Sci-Fi Eye: engineering a recovery from the zombie apocalypse

Let’s imagine it’s ten years from now and zombies are ravaging the world. We can’t scavenge tinned goods forever. So, while the likes of Rick Grimes, Joel Miller, and Alice Abernathy are out there fighting the scourge, how will the rest of us build and safeguard viable communities among the wreckage of our collapsed civilisation? Obviously, we’re going to need soldiers, medics, leaders, and farmers; but we’re also going to need engineers.

The last time civilisation fell in the British Isles was when Rome pulled back her legions. Having been part of the empire for almost four hundred years, this abandonment must have seemed catastrophic to the British families that had become used to the comforts and protections of the Roman way of life. Faced with a dangerous and uncertain world, they abandoned their villas and constructed hill forts. Some of the larger ones housed entire villages, while the smaller ones were places of retreat and shelter should the village come under attack.

Following their example, we will need to construct defences to keep out the zombies, and to keep out roving groups of scavengers. Whether we reoccupy old hilltops or construct new refuges out of rusting cars and barbed wire, we’ll need people who know about planning, construction, and the movement of large quantities of material.

As the old saying goes, the best defence is a good offence, so we’ll probably need to construct some weaponry. Bullets run out and bows and arrows can only do so much when facing a large group of attackers; but if we have a grasp of engineering principles, we can build catapults and trebuchets that can inflict widespread damage at a distance. We can construct moats and elaborate traps and, eventually, stone castles capable of withstanding any kind of assault or siege.

Our problems don’t end with defence, however. Wherever we settle, we’re going to need easy access to fresh water. In order to grow our crops, especially if the summers are getting warmer, we’ll probably have to design and build a method by which to irrigate our fields.

If we want to avoid disease, we’re also going to need some form of sanitation. Pits in the ground are all very well, but they fill up fast. If you’ve seen the movie The Martian, or read the book upon which it’s based, you’ll know that the main character grows potatoes on the red planet by mixing the native dirt with water and his own sewage in order to make a viable soil. If we can find some way to collect our community’s bodily waste, perhaps through the construction of communal toilets and some kind of storage tank, we can recycle it as fertiliser. We can also use any food waste or kitchen scraps to feed pigs, after we’ve constructed walls or fences to stop them roaming too far afield.

Once we’re secure and we have food and water, the next item on our wish list will be shelter. Tents, huts, or yurts are relatively easy to throw together, but if we want to survive the harsh British winter, we’re going to have to find a way to construct something a little warmer and sturdier. Building materials will be plentiful. All we have to do is travel to the closest abandoned town and fill up our cart with bricks and stones from the crumbling buildings. Using them to construct new buildings will require tools and contraptions designed by engineers.

So far, I’ve been talking about the survival of a small group of people. If we want to rebuild civilisation, we’re going to need to think bigger, and we’re going to need transport. Horses are all very well, but if you want to move large quantities or food, fuel or building materials, we’re going to need something a bit more ambitious. In some places, we could conceivably dredge and reuse the canal network, which would allow our horses to pull much greater loads, or we could get the railway network up and running again. There are plenty of preserved steam locomotives dotted around the country. If we’re short of coal, we can run them on wood. The Romans had roads to bind together their empire; in the future apocalypse, we might have rail.

But beyond all that, the most important thing engineers can do for us will be to check on the nuclear power plants dotted around the country. There probably won’t have been time to safely shut them down. When society falls, someone will need to decide whether to mothball these facilities or restart them to power our recovery.

Gareth L. Powell is an award-winning SF writer. His latest novel Descendant Machine comes out from Titan Books in April.