Living in the post-apocalyptic wasteland can quite often be fraught with danger! Since I am a huge post-apocalyptic genre fangirl I’d like to think that I have more knowledge about how to survive in said wasteland than most. Since this is the case I am going to share with you some tips that I have learned through the years. I have gleaned this information from various dystopian/post-apocalyptic games, films, books and other such sources which include:
- Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas
- A Boy And His Dog
- Mad Max, The Road Warrior, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Mad Max: Fury Road
- Terminator, Terminator 2, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
- The Book Of Eli
- The Beach
- The Omega Man
- Soylent Green
- Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead (both versions), Day Of The Dead
- The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead
- Bladerunner, Bladerunner: 2049
- World War Z
- The Handmaid’s Tale
- Six String Samurai
- The Road
DO NOT APPROACH CHILDREN AND DON’T LET THEM FOLLOW YOU
You are wandering about the wasteland minding your own business when you see a child in the distance. What do you do? What you don’t do is get close to that child. Scavengers, of the human variety, could be nearby waiting to pounce. They have purposely put said child on a main trail to attract people such as yourself. At best these heathens will steal all of your gear. At worst they will kill you and quite possibly eat you. So, if you see a child in the middle of nowhere just standing there picking its nose just walk away.
If a child in a desolate community begs for you to take them away from there be quite firm in telling them that you cannot do so because the wasteland is a dangerous place. After all do you really want to be responsible for the health and well being of somebody else’s child? If you decide to take the child you can be sure that they will cause trouble of some sort, such as nicking goods from a caravan or crying at inopportune moments.
DO NOT JOIN A CULT
Cults are pretty common in the wasteland. Some people cannot mentally deal with living in the wasteland so they join a cult in order to feel safe. These cults are lead by charismatic leaders who usually have the best of everything: food, housing, concubines and actual booze! The cult members are usually given the more simple food and if they are very, very good maybe they’ll get a bottle of beer. Petty jealousies usually break out amongst the cult members and a lot of the time the cult will disband after the leader mysteriously dies and ascends to ‘heaven’. Surprise, the leader isn’t actually dead, they have just moved on to brainwash a different group of suckers. If you come across a cult just move on.
STEER CLEAR OF MILITIAS
In the time before the pandemic and the wars militias were pretty much the laughing stock of North America. They were very frequently overweight, racist and didn’t know how to properly handle a weapon. Very few of these militias are left in the wasteland, however the ones that did survive can be very dangerous because if any of them suspect you of stealing their food or women they will just outright kill you. Seriously, they won’t even wait for a mock trial to take place. There are rumours going around that they are also cannibalistic. Would you want a bunch of fat racists to eat you? Of course you don’t, so just avoid them.
INVEST IN SOME GOOD BOOTS AND CLOTHING
Since you are mainly going to be walking to get around make sure that your boots are built well and are in good shape. Also, make sure that your clothing isn’t restrictive, that it lets you move around easily. You will see some people on your journey who are dressed like they are extras straight out of a post-apocalyptic film. Do they look cool? Yes, but their fashion boots and clothes are not practical. You can also assume from their appearance that they lack the fundamental skills to be able to survive easily in the wasteland. This instantly makes them a target, so unless you want to be killed in a spectacular fashion do not become their travelling companion.
BE WARY OF ACCEPTING FREE FOOD
In the wasteland nothing is free, especially food! Let’s say you arrive at a town and at the entrance a guard tells you that all visitors get a plate of free food when arriving. Be suspicious because food can be quite hard to get a hold of, and that meat on that plate is more than likely human. Decline politely and get out of the town as soon as the sun sets because you are quite likely next on the menu. Could the town actually be filled with nice people instead of cannibals? Maybe, but do you really want to take that risk?
Another scenario to be on the lookout for is that in order to get free food you have to do some work for the town, such as killing some mutated creatures. Weapons can be hard to come by so do some deep critical thinking when confronted with this issue. Is a plate of free food really worth using all of your ammo? If your answer is no then I suggest tackling some other issues that the town has, such as fixing some leaky pipes or patching up the roofs of some homes. They will more than likely accept this compromise since a lot of town dwellers are pretty helpless when it comes to home repair.
DO NOT DRIVE A VEHICLE
I know that this will be a very controversial opinion, but hear me out. When you use a vehicle to get around the wasteland you become a target. So half the time you are evading other vehicles trying to mow you down so that they can get access to your gasoline. With the rest of your free time you are going to be travelling all through the wasteland always looking for gasoline. Is that any way to live? Day and night worrying about where you are going to find yet more gasoline doesn’t sound like fun at all.
When you enter a town would people pay more attention to you if you are driving a car or if you are just a walking traveller? In some communities cars are seen as only the property of the leader so you could be looked upon as some sort of interloper that wants to try to take over the town. You want to avoid this, so it is always better to just walk.
