If you woke in the morning and all humans had disappeared

[SolitaryTree]

What would you do?
How would you feel?
Who would you pick to be alive with you if you could pick a person/group of people?
I often imagine this scenario….

It depends how the people died. If it was very suddenly and they didn't have time to secure the nuclear power plants then I imagine there would just be a few days left on the earth anyway, before a massive nuclear fall out.
So I would perhaps leave some relics and an explanation of what happened for historians to find in the future, then just hunt down all the drugs and booze and find a big empty concert hall and have a massive party by myself listening to all my favorite tunes until the world blew up.

[quote theshadeofgreen]@SquirryTheSquirrel if only you had a huge crush on Bear Grylls.... you'd be laughing![/quote]
I’d heard Bear Grylls is apparently a bit of a useless twat in real life. Admittedly this was 10 years ago so maybe he’s actually learned some of the skills he pretends to have on TV now.

@thetigerthatcamefortea

There is a brilliant book called "last one at the party" which is pretty much this. After the carnage and shock subsides she becomes the very best version of her self possible which is maybe a shame that no one gets to witness it. It's really a good book....

I loved this book!

The TV series The Last Man on Earth is similar, I really enjoyed it and it covered things I'd have never thought about like plumbing!

And in a similar genre the book The End of Men (but only men are affected). The way society has to adapt very quickly to losing half the workforce (but not equally as lots of jobs are heavily male employees and vice versa).

I read a lot of disaster stuff during lockdown!

I'd go an break in to a book shop and get the pile of books I thought I'd never have time to read.
I'd fill loads of bottles with water.
I have a lot of tinned food and rice already but I mightn't be able to boil the rice...........

I suppose after a while things would stop working. I've got candles and matches.

@MrsTerryPratchett good choice madam, although, always slightly preferred Bruce Parry !

I'd learn to navigate/drive a motor boat and to France, then make my way overland to somewhere like Italy or Croatia. Good weather, lots of small farms (olive groves for those essential fats that would be harder to find in the UK), orchards of citrus fruit, keep chickens and goats, fish in the sea, grow veg, enjoy the views. I'd have to take a bunch of books with me. Stock up on canned food. Medicine from hospital and carry a big vial of morphine at all times to kill myself should I have a horrible accident and be facing a painful death. Find a couple of horses and a cart for when the petrol goes. Get a dog.

Food wouldn't be a problem, just my local supermarkets have enough canned goods to see me through until old age.

I'd like to bring my family but then the human race would die with us? Better to bring along a selection of resourceful men and women to repopulate the earth.

Ooo tough. I'd assume that if I was still there then there'd be others as well, just a case of finding them. As a starting point I'd go to the supermarket and stock up on food. I'd also go to pharmacies/hospitals to see what I could find and I'd also see if I could find an outdoor store to get outdoor survival stuff. I'd also want to get hold of a few big jerry cans for petrol I'd siphon off abandoned cars. No idea where to find guns. I've got a big stick which would do against any wild dogs.

I'd then leave most of the gathered provisions at my house and then head down to the capital city (3 hour drive with no traffic - assuming everyone vanished overnight that there wouldn't be too many abandoned cars on the road). I'd assume that any others left on earth would have the same idea. I'd take provisions for a week and probably take my neighbours car as it is bigger than mine and would be more comfortable to sleep in if I needed to. I'd base myself at my FIL's house as I've got a key and I'd explore locations where people would be likely to congregate in the event of disaster like the airport, parliament building etc. If there was nothing then I'd head back to my home and have to decide whether to wait there and hope or whether to set out across land trying to get to Europe (I live in Asia).

When is this happening btw? We're getting solar panels installed in September so it'd be great if it could wait until then.

Oooh I’d not thought about nuclear explosions and fallout… there are 8 sites in the uk. We’d be buggered!
Will also be looking for these book and tv suggestions!

How many people do you get to pick, and do they have to be people you interact with or just people who the planet should retain?

I'm not sure if I'd want to be alive. Even with DP and DD life would be incredibly difficult and not much fun.

@SuperLoudPoppingAction I’m not sure, I suppose a group might mean different things to different people!
For me a group should not be more than 10… and that’s a large group 🤣

@SuperLoudPoppingAction and I suppose people you know and people they know?

I probably wouldn't notice straight away (don't live on the mainland and not many people around me!) apart from social media being unusually quiet!

If I woke in the morning and all humans had disappeared, I'd assume I was either not human or was dead and there was proof of another life.

If I woke and all the other humans were gone, there wouldn't be any news broadcasts, so I'd not know it was worldwide and I'd be searching for the rest of my life to find the people I love.

If I could choose who to have with me? My husband, kids, siblings, nieces and nephews, parents, best friends and their kids and 1,000 young families so that the perpetuation of the human race was a possibility in the future, about 100 doctors and surgeons, 100 top scientists, 500 farmers......

I wouldn't be going into the empty world without someone to save me and mine if our appendix burst.

www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/17/peter-dickinson The trilogy mentioned here were the ones that disturbed me as a teen. The Devil's children was a BBC dramatisation in the 70s and really stayed with me. Z for Zachariah finished me off!

Okay...this would be my plan:

• Grab a car and head to the local WH Smith and steal a paper map of the area

• Use it to find a farm within walking distance of a fresh water source

• Take some clothes and the cats to the farm

• Get some containers and get as much petrol and diesel out of the local petrol station as possible before the electricity stopped, store it in various places around the farm (not too close to the farmhouse)

• Spend evenings collecting as much water as possible before it stops running from taps

• Look on map for other farms, steal a vehicle that can transport animals and spend the next few days picking up various kinds of animals so I have a mix of cows, sheep, chickens, pigs and a few more dogs and cats for company (releasing any surplus to what I can manage). I would also try to find a few decent heavy horses that look like they could pull a plough.

• Then figure out where a book store is (need to learn about keeping animals and fixing cars), a few vets (in case I need to go and collect meds for animals), a garden centre (to get seeds, compost, etc)

• Start tending to the animals I have and make a plan!

I'd need to eventually try to find an older car that was more mechanical and less reliant on fancy electronics so I could have a chance at keeping it going.

There'd be all kinds of other things I'd need to think about in my plan - stockpiling human meds (not an immediate priority but the day I need them will be too late to think about it!), collecting lots of firewood, stockpiling tinned food and pet food. Stockpile candles, torches, batteries, car parts, car batteries. Find some old fashioned farming equipment

Then eventually teaching myself to fish, darn, butcher animals, grow wheat and grind for bread.

So yeah...I reckon I could be okay. There would be too much to do to get bored but I would be lonely although the animals would help. I suspect I would talk out loud a lot and have conversations with DH who wasn't there

Break into a pharmacy to find an exit drug.

Nuclear power stations would presumably explode with no management. With no electricity sewage pumps would stop. Low lying areas would become cess pits. Rubbish would rot where it sat. Fires started by lightning strikes would burn unstopped. Everything around you would become polluted.

I would get the hell out ASAP.

Hmmm I’ve never thought about this but interesting question !

I think I would fill the car up with diesel if I still could, make numerous trips to smyths to stock up on toys to keeps them dds entertained.
Find a big house and move in, install swing set , tree house , slide

I’d then head up to the pharmacy & hospital and take all the drugs

Next stop the supermarkets and fill up on bottled water and enough food to last years

I would go to all the nice shops and stock up on nice bed linen and clothes

If no one came to save us by the time we ran out of supplies I would just give myself and family all the drugs to fall in to a deep sleep

• I would also head to library and get a book on which drugs to take for said “deep sleep “

As for other people which I didn't take into account before...

I'd keep my DH, my PILs and my DM. All the others can go dysfunctional family on my side and no way am I keeping them

I mean, really I'd like to keep the whole village perhaps. It's about 4000 so enough to not in breed too much?

Also includes quite a few farmers or people from farming stock and I suspect people who can fish, teachers, etc.

In which case I'd self-appoint as Chief and get people working according to skills, probably in a simple form of communism/socialism as I don't think it would be a big enough society for capitalism to work(?). It would be back to pre-Industrial ages except as Chief I'd pull my weight and not live in Downton Abbey with servants.

@RuthTopp

You honestly wouldn't last long before there was many ecological disasters. Nuclear power plants would blow up because they are not being looked after. You'd be fucked.

Oh

That's shit all over my plans.