What if Georgia in 2020 was thrown into the Ice Age?
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CastIron | 6 |
Thanks, hope it lives up to expectations!
You're pretty much spot on, though the farmers' pre-existing communities will form most of the defense and labor, though some towns have a place for outsiders.interesting.
in this situation those in charge of food are the most important people in the state.
I can see militias and communities form around farmers, they protect the farm and in return they get fed.
I can see the Amish doing the best out of all the groups.
only after enough farms are started or enough people die that their is enough food to go arround can people worry about how much of their civilation and technology will survive.
Yeah, living here you don't really recognize how close you are to your way of life not existing. I did ponder having the state government send out surveyors to the now high-and-dry parts of the Gulf of Mexico that have oil reserves, but the process of setting up a rig, let alone getting the get fuel refined and distributed, was longer than most gas stations have stored in their tanks.America is in nearly unique situation of being developed with car in mind with no other transport anywhere close.
That said, with cars inoperational those with bicycles now are the most mobile and maybe a start of new delivery system if rioting doesn't prevent it.
Also, there is probably no medicine factories, China being cheaper, so they are fucked anyway.
You know, I'm not really sure. I can find rather confusing stats on the amount of guns, but nothing on ammo. As far as powder, modern smokeless powder has replaced black powder, but it's much harder to acquire the materials for.Yeah, as expected. Although, do they realy have enough ammo and black powder and parts stocked to hunt until replacements are made?
Doesn't the United States Military have like ten billion rounds of ammo stockpiled in Georgia? Something like 1% of all the people in Georgia are "Fort Benning", either directly as military personnel or their families, or civilian employees. Well like 60% of the state is "Atlanta" by pop.
I guess my point is the person in charge is whoever the military recognizes as President and Commander in Chief of the United States per rules of succession. Unfortunately Kemp was in-state in July of 2022 it looks like (a quick internet search shows he did interviews from gov's mansion then) so I guess you'd be stuck with his stupid ass dragging everybody down.
Two nuclear power plants provide about 20% of the electricity used in Georgia according to their utility's website. Plus a string of hydro plants.
Think you are dramatically underestimating what industrialization means for agriculture. Pre-industrial, about 95% of people had to be directly doing ag work. Post, it's like, 1%? So I would expect one-year population declines more in the neighborhood of 90%+ not merely 40% without a constant supply of industrial goods (esp. fuel, but don't discount chemicals and parts) once reserves of foods are eaten down. ....Ah, Sri Lanka's a good example, their ag productivity has went down 30% after the fertilizer ban only, never even mind other inputs.
I mean this is a more extreme disruption than any of the famines you're probably thinking of. Once you are cut off from California, you are Extremely Fucked as far as food goes.I think you have a point and I'll adjust it down, but 90%+ over one year is more extreme than ever the most extreme famines in history.
I mean this is a more extreme disruption than any of the famines you're probably thinking of. Once you are cut off from California, you are Extremely Fucked as far as food goes.
Went and looked up some numbers:
Georgia produces 70 million bushels of maize a year (on 420,000 acres). At 56 lbs/bushel, that's 3.93E9 lbs of of corn. Divide by 1.05E7 people in Georgia, that's 374.4 lbs of corn per capita. Another 3.3E9 pounds of peanuts, that's another 314 lbs per capita. There are 1 million head of cattle in Georgia. Immediately kill all of them (so they are not also eating maize), and say you get 500 lbs of beef out of each one, that's another ~48 lbs of food/person. So the Last Good Harvest the fall after the event, assume you slaughter all the cows, that would yield 737 lbs of food for each Georgian.
Assume a person eats 4 lbs of food a day, then of the 1,460 lbs of food a person needs in a year, then right now, with full industrial support for the Last Good Harvest, Georgia produces ~50% of the food needed to support the population of Georgia.
But oh yeah, peanuts require ~3 gallons of water per oz of nut. Screw up the climate there? That much less rain? I dunno if you can even hit 20% of those numbers.
Maize without an exogenous ammonia source, no potash; and no pesticides? Good luck hitting 40% productivity there. And only 10% of maize is cultivars for human consumption; ~30% is cattle corn and 30% is whatever freakish breed they grow to make into fuel ethanol. These are not tasty kinds of corn. Where the hell are you even milling it?
So the second harvest season after The Event you're looking at Georgia producing what, 30% of 50% of the calories needed to sustain the population? That's 15%. So we are looking at an 85% dieoff to reduce down to some theoretical carrying capacity here.
There are like a third of the tools needed even for industrial farming, but it doesn't matter because there's no fuel for them anyway. There are no labor animals, and there are, statistically, no hand-tools for non-industrial planting. You have a population that has basically no idea how to do pre-industrial agriculture, and what farmers there are, they are going to be Actively Wrong in their climate expectations.
Why would the rivers change course? I get that the waterways entering the state would do so at different locations, but they would quickly reenter the existing pathways for exactly the reasons that water flows through them now. Until they get to the former coast or border with Florida, that is.
Really you have two choices there.
A) The topography of 2020 Georgia is included in the ISOT, and thus rivers retain their modern courses because that's where the riverbeds are.
B) Georgia arrives to the topography of 20,000 BC, and thus the infrastructure, all of it everywhere, is thoroughly fucked on arrival.
Geological change is slow, but it does happen. It goes much faster when earthmoving equipment gets involved. Like roadbuilding.
The flora and fauna should have the same calculation. What went back in time? The humans and the changes they have wrought, or the state of Georgia and everything in it? What was displaced? That which would have caused telefragging when the humans and buildings appeared, or the native forests, all the inhabitants, and everything else occupying the area that would one day be known as Georgia?
Is everything a confusing mess of both time periods, or do must things cross the state line before interacting?
Also, there are temporally native humans in the area. They just got there, like, 5-10,000 years prior.
And while many will work on rebuilding and making the system self-sufficient, you know some people will colonize or migrate. I hear Mexico City is a good place to start a civilization; should be a more familiar climate at this point.
Will be covered in the next TL posts, which are about about governments of the years 10 - 20. Currently rewriting and expanding them, though.What about the military bases in Georgia? There are a total of 13, including fort Benning. What's the plan there?
Most people as of now would be in the west coast, so an uptime may find is suddenly being meet with a Native with a flint tipped spear staring at them before leaving.You do seem to be right about downtime humans in the area, I'll be sure to include them soon. As will people ranging far from Georgia.
1. I have heard that the level of education in the USA is very low, but I strongly doubt that none of the residents of Georgia remembered about gas generators. In the Soviet Union, cars on firewood/cones/straw were used in Siberia until the end of the 1970s. The gasoline engine is easy to convert to gas. Yes, a gas generator takes up space, but when fuel can be cut in the nearest forest, it is irrelevant.
No stupid biodiesel - a wood-burning car is the technology of the future.
2. Ancient Indians - who are not Indians at all, 20,000 years ago there should be very few (if they penetrated into the
Eastern States) . According to the maps, 20,000 glaciers were located near the northern border of Georgia. and the transferred territory will be surrounded by a dense forest from the south and north (the Appalachians will delay precipitation), and to the west there will be a glacial steppe. No or very few mammoths and bison. Georgia's agricultural crops cannot be grown near the glacier.
Georgia may have some seeds from Canada or Russia, but it will take years before they can be used for food. In general, are there stations in Georgia for the production of hybrid seeds?! Gentle farm animals will die very quickly from the cold.
Yeah, this is literally the first time I've ever heard of converting gasoline engines to wood-fired ones. It seems it is possible, but to convert a large portion of the cars and trucks in Georgia would take more time and resources that could otherwise be used getting or securing food. There may be a few running around, but most people don't have access to the knowledge to do so post-jump and are more concerned with the food situation than with cars and trucks.
Most people did die, I amended the collapse post down from a majority surviving to ~10%, which I think is fair given that people will spread out and have to adapt or die. A full 99.9% reduction is completely unrealistic given that people will adapt to their environment and exploit any resources in a do-or-die scenario. New knowledge can be gained, tools made, and physical bodies can be adapted to manual labor.Without fuel for agricultural machinery, Georgia will starve to death. 99.9% of residents do not have the skills, tools and physical capabilities of manual labor in agriculture. Mammoths and bison are great, but how to transport meat from the frontier to consumers?! Self-propelled barges where there are navigable rivers, but on land it is absolutely off-road. Therefore, in the place of the authorities, I would organize mass artisanal production of gas generators for cars and the collection of cylinders for compressed gas. Car engines can be very easily tuned from gasoline to gas, and the technology of generators is very primitive. Diesel fuel is needed by fishing and cargo ships.
Most people did die, I amended the collapse post down from a majority surviving to ~10%, which I think is fair given that people will spread out and have to adapt or die. A full 99.9% reduction is completely unrealistic given that people will adapt to their environment and exploit any resources in a do-or-die scenario. New knowledge can be gained, tools made, and physical bodies can be adapted to manual labor.
As for transport, carts exist, pulled by animals. This is a lot more intuitive than trying rig wood powered cars up, which most people wouldn't think to do, know how to do, have the resources to do, or reason to do so when the world is collapsing around them. It's an interesting idea, but it's not gonna make it into the story.
Question - will the enclaves be able to establish the production of black or brown gunpowder? This is a very complex multi-stage process, much more complicated than a gas generator.
An interesting point - what happens to airplanes in the air?! Some of the planes will lose their orientation (even the magnetic poles of the planet have changed) and land outside Georgia, perhaps even in the Old World or South America. Those passengers who survive an emergency landing will create pockets of civilization.