The starting point for The Knowledge is a global catastrophe that destroys our technological civilisation and forces survivors to start again from scratch. Such a possible eventuality offers a superb scenario for exploring the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world actually works, and how it progressed and developed over centuries and millennia of history. Whilst researching for the book, and continuing still on the web Discussion board after its publication, I’ve had many fascinating and informative conversations with people who’ve been thinking about similar topics for far longer that I have.

There is a large community around the world making active preparations for disaster; people who identify as preppers or survivalists. Of course, aspects of this movement cover a wide spectrum.

On one hand are everyday people living in regions vulnerable to natural disasters, such as the earthquakes near San Francisco, taking precautions like keeping a few days-worth of canned food, bottled water and battery-powered lights to wait-out at home a blackout or temporary disruption of other public utilities, or else preparing a bug-out bag to escape the city at the early warning signs.

On the other extreme are those who anticipate global catastrophe within their lifetimes; some moving to isolated, fortified compounds and devoting their life savings to stockpiling consumables and weapons to protect their families from looters after societal collapse. Unsurprisingly, it is this tail of the distribution that TV shows like Doomsday Preppers tend to focus on, but preppers in fact include an enormous range of people with different lifestyles and motivations.

And the movement has been going for a long time, building in waves in response to world events, as this guest post from Chris Ruiz charts.

 

The Rise and Rise Of Prepping

Interest in prepping has been on a steady rise over the past few years. This is not to say that the idea of preparedness never existed before. People have been actively preparing for emergencies, including possibly life-threatening disruptions, since the first nomadic clan decided to raise crops instead of hunt and gather.  In this article we will look at 3 major waves of interest in preparedness from recent history.  This will give us context for where we are today and show that being prepared is a well-worn road, not just some new fad based on some questionable reality shows on television.

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Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.

Most post-apocalyptic films and games focus on the horrors and hardships of the immediate aftermath of a global catastrophe. The Knowledge looks at the longer-term recovery of society, and what you can do over the generations to reboot civilisation from scratch. So this Kickstarter project really caught my eye – Legacy: Life Among the Ruins is a tabletop game where players work together in a changing world to rebuild a life for themselves. The game is very nearly fully-funded on Kickstarter and so if this appeals to you make a contribution right away! This guest post is from the game’s designer, James Iles.

Hi!  I’m the designer of Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, a tabletop roleplaying game about the survivors of a reality-twisting apocalypse, the families they form, and the new world they will create as the ages turn. While most post-apocalyptic media focuses on the immediate aftermath of an apocalypse, with its associated grim survivors making hard choices, I thought it’d be interesting to explore the process of rebuilding: the difficulties people face understanding the old technology of the world before, the new challenges the apocalypse has created, and how the world changes from generation to generation.

To accomplish this, Legacy gives every player control of both a Family of survivors and a Character chosen from that Family to deal with their problems. A Family is created by choosing one of five reactions to the apocalypse – holding on to the old lore, turning to martial strength for security, finding refuge in faith, seeking and trading valuable things, or trying to impose law and order. Each archetype comes with its own playbook of traits and abilities, with customisable cultures, lifestyles, resources and needs. Each Family has something it urgently needs and cannot easily get, and that’s where your Character comes in, picked from one of eight basic archetypes and customised by your choice of abilities and gear. While your Family can accomplish broad, sweeping changes in the world via diplomats, spies, scientists and soldiers your Character excels at more precise, dangerous activities – exploring crumbling ruins, conducting delicate negotiations in enemy territory, and hunting down the horrifying monsters created by the apocalypse.

Legacy promises rapid, flavourful gameplay, with a system that produces tough choices and unexpected opportunities. If you’re interested the Kickstarter has two days left, and provides the current draft text of the game free to all backers. Check it out!

Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.

Chapter 4 of The Knowledge talks about the importance of fermentation for making wine, beer, mead (see the How To guide here), or any other alcoholic beverage, and how concentrated ethanol can be distilled from that for applications like antiseptics. If you can’t find any dried sachets of yeast for brewing or making bread I explain how you can isolate the yeast and other microorganisms you can use from the environment around you. The cells are present on the skins of grapes, or wheat grain, or even just floating on the air. One increasingly popular method for producing craft beers is spontaneous fermentation – simply allowing wild or natural yeasts and bacteria to essentially infect your starter and drive fermentation.  Well, about the most wonderfully hipster effort I have ever come across is that of John Maier of Rogue Ales, who is planning to sell beer brewed using yeast harvested from his own beard. Cheers…

Find more details on Smithsonianmag.com

Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.