[Kontact]

Effectively by the end of the ordeal, 1/4 of everything could be closed because of the population loss. A quarter of hospitals, public schools, etc, could be closed with surviving medical personnel, teachers, students diverted to the 3 other facilities (who also lost 1/4 of their people). The gaps would close in other industries as well. The effects would be felt for long after, but within a year of the final deaths of VITAS the projects that had been put on hold would be released, with new "now what do we do, who can we cast, what directors are still alive" projects being started.

I would be interesting to figure out what would happen to unemployment rates, the unemployed would be able to step in and fill the jobs (at all levels and sectors of the economic range), but would businesses fail as well?

Sorry for any strange ramblings, VITAS is exceptionally interesting but also trying to keep in on topic with the post as well.

Are there enough engineers alive and willing to work to keep the lights on?  World trade is completely shut down, how do people get the things they're used to?

Really, VITAS changed how society operates in a way that people were still recovering from it for the next decade... which is when VITAS II hit.  Sure there was still culture but I imagine it as a time when the power was off and people were starving in the streets.  There was probably a resurgence of folk forms of art and a conservative "off my land" backlash in general culture. 

And the Wizard of Oz was a book and a play before it was filmed.  Just because the film was made and released in the 30s, that doesn't make it a cultural milestone, just a technological one.

[FastJack]

Just to go off on a little tangent before coming back to this, I think Wizard of Oz is a cultural milestone. It was one of the first major color motion pictures and, it was so popular, it became an annual staple on television before almost any other movie (which, for you young 'uns out there born after the VCR means it was a tradition to watch it over the holidays like Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer). The movie adaptation also borrowed a lot from the current climate of the Great Depression as the Kansas backdrop.

Now, back on topic: VITAS killed off 25% of the population on the first go-round and 10% on the second. If VITAS had hit in 2009 (according to the SR timeline), we'd be reset to the population size of the early 80's (just under 5 billion). Add in some growth (because people will make babies, especially in dire times), and the 2nd VITAS in 2022 would probably knock the population to around 4½ billion. That's a lot of people dying, but (unfortunately) most of that would take place in "third world" conditions, so the big nations would get hit, but not as hard as the others. Which, I think, would lead to those "first world" countries increasing their bubble-gum/pop culture/happy-happy-joy-joy entertainment to offset the dire news from around the world.

[Kontact]

Yeah, African rates were quoted around 3/4ths of the population.  Picks up a lot of slack from the more developed countries, but it also highlights the kind of precautions the 1st world would have had to take to avoid what happened in India, China and Africa.  It's a highly communicable disease, which means that population centers would be extremely exposed and, therefore, extremely paranoid and shut off. 

[John Schmidt]

When you consider how mobile our society is today, the next pandemic will make the Spanish Flu look like a joke. Air travel vs. ships crossing the ocean, well there simply isn't any comparison.

You lose enough personnel at crucial areas, electrical grid, oil refineries, and gasoline pipelines...the wheels would come of this wagon real fast. Anyone who has worked stocking big box retail stores will tell you that there isn't a lot of leeway in terms of =extra= stuff on the shelves. Retail has learned how to turn their stock far more efficiently than even 20 years ago, if the worst should happen stores will be emptied in a matter of hours (i.e. like prior to a hurricane making landfall).


The thing that cracks me up is when I hear people say, "Oh that can't happen in the United States." I really should start carrying the Webster's Dictionary definition of 'Hubris'.

[The_Gun_Nut]

The pervasiveness of air travel is likely the reason VITAS killed as many as it did.  If it had hit back in the 1900's (instead of the Spanish Flu, for example) then the death toll wouldn't have been nearly so bad as it had been.  The second round of VITAS highlights the advances made in prevention and restriction of the disease since it "only" killed about 10% of the population.

[Fizzygoo]

@Fastjack: Totally agree with you on Oz. Slightly disagree on the math for the world population between the two VITAS hits: Rounding for ease, 2010 pop was 7 billion. 75% left after VITAS I = 5.25 billion (which is closer to 1990's pop), then 10 years later population growth would put the population around 6 billion. Then VITAS II, 6 billion - 10% = 5.4 billion. Just about any modern numbers you use (unless you assume there's massive negative or stagnant population grown for the ten years between both VITAS hits) the population of the world after VITAS II will be higher than after VITAS I.

@ John Schmidt...hehe 6 years in retail I have done and I agree with you. There would be a massive halt at VITAS's peak, but I'm still leaning towards the consolidation of resources would put major hubs (of anything, travel, transportation, exports, imports, etc.) up and running (if not continuing productivity) at a limited pace right after the "collapse". It's that very level of efficiency that you mentioned that would keep things flowing...at least once the death rates started to subside.

@ Gun Nut...yeah your reasoning is why I think the "First World" nations would be hit hardest, rapid transit to all the other modern nations would lead to massive widespread infection faster and more thorough than in third world nations (but all things considered, the better health care would help the modern nations, hinder the third-world nations, and so just average 25% for VITAS I all around).

@ Kontact...where's the 3/4 for Africa death toll from?

[Longshot23]

Fielding query about Africa's 75% mortality rate for VITAS . . . the place I know the figure from is Cyberpirates! - a curious collection.  Africa wasn't even the hardest hit - that dubious honour goes to Madagascar, AFAIK.  10.5 million out of 14 million DIED.

[John Schmidt]

@ Fizzygoo: Obviously I can't speak with any great certainty about how such an event would play out. My gut instinct screams that there would be a massive breakdown in the system though...especially transportation. Lose the wrong group of people at the oil refineries (149 spread out) in the US and you have effectively shut the pump off. Recent memories of people driving around Atlanta trying to find a gas station with gas come to mind. Gas/diesel/aviation gas...those are the life blood of our economy...cut those and you are going to see the really ugly side of people as food shipments become a trickle.

[Fizzygoo]

@ Longshot23, thanks I'll check out when I get home. I do remember the Madagascar figure.

@ John Schmidt. Got'cha , I totally agree with your gut instinct (and we're all in the same boat on speaking with any certainty, hehe). Now, the next question for consideration is...for how long. After the peak of a swift acting virus that kills 25% of the world's population, how long will it take to consolidate remaining man-power to get things flowing? For example, the lead Engineer at one oil refinery dies, but at another the lead Engineer survives (but other staff has died), how long until the corporation fills positions at the core plants and closes the refineries it can't staff. I agree the pumps would stop during the height of VITAS I, but I'm a bit optimistic that within a year or two the corporations (oil, transportation, manufacturing, retail, all surviving corps) would have consolidated down to where they could operate (or have gone bust, with the stronger corps taking over what the could), though at a diminished capacity. Those two years would see long lines, shortages, outages, riots, etc., but the unemployment rate (for those able to work) would shrink dramatically as well. Between two to five years I'd (optimistically) see a boom as business streamlined their processes, then after 6 years things are diminished still but the long lines, shortages, outages, riots, are few and far between if at all. Again...that's me being optimistic about it all, but I'm also basing it off there's not a lot in the SR canon that supports longer-than-two-years economic collapse (unless I'm forgetting something, natch). What do you think? Yea, Nay, somewhere in between?

[FastJack]

I think that, because of VITAS, you'd see a sharper rise in the Technology to run those jobs as well. With the lose of so many people, the corporations would be more inclined to move towards the automated factories and refineries that you see in present-day SR. Now you know why they out-moded so many positions from actual people to machines—to prevent the lost of production in case another epidemic hits.

[Kontact]

Yeah, I keep thinking that the main reason fast food jobs still exist is that automation would be bad for PR...

But, back to how VITAS would shape the foundation of the 6th world, the deaths by themselves aren't really the main issue.  The paranoia and panic that would come from a disease that spreads so quickly and kills so readily would tear the populace apart.  We're talking military quarantines etc.  It swept across the globe and back again, like a brushfire.

[The_Gun_Nut]

Which is what engulfed many blocks and neighborhoods of old Mexico City.  They started mass burnings to try to wipe it out.