Comments on: At the Walls of the Last City

By: Douglas Blaine

Douglas Blaine — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 19:19:03 +0000

Found this today and it reminded me of this conversation. Might be useful to others.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,351113,00.jpg

By: Katharine Kerr

Katharine Kerr — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 05:52:30 +0000

I do know how to make a backstrap loom, and I can find dye plants and use a couple of basic mordants — assuming we have any salt around in large quantities. What I don’t know in the cloth-making department is how to spin fiber into yarn.

I wonder how long it would take for “those who can organize others” to turn into a ruling class, particularly with an alliance with “those who can provide security” ?

By: Madeleine Robins

Madeleine Robins — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:46:19 +0000

Actually, being able to do that sort of math might be very useful for building and engineering stuff. I can do rough design/invention of things, but my math skills are truly lousy. You and I together make a complete inventor of sorts.

One point of this exercise is to make you recast what you know of yourself in a different way. You gotta believe that the Hordes of Darkness are going to get you if you can’t sweet talk your way in. You’ll note that, while proof-reading and teaching are skills I possess, they aren’t skills I listed. But if your Walled City is past the point of rebuilding and needs jugglers and copyeditors, that’s fair.

By: Gwen

Gwen — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:18:33 +0000

Change “Mutated cats sound okay. Also mutated dogs. But what do we eat?”
to “But what do we eat? Mutated cats sound okay. Also mutated dogs.”
…
Ewww, gross. And that’s my skill: taking perfectly innocent words and phrases and taking them the wrong way. Not terribly useful.
Let’s see, what else can I do? Hmm…O.K., none of my skills would be useful in a post-apocalyptic world. (”Hey, anybody need someone to calculate the surface area of an object created by rotating a curve around an axis?” Er, no, not really.) I could be the person who helps keep alive the useless knowledge and teaches future generations so that the world doesn’t have to start from scratch. Very very useful, in the long run, but in the short run: I’d be considered a source of meat when the cityfolk run out of mutant (ex-)pets.

By: Darcy

Darcy — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 02:08:34 +0000

The strongest skills that I could offer are the ability to organize information so that it’s easily accessible, and a skill that I call “herding cats” or the ability to get a lot of reluctant people to get off their asses and do what’s needed.

Other than that, a fairly standard set of skills:

sewing, cooking, cleaning, labor, basic carpentry, some animal husbandry, basic gardening… Like that.

By: Jellyn Andrews

Jellyn Andrews — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 00:21:40 +0000

I know some Japanese. When all the useful equipment starts breaking down and all they have are manuals in Japanese, they’ll be wanting me!

By: Kathleen Retterson

Kathleen Retterson — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 21:18:24 +0000

I can make gunpowder and supervise the building of a trebuchet.

Since I can’t do all of the other really useful survival skills, at least I can help protect those who do have them — and perhaps they will feed me in return.

By: Erin Underwood

Erin Underwood — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 20:31:08 +0000

As impractical as it sounds, every civilization needs/wants entertainers, jugglers, artists, musicians, actors, storytellers, etc. Even the denizens of the last city on Earth need to blow off a little steam now and again.

I would also guess that the city would want a historian and/or a scribe to track what’s gone before so that the law makers and leaders can avoid remaking past mistakes. I’m quite good at taking notes because I have a pretty shoddy memory. But I don’t have any clue how to make paper or ink.

By: Vivian Francis

Vivian Francis — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 20:06:43 +0000

Someone has to dig latrines, I guess….

By: Samer Rabadi

Samer Rabadi — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:34:34 +0000

Mutated cats sound okay. Also mutated dogs. But what do we eat?

Depending on the location of the city, probably mutated corn or wheat. I’m guessing a grain of some kind, assuming the ecosystem isn’t too stressed, will be a staple.

As for what skills I might have to offer, I’ve been a professonal organizer for a while now, so I’d join the leadership council that seems to be forming. (Assuming they’ll have me.)

Scarily enough, in terms of pragmatic skills, I have very basic security skills. They are a result of a long ago dabbling in Japanese and Chinese martial arts. That includes a basic sense for tactics and strategy. Hopefully the city won’t be facing a barbarian horde any time soon though…