What would you stock up on for an Apocalypse?

[Kay Inglis]

Getting some story ideas from this discussion, but not stories I really want to write.

There is plenty of scope to write PA stories how you like.

They don't have to be about loss, the degrading of civilised values, and the resurgence of a world where the best armed is king, or every moment is a violent battle against zombies.

You could write about how compassion and kindness can be amongst the survivors.

You could write about how people find love or purpose which life in the mad rush of the twenty-first century didn't offer them.

PA is an interesting setting, but the story could be horror, romance, cosy, thriller - whatever you want to make it.

[Kay Inglis]

Another thought popped into my mind. Back 100 - 150 years ago the most common cause of death in the western world was infection due to poor hygiene and sanitation. Today it is heart disease caused by affluenza, too much good food.

That made me think, as long as we have sufficient food, starvation was another cause of death, we really need to be mindful of drinking water that isn't polluted by the bogans dumping their sewerage and rubbish upstream of us.

Part of my prepper kit is a Water Filter Straw which promises to remove 99.9% of bacteria - although I've often wondered if it is the .1% remaining that would make me ill!

I haven't tried it out, but my daughter used one on a camping trip and came to no harm.

Simply boiling water would also be a good basic measure to kill bacteria.

Hopefully chemical pollutants would be less of an issue PA as industry as we know it would cease to exist.

Unless, of course, deserted and decaying factories and power stations started to leak all sorts of nasties into our water.

In the UK rainwater barrels would be a good standby as it does rain quite a lot most of the time.

[hjmoritzo]

PA is an interesting setting, but the story could be horror, romance, cosy, thriller - whatever you want to make it.

Reminds me of the film 'Quintet', a murder mystery set in a world in the grip of a new ice age.
Feels a bit like that this morning!

[Kay Inglis]

Survivors was probably the 'best' kind of apocalypse, because most of the population died off within a few days, leaving little time for riots and mass violence or the destruction of essential infrastructure. I don't remember much beyond the first season of the show, but most things they'd need to restart society would still have been available and in decent shape, at least for the first few years. The only thing they really lacked was people, and they can be made fairly quickly.

I think Survivors was the original "Cosy Apocalypse" series, because it did gloss over the real horrors which would, of course, be the background of any Apocalypse scenario.

It portrayed a return to small farming communities in a way that looks almost appealing to anyone caught up in the madness of living and working in a modern city, like London.

Every time I go on the London Underground I dream of living in a small cottage on a tiny island with just a few chickens and goats and a veg plot!

Of course it should be possible to live that sort of life without the need for an Apocalypse as the catalyst.

[Kay Inglis]

On the subject of "Brexocalypse" The New York Times recently ran this article: British Hoarders Stock Up on Supplies, Preparing for Brexit!

[PJ Post]

Getting some story ideas from this discussion, but not stories I really want to write.

As far as men's action fiction goes, PA can be a very lucrative genre...

My post-apoc series isn't anywhere near men's action fiction, although it's still pretty dark and actiony.

[Marigold]

Since I don't have any guns or ammo, my plan in case of a zombie apocalypse is to have plenty of cyanide on hand - operating on the theory that it's better to be dead than alive when the zombies are feeding on me...

[cecilia_writer]

On the subject of "Brexocalypse" The New York Times recently ran this article: British Hoarders Stock Up on Supplies, Preparing for Brexit!

Interesting - we don't seem to have been getting that kind of report in the British press. I'm glad I'm not the only one to be doing this! It makes me feel slightly less crazy.
I am not really a natural food hoarder and much too disorganised to be a real prepper, so I am thinking more on the same lines of one person mentioned in the article who aims to have 2 cupboards of extra food and some candles.
I probably wouldn't have bothered anyway, except that when we had a snowstorm called the Beast from the East earlier this year all the shops ran out of bread and milk almost at once and didn't get any more supplies for several days.(I don't live at the back of beyond, either)