> 📗 **Note:** This is an expanded version of [Fumble](https://eleanorkonik.com/fumble/) %% ( [[2021-12-22 Fumble (DRAFT)]] ) %%, which was published in December of 2021; the afterword focused on the question of how much duty a fisherman owes his government. When warships dripping with magic and men slipped up the delta's only river, Toby didn't so much as fumble his fishing line. The port at Ulmes had withstood invasions before, swamp rats fading into the marshes while sophisticated traders plied flattery mastered over long centuries playing both sides to the benefit of the middle. It wasn't worth missing a meal over. The Delta was hot, and dirty, and full of biting bugs and toothsome beasts strong enough to snap a man's back with barely a sweat, but Ulmes was the _only_ deepwater port on the whole damn island, so none of Toby's fellow swamp-rats were what anyone sane would call poor. They certainly weren't stupid. After the ship passed, Toby reeled in his line, which — to his complete lack of surprise — had long since had its bait nibbled to shreds. Toby stripped the last shreds of flesh off the bone hook and stowed the pole at the bottom of his canoe, a beautiful work of art his grandfather had carved nearly a hundred years ago. Then he untied the stern from the tree he'd snuggled up to and tossed the rope beside his rod. He had no intention of actually trotting along the trot line he'd strung out into the middle of the river, no matter what his grandfather had called the damn thing, but slid a net under it with the ease of long practice and let the current take him. It took deft hands, line in one hand and net in the other, to catch the bony crustaceans the Ulmes traders prized for their mustardy flesh and their glittering shells, but Toby had been hunting the Delta since he was hardly out diapers. When a snapper's beaked face slid up out of the water, firmly attached to the bit of bait tied to the line, Toby hardly broke rhythm as he swatted it with the rim of the net. The snapper slid back down into the murky depths and Toby scooped up another bit of dinner. He hummed to himself as he checked the rest of his traps, then headed off to Ulmes. He planned to sell the catch to the ship's captain at a cut-rate price. He'd never met a sailor who didn't desperately want something _other_ than fish as soon as he hit port. ## Afterword I've joked before that most Americans have [a Phoenician gap in our understanding](https://eleanorkonik.com/maritime-empires-phoenician-gap/) %% ( [[2017-11-27 Maritime Empires]] ) %%, but the reality is that understanding a monarchical maritime empire with trading ports for colonies is less important to our ability to function than knowledge of the expansionist republic we most resemble. So the slice of life story above, about a delta fisherman shrugging off an invasion, probably wouldn't resonate with most Americans; how often has New Orleans been invaded, after all? In general, I think that Rome gets a lot of play in popular culture because the USA is modeled on it in some pretty major ways. It's the most distant part of history that makes the most sense to us. But the process of [a fall like what Rome](https://acoup.blog/2022/01/14/collections-rome-decline-and-fall-part-i-words/) went through rarely gets much play in speculative fiction, perhaps because there isn’t a glorious ending in the offing. Dystopia is rarely focused on the _process_ of the fall. More commonly, it takes place during the throes of the terrible new oppressive government. You can see examples of this in _The Hunger Games_ and _1984,_ although my personal favorite example is probably [the](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/Shadowrun) _[Shadowrun](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/Shadowrun)_ [tabletop role playing game](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/Shadowrun), which features extraterritorial megacorporations and the return of magic. For this reason, I honestly think that [Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels](https://www.ilona-andrews.com/kate-daniels-series/) series paints one of the most realistic novels covering what I would expect from a “fall of the USA” scenario, even though its premise is by definition unrealistic; the backstory is basically that magic started making a comeback about 30 years before the start of the book, as part of the universe’s natural tendency toward balance when technology becomes too ascendant. In the _Kate Daniels_ universe, the government doesn’t disappear overnight, or really even at all. Law enforcement still exists and plays a role in governing the city of Atlanta… but the balance of power shifts drastically. Local powers like the head of the shapeshifters and the operating manager of a casino run by necromancers are too powerful to be ignored, and quasi-official vigilante organizations rise to prominence to fill the gaps left in the crumbling world order. Alliances start to matter more, and local governments — sheriffs, especially — are forced to act on their own, without support from central government offices that have been rendered utterly impotent by things like “planes aren’t reliable anymore” and “trans-oceanic shipping is severely at risk of eaten by sea monsters now.” Supply chain disruptions, the difficulty of maintaining infrastructure because magic basically eats it, and the upheaval that comes from a big chunk of the population suddenly not being human anymore don’t destroy the United States overnight, even though the first “flare” that knocks technology out for several days is a doozy of a natural disaster. Change comes slowly, but that’s one of the reasons it’s fun that the _Kate Daniels_ series begins ~30 years after the first flare, and yet is still clearly in the middle of the rebalancing that comes with the change. Small fiefdoms arise, claiming territory in ways modern police would never allow — outright kingdoms rise and fall, personal alliances have not yet become dynasties, and lots of people are desperately trying to come up with enough food to feed their families when hit by crises they couldn’t have imagined in their youth. But I suppose the other reason that a Rome-esque fall doesn’t come up much is that it’s sort of a boiling frog scenario; the timeline doesn’t work well for following along with a single protagonist or even cast of characters. To really get the full impact, you need a multi-generational story like _[Pillars of the Earth](https://ken-follett.com/books/the-pillars-of-the-earth/)_ [by Ken Follett](https://ken-follett.com/books/the-pillars-of-the-earth/), which follows the construction of a Medieval Cathedral over the course of decades. It’s much easier to get the messy parts of the “fall” out of the way with an obvious cataclysm like a zombie virus so that the protagonists can focus in narrowly on one core struggle like “surviving a zombie apocalypse” without the sorts of messiness (and lack of agency) that come with a situation where survival consists of trying to navigate a series of competing lords trying to control access to your tax revenues. Stories where winning looks too much like raw survival can be unsatisfying for modern readers, after all. But for all that, I do actually like _[The Walking Dead](https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/the-walking-dead)_ a lot more than other zombie apocalypse stories. While the story does have its fair share of crack shots, glorified violence and ridiculous science (did you know that [gas has a shelf life of like, six months](https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how-long-does-gasoline-last/)? And cars need to be driven or they stop working well? A year into a zombie apocalypse you will almost definitely not be hot-wiring sexy motorcycles on your way from town to town) it also places a greater emphasis on community, collaboration, farming, governance, loyalty, leadership, strategy, parenting, division of labor, and soft skills than most zombie apocalypse games and stories I’ve come across. I may have spent years playing _[7 Days to Die](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Days_to_Die),_ but I stopped playing when it became clear that the developers were trying very hard to pressure players into engaging with the game in their preferred manner. (Plus, lol, it's been out since 2014 and it's still in "early access"). Somehow, game designers often forget that humans are social animals, not just tribal ones; they push players toward theft, murder and mayhem by the nature of their incentives, and such little love ever goes into the peaceful coop versions and aspects of the games. Yet even so, they do offer one particularly useful lesson about what it would be like to try to survive an apocalyptic wasteland filled with ravenous monsters. Most multiplayer games I’ve ever played have had a PvP option that the vast majority of the playerbase does everything in its power to opt out of, despite all the incentives game developers add in (who tend to enjoy the complexity of balancing combat mechanics). My once-beloved [Warm Online](https://www.wurmonline.com/), MUDs like [Achaea](https://www.achaea.com/) & [Lusternia](https://www.lusternia.com/)… they always seem to have a combat element where 90% of the development time gets focused, yet 90% of the playerbase tries to avoid. I think an cataclysm would be a lot like that, actually — most people trying to survive by fishing and farming and maybe hunting, and a small but disruptive minority engaging in violence, which the historians and writers and political leaders pay the most attention to because they control most of the cashflow... and drama. 90% of my life is very boring; the 10% I talk about gives a pretty distorted view of how I spend most of my days. I imagine a lot of history is like that, and I know most fiction is the same. Which makes things pretty tricky if you’re looking for inspiration evaluating how best to prepare to survive a potential cataclysm... or even just considering the nature of “realistic” fiction: often-sought and rarely-wanted. --- 📗 If you found this interesting, you might also enjoy the [canoes](https://eleanorkonik.com/canoes/) %% ( [[2021-07-26 Canoes (DRAFT)]] ) %% edition, which touches on ancient cache networks & seaborne dangers, or the [fishing](https://eleanorkonik.com/fishing/) %% ( [[2021-12-06 Fishing (DRAFT)]] ) %% edition, which is an overview of fibrous nets, orca attacks, & millennia of maintenance. 💚 If you learned something from this overview, consider forwarding it to a friend and encouraging them to [sign up](https://eleanorkonik.com/membership/) for more thought-provoking small stories. 🦀 What's your favorite story about the end of the world (as we know it)?