moominmuppet

While listening to Movin' Right Along, we realized what's necessary to make a road trip take 3 minutes. And also how to break the speed of light. Yes, we've got it all sorted. We just need to get the scientists working on the Musical Montage setting. Imagine what wonders this will do for modern life! I bet Ramones songs will get really popular for technological purposes.


So, by the time we got to Ohio, talked had turned to “after the zombie apocalypse”, as it's wont to do eventually in any conversation we seem to have. We've been doing some fascinating world-building the past few hours. It started off talking about the defensibility of trains, and has moved to an entire nomadic civilization, with different caravans having distinct personalities, and people able to detach their boxcar from one caravan and switching to another. Flatbed farming. Performers and tinkers riding the circuit. Ships being another great zombie-protected home, and the rail system being so integrated with the port system, there would be thriving marketplaces at ports, and probably schedules of festivals in different places (old railroad yards would be the obvious place for inland festivals). Specialist farmers might be limited to travel in one general region, but many farmers would benefit from being able to take their plants to the rain when needed. Not enough space for much grain, but it'd be great for a good vegetable garden. Almost any trade can happen in a boxcar. Printing presses. Scribes. Classrooms. Blacksmiths. Getting ahold of an old steam engine would be a massive score, for when diesel runs short, but trains can tow their own fuel with them. Very handy. A map of the world and its cities would look more like subway routes than stable cities. A large enough caravan could have entire “neighborhoods” break off to travel separately. Large-scale cooperation would be necessary for track repairs (most large caravans would carry extra track, and even small caravans would probably carry a few pieces just to bridge gaps temporarily while they crossed). If bridges couldn't be repaired in major group efforts, some areas would become geographically distinct, two rail systems only connected by a river ferry for freight, for example. Ultralight sail-based cars for very small units, probably using livestock (oxen) when the wind wasn't favorable.

Here ends the brainstorming.