The Non-Dudebro's Guide to the Apocalypse

Also if you need stuff from the pharmacy, make friend with the pharmacists. For example, get them ingredients to make medicine with if they know how.

 

Yup! Just because the corps that own the patents are gone doesn't mean the people who make it and the ingredients to make it are gone. It just means a short term shortage while infrastructure gets redesigned/built/calculated.

 

I'm a professional machinist and an SCA armorer. I can design, make, fix, use, and teach how to make, fix, and use armor, assorted melee weapons, bows, crossbows, guns, siege weapons, fortifications, tools and equipment; basically anything mechanical. I also have a basic understanding of electrical and electronics. Could make a windmill / watermill to power machines.

If the supply of a critical resource is dramatically reduced, say food or water, you need to dig in and survive until the population equalizes with the supply of that resource. If you don't, someone will come and take your resources by force. Around here (MPLS) I think the most likely scenario would be a long-term blackout caused by hacking, an EMP, or simply failing out-dated and improperly maintained infrastructure. Without electricity there would be no freezers and no pumping of gas, so no food deliveries to the local stores. The stores do "just in time" stocking, so they'd be bare in about a day; this happened a couple years ago when we had a three-day blackout. Stretch the blackout to a week or two and people would get desperate, since most homes only keep a few days of food around. If it's a small enough area, most people would just travel farther to get food, but if it's a large area...

 

Another likely scenario is an epidemic, in which case you need to be able to stay isolated until the disease dies out.

 

Yeah, you have to have a balance of self reliance and community mindedness in that situation. Of course gfl if it's something that's zoonotic or that can survive hostless in a dormant state, because if you don't find a vaccine and you don't have a natural immunity you're going to be living very miserably in quarantine the rest of your life.

 

if anyone is interested in peak oil+climate change "apocalypses" i recommend john michael grier's Star's Reach! it's not necessarily realistic at least IMO (there's very little focus on renewable energy, and the ending is kind of iffy) but i like it a lot!

 

if u need me i'll be loitering around the great lakes fretting about fresh water in the waterpocalypse (camera zooms in and out repeatedly on varioud "DRAINS DIRECTLY TO LAKE" and "KEEP IT SUPERIOR" labels

 

Linking this here because I think it sums up what I've been poking at, which is that humans are so social that we specifically have survived extinction level pressures by not only banding together with our own species, but bonding with other species as well. The Rambo dude bro approach to the apocalypse is not only dumb, it's anti-thesis to what's made humans so successful at global domination.

 

the solution to problems is befriend literally everything.

 

So humanity as disney princess?

 

Or shonen protagonists.

 

Yes.

 

Reminds me of this great series of shorts by elizabeth bear and sarah monette, because the setting is, like, lovecraftian space adventure + friendship

there's some comment about it that's like "because i also believe that if humanity went to space and found horrifying eldritch creatures, the first step would be to give them dumb nicknames"

The first one I heard was Mongoose so that's what i'll link

 

earth: pacifist run

 

Even more than that, the real threat is infrastructure disruption. 'Nuclear winter' is highly unlikely given the number of particles ejected, especially since nuclear weapons typically airburst.
Though, on the subject of nuclear winter and global warming, one of the more spectacular 'worst case scenario' plans regarding runaway global warming is to deliberately induce nuclear winter, which is...

Most of the deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were due to fires created by the bomb, since Japanese construction at the time was very reliant on wood and paper.

Breaking physics is a good way to create an apocalypse, yes.

Well... Fallout was engineered to be a bunch of bunkers on purpose, but yeah. The End Of The World As We Know It properly has the emphasis on the last half, things will go on, but changed.


Children of a Dead Earth, a random video game about fightan in space, has its titular apocalypse caused by pretty much everything except a direct nuclear exchange, ending up with deliberate inducement of runaway global warming that transforms Earth into a hothouse. And then a bunch of assholes continue to fight in space. Because they're assholes. It's not really a dudebro apocalypse, but it is kind of an evil fascist apocalypse.
And then there's the Best Faction, Nippon Prime, led by the immortal robot empress. Sadly, you can't play as them.


Anyways, I think in most scenarios... I don't have a ton of skills, but I am pretty good at learning new things. And planning stuff. Sometimes I can solve problems that seem to stump other people.

 

Do lizards make good jerky? (Sorry, my brain is doing the coping-mechanism where it runs through the-world-has-ended plans for instant dealing.)

Here in the UK, with winter coming on, my priority would be insulin, food, and warmth in that order. If the power goes out, also possibly culling poor Sydney my bearded dragon so he doesn't die a slow death of torpor and cold. My first action would be to check anyone I know who lives in bradford/leeds if they can get to me, then to go down to the local pharmacies and beg/threaten/steal as much insulin as I could get my hands on, then dig an easily defendable hole to keep it cold in. Possibly lock myself in the bathroom and keep my insulin in the cistern? Idk, would depend on how much fuel I could obtain.

I don't have many IRL contacts that would be feasible to depend on, which sucks - I have literally no-one besides my mum in my hometown, and if she's at work two cities away... At least I have a whole bunch of tools in the shed that can used as/easily converted to weapons?

 

This sent me on a wiki walk, so, uh... thanks, I guess.

Jerky is typically made from lean red meat, and lizards are pretty much all white meat. But people make alligator jerky, so it can be done. It has an oily, fish-like taste, but not a great deal of flavor.
But please don't eat your pets.

 

Extended power outage with reptiles is actually something you should be prepared for if you live in a Northernly climate anyway, because it can go out in a normal non-apocalyptic emergency. We get blizzards and ice storms and last year a major wind storm knocked out power for almost two weeks in some places right before the cold snap hit mid November. Get yourself a bulk supply of these https://shipyourreptiles.com/shop/heat_packs/product It's what they use to keep snakes and lizards warm during shipping and I have an emergency supply for my kids for just such an occasion. Note: do not get the hand warmers made for people,they get WAY TOO HOT and can burn your reptile. If need be with only one animal you can keep them warm with your body heat until you get to a place with electricity.

Edit: here's the SYR guide to using heat packs for shipping but you can probably figure out how to use it for keeping your scaly bab warm in an emergency too: https://shipyourreptiles.com/en/get-help/get-help-shipping-standards#question-16

 

Yeah, I have heatpacks and stuff for taking him places! I just mean that if the world ended and there was suddenly no power at all, and unlikely to be for the rest of time as we know it... well, I'd rather he had a quick death than have to linger on in a british winter into a british spring and summer and stuff.... It's fatalistic of me, I know, but at least my hotblooded animal friends would stand more of a chance?

 

Bookkeeping's important! Keeping track of how much we have and how fast it's getting used up (or produced) is an important thing.

I can cook and do food prep, and I can do hand-writing legibly. I'm good at making lists and, if someone's patient with dictation, I can write things down. I can knit and I can do hand-sewing and machine-sewing, and if I'm shown how to do a thing, I'm pretty good at learning how to do it a second time.

I'm also good at gardening, and animals seem to like me. I'm pretty sure I can figure out how to efficiently handwash things.

Downsides: I've probably got (currently) undiagnosed, unmedicated ADHD, so - focus is a thing that's Hard.