It's a little unnerving, how thin the layer that separates us from the nineteenth century...

Mar 07, 2007

Iteration 03/07/2007: Out go the Lights

The show Jericho has covered about three months so far (or maybe slightly less?) The showrunners have said that they intentionally left the radiation, fallout, and immediately attendent consequences (radiation sickness, nuked foodstuffs, and post-apocalyptic zombies) at a distance to concentrate on how people would cope if they suddenly found themselves without electricity, without communications, without quick/easy/plentiful transportation...they're dealing with day to day survival, but amped up considerably. Thus far they've done a fairly good job alluding to some of the less-obvious effects: they've mentioned someone in town making toothpaste, they showed one of the characters restocking the town store with foodstuffs from a train halted five miles out of town, they've had run-ins with mercenary bands...they aren't holding a church social out there. Still, there are plenty of things that haven't been addressed — and hopefully, they won't be. At least not graphically and / or extensively. (This is your brain on far too many distopian futuristic novels.)

1. It's been more than two months without widespread running water, or even easily treated water. All water for eating and drinking will have to be boiled first...and long showers? Even short ones? Not happening on a daily basis, if you get what I mean. Things will be tolerable until high summer. High summer in Kansas is hot, but it's not always dry. Sadly enough, it's not easy to try and coax the humidity to turn into precipitation. People will just be muggy, hot, lethargic...and fragrant.
2. Medicines are not easy to come by. The show has addressed this a bit, when Dad Green nearly died from an aggravated flu bug (and a lack of proper antibiotics.) Imagine if you have to have medicines to maintain basic health day to day: insulin for diabetes, anticonvulsants for epileptics, heart medications...those who don't die from the sudden cut-off will have to (re-)learn to live with the effects of their disorders.
3. A cousin to lack of medicines is lack of medical practitioners. Jericho has one medical doctor and a few nurse practitioners. While others may have drifted into town and set up on the outskirts, there's so much medical knowledge and only so much that one human can know. The best they can hope for is diverse areas of specialization or special interest. But you just know that something's going to happen to someone, and the injury will be more serious because one of the medicos once heard something, or briefly read about something, but can't recall the full technique.)
4. And more on the medical front: is there a dentist in the town? If anyone gets a cavity, the tooth may have to be pulled...using farrier's tools. And forget novacaine: they'll have to drink as much moonshine as can be gotten into their system. And something serious, like root canals? Yeah. Pain. Lots of it...and more risk of going septic from an infected oral wound. Again with the pain.
5. We've seen the mercenary companies roving about, pretty much creating their own law. If the mercs come back through Jericho with the intent of taking over the town, they'll now know that the direct approach won't work...so they'll be more creative. And those were mercs who have unit discipline and a leader who appears to think long-term. If winter gets truly hard, and drifters are forced by desperation to try and find shelter more substantial than whatever barn or bridge they've been using, they won't worry about niceties like not raping a woman or not killing a kid...not if they're truly at the end of their rope. (And if survivalist-cells start to take shape, all bets are off. Law will pretty much revert back to 'possession is nine tenths'. One of the secondary characters seems to be adapting to this lifestyle a bit too easily — Dale was fairly quick to liberate that governor for the windmill.)
6. This was hinted at, last episode: the relative cheapness of human life. Cash is worthless now. That means that even if people could get to their bank accounts, all that pretty colored paper wouldn't do squat for them. What's valuable now is what's intrinisically valuable: land, for growing food. Tools, for creatinn and building. Animal labor...or human labor. Anything that will tote the barge, lift the bale, or gather the food.
7. This wouldn't necessarily happen for a year or so...but depending on how much radiation makes it into the food-supply chains, and how it affects fertility, women could suddenly become commodities. Or rather, a working uterus will become a commodity. The rest of the woman is just along to provide maintenance and a vessel. (Yes, fertile males could potentially become more valuable...but it's less easy to determine male parentage without a fiercely strong resemblance. Not nearly as many people will see any impregnation as will see a birth. Kind of hard to disguise which woman is in labor.)
8. Jericho's in farm country, so unless there's a recurrence of the dust bowl, they'll have fewer food problems than a non-nuked major metro area. Once the store shelves are emptied, if people aren't growing their own food, they'll either starve, or have to get food from someone else's farm. Good grief...what's happening in places like Manhattan? Or Oakland? Sure, there's farm country a few hours' drive outside of those areas...but that's how many people trying to get the food from how much arable, actively farmed land? I predict a monstrous, horrific population drop, unless the disparate pseudo-governments can get things moving...and soon.
9. The EMP fried everything with a circuit board. Unless I'm wrong, that means that even if power were restored tomorrow, many things wouldn't work. Computers. CD players. Newer cars (they actually mentioned that one - yay, verisimilitude.) Phones (regular, not just cell.) Most radios, stereos, TVs...the nascent government will be trying to communicate, but no one will be able to receive the signals unless they've got older, solid-state electronics. (Some of that stuff still does exist...just not much of it. And if it breaks down, not many people will know how to repair it.) The new soi-disant governmemt will be reduced to manual methods of disseminating information until...geez, I don't know when. Until people start producing and distributing solid-state radios and TVs. (I'm going to take a huge guess and say that any standing inventory of contemporary electronics was also frotzed, and will now make excellent — and in some cases very stylish — doorstops.)
10. Just about everyone will need to learn things such as candle-making, sewing, weaving, woodwork, subsistence farming, basic butchery, minimal animal husbandry, and — truly daunting, for some of us — cooking things from scratch. Without crock pots or bread machines (Don't smirk. I wasn't really a great participant in a swap I signed up for because the theme was 'cooking'...and I don't really cook. Needless to say, I won't be signing up for any more of those unless I can find out the theme in advance.) Sure, there can and will be some trade: if someone's got a good system for banging together soap, and someone else has a farm with lots of cows and pigs (sources of fat - a necessary ingredient for soap), they'll probably barter a bit. Likewise a skilled potter and someone who's sitting on, and willing to process, good quality clay. However, it won't make sense to have one or two people in a town who do nothing but cook for everyone, or repair all the clothing. People are going to have to learn how to do these things for themselves, at least to some extent. (Think: would you want to be living in a town when suddenly, the one person who knows how to make candles...dies or leaves? I didn't think so.)
11. Ahhhh...coffee. No more coffee, after a while. Not even the crappy instant stuff, unless people are lucky enough to live in an area where coffee will actually grow. You can ferment just about anything to get some form of booze. Teas and coffees...a little more difficult. (Omigod, the withdrawal headaches there will be. In fact, that's probably what will happen in the metro areas: people won't be able to get their caffeine fix, they'll go nutso, and violence shall ensue. If they're even able to walk upright, that is. My own caffeine withdrawal headaches start out mild-ish, then get crippling.)
12. There are definite signs that the rest of the world is fine, and may be able to help America get back on its feet. However, that will mean other long-term consequences. How will Americans react to suddenly being the nation in need, after decades of perceiving themselves to be the kings of the world? And how many nations will offer aid, but then later send us a bill that keeps the next several generations further in debt than ten Iraqi wars could get us? Say that the US gets help from other first-world nations within the next six months. They have to distribute everything, they have to reactivate the infrastructure, and people will have to replace lost houses and find work (to keep bringing in money to be able to keep replacing whatever else needs replacing...as well as normal day-to-day expenses like food.) What effect will that have on the national psyche? (Aside from the inevitable Hollywood blockbuster movies, fiction and non-fiction, lawsuits and countersuits, themed talk shows, and sudden interest in certain crafts courses.)

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