Wait, How Do You... Everything?

From the things I post you would probably think I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the collapse of society.

I don't really, it's just very interesting, much more interesting than the complex and ultimately impractical structures and devices I design when I'm bored.

Anyway, the collapse of society!

So, society has collapsed!

The EMP has knocked out all our technology or the zombies have sent us into a panic or a disease has wiped out 70% of the Earth's population or I guess aliens?

The point is shit has gotten real.
No-one is manning the power stations.
The chain of supply has been interrupted.
We're on our own.

Shit!
OK!
No!
Keep calm!
Right!
What first!?
We have to be smart about this!

Shelter!
Water!
Food!
Medicine!
Clothes!
Furniture!

I guess loot it?

No!
Shit!
Everyone else is looting it!
And even if we do manage to loot it, it'll eventually run out!
Crap!
OK, uh...

How do you grow your own food?
How do you preserve that food?
How do you make your own materials?
How do you make your own clothes?
How do you build your own house? One that doesn't rely on all the shit we don't have any more to function properly!
How do you source safe drinking water?
Does anyone know how to make penicillin?

Nope.

And there's no electricity because the zombies ate all the power plant dudes or the tech is all fried because of the EMP aliens, so we can't check the internet.

TO THE LIBRARY!

Fuck!
Everyone else got here first!
Some people cleared out all the reference books and some people wanted to burn the fiction section to stay warm in winter and then there was a big fuck off battle between the cultureless weenies and the booklovers!
Crap!

If only I had compiled a survival library before this happened!
Survival for Dummies!

Wait!
Society hasn't collapsed yet!
It's not too late to squirrel away a reference library of helpful instructional tomes to keep you and yours alive in the challenging years to come!

Look!

OK, they probably don't have 'How to make Penicillin for Dummies' but that's where you have to branch out and get books like this!

I grabbed me up a copy of this recently and while I haven't actually got it behind glass, it is sitting there calmly reassuring me that I will have some idea of what to do should the world as we know it end*.

And while I can't say that I am putting together a 'How to Everything for Dummies' library with assorted references and instructional texts, I can't promise you I'm not.

Also this is why we should make sure that local government doesn't shut down our libraries.
We'll need them when the shit hits the fan.
But we probably shouldn't mention the zombies in our letters to our local members of parliament... People get weird about stuff like that.



*Realistically I know what I would do is panic and die or get gathered up into some hey-feudalism-so-great-let's-try-that-again! warlord's harem or something.

Sometimes My Brain Is A Jerk

I can't remember most of the dream but the bit that stuck with me was that there was something drastically wrong.
Something was going to happen and it was going to endanger people across the galaxy or make life on Earth impossible or plunge people into endless suffering.
The point is there was a very real reason that a bomb had to be set off that would destroy the entire world and I was the person who had to do it.
So here I am, in front of a bomb that looks like the sea mine shown in Hot Fuzz, pressing a couple of buttons on its face to start the countdown.
As little red numbers flicked and counted down I thought 'No-one else  knows this is about to happen, so they don't have to be scared, they can be happy right until the end and then they'll be safe' and 'At least I won't feel anything, I'm standing right next to it, it'll be instant and then I'll be gone'.
Then there was a bloom of light and then darkness but I was still there.
Nothing floating in nothing.
Just thinking 'I'm sorry. Good bye. I love you. I love you.'

The worst part was how real the emotions felt.
I had this peaceful moment before I pressed the button where I thought 'All those things I thought I would have time for, I guess I'm not going to get do them now' and just let it all go.
So now I know what it feels like to realise that you're going to die before getting to experience certain life events, along with wanting to call loved ones to say goodbye but knowing that it would make it harder for you and scare them so it's best to just remember the last conversation you had with them instead.
Not to mention the annihilation of the planet.

Needless to say, I awoke feeling more than a little messed up :-/

Warn The Amish

[This is a backdated post] 

There have been a tonne of new reality shows and documentaries over the last few years about the end of the world.
To complement all the books, TV shows and movies we have about the end of the world.

The ones about how the world might end.

The ones about what might happen next to the people who were left behind.

The ones about what would happen to a world that no longer had people in it.

But it's the ones about the people who are currently preparing for surviving what these other shows theorise about that is causing the conversations around the office.

One of the women I work with is mad obsessed with Doomsday Preppers.
It isn't the most balanced of shows, they love to hunt out the more extreme examples of the prepping movement and put them through their paces.
I'm honestly a bit impressed at home some people have managed to get their entire families or portions of their communties on board.
Worried in a few cases but impressed.

Anyway all of these prepping programs have left her with what she thinks of as a foolproof plan for surviving in the post-apocalyptic world.

Go throw your lot in with the Amish.

Because they know how to make their own furniture and buildings, can sew their own crops and raise their own animals, and know how to do a tonne of things from scratch.

Um.

OK.

There are a few problems with that.

First of which, in your case, is that you are currently in Australia.

The Amish famously live in America.

If the world ends I doubt it will be at a pace that will allow you to fly to the States.
Even if you can they may not let you in, please see 'end of the world' for an idea of why they might tighten their border controls.

But OK, let's assume you were already in America, having a lovely roadtrip with your family, the world came to a grinding/screeching halt because EMP/zombies/global economic meltdown/aliens/mega-sunspots/contagious disease/whatever.

First of all, you have to find the Amish.

Then you'd have to convince them to take you in.

Then you'd have to fight off all the hordes of people who have had the same idea and essentially want their own serf class of stuff makers and food growers to save them.

And you may still be fighting off whatever brought about this apocalyptic scenario and what the Amish also are is not known for having a cache of modern weapons or medicines, they leave that stuff to The English.

Ideally, you should have a proper think about any skills you might want to learn that would be helpful now but could also get you out of a jam should the world go to hell in a handbasket* and have a crack at that instead.

But yeah, I think someone should warn the Amish that it's entirely possible that car loads of panicked weirdoes might be turning up on their lawn any time there is a meteor shower, a prolonged blackout, a particularly weird animal attack, or someone thinks a movie is the news.

I don't want to do it.

I don't want to have to see the pained look in their eyes when they are informed of the existence of 'reality' TV.

But a heads up would probably be a good idea.



*gardening, first aid, preserving, sewing etc.

The Dilemma

When planning for the zombie apocalypse I consider all the usual things:

• How and where to establish a stronghold
• How to gather and protect loved ones
• How and when to form alliances with other survivors
• Identifying safe routes
• Establishing and caring for sustainable food supplies
• Provision of clean water
• How to source or simulate medicines and medical care
• Morale/mental health
• Weapons

This last one presents a bit of a problem for me.

Not because I would have an issue dispatching zombies, self-preservation and terror-adrenaline will have me primed to do my best not to be eaten or infected.

Because I'm an Australian.

And I honestly have no idea how I would get my hands on a gun or what would do with it if I did.

Well, obviously point the bang bang end at whatever you need to shoot and pull the trigger but loading, maintenance, gun discipline...

Add that to the fact that I live in a country that isn't particularly big on guns, doesn't have a super huge range available openly to the general public, and that I would feel a bit like a nervous crackpot if I tried to purchase a gun and I'm in trouble.

I don't think the zombies will calmly wait for me to learn how to shoo before they attack, they're not known for their social niceties.

My relationship with the idea of firearms is a bit complicated.

On one hand I would really quite like to learn how to shoot, just as a technical exercise.

I think I might be good at it if given the chance.

For instance, I had the opportunity to fire a simulation F88 Austeyr at an actual Army base Weapon Training Simulation System facility (where active Service members qualify and renew qualifications on their weapons) and this was my grouping firing an official qualification serial.


This was the first time I have ever fired a gun that was not attached to a game system and which was built and weighted to ape reality, so I was understandably pretty stoked.

If you click on the picture to get the big version you can see the cluster size of my groupings, including the scribbled note down the bottom that my three-shot zero grouping had a spread of 62.4 or 64.2 mm*.

That and my awesome nerf gun story both have me convinced that if I had a proper crack at it, I could be a decent markswoman.

But on the other hand, the idea of actually owning and operating a gun in a pre-zombie world for any reason other than pure unadulterated pride in accuracy and precision makes me feel deeply uncomfortable.

If I could be guaranteed a clean kill shot, I might be OK with some types of hunting.
I'm an omnivore, I eats the meats, I'm aware of where it comes from and the part I play in that system so responsibly killing your own game as long as you're going to utilise it properly and aren't just into killing animals, is theoretically fine.

But the idea of wounding or causing suffering to an innocent animal that I would then have to run bawling after in an attempt to put it down mercifully gives me a major case of the sads.

And pointing a weapon at another human being?

I would have to be sure, DAMN sure that they actually meant me or somebody else unequivocal harm before I pulled that trigger because otherwise the guilt would consume me.

I feel guilty enough about boring, mundane everyday stuff like forgetting somebody's birthday, I'm not sure the bar graph goes high enough to show how bad I would feel about injuring or killing someone who didn't have to be impaired or killed.

I know gun enthusiasts say that guns themselves are just tools and that in the hands of responsible owners they are safe (or useful) and are not inherently evil and sure that's technically true.

I know I thoroughly enjoy Erin Palette's Monday Gunday posts and her passion for the technical side of gun ownership and operation.

The fact still seems to remain that unlike cars, gardening implements, cricket bats and other things that could at a pinch be turned into weapons against the living or the undead, guns were specifically designed to kill or injure.

It isn't a side effect or bonus feature, it's what they're designed for.
Just because you aren't using them for that and God/Gods/Flying Spaghetti Monster/Universe-willing never intend to use them for that purpose doesn't take away from the fact that's what they're designed to do.

So the idea of going out and purposefully purchasing something that could be used to quite easily kill someone... someone who wouldn't have a chance to get close enough to fight back or defend themselves... it doesn't sit quite right with me.

They seem to make it too easy to make a mistake or do something you'll regret.

At least with a knife you have to get close enough and have the intent fully lodged in your mind before you can do actual damage.
You have to mean it.

This discomfort and reluctance clashes pretty badly with the cultural conditioning that I've received at the hands of movies, books and other media that guns can be used to Save The Day.
Of course they're also usually being used to menace the day which makes them a neutral third party in the conflicts...

Just to mess with me, my brain has no problem with the idea of owning a fully functional set of Japanese ceremonial katanas.

Maybe because you couldn't have one on your person walking down the street.
Maybe because they're such a well-established historical item that I really do see them as predominantly decorative rather than immediately functional these days.
Maybe because they're pretty.
Maybe because you would need to train like hell to be proficient with them and to be guaranteed to hurt others rather than clumsily maim yourself.

The thing is, guns are pretty.

The antique ones are gorgeous examples of workmanship, craft and function.

The nicely designed modern ones are elegant with nice clean lines and smooth surfaces.

Image of Glocks found whilst trawling aforementioned Monday Gunday posts

I like the look of them.

And yet my brain keeps coming back to 'But you don't want to kill anyone do you? DO YOU!?'

And I really don't.

At least not until they reanimate.



*By the time I got my printout I'd forgotten which one it was :-P

Never Was

I want to tell you that I know you, that I met you long ago.

And that one day we went out walking, to a place we both well know.

I want to tell you that we saw that thing, what happened there that day.

And that we did what had to be done, despite our fears, and chased it all away.

I want to tell you this and so much more but I'm afraid it isn't true.

I've not been to that place, we didn't face that thing, and I will never see you.

And as the horror unchallenged engulfs us, the moment for intervention long gone.

I dream of you and our ungrasped chance and the memories left unspun.

I reach out for you in the swelling dark and imagine you clutch my hand.

And together, one way or another, we cling to us as we watch the fall of man.

Hungry Eyes

You know what, I’m actually not that worried about certain aspects of the inevitable break down of society. Food shortages specifically.

I have this sneaking suspicion that human beings are delicious.

I went to an exhibition a couple of years ago called Body Worlds with my mate Awesome*. It was an array of plastinated human bodies, bodies that have been prepared using certain plastics until these plastics replaced their normal fluids, preserving the bodies just as they were when the process began. And in this case 'just as they were' was for the most part without clothing, without skin and without certain of their bits.

One man was looking reflectively at his own skin which had been removed almost in a single sheet and was now draped over his arm… like a jacket.

Other figures were posed as if frozen partway through a tennis game or football match, different muscles stripped away to allow you to see exactly what is going on inside the body as they undertook different motions.

One woman had been carefully sliced into one centimetre thick segments so you could see the different bone structures and organs as they appeared within the body by following where they disappeared or appeared in the revealed pieces. And then you saw the tattoo on her wrist and you realised, properly realised, that this was a real person. Who had one day decided to get a tattoo that meant something to her.
And yet...

And yet as Awesome and I circled around, marvelling aloud at the intricate construction that is homo sapiens all I was thinking inside my diseased*** brain-case was ‘we are all made of meat, tasty looking meat’.

Everyone else was chatting loudly about tendons and cartilage but then I realised so was I. Was everyone else thinking thoughtful things about ‘long pig’?

As we wound our way to the end of the exhibition and stepped out into daylight again my question was answered for me as Awesome slipped on her sunglasses and said "Let’s go get something to eat, I’m starving,"

"Any preferences?"

"Anything made of meat. Was it just me or did you have to stop yourself from thinking of those guys as big strips of beef jerky?"

"... I love you,"

"…?"

*You remember Awesome? From this Thrilling Adventure! Her awesomeness, as you can see, is fairly consistent**.
**Hey look! I just linked to a previous post on my own blog! I have hit the big time!
***And I mean actually diseased, not just 'I am a weirdo' diseased. After seeing what passive smoking has done to my lungs via the medium of plastinated lung display I am fairly sure I also have the brain mould that accompanies other such 'oh what can it hurt, I'm just in the vicinity' leisure activities. PS Ha ha! You thought I had crapped up my asterisk system until you got down here didn't you!