So I saw a documentary the other day on the possibility of 2012 being the end of the world, and it got me thinking about what might be required for a group of people to survive a world-ending disaster, and not just survive but actually thrive.
I'd just like to say that I have absolutely no formal training in any of the sciences, so this is simply a thought exercise that I am undertaking with the idea of possibly using it as something to flesh out a story I am considering, so I thought I would itemize what I think would be the criteria for establishing said survival( and if there's any you think I missed, please post them), and ask all of you for help in coming up with what would fulfill those criteria.
Firstly, I'm going to take a best-case stance for this scenario and assume there was plenty of forewarning of the coming disaster and resources weren't really an issue for the initial set-up phase. So I feel the first question that needs to be answered is just how many people are we talking about here? Keep in mind I'm taking the position of there being a lot of time and resources to commit to the project before the disaster strikes so I'm not talking about a bare-minimum, subsistence level of population to avoid genetic deformities and diseases(although, if anyone knows, I would like to as well!), I'm talking about what is required to, if not advance, then at least maintain our current level of technical knowledge. What I mean by this is it would be nice to continue conducting research and making advancements in all our various fields of scientific and technical inquiry, but I realize that would take literally tens of thousands of people in each field and many more in all the support industries, like mining, for example. So what I propose is something slightly above the bare minimum of simply recording any and all data on any given topic and locking it away in some room to be reopened once humanity reemerges from the bunker, since if that was to be the case and enough generations had passed without anyone ever having looked at the data, we would be set back many years in just trying to re-learn what it all meant. So a few dedicated specialists in each field with enough knowledge to conduct research and implement some minor, scaled-down practical applications as well as train successive generations might not be beyond the realm of possibility.
And since there would of course have to be some kind of population control in a limited space with limited resources, I figure why not go all the way and implement a selective breeding program, at least for the first few generations with the ultimate goal of eliminating the different races. What I mean by this is firstly, I don't even really know what the races of mankind are or how many there are, so the next part of my population criteria is just what are the races and how many generations would it take to create individuals who have equal proportions of all of them(and might anyone have a picture or know of a link to a picture of what such an individual might look like since I'd like to know!), so that what emerges from the bunker is one, completely homogenous race without the slightest inkling of what racism and prejudice even mean.
So, I feel that covers the population issue. But the next criteria would of course be how to provide for these people. Just how much food does a person need to eat on a daily basis to fulfill a healthy diet? In this scenario, we would be unable to afford to allow people to become sedentary and overweight, everyone would need to be healthy and active and able to contribute. So based on that, how many cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, fish and seafood does a person consume in their lifetime? How many tons of various grains, rice, vegetables and fruit? How many thousands of gallons of dairy products and other beverages? And how much arable land and water is required to sustain these flora and fauna? See where I'm going here?
Now that we've covered the basic necessities of sustaining our population of a so-far unknown quantity, we might need to look at their intellectual and lifestyle needs. I would agree to at least a certain degree with those who would say that this isn't really the biggest concern in an armageddon scenario, but I've given us a lot of time to prepare and we are dealing with at least a few generations of being cooped up, so I'd like to provide for at least a semblance of living, educational, recreational and leisure space and room for all the laboratories for those specialists I mentioned earlier and manufacturing space for all the necessities we would need. And the final thing to deal with, is that all of this would of course, need to be put underground, since the surface would be basically uninhabitable, so just how much space does all that take up?
Phew! All this seems to be a pretty big undertaking, but as I said, I think it would make for some good thought experiments or maybe classroom topics. And like I mentioned, if anyone feels I've left something out, please add it! So I look forward to seeing if any of this gets any of your creative juices flowing! Thanks for any thoughts and time in advance!
