Novel about post-collapse village of 10,000

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Eclipse, Jun 9, 2014.

  1. Eclipse

    Eclipse Junior Member

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    Hi all,
    I'm writing a YA post-apocalyptic book (think Hunger Games or Divergent) with a bunch of permaculture themes in it. I'd love a little help with a few questions now and then to prompt thought, and as you guys are the permaculture experts, I was wondering if it was all right to raise a few questions now and then? There will be themes like biochar, local village living, local food, capturing methane from sewerage, and even cultural aspects like appreciating a sense of place, etc. Is this the right forum to have such a broad ranging free for all thread?

    Today's question: what do you think the age spread would be in a village of 10,000 people?
     
  2. kimbo.parker

    kimbo.parker Junior Member

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    hi eclipse,

    a village of 10k is not really a 'village' is it.

    i can conceive of primates stacking themselves in groups of 150, which neighbour other groups of 150 and so on.....
    this is what primates do,
    150 is the max amount of intimate relationships before the group of primates splits

    post apocalyptic and peaceful - or otherwise?
    if it aint peaceful i'd expect the age groups that best serve as warriors would number less than the young.

    if it is post apocalyptic and the environs have a post apocalyptic shitiness to them - you'd expect less of the elderly.

    if there is AI or Aliens or something backing humans and supplementing their existence this might make for more elderly.

    if there is nothing prohibiting the organic assembly and structure of human settlements, they will arrange themselves around the principles of frith, family centric and culturally homogeneous.

    if they are permculturalists without SUV's and the perks of easy, comfy. consumptive excess - then they will simply be deep green ecologists with an eye on systems of abundance - natural and artificial.

    do they have guns or tech weapons - likely then they will be at war - competing for scarce resources.

    is anything or anybody forcing them to behave?,,,if not they won't.

    good luck
    i'd read a book like that

    k
     
  3. Eclipse

    Eclipse Junior Member

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    I love your thoughts. Yes, there are some grungy elements: mainly what we've done to the climate and oceans and toxicity levels, but also with 99% of humanity 'upgrading'. (The singularity was just too intoxicating to resist!) This story covers a teenager trying to prove himself in the cosy crossbows and permaculture fort his father constructed, until horrors in the outside world made their presence known. Nanites are in everything and changing everything. The young learn to manipulate them, and themselves. Then it's game on!

    But before all that grungy gear gets going, I just wanted to explore some of the more peaceful aspects of living locally to set up the stresses of resource competition later. However, from history I know that after the black plague, local peasant lifestyles and nutrition actually increased dramatically. They had access to farms and fruits and foods that their (previously living) Lords used to keep to themselves. So the story is not so much about resource wars, like some post-nuclear apocalypse like "The Road", but more psychological abandonment by the majority of the human race, and what they call 'the Theory of Mind' in those left behind. That is, people thinking they'd better get him before he gets me, even though there's enough resources to go around for everyone!
     
  4. helenlee

    helenlee Junior Member

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    Hello & welcome to the forum Eclipse : ) Yep, you're definitely in the right place for "broad ranging free for all thread(s)" : )

    I'm with kimbo ... the answer to this particular questions is "it depends" ... & it depends on the issues he cites.
    Scratching my head here trying to remember Mad Max 2 ... I think there was only one child & one old person wasn't there? The rest of the cast were warrior age persons yes? I don' think there were any babies , & given you had a lot of ripped people of both sexes running around in hot outfits means either they had no time for shagging or they had birth control totally sorted out ; )

    However if we were talking about a Permaculture post apocalypse, I would hope the age spread would reflect the abundant, nurturing & peaceful environment created by, contributed to, & enjoyed by all age groups : )
     
  5. adiantum

    adiantum Junior Member

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    I hugely recommend reading Ursula K. LeGuin's "Always Coming Home". It's a fantasy about life 3000 years in the future. There are even maps that show where new higher sea levels are, how villages are laid out, etc. Basically the landscape is occupied by a low density population of "tribes", without much long-distance transport or communications. But information about technology, and some interesting rudiments of it are still around and available. Certain tribes value these remnants more than others, and end up going on expansionary adventures; although they soon run out of steam because the cheap energy isn't around in abundance any more.
    She is probably my favorite author of all time for other works....although they are mostly sci-fi and fantasy, she uses these genres to dig deep into culture issues.....race, gender, privilege, etc. Quite a few of them are targeted at young adults, too.....
     
  6. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Ummm - if this is a piece of fiction - can't it be whatever you fancy in order to make it a good read?

    I'd be thinking there will be lots of kids. Modern contraception will cease to exist and without telly to distract the masses….
     
  7. kimbo.parker

    kimbo.parker Junior Member

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    i will sacrifice coherency for the sheer joy of brainstorming unchecked.....

    Nanites!

    yes excellent prognosis, but are they a hedgmonised swarm?

    are they under the direction of the Singularity or are they the singularity.

    do they comprise the Hive Mind of the singularity?

    wild unchecked nanites ( shades of Wool and The Silo )

    nanites constructed by humans originally - and designed to self replicate / in competition with other nanites similarly designed by humans originally and able to self replicate to counter the original nanite constructs - to achieve an analogy of Ying and Yang.

    the comfort zone habitable by humans is the goldilocks area where the balance of the ying and yang nanites occurs....except it shifts and swirls and requires of humans to keep on the move to stay in the goldilocks zone....

    standard stuff like weather, and electomagnetics cause the shifting of swarming nanites....

    the nanites ignore certain biologies because their programing is specific - and they can discern a human from a rat from a plant.

    the singularity....must...in coming into existence cause the opposite of itself to occur. ..but there could be lag...lots of lag....millenia of lag

    humans manipulating nanites - with devices, electromagnetic in nature.
    humans manipulating nanites - with artificial biological constructs - meat traps

    the permacultue take on nanites ----tricky--- mind scans and finds zip in the systems design box,
    repeat scan - virus, bacteria, entropy, decay as the most active system on the planet.

    models of nature - the flow of water, the wind, edge ( goldilocks zone )

    virus - virus's are dam small - small enough to be the scaler equiv of nanites and offer potential as a defensive offensive weapon.

    the deliberate reintroduction of previously defeated viral pathogens - polio?, smallpox? as a counter to human hostile nanites - sweet analogy of having to get in bed with the devil - something permaculture faces all the time.

    multiculturalism - the theory against the reality - some shit we just don't want to live with - we weed gardens we limit diversity we exclude to create community - we manage niche and we employ active deterrents to maintain niche - nature uses chemicals and benign association - we use bullets, bombs allies.

    the singularity - everyone just naturally assumes its going to be smarter than us - but this is not a given - nanites with enough self awareness to self organise might be singularly dumb - little more than biological machines ( like humans ) but as a hedgmonised swarm they model sentience....

    a single tree is just a tree....a lot of single trees becomes a forest.

    humans themselves are simply an aggregate of different species forming a community - the community becomes self aware due to the scale of its associated members - nanites could/should model this natural reality ( that is permaculture )

    great fun, ta man for the post.

    k

    ps iain m. banks is dead ( woe and woe ),,,pick up where he left The Culture...The Culture ( wail ) nanites and singularities and out of context situations.....
    virtual hells that were created to service the need for Hell long after humans had evolved past religion.

    nanites compelled to free form creation of analogies - standard observe, sample and copy but in algorithm and analogy

    pseudo humans that are an analogy of humans by nanites compelled to analogy - that's a Permaculture Designer - bwwhaaaaaaaaaahaha
     
  8. helenlee

    helenlee Junior Member

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    He said ... what????

    Geez it's nice having you hangin' around again kp : ) I might not always understand you boy, but you sure are pretty to watch : )
     
  9. kimbo.parker

    kimbo.parker Junior Member

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    eccy - this book has taken over my mind - thank gods

    ecy baby your proto book won't let me go -

    again; i willingly sacrafice coherency to play with concepts.

    straight up - no doctor smith or gilligan characters that stuff shit up - smith and gilligan - bad guy / good guy - result same

    race recognizing nanos - the engineered objective of one race of humans against another race of humans - nanos specifically hostile to a race.
    the product of war, now wild but still with same agenda....

    which compels

    humans to interbreed, such that all racial characteristic is interfered with - this is a fun take on the permaculture dilemma of multikulti

    further to this,

    some shit that in the urgent need to interbreed and remove race form human trait - mules occur - sterile highbrids with geno fixed resistance to nano attack....

    then take this and make the mules gay,,,,so we can enjoy the rise of the gay mules as human salvation.

    have the gay mules as the last line of defense for human survival....have them as warrior priest types.....have them devoted to the cause of finding hetro sexual humans of insufficient racial dilution and bringing them together to breed,,,,saving them and perpetuating resistant humans.

    highlight the point that nanos were everywhere before humans got into the game - but make it clear they were natures nanos - they did things like make rain, and facillitate inter species communications, ,,,not that humans had a clue about this - whales did dolphins and elephants did - but they are all gone.

    have the ocean black and anearobic devoid of all life.
    have the main and dominant system of all life on earth, as is now, and as is then decay.

    have humans clinging to systems of decay.
    a hot black anearobic ocean that now collects heat - have humans sheltering within this soup - because nanos cant get them there - have most energy and all food production clinging to dead hot black oceans - an analogy to those critters that use deep sea vents and not sol for their life energy,

    have sol take a back seat and cause humans to do real permaculture ( systems design ) to survive.

    have zero mandala gardens.

    zero meat eating - most life is dead - there is no meat

    have dead humans recycled for their potable water as in Dune....dead humans are dried....they are powdered, their water reclaimed and their refined and concentrated minerals mixed into potable water and drunk.

    take recycling to the nth degree.

    show humans as concentrators of recourses - humans as walking talking lakes and mineral reserves....no mining required,,,,no energy for mining.....human existence mines, refines, concentrates minerals internally.

    drugs - the world is shitty, life is hard,,,nanos will fck ya....for the gods sake make sure the drugs are good ( Cultures genofixing of drug suites is just so sweet ....i miss Iain so much )


    have a massively 'out of context' entity - the singularity that highlights the hard limits of human reason - more than a white guy unable to ever understand what its like being a black guy - way way bigger....hugely out of context and out of human capacity to be contextualised....

    more than the Hive Mind of Orson Scott Cards Ender trilogy, more than the piggies life stages as both animal and plant - more bigger.

    have another terrestrial life form that is more important and more critical than humans - it might be one mammal that because of its underground habitat survived the apocalypse...it does not attract the attention of nanos, and it in some way is more important and more critical to species survival than humans.

    have humans die willingly to save a rodent ( or similar )

    have hero gay mule humans resistant to nanos because they are not just multiracial they are all racial - have this rodent ( or what ever ) as there brotherhood/sisterhood emblem.

    yes - human all racial mules of both sexes - and gay but removed from any desire for sex.

    have them almost priestlike but unlike priests - are not in the business for the booty.

    ______________________________________

    i hope i've emptied my head of this enough to sleep tonight.

    i doubt it.

    this book is a fkn best seller my friend...i would like an autographed copy
     
  10. Eclipse

    Eclipse Junior Member

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    Not sure I've read those, but I have read Greg Bear's Blood Music and Slant stuff.

    Interesting!
    Very interesting!

    Hm, even more to consider.
    Yes, not just biologies but psychologies as well. One 'swarm' of nanites gives the youth powers because their psychological restraints are weaker and less developed. That is, there's a bit of give and take in learning to control nanites (via quantum tunnelling through fibres in the brain) in the very psychology of the controller, and so adults can't really learn the knack. (Even though many in the military try to 'infect' themselves with the same swarm that is giving the kids powers).
    Can you unpack this a bit more please?

    Another swarm does respond to adults and indeed whole populations, but not directly. It responds to their most common cultural memes, and starts to alter surrounding animals and ecosystems towards those memes. Fear? Paranoia? Then you better be careful what you dream about, because the nanites might just start cooking up something new in nature's kitchen.
    I love that I'm having this conversation in a permaculture forum, and not one of the more hard corps Sci-Fi forums I'm in!

    YES! Now there's a missing ingredient: how do maybe stored viruses and nanites interact!

    Absolutely!

    Hmm, multiculturalism mixing in all those metanarrative memes... will tribes out in the Australian Outback bring back the Quinckan? (Nasty dreamtime villains like a giant slender man that steel children). What horrors might come to life in the more paranoid 'Road Warrior' forts out western Sydney? Love it!

    OK.

    I have always meant to read Ian M Banks. I read 'Strength of Stones', and rather than sci-fi it reads like Ernest Hemingway. It's not a story, but literature. So I can't wait to devour his other works. One day soon.... just got to finish Peter F Hamilton's Dreaming Void trilogy.
     

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