the military will probably get into power whether the survivors want it or not. Urban areas might stay in more or less one piece--rural areas worldwide are pretty much on their own for years to come.

E) No big government in most parts of the world--not even military. You're on your own. Back to small community living. Find a few other survivors, get some farmland and start a commune. Good luck.

F) Better dust off all those Mad Max movies for some ideas....

G) The good news-you survived! Bad news--there's only about 60 million people worldwide who survived the virus --how many of those will die from other causes remains to be seen--all those dead bodies is just asking for additional epidemics to happen. It will be really stupid (but probably accurate) that you survived the virus but died cause you got bit by a rabid rat. Find yourself a mate or two, loot the nearest home and garden store, grab a pick-up and find a quiet corner somewhere. In a few decades and a little bit of luck, we'll be back to pseudo-feudal goverments...

[NapoleonXIV]

In agreement pretty much except that before 80% the results might vary quite widely according to the type of government and also how fast this all happened and whether there is any warning time. Losses of up to 50% can be recovered in a generation or two at worst and the economic dislocation would be difficult but not horrendous as the demand reduces by a comparable amount. The main problems are burying the dead and dealing with the trauma in the living. After this, however, societies begin to die. There just aren't enough people and the survivors don't care anymore anyway.

Still, the infrastructure of society would exist, just not the people. Societies where the people mobilized fast and/or had lots of warning would do best and recovery might be quick for them. They would pretty necessarily come to dominate as they helped themselves by (and to) helping the rest of the world. Even with the worst case, I don't see centuries of dark ages.

One path back, even after hundreds of years, might be the Internet. Its been designed to survive even a nuclear holocaust. The idea, as it was explained to me, was that it would slow down, maybe even to a point where it was unusable, but some small parts could actually generate their own power even if unmonitored, and so it could be revived.

[Straha]

In agreement pretty much except that before 80% the results might vary quite widely according to the type of government and also how fast this all happened and whether there is any warning time. Losses of up to 50% can be recovered in a generation or two at worst and the economic dislocation would be difficult but not horrendous as the demand reduces by a comparable amount. The main problems are burying the dead and dealing with the trauma in the living. After this, however, societies begin to die. There just aren't enough people and the survivors don't care anymore anyway.

One path back, even after hundreds or maybe thousands of years, might be the Internet. Its been designed to survive even a nuclear holocaust. The idea, as it was explained to me, was that it would slow down, maybe even to a point where it was unusable, but some small parts could actually generate their own power even if unmonitored, and so it could be revived.

so in the 80% scenario we could see mad max+cyberpunk in the same world?

[Doctor What]

so in the 80% scenario we could see mad max+cyberpunk in the same world?

I think that the 80% scenario is just at the borderline of mad max + cyberpunk--there's still enough living people around to prevent it from degenerating totally but not enough to sustain a real society for very long (at least, pre-virus society, that is)--it will depend what part of the world you live in and how much of the IT infrastructure is still functioning, I guess.

[Doctor What]

Still, the infrastructure of society would exist, just not the people. Societies where the people mobilized fast and/or had lots of warning would do best and recovery might be quick for them. They would pretty necessarily come to dominate as they helped themselves by (and to) helping the rest of the world. Even with the worst case, I don't see centuries of dark ages.

True--but how much of the infrastructure will survive without maintainence and upkeep? Unless you have some survivors who used to be mechanics and engineers and technicians, we're back to square one when it comes time to start replacing all the gizmos and whatnots on all the mechanical stuff. Sure, there will be millions of spare parts lying around but they'll be rusting and decaying as time goes by too. I don't anticipate a dark age myself even in the worse case scenarios (there's just too much stuff and knowledge lying around intact)--I do, however, anticipate society being knocked down to early-mid 20th century levels for a while.

[aktarian]

One path back, even after hundreds of years, might be the Internet. Its been designed to survive even a nuclear holocaust. The idea, as it was explained to me, was that it would slow down, maybe even to a point where it was unusable, but some small parts could actually generate their own power even if unmonitored, and so it could be revived.


So some time after virus spreads there will be people debating what would happen if it wouldn't spread or emdicine would be found? :D

I think it was calculated that societies colapse when they loose around 20% of population. Sovs came scaringly close to this in WW2. Certain societies can take more.

[tom]

THE STAND is case G, of course...although ASB supernatural battle gives a concentration of survivors that allows for a viable society. EARTH ABIDES by Stewart is another one.
David Gerrold's WAR AGAINST THE CHTORR series features an invasion of an alien biota by ETs who are "chtorriforming" the planet just after a pandemic between D and E (no coincidence...they were softening us up).

[aktarian]

THE STAND is case G, of course...although ASB supernatural battle gives a concentration of survivors that allows for a viable society.

Society in The Stand can't suvive. Not nearly enough people to reproduce and most of other industrialised nations are not better off. In fact US military ensures they aren't.

[tom]

But the old lady (forgot her name) gathered thousands of people into her commune. That is enough to give at least some sort of society.

[aktarian]

But the old lady (forgot her name) gathered thousands of people into her commune. That is enough to give at least some sort of society.

And how long before you start running out of people who aren't related to you so there isn't genetic "disturbance"? How many were in their reproductive years? What was male/female ratio? And I don't think it was that big. No more than 3.000.

[Doctor What]

Society in The Stand can't suvive. Not nearly enough people to reproduce and most of other industrialised nations are not better off. In fact US military ensures they aren't.

The general rule of thumb used in conservation biology has been the 50/500 rule: Isolated populations need a genetically effective population of about 50 individuals for short term persistence, and a genetically effective population of about 500 for long-term survival. These are considered minimal numbers--minimum viable population size (MVP) to be really technical-to avoid inbreeding problems. Even worse case scenario still leaves 60 million people worldwide--more than enough from a genetic point of view. From a societal point of view, however....

[atreides]

Well, if we're down to 60 M, then we still have more people than in most of mankind's history. Suppossedly. before the invention of agriculture, we had only about 10 M in the whole world! In Roman times it was about 200 M wordwide. When was the last time we had 60M? Indus valley civs, perhaps?

So...assume this scenario (all times local):

Aug 3, 2004: A cosmic ray particle hits a DNA strand on a chicken flu virus living in a ill-fated chicken. It mutates, so now it is trasmitted by air, is deadly but not so fast as to kill its host before it spreads widely. It kills in 2-3 days, tops.

Aug 5, 2004: A chicken is now very dead, an in the last couple of days dozens of people get very sick in its former home, a village near Bangkok. Many millions of reproductive cicles later, the virus in the victim's bodies has mutated in at least three new forms, all airborne and lethal, and different enough in the chemical properties of their viral membranes that not a single cure can hit them all (different receptor proteins).

Aug 6, 2004, 9 am: Medical officers in Bangkok start wondering about an apparent outbreak of very bad flu in the village just yesterday, go to the village. On the road, they pass a car going in the opposite direction, to the city. It carries a family wanting to welcome their immigrant aunt at the international airport. The three children got all sick hours earlier, but still they feel well enough to go to the big city, and they are very fond of their aunt so they of course go anyway. They wave to the doctors as they pass by.

Aug 6, 2004: 9:45 am: The doctors are in the village. They quickly see that most of the villagers are getting very sick, fear the worst, and quarentine it. But a car just got to Bangkok International Airport...

Aug 6, 2004, 12:45 pm: Finally, aunt arrives. But the children are not there to receive her: they got into an awful state at the airport, and are interned. Even the parents are feeling dizzy. As one of the children was wailing in a most pitiable way, a kind American woman from a tour group got over her, stroke her hair, gave her some candy, hug her, and calmed the child down a little. Then she went to her plane, that took her from Bangkok to New York via Delhi and Frankfurt.

Aug 7, 2004, 2 pm.: To the doctor's amazement and grief, most of the villagers are dead! And some of the doc's are pretty ill, and people in neighbouring villages show the same symtoms. They immediately inform the goverment, and the whole area is closed off. The priority is to isolate it from nearby Bangkok and other big cities. First time the plague makes the news. Great concern in Thailand, some intranquility in the rest of the world, except with epidemiologists wordwide, especially some in Australia that received a sample of the virus from their Asian colleages and are studying the thing. They begin to get VERY concerned.

Meanwhile, a MayDay resonates in the control tower of JFK Int. A Lufthansa plane from Bangkok-Frankfurt reports that both the pilot and copilot are almost disabled from a vicious sickness, together with an alarming percentage of the passengers. Customs contacts the Center for Tropical Diseases: do you know something about this? They answer: when they land, quarentine them at all costs!

2:15 pm: JFK instructs the pilot to land in a little used airfield away from mayor urban areas but, his reasoning blinded by fever, almost unable to use his muscles, and no one capable of flying in better condition than him, the pilot decides he won't wait anymore, is do or die. He tries to land, and makes a near-fatal mistake while landing: the plane tilts, snaps a wing, careens over the tarmac an comes to rest just a dozen of meters from the waiting room's windows! Shocked passengers fly the burning wreck, among them a very sick American woman that runs into the horrified firefighters, that carry her to an ambulance, and from there to a hospital. Many survivors are taken to hospitals in the NY area. There they are quarentined. But the virus is not only on them...

Afternoon, Aug. 7, 2004: News come from Frankfurt, Bangkok, and outlaying areas: large numbers of people are getting sick. Especially in Bangkok, people are dying at a steady, worrying rate. Hospitals there begin to get full.

Evening, Aug.7, 2004: The Thai goverment announces a state of national emergency, ask for international help, isolates the country from the exterior and Greater Bangkok from the rest of the country...but outbreaks appear outside the perimeter, nevertheless. In Germany they also isolate Frankfurt. But as in a little village in Thailand, some people already infected were outside the city when the quarentine started...

Aug 8-9 2004: It was summer: all Southeast Asia was full of young tourists, American, Australian, European, doing the classical SE Trail (ex-hippie trail). That Aug. 6 many planes departed from Bangkok to capitals in SE Asia, and most First World countries. Not a few of them carried passengers that had walked near a couple of crying, coughing children. So soon, in Paris and Auckland, in Sidney and Rome, in Delhi and Tel Aviv, people were falling sick. At the end of Aug. 9, it was clear that traditional containment efforts would be useless. Continents still untouched, (mostly): Africa and South America, and any other place that was both far from Thailand and didn't had a lot of people with enough money to go see the world and bring back the virus.

The kind American woman was dead by the 8th. So a third of the people she was near after the accident: the firefighters, some airport personnel, some doctors. No one could control all the links: the sickness began to spread from the Greater NY area, westward.

Aug 10, 2004: The Security Council was listening to the WHO spokeman, for the first time meeting in cyberspace, a multimedia conference: a map was on every screen. An area was marked red. It covered half of the South Asian subcontinent, and another blob covered Germany, France, Italy, Poland, an arrow from there points to Russia, another to England, Spain and Morocco...another arrow was pointing from Thailand to China. Another from NY to LA to Mexico. Red areas: parts of the world where the arrival of the plague was considered inevitable. Arrows: possible routes of expansion.
- ...and no cure? - ask Kofi Annan
- Not yet. We're working on it -answers the WHO man. - But the disease spreads really fast. Planes, tourism and summer make a very good environment for the virus.
- How many dead?
The screens flicker, a bitstorm in the Internet.
- Difficult to estimate, sir. We have yet to collect all of the data. So far, twenty thousand confirmed, in only four days! . And of course, the contagion grows exponentially, the data is still arriving, supplies are beginnig to be scarce...I'm afraid we have to do something both draconian and global, sir, to stop this.There has never been a sickness like this.

- I agree -says the Chinese ambassador.

A little alarm sounds in the monitors: newsflash. The Secretary General activates the video...

Another image intrudes in the monitors: a hurried man, with a background of running people, honking cars, some broken windows, and running, bewildered policemen. " ...we have a new development here in Bangkok. The sickness is here, and people don't want to be corraled anymore. There are wild rumours of strees with houses full of corpses. They know there's yet no cure for the disease, and they don't want to wait, they're fleeing... they just broke thru the police barrier... a few were shot but the mob just walked over the policemen...the army will be here at any moment. But there are rumours of sick soldiers. The Thai goverment has declared martial law. We expect the worst. Singapure is closed, they 're using deadly force against fleeing refugees, and we have reports all over Indochina and Northern India... and the first case in China, in Guangzhu. Reporting from Bangkok, this is Anthony Ho... "

Annan interrupted the video, a gesture of fatigue, fear. So be it, he thought.
- So be it! -the quiet Annan said, for the first time raising his voice in an official meeting of the UN.

**************

Well, writing about bioapocalypse is tiring work. See you tomorrow! Any suggestions accepted.

[Diamond]

Very well-written, Atreides! Please continue ASAP. BTW, what 'kill %' are you going for here? 99%?

[Doctor What]

Well, writing about bioapocalypse is tiring work. See you tomorrow! Any suggestions accepted.

Excellent work atreides!

So--what now?

Well--it's far too late at this point to stop the spread of the virus--too many people infected, too many countries, too many chains of contagion. Your best hope--your only hope--is to slow down the spread enough that somebody somewhere actually has a chance to develop either a cure (for those already sick) or a vaccine (for those who aren't yet). You will have to accept the distinct possibility that this process may take weeks or even months to accomplish--or never. It's a stab in the dark. Gotta make it count and you got one chance at this. No pressures.....

Have the ambassadors of all the nations be given the following advice to be sent to their respective countries. Yes--they're common sense ideas but if common sense was considered so common, people wouldn't be impressed by the compliment:

-First thing you gotta do is shut down all air traffic worldwide. Do the same thing that happened 9/11--every plane in the air at this precise moment are ordered to go to the nearest airport immediately. Once there--they will be quarantined on the tarmac until further notice. Nothing else takes off. Any planes of any kind seen in the air after, oh , let's say after 6 hours from now (arbitrary number) until further notice will be considered 'suspect' and the air force of the appropriate nation are encouraged to use 'extreme measures' to discourage their landing.

-Second, shut down all border crossings. Nobody goes in, nobody goes out. Similarily, all major bridges, tunnels, train stations and so forth in urban areas are cordoned off by the military. Like the airport scenario above, the military personnel are given authorization to use 'extreme measures'

Basically, you're adopting a fireline approach here--you're going to have to accept the idea that your country WILL suffer losses--how much is entirely dependent on how fast they get their act together. You're also going to have to accept the idea that there WILL be people who will, er, 'disagree' with your containment plans and try to break out (or in). Every newly infected person who gets into your country could, theoretically, start an infection chain that includes millions. You're going to have to accept the idea that your troops will be shooting unarmed (or armed!) civilians. The military of some countries will have few qualms about this; there will, however, be military personnel who will have problems with this idea--expect high levels of desertion and disobeying of orders. Traditional punishments for disobeying orders and desertion in most militaries are summary executions....

Man--this is tough work! You're right atreides--working out the bioapocalypse is hard work. Hope these suggestions helped. Looking forward to part 2...

[tom]

Diamond:
Since atreides was talking about 60M survivors, I think he is doing the 99% scenario.

[Leej]

I'd say it depends on how the survivors survive- are they people who have virtually no contact with civilization, do they have some kind of a mutant gene or is it a specific genetic thing (All members of the Woo woo tribe of southern Mali are immune)

[Doctor What]

I'd say it depends on how the survivors survive- are they people who have virtually no contact with civilization, do they have some kind of a mutant gene or is it a specific genetic thing (All members of the Woo woo tribe of southern Mali are immune)

Why not all three? You got some folks who went into "bunker mode" at the first sign of trouble, a bunch who were off climbing mountains or exploring jungles when all the mess started (sort of like the main character in Earth Abides), a few isolated tribes in south america and africa, a few lucky bastards who got infected with a weak version of the virus and a few really lucky bastards who are genetically immune to it?

[atreides]

Now a close-up on some stories, just before the world ends...


Aug. 11, 2004. 7:15 am, Bocas del Toro, Panamá :
************************************************** ***
Antonio Casares was watching tv as he had breakfast before going to school. He was a teacher in a rather run-down high school in Bocas del Toro, a small town set in an island off Panama's Caribbean coast, near Costa Rica. Sitting at his table, holding a hot cup of coffe, he sipped at it from time to time while regarding the shadows in the eyes of Kofi Annan as he was carefully explaining why millions were in dire peril and why it was really not necessary to panic at all, because the world's goverments (and international institutions, naturally) were going to help you.

Later historians would dig out the records and call this broadcast "The Plague Communiquè". For the first time in history, a Secretary General of the UN was speaking live to all of Humanity, via an also unprecedented linkage of every major and minor tv and radio network on the planet, and also via live Internet multicasting.

Antonio sipped his coffe. A Spanish-translated Annan was talking: "The members of the Security Council have agreed on the following general measures, and strongly recommend that all the members of the General Assembly follow them: All kinds of personal travel between infected areas and the rest of the world should be suspended, except for emergencies, be it by air, sea or land." Another sip, a bit of tortilla: "...only commercial exchanges of vital goods such as foodstuffs, oil and its derivates and critical medical and humanitarian supplies will be allowed, and every port and land frontier will enforce strict screening procedures to avoid inadvertent introduction of the Thai Flu virus". The tortilla got stuck in his gullet. "...the best scientific minds in the world are working on a cure, that will soon be available...". Finally he could swallow. "The International Council for the Thai Flu will coordinate all activities..."

So no travel, eh? Antonio looked out of the window: there was the usual throng of tourists, but now subdued, the worry on their faces as out of place as their blond hair in this sunny Afro-Caribbean reduct. So now little Bocas has something like double its population, full of well-to-do Europeans and Americans that can't go home. And if one of those sunburned postmodern adventurers had the...what? Thai Flu? Now it has a name!

The newspaper on the table had a map. It looked like half the world was about to be infected. How are they going to stop it? But he noticed that from Mexico down, there was no Flu...but another blob was visible in Rio de Janeiro, moving up, down, reaching Buenos Aires, and up to Salvador de Bahia...

It was just a matter of time.

And the UN is going to protect us! God save us! Or the "local goverments, in coordination.." Jesus, what is the matter with that man, that respectable man that is trying to calm me for...what? He got up and went to his class, enraged against politicians everywhere, tourists, the ICTF, God, stupid viruses, lies...and soon he was facing his class, thirty worried, excited teenagers, asking "Is it going to get here?" "Are the tourists infected? Shouldn't we get rid of them?" "Is there a cure?" "How many have died?" I'm afraid!, we know nothing!"

And then Antonio Casares found himself being as reassuring and comforting as a whole Secretary-General of the United Nations, minus the salary and benefits. But he looked out to the sea, the beautiful blue sea and the other islands, exploding with green life. We're just a poor, pretty island. Why this?

A smile formed on his round face. An ISLAND!


3:15 pm, Beijing, China.
**************************
It had no particular name, but it was the heart of China. The room, big and ugly in a computer-and-technodross way, was where the leaders of one in every five people alive meet in case of Interesting Times.
"May you live in interesting times!" is a chinese curse. And times couldn't get more...interesting.
"It is decided", the Premier said. Everybody agreed. Some of them even smiled.
"Good" -the Premier reached for the phone. "General Li? This is your Premier. Please do execute Plan Great Wall. Yes. I see. We won't forget your patriotism, General. Good-bye".
He then turned to the rest of the council members. He smiled.
"We're saved".
Applause thundered.
"But...dear Premier, the Americans won't like it. Or Human Rights Watch."
Interesting Times!, thought the Premier. So YOU choose this time to make your mark? Who are your allies...?
Smiling, he replied: "The Americans and the other Westerners will soon be too busy to care. Besides, none of their people are likely to be...collateral damage...of this necessary strategy. And our first duty is to the great Chinese people".
Another round of applause.

General Li acted as efficiently as possible.
China was closed. Guangzhou was a closed box within the closed box of China. Troops were sent to the Vietnamese border, with assurances that they where only for helping with "the refugees". Likewise in all frontiers. Reservists were recalled. Scientists were secluded as "pearls of light", in Celestial Empire parlance, to work it out. The navy was on high alert. Nothing, NOTHING could enter China if the Authorities didn't wanted to.
And if the transpassers still tried, their destiny would be harsh.

Except for the vietnamese smugglers that continued with their centuries-old job of cultural and economic exchanges with the formidable people of the north. Traversing the jungle, they still brought batteries, magazines, drugs, electronic appliances, anything their Chinese contacts wanted. The Thai Flu? Please, are you a man or not? Business is business: I have a family! So the new Great Wall, made of millions of busy bodies, modern weaponry and sophisticated surveillance systems, was breached even sooner than the old one in the north by silent shadows walking in the jungle thinking of selling CD's for profit to teenagers in Shangai, or about candid girls back home.


10:30 pm. Dusseldorf, Germany
***********************************

"Where is Germany?"

Uta was looking out of her apartment's balcony to the Rhine, where you could see the German and French river patrols criss-crossing the water. In this summer's late light you could see that the crews were armed, watchful.

The city was too silent. Eva was babbling on the cellular about closed cities, about some new cases in the Pirennées, about Koln and Frankfurt and even Munich and Berlin considering martial law, about the impossibility of going anywhere...

As if she didn't knew.

She discerned movement on the street below. A boy, coughing. She thought nothing of it, until he fell to the ground. Had he fainted? She rushed to the staircase and ran down the stairs. Poor boy! "Eva, I've to call an ambulance!" And then, five meters from the boy, she stopped cold on her tracks.

DAMN STUPID GIRL.

Eva keep chattering. "What's the matter? You ok? Uta??" She slowly retraced her steps to the apartment's building entrance. The boy moved, eyes closed, moaning. He didn't rise up.

"Eva...Eva, shut up, please! Eva, I think it is here. The Flu. Eva, I have it just in front of my eyes, a sick boy...how do I know? He just FELL on the street! Yes, I'll call an ambulance. Yes, I'm going. RIGHT NOW. Don't know, bye dear. Bye."

She called the ambulance, and went up her apartment. She picked the essentials, went to the door. And stopped.

What I'm supposed to do? Kill a cop? Try to cross the Rhine into France, to see the Thai Flu in french? She suddenly felt...medieval. Like a serf that couldn't leave her master's land.

"Where's Germany?" she muttered again. It was still holding on, but fragmenting, terrified, isolated. The cities were closing in themselves, aided by the federal nature of the country.

We're devolving, she thought. If this goes on, Germany will be again a mess of city-states. The Holy Roman Empire of the XXI century.

The boy was breathing, unevenly, as if having a nightmare. The noise of the ambulance shut out the roar of the patrol boats, and people began looking out of their windows in silence.

She looked at a newspaper: about 7,000 dead in Frankfurt, many more sick, hundreds of cases in most of the national territory, a few dozen dead. Four days ago the virus wasn't even in Europe. Fire wouldnt move so fast. But Europe was overpopulated, Germany alone had 80 million people. A lot of wood.

And compassion was running low, boldness high. She closed her window, sat by the bed and tried to think about how to get the hell out of the city.

*********

NEXT PART: ACCELERATION (FIRST PART IS NOW CALLED "BUTTERFLY VIRUS " or anything you want)

With the virus out of the cage and into the wider human pool, things are going to change fast. We'll change the timescale, too, longer periods. The virus will really get out of control now. But a 99% dead rate takes time, even with a Thai Flu...
...what will happen when China is breached?
...can Europe hold on?
...can UN bureocrats save a tropical island or a high school teacher with a simple idea?
...and whats happening in the US?

stay tuned!

[Diamond]

Man, I'm loving this! Great tension-soaked writing with just the right amount of description.

[Doctor What]

I agree! You da man Atreides! :)

Are we going to have 'Last (wo)man on earth' type of vignettes here?

[wkwillis]

At ten percent you get cheap real estate. At 99.99% (calcivirus and myxo for rabbits in Australia) you get loss of civilisation. 99% is not enough to lose anything less complicated than wafer fabs or airliners. You still have steel mills and oil refineries at a world population of 60,000,000.
Think of France as a country of that size.

[DuQuense]

Of course you also have other deaths -Children who's parents die, Invalids, Nurseing homes, ect.

You have a certain amount of infrastruture damage,as the fire control personal, die or move to other problems,

If your 60, million were all in one place they could keep the lights burning, but they will be all over the world. Once to oil pipeline pumps shut down, will there be someone who knows how to turn it back on, any where near the control Room, With out the oil the refinery is just Metal. This interlocking will effect almost every thing.

Within two years most Petrol products will shellac to uselessness, so there go lot of the motorized segaments of the infrastruture.

Most farmers in the First world buy their food at the Groceries like everyone else, so weirdly the third world farmers will be the best off.

In fact given the lack of transport in lots of third and Fourth world contries, I can see them coming out better than the highly interconnected first world countries. [Some amazon tribes never even know that it happened till years later]

Any idea on how you are going to handle the Zoos, Circuses, & exotic animal parks around the world.

Steam locomotives are a lot easier to repair than Diesel-Electric in this kind of senerio. Same with steam Ships on the Rivers.

[Admiral Matt]

"Any idea on how you are going to handle the Zoos, Circuses, & exotic animal parks around the world."

This has always interested me - if humans suddenly disappeared, what would happen to all the animals we've transplanted? Most would die out, but enough would be left to make the landscape really weird.

For example: A couple days ago I read that the Everglades are being overrun by abandoned pets from Miami. Peacocks, Burmese Pythons, Parrots, and some kind of Monkey have established breeding populations. More noticeable is the rapidly expanding range of 7-foot Monitor Lizards which were fad pets not long ago.

What would we get in this TL? Elephants in the forests of the Deep South? Lions hunting buffalo on the plains? Llamas in the Appalachians? Tigers stalking deer in New England?

[Doctor What]

"Any idea on how you are going to handle the Zoos, Circuses, & exotic animal parks around the world."

This has always interested me - if humans suddenly disappeared, what would happen to all the animals we've transplanted? Most would die out, but enough would be left to make the landscape really weird.

For example: A couple days ago I read that the Everglades are being overrun by abandoned pets from Miami. Peacocks, Burmese Pythons, Parrots, and some kind of Monkey have established breeding populations. More noticeable is the rapidly expanding range of 7-foot Monitor Lizards which were fad pets not long ago.

What would we get in this TL? Elephants in the forests of the Deep South? Lions hunting buffalo on the plains? Llamas in the Appalachians? Tigers stalking deer in New England?

Actually--I've always been curious about this myself--remember '12 monkeys' where we had lions and bears wandering around Philly? This goes back to just how many animals are released--I can see some sick gameskeeper at a zoo deciding to open up all the cages and give the animals some kind of chance at survival but unless you got a viable breeding population all you've got is just a few stray animals wandering around until they die from old age or other causes. 50/500 rule of thumb again.

Still--it would be interesting to see all these animals wandering around--if only for a few decades or so....

[David Howery]

actually, you would have breeding populations of lions and tigers in a few places. There are places in the US where these two big cats are bred and also crossbred for 'ligers'. There used to be a place in rural MT called Ligertown where this was done. A flood or something let a bunch of them loose, and the local sherrifs went on a big game hunt for a few days while the rest of the people stayed home in terror (although no one got hurt, most of the cats were shot, and some were just recaptured). Have something like this happen when most of the people are dying off and you have breeding populations who are well fed at first on corpses....

[tom]

In Earth Abides there was a scene where a bazillion ants appear and then die because of human ecological influence vanishing...

[Doctor What]

actually, you would have breeding populations of lions and tigers in a few places. There are places in the US where these two big cats are bred and also crossbred for 'ligers'. There used to be a place in rural MT called Ligertown where this was done. A flood or something let a bunch of them loose, and the local sherrifs went on a big game hunt for a few days while the rest of the people stayed home in terror (although no one got hurt, most of the cats were shot, and some were just recaptured). Have something like this happen when most of the people are dying off and you have breeding populations who are well fed at first on corpses....

I'm getting the impression that we're enjoying planning the bioapocalypse and its ramifications a bit too much here.... :)

I totally forgot that there's already large breeding populations in a few places of some of these exotic animals (hey--what about all those ostrich and llama farms that were all the rage a few years back...). Also--think of some of the weird hybrids that might develop with all these escaped animals and the large numbers of feral cats and dogs wandering around. Bobcats and domestic cats. Wolves and coyotes with dogs. Possibilities are endless.

Also--the existing freeway systems are still going to be more or less intact for years if not decades to come. Imagine the migration patterns of animals being changed as the critters use them for their own purposes....

[PSG479]

Also--the existing freeway systems are still going to be more or less intact for years if not decades to come. Imagine the migration patterns of animals being changed as the critters use them for their own purposes....

Kinda sounds like that "wolves highway" idea some environmentalist group thought of on one of those "big block of cheese day" episodes on The West Wing

[Justin Green]

Atreides I hope you mention governments turning off their Nuke power facilities, otherwise this wont just be a bioapocalypse.

Do you remember "the Postman" and the part with the Bengal tiger in Oregon? It would be cool to imagine lion prides and tigers in montana, dakotas, iowa, etc. hunting wild cattle, horses, ostriches, llamas, buffaloes, and elephants.

[Diamond]

I'm getting the impression that we're enjoying planning the bioapocalypse and its ramifications a bit too much here.... :)

I'm a sucker for apocalypse stories - must feed into some kind of latent survivalist nut instinct. :)

(hey--what about all those ostrich and llama farms that were all the rage a few years back...).

There is a fairly large ostrich farm on one of the back-roads I take as a shortcut to work to avoid the freeways. One day, a herd of them broke down a fence just before I drove by and blocked the road. When they saw my car, they panicked - one of them kicked a six-inch deep dent in my door! Those things are DANGEROUS!!! LOL I think they'd hold their own quite well as a dominant herd animal 'after man', maybe taking the places of the bison - can you imagine a miles-wide sea of wild ostrich thundering across Kansas?

[David Howery]

well, ostriches don't eat the same things as bison. They could live in the southern parts of the US certainly. If humanity disappeared, bison and feral cattle would thrive on the plains, as would feral sheep. Feral pigs would thrive about anywhere. Lions could certainly live well in the Americas.. they did live here up to the end of the Ice Age. I don't know if elephants and rhinos can live on their own up in the north... they are big animals and not well prepared to take the cold weather.. they might be able to live only in the deep south...

[Doctor What]

I'm a sucker for apocalypse stories - must feed into some kind of latent survivalist nut instinct. :)?

Me too--but it's not like I'm actually, you know, planning to do anything about it, no siree bob....

Dr. What throws a blanket over his biology lab table. Starts whistling as he nonchalantly walks away....



There is a fairly large ostrich farm on one of the back-roads I take as a shortcut to work to avoid the freeways. One day, a herd of them broke down a fence just before I drove by and blocked the road. When they saw my car, they panicked - one of them kicked a six-inch deep dent in my door! Those things are DANGEROUS!!! LOL I think they'd hold their own quite well as a dominant herd animal 'after man', maybe taking the places of the bison - can you imagine a miles-wide sea of wild ostrich thundering across Kansas?

Running Cat knelt near the long ribbon of strange broken black rock-like asfalt. Today was his initiation day--the day he became a member of the tribe. But first he had to pass the test. He must hunt down and kill his prey in single combat. Many before him had passed the test.

Many had not.

Looking down, he saw his prey--a herd of the savage ostriches. His sweaty palms involuntarily squeezed the shaft of his spear....

[Admiral Matt]

There are still plenty of llama farms scattered through the country. I live near one. Alpacas are starting to supplant them in most places, but both will probably survive in viable populations - there are plenty of big farms around.

I think there are still ostrich farms these days, and I know there are a lot of emus.

Tigers are actually surprisingly common in this country. From time to time, the authorities will stumble on someone who keeps a dozen or so in secret, sometimes inside urban areas. A while ago they caught somebody with nearly thirty; if one hadn't escaped, no-one would have ever known. Given the size of a tiger's range, it isn't hard to imagine these populations bumping into each other as they spread out.

Most domesticated animals are going to die out, fast. Chickens, turkeys, and most ducks are completely helpless. Our cattle would do well at first, but when the last few buffalo herds erupt onto the plains, they will be outcompeted. The longhorns might last longer and will probably interbreed with the bison until they disappear.

Wolves will sweep through the nation very quickly. This means a little interbreeding with the bigger dogs, but a distinction is likely to remain. It also means that deer populations will finally fall back to normal. Small dogs will all be eaten. The larger dogs will probably merge into a feral form vaguely reminiscent of a dingo.

Pigs will do just fine for themselves, and within a generation will be looking decidedly boar-like. Boars aren't genetically different from most domestic ones – it is diet and exercise that makes the difference.

Horses and donkeys will actually be better off. We've been keeping the population down for a long time because we just don't need them that much anymore. Horses could probably take up a spot on the Great Plains with the bison, ostrich and antelope, I imagine they could do well in parts of the East as well. Northern Mexico and Texas are fairly good donkey habitat.

In terms of plants there is kudzu. For the uninformed, kudzu is an invasive vine from East Asia. It grows ridiculously fast, and nothing native to the states will eat the stuff. The end result is that despite extensive efforts to stop it kudzu has spread through much of the south. It climbs and smothers trees and completely covers the ground. Without humans it would probably overrun much of northern Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and southern Virginia.

An interesting point on kudzu is that goats apparently love the stuff. It's possible that parts of the south would end up with nothing but kudzu, goats, and whatever eats the goats, with the original inhabitants relegated to the few areas where kudzu has trouble.

[Doctor What]

"Post-Man" world is starting to look decidedly weirder and cooler as time goes by, eh?....

Man--that image of the entire state of Florida being one giant kudzu-covered land is kinda freaky--imagine the entire city of miami looking like some kind of long-lost Mayan jungle-city....

[Grimm Reaper]

Lovely, simply lovely. Looking good already.

I presume that no nations will 'hold out' from the plague, like Switzerland or North Korea?

I love when I can bring scifi novels into this.

In Emergence it is suggested that any mammal is capable of developing a winter coat, so I suspect many of the critters will fit in. Reptiles, however, are in trouble, especially the tropical ones. They are solitary and travel, so a few would scatter and be unable to mate. Florida's problem is the replenishing of these creatures until they ARE a viable population.

A common theme in many such novels is that zookeepers, being lovers of animals, will act to give their charges a fighting chance, and let them go.

In Emergence the first warning is in St Louis when our heros nearly run into a rhinocerous and one asks why a city so large doesn't have a leash requirement. Later they see that all the animals have been let go.

Yes, even the cobras. Ick.

The mammals, being gregarious, will often band together, especially most large herbivores and the lions.

The Horseclans series by the late Robert Adams has some interesting ideas regarding what the herds might look like, including polyglot herds wandering together. But this would be further in the future.

Ironic note: Just check S.M. Stirling's new book site, and it mentioned in one chapter that the USA has the largest population of tigers in the world. Something like 20,000.

Doctor, love some ideas. I remember Twelve Monkeys, starring Bruce Willis. Never figured who the other eleven were. ;)

Diamond, yep, we is a sick crowd here, we is. Wonder how many of us read Deathlands and Outlands. (giggles to self)

But does an ostrich 'taste like chicken'? And is it 'savage herd of ostrich' or 'savage herd of man-eating ostrich'?

Admiral Matt, wonderful ideas you have, especially the kudzu. But the worst is when one Justin's proxies forgets to turn off the reactor near Clearwater and the kudzu begins to develop sentience...Brrrr!

[Doctor What]

My little tangent on hybrid animals got me thinking (never a good thing!) and a quick google search later....

http://www.greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/crossesa.htm

Believe it or not, biologists already have names for pretty much every freaky kind of cross-breed you can think of, including:
Beefalo --bison/cattle crosses
Zebroid --a female Horse and a male Zebra.
Zetland --female Shetland Pony (mare) to a male Zebra
Jaglion --a Jaguar with a Lion.
Cama --camel/llama hybrid
Huarizo--male Alpaca/female Llama

Grimm Reaper-how about we compromise and just call them 'savage herd of mean motherfuckers'? :)

I like the idea of sentient radioactive kudzu --somebody has to try to work that into a story somehow!

oh and one last thing...an ostrich does taste (sorta) like chicken--just trust me on this, ok... ;)

[David Howery]

Of course, none of those animals crossbreed in the wild, and the hybrids can rarely breed themselves, so they'll disappear in a generation.
The whole kudzu thing reminds me of a sci fi story I read years ago, where the axis of the planet shifts so that one side is always facing the sun, and that side has rampant plant growth with mobile plants replacing most of the animals. Humans still live in this world as hunter/gatherers....

[Diamond]

Diamond, yep, we is a sick crowd here, we is. Wonder how many of us read Deathlands and Outlands. (giggles to self)

Oh yeah, those're one of my guilty pleasures. Nothing like a quick, trashy read. :)

Well, it looks like the south might be kudzu heaven, but my neck of the woods (southern California) would likely revert to desert. 30 years after the Die-Off, San Bernardino, Riverside, and other cities are ruined, bleached shells rising like mirages out of the baking, dusty land, their streets choked with tumbleweeds...

[Diamond]

The whole kudzu thing reminds me of a sci fi story I read years ago, where the axis of the planet shifts so that one side is always facing the sun, and that side has rampant plant growth with mobile plants replacing most of the animals. Humans still live in this world as hunter/gatherers....

"Hothouse", by Brian Aldiss. Very good read.

[atreides]

Hi guys!

Nice to see so much interest, your ideas are great...in fact, trying to incorporate some of them made me delay the next part...this weekend I'll continue the BioApocalypsis According to Atreides, I promise!

I used to live in Panama, and I can tell you something: if Man disappeared from a tropical country like that one, there's no doubt about the result: in 10 years, all of the cities will look like Mayan ruins. In one hundred, you'll be awarded a Nobel prize in archaeology (if it exists!) if you find one. Look, even highways that cross a tropical forest, if left untended for a few years, will be breached everywhere by...grass. And even now you see wild animals crossing them all the time, especially at dusk, I wonder why.

But this would happen because there's still some tropical rainforest left and the climate always helps, anyway. That is, a working ecosystem will just move into ex-human areas.

BUT...I wonder about temperate regions with extensively damaged ecosystems, like much of Europe. Would big game find enough food to survive? And other biohazards, like all the contaminants stored everywhere slowly (or explosively) leaking without even feeble human efforts at stopping them, and yes, meltdowns. I think that big, African-style pretadors will only survive if also a working pop of big hervibores also escaped and adapted...a difficult coincidence, but could happen in such enourmous places as the US, or, say, Ukraine. But in Europe, nah, I think the big guys will be just wolves and dogs, and feral pigs. Europe is a sad place, ecologically speaking. Too much "civilization" for too long.


But remember, humanity doesn't dissapear...it is just reduced to 1% current pop. And that means...?

Hang on! ;)

PS: I've been researching the Spanish flu for this scenario. Did you know that it infected about 40% of world pop at the time (1918-1919)? That's near 600 million people! And left 20 M dead, or about 1% of humanity. There were 2 forms of the disease, one fulminant, that could literally kill in 1-2 days, and one more benign, that induced pneumonia, the real killer in OTL. Just imagine if the fulminant one were the dominant form...40% of world pop dead in 1920, just after WWI? :(

As they say, thing always can be worse...
see you!

[Doctor What]

But remember, humanity doesn't dissapear...it is just reduced to 1% current pop. And that means...?

Actually, not really that much different than if 100% disappeared. Let me explain-I live in Ottawa (population roughly 700,000). If it's reduced to 1%, that's only going to leave about 7000. This, of course, does not count the number of survivors that are going to die from accidents, suicides, being shot by army/cops/looters, other epidemics, wild dogs, etc. I figure additional 10% of the survivors will die. (ok, it's a number I just pulled out of the air but I think it's a reasonable number). Sooner or later, the survivors are going to crawl out of their homes looking for food, water, supplies, other survivors, etc.

I don't know about you but I've seen enough snow to last me for several lifetimes and there's no freaking way I'm going to still be here once winter rolls around--first chance I get I'm outta here to warmer and hopefully more hospitable land--also, having roughly 700,000 corpses lying around the city (especially once decay sets in) will be VERY unpleasant--well, unpleasant for humans--rats and other scavengers are going to have a field day and breed like crazy. I seriously doubt I'll have much trouble convincing any newfound friends to do the same.

Best chance for the survivors (at least for the first year or two) is to hightail it to a small town or village and wait for things to return to something resembling normality before going back into the cities. Remember 'The Stand' and the scenes where they were cleaning up Denver and Las Vegas of all the corpses? How eager are you to do that? Sure--survivors will eventually be trickling back into the cities but I seriously doubt you'll see any significant human presence in 90% of Earth's cities for a good long while.

BUT...I wonder about temperate regions with extensively damaged ecosystems, like much of Europe. Would big game find enough food to survive? And other biohazards, like all the contaminants stored everywhere slowly (or explosively) leaking without even feeble human efforts at stopping them, and yes, meltdowns. I think that big, African-style pretadors will only survive if also a working pop of big hervibores also escaped and adapted...a difficult coincidence, but could happen in such enourmous places as the US, or, say, Ukraine. But in Europe, nah, I think the big guys will be just wolves and dogs, and feral pigs. Europe is a sad place, ecologically speaking. Too much "civilization" for too long.

Don't knock Mother nature too much--she can surprise you sometimes! Sure we won't see plant growth smothering the Eiffel Tower in just 6 months but you still got a few forests lying about as well as the millions of abandoned gardens and farms. It may take a little bit longer for nature to bounce back in the more heavily 'civilized' areas but it will bounce back--earth has bounced back from killer asteroids,after all.

But this brings up a thought --just how long will all the buildings and stuff actually stay up? Anything made out of wood (partially or completely) will probably be a death trap after being abandoned for a generation or two. And metal will corrode eventually. And all the roads and stuff are going to crumble away to little better than dirt roads after a few decades. Then you've got earthquakes, snowstorms, hurricanes, fires,.....

[David Howery]

What remains of humanity will probably gather in the big cities eventually for one good reason: there'd be more stored food there. Small towns don't have much surplus, so they'll be cleaned out quick. After that, everyone will head to the cities looking for Safeway warehouses and the like.
I'd think manmade structures in the cold north would decay faster than those in hot dry climates. The annual freeze/thaw is hard on concrete and asphalt, and the subsequent cracks would collect dirt and be havens for weeds, which will break it down even faster. OTOH, structures in desert areas will likely stay up a lot longer, although they'll fall into ruin eventually....

[Straha]

when civilizations begin to be refomed, the americas and autralia will have more parity to the old world due to crop plants and animals being there.

[Doctor What]

What remains of humanity will probably gather in the big cities eventually for one good reason: there'd be more stored food there. Small towns don't have much surplus, so they'll be cleaned out quick. After that, everyone will head to the cities looking for Safeway warehouses and the like.

Curious about something--just how long can canned food and dried pasta remain edible? I was always under the impression that canned stuff tends to get a little, er, scary after 10 years or so even under the best of conditions.

[David Howery]

even if canned goods only last 5 years, there'll still be more of them around in the cities than in the small towns. Milk and every liquid other than water will be useless in a matter of days, with no refrigeration. Dry cereal, jerky, candy, and most goods made from grain will go stale before too long; their shelf life is less than a year, in practical terms.. they'll be eaten or gone pretty quick. After that, it comes down to the can and jar goods... once they're gone, people will be off to the cities to look for more. Anyone who doesn't know how to farm/ranch and have access to such things will be desperate for food, and food here means only canned goods after the first year. Ironically, people will first flee the cities to get away from populations and the plague, and then flee back to them in search of food....

[Straha]

what? no comments on ohw i think the restoration of civilization won't be as one sided as the _last_ time civilization started?

[Doctor What]

So it sounds like if you run away from the cities, empty out the first garden store you see and learn how to grow crops real fast.

Another ironic thing--during the initial chaos all the losers will be looting banks and jewlery stores but all the smart ones will be looting home and garden stores.

[Straha]

thats very ironic. during the time of anarchy expect humankind to develop a genetic tolerance for other substances besides alcohol. The 2nd era of civilization humans would probably be able to smoke 5 packs of ciarattes or 20 joints in a day and not even get so much an extra sniffle in their old age. THe post apocalypse version of humanity when it gets civilized is likely to have a higher tolerance for toxins and radiations due to the slightly worse environment.

[Doctor What]

thats very ironic. during the time of anarchy expect humankind to develop a genetic tolerance for other substances besides alcohol. The 2nd era of civilization humans would probably be able to smoke 5 packs of ciarattes or 20 joints in a day and not even get so much an extra sniffle in their old age. THe post apocalypse version of humanity when it gets civilized is likely to have a higher tolerance for toxins and radiations due to the slightly worse environment.

Wow Straha--it took you five WHOLE days before you slipped in a drug reference into this thread--you're feeling ok, dude? :p

[NapoleonXIV]

In King's novel survival is a 'wild talent' (less than 1% are immune) so the survivors don't form a cross section of humanity. Since they are also Jungian archetypes this makes for a good story.

In reality even if only 1% are left that 1% should be a cross section of humanity skewed very radically to the strong since the overall strength of the immune system will determine the survivors. This means that of the survivors a much greater % will be police and army than are now, since these professions tend to have strong people necessarily. In addition, these people will be the first to know of the plague, the first to protect themselves and the first to come back out after the die off. This is assuming they go into hiding at all, which may very well not be the thing to do.

These are the very people trained and equipped to do something in case of disasters. To restore order and keep things running.

Yes, their numbers too will be greatly reduced but so will everyone else's. We probably won't be able to keep everything going but we won't have to. There won't be any shortages of anything in any case.

The corpses will be a very, very big problem but not insurmountable. Armies have dealt with this problem very well for a very long time. They are usually well outnumbered by the dead.

No doubt some of these EMS personnel will try to take over the world. More, however, will probably not, the nature of most Army and Police personnel is to follow orders and work within the system. The ones most likely to try anything will in fact already be in positions of power anyhow

I'm not saying life will be pleasant for the survivors but I don't believe we'll see a thousand year dark age either. Or even any dark age for that matter. The scenario is not atomic war so most of the infrastructure is left intact. I also don't see any draconian laws leading to mass executions. Life will necessairly by recognised as precious and the priority will be to make sure thal all survivors keep surviving.

[Grimm Reaper]

I guess Straha was feeling under the weather...but he's much better now... :D

It's called 'secondary kill', the various deaths caused not by the catastrophe but by it's side effects, from accident to lack of needed medication.

Powdered milk and other foods, MREs, army rations, probably quite a bit lying around. I understand that the US, as an example, has 30-60 days of food at any time, not things that could be food ranging from meat on the hoof to ripe crops, but actually ready for munching. Assume half is lost or consumed, and you have 15-30 days. Now multiply by 100. Hmmm, four years minimum.

Napoleon, important point: Guess who gets most exposed until it is clearly impossible to stop the plague? And who is then wearing uniforms of authority at a time when many doomed do not like authority suddenly?

I would postulate very few major industrial accidents/power plant meltdowns/etc as people won't simply be dropping at once. It takes far fewer to shut down a facility than it does to run it.

Let's see, the USA will have @2.8 million people left. Are we assuming a perfect decline in terms of ethnicity? Would we have a single unified yet minute nation or several ethnic enclaves or perhaps hundreds of smaller nations? In The Stand, Stephen King postulates 70-80 city states, but that was before the dreams begin.

Nasty idea: One nation manages to avoid the plague. One ethnic group is immune or much less likely to succumb. The disease doesn't 'keep' long and the US manages to isolate tens of thousands of people in Cheyenne Mountain, on ships at sea, etc.

Now let's stop avoiding the ugliest aspects of this. Back to the sentient kudzu ruling the southeast...

[Straha]

I'm actually a little under the weather and I'm getting over a persistant cold

[Doctor What]

I guess Straha was feeling under the weather...but he's much better now... :D

:D

It's called 'secondary kill', the various deaths caused not by the catastrophe but by it's side effects, from accident to lack of needed medication.

What percentage you figure? Me--I say 10-15% but I'm just guessing. Anybody has a better guess?

Powdered milk and other foods, MREs, army rations, probably quite a bit lying around. I understand that the US, as an example, has 30-60 days of food at any time, not things that could be food ranging from meat on the hoof to ripe crops, but actually ready for munching. Assume half is lost or consumed, and you have 15-30 days. Now multiply by 100. Hmmm, four years minimum.

Note to self--loot hardware store then move to a town with an army depot....

I would postulate very few major industrial accidents/power plant meltdowns/etc as people won't simply be dropping at once. It takes far fewer to shut down a facility than it does to run it.

And unless they're Chernobyl quality plants, automatic shutdown safeguards will kick in even without people around...

Nasty idea: One nation manages to avoid the plague. One ethnic group is immune or much less likely to succumb. The disease doesn't 'keep' long and the US manages to isolate tens of thousands of people in Cheyenne Mountain, on ships at sea, etc..

The 'good' thing about this virus is just how fast it kills--Ebola kills about this fast and they were able to contain the outbreak very easily (if crudely)--they just blocked all the roads into the infected area and waited a few days for everyone infected to die, then they moved in...

Now let's stop avoiding the ugliest aspects of this. Back to the sentient kudzu ruling the southeast...

BOW BEFORE ME THOU PUTID MAMMALIAN LESSER SPECIES!! I, PHACTELEN-EKI, ORDER YOU!!

[David Howery]

One thing I like about this scenario... no nukes. Humanity and only humanity is nearly destroyed. Thus, nature doesn't have to start out from scratch too. This is a whole lot better scenario for humans to recover than nuclear war would be... no poisoned landscape and water, no massive die off among animal and plant life, no blasted cities. Everything will be sitting in place for the survivors, once they get past the first few grim years. Hopefully, some farmers will survive.
I doubt the survival of someone who just grabs a bunch of seeds and takes up farming on abandoned land somewhere. How much does a non-farmer know about when to plant, how deep to plant seeds, how much to water them, how much they'll need to grow to keep them alive, etc.... not to mention insects, fungi, etc... You just gotta have someone with the knowhow...

[Doctor What]

I doubt the survival of someone who just grabs a bunch of seeds and takes up farming on abandoned land somewhere. How much does a non-farmer know about when to plant, how deep to plant seeds, how much to water them, how much they'll need to grow to keep them alive, etc.... not to mention insects, fungi, etc... You just gotta have someone with the knowhow...

Man--am I glad that my parents were peasants from the 'old country'--even tho I grew up in montreal, my parents always had a fairly impressive back garden. It's surprisingly easy to pick up, David--granted I'm probably by no stretch of the imagination an 'excellent farmer', I can probably hold my own. There's a difference between being a excellent farmer and an adequate farmer but since you're probably growing crops just for yourself and a few others, it won't be too rough. Figure a season or two to work out which part of the shovel to hold and supplement it with canned and dried stuff in the meantime.

And then there's always "The Dummy's Guide to Gardening"....

[David Howery]

if you're up north somewhere, you've got a lot less margin for error... you not only have to grow crops, you have to put up enough to get you through the winter. Actually, it's not the growing of stuff that people would have a problem with... it's all the critters, diseases, and insects that go after them. Assume you get a bunch of tomatoes going.... and then along come the tomato worms.. even in this day and age, they are hard to control. And then there are the birds, rodents, pigs, etc...
Hey, let's compare notes on all this. Let's assume this bio-apocalypse happens, and you are one of the survivors. What would be your plan to survive? Let's assume that, with dang near everyone dead, you can get access to a big pickup or van (and a small trailer to pull behind it) and can get at least a couple tankfuls of gas. Plus, you can get into any kind of store in your area and get ordinary goods. What would you take to survive and where would you go? Here's my (off the top of my head) plan:
Some big pickup with 4 wheel drive
stock up on canned food, seed potatoes, corn seeds, bean seeds..
get a shotgun, a mid size rifle (30.06 or so), a small pistol, and all the ammo I could get ahold of for them
Find a nice abandoned farm with it's own water supply (maybe in the lower midwest, if I could get there)
Hopefully, I could find some pigs and milk cows that haven't died yet. If you can get milk and potatoes regularly, you have a pretty complete diet. I know how to raise pigs fairly well, but milk cows? have to read up on that....

[Diamond]

Anybody ever read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks? It's a send-up of so-called 'foolproof' survivalist how-to manuals. It's a very good parody but... its also very plausible. Every detail of survival is covered, from the initial panic period, to gathering supplies and survivors, to finding somewhere to start over. I'm sure I'll get laughed at for saying this, but you could actually do a lot worse for survival guides than this. :p

Now granted, a lot of it is geared to dealing with millions of flesh-eating zombies, but remove them from the equation, and the environment/scenario would resemble what we're talking about here.

:)

[Doctor What]

man--it's scary you came up with this idea--I was actually going to post something like this myself...

Here's my (off the top of my head) plan:
Some big pickup with 4 wheel drive
stock up on canned food, seed potatoes, corn seeds, bean seeds..
get a shotgun, a mid size rifle (30.06 or so), a small pistol, and all the ammo I could get ahold of for them
Find a nice abandoned farm with it's own water supply (maybe in the lower midwest, if I could get there)
Hopefully, I could find some pigs and milk cows that haven't died yet. If you can get milk and potatoes regularly, you have a pretty complete diet. I know how to raise pigs fairly well, but milk cows? have to read up on that....

-Better include a complete tool set
-complete gardening set as well
-every handyman-type books I can get--have a lot of reading and studying to do and lots of free time and, like you said, small margin of error
-portable generator (with gas of course)
-water purification tablets or filter system of some kind
-camping gear--may want to avoid civilization for a bit and use some of the back roads--slept in the front seat of a car once--my back still hurts from the experience
-as many detailed maps as possible
-LOTS of CDs and tapes for the road
-cookbooks--especially hunter cookbooks (mmmmmm...squirrel cacchiatori), vegetarian books and 'student' cookbooks (you know the type--'a million and one ways to prepare rice noodles')
-radio -either battery and/or solar powered

Anything else?

[Diamond]

Rather than a car or truck, I'd like a horse and a couple of pack-mules. Sure, you have to feed them, but they also won't run out of gas. And horses (depending on the breed) are a lot less finicky eaters than people think they are. It's also easier to get a horse around a freeway jammed with thousands of cars and their decaying inhabitants. And one final point: If you run out of food in the middle of nowhere, you can always butcher one of your pack-mules and chow down. Kinda hard to do that with the SUV.

My primary concern would be clothing and a very sturdy pair of hiking boots. The pair I've got currently have lasted through five years so far of fairly rough use, with no signs of them coming apart.

[DuQuense]

FoxFire Books 1-6, the Way things work. Find a 12 volt store, for my refrig, and lites, & AC unit, plus some other nessacarites [can run my house off car batteries & solar cells] try to beat the rush to the Coast. as the petrol products start shellacing Water transport comes back. In the US , the north Gulf Coast[good growing season, decent climate] in Europe move to the Med. [theres a reason Civilazation started around the Med and not the Baltic]

By the way I had some green beans for dinner Yesterday, My grandmother Put up back in the seventies, properly canned and stored they can last that long.

In the Book{Day of the Triffids }[great book, decent mini series, terrible movie] the Heros live on a Farm and make perioditic trips into the large town {Hunting Supplies}

The one thing I worry about in this senerio is the Waste tanks at the Nuclear plants.

Elephants in the Circus and northern zoos are regularly dehaired with blowtorches by the Keepers.

?Would you let the foot long African Cockroachs out also?

Lots of people would be looting the Supermarket, I'd go for the Food warehouses, hidden in the back of the little Industrial Parks .

Try to remember the Apple Cobbler rule. I may have all the flour needed to make bread, but the stranger MAY have the fruit needed to make Apple Cobbler instead. ;)

[aktarian]

Hopefully, some farmers will survive.
I doubt the survival of someone who just grabs a bunch of seeds and takes up farming on abandoned land somewhere. How much does a non-farmer know about when to plant, how deep to plant seeds, how much to water them, how much they'll need to grow to keep them alive, etc.... not to mention insects, fungi, etc... You just gotta have someone with the knowhow...

Which makes farmers valuable. same as King at first said techies will be. If society fragments into smaller societies it will be good to have few farmers so they can teach you how to do it.

Re cans. It's standing joke here that when in army you get cans made by Wehrmacht. It depends on which type we are talking. Regular cans, one for general population and sold in stores have shell life of year, maybe couple of them. Military cans have shell life of couple of decades. They are not as tasty and are full of conservans but they can be eaten after long time. Well, military was never too concerned with taste but efficency.

[NapoleonXIV]

Grimm Reaper Wrote:
"Napoleon, important point: Guess who gets most exposed until it is clearly impossible to stop the plague? And who is then wearing uniforms of authority at a time when many doomed do not like authority suddenly?"


From your description of the plague, exposure risk is irrelevant. Just about everyone will get it sooner or later so resistance is all-important. As for the doomed, you describe a plague which kills quickly once symptoms manifest. The doomed will be too sick to be a problem, or they will be dead.

My scenario is this. When you go to loot the local Safeway or Home Depot you will find the Army, Guard, or Police in charge. They'll ask you what you know and assign you to a group and/or function which is designed to maximize your and everyone's chances for survival. You probably won't be given much choice as to whether you want to obey but most people will as it will be in their self interest. In fact, if you don't they might just say good luck once you convince them you're not going to burn the city.

Yes, there will be fires, dogs, millions upon millions of rotting corpses and private armies of gangsters and crazies, many other problems besides, but there will be only hundreds of these types to deal with and about the same proportion of people trained and equipped to deal with such things as we have now

[Leej]

I should be OK in my area, we have pretty rich soil with a few farms round about and there is coal everywhere so I'll have something to burn.
That example with 7000 out of 700,000 surviving. I don't think it would be quite like that, most of the surviving 1% will be those who avoided the disease, if it is rapidly mutating I don't think many will have immunity.
As for the army/police taking over- yes a lot of them are fit however the chances are in the favour of some low ranked fit young person surviving rather then the old general who would try and make himself emperor.
In Reign of Fire people survive sort of and they have Dragons all over the place, something like that could work (subbing a castle for a normal village however)

[Peter]

In the West I bet 50% of the survivors would be dead in a year.

[Straha]

:D
BOW BEFORE ME THOU PUTID MAMMALIAN LESSER SPECIES!! I, PHACTELEN-EKI, ORDER YOU!!
silence or I will take out my weedwhacker

[Grimm Reaper]

I like Doctor What, he's thilly... :D

And I see Straha is recovering. Thank goodness for now a champion will respond to our cry for help against the plant tyrants! :p

Lucifer's Hammer has an terrific section where one of the protoganists is preparing for the disaster, along with books saved to rebuild civilization,

[Doctor What]

I like Doctor What, he's thilly... :D

And I see Straha is recovering. Thank goodness for now a champion will respond to our cry for help against the plant tyrants! :p


WRONG FOOLISH MAMMAL! DOST THOU THINK THAT A MERE MECHANICAL DEVICE IN THE HANDS OF A PRIMITIVE PRIMATE WILL STOP THE MIGHTY PHACTELEN-EKI!!!

ARISE MY PLANT CHILDREN! SOON A NEW AGE WILL BE UPON US--THE AGE OF PLANT!!! MWAH-HA-HAH-HA-HA!!!!!

[Straha]

<in the main area of Ian's crosstime saloon everythign is in chaos. Diffin and Mr. Bondoc both passed out in the corner from an opium festival>

Dr What:whoa man thats one evil plant *he doges a blade then takes out a shovel*

evil kudzU:

* a mysteroius figure whose sitting in the corner and who has just woke up out of a marijuana and alcohol induced stupor*

????:what the i thought PHACTELEN-EKI weren't in this sector or this particular earth... Probably that damned draka brought him over.. knowing Janet thats probable

Grimm Reaper:uh oh the one person with anything to help is.. STHRAHA

Diffin: *he wakes up out of his stupor* Thats It we're all kudzu fodder!

*Straha glows with power to reveal the true form*

Diffin: well I knew he was too tall to be a male of the race...

Lugia(the true form of Straha):Die i'll show you a weedwhacker! *He takes out his shottys(shotguns) and his katanas then gets into the imperial battle stance*

Diffin: thats it our only hope is a guy from the cleft dimension who thinks he's cyberpunk and badass!

[David Howery]

This thread just gets weirder and weirder......

[Diamond]

I think we're all just drifting, waiting for Atreides to post the next part of his story... ;)

Just had a thought: if sentient kudzu took over, would the remaining humans, crouching in lion-skins around a fire in a cave somewhere, be praying to the Great God Defoliant for deliverance? :D

[Grimm Reaper]

David, you mean farming takes actual work? (scratches head, looks very startled) Also, excellant production once you get the hang of potato farming, not to mention WADKA! Get pigs, easy to keep, clean animals, grow fast so plenty of spareribs.

Uh, you do know how to slaughter to pig, right?

(Points at Diamond and laughs loudly)

Actually Diamond, if it's silly and it works, then it isn't silly. Actually, it may well be silly but it still is working...forget it, just getting myself confused here. :confused:

DuQ, don't ask me about the giant roaches, ask the zookeeper! And I understand some peoples do like to fry roaches in oil with garlic...OK, there goes my dinner.(urp)

aktarian, farmers will be vitally important! We should all go get one and lame him for life, letting him see his family once a month to maintain his work efforts and...sorry, still recovering from my comment to DuQ, not responsible for the latent megalomania this time.

David, welcome to weirdness land, where, when you finally hit rock bottom and there is nowhere else to fall, an elephant appears at the top of the hole you are in...no doubt recently dehaired by blowtorch...

Doctor, so what's taking him so long?!? Here we squat, waiting for the great god Defoliant, through his divine champion, Straha the Weed Smoker...

[Straha]

LMAO this threadi s gettign stranger and stranger!

[Diamond]

Uh, you do know how to slaughter to pig, right?

(Points at Diamond and laughs loudly)

Actually Diamond, if it's silly and it works, then it isn't silly. Actually, it may well be silly but it still is working...forget it, just getting myself confused here. :confused:


WTF???!!! :D

Has Straha been sending you, uh, leafy paraphernalia?

[Straha]

WTF???!!! :D

Has Straha been sending you, uh, leafy paraphernalia?
its like this. you ask me no questions, I tell no lies.

[Doctor What]

Doctor, so what's taking him so long?!? Here we squat, waiting for the great god Defoliant, through his divine champion, Straha the Weed Smoker...

Doctor What swings through the window, shattering it completely and spraying fragments in all directions. A piece flies and hits Straha on the head. Fortunately he's been smoking industrial strength B.C. bud (kindly supplied by a, er, contact of his living in Ottawa that goes by the initials of D.W.) so he barely notices....

"Sorry guys", says the Doctor, shrugging off a nubile young groupie that launches herself upon him, "but I've been busy. I bring salvation!" as he pulls out a bottle of green liquid that is bubbling ominiously. One or two of the group in the room back a few steps away.

Suddenly, the doors burst open! "Hey--we had doors in this place?" says the doctor as PHACTELEN-EKI itself appears before him.

FOOLISH MAMMAL! PREPARE TO BECOME FERTILIZER FOR MY CHILDREN!

The Doctor pulls his arm back and launches the bottle towards PHACTELEN-EKI. It shatters upon the ground and a green vapour envelopes the foul sentient kudzu

...to be continued

[Doctor What]

....The vapours slowly clear to reveal PHACTELEN-EKI--unharmed!

FOOL!! I AM PHACTELEN-EKI! NOTHING CAN STOP ME!! NOTHING!!!

A tentacle-like frond erupts from the very body of PHACTELEN-EKI and hits Dr. What in the chest, throwing in backwards into a wall next to Straha!

Dr. What crumbles to the ground. Straha shakes himself out of his stupor and rushes to the doctor.

"Help me Obi-Wan, you're our only...wait...shit...wrong movie..." croaks the doctor, "Straha--here take this--it's our only chance",gasps the doctor as he hands him the legendary Bong of Nazothab

"But I smoked all my drugs! There's nothing left!" cries out Straha "It's ok--check my inside right pocket..." says the doc, as blood trickles from his mouth

"Avenge my death...." gasps the doc as his eyes slowly closes....

to be continued as long as Atreides refuses to post his new part.... :p

[atreides]

People, you're all so weird I've decided to...plant more kudzu! HAHAHAHAAA!

Seriously, I won't do a timeline on 99% deaths. I tried, I had the ideas...but it's too depressing. And what I'm supposed to say? "And then Johnny looked around in Manhattan and saw one body, six bodies, three hundred thousand rat-gnawed bodies, his vision blurred by fever, while he was trying to loot all of the Julio Iglesias CDs from the ruins of the Virgin Records megaplace in Times Square, dodging the bullets from the invading Mighty Mutant Liechtenstein Army of Savage Love, aided by the fiendish Organization for the Liberation of Pennsylvania, and cannibalistic Hare Krishna..."

Please!

Instead of such depressing factoids, I'll give you some random thoughts on catastrophe...the timeline is declared free domain, as per the Open Timelines Group rules. That is, if you want to carry it on, it's ok with me.

First, I don't think you'll see many inter-states wars. Why? Because all states are going to be tremendously weakened, struggling for mere survival, riddled by internal conflict, let alone having enough resources to mount an invasion. The armies they could field would be decimated by sickness, moving against another army also sickened, trying to grab food from people defending their homeland that, even if they lost a battle, can easily burn any granaries or foodstuff to the ground if they can't carry them. And there could be no levies to replace veterans. With what population would you do that?

Besides, the entire productive chain is going to dissapear, or almost so. With people not going to the factories because any concentration of people is a focus of the plague, then productivity falls exponentially. Economy implodes, nothing gets produced except perhaps at gunpoint, and even the guards are going to die. So? And this affects everything: munitions, medicines, chocolate..there will be no chocolate...it's not worth thinking about.

And why the invasion? To get food? But food isn't going to be the problem, the real problem is going to be the distribution of food.

Let me explain. Most of the dead are going to be concentrated in urban areas, for obvious reasons (density of pop, transportation hubs). Also, they die fast and in very great numbers. Result: a LOT less mouths to feed, and farmers being among the less affected groups, so there's some food. BUT there's the plague. Farmers won't get anywhere near the cities! And if the cityfolk are relocated to the countryside to avoid the plague, they'll just bring it with them. Farmers will perceive this quickly and close their communities...and the army them will intervene, forcing distribution, or if failing, balkanization.

You could also have a "transportation caste" of people, willing to go between the city and the fields (and among the fields) to carry goods to and fro...but they also will get sick. Perhaps you could to something like leaving a tonne of grain in one place near a community, get out, and let the community take it without interacting with you. But I have a feeling it won't be enough, because then again, you'll get sick.

Perhaps some countries with high Internet connectivity, such as USA, Japan and some Western European ones, will opt to maintain governability using the Internet in a grand scale. That is, EVERYBODY is going to be connected, even using fourth-class computers, so as to minimize contact. And I mean you'll use the Internet to talk to your lawyer, bureocrat, doctor, lover, boss (they will survive!),etc, and ONLY THAT, no physical closeness allowed (Of course, telephone and plain radio are also alternatives, but nothing is more content-rich than the Internet). So you'll have "Internet-States" in the First World. Being together in a group will be considered a public health offence, an irresponsability.

In the rest of the world, the chaos will be almost total, because you really don't have many technological options. An interesting side effect will be massive refugee waves, going everywhere. Those waves would be the main causes for international conflict, the kind of "you killed my citizens! No, you didn't control your plague-ridden citizens!" These, and not food, can be the cause for war, but those wars won't last too long. There's not enough people, or resources. Also, the "third world" depends a lot on the "first" in matters of replacement parts, drugs, financial resources...with the global economy disappearing and everybody closing, most of humanity will be in countries no longer able to receive anything from the developed countries, and not integrated economically between themselves. So, more misery.

Everywhere, balkanization and an enourmous rise of fundamentalists nutcases ("the end is near! the Mahdi/Christ/Last Buddha/Messiah/Pete is coming! Death to the infidels!")

Islands would fare better, if they acted quickly. I'll say specially "forgotten islands", places where people normally won't go in great numbers. My favorite for survival would be Iceland. Few people, modern, few tourists. Or, if it gets infected, Madagascar. Nobody goes there, and they know how to survived very long bad times. Or the Falklands. They have sheep. Or a certain Caribbean island, if a man acted quickly (hehe).

People will become the most valuable asset of the planet. You could well imagine agents from Canada visiting say Mexico, and promising instant citizenship and a salary if you would just move there and to ANY job (that is, before Mex gets so infected it is useless to go there). Others may use slave labor! Etc.

When the plague finally ends, most of the urban pop. of the world is dead. That means that most of the people with higher degrees, most of the intellectuals, most of the artists, most of the engineers and doctors are gone. The survivors will be rural people, able to live off the land, but the intellectual blow to humanity would be immesurable...until people began to go back to the cities, repopulate them, read the old books and establish schools, and try to topple the dictatorships that undoubtedly will be one of the main effects of the plague.


And so on. Now you see why I didn't wanted to continue? I'd rather do happy scenarios, like a Nazi victory, Confederates win or the French winning the World Soccer's Cup...(it really didn't happened, it was just a horrible sentient kudzu-induced dream)

Cheers!

[Doctor What]

Oh well Atreides--you tried. They were still damn good stories and they generated a lot of discussion on this so that's good.

Of course, you know what this means.....

More parts of the 'Attack of PHACTELEN-EKI'!! Mwa-hah-hah-ha!! :D

[Grimm Reaper]

Doctor! No! Stop! You did it! You got Atreides back for us! Relax now.

What? No, Atreides, we were enjoying this stuff! Don't stop! Don't deprive us! Don't leave us alone and unsupervised FOR GOD'S SAKES!

(massive panic attack setting it)





(Dreamy voice) What was that about mailing stuff to me? No thanks, I don't live here any more....

You do understand that for Straha, the importance of the Fifth Amendment is paramount on boards that anyone might read!

[Doctor What]

Doctor! No! Stop! You did it! You got Atreides back for us! Relax now.

What? No, Atreides, we were enjoying this stuff! Don't stop! Don't deprive us! Don't leave us alone and unsupervised FOR GOD'S SAKES!

(massive panic attack setting it)


Relax GrimmReaper--I'm a doctor AND I work for the government! I'm here to help you!

GrimmReaper collapses to the ground and starts frothing at the mouth. Doc shrugs his shoulders....
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Straha checks the doctor’s pocket and pulls out a small package of green herbs. Straha blinks. He’s not sure if it’s the lighting in the place or the fact that his retinas have been heavily damaged by over-indulgence but it looked like the herb is…glowing?

“What the hell—radioactive dope?” says Straha

FOOLISH PRIMATES!! FEEL MY WRATH!

PHACTELEN-EKI rushes into Ian’s saloon. Two guys, wearing identical red shirts for some reason, attack it. PHACTELEN-EKI kills them and tosses them aside without a second thought.

Straha jams the package into the bong and quickly lights it and sucks in the acrid smoke.

Nothing happens.

“Man”, says Straha, “—this stuff is shit-I’ve smoked ditch weed that was stron-“

Suddenly a bright blue light envelopes Straha. Everyone shuts their eyes from the painful light. PHACTELEN-EKI stops its rush into the room and actually hesitates. For the briefest flicker of a moment, something resembling fear actually crossed its face….

Everyone blinks the afterimages from their eyes. Standing before them is Straha—fully seven tall and covered head to toe in armour. Wicked looking weapons with far too many edges and scary hooks hang from his waist, back and arms.

FOOL!! DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU ALONE CAN STOP THE MIGHTY PHACTELEN-EKI! MANY HAVE TRIED TO KILL ME AND ALL HAVE FALLEN BEFORE ME!!

“That may the case, you schmuck—but this time—I’ve got some friends!” bellows Straha. He stretches out his hands and bright blue lightning erupts from his hands, striking Napoleon, Diffin, Grimm Reaper, Tom, Diamond, David, Aktarian and DuQ! They too are enveloped by a strange blue glow and a moment later eight of the biggest badass warriors of crosstime appear! They too are carrying a wide assortment of frightening weaponry and armour.

“Alright—let’s do it!” screams Straha

“Just a moment but is that wise?”, says a small voice from the back. A small man comes forward“I’ve been lurking on this board for a while and—no offense, man –but you’re to leadership what King Herod was to the Bethlehem Daycare Association”

Straha pulls out a boomerang and flings it at the lurker. It decapitates him and, without slowing down its momentum in the slightest, does an impressive U-turn in mid-air and returns back to Straha’s outstretched hand. Two or three of the bystanders in the saloon applaud.

“Right! Attack!”

The AH Net Eight pull out their weapons and charge at PHACTELEN-EKI…

to be continued.....

[aktarian]

This thread just gets weirder and weirder......

Yes, some folks here have been smoking too much sentient kudzu. :D

[Straha]

LMAO this is funny

[David Howery]

do you think the plague could be kept out of anywhere? The farmers might want to isolate themselves, but how likely is that? When people flee the cities looking for food and taking the plague with them, even the most rural areas are going to be exposed....

[tom]

Ahhhh...people, as the person who started this thread in the first place, let me say NO TALKING PLANTS or other ideas brought about by eating those old sugar cubes from the Sixties. I was just looking for dieoff (that is why I made the plague 100% fatal to those who actually develop it and basically set the infectivity at different levels...no convalescent patients to complicate things). If you throw in other weirdness, everything gets messed up. The plague and the aftermath are nightmarish enough!

[David Howery]

It's too late Tom. The weirdness has hijacked your thread. Hey, just be happy you've got so many responses.. most get 4 or 5 before they wither and die....

[Doctor What]

Ahhhh...people, as the person who started this thread in the first place, let me say NO TALKING PLANTS or other ideas brought about by eating those old sugar cubes from the Sixties. I was just looking for dieoff (that is why I made the plague 100% fatal to those who actually develop it and basically set the infectivity at different levels...no convalescent patients to complicate things). If you throw in other weirdness, everything gets messed up. The plague and the aftermath are nightmarish enough!

C'mon Tom! Just let me finish this little digression! I'm only going to need one or two more posts then we can go back to the normal stuff about the end of the world! I promise! I'm on a roll here, man! I can't stop now! PLEASE!!! :D
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Straha and The AH Net Eight pull out their weapons and charge at PHACTELEN-EKI, screaming their various battle-cries….

"I'm going to cram objects into you from every conceivable angle!!" screams Straha, clutching a jeweled meat hammer

"In the name of Thor the Mighty, I shall fill the world with the stench of death!!" screams Napoleon, carrying a sharpened pike

"As sure as predators devour prey, I lay waste to you like a four-year-old on a sugar rampage!!" screams Diffin, clutching a studded crowbar

"I'm seriously going to smack you until you spontaneously degenerate!" screams Grimm Reaper, clutching gilded boxing gloves

"I'm going to pound you into the danger zone!!!" screams Diamond, hands clutching two hardened pitas

"Hail the blood-letting! I come like a storm and lay waste like a hurricane!" screams David, attacking with a vorpal blade

"I'm going to pulverize you like it's my job!!!" screams Aktarian, clutching a bladed baseball bat

"This one's for you, mom! You are made of plant and I am very hungry!!!",screams DuQ, wielding a burning axe

“Ah, honey, look, now’s a really bad time to be calling me up about what groceries to pick up tonight” says Tom into his cellphone, shutting it closed “Huh? Oh yeah—battlecry—let’s see- I'm going to clobber you in such an unsafe manner, it will be a new form of crime!!!" he screams, attacking with a reflective halberd

IS THIS THE BEST YOU CAN DO? DIE PRIMITIVE MAMMALS!!

Straha and the AH NET Eight attack PHACTELEN-EKI. Sparks fly, fronds are shredded, blood and ichor spray in all directions, minutes drag on….

..and still PHACTELEN-EKI stands!

“It’s regenerating too quickly!” screams Tom, as his halberd’s handle snaps off

“We’re just not doing enough damage to it!” yells Grimm Reaper as his gloves tangle themselves

“Keep fighting!” bellows Straha

Tentacle-fronds strike David and Diffin, knocking them backwards into a wall and falling unconscious to the ground. Diffin’s crowbar impales an unfortunate lurker while David’s vorpal blade slices the heads off two redshirts.

“Game over, man! GAME OVER!!” screams Aktarian as his bat shatters upon a particular tough frond

“AAARGGH!” screams DuQ as a stream of vile ichor squirts into his eyes and extinguishes his axe

“Sonnabitch!” gasps Diamond, falling to the ground as two fronds yank his pitas out of his hands and smash him over his head

“Gaaahh!” screams Napoleon as he’s blindsided by a nasty strike across his face

and then there was just one….

IT’S JUST YOU AND ME FOOLISH MORTAL!

to be continued...(last part coming next up!)

[Doctor What]

Yes, some folks here have been smoking too much sentient kudzu. :D

Man I don't know what I've been smoking but this is my best and insane stuff ever! :D

wait!--I have another idea for the last part!...........

doctor runs off

[Doctor What]

IT’S JUST YOU AND ME FOOLISH MORTAL!

Straha stares at PHACTELEN-EKI. A dozen bleeding wounds cover his body. Several pieces of his armor has fallen off. Every single one of his weapons have been destroyed or lost.

It’s just his bare hands that he has left.


“Right”, says Straha, wiping a bloodsoaked sleeve across his forehead. “NOW I’M PISSED!”

To the cheers of the AH Net Eight, he pounces upon PHACTELEN-EKI!

TAKE YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF OF ME, YOU DAMN DIRTY APE!!

Straha claws his way to PHACTELEN-EKI’s head, trying to reach its one and only weak spot—its neck frond. Tentacles slash at him but still Straha holds on. His hands grasp the neck frond—and calling upon the power of all the gods in the omniverse- he squeezes and twist the frond—

--and with a satisfying –snap!- PHACTELEN-EKI’s head breaks off and falls to the ground!

“Quickly now!” shout the AH Net Eight in unison “Burn it before it can regenerate!”

“Oh shit!” screams Straha “We’ve got nothing to burn it with!”

“Oh allow me” says a voice from near the back of the devastated saloon “I just happen to have 2 friends with me—Jack and Daniels” says Dr. What, stepping forward with 2 large bottles in his hands

“DOC!” screams everyone

A jumble of voices and questions barrage the doc

“But-how—“
“We saw you—“
“You’re suppose-“
“You died—“

Doc waves the questions aside “Experimental nanobots. A little something I’ve been tinkering with. Wasn’t sure it would work. Never mind that—we’ve got work to do! According to my calculations, we’ve got 2, maybe 3 minutes tops, before PHACTELEN-EKI’s head regenerates! Let’s get busy!”

Moments later, a huge bonfire blazes away in the fireplace of Ian’s Crosstime Saloon.

“Well people”, says Tom, “We’ve survived the plague, defeated sentient kudzu, freed the people of Florida from a ten thousand reign of terror from plant tyranny and saved the world. What do we do now?”

“Well…” says the doc, lighting up a cigarette “I happen to know this really sleazy strip joint in Montreal called Club Exxxtasy where the women are so….”

“I know the place!” shouts David
“Let’s go see!” shouts Diffen

Straha and the AH NET Eight and Doc walk out of the devastated saloon. Doc stops for a second and looks behind him at the devastation and the smoldering remains of PHACTELEN-EKI in the fireplace. A strange smile crosses his lips.

“Excellent” says the doc quietly to himself “It’s all going according to plan….”.

For a brief moment his eyes glow green. If anyone was still alive in the saloon they would have noticed that doc’s shadow that was cast upon the wall by PHACTELEN-EKI’s burning body had what appeared to be horns on his head.
Doc quickly turns around and walks out the door….

The End?

[aktarian]

“Well people”, says Tom, “We’ve survived the plague, defeated sentient kudzu, freed the people of Florida from a ten thousand reign of terror from plant tyranny and saved the world. What do we do now?”

"I'm going to Disneyland" declares aktarian. "Fool." "Idiot." "Moron" comes from all sides. "Did you forget people who ran the place are dead now?" "OK, let's see if any of doc's ladies survived the plague"

[Doctor What]

"I'm going to Disneyland" declares aktarian. "Fool." "Idiot." "Moron" comes from all sides. "Did you forget people who ran the place are dead now?" "OK, let's see if any of doc's ladies survived the plague"

LOL! I actually was about to write that but changed it at the last minute. Damn--I'm totally burnt out--I wrote all that stuff stream of consciousness style--going to take a break for a day or two...

So--you guys liked it?

[Straha]

"lets party when we get there and whiel we're getting there!" Straha declares as he gets into his hovercar.

[Diamond]

Knocked out in a corner, forgotten, lies Diamond, a hardened pita wedged in his head. As the survivors of the monumental battle against PHACTELEN-EKI file out of the bar, a strange blue luminosity envelops Diamond's battered and bloody form.

Had there been anyone left to see, they would have been witness to the final by-product of Straha's blue lightning bolts on Diamond's odd physiology - for now his flesh begins to harden and crystalize, taking on a strange faceted appearance - He is changing into the very diamond he's taken as his name!!!!

As the laughter of the victors, bloated and stupid on their victory over PHACTELEN-EKI, fades into the distance, Diamond slowly sits up, a look of mineral rage distorting his chiseled (lol) good looks.

"Those... damn... bastards..." Diamond whispers. "They left me here for dead. But they'll pay... they'll all pay..."

**cue demented laughter**

[Doctor What]

Knocked out in a corner, forgotten, lies Diamond, a hardened pita wedged in his head. As the survivors of the monumental battle against PHACTELEN-EKI file out of the bar, a strange blue luminosity envelops Diamond's battered and bloody form.

Had there been anyone left to see, they would have been witness to the final by-product of Straha's blue lightning bolts on Diamond's odd physiology - for now his flesh begins to harden and crystalize, taking on a strange faceted appearance - He is changing into the very diamond he's taken as his name!!!!

As the laughter of the victors, bloated and stupid on their victory over PHACTELEN-EKI, fades into the distance, Diamond slowly sits up, a look of mineral rage distorting his chiseled (lol) good looks.

"Those... damn... bastards..." Diamond whispers. "They left me here for dead. But they'll pay... they'll all pay..."

**cue demented laughter**

Oh No! I've created a monster!

AGAIN!!

:eek:

[Grimm Reaper]

And he accuses Straha and me of smoking something...

Tom, do not attempt to adjust your thread, we control the horizontal, we control the vertic...

And, as he wipes the dust from his shoulders, the Reaper walks into the sunset...next stop a place called Las Vegas currently in the thrall of Randall Flagg since Captain Tripps ravaged the world and we all started having weird dreams(weirder than usual for me).

Too bad we're all guys since DIAMOND would be a girl's best friend...forget it, I deserve to leave for the evening after THAT line.

[Doctor What]

Feeling partially responsible for diverting this thread into bizarro territory, I'm going to try to make an attempt to bring this back into some semblance of 'normality'.

There's been a lot of ideas being bounced here on just what will happen during and after the virus spreads. But we seem to be bogged down here as to just what direction things will go. The problem, I think, is that we haven't established several variables--which will play very critical roles in pre- and post-virus survival.

1) Just how quickly will the 99% die off? If it's really fast (say in about 2 weeks) then things will fall apart really fast (so no chance for the military or thugs to even try to take over) but the good thing is that there will be a lot more supplies and infrastructure surviving intact. However, if it's a slow disintegration (say over the course of one year) then supplies and infrastructure may be severely compromised and there might actually be scenarios where military is able to successfully take over.

2) Persistence of the virus? Is this a situation where the survivors are totally immune to the virus so the virus disappears from the ecosystem as quickly as it appeared or will the survivors (or children of the survivors) still be at risk of infection months or even years afterwards?

3) Are the 1% random? If it's random, then there will be only 1% of the military left (the entire U.S. military force, IIRC, is about 500 000, counting reserves and national guard, which is scattered over the world at the moment. This is will leave only 5000 soldiers worldwide--no way they will be able to do anything with those numbers spread out so thinly, so forget about a squad of soldiers successfully ordering people around at the local Wal-Mart at every small town in your area). As well as 1% of the doctors, teachers, farmers, etc. On the other hand, if it hits certain groups harder but spares other groups, then we got a different situation developing.

Just my 0.0267 cents (adjusted for canadian currency)....

[tom]

Feeling partially responsible for diverting this thread into bizarro territory, I'm going to try to make an attempt to bring this back into some semblance of 'normality'.

There's been a lot of ideas being bounced here on just what will happen during and after the virus spreads. But we seem to be bogged down here as to just what direction things will go. The problem, I think, is that we haven't established several variables--which will play very critical roles in pre- and post-virus survival.

1) Just how quickly will the 99% die off? If it's really fast (say in about 2 weeks) then things will fall apart really fast (so no chance for the military or thugs to even try to take over) but the good thing is that there will be a lot more supplies and infrastructure surviving intact. However, if it's a slow disintegration (say over the course of one year) then supplies and infrastructure may be severely compromised and there might actually be scenarios where military is able to successfully take over.

2) Persistence of the virus? Is this a situation where the survivors are totally immune to the virus so the virus disappears from the ecosystem as quickly as it appeared or will the survivors (or children of the survivors) still be at risk of infection months or even years afterwards?

3) Are the 1% random? If it's random, then there will be only 1% of the military left (the entire U.S. military force, IIRC, is about 500 000, counting reserves and national guard, which is scattered over the world at the moment. This is will leave only 5000 soldiers worldwide--no way they will be able to do anything with those numbers spread out so thinly, so forget about a squad of soldiers successfully ordering people around at the local Wal-Mart at every small town in your area). As well as 1% of the doctors, teachers, farmers, etc. On the other hand, if it hits certain groups harder but spares other groups, then we got a different situation developing.

Just my 0.0267 cents (adjusted for canadian currency)....

1) I was thinking one week or less, the virus vanished after the plague, and survivors are random.

[Doctor What]

1) I was thinking one week or less, the virus vanished after the plague, and survivors are random.

Then in that case....

1) It will be the nastiest and scariest week that the earth will ever see. On the plus side--things will break down very fast and evacuations and containment will be badly organized and sporadic. General chaos and anarchy will last a few days at most. Expect lots of infrastructure and supplies to remain. Best plan for the survivors? Hide in your homes for a few days and wait for the smoke and dust to settle then go out and start exploring.

2) Good news! The virus is gone and you never have to worry about it ever again and neither will your descendants.

3) Totally random? Then we've got a good cross-section of humanity left. Very good start to rebuilding--if only the survivors can survive the next few months while they slowly hook up with one another.