What would you consider "valuable" in a kind of post apocalypse world?

No one has actually mentioned that food itself is valuable? And so are weapons to hunt animals for meat?

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Depends on the type of apocalypse

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Look up bog butter.

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That’s true. Hmm. I bet it’s Japan haha I’d have to google. :smiley:

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I’m scared to look it up, but now I have to…

(after looking it up) Well that was not as gross as I expected. I learned something today. :smiley:

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I’m not always going to worry you. Lol

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What about fuel? How do they get around? I would think that hoarding fuel would drastically affect who holds the most power.

Your premise sounds similar to The Handmaid’s Tale and Parable of the Sower because of the religious influence. I’d recommend checking those out if you haven’t already

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What about boats? Lakes? Rivers? Unless you’re in the desert, you can still use that. Or just run.

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Yeah but whoever does have fuel is going to be pretty powerful. Think about Mad Max! It was just a suggestion

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Coffee. It’s hard to get your hands on if import stops being a thing as well as the coffee making process being really hard. Sure people could have roasted dandelion roots as a cheap, easy to find substitute but the real thing would feel like a luxury in an apocalyptic setting especially since there’s probably a lot of people who still crave coffee or even need coffee for sleepless nights if they need to be constantly working due to the new life situation

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Idk if anyone’s said this yet, but tampons, diapers, formula (as in baby), solid shoes, socks, bras, etc. Hell, even a pillow.
Simple things are often the most valuable.

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  • Fresh water
  • Food
  • Shelter
  • Durable clothing for all seasons
  • Medical and hygiene supplies
  • Weapons
  • More weapons
  • Escape and evasion plans
  • Transport
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I did read The Handmaid’s tale. I haven’t decided whether cars are a major thing. I think some are still around sure, but in working condition? Rare. So I imagine mostly horses (unless you’re one of those “in between” humans and have wings or something), but cars for longer distances/certain uses.

In this world, it’s like a zombie apocalypse except instead of zombies, most humans turned into monsters. Then there are humans that turned into something in between. I wanted there to be enough time where people have found places to settle and learned to live in this world versus “The Fall” being fresh. I wonder how many years passed in The Handmaid’s Tale. I’d have to check.

Ooh, yes, there’s going to be a river. It’s going to be an important part of what pushes the story forward in the beginning. :+1: And they use water wheels.

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I was thinking about coffee! Like how the heck will anyone function without it? :laughing: I was actually googling what temperatures and how difficult it is to grow a coffee tree haha but not sure if it’ll fit in with my story because there are “normal” seasons there, so summer is hot, but this winter will be especially harsh and from what I know, can’t grow coffee beans in those climates unless they have some kind of heated garden house. :coffee:

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Look up the Roman hypercourse for heating rooms. It’s how to warm a floor “primitively”.

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You all keep reading my mind. First coffee, now I’m looking up how they kept stuff cold, and you’re telling me about how they kept stuff hot. :laughing:

For my future reference: Keeping your (food) cool: From ice harvesting to electric refrigeration | National Museum of American History

I doubt my first draft will be totally consistent “tech” wise since this is for ONC and the goal is to get the words out, but def keep the suggestions coming. If I manage to finish this, which is my goal, I’ll definitely tweak it so the tech/materials etc. make sense. :+1:

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I also wanted to suggest fuel not just for travel but for energy and such. It’s just something to think about. It might’ve been dumb though. I just like Mad Max a lot. My story is very similar. Akira monsters instead of zombies, although a lot of people told me that was stupid so I took it out and replaced it with a more generic zombie virus to make it more believable. Just be aware that if you go with the monster idea people will probably tell you to take it out because that’s what they told me. It’s cool but it makes readers suspend their disbelief too much if you can’t explain a virus scientifically enough. Then again nothing is good enough for readers these days, they hate everything you try to put out, especially if it’s sci fi.

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That’s when you weird the complainers out with something silly like “But how will I make bio-diesel without rendering monster fat?” jk

If people don’t let you speculate with science FICTION in peace then they need to go read science textbooks for fun. Lord knows that some of the best science fiction from previous eras was more like the Wild West without any reason ever given. It’s hard to write a dime novel with 3 txtwalls per chapter.

Idiot Stick was one of the most iconic science fiction stories of it’s era and the whole point of it was that the tech was too beyond mankind so we worked on it like chimps writing Shakespeare. Why can’t scifi be written from the angle that humans are dealing with things beyond their understanding? You wind up taking away one of the biggest angles for growth in the story to fight things too hard.

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I think the problem with post-apocalyptic is that people expect it to be more believable…so you can’t get away with more creative ideas. I think Adventure Time is the only post-apocalyptic content I’ve seen that really gets away with absurdism and soft world building and it really only works because it’s a cartoon.

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