The Wordsmith's Forge

>> I think the first bicycles were used on unpaved roads, and I remember something about the military experimenting with bikes for troop transport in the 1870s [but I'm not sure if the source was reliable].<<

That makes sense. In any case, really smooth roads are a modern thing. Around here, many towns still have some brick streets.

>>Add in several extra hours then; Afta cars and horses will be slower than Before vehicles.<<

Or days, depending on locale.

>> If the commune /wants/ to be found, there are ways to work around that, especially in areas with high visibility for several miles. <<

That's true. It would be easy in relatively flat territory, but harder in hills or forests.

>> Smoke signals and drums have been used for long-distance communication, as have lights.<<

That's true.

>> A community could also set up some sort of moving sculpture with reflective baubles, or a very tall flagpole. <<

I love this idea! :D It's perfect for this setting. You wouldn't want to announce your presence if marauding bands were a common threat, but this is one post-apocalyptic setting where they aren't. The marauders I've seen are road raiders. They rarely attack a commune because they'd be outnumbered, even if armeys tend to have better arsenal than muneys -- and the muneys would have homefield advantage. Here, it's an advantage if traders can find your commune.

I'm thinking a good choice of material would be chrome, which is plentiful, shiny, and lasts for years. People could make something like a whirligig or a reflective sculpture whose shape could be recognized from a long distance, like a totem pole. One option would be to place that atop a grain elevator or other existing structure. Another would be to erect a pole -- there should be plenty of flagpoles, street lights, etc. to scavenge.

>> So more like bonobos than regular chimpanzees. <<

Yep.

>> I wonder if the more aggressive armeys might have formed from milita-like groups active during the bombings - friendly neighborhood gangs, drug cartels, etc. <<

Plenty of people would have started banding together as the world fell apart. It happens in all kinds of bad situations. Some of the groups are awful, but others are protective -- the Mafia started out as resistance groups fighting invaders.

>> Actual militaries wouldn't have inducted teenagers...I hope.<<

Child soldiers are common in civilizations that are falling apart, especially if it's gone on long enough to use up the adults. Teens are the slaves of choice in Africa today. By the end of WWII Germany was down to tweens.

Another source is army brats. Bases in America have housing for soldiers' families. When the Grunge hit, the adults would die off, leaving teens and children, maybe a few elders. The vast majority of people on base are combat-capable adults, the prime targets. So in the Aftermath, those youth survivors would be band together and probably maintain what they could of military culture. Some of them might also know where to find caches of supplies outside the bombed area, giving them access to better arsenal than average.

>> And I'm guessing that Maggot's original group was mostly younger survivors, and mostly all boys, who somehow imprinted on Before sexism. (Maybe the core group were siblings who had bad role models or something?) <<

I think they were military brats, a band formed out of a base. Maggot seems to have been the youngest surviving member.

>> Also, I don't think they're vicious <<

They're not vicious. They waited as long as they could for him to recover before the food was running out and they had to leave. They also paid handsomely for the caravan to keep him. A vicious group, seen in many post-apocalyptic settings, would abandon or even kill a weakened member.

>> he seemed more arrogant, upset and confused than intentionally mean, or I-saw-I-hurt-you-and-I-don't-care mean. <<

Yeah. He's miserable, he's stuck in a very different culture that doesn't fit, and he's wrecked over his family abandoning him. He's probably also terrified that the caravan will dump him; he doesn't know them well enough yet to trust that they won't, and he knows that he's not all that useful to them. So that makes Maggot pretty obnoxious.

>> Like the Hold-Craft-Wyer system on Pern, or the Sharamudoi in Earth's Children. <<

Yes, especially the Sharamudoi. I don't know if people will pick up the idea of cross-mates, but it would be a good idea. What they seem to be doing is splitting the hunter/farmer personalities into separate but interdependent groups. If they can create a symbiotic system instead of the constant battles that plagued history, it would be a huge improvement. The muneys do farming, food preservation, construction and maintenance of housing. The armeys do hunting, scouting, and defend against threats animal or human. It's a great relationship.

>> A big-game-hunter specialized armey could be interesting, especially given some of the discussion about rewilding elsewhere. <<

It seems likely. Many of the horse tribes went out fairly soon after the End and procured horses, some for local use, but others were like, "Fuck this whiteman shit, let's go back to the old ways." There's a whole Ghost Dance revival on the plains.

>> (Hmmm...nomadic hunters on reindeer in Canada?) <<

Well, reindeer are small, so like ostriches they would be limited to small riders. Youth herders might manage it. In any case, I know the caribou are among the fastest wildlife to replenish. They're prolific and had a good starting supply. The worst pressures on them were habitat loss and roads cutting their migration routes -- things that would fade very quickly after the End.

Given several small mounts (ostriches, llamas, caribou) suited to extreme environments, it's possible to establish a multiphase career path even at a low tech level. Used to see it in mining communities where children could fit where adults couldn't. Here, some groups would develop a tradition where tweens and teens would do scavenging, scouting, or mounted hunting before they outgrew the mounts, then switch to a different job as adults. It would shift perceptions of age: young children with few responsibilities, older children (taking on the role formerly held by adolescents), tweens to midteens as riders (acting as junior adults), childraising adults, and elders.

>> I'd check for that pattern elsewhere too. Most of America tends toward patriarchy, but there are at least a few subcultures that are either ruthlessly gender-equal, or tend towards matriarchy out of necessity (i.e. no/few men around). <<

That's true. A lot of native tribes were either matriarchal or equal, stances strongly supported by current context. Patriarchal ones will have a hard time holding onto that.

>> Some social setups (families in clan networks) might also have situational authourity that easily defaults to women. <<

True. The Aftermath in general is strongly inclined toward situational authority, because most groups rely on diverse skills. The usual way for someone to earn their way into a group is by offering a skill the group doesn't have. Among the highest demand are medics and mechanics, along with older people who can share knowledge that is now scarce. So Clearwater has an elder as the overall leader, but Wheeler drives the first truck on the road, Catcher handles medical matters, and so on.

>> And if you can hit the ground running, you can direct the emotional reactions in a more constructive manner and get more done. <<

Absolutely true. The main factor causing PTSD isn't the severity of trauma itself, but rather the feeling of helplessness. If you are prepared for emergencies, if you have emotional regulation and grief skills, then you can usually cope. Even if the situation overwhelms your capacity and you can't stop bad things from happening, just trying reduces the chance of crippling mental injury. In the Aftermath, that makes a big difference in who survives or not, and how functional they are afterwards.