Everyone says they'll head for warmer areas when TSHTF which inclines me to stay in a northern temperate zone.

Given adequate food, shelter and heating the cold winter favors the prepared survivor and acts as a natural barrier against "marauding hordes".

My plan does not depend on a generator, they are loud and the only house with lights will be a beacon to everyone. That said, I've always wanted to try a wood-gas generator to fuel an electric generator. After the first winter when local security improves (hoopefully), that would be a project to try.

One flaw that I see in your plan is waiting until collapse to learn self-reliance skills. Go to the library *now* and read a book on what you want to know. Get out and try some of what you read so it's real kbowledge.

>>58
I've always wondered about raiders and stuff like that. I always thought that with a scenario in which the population drops from 300 million to a couple thousand, resources will be easily obtained for awhile. After five or so years, it might start getting a little hairier, but even still, most of these people are just as shocked as the rest of the world at whatever's happened.

It would probably depend on the situation but I don't think a pandemic would necessarily result in an abundance of necessary supplies lying around.

I've gone to a big-box store right before a major snowstorm was due to roll through, just to watch people's reactions. Milk, bread and sundry other items were cleaned out in no time. I saw a huge cart of milk jugs pushed out and it was stripped clean in seconds. If you haven't seen panic buying on a mob scale, it's a sight to behold. Try it sometime, good for lulz.

So food would probably disappear quickly as the quarantine begins, leaving a 3 month period or so where people stay inside and live off their stores or scavenge from easy local targets. This depletes much of the food kept inside homes.

After the pandemic dies out, survivors will begin searching for supplies further from their established base bringing them into competition with others. Ideally, they would share resources and cooperate for the greater good. But let's be real, there's going to be blood spilled. Defenders usually enjoy the advantage
but an empty stomach is a powerful motivator.

After six months, a lot of food will have gone bad. A year out, food will probably have to be something that is hunted, gathered or grown in order to have enough to get through a winter. People will need to either put the work in or take it from those who have.

I'd like to think that raiders wouldn't be a problem, that everyone would roll their sleeves up and pitch in. Probably not going to be the case.

>>60
I never thought of the mass hysteria beforehand, that's a good point. Still, outside of a few cases, I can't imagine people who have grown up with rules and order becoming violent like you see in movies like Mad Max. I'm sure that a generation or two down the line, they would, but otherwise, I can't imagine people just joining up and murdering each other, and I'm a pessimist when it comes to interpersonal relationships. I just think that people wouldn't naturally give in to such base instinct, and would see the benefits of forming communities.

Even today, in a society of rules and laws, there are enough people who are desperate enough or psychopathic enough to create an entire profession of law enforcement and security. I believe that under the thin layer of civility every human being is a bastard.

It's not a matter of if someone will try to screw you over in a PA situation, it's a matter of when and how badly.

Perhaps in that dark future you will unknowingly stop at my door and I will be able to give a safe night's shelter and refill your water bottles before you continued south. It's something to hope for.

>>64
I would say most crimes today are crimes of greed. You shoplift something, or steal a car, or whatever. Of course, there's rape and assault and murder, too.

However, the majority of people are law abiding citizens. I don't see why that would change as quickly as in one generation.

I would go in my submarine until everything had stop dying so i wouldn't die and collect fish and stuff to eat then go on land and find some good weapons and clean clothes and toilet roll and go around the area finding dealer houses and taking their weed and money although it's not needed it would become really valuable since when everything breezes over there will probably be a different government in case the old one gets overpowered by angry citizens who surved while the governments never even struggled to survive, and i go home and feed my cats and play on my xbox a little and watch whatevers on tv and live off my home untill everything was finished like food and stuff, then i would live like that and kill anybody i saw because it would be my world then go back to my submarine and fend off another country and stuff...

>>93
then who was broadcast television?

umm well
i think they set the TV for like a month before they plan everything again
i dunno
someone will find something to show i'm sure
or i make my own tv :3

Next problem: Unmanned nuclear power stations!

>>96
Apparently that's not really such a big deal now. Most if not all the ones in operation today have safeguards like dead man's switches and such that automatically shut them down if they go too long without input. You probably wouldn't want to be near one for too long, since there's still gonna be some radiation, but it's not gonna go up like Chernobyl. The only real danger is if looters broke in and stole the nuclear material, which would not be an easy task. They call them heavy elements for a reason.

>>105
The current situation in Japan would indicate otherwise. Japan's nuclear reactors failed to shut down properly due to old designs and reliance on an external power source to pump the water to cool the system. I don't know how many similar power plants are out there, but without someone doing something, you'll have one or more meltdowns spreading radiation throughout the environment.

Post-TSHTF, I would load up the car with all our food, supplies and weaponry, siphon the gas from our other cars, and head north. It would be best to get moving in the opposing direction of the majority as soon as possible for expediency to safety, and to avoid the chaos of society without order, and more importantly, the chaos of a society finding order in the shadow of panic and scarcity of basic resources. I would then set up camp somewhere at the tip of the upper penninsula of Michigan, an area of VAST resources for individual survival. Water, food, raw materials for both individual use and trade, plus, living on the water limits a rogue survivalist group's attack strategies.

Those who think that individuals would co-exist with minimal violence, think of these groups who prepare for the worst case scenario. They are basically self-fulfilling prophecies of what they prepare for. These people have developed a core competency that can only be exposed as a competitive advantage if they use it against other people, and if other people are peaceful, survivalists will be violent towards them. They see themselves as the squirrels who saved their nuts for the winter, and when you, the "squirrel who played all summer" come to ask for salvation, it will not be pretty.

Aside from that, I would just live off of fish, elk, other indigenous animals, build a cabin from the ample lumber available, and invite others who came across us to do the same, teach them what I had learned, and try to grow a community of people.

>>110
Japan also got cock punched by the Pacific ocean. If there were a pandemic that killed a huge portion of the population, power plants around the world would be safely shut down one by one. I'm sure here and there they would meltdown, but I think that there would be surprisingly little in the way of nuclear incidents. That depends on the speed of pandemic, too.

I think there won't be many raiders, at least not in the first ten to fifteen years. Really. There's nothing to want anymore. Food is either canned and good for five years or so, or there are farms where the food is just growing naturally, as they have no longer been tended. If you can't get to a farm, shoot some animals. It's pretty easy to get a stray dog or cat to come to you, and even though I'm a dog lover, if it came down to me and some random dog (but not mine, of course!), I'd be eating like a Korean for a night.

I think the only needed resource for those first few years would be knowledge. Who knows how to hunt, farm, or perform first aid? After that, these people could even begin to teach the next generation in the way of apprenticeships. Finally, education has been reformed.

The problem is this, though: if everything is free for the taking, that's great in terms of supplying goods. But what about services? What does a doctor earn for performing an appendectomy after the end? Money? Food? There's no need for him to do anything outside of his work ethic and sense of duty. I think that people who provide services will either be leaders in their community, either through leverage or through more moral ways.

So it's a community where everyone has what they need, ran by the wise. Come on, superflu!

"Lucifer's Hammer" uses an intact nuclear power plant as the backdrop for a major battle, all of you future warlords might want to consider the acquisition of a power station and it's qualified crew as a possible advantage.

As far as all needs being taken care of, that's only true for as long as goods are in usable condition. Within a year, many items will be rotten or expired. Rodents and insects will ruin vast amounts of stock left in stores and warehouses.

Humans tend to waste a lot in times of plenty too, expect wanton orgies of extravagance. Two or three little fuckers alone in a Walmart would probably be cold, thirsty and starving in a month. These are where your raiders will come from.

In the first year, an astute leader will have centralized all of the supplies within their sphere of influence into maybe two or three locations, staffed with a trustworthy quartermaster and protected by a program of pest control.

I got access to an old deserted subway tunnel structure that was probably used for maintenance at one time. Its got a bathroom, 4 storerooms and a machine room. The front gate still works as well as a 4-inch steel door. Place was filled with boxes of old papers and such. Its still connected to the grid and the place has an old wood stove oven. Found a way to install a deadbolt to steel gate. The back door leads to climb out manhood that's been welded shut. Too bad its in a place where no cell phone or wireless can't go through. Hey! WTF! Why can't I upload any pictures?

I live in an appartment in the exact center of a capital city...


I'd just stay home:

>Why?

-1) Security... Easy, you've got four thick walls around you, you're high up, blinds can close to prevent anything or anyone seeing light or movement inside.

-2) Electricity should be no problem, due to generators in the building itself + the ones you expect to be present in a financial district of a large capital city. Once they run out, or if due to bad luck they gone too... Then, simply set some sun panels on the terrace.

-3) Plenty of running water, and if food runs out, there's plenty of stores and houses around to loot.

-4) Comfortability... My house.

>>245
I would have thought that electricity and running water would be the first things to go out. Granted for electricity you could put out some solar panels, but as far as I know that doesn't output a whole lot of power. You would need to cover the top of the complex with those things (or so I hear).

As for water, I think you're assuming the pandemic isn't somehow waterborne or that the water distribution system won't break down over time. Perhaps if you're near a river, this wouldn't be a problem.

My understanding is that in the event of a biological disaster, standard procedure is to quarantine the infected area until six months after the last infect-ready organism has died. Obviously we're talking about a pandemic here, but before the death of a civilization you would probably see quarantined areas. So the question is, do they shut down utilities during the quarantine to accelerate the rate of death? If so, you really need to be near an active river channel.

Something no one thinks about: After a post-apocalyptic event, cars will be useless. Maybe not immediately, but after 5 or 10 years of sitting around with no maintenance, gathering dust? The batteries will be dead, animals will be living in them...and that's just cars that are well maintained. Food will be hard to come by.

You hooked up a generator? Great, now keep it running for the rest of your life.

That doesn't mean the end of the world is all bad. People lived just fine without electricity/cars.

I would definitely take the time to learn to ride a horse, because that seems to me the most reliable form of transportation. Bikes as well, but face it: you'd look a lot cooler on a horse.

I'd have to learn to grow my own food. That'll be the hard part, but hopefully there would be enough canned food to supplement me for the first few years.

Of course, that's assuming I'm just completely on my own. I would imagine that people would begin to reform communities, as we're social animals and all. If that's the case, I'd have more free time, since there's be other people working as well. I doubt there'd be many Lord Humungus raiders wandering the wasteland, though there would undoubtedly be some violence times ahead.

Also, I'd break into people's homes and free as many pets as I can, because it's fucked up to think about all the dogs and cats starving to death, locked in a house.

>>247
Also, by releasing animals into the wild you're helping to repopulate the now empty cities with foodstock. Lots of people keep rabbits, and other foodstock animals. I remember the local college had some lab rabbits that got out and immediately bred all over the place. Instead of being exterminated, they became a fixture of the area. There were just too many of them.

Learn to use a bow and arrow, let the city get populated with animals, and after a while you won't have to worry about hunting for food. They'll all be just down the block (so to speak).

>>248
Even if I was a heartless bastard and let all the pets die, there would still be an enormous explosion in the deer population, especially if farms/gardens overgrew (which is probably unlikely).

When I moved where I live now, there was a lot of construction. About five years later, all the deer came back and we're actually up to our ass in them.

>>249
In California, there's a serious wild pig problem. For five bucks you can buy a permit that lets you bag an unlimited number of them. As far as I know it hasn't put a dent in the population.

>>261
Javelinas? When I lived in Arizona, those fuckers were everywhere. I was in my car once and there was about 15 of them in the middle of the road. I honked at them to move, and they all started attacking my car. Luckily, they're not that big, so outside of a scratch or two, they didn't cause much damage. I still had to sit there for ten minutes while pigs tried to bite my car, though.

>>262

I haven't heard them referred to as Javelinas in California. Mostly the terms I've been hearing are Feral Pig and Wild Boar. I doubt they're actually wild boar. I'm betting mostly they're pigs that got loose and started a feral colony. Could be Javelinas, though, if they're all over Arizona.

Anyway, if I were in California post-apocalypse, I'd just break into a sporting good store, grab some bows and arrows, and go hunting for pig. Hell, if I ever lost my job, I might try hunting anyway. One pig would be a lot of meat. I heard of one guy who would pack his rifle and go into the Angeles National Forest to pick off some wildlife to feed his family. He was jobless at the time, so there weren't many options for him.

I don't know if my roommates would appreciate me messing up the kitchen and fridge with pig parts, though.

>>276
I'd definitely have to hunt to get meat. I couldn't raise an animal and then kill it, even something as simple as a chicken. I have no problems eating meat, considering that we need protein to live and all that, but I'm too much of a raging pussy to kill an animal that I "know."

>>277
Same here. I was reading the SAS Survival Guide some time back and it was discussing how to handle pets. Basically, the book said to be prepared to cook them up. The only one to save was the dog, which might be good for hunting (otherwise, cook it and eat it).

I thought "No way. I'd rather let them go and risk it rather than eat them"

Fortunately, I don't have pets any more. I miss having a cat, though.

>>278
I think a big challenge would be keeping other people from eating my dog.

Although people are social animals, so there would probably be communities popping up and shit, so at the very least, there'd probably be enough subsistence farming there to keep stomachs at least partly full.

I would most likely stay on my property, which is a few acres out in the country. I already keep a few different kinds of livestock, so I'm pretty much set meatwise and as for fruits and vegetables, I do fine - I've been gardening since I was a kid. There are plenty of woods here, and I have lake access as well. The hunting is excellent around here, as well as trapping.

As far as protection and stuff goes, I'm not doing too bad. I have a 12 gauge Remington shotgun in good condition, as well as a .22 Marlin rifle. I have ammo for both, but more varied types of ammo for the shotgun. As far as more primitive weapons go, I have a decent bow with both practice and hunting arrows. This list is not exhaustive, though.

I didn't have the wonderful internet as a kid, so I mostly learned from books and have picked up some skills along the way I suppose I could use in an Apocalypse. I can make clothing, and build things, or fix stuff when it breaks. I have a good basic knowledge of first aid and health care - like what to do when a person or animal gets sick or hurt. Hell, I've even put in stitches on more then one occasion (long story).

I suppose there's more that I could add here, but if there's one thing I do know it's that no matter how much you plan, there is always the chance that something rotten is going to happen and you'll be forced to deal with it anyway. I'm glad that I'm pretty well prepared already, but you know what I mean.

What about an oil platform? I know, it sounds retarded. But you'd have power, as they're self-contained, and there's always the bounty of the sea when you want to go fishing. I suppose storms are a concern, but those things are made to last for a while, with regular maintenance. If you could get a group of survivors together, I think you could have a comfortable little community out on one. I'm just spitballing here, though, since I know jack shit about oil platforms.

>>277
"I'd definitely have to hunt to get meat. I couldn't raise an animal and then kill it, even something as simple as a chicken."

You know, when I was younger, I was known as the 'animal lover' of the family and everyone was convinced I would be the LAST person to ever go hunting, let alone raise an animal for food. I still love animals, and don't like to see them suffer, but I know that the animals I raise for food had a damn good life before I killed and butchered them. They have plenty of good food and water, shelter from the elements, protection from predators, companionship, etc. Far better than a short life spent on a factory farm, crammed into a cage and stuffed full of hormones and drugs to grow faster, and so on... But if there's one thing I focus on whether I'm hunting or killing an animal I purposely raised for food is this - know why you're doing it (food, etc); make it quick and know what the hell you're doing (hunting - typically aim for the heart and lungs/if you're slitting the throat, know where the jugular is located for that animal).

"I have no problems eating meat, considering that we need protein to live and all that, but I'm too much of a raging pussy to kill an animal that I "know."

- I don't think you're automatically a raging pussy; it took me a bit of time before I became comfortable with killing for food. But here's a tip if you change your mind about doing it. Find someone who is experienced at it, knows how to do it correctly and is willing/patient enough to show you what to and not to do. After I left home, I was very fortunate to make friends with a refugee and her family that grew a lot of their own food, including animals. She taught me the lion's share of what I know today concerning killing/butchering for food. It's the best way to learn, much better than a book, although there are some good ones out there.

>>283
I can see your argument. But like I said a few posts up, deer have a remarkable ability to bounce back, so I wonder how much I'd really have to worry about it.

The more I think about it, I wonder if I wouldn't try to form some sort of commune or something, and try to at least live in some kind of a society. As non-social as I am, I think that after a few months of no one but me and my dog, I think I'd need to be around other people. We're social apes, after all.

Why would the Internet suddenly die?

You just won't have computers to access it.

>>307

Well, among other things, computers don't heal. There are fires, earthquakes, looters, etc. The Internet won't just up and die right away, but without maintenance everything will fail eventually.

>>308
Not to mention, after the apocalypse, I don't think there's going to be much in the way of fresh content.

>>309
Then there's no way around it. You must locate Chris and make him the leader of your tribe. There is no other way.

>>337
Yes, it could be similar to the movie No Escape. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Escape )

To escape the destruction of society, we'll strand ourselves on an island. Two groups will form. One group will be normal people trying to eke out a living in the post apocalyptic nightmare. The other group will be led by Chris-chan, who has finally found desperate people who will give him the adoration he believes he deserves.

Unfortunately, Chris-chan has all the survival skills of a pebble. So his group resorts to cannibalism, which pits the two groups against each other. The final battle for humanity will begin...

..and end about 10 minutes later after the normal folks beat up their would-be attackers.