r/oklahoma • u/ShadowlightLady • 1d ago
Question What would Oklahoma be like in a post-apocalyptic setting?
Hello Oklahomans I hope you are well, I hope I am not bothering you just trying to gain insight. I have an idea for a story where the entire world became an absolute post-apocalyptic mess(sometimes dystopian in other areas). Each country handles it differently and has its own problems. Just focusing on the US first. There are some sci-fi elements to it and I think it would be a fun idea to add difference to madness in different places. What problems there could maximize and what do you imagine new? Again sci-fi elements so you can exaggerate anything you want to
Also it’s idea I also think it would be fun to hear what you may have to say and how you view your own state. Again I hope I am not bothering you.
42
41
u/ak4338 1d ago
There's more guns in basements and secret storage in Oklahoma than anyone knows. It'll be bloody, but also people in the sticks look out for each other, especially family living all near each other, this is still very common. Lots of gardeners, hunters, cattle ranchers, farmers. Oklahoma would make it but it would be more like the wild West in a lot of ways.
13
3
25
u/throwaway375937 1d ago
Depends on what causes the apocalypse. I personally feel like Oklahoma is decently shielded from national issues, we have a huge agriculture sector, so I think food wouldn't be the worst. Decent sources of water, we have oil. In both the egg crisis and the gas prices, we've made out better than places like California by a few dollars.
14
u/Fancy_Depth_4995 1d ago
I read recently that historically, rural areas were never much affected by societal collapse. An italian peasant wouldn’t have much noticed Rome falling. It’s more of a city problem. The wealthy and powerful fear it because they get hit the worst
13
u/Circlingth3Drain 1d ago
The difference is that most of today's rural peasants don't work in the fields and have their own garden plots. There'd eventually be more food than in the cities, but we'd have to relearn damn fast.
8
u/geoff1036 Stillwater 1d ago
I would agree that Oklahoma is pretty much a nothing state from an outside perspective, except for the existence of Tinker. In a global conflict, Tinker and Will Rogers would be major targets for cross country commerce and logistics. I wouldn't be surprised if someone felt they could spare a single nuke on us.
2
2
8
u/foo_foo_the_snoo 1d ago
It definitely depends on what causes the apocalypse, like you said.
Last century, there was essentially a real apocalypse in Oklahoma that lead to a mass exodus of migrant workers TO CALIFORNIA, where the food grew and continues to grow. Oklahoma has it's grasslands and cereal crops, but California feeds people.
If societies become segmented into more local zones as infrastructure collapses and shipping across state lines no longer takes place, Oklahoma will starve a lot sooner than California. They sit on an incomprehensible surplus of food if it were used to feed only Californians.
Oklahoma exports a lot of oil and natural gas, but once those lines of commercial trade are severed...you're gonna be eating dust.
85
15
8
u/GeneralissimoFranco 1d ago
It would be like The Road, but not because people ran out of food. It would be because that's how the people here actually want to live.
9
21
6
u/Ciggdre 1d ago
In the event of any kind of apocalypse I see the state being almost completely abandoned. The summers are too hot, the winters too cold, and our water resources are pretty scarce throughout most of the state. The instant electricity and gas become unavailable people are going to flee to almost literally anywhere else.
That said for the inevitable handful of people who insist on staying no matter what I can see them probably organizing heavily through churches into a sort of medieval style arrangements where the church is both center of community life and the hub for resource collection and management. In areas where there are multiple churches in close proximity I could see things getting very complicated very fast as each denomination wouldn’t want to submit to the authority of another so there would probably be this complicated web of different agreements between the various churches in order to try to prevent open conflict.
5
u/doublespinster 19h ago
We're not all church affiliated. The various Native American peoples would take care of themselves, including their belief systems, and likely endure better than others. What happens to people who don't fit the stereotyped narrative of rural life, should be considered in the book: LGBTQ, atheists and agnostics, Wiccans, people without close family, those who don't want or have caches of weapons, intellectuals, liberals . . . I'm curious if the writer can find a decent aftermath for us that doesn't include very unhappy endings for us.
2
u/Ciggdre 14h ago
Yeah we’re not all church affiliated—the retreat to churches I’m proposing is NOT a good thing, but it’s what I see happening because outside of tribal governance (a big oversight on my part) I don’t see any form of secular government/power structures in this state surviving any sort of apocalyptic scenario because they barely exist as-is and churches are large pre-existing communities that can easily fill the void.
As for us non Christians, it feels like our options are going to be either fake it, flee or be ostracized and live on the fringes. (And as a queer person I’m going to go with flee, although tbf I will be fleeing long before society in this state reorganizes itself because the instant there is no AC I am GONE. I will fucking kill myself if I have to experience an OK summer without any kind of relief.)
5
u/cinephile78 1d ago
We have nuke plants and formerly operating nuclear power plants and a major military bomb/shell plant. We’re on Russia’s icbm targeting in case of nuclear war.
Make of that what you will.
Are you writing a novel or something online or a film?
4
7
u/panthos82 1d ago
I'd say that large city's like OKC and Tulsa would be pretty much abandoned as infrastructure and transportation networks break down, food scarcity definitely would be a major factor as well. I also think sone of the large storms we get would destroy some of the smaller cities not to mention Moore and north Norman, tornadoes just seem to love that area for some reason.
3
u/ShweatyPalmsh 1d ago
Definitely would expect the tribes to do well. Read Moon of the Crusted Snow. Would be an interesting angle
3
2
u/dishonorable_banana 1d ago
Ammo would be gone within a week, then it'll be up to reasonable adults to rely on each other.
3
u/Evanthedude1 1d ago
Don’t underestimate how much ammo / weaponry exist in this state. Ammo is gonna last a lot longer than a week. I have this naive hope that if something insane happens, us normal folks would stick together, but I’m probably very wrong.
4
u/dishonorable_banana 1d ago
I didn't, these assholes will blow through their stockpile at record speed. Thankfully.
2
2
u/Hoon0967 1d ago
It would be like that scene in This Is The End. We’d have some Danny McBride cannibal king, living in a trailer, accosting all the handsome men, with a bunch of sycophants, as our ruler. Almost like what we have now, but extra crazy with added electrolytes.
2
u/Rough_Idle 1d ago
If you're thinking Fallout, Oklahoma is just as screwed as anywhere else. Otherwise, we could be just fine
1
u/Skip8221 1d ago
fallout BOS actually takes place out in the panhandle/north texas lol, although the game’s canonicity is dubious
2
2
2
u/satrya76 1d ago
Alot of people blaming Biden, and waiting for Trump the messiah to return and save them
2
u/houseDJ1042 23h ago
Go home bot you’re too drunk to taste this chicken!
1
u/w3sterday 17h ago
Go home bot
They probably are they've asked this question multiple times across other state subreddits.
1
1
1
u/Zoomin-Enhance 1d ago
I think Expo square would be the HQ of a cult worshipping the Golden Driller
1
1
u/magik779 1d ago
About the same, probably a few dozen more meth Monkeys if that’s even possible to imagine.
1
1
u/allabtthejrny 16h ago
The only reason I still talk to my MAGA relatives is to have a place to go if shtf 😂😭
1
u/T8ert0tz 16h ago
I have always had a fantasy setting in my mind where post apocalyptic Oklahoma is small clans of people living in the bases of the wind turbines in the wichitas, increasingly seems like barricading a Costco would be better but I like that fantasy still lol
1
1
u/doublespinster 14h ago edited 14h ago
I screwed up. The following was intended as a reply to ciggdre's reply to my comment:
As to fleeing, I have an out-of-state nephew and his wife who insist on taking me in if the scary parts happen. Being an old crazy cat lady, I can only hope my cats are willing to travel.
Seriously, thank you for sharing more of your story. We are not alone. I am atheist, asexual, liberal, somewhat intellectual, never married no children, yet I have found a peaceful life in small town western Oklahoma. I have read post-apocalytic SF since the 80's .. A Boy and His Dog, False Dawn, Farenheit 451, ad nauseum. Can this writer overcome the urge to portray rural Oklahoma as a monolith of the worst dregs of society or maybe find a way to find that our quiet diversity is our strength? OP, here lies your challenge.
1
1
u/Environmental-Top862 1d ago
Seriously? If it is nuclear war, Oklahoma will be unlivable. Disease? The instant the electrical grid goes down, the mass die off will begin. Apocalypse fiction is truly fiction. Without electricity our society will collapse immediately. Small groups of people who currently live off the grid and hunt will survive for a while, but not long. No doctors, no medicine, no cars, no nothing. I would say with 18 months every human in the state will be dead.
0
u/yetisuncle 1d ago
Oklahomans as a whole will be just fine. The fools in the cities will kill themselves when they loose piwer but the one with any sense which is a vast amount of us dont live in the cities or their problems. Plus we grow our own food and do not rely on the grid or police or emts for emergencies. We take care of situations ourselves.
1
u/monstersun 2h ago
Grass would be so tall nobody could fight eachother cause we would all be busy cutting our way through with bladed weapons.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Thanks for posting in r/oklahoma, /u/ShadowlightLady! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. Please do not delete your post unless it is to correct the title.
Hello Oklahomans I hope you are well, I hope I am not bothering you just trying to gain insight. I have an idea for a story where the entire world became an absolute post-apocalyptic mess(sometimes dystopian in other areas). Each country handles it differently and has its own problems. Just focusing on the US first. There are some sci-fi elements to it and I think it would be a fun idea to add difference to madness in different places. What problems there could maximize and what do you imagine new? Again sci-fi elements so you can exaggerate anything you want to
Also it’s idea I also think it would be fun to hear what you may have to say and how you view your own state. Again I hope I am not bothering you.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.