How many people could realistically survive a planet-wise apocalypse?
July 8, 2013 1:56 PM   Subscribe

(sci-fi filter) How many people could realistically survive a 'planet-wise' apocalypse or disaster?

I was reading a novel where a group of children survive the invasion of their country because they were on a camping trip in the outback when it all happened, and it had me wondering: realistically, how many people could survive such a thing, planet-wide?

Assume that if it's a virus or pandemic, a portion of the population will be naturally immune and will survive. Assume that if it's zombies, or space aliens blasting us from the sky, an equivalent equal number will be on camping trips, living on tiny forgotten island countries, hidden in the depths of parking garages and so on and will survive the first (and only) wave.

Also, assume that there is time for those who have regular access to secret bunkers to get there and hide in them---but these is not time to draw lots for the general population to have spots, or to organize any sort of orderly evacuation. They can press the button and lock down Cheyenne mountain, and maybe have an extra hour to sneak the president in, and that's it.

My question is, how many Cheyenne Mountains are there? And what would be a reasonable percentage of the population to be immune from the virus/hide from the space aliens? When the dust settles and the apocalypse is done, how many survivors would we be looking at?
posted by JoannaC to Grab Bag (3 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: This needs to be at least a lot more pinned down and specific to start to be workable and not chatfilter. -- cortex

 
This is a really broad question, but pick up basically any sci-fi anthology from the 1960s-80s for exhaustively researched speculative stories about surviving nuclear holocausts. It was kinda on peoples' minds.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:01 PM on July 8, 2013


Too broad.

Pick an apocalypse, and we'll talk.
posted by General Tonic at 2:02 PM on July 8, 2013 [1 favorite]


To be clear, the reason it's too broad a question is that it REALLY depends on the type of disaster. A huge asteroid falls in the Pacific? Hawaii will be the first to go. But in a zombie apocalypse originating in Europe, it's probably the best place you could be, assuming they close their ports early enough.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:08 PM on July 8, 2013


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