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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36686
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36686
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

## People die, and Kings emerge.

I would operate on the notion that our human nature itself, how we see the world and what we will do for survival (of ourselves or kids or those we love) will not be changed by this event.

There **_are_** people with the skills you need, even without magic. You can even watch many of them on TV, in competitions. Currently those skills are in low demand, hobbies or entertainment, or they are only seriously taught for actual military practice or field work for charity purposes. But besides that people do learn self defense, to street fight, to fence and sword fight and knife fight, for real. There is plenty of mixed-martial-arts fighting that is not faked, the fighters have real skills and in slow-mo you see people getting hit and knocked out for real.

In your apocalypse, all these skills become important. Human nature will not change, if a man **can** beat people up or kill them without being armed, and he needs to feed his kids, he will fight for food. people without food will die. I have two real-world books on my shelf I purchased as writing reference material: _Where There Is No Doctor,_ by David Werner, and _Where There Is No Dentist,_ by Murray Dickson.

People that know field medicine, like Army medics and some E.R. doctors, will be in suddenly much greater demand. Most of us currently do not know anybody willing to casually murder others, but such people exist in gangs and we will quickly come to know them, they will be led by ruthless sociopaths seeking power, and may clash with each other, but the Kings will emerge, surrounded by their Knights enforcing the collection of taxes and enforcing the slavery of serfs to their benefit.

The feudal, medieval systems of the non-technological past will reassert themselves; that is our best bet as to what human nature does without technology, and all the beginnings of a transformation into such a system will kick into gear: Fight for your food, fight for your females lest they be stolen or raped, serve a king or die resisting one, or die trying to become one.

Most of us will die: For lack of medicine (it just won't be manufactured any more, what exists will be confiscated and only sold for gold), for lack of food: Nearly all cities will run out of food within three weeks, no more will be shipped, and **no more produced** because modern farms depend upon electricity and gasoline they do not produce, and ship their products hundreds of miles to be sold. Also, without refrigeration, most food would rot on the trip. This is the reason we used to have **dry grocers** , that sold grain, flours, cereals, beans, rice and some dried meat, vegetables and fruits that could be kept for months without refrigeration.

Magic is just another kind of weapon, that operates by unexplained principle. A modern 9mm handgun or solar-powered pocket calculator in 1200 AD would be considered a piece of magic, usable without understanding the mechanism. (In fact most users of those items today do not understand the mechanism! Not well enough to make another one.)

Your magic is the same; factor whatever it can do into the weaponry that will be used in the above war, as people seek power. Your group doesn't have to know the survivalists, hunters, fighters and weapons makers --- they will introduce themselves, and if you intend any level of realism, their help or protection will come at a very steep price.

The best thing you can do for your group, if I were writing this story, is to give the physically weakest member a magical power she (or he) can trade to save the rest of her group. So she becomes a coveted asset by some warlord, and her price for her service to this warlord is the protection of her friends and/or a promise by this warlord to not harm them, if he has some power (regular or magical) over them that makes them effective hostages.

Original score: 7