What are your criteria for accepting newbies into your post-apocalypse refuge?

In My Humble Opinion
1

THE BAD NEWS: Civilization has fallen. Zombies, WALKING DEAD type.

THE GOOD NEWS: You and the one person you love best were on the run from a herd of ravenous revenants when you chanced upon the Rhymer Enterprises compound located tin Desoto Coounty, Mississippi. The station chief, one Howard Rosenkowski, took pity and saved your asses. He told you tthe station was in the middle of evacuating to the next universe over. To avoid spreading the zombie plague, everybody has to go thorugh a STAR TREK:TNG type transporter, set up to so can be stored to their pre ZA state. There’s 125 RhE employees ahead of you, so Howard tells y’all to go to the mess hall and get some ice cream until your names are called

THE BAD NEWS: Halfway through your bronwie sundae, you and your beloved see the flaw in Howard’s plan and realize he had no intention of bringing y’all along. Y’all rush toward the interuniversal portal, but it’s too late; the RhE folks have bugged out and trashed the space-time twister, leaving you two stranded. Even worse, they’ve taken or destroyed all the magical gizmos and most of the sci-fi stuff.

THE GOOD NEWS: I said MOST of the sci-fi stuff. There’s three NextGen type tricorders left, along with spare parts and tooks to repair or construct more, and also arsenal of small arams – rifles, shotguns, handguns, ammo, even a couple of grenade launchers–along with three sets of riot gear, two HumVees and plenty of stored gas. There are generators and plenty of fuel for same, so the lights and heat will work for several momths. So will the refrigerators, but there’s nothing in them but ice cream. The station is on a 40-acre spread of arable land and surrounded by 30-foot-high adamantium walls (whose weak point is, obviously, the gate). Capping the wall is a dome made of ttransparent -steel, which will let sunlight in and, when retracted, rain. There are two wells and a water filtration system on site. Theoretically you could set up a sustainable farm here…

THE BAD NEWS: … except there’s no seeds in the compound. No farming equipment either. Or horses. And the only medical supplies are the contents of a first-aid kit somebody dropped outisde the trans-universal portal.

THE BASIC PROBLEM: So you’re in a defensible position you can live in long term, but you’re probably gonna need more people to make it practical. What are your plans? Do you let outsiders in? If so, what are your standards?

2

From any group of refugees, we give consideration to the one with the biggest tits. Note, the tits only get you an interview, not guaranteed entry.

3

Assuming I have no resources to do background checks to see if said people were criminals or all around asshole pre-ZA, I guess I’d let anyone in.
The exception being the obviously violent ones.

4

Five question interview:

[ol]
[li]Can you cook?[/li][li]Can you farm?[/li][li]Are you good at building shit?[/li][li]Do you have any medical training?[/li][li]Are you DTF?[/li][/ol]

The answer to at least one of those questions has to be “Yes.” Also, what Scumpup said.

5

So long as they know I am the new boss, everyone is in. The more folks we have that can guard the perimeter, the better our chances.

6

Er… what’s “DTF”?

Although I do agree with the idea that any prospective colony members need to be able to contribute to mutual survival.

7

I don’t know what DTF is but the first four questions are good. I’d ask if the prospect is familiar with animal husbandry. If someone come’s in on a horse, they’d be in. Or if they know a (relatively) close place to nab a cow, or fertile chicken eggs, and are willing to fetch them, they’d be in

I don’t know firearms, so someone who does would be needed. If someone brought in a stock of medicine or vitamins they’d share, that would be someone I’d want.

8

How easy is it to tell zombies from non-zombies or soon-to-be-zombies?
Me, I’d let everyone who clearly wasn’t a zombie in. If later on they turn out to be lazy SOBs you can always chuck them back out after confiscating their possessions.

9

First of all, my extended family gets in. I contact as many of them as I can, to let them know where we are. Happily, most of them have practical survival skills, as well, but even those who don’t still get in.

If I can get even a significant fraction of them, there’s enough of us to be pretty much self-sufficient.

For anyone else, I’ll consider applicants for as long as we have room. Any non-family applicant will have to satisfy me on two points: First, that they’re going to be able to contribute meaningfully to the community, and second, that they’re going to be good citizens of our community. I will not set any specific standards for either of these questions: Figuring out how to best convince me of both of these points is the applicant’s job. And of course, non-family members are all subject to expulsion, if they prove lacking in either of these traits.

10

You have to let everyone in. Limit access to weapons to my wife and I unless we are under attack. If people don’t get along they get shot or excommunicated. Once we have trust we’ll start expanding who has access to weapons for hunting or during non combat times hopefully eventually turning into a democracy. Also once basic needs are met; round the clock guards, enough people to farm and hunt and manufacturing positions, we’ll start giving people a two year indentured servitude followed by earned citizenship with specialized talents earning citizenship faster.

Only once you’ve reached the maximum capacity of you facility do you start turning people away or figuring how to expand.

11

A simple Q to toss in while shooting the shit:
How do you get baby mules?

If you blow this one, you become fertilizer.

If you don’t know exactly, but know it involves something strange:

What is a “footer” for a foundation? How to build?

Still on your feet?

What is a “tonsil”? Only children get up close and personal, but you shouild remember where they are.

Now:
are those boobs real?

12

Down to fuck.

13

CARLOS! I need Carlos!

Friend of mine, he’s an agricultural engineer, descended from a long line of farmers. He’s got seeds, he’s got tractors, he’s even got guns and knows how to use them (not so common among my acquaintances) so he can train the rest of us. Hopefully nobody too important will manage to shoot his own foot off during training.

Hell, just get the old gang from back when I was in college and between us and our SOs and children we’re set. Even Jay, who’s Finance, and his SO, who’s Tourism, will have a spot as they’re both very good at herding human-shaped cats. I’ll be one of the worst newbies of the bunch but I’m among the best cooks. You want to eat? Then shut the hell up and get out of my hair!

14

We’d conduct interviews, and let most people in unless they had some apparent personality problem that could seriously harm teamwork. I think an optimistic, friendly, and hard-working team-player without many practical skills would be more useful, in the long run, than a total asshole who can’t work with anyone but who has the skills of a farmer or handyman.

And some of the people would have skills anyway, just by random chance. We’d cap the population based on resource production, and govern based on rotating leadership and direct democracy (i.e. every big decision gets a vote).

15

I think a big misconception people are getting from Skald’s hypothetical, is people seem to think that they will be the leader simply for being there first.

The fact is, the community could very well decide someone else should be in charge. And it’s very likely they will indeed do just that.

16

Under the circumstances of the hypothetical, the violent ones might be the ones you need most.

17

You are correct, sir. :smiley:

I was mostly facetious about that one, though. If I’d been thinking about animal husbandry, I’d have put that instead.