The logistics of Mass Isekai-ing an entire major City

[Tahu1809]

So I was spit balling over on in the Dresden Files ideas thread (On Space Battles) about the logistics of Destiny crossover, and fairly quickly PatrickDiomedes brought up a fairly important point

We can likely go back and fourth all day about how much a Guardian is influenced by the person they were before, but something to keep in mind is that there might not be a White Council after the Collapse, and the Dark age. One of the things I'm trying to get a feel for is how to blend the setting together.

One idea I have right now is to Isekai Chicago just post Ghost Stories. With Dresden being a "respected" Warlock (The Class not the evil magic user) among the Vanguard. With the only thing Harry has to reference about his first life being stuff to do with his Sight (especially Soul Gazes), and some of his old case files that somehow survived the centuries. (Ie the books)

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I remember seeing a fic on here several years ago with Harry being resurrected as a Guardian after his death at the end of Changes. Don't think it even got out of the first mission, sadly.

And I really don't think that Isekai-ing Chicago would work. Remember, the (Last) City is literally the only city left on earth. Sure there are scattered pockets of people outside the (Last) City, but Chicago would need a lot of stuff to sustain its population. Stuff that they wouldn't be able to get with most of the earth being overrun with Fallen, Cabal, or hive (depending on when in Destiny's timeline this takes place).

Here's an idea, though: Variks has a sort of staff-thingy, right? What if he's a wizard? I'd love a fic that explored the magic/cultures of the Fallen and the Cabal.

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Part of the conflict would be the fact that modern-ish Chicago wouldn't have the resources to sustain it self long term.

Also yeah that is something I would love to see out of any Sci-Fi crossover. Mass Effect in particular, but that neither hear nor there.

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The overall idea aside the idea of mass Isekai-ing an entire modern major city is an interesting premises. Something I think would be fun to explore even out side of a story setting.

So what do you think the people in a major modern city would need to do to adapt to survive if they suddenly found them-self's transported to another world/time?

Let's use my fanflic premise for now as a point of reference.

Destiny-verse earth finds that the swamp like ruins of what was once the city of Chicago have been swapped out with the the Dresden-vers US city of Chicago(and surrounding suburbs) circa 11:45 PM October 30, 2013.

Now after the intestinal confusion of whats happened, and confirmation that the city of Chicago is staying where it is for the duration what do you think people will need to do for the residents of Chicago-land to survive?

 

[TerrisH]

A lot of what would happen would depend on what city gets transported. A major factor would be what sort of armed forces would the city government be able to call upon to maintain order. Because Martial law will be issued as soon as possible, simply to limit panic, riots, and insure rationing of supplies.

Chicago has.. No army or airforce bases, but it dose have Naval Station Great Lakes, the US navys only boot camp. around 20,000 personal total. They aren't quite trained for it, but should serve in a pinch to help the police and an unknown number of National guard reserve members.

so short term, order will be preserved, at least until supplies start to run out.

Long term, the population is going to have to expand outward and dilute to a more reasonable level of population level, and secure sources of supplies. given this is in the destiny verse, this will likely mean mass evacuation to the hub where the rest of humanity is living, stripping the city of everything remotely of value, and abandoning the city.

 

[Rossum]

Well, my first thought would be that whoever Isekai'd everyone would provide some additional gizmo or power that lets everyone sustain themselves to some basic degree.


The Riverworld series basically had the entire population of Earth (past, present, and future) resurrected on a planet as a sort of afterlife scenario. There wasn't any crops but everyone was resurrected with a metal "pail" that created food and drink for them (though they had to plug them into pillars to power them).


Log Horizon gives everyone access to a HUD that lets them craft items, including food (even if it's tasteless). Plus, there are easy respawning enemies that drop money to buy food from NPC merchants. It's mentioned the average adventurer can easily pay for pretty much all the food and board they'd want by just killing a few goblins every day.

The webcomic Erfworld has things play out like a turn based strategy game where the local king has to pay upkeep on all their units and this manifests as their food "poofing" into existence when mealtimes come.

The OZ series had trees that grow lunch pails.

Heck, the Bible itself had God rain mana to sustain the Isrealites when they wandered the desert for forty some years (though even so there were multiple cases of them running low on water, requiring God to create a spring or river for them).



So, as for sending a whole city to the Destiny universe, my first instinct is to have some kind of magic or replicator tech to just produce enough food and medicine for everyone. Handwave the issue.

Actually, in Destiny don't the Guardians have Ghosts or those floating bot things that resurrect them after death? Just have those things produce food as well.

Or if you'd rather use magic, someone from the Dresden verse might somehow find a magic porridge pot or summon a shmoo or the Sæhrímnir to feed everyone.


I mean, initially at least. Just give them a magical source of food to feed everyone after the initial transition. If that source of food is boring after awhile then I imagine people could look into starting farms or developing their society to not solely rely on it.

Edit: Note that this just handles the food issue and not even that well. There will have to be martial law issued or something to prevent a breakdown of society even if starvation isn't an immediate concern.

Even with most of these food creation options, there can be issues of the synthesized food being bland or unappealing compared to the stored food brought over. If they're cooking shmoo or Valhalla beast for everyone, there's still people having to butcher, prepare, and distribute it.

And any setup where each individual gets a set ration of food poofed into existence for them runs the risk of criminals kidnapping or enslaving others and keeping them alive to take half their food for themselves.


Also there's issues of utilities like water and power. Not sure how long the local power plants can run without getting fuel from elsewhere, and the local water supply could quickly run into problems depending on how the transition changes the local water tables and rivers.

 

[Tahu1809]

A lot of what would happen would depend on what city gets transported. A major factor would be what sort of armed forces would the city government be able to call upon to maintain order. Because Martial law will be issued as soon as possible, simply to limit panic, riots, and insure rationing of supplies.

Chicago has.. No army or airforce bases, but it dose have Naval Station Great Lakes, the US navys only boot camp. around 20,000 personal total. They aren't quite trained for it, but should serve in a pinch to help the police and an unknown number of National guard reserve members.

so short term, order will be preserved, at least until supplies start to run out.

Long term, the population is going to have to expand outward and dilute to a more reasonable level of population level, and secure sources of supplies. given this is in the destiny verse, this will likely mean mass evacuation to the hub where the rest of humanity is living, stripping the city of everything remotely of value, and abandoning the city.

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Can I cross post this over to SB?

 

[TerrisH]

go ahead. got a link to the SB thread, so I can follow it overthere to?

 

[Tahu1809]

Hear you go!

The logistics of Mass Isekai-ing an entire major City

 

[Triggerhappy]

The overall idea aside the idea of mass Isekai-ing an entire modern major city is an interesting premises. Something I think would be fun to explore even out side of a story setting.

So what do you think the people in a major modern city would need to do to adapt to survive if they suddenly found them-self's transported to another world/time?

Let's use my fanflic premise for now as a point of reference.

Destiny-verse earth finds that the swamp like ruins of what was once the city of Chicago have been swapped out with the the Dresden-vers US city of Chicago(and surrounding suburbs) circa 11:45 PM October 30, 2013.

Now after the intestinal confusion of whats happened, and confirmation that the city of Chicago is staying where it is for the duration what do you think people will need to do for the residents of Chicago-land to survive?

Click to shrink...

The thing you're going to run into is the fact that modern cities have a lot of logistics outside of their city limits. It's very unusual for a city to contain everything it needs. Waterworks. Electrical generation. Telecommunications networks. Heck, even emergency services tend to exceed municipal boundaries. And a lot of cities reap savings by sharing resources with surrounding municipalities.

Moreover, most modern cities do not have anything like the warehousing of supplies. Such as food and medicine to go more than a couple of weeks at the outside.

This is why HalkO, for instance, had the Isekai recreate several fictious fantasy cities and their environs since it gave me WAY more room to handwave. And even then, they basically had to allie immediately with the locals for food.

 

[chornedsnorkack]

The thing you're going to run into is the fact that modern cities have a lot of logistics outside of their city limits. It's very unusual for a city to contain everything it needs. Waterworks. Electrical generation. Telecommunications networks. Heck, even emergency services tend to exceed municipal boundaries. And a lot of cities reap savings by sharing resources with surrounding municipalities.

Moreover, most modern cities do not have anything like the warehousing of supplies. Such as food and medicine to go more than a couple of weeks at the outside.

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Obviously, the crops for a year do have to be warehoused somewhere.

But a city might not have everything needed. For example, suddenly blockading a city might leave the city with a surplus of some medicines (warehoused in the city for distribution to drugstores in countryside), but short of food (warehoused in countryside, brought to city as needed) and some other medicines (produced and warehoused in other cities, brought to this city and surrounding countryside as needed).

Cut off supplies suddenly and you end up with a few surplus capacities. Not immediately useful to make up for the numerous shortages.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Obviously, the crops for a year do have to be warehoused somewhere.

But a city might not have everything needed. For example, suddenly blockading a city might leave the city with a surplus of some medicines (warehoused in the city for distribution to drugstores in countryside), but short of food (warehoused in countryside, brought to city as needed) and some other medicines (produced and warehoused in other cities, brought to this city and surrounding countryside as needed).

Cut off supplies suddenly and you end up with a few surplus capacities. Not immediately useful to make up for the numerous shortages.

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In a lot of cases food and materials are minimally warehouse period.

Global distribution networks mean that granaries are usually for consolidation and shipment. Not storage.

Same goes for pharmaceuticals. Pharmacies conduct replenishment using digital ordering systems.

In any case too many goods are immediately essential for it to be likely that you'll have everything you need for more than a few days.

 

[thamuzz]

Basically, Isekai'ing a major city into a world that isn't prepared for it is probably going to see that city collapse in short order.

 

[CV12Hornet]

Look into Island in the Sea of Time for the logistics of such an event absent sufficient food production in the destination. Hint: it's not pretty. Nantucket has 7000 people and just enough of an agricultural and fishery base to quickly ramp up, and they still almost starve. Modern cities are worse. They're millions of people that rely on advanced transportation networks to feed themselves for more than a few weeks. Which segues into the next point: technology in general. A common thread in ISOT stories is that, absent the event involving an entire country with a sufficient industrial base to make everything they need, the population is going to have to abandon quite a bit of advanced technology. Computers? Hope you've got a chip fab somewhere in city limits. Cars? Gasoline. Spare parts. Tires. Roads, often.

So the questions you have to ask yourself are: are there sufficient local supplies of food? Are there sufficient local supplies of fuel (for transportation and electrical power and heating and many other things)? And does the city have the industry to either maintain current standards or reasonably downgrade?