[Answer] Are there preppers/survivalists in the Sol System? What form do they take if so?
After the Week of Sorrows proved that there was an enemy out there that cared nothing for the lifestyle of their targets, the doctrine of survivalism that had already been steadily dying found itself in a precarious position within human culture. On the one hand, those like them had predicted the possible existence of something like the Shiplords. On the other, all their preparations had done nothing to save anyone. There were some among those left behind by the Shiplords who embraced it in as much as they could, but the centralising Institutes and swiftly retooled basic infrastructure provided sufficient security to prevent the ideology taking root before the First Awakening changed everything.
Although the philosophy might have been relegated to history then, the Elder First saw in the movement's more moderate doctrine some things that could be of great value to humanity. Preparation without reason was, of course, not of aid to the world that needed to be built. But there was now a great and very deadly reason to prepare for death from the stars, even if all the preparations in the world wouldn't save you from a species that could crack planets and snuff out suns. In the end, knowing that there were shelters and safe places would help the newly budding humanity to feel safer in a universe that they now knew was harsh and uncaring.
In the end, those embracing this ideal were rolled into a section of the War Office dedicated to fortification and fixed defence, instead of being cast aside. This group eventually formed the heart of the sections of the Office that would become Fortress Command during my Presidency. I didn't know that at the time, but I made the effort to learn about all the pieces of humanity's shield. As befits an eclectic group, many of them brilliant in their own ways, they undertook many experimental projects searching for ways to overcome the firepower that we knew the Shiplords could bring to bear. Even before we discovered the truth of War Fleets, and what the special deployment sections of the Shiplord fleet could do, they were preparing.
In truth, the Orrery began as their work, although it took significant investment of expertise from other areas to create the design we hope will allows us to beat back a War Fleet. Many of their other experiments have proven…less immediately useful. Fortunately, the idea of relocating cities into just above the Earth's mantle was shot down several decades before our discovery that the Shiplords would be returning. The technological capacity certainly existed, and was viable for use from their own testing. But it was also prohibitively expensive to engineer on anything but a small scale. And, perhaps most important, the cultural gestalt that the Elder First had given us was designed to keep us from becoming a society who lived ever behind walls.
Some still do, and the experiments with sub-Crust living gave those who wished to do so means and opportunity. It was expensive, yes, but as the Sixth Secret has come into its own that expense has reduced significantly. But in general terms, the last real bastion of the ideology is the research and development group attached to Fortress Command, and even they have mellowed. Fabbers make preparation for apocalypse mostly inconsequential, unless one assumes that they too will break down. There are some who distrust the Secrets on principle and refuse to use them barring the very minimum. Of course, they can't remove the genemods of the Second Secret that are now all but universal among our species, but they do their best to remove themselves from their influence.
It's ultimately futile. The Secrets are so intertwined with human technology now that to cast them aside requires deliberate devolution of technology back several generations. And no one is willing to do that, not when it robs you of the very weapons and defences needed to withstand the Shiplords. Those that did so at the Second Battle of Sol and will do so again at the Third.
Preparation is all well and good, and it's become a staple in the shared consensus of humanity. But there are limits to that preparation, and in the world we live in, there are few true catastrophes that we can prepare for without relying on things that could themselves, theoretically, catastrophically fail. We may be champions of hypocrisy, that much hasn't changed much. But when the choice is between preparing for the failure of the systems that would protect us from the Shiplords, itself an impossible task, or ourselves for the Shiplords themselves? The choice is easier than one might think.
It's true that FCR&D have some wild ideas. Floating colonies hidden among the clouds of Venus, or even Jupiter are a current favourite. I know there's currently stalled project where a particularly persistent group of specialists are trying to design a city that could comfortably house a population inside the Sun. From the outside, it sounds ridiculous. Yet those same groups have produced a steady stream of valuable inventions and improvements over the years.
And at the end of the day, they're important for more than just that. Without them, we'd lose part of our history; those pieces that go unwritten and die when those who remembered them do. In my opinion, suffering the occasional mad experiment is a reasonable sacrifice to make for that. And that would be the case even if they didn't come up with the occasional sparks of brilliance.
