Food for Thought - PAW Fiction Writers

[pbbrown0]

There is a lot of "stuff" being thrown about in the media, as well as private conversations, that is meant to sway expectations and attitudes about natural disasters on the horizon.   I prefer to avoid arguing about whether you accept or reject these popular notions, because most arguements tend toward employing more attitude and emotion than fact to make their points.

I am offering a link to a presentation I found, which appears to avoid emotion (until near the end) , not to raise an arguement, but rather to present some plausible premises for PAW Fiction scenarios.  For what it's worth...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4hbKF5-qUE

[rvm45]

EE…

How likely is some sort of long-term societal breakdown?

I don't know and I realize that I've absorbed so many survivalists memes over the years, that I am not capable of examining the facts in an unbiased way.

Don't get too happy. Everyone has a viewpoint and everyone has an agenda. There is no getting around that.

I prefer to look at the situation this way:

What if society does collapse and you find yourself in some sort of more realistic version of "Roadwarrior" or "The Book of Ely"?

Are you as helpless as a fat neutered Pekinese who has survived solely by sitting on some fat lady's lap and being pampered?

Are you are a total Sphere without a Single Sharp Edge on you anywhere? If you are, how do you feel about yourself when you put away you rationalizations and look at your true self in the mirror?

Forget dumbass mimes about Sheep Dogs. You are either a Sheep or you are a Wolf. It isn't possible for most of us to live like a Wolf like Daniel Boone and Geronimo did long, long time ago. You have to dutifully walk through the chutes and show your ID to the Hobnails just like the Sheep do.

But deep down, you hang onto some portion of respect by telling yourself that deep down you're a Wolf and though it is politic to hide your fangs and claws for the moment—you are still someone potentially lethal and still someone worthy of respect.

That brings us to survival skills.

What sort of Wolf are you to go through your whole life skating on thin ice and never even glancing at the stuff below the ice or considering what you can do if and when the ice breaks through?

What if you prep diligently all your life and society never collapses?

#1.} You don't owe your life or your allegiance to the great technicolor soft serve civilized ice cream machine. You have an excellent chance to get along without it. That is bound to let you go through life standing taller and prouder.

#2.} When you begin to look seriously into the idea of being able to survive without either Commerce or Rule of Law, there is a never ending list of skills to master.

Are you fit? Do you know how to fight? Can you handle a pistol well as a weapon of defense—and if pushed to it, with no better weapon around, as a limited weapon of offense?

You know what they say about guns in a survival situation: Don't ride it unless you can keep it in running order.

This can range from having a few spare parts for your weapons and the ability to reduce them to possession and them reassemble them—all the way up to being a good amateur gunsmith or even home firearms designer and builder.

What do you know about Woodsmanship? Hunting? Fishing? Tracking? Trapping? Escape and Evade—whatever?

What do you know about Electricity? Generators? Hydraulics? Pneumatics? Mechanics?

Can you do some Machine Work on the Lathe and Mill? Can you weld?

Can you do basic First Aid? "Second Aid" for when there aren't any Doctors and aren't likely to be any anytime soon?

Can you Butcher a pig or a goat? Do you know how to Can Vegetables or make Jerky-Jerky?

Do you know anything at all about Leatherwork?

Carpentry? Bricklaying? Concrete work?

Once you start thinking how to survive on your own, there is no end to the things that might be helpful to know. That's fine, because you will never run out of fun and rewarding things to study on your own.

So what if you spend your whole life preparing for a disaster that never comes?

You lived a richer and fuller life because of your preparations.

Nothing in life is free. Those hours you spend learning to hunt squirrels will be hours that you could have spent whacking around a little white ball like the effete bourgeoisie. The hours that you spend studying human anatomy or improvised generating systems will be that many hours that you can't spend drinking in a bar or watching "Reality TV."

Thoreau said near the beginning of "Walden" that he observed his neighbors doing penance in hundreds of curious ways. He was being sardonic and the penances he referred to was earning and living life in the conventional and accepted ways.

People, I think that most of us enjoy confronting folks with survivalists memes. If you persuade them, you feel vindicated. When all they can offer up in rebuttal is canned bumpersticker slogans, you feel vindicated.

This really is not a true action. You should come to the place where you aren't terribly concerned —rephrase—you aren't concerned at all—about what others think.

I was always frustrated by folks who'd whine petulantly:

"I don't want to live that way!"

What way?

{Not me, Hypothetical Survivalist}

What way? I moved to the country (but I DON'T listen to country "music"!!!) I have an acre garden. I have a small orchard with apple, peach, plum, cherry and apricot trees, a vineyard with plenty grapes, blackberry bushes, gooseberries, strawberries…

I buy plenty of guns and ammo and practice diligently and due to my mindset, that is virtuous behavior rather than indulgence. I run, lift weights and take martial arts lessons.

I go hunting and fishing often. I have a well-stocked library and I'm generally learning something new and interesting…

And you DON'T want to live like me, because civilization might not collapse?!?

whatever….



…..RVM45

[papaof2]

Some people don't care to learn "how", just who to do the work or where to buy the item.

Carpentry, brick laying, concrete work, electrician? Did that when I enclosed a carport and poured a slab for an out building. The city electrical inspector asked if I was a licensed electrician when he did the inspection because everything was done to code. Not hard to get it right if you read the requirements and use the right wiring and breakers.

Generators - does building my own solar generator and having 2 running gas gens count?

Mechanic work? Rebuilt engines from flathead V8 to OHV 6 to OHC 4. Replaced shoes, pads, cylinders in drum and disc brakes. Replaced shocks in the days of shock absorbers and not struts. Took a short hands-on evening class on lathe work offered through a local high school. I can probably do basic work but I'd have to work up to anything fancy.

Can food? Have canned pear preserves several times (not in any store near me) and have the Ball canning handbook (paper copy).

Have done some welding with a small wire welder (self-shielded wire) - what I put together is still together after maybe 10 years outside so I guess my work is satisfactory ;-)

Never butchered an animal but can learn almost anything with a decent book and some pictures. Of the dozen or so programming languages I've used, I went to class for two of them - one paid for by the company I worked for at the time and one as a requirement for a college degree. The others I picked up on my own.

Probably OK with First Aid as the company offered regular classes to get and keep employees certified - but I haven't had a refresher in a number of years.

I can disassemble and clean the weapons I have but don't have spare parts for them - something to work on. Not much of a fighter because of physical limitations.

Woodsmanship - I can build a decent fire - a tunnel fire if needed or a very good fire in a fireplace with a grate (lights with one match and burns 2 hours without attention). I can build a limited shelter with pieces in my BOB or in the cargo box of the truck (paracord + tarp). Not sure my old muscles and joints are up to cutting enough small limbs for a leaves and limbs lean to. Never been hunting. Went fishing with several uncles growing up. Probably remember how to get a worm on a hook ;-) Can paddle a canoe.

Can cook - gas or electric stove, Coleman stove, gas/charcoal grill. probably open fire but it's been a while since I did that.

Not everything but enough to know that I can learn more and do more plus I enjoy learning. That last item is probably the key to successful learning. Why else would I have immediately gone back to college to complete a degree when I retired?

[pbbrown0]

Accelerated Geology in North America:

Please note: I am not a geologist. I have no formal training in geology. The following is a purely fictitious scenario that I cobbled together using fragments of information that I gathered from my personal reading and applying my limited education and ability to put two and two together. To help you understand the bits of information versus the fiction, I have underlined the information that I gleaned from other sources. The rest can be attributed to my idle musings. Please also understand that as the heading above indicates, the scenario below would require an acceleration of the geological processes beyond what most geologists would be willing to accept as normal. My idle musings were biased by an intention to create a disastrous SHTF type scenario suitable for PAW Fiction stories. Please feel free to use anything in this scenario in any way you find convenient, including selecting or modifying portions to use in your fiction writing efforts.


In the last couple of decades the magnetic North Pole has begun a rapid migration, unprecedented in the last four centuries as to speed and consistency, from northeastern Canada toward eastern Siberia. This phenomena, which is believed by many scientists to be related to the spinning of the earth's liquid/plasma core, results in an acceleration of the rate at which the massive depression which was caused by the previous glacial ice cap in southern Canada is rising back up on the northern side of the Mid-Continent Rift or half graben in the Great Lakes region. This uplifting and the resulting pressure transfer causes a significant, though not quite major, earthquake near Chicago. This earthquake in the Chicago area creates cracks in the Illinois glacial moraine, so that Lake Michigan begins leaking faster into the Illinois River, which feeds the Mississippi River. That outflow steadily increases from the erosion it causes in the moraine until it becomes a torrent. (Look up Kankakee Torrent and also Lake Chicago.) This area was not prepared for earthquakes nor the possible side effects to the infrastructure in this densely populated area, which resulted in major disruption of power management provisions.

The greatly increased flow of the Mississippi causes significant erosion of the sediment that has filled in the Mississippi Valley Graben down through the New Madrid zone. However, as the terrain flattens out in the southern Mississippi Delta region the water flow slows down south of Memphis letting the denser sediment materials drop. (This is the basic dynamic of any delta forming on any river. It is why the Army Corp of Engineers is working diligently today to keep the main flow channel of the Mississippi River flowing through New Orleans rather than allowing it to naturally shift its main flow westward into the Atchafalaya River. This "natural" shift was triggered by seasonal flooding in 2011.) This rapid build up of sediment diffuses and further slows the flow of water in that southern region over the following year causing the excess water inflow from the north to back up; essentially creating a massive lake over the eroded areas at the Littlefoot [New Madrid] Fault zone. In addition to the immediate localized flood damage, this growing situation was creating deepening problems for transporting goods in both directions across the Mississippi River, which has now become a wide lake where previously there were defined river channels, many roadways through the areas are now persistently flooded, and there are even distinct river channels where there were none before.

In an unrelated issue, except for a mere coincidence of chance that it happened within weeks of the scenario described above, pressure from the Pacific Plate was building until there was a long expected major earthquake in southern California. In addition to the damage to the immediately affected area, this earthquake resulted in significant disruption of transportation by rail to the rest of the U.S. of the massive quantity of goods normally coming into the U.S. by cargo ships from Asia.

Meanwhile the Pacific Plate pressure continues to build on the northwest coast of the U.S. until the subducting Juan de Fuca Plate finally cuts loose with The Really Big One in the northwest U.S. The mega shock of that very major earthquake transfers down the western edge of the North American Plate/ Pacific Plate boundary to where it meets the Cocos Plate. (The Cocos plate, like the Juan de Fuca Plate farther north, is a fragment plate on the edge of the Pacific Plate which is subducting under the southern tip of the North American plate. Pressure from this subducting plate is what caused the 8.1 earthquake in southern Mexico followed by a 7.0 aftershock near Mexico City in 2017. Much of Central America, where the Cocos plate is subducting, is technically the western end of the Caribbean Plate that extends past Puerto Rico. The eastward/southeastward pressure from the wedge shaped Cocos Plate on the western end of the Caribbean Plate is causing the Caribbean Plate to rotate counterclockwise with the Yucatan Plate as its fulcrum so that the eastern end of it is subducting northward under the southeastern edge of the North American plate. i.e. below Cuba, Hispanola, and Puerto Rico pushing up toward Florida.)

The resulting major earthquake caused by this leveraging of the Caribbean Plate creates major damage in Cuba, Hispaniola (remember the earthquake in Haiti), and Puerto Rico. The pressure created by that subduction puts northward pressure on the east side of the Mississippi Graben (A graben is a failed rift, that is a place where a continental plate was once in a process of splitting apart but the fracture never completed its progression all the way across that continent.) while the pressure from the very major subduction earthquake in the northwest U.S. puts eastward pressure on the North American plate to the west side of the Mississippi Graben finally resulting in a repeat of the series of major earthquakes in the area from St. Louis to Memphis that occurred in late 1811 and early 1812. These earthquakes were felt as far away as the cities on the east coast of the United States. One of them was severe enough that the President of the U.S. reported falling out of bed at night while he was sleeping due to the shaking. This time, however the effects are greatly compounded by the widespread flooding and massive lake already created by the growing torrent from the Great Lakes. (After Hoover Dam was completed and Lake Meade was filled with water there was a 5.0 earthquake in that region which had been deemed seismically stable before the dam was constructed. Geologists attributed the earthquake to the additional pressure created by the massive water weight of the new lake.)

That massive shockwave transferring from the northwest U.S. to the central U.S. coupled with the deep pressure of the Juan de Fuca Plate slipping farther under the North American Plate and pressing into the mantle also triggers a series of smaller volcanic eruptions in the Yellowstone area until the cap plate of the caldera finally breaks loose and drops into the magma dome causing a super caldera eruption.

[papaof2]

My research on Yellowstone (used in a long since gone serial novel posted to a newsgroup - remember those?) had possibly deadly ash accumulations (measured in feet) on the west side of the Mississippi River and inches of ash across much of the eastern US. The "small" accumulations of ash can be deadly to machinery (hard, sharp grit destroys engines and bearings - remember hearing about the jet that flew through an ash cloud in the dark and lost all engines?) and people (equally bad on your lungs). "Deep Winter" has some references to a previous eruption of Mount St. Helens and the quick and dirty measures some people used to keep the ash out of vehicle engines (best solution is to park in a garage and not open the garage door until there's been enough rain to clump the ash together).

My story dealt with California by having everything west of the San Andreas break off and become an island.

[freebirde]

JDY did Yellowstone in his story "The Hermit" (http://pawfiction.proboards.com/thread/106/jdy-fiction-hermit) and I think maybe another one. The last time Yellowstone erupted, where I live got about six inches of ash. Reading the seals and cups in Revelations, one of them sounds a lot like what I imagine a mega volcano eruption would be.