Starting a family in the ZA
I think this topic deserves to be talked about. Now that everyone who caused trouble is gone for a bit maybe we can try this again and start out right this time. Without getting weird about it hopefully?
Okay so how high a priority is starting a family for your Clementine? How old should she be before she considers it? How likely is it that starting a family would leave her worse off in the long run? If you were actually in her shoes and not just playing as her, having gone through everything she's been through, how important would starting a family be to you?
Ask your own questions about raising a family in the apocalypse if you want as long as they're mature, and imagine Clem is reading your post if you intend to post something controversial please, thanks~
Comments
Nice try.
You guys want to talk about it so I tried to set up the discussion the best I could, like I said it's not beneath discussing.
To calculate a very rough estimate, I think all generations born before the outbreak (except those who were under 2 years old) could be excused fro, breeding duty. But those born after, or shortly before, SHOULD start breeding to keep the species going.
To put simple: I think Clem, Violet and Rubycan opt for not having children, but AJ and Tenn should have children once they are a reasonable age
That's completely stupid... Why would you want to exempt girls just coming into their prime from having kids simply because they were born a half decade before the zombies showed up? It makes zero sense.
I forgot to say, in the immediate future: I would wait until they 25 to consdier breeding, commuties and groups still have to fully consolidate, and until they do, they are more valuable as warriors and scavengers than bearing children at teh current stage.
But once walls are erected, crosp started and the Saviors pacified I think they should also contribute by breeding
Having a family is a death sentence, especially raising a kid in this kind of environment, eventually it will kill you.
I'm biased though, I hate kids.
I'm going to answer this question indirectly by answering a different question, "how good or bad of an idea is it for people to be having babies in a zombie apocalypse?"
Babies are loud and they cry a lot because they have no other way to communicate. They are little more than mindless beasts with no higher thinking capabilities and therefore cannot be reasoned with and will cry for any number of reasons regardless of what's going on around them or where they are if they feel the need to. They won't care that a large herd is passing by the house you're in and they need to be quiet, they will cry if they're hungry or cold or hot or wet or have an upset stomach or anything else. They will cry and they will bring zombies down on you.
For that reason alone, if you do not have a safe place to call home, some place where a crying baby will not get everyone around them killed, having a baby in a zombie apocalypse is a terrible idea. However if you have a stable community with strong walls or are otherwise in a location where zombies aren't a threat, then having babies is not only fine, it needs to be a priority to keep the human species alive.
Oh that makes a little more sense but I still don't fully agree with it. This is gonna sound sexist but reality is reality and the boys and men should be the ones going out to do the fighting while the girls and women stay at home having and raising children. In a situation like they're in, a healthy female of breeding age is far, far more valuable than a man. With the exception of twins etc, a woman can only have about 1 kid per year. A man could potentially sire hundreds of kids in a single year. You might initially think that means men are more valuable but it's the opposite. One man dies and it's not a huge deal, there's dozens more to replace him. We're a dime a dozen. A woman dies and it's a tragedy because of how vital they are to the continuation of the species. 10 women and 1 man can result in 10 babies in a year. 10 men and 1 woman is only 1 baby. if you have a community with 100 men and 100 women, if 90 of those men die you can still have 100 babies. If 90 of those women die you can only have 10 babies. Speaking strictly from a species survival perspective, women are far too valuable to risk having them fight unless immediate survival is at stake (zombies in the compound type situation).
You are not wrong.
But the transition will be...nasty, to say the least. Bear in midn that only 150 years ago people used to have at least a dozen children- Because they knew most of them would not make it into adulthood. With modern medicine all but gone, we would see the rebith of old diseases and high infant mortality rate.
It would be a hard pill to swallow for the young women of the brave NewWorld that they must continue to have children and they will loose at least half of them. Sepcially if they were women who knew about Female Emancipation and all the old World jargon. Old institutions, such as Harems and Arrenged Marriage would return.
That why I think a more gradual approach, with the Old Guard is preferable. The new Generations would accept those as simple facts of life and thats why I think they should bear the burden of repopulating
Starting a family in any post-apocalypses world is a serious allocation of resources and people. The expression, "It takes a village" is surprisingly accurate. While not impossible to do it alone it definitely has large disadvantages that make it that much harder. Having a safe haven, having a steady supply of food and water, and additional people to help with childcare, all of these would be huge boons to help raise a family.
Let's take Rebecca as an example. When she conceived she had, at that time, everything she needed. A community with plenty of supplies, walls and personnel for security, and the support of friends and love ones. Then the actions of Carver lead to an escape of a small group of people with Rebecca amongst them. While she still had the support of friends and loved ones, she had loss shelter and a reliable source of food and water. The uncertainty of Rebecca's situation did clearly affect her, as she was now questioning on whether she could raise a child in a world of walkers with her and the rest of the group on the run. Rebecca's death probably had contributing factors from her life on the run, and the stress of uncertainty she faced.
Now, should Clementine and the rest of the survivors of the world should start have families? Absolutely. If we don't we die out as a species. It then becomes a matter of when and if the conditions are right. The more favorable the conditions, the more likely all members of the family survive.
From a surivial of the species viewpoint, it is not sexist. Humankind is endangered species. Pull up the boot straps and do what you can so we are not all reduced to rotting meat that walks. Having said that the women in this do tend to be the bad asses and the guys dumb asses mostly.
Nice to see the thread being taken seriously, respect to all of you
Technically speaking, from a population count perspective, I don't think humanity is endangered. The initial outbreak and chaos resulted in 98% of humanity dying out. That still leaves 5.8 million humans in the US alone. Worldwide there's still 128.8 million living humans. That said, humans are probably dying off a lot faster than they ever have outside of massive plagues or wars because there's over 6 billion zombies wandering around trying to eat people.
Clem already has AJ.
Clementine already has a family, it's everyone at the boarding school and AJ is technically her adoptive son.
Why are you even asking that ?
She already has a family.
This may not be true, given how we don’t know the populations estimates by state or country. With a lack of water and few game in abundance, places like Arizona and Nevada, maybe even California, are probably wiped clean. Ohio and Virginia might have the most concentrated numbers of humans left, as diseases, water, heat, food, and wildlife are far more managable there.
Some countries may be more affected too. Japanese people could be an endangered species, with their natural resources already being massively strained after their industrial efforts in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Well , it depends.
Studies have determined that, usually, the palces that are most most vulnerable to epidemics are those that possess high concetrations of people: Places like China and Japan, who have soem of the highest cocnentrations of population per Km, would probably have been hit harder than places with more sparse or rural population.
Africa would have been affected the least, Asia the most. Places like New York probably are Zombieland land while places like Alaska and Montana might still have large Human communities untouched.
New York, given the long lasting infrastructure, will be a target for repopulation in the coming decades as walkers continue to be dealt with.
China and India, now that you mention it, are totally fucked.
Why do you say Africa will be affected the least?
Africa is sparsely populated and its low infrastructure makes people - and diseases - slower to travel. Dependence on modern commodities is also reduced so they would adapt quicker
Africa has the largest proportionate poverty rate across all continents, this puts a large chunk of the human population guarenteed to die. Diseases like Malaria would do all the work needed to screw over everyone in africa. The wildlife there is already dangerous, and would prey on humans even moreso than before. In the US there are hardly any predatory animals to worry about besides mountain lions and bears, but the amount of firearms present across rural areas makes this not as big of an issue as it is for africans.
Wealth in its modern sense, has no value in the TWD: The Industrial and FInancial capabilities of the Nation-States are defunct, Global Economy has come to a halt. And people who live in poverty tend to be more resourceful to cather to their basic needs, specially in rurala ares.
The fact there is still plenty of natural resources, including fauna, in Africa is a boon for any potential survivors, Predators will most likely prey on Walkers, thus helping to dimish their number and with les huamns , it means there will be more animals fit for human consumption.
As for Malaria, everyone will be on the same train soon enough: Modern Medical treatment and facilities are all but gone, remember?
Walkers will be too dangerous for them to hunt and they’ll pick up on it fast. It would be another story if walkers fled when a leopard attacks one of them but that’s not the case.
And with wealth, if poverty stricken survive better, how chuck is the only homeless person we’ve come across?
I guess it all depends, Animals are also quite adaptable and Walkers are very simple creatures, I can see pack predatores (such as lions, Hyenas and Wild Dogs) working in unison to isolate Walkers. As for lonely predator, they are opportunistic by nature: Its hard to beleive they would not pounce ona isolated walker
This is true, and that would be very cool to see animals adapting to the age of walkers.
I still think Africa will end up just as bad as Asia. South America, I’m unsure of.
It would be bad everywhere, but look at this way: The oens whoa re higher in the current pecking order would also be the ones who have the farthest to fall.
Oh I know, just speculating which states, countries, and continents would be in the worst/best shapes when the dead take over. Countries with weak police forces, militaries, and gun bans, no matter how modern, are doomed to fail.
Think of civilization from the start, it was the egyptians and mesopotamians who were the first to really settle down and grow crops, build ‘cities’, raise livestock, create written language, build impressive architecture, etc.
From the ashes there will surely be one place in the world that fully recovers from the ZA first.
Over here in Europe we still have plenty of castles, so we´ll just go back to medieval times for a while.
Granted, but what you to take into consideration, is not encessarely the resources avaiable to a given region: But how resourceful are its people.
Humans have killed far more dangerous game with only sharpened sticks , bone and stone. Guns abs and military are not that big of an issue. My bet is on regions who have large rural populations, with plenty of arable land and Water: Central Asia, Ukraine and Russia are my personal favorites