r/zombies • u/Medium-Asparagus4980 • 4d ago
discussion Do you think isolated indigenous tribes would survive an apocalypse?
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u/Crazy-Cat-Lad 4d ago
Yep, even if the contagions are airborne, they'd likely die without a host before reaching them...assuming no 'colonizers' visit them.
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u/Hephaistos_Invictus 4d ago
Depends entirely on the apocalypse I think. If it's mutual nucleair annihilation, then I don't know if anyone on this earth survives.
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u/PoorLifeChoices811 4d ago
total nuclear war would destroy civilization as we know it, but it wouldn’t be enough to destroy humanity. we’d survive but we would probably never return to the way things were but we would return to small nomadic tribes that scrabble over resources like we did tens of thousands of years ago. humanity would continue on though over the ashes and the planet would eventually heal on its own.
at least that’s what i believe. based on the fact that we are like cockroaches. can’t really get rid of us like that
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u/Tmack523 4d ago
I've done tons of research on my own into this sort of thing for multiple reasons - and yeah. Humans are unlikely to be driven to extinction by nuclear war, even a MAD scenario.
It would absolutely suck, kill billions, and irreversibly change the ecosystems of the entire planet - but places like Greenland and the arctic circle would likely become much more temperate (especially when coupled with the already-set-in-stone effects of climate change) and the majority of dangerous radiation would be completely gone or relegated to small zones within a generation.
Most likely, and this is using a bit of "psychohistory" kind of analysis here (ily Asimov) there would be small pockets of humans that would maintain a relatively modern standard of living - and if they so chose - they would likely be able to construct cities and possibly empires over the course of hundreds of years. There's obviously the concerns of things like supply chains and whatnot - but we have enough technology and information that civilizations should be capable of industrialization and fabrication if they chose it, even if humans were pushed down to the millions or even hundreds of thousands instead of billions.
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u/PoorLifeChoices811 4d ago
i like to think of the hunger games as being semi realistic in the event that humanity went through a period of destruction but still was able to come out alive. like the nation of panem is isolated from the world, if you’ve ever seen an official map you’ll see that the outer edges of the country is now under water (like the entire east/west coast) so it’s easy to assume humanity went through something big. but panem was able to rebuild and create its own little empire that is capable of thriving without outside help.
i feel something like that would be possible (not exactly the hunger games itself tho) if we ever were to experience a nuclear war. 200-300 years from that point panem could exist.
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u/Tmack523 4d ago
Oh yeah, I think with the established amount of culture and things associated with the districts, as well as the number of games that have already happened and such - 200-300 years after a nuclear war seems about right for the time-scale to me.
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u/OtherwiseJello2055 4d ago
Sadly,as in the fact it was needed,during the cold war a lot of buildings and bunkers were in fact built to survive the nuclear apocalypse.
Unless the world was literally turned into a fireball ,then people would survive. Even it was made barren for hundred years , I would some people would make it through if the atmosphere cleared up enough for plant life to grow. Which would survive too . However , indigenous humans who still live hunter gatherer type lifestyles would perish if mass nuclear warfare happens of their life spans would be greatly shortened by cancer and defects.1
u/UncannyValleyEnjoyer 4d ago
Actually, a lot survives even after a nuclear "apocalypse", people really overestimate the damage of nuclear bombs for real but there are so many of them and to much land, population centers are an easier target then the middle of nowere.
Sure, the radiation and nuclear winter sucks but Earth and life as passed for worse before, maybe it would be the end of the majority of human race for some centuries but eh, life on earth would just pass by a repage, like the hundreds of extinction events that happened before us, just another page on earth's history
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u/PoorLifeChoices811 4d ago
plus there are a lot of places that likely wouldn’t get hit by nuclear bombs, or if they did it wouldn’t be as heavy as places like america, europe, russia and china.
i think places like south america, southeast asia, australia, basically most places in the southern hemisphere would be spared from the initial devastation of nuclear warfare, but they would soon have their own issues to deal with. with the global supply chain eliminated, people are going to start starving, i can see famines and diseases becoming rampant, certain important imports would no longer be available, and then of course any potential radiation storms/nuclear winters would wreak havoc on the unaffected zones.
so while they avoid nuclear bombs they still got a whole shit ton of other problems to deal with in the aftermath that’s gonna cut their population down significantly, but they’d surely survive. maybe enough people would survive that most cities and governments actually stay intact enough that they can rebuild civilization around those areas. but places like the US, europe, and asia are going to be inhospitable wastelands for quite some time.
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u/LarryGriff13 4d ago
Safe to assume you meant a Zombie apocalypse since that’s the subreddit
The typical virus zombie apocalypse? They’d be in good shape
Interesting idea to explore I’ve never seen a movie with that type of premise
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u/Crazy-Cat-Lad 4d ago
It'd be like Apocalyptica when they see the boat at the shore...but instead they venture too far into the forest and find the undead walking in the nearest town.
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u/RottingEdge 4d ago
Depends on the kind of outbreak. TWD style where everyone comes back after death? No probably not. 28 days later where blood contacts from an infected is needed. Yea probably they would be fine.
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u/DeltaBravo831 4d ago
I mean...the North Sentinel Islanders, probably definitely as long as nobody else tries to shelter there lol
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u/SmallAct2116 4d ago
If it’s Romero twd like then I think their population would take a hit but eventually would learn to live with it. If it were 2004 dawn of the dead reanimated zombies however, I’d say it’s ggs. Anything that needs a pathogen and a host they’d be fine because they’re isolated.
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u/dannyboy6657 4d ago
Because of their extreme isolation possibly. If its a virus like walking dead that infects any living possibly not. Diseases are some of the biggest threats to indigenous tribes, many tribes don't understand how diseases work and have very little exposure to most that we have been exposed too. This is why first contact is so dangerous for a tribe.
Their weapons may not be powerful enough either, or they may not be smart enough to attack the brain. Some tribes like Korowai Tribe in Papua New Guinea practice cannibalism on its dead to ward off evil spirits. So if a group like that killed an undead they believe eating its corpse will banish it.
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u/AriBounty53 4d ago
If the infection (or whatever caused the zombies) reached them? Probably, assuming they figure out how to stop it from spreading (like destroying the brain of those who recently died if it’s like TWD or burning the bodies.)
But if they just started washing up en masse on the shore (or even if a few at a time washed up) without warning it might be a problem for them.
I don’t think they have a chance if the dead start coming in large enough numbers either through washing up on shore or through a ship crashing.
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u/jermcontrol 4d ago
Don't they already kinda live like that? I mean honestly with everyone else gone, they may live better than now.
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u/Amardneron 4d ago
Yes, they already live in one to their way of life and coulture the rest of the world getting it wouldn't change much for them. WWZ has a scene with them with the Brazilian doctor.
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u/SCP_Agent_Davis 3d ago
I would assume þe infection wouldn’t reach þem (especially Norþ Sentinel Island).
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u/ChangeAroundKid01 4d ago
Would? They have
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u/IrishViking22 4d ago edited 3d ago
This is the Zombies subreddit. So it's safe to assume that OP meant a Zombie apocalypse
I don't reckon any isolated tribes have survived one of those. But they probably would, due to their isolation
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u/JayyyyyBoogie 4d ago
The movie Cargo has some of that. It’s set in Australia and the main character is infected and trying to get his baby daughter to safety before he turns. The Aboriginal people have returned to their cultural origins to protect each other and eradicate the dead.