Scenario THE FALL

[NorthernRaider]

Hi guys, I’ve written this because I’ve had a bit of flak about not setting the scene for the ten (so far) theoretical scenarios I’ve already written to try and provoke debate, Please don’t slag my limited writing skills off I am well aware of my limitations all I’m trying to do is encourage debate.
NR

Scenario
The Fall

The BBC news from Robert Peston at 1PM made the city traders panic and it was reported that both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had turned white when an aide broke the news to them. “How in god’s name did we end up in this mess?” was the PM’s first thought.

In less than 3 months the nation’s economic forecast had gone from a promising future to a state of borderline collapse, one minute news of the massive economic boom of the Chinese and Indian economies and healthy growth in east Africa was driving up the value of the Dollar, Euro and Pound and pushing the markets to record highs.

Next total chaos reigned supreme as a coalition of most of the major oil producing nations announced that they were changing the focus of their oil production and its price structure so that China, India and Africa became the favoured customers in a huge deal that saw special trade agreements between India and China and the Saudi Arabia headed Oil coalition of nations. Basically China and India were to get the oil at very favourable prices in return for opening up the markets of the Arab states, East African mineral rich states and a huge chunk of South America.

The Chinese let this news rattle the western world for a few days before applying the Coup de grace of announcing in cooperation with the Oil Coalition nations that the cost of a barrel of oil to the Western nations would be levied at $200 a barrel.

It really did not matter if the price rise was simply a political tool to gain leverage with or even a bluff the effect was instant and devastating. Basically the markets and economies of the Americans, British and European nations collapsed within days. The entire western world saw the Chinese and Indians become the new super powers without a shot being fired. Suddenly the value of the Dollar, Pound and Euro collapsed and the west could not afford to buy the oil that was essential to their economies. The oil stopped flowing west, and within days the Russian federation upon seeing who had the upper hand offered preferential trading agreements to the Chinese and Indians for the huge reserves of natural gas they had for sale.

The price of natural gas to Europe doubled overnight, Ukraine protested so Russia turned off the gas supply. Norway stopped exporting its gas reserves immediately and the UK government seized control over the remaining oil and gas wells in the North Sea. The cheap imported coal from South America and Poland which sustained the UKs remaining coal fired power stations stopped coming. America immediately in cooperation with Canada stopped ALL exports of grain to anyone and everyone in order to try and appear to be doing something useful, but it was too late confidence in the Dollar was gone, no one wanted Dollars any more, or Sterling, or Euros.

The government of the UK tried to play down the seriousness of the crisis, it took various steps to stabilise its economy, it made wild claims that the UK could sustain itself on North Sea oil and gas until the political crisis was resolved, it claimed the few remaining old nuclear plants and newly built wind farms could meet most of the nation’s needs. They were wrong.

Some rationing of petrol, diesel, gas and electricity were to be applied but the government assured the nation the measures would be temporary. Across the nation the masses did not care, did not understand or trusted blindly the government would sort out the mess and take care of them. Whilst the power still flowed thousands of people who were often referred to as Survivalists, Preppers, Homesteaders and Off-gridders furiously texted, E mailed and posted on their communities forums.
They exchanged files on self-reliance, self-sufficiency and self-preservation to each other. They agreed on dates, times and places where they could be contacted if all other forms of communication failed. They agreed on various locations in the UK where they would meet on set dates to trade and barter if society collapsed.
Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, The Washington Monument in County Durham, Hatton Locks in Warwickshire are places agreed upon to be the new hubs for the preppers to gather at in England.

“This is the BBC world service, today it was announced that Her Majesty the Queen and her ministers would be extending indefinitely their stay in Canada, The Trade minister said it was so Her Majesty and her ministers could negotiate face to face with the American and Canadian government to try and get grain shipments restored and to gain access to the huge reserves of shale oil the Canadians have”.

The survivalists and preppers chose to to believe the promises the government made and set about updating and preparing for the worst, Caches and Stockpiles of food, fuel, medicines, seeds, barter goods etc were checked over and concealed in various locations. Vehicles were serviced and loaded with extra equipment, fuel tanks and spare jerry cans filled with stabilised fuel. Bug out Bags were checked, contents and refreshed. Extra food stuffs were bulk bought, sorted and stored, some families who were more advanced in their preparations or just better placed financially actually packed up and moved out to their “” Holiday homes”” as their chosen places of safety were called in polite company. For a few die-hards who had long foreseen major problems coming they had already long since sold up and moved out of the towns and cities, these old time preppers just hunkered down to watch the world unravel around them.

“Reuters News article, It is reported that some members of the Royal Marines, Parachute Regiment Troops and members of the Special forces were now moving with their families into gated communities and large extensive Country Estates owned by the nation’s richest and most powerful people in the UK. An insider reported that the soldiers and families were being accommodated by the owners of the estates in return for providing 24 hour security to the owners and landlords.”

“BREAKING SKY NEWS, Reports are coming in that many hundreds of white collar and public sector workers from London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and London are refusing to report for work. The Mayor of London issued a statement saying less than 20% of the capitals officers have reported for duty”



“London Evening Standard” headline is “Where are they going?”
The Standards society reporter is telling the news desk that as far as she can find out many hundreds of the social elite and rich from the Westminster and Chelsea areas are loading their Range Rovers and Mercedes G Wagons and leaving the city for “planned extended vacation in places the St Kitts, Guernsey and the Bahamas.”

The online version of BOATING & YACHTING NEWS is still being published but in greatly reduced form, It’s reporting in a massive surge in people re-provisioning they boats and offering huge sums of money for contract skippers with ocean going experience. They also report that large numbers of yachts and cruisers are leaving the south coast ports every day, destination unknown.

The following Monday morning the government announced that its welfare payment system which distributed Unemployment Benefit, Sickness Benefit, Disability Benefit, Pensions etc had suffered a “glitch” and payments would be delayed by 14 days until the next due payment date.

The morning news reported the association of Chief Police Officers had issued an instruction to all holders of Fire Arms Certificates for gun owners to be responsible citizens and to take their fire arms to the nearest open police station and hand them in for safe keeping, The evening news reported how the ACPO were disappointed with the fact that only 5% of registered gun owners had surrendered their guns.

Five days after the government failed to pay out the billions in pension and welfare money it is reported that looting of food shops by desperate and hungry poor people were resorting to looting shops after charitable FOOD BANKS ran out of supplies.
That evening small scale looting of petrol stations was reported on roads leaving many cities.

BBC BIRMINGHAM REPORTS, Due to technical problems the main BBC broadcasts from London have been temporarily stopped and news will now come from Birmingham and Salford.

BBC SALFORD REPORTS, It has been confirmed the remaining members of the government have relocated from London to the secure facilities of an undisclosed military base, and reports that the BBC film crew from Birmingham who were sent to assess the situation in London were found murdered near Wembley stadium.

At night for weeks on rend across the UK across the Pennine Way, along the Manchester ship canal, following the East Coast Mainline, along the Fosse-way, Into the Brecon Beacons, along the Festiniog rail track, along cycle route 1 and on hundreds of other preselected and well recceid paths if you were alert and prepared you may have caught glimpses of various groups of preppers and survivalists with their families heading away from the large towns and cities. They accessed their pre-deployed caches to resupply, they rested at locations they knew to be secure, and they made their way quietly to their bug out locations to hopefully survive the nightmare descending on the country.

“The report from the BBC Salford news team before their helicopter was lost confirmed that in their extended flight they managed to confirm Leeds, Bradford, Halifax and Sheffield are ablaze just as their previous report confirmed hundreds of fires visible in London and Birmingham. They also relayed a message from a RAYNET team near Bristol who report that both Typhus and Cholera have been reported in Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea.

It is also with great regret that we at BBC Salford and Manchester will be going offline after 8 PM this evening until we can obtain fuel for the generators.


http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/Motoris...0.html?x=0

[Kenneth Eames]

Thanks for this NR, it is possible that you might be a prophet. Who knows, although it seems an unlikely scenario at the present time, I feel that this could actually happen. Our stance on the Arab states might even prove our downfall. Islam is intent on controllong the world and if the Moslem Brotherhood gain power of the complete Arab World this could happen. The Muslim Brotherhood were in support of the Nazis in WW2. Look at the German Army Order of Battle and see the Moslem soldiers in the SS and the German army regiments. Search for the relevant material, a great deal is available. Kenneth Eames.

[Skean Dhude]

Don't worry about the writing. It's what is being said that counts.

[grumpy old man]

nr
good story you should write a book or film it's like sd's thinking ahead all good

[bigpaul]

excellent piece of writing NR, setting the scene-MORE PLEASE!

[grumpy old man]

this should become a regular feature better than the rubbish on t.v.

[JohnR]

Sir,
I read your Scenario postings, particularly The Fall and The City.
Both of these I wholeheartedly agree with though I think that once any collapse of society as we now know get going it may happen quicker. I am little surprised that you mention real people in your scenarios. I have not seen or heard from Neil for many years, not since Fishponds which I am sure you will remember, many years ago.
We were fortunate that back in 2003 to came into some money and so were able to buy a property in the South West and moved out of London. Fortunate in that we are now able to live at our retreat.
I wondered if you have any thoughts on the longer term aspect of how things may pan out after collapse.
It is my view that after the sort of events that are discussed on the internet we will not have the number of people that we have now, nor the infrastructure and certainly no electric power. OK there may be a little from solar panels, wind and hydro for a while but as with all things the question is going to be replacement parts and ultimately manufacture and of course the skill and facilities to make the parts. The problems with civilisation today are that of the complexity of it’s systems.
I also believe that once a collapse starts it will continue until such time we reach an equilibrium from which we can rebuild. The problem with this is that we will never be able to rebuild to what we have now. I have doubts that we may not even be able to rebuild to a level of the 17th or 18th century. We will not be able access the raw materials as we do now, we will not have the power and machinery will wear out or breakdown. We may be able to do some things for short while but longer term I have my doubts. We have used all the easily accessible materials and now need power to get them, what is left, from the ground. We will not have the people or expertise to do this. Consider that the downward trend over maybe many centuries. It will mean that all our time would be taken in trying to survive and I fear that after a generation or two we would not have the time to teach the children other than the basic survival skills.
One must remember that people like teachers would as such be unproductive and although they would be an investment it is unlikely that we would be able to afford to invest in them in the longer term.
The one thing that I feel will happen over the first two or three generations after the collapse will be the loss of the ability of people to read, write of do arithmetic.
“The years following the collapse were generally years of plenty. Everything imaginable was available in abundance; it was there for the taking, at least for a while. There were generators and they had enough fuel for them for years, or at least that’s what they thought. As the fuel disintegrated the lights and power, what there was, went out. The survivors could light candles to ward of the night and they knew how to build fires, but that wasn’t the same as flicking a light switch.
Electricity was the life blood of civilisation, when the fuel went bad they lost more than their cars, they lost light, their refrigerators, ovens, freezers and probably the most depressing of all their ham radios.

50 years later only a few of the original survivors remained, people who remembered how things had once been done. Fifty years hence and there would be none at all. The survivors passed on to their children everything they could, they taught them to read and write. As the years rolled on the children saw the pictures and read the words but they had never seen any of these things and found them unbelievable. They had never flipped a switch to light up a room, seen water come out of a tap. And aeroplanes flying?
The following generation will be the last hope of a time gone by. If fuel was the lifeblood of civilisation, then education was its heart and soul. The children of the new world had learned how to read and write but when it came to teach the next generation education will come to an end. The books in the libraries prattled on about things that had no bearing their world; they had never seen an aeroplane so why should they lean out them. Beside they had more important things to do like growing food, luckily there were books that showed how to do it. The black markings on the page were useless, but the pictures were helpful.”
And so within two or three generations it will all be lost.
Yes in previous ‘Dark Ages’ we had the monasteries that kept some knowledge but I fear this will not happen this time round, if there is next time around.
Just interested in your thoughts on this considering the well thought out scenarios you posted.
BTW.
I see you mention some places where it is agreed as new hubs for preppers to gather. You may like to add the Wellington Monument near Wellington, Somerset. This was set up many years ago being a high point in the area and would be monitored as a pick up point for those coming intomthe area. Being at a good height a light can be seen from many miles away. All we suggested was that fire be lit so that it could be seen from the west.
Amyway trust all well with you in the north and hope to her from you.
Trust all well with you.
John.
PS I have included my email if you wish to respond direct.
survivalnut@gmx.com

[NorthernRaider]

John dont call me Sir, I was a Serjeant I worked for a living

[bigpaul]

nice post John, i agree with you, the only skills that will survive will be the skills that will help us all survive, anything else will be surplus to requirements. why have the skills to build an aeroplane? hunting and trapping will be the skills that keep us alive. there will be far fewer people on the planet(survivors) but isnt that a good thing? there are FAR too many people just in this small country, if we get anymore we'll be standing on each others shoulders. like your idea of Wellington Monument for a meeting place, we know it well(we're in north devon).

[JohnR]

Just being polite, and yes I also, like the majority worked/work for a living, dependent on age/health etc..
But still interested in your views on Longer term considering all the thought you have put into your scenarios.
John