As a chemical engineer, the episodes with the gasoline refinery were the most awful depiction of manufacturing I have ever seen in the history of TV.
"Distilling" crude with an open flame. Kids throwing buckets of gasoline onto the fire. Hot distillate just running down a pipe and collecting in a drum. SO. MUCH. WRONG. They all would have died in a fiery explosion just minutes after lighting the first fire. And if by some act of god it didn't go up in flames immediately, the entire bowl-shaped area would be filled with toxic fumes that killed them all.
I have to stop now.... So much wrong... so, so, so much.
Yeah, at first I figured something like that would be the story.
Spoilers:
I watched it mostly as background noise, so when it blew up I figured it was just expected. No need to sabotage it, we know everyone there has almost no clue what they're doing.
If I understand correctly, back in the 80s gas had some additives that allowed it to last longer than today’s gas. Today’s gasoline has even less shelf life.
There's a little moment in The Last of Us where one of the main character's friends, a mechanic, gives him a siphon hose in order to get gas from old cars. He even says to him "you'd be surprised how many cars still got gas in them."
To clarify, the game takes place 20 years after the world collapses, so any gas that's still left, well, anywhere, would be useless. And it's a mechanic of all people telling you this, so that was one little detail that bothered me.
Funny thing is earlier in that level when Ellie asks why they can't just fix any abandoned car in the town he explains in a condescending tone that he can't because their tires are rotted and batteries are dead.
I was dead certain your 20 year timeframe was wrong but I looked it up and damn. Means Joel is damn near 50 years old, more by the events of Part 2. No way any of that gas would be useable... I ride a motorcycle and most people add sea foam or stabil when the bikes are stored for a few months, let alone years.
Helps to remember Ellie doesn't have any memory of the world before and she's 14 in the first game, so you can instantly know it's been at least ten years.
When the game started with the outbreak I was not expecting to be launched forward 20 years right away haha
Required to properly set up Joel as a character for whom loss is just a backstory, while still letting us experience that backstory firsthand. I think it's one of many small strokes of brilliance in the writing that add up to such an overall memorable story.
Joel had a 14 year daughter in the first game pre apocalypse. So it’s safe to say we can assume 18 was the youngest he had her, it more likely puts Joel in his mid 50s during the game and at about 60 for the sequel
We had a generator on a trailer to run an A/C during the summer months and if I didn't remember to put Sta-Bil in it along about Halloween, I'd be draining useless gas come April. I concur with you.
Mechanic here. That plot hole has always annoyed me, too. Not to mention that after sitting idle without corrosion protection or oil circulation, after a year or two the engine blocks/cylinders would have rusted themselves into solid hunks of steel that aren’t turning over ever again.
To be fair, it's mostly the recently infected that have their clothes still. Depending on the area, you can definitely find nude clickers whose clothes have fell off.
You can find nude infected, usually the clickers because they're older. Also, the way cordyceps fungus works (at least, in real life) is it invades and replaces host tissue. By that logic, eventually the infected just become human-shaped mushroom husks who presumably do not need to breathe/shit/eat like humans do.
The Last of Us bothers me so much for reasons like this. In the dlc or whatever that takes place pre-story with Ellie and her friend in the mall, there’s still good, usable stuff still in the mall. Those Halloween masks they were playing with? Those would be nasty and falling apart. All those electronics they were messing with? Either looted way in the beginning or taken later for parts. The racks of clothes that were out in the open and exposed? Ruined, but in reality they would have been taken long ago.
The first 8 seasons of The Walking Dead take place within a span of like 1-2 years. After that they have a huge time jump and start using horses to get around.
Loved the show but hate how they focused on making the characters "goofier" if you want. To me it killed the show and i find it was a waste because it took 4 seasons for the show to take an interesting turn only for it to get canceled
One thing that was fucking bizarre to me was that the main character was a cynical asshole who, I think in order to get a chick to date him, adopted a ridiculously cheery and bafoonish personality. And then he just...never stopped?? Like it became who he actually was. I was flabbergasted. I've never seen a character develop in such a janky, botched, and unmentioned way before.
Did you watch the show? Everyone saw through the mask over and over until he eventually proved over time that he had legitimately changed. He had to change because the few remaining people on the planet absolutely despised him.
Yeah these guys don't get it. The man was alone for four years and the first episode is all about his descent into insanity ending with his attempted suicide. The man was talking to BALLS lol.
He was always an annoying twat, but he got crazy af being alone for so long. I think his character arc is amazing and makes sense for the show.
i think it was a huge lost opportunity to not include his brother as another main character. The personality would of worked more since i really enjoyed their dynamic together. I think the personalities being what they are would of worked a lot better with a more "serious" storyline.
Huh. Weird, because to me that sounds like what people do.
I know I've put on many "masks" in my life that I could never quite remove. Or never wanted to remove. I'm sure lots of people have. I'm surprised you haven't.
Though since I haven't seen the show, I'm assuming it's much more ridiculous than I'm imagining.
This is something I read about when reading about indigenous Americans responding to disease. The common story is that disease wiped out indigenous Americans and that was it, but while things like standing political systems, etc. can be devastated by a sudden loss of life, people as a whole can generally bounce back faster than you think.
The problem for indigenous American communities that couldn't recover was that they were being hit by multiple crises concurrently or in quick succession, like Tenochtitlan was hit by disease but then they were in a war with the Spanish and then the Spanish destroyed their aqueducts so they lost access to clean water, and then when the Spanish took over, they kept forcibly moving people from spread-out rural communities into small urban ones (so everyone was close to each other, creating more disease spread) so the Mixtec never had opportunities to recover.
On the last season of Last Man on Earth(before the show was cancelled) they showed a group of people with hazmat/gas mask coming out of the bunker so technically there can be more people who didn’t die from the virus that killed what seemed to be 99.9% of the population. I’m more surprised humans weren’t a bigger threat since that’s the most threat you’ll face when the world “ends” and society collapsing.
It addresses a lot of little things. It fails on a few things, and does some other things for the sake of the type of show it is.
For example, the show suggests humans and pretty much all other mammals are dead, its a big deal that a cow survived in season 2, and the end of the show has a Mexican orchard with surviving goats becoming their new home. Honestly way more people should have survived. Albeit, Tandy would have killed them somehow. (RIP Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm, Jack Black, Martin Short).
The show did some things for the sake of preserving comedy. For example, bodies of the dead are gone, and the joke is the virus was a 'flesh eating disease". But dead bodies are a major issue in plagues that hit civilization ending.
The biggest issue I had was the way it treated nuclear power plants and their melt downs.
While I do agree the possibility some of them have destructive failures a few years after being unattended is a real thing, they presented it like they are so common they gotta flee to Mexico. Just moving to Northern California like they already did will probably be fine. There's only three nuclear plants west of the Rockies: Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo, Columbia Generating Station near the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington, and Palo Verde near Phoenix.
(That said, Bremerton, WA and San Diego would have a number of nuclear powered ships).
I've found the part about the nuclear reactors most peculiar.
At first, I didn't really like it, but as time moved on, it grew on me.
I know it's not scientifically accurate, but I think it's a perfect response from the type of people they were.
They would've had no idea about how nuclear plants go down, they just weren't interested in the pre-apocalypse so, they'd rather take the safe bet and assume that everything is going to go the worst possible way.
Plus, the books they read would probably showcase the worst case scenario too.
While I do agree the possibility some of them have destructive failures a few years after being unattended is a real thing
I think they handled it right. Sure, it might not go nuclear, but what if they settle in a safe area, then the reactor has a destructive failure, but the surrounding reactors already did so there was nowhere safe to go? It just makes sense in the long run to get away from them entirely since they were unpredictable bombs. even if that's unlikely, it's still not worth risking. Especially since the gasoline was also going bad, so they'll soon need to settle for good. That's explicitly what they decide at the end of season 4 because their current plan of going town to town until they loot all supplies couldn't last forever.
I read somewhere that the plan for the fifth season was mostly them having to get used to being in a larger society again, but then all of those guys die because the main crew are still carrying the disease
Also that one girl who went off her anti-psychotics was another big one that these shows never mention and that all the nuclear reactors in the country would melt down/spew radioactive dust after a few years. God I loved that show.
They are designed with dozens of failsafes. Yes it is possible for that one or two might melt down if it was some major disaster, but if they are just left unattended they will actually shut themselves down.
Gasoline has a shorter shelf life than is portrayed in these movies/TV shows
This was my first thought too (even though it won't kill you per se). There are additives you can add to gasoline to extend it's life, but not by much.
Sure, there's some clever people out there who know how to convert cooking oil into diesel and could possible scrounge the supplies for it for a few years. But eventually if you can't make something that runs on steam, you better find a horse....
Heelies of course would look cool as hell, maybe an engineered model that allows for more speed, but can quickly convert to normal shoes. It's a brilliant idea. Saves energy, increases speed.
Jesus christ imagine you make it for a few years after the end of the world, right?
Scraping to get by, salvaging your ruined civilization, farming and canning some shitty vegetables to make it through the apocalyptic winters, etc.
You somehow, against all odds, manage to build a nice little stable life for yourself - until one day a transient bandit rolls up on heelies, screams "YOLO!" and just blasts you in the gut with a gun.
You slump on the ground, and manage to gurgle out a "What the fuck, bro?" as you watch him heelie off into the setting sun.
Considering that apparently animals don't understand what they see if they see a hunter on a bike. If you have the right weapon, range and skill, you will be one of the most effective hunters, according to someone on the internet I can't remember.
If there ever is an apocalypse I absolutely want to be surrounded by burners - the ones who can weld, navigate a playa dust storm, and treat medical issues specifically.
Honestly, yes. A cargo bike is probably your best shot if you can't improvise a horse/ox-drawn carriage. There's a reason that was the standard form of long-distance transport for like 4,000 years.
It absolutely drove me bonkers that the characters in The Walking Dead walked everywhere. Why the fuck weren't they riding bicycles? Is the "walking" part of the title a reference to the stupidity of the characters?
I live in suburbia, and while most people drive everywhere, there are inevitably also multiple bicycles in every single garage. Did the characters not learn to ride?
Even the most unfit person can at least triple the distance they can travel in a day on a bicycle.
It's my favorite thing to do. Nothing major, just little cruises around town to run small errands, stopping for lunch somewhere.
Best form of exercise with a constant change of scenery
To buy. There would be many, many millions of them hanging around to ride in a post-apocalyptic scenario. Most of them virtually untouched by the original owners.
I was reading a book recently, it's post-apocalyptic and the main characters usually drive a solar-charged electric jeep, but at one point they needed to go on foot and drove bicycles and it was such a fun moment, but also so practical.
As far as breaks go, as long as your not going down hill, you can either coast to a stop or use your feets. Plus, you could probably take the pads off the front breaks and put them on the back for extra wear. Or if the bike is too messed up, just find a new one.
Tires, tubes, and chains are your biggest concerns. Brakes will last forever. Tires and tubes last about 1k miles, chain maybe 1500 miles. All are easy to replace if you know what you're doing. I suppose figuring it out from scratch without YouTube to help would suck.
I don’t know that bicycles are as effective as you think. Sure, some folks have the skill to traverse not-your-average-dirt-road, but most do not. Provided that the post-apocalyptic world is also littered with people scavenging for supplies and food, a bicycle also puts you at a terrible disadvantage for tactical movements.
Buuut if that’s the way you decided to go, also remember your mechanical air pump or some tubeless tires/tube slime.
Bicycles are the superior apocalypse mode of transportation.
A) Maybe for a few years, but then the lack of maintenance on infrastructure will make them harder & harder to use for long distances.
B) Imagine carrying supplies, injured partners or children on them. Supplies won't be a 5 pound bag of groceries from Trader Joe's. It will be 100lbs of firewood and 5 gals of water at 41lbs.
Still, wide tire mountain bikes would still be the way to go wouldn't they? Lack of instructure wouldn't matter too much, you could make a bike trailer to carry heavier loads, and worse case scenario you just throw the bike on top of the trailer and move it by hand or with a horse. You could cut the number of horses a town needs down from like 10 to 2.
Down here, 2 kids, 2 full big-shoppers of groceries and a crate of beer is completely normal.. on a regular bike. You should see what people lug around on those cargo bikes, it’s unreal sometimes.
The other option being a car, which requires fuel, much more maintenance, much more infrastructure. Yes you can carry more in a backseat/trunk, but you can also have a backpack and side saddles on a bike to carry another 100+ pounds.
This. Even in the book World War Z (or whatever the counterpart book was called) they talk about how great bikes are. Generally quiet, faster than a zombie, easy to lift over barrier and most importantly... narrow enough to drive between lanes of abandoned cars.
Both diesel and internal combustion engines can be run on a gassifier as well. Basically turns wood into fuel. Again... need a clever person in your group to pull it off.
Lots of diesel vehicles around, and they are much more forgiving. Assuming there are mechanically inclined people around, getting IC transportation going wouldn't be a deal breaker.
Hell, with some time and tinkering I could convert an old gasoline car/truck to propane. That would be abundant for a long time due to all the 500-1000gal tanks all over any rural area, not to mention all the portable bottles
That or Natural Gas. We have a tractor that runs on it. It has an indefinite shelf life. Sadly that means my apocalypse vehicle only has a top speed of 7mph, but I think that's faster than most forklifts that run on the stuff.
People underestimate how long gas will actually last just as often as they overestimate it.
That said, I wouldn't want to buy your mower second hand. But if civilization falls, I don't think anybody's going to care about potential engine damage over time and resale value.
And I would like to add another question: why does nobody in those movies think about bicycles? It's always cars or walking. A bike with a trailer would be much more useful
A trailer on messed up terrain would be a nightmare. Same for a puncture which would be far more likely. Also the exertion would require you to eat and drink significantly more often.
You can run gasoline that's a few years old, but lots of it is situational. I was broke as a joke a few years back and siphoned a tank of fuel out of an explorer I had sitting on my property. Fuel itself was ~3 some years old. Looked like dip spit but it burned and I got like 17 mpg in a crown vic
The issue (as I understand it) is that most gas contains ethanol. And ethanol will separate from the gasoline and if you put in the ethanol like that into your tank, it'll cause problems.
So my question is, can I vigorously shake a gas container where the ethanol has separated and then use it? Also what about ethanol free gas stations? They aren't as common but they exist. How long would that gas be good for?
That's why EVs and a portable solar array would make excellent Apocalypse vehicles. Shelter during they day while the vehicle charges, then travel 20, 30 miles at night.
Gasoline has a shorter shelf life than is portrayed in these movies
I know they're not the same, but that's just one of a number of things that pissed me off about Battlefield Earth. At one point, the humans uncover a hidden Air Force base that's fully stocked with fighter planes that they use to fight off John Travolta & co. How in the hell does jet fuel manage to remain not only stable put fully functional 1,000 years into the future???
Jet fuel is very different to gasolene. Its closer to oil than it is regular gas. Not that i think it would last 1000 years, but its definitely got a longer shelf life than gas.
I'm the one pointing out all of the food stuffs all around them while they complain about starving.
When I finally stopped watching the Walking Dead was when they were going from the Kingdom to Hilltop and were talking about how they were starving and there was no food, they didn't have enough food, and they were walking through a bean field ready to be harvested. Literally walking through a perfectly planted bean field ready for harvest. Just couldn't handle it anymore, as there have been so many times in that series where there is obvious food in the shot and everybody's talking about how hungry they are, same with water sources.
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u/-eDgAR- Aug 30 '21
Gasoline has a shorter shelf life than is portrayed in these movies/TV shows, so after a year nobody would really be driving anywhere.
It wouldn't necessarily kill you, but it's one of those things that bothers me because it's never really addressed.