Brainstorming a potential setting/scenario: The Quiet Morning

[Keiko]

Posting for a friend

One morning, people wake and find that most people are gone. Somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the world's population has quietly vanished, leaving nothing but piles of clothing and personal possessions. There is no sign of violence or any other unusual occurences aside from the disappearances themselves. In fact there's no destruction at all directly associated with them. Abandoned vehicles are stalled in the road, planes are in empty fields when their remaining passengers wake up, boats at the nearest (but necessarily inhabited) shore line. The vehicles that crash or vanish apparently had no one left inside them. Even stranger was that no one actually saw anyone vanish. Not once. They call occurred either over night or when that person was out of sight of any other aware human being so this could have been going on for some time. There is no immediate, obvious significance to the date or time . It's just a random day according to any typical research.

The short of it is that almost all the human population is gone but essentially all this world infrastructure is still there. What happens from the point? What might the survivors experience, how would the timeline progress from the "Quiet Morning"? What effect would this event have its the survivors that would shape the aftermath? If this was a game setting what sorts of scenarios do you see being possible?

[David Johnston2]

Some religious leader rewrites his apocalyptic theology to somehow account for him and his few followers not having been raptured. They've been left behind to fight the armies of the Beast, you know. They start gathering people and weapons and anyone who doesn't join their crusade must be the enemy.

[William]

In America the obvious widespread conclusion will be that the Rapture has occurred, and with a surprisingly broad-minded Heaven. This hypothesis will quickly be challenged when no further miraculous events occur, and news comes to light that members of clearly non-Christian religions are missing.

The infrastructure of modern society will be almost as difficult to maintain as if World War III or the typical zombie plague had occurred. Regression to about 1900-level technology might be expectable. As long as the survivors can continue to breed, if there are no further effects we will eventually be able to build up again.

Naturally any social order will be thoroughly upset across the entire world. Expect revolutions everywhere, and some of them to be successful.

[Luke Bunyip]

• Widespread infrastructure breakdowns (Transport, communications)
• Panic
• Hording
• Food and water shortages

Basically, the more complex the society, the greater the impacts.

[Murrkon5]

10% plus survival rate is an awkward number. It's not the "last people on Earth" scenario of most apocalypse scenarios but neither is it enough to keep civilization as we know it ticking along.

I mean, the small city I live in will still have some 25,000 people. How far things degrade depends on the skill sets left and how fast we get organized.

There will be a shocky and rough transition period, but after the dip, things will be much better than Age of Steam. I mean, the premise has no war or devastation (other than where a jet liner smashed down). Wires are still strung, pipe is still laid and cables are still in place. Hell, the satellites are still in orbit. There are supplies and resources for ten times the new population waiting to be scavenged. Hoarders will feel a bit silly after a while when they just run out of room to stash stuff...and no one wants what they have.

"Where" and "when" are important factors. Rattling around a mega city as one of the surviving 750,000 would be confusing and miserable. The smaller centers would do better. Winter is a powerful motivator. People used to prepping for the regular arrival of snow have more "ant" than "grasshopper" when it comes to cutting thru the BS and getting organized. If, however, this "Quiet Morning" happens in the middle of an arctic freeze, that'll be extra nasty.

[Astromancer]

I like the 10% survival rate. Much of the world twenty years after the event would be pseudo-Medieval in the types and levels of conflicts. There would be enclaves of advanced science and technology, people striving to rebuild the old society, people creating their new tribe/religion/kingdom/utopia, and bands of wandering adventurers.

Basically you mix many of the best details of Renaissance and Post-Apocalyptic settings in one game. Much fun could be had.

[Nymdok]

As to 10%, just living in the Houston Area, thats gonna be 200-600k people give or take depending on where you consider houston to stop and start at.

Thats sill enough to found a functional society on, especially if you can find a few key people and consolodate them.

One of the things that I find odd is the notion that f <person> is gone then <function> ceases when its been my experience that most functions people perform are documented in a process somewhere as a tool of quality control.

http://www.bls.gov/ro6/fax/houston_ces.PDF

This pdf has some pretty good info. Assuming they are taken at random, that means we'd still have roughly...

(From Page 6 of that Document the Oct 2013 column for Houston Baytown Sugarland)

10k people to work mining and Logging.
19k people to work construction.
26k people in Manufacturing
60k in Trade Transport and utilities
3k in Information
14 K in finances
42k Proffesional and Buisness
35k Education and Health
27k Leisure and hospitality
9k in 'Other'
38k in Government

Those aint bad numbers. Especially when you consider that Leisure, Governement, Finances and at least a piece of Trade and Transport will need to be re-assigned.

"Yes I know before the 'Event' you were a bartender. We dont need those. Go work with Bill on the power lines and tonight you can help us brew hooch. You used to run a 'massage' parlor? Well we need Police. Go learn how to rub people the wrong way for a change."

Given the Hospitals, Machine Shops, Ports, Farmable Land, Port, and Coastline, I think Houston would be ok as a City State. At least for a while.

Now part of the fun could come from just reshaping and firing the city back up. That could be an interesting social gaming experience in itself. Could you manage a city? Throw in some Gang Problems for action and maybe some raids from the suburban towns and before you know it, its a good time.

It might even be just as interesting play at the lower level.

GURPS:Cops in the Still Civilization might be a heckuva lotta fun. Make all the PC's Policemen trying to maintain order. Heck that would kind of make it Deadwood in the now. Thatd be cool.

Make em all Machinists sent out to the wild uninhabited and Marauded hinterlands to set up, defend and operate a machine shop. Gadgeteering would be a hoot!

Take a page from the Road Warrior. Pick a refinery. ANY refinery with a google image you can use as a map then have em hole up defend and operate that.

Funny thing is that the Why of the missing people can be almost anything and if its one thing we've learned from other Movies and TV shows is that the justification is largely unimportant.

Nymdok

[SimonAce]

As long as enough techs were around and they could say shut off unneeded power plants and the like civilization could be maintained pretty well.

Heck at an 90% loss the population of the US would be that of of Canada and approaching half of the UK right now.

My local area for example would have a population of 40,000

I'd even go as far as to say that if the most capable people were the survivors for whatever reasons, once the initial shock, infrastructural issues and economic mess was sorted out, the general domestic situation would greatly improve pretty much everywhere,

Africa would hugely improve as would Afghanistan and other highly natal places.

The biggest issues I think would be dealing with dangerous industrial processes, animals rogue power plants and making sure the food supply was in good shape. Once done a regular economy will be a bit difficult to restore since there will be a big scavenger economy for years to come.

As an example, in the US there would be huge numbers of guns and heavy weapons lying about unclaimed. Any polity that wanted to restrict weapons would be hard pressed to do this. Ammo also would on the estimate as many as billions of round of ammo per person,

Another example with 3 or more working washing machines per person baring someone hoarding them or some remanent state little stops me from just looting an empty house in say a large city where the limited manpower can't patrol well anything

well alright another scaaver or a feral dog could be a threat but thats where the adventure is

In such a situation anyone wanting to make stuff will be hard pressed to find much of a market for decades,

Food, gas,medicine and consumables with be an exception. They will come into demand quite fast and things like cigarettes, booze and drugs being hot items

In a few decades though, civilization will reboot with spot shortages of this or that (microchips) and some loss of produce variety.

I suspect that the culture will get a bit redneck and more religious and birth rates will rise as well Basically though past the initial bump, nothing much to worry about.

A caveat though,a bad panic might create problems with the rest of the state going nuts, local warlords or nuclear plants going off without being maintained. That could be an issue.

[Running Wolf]

Inside of few hours electric and chemical plants would be shut down, as well as water, food would not be going to the market.... It would happen in the middle of winter half the world so expect massive starvation.

That's also not to mention people needing medicine (thyroid and diabetes come to find first). Expect a lot more deaths in the coming months.

[Astromancer]

This is why I think that a 90% population reduction means a great adventuring situation 20 or so years down the road. Society is rebuilding itself but social control and civic order aren't there yet. Swashers, Westerns, and other types of adventure senarios work just fine. Heck, even techno-thrillers work. The PCs can split the difference between a Western and a Swasher (with or without Wuxia elements) one day, do hard-boiled detective stuff the next, and then round out the campaign with techno-thriller SciFi/horror plots.