Worldbuilding Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for writers/artists using science, geography and culture to construct imaginary worlds and settings. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I am trying to write a TV series based on the ""virus kill all adults" popular premise.
The difference is that it should be very realistic and based on research in biology, sociology etc.
The second thing- the plot location is in the border between Israel an Gaza dealing with the Arab -Israeli conflict.
In this apocalyptic situation would the two societies of children still conflict ?
I saw a documentary a few years back (which I unfortunately can't find at the moment) about a group of Israeli and Palestinian kids who were brought together for a while. As best I remember it, the kids entered with the prejudices they inherited from their parents, but upon meeting each other they abandoned them pretty quickly and became friends.
I don't remember if any of the kids had been directly impacted by the conflict. I also don't remember the ages of the kids.
What I understood from that was that the hatred and prejudice that fuel the conflict are taught to the youth at a very young age. But at the same time they are more flexible and will more quickly forget their differences than adults would in the right circumstances. And external threats are excellent at uniting people.
superstition supplants science
Imagine if there was nobody around to teach a kid that there isn't a monster under their bed. Instead of mom or dad demonstrating that there is no such thing as monsters and providing a sense of security and control to soothe the child and allow them to develop past the fear and paranoia there is nobody there except other kids who also believe there is a monster under the bed. The monster eventually comes to be an evil spirit responsible for taking children away in the dead of night that must be appeased with regular and brutal sacrifice. They come to earnestly believe that the world is filled with spirits and monsters and demons, and honestly and fully believe that only the crude totems they wear and odd rituals they perform are all that stand between them and the ravenous darkness.
"Societies" Become Highly Tribal
People like to say that humans are a herd animal, but that's not quite right, humans are in point of fact a tribal animal. criminal Gangs, sports fans, political groups, friend cliques, these are all just expressions of human's instinct to gather together around something in common and enshrine it within a system of totems and rituals. Think sports fandom redone a bit more simply "The clan of Sea-hawks of Seattle are to be in combat with the tribe of the Broncos of Denver, let us consume alcohol and begin the chants of victory as our chosen champions do battle!" Ditto for your orphaned young-un's. They will not be a society or civilization as we know it, but rather a chiefdom of primitive living tribes probably loosely organised around a constantly changing power structure of competing strong-men and warlords who hold power only for as long s they can defend it or provide prosperity. Think if your society was governed by a king of the hill game. Chiefdom's are not quite kingdoms, they are too small and tend to only be bit bigger than how far a strong-man and his warriors can walk in a few days containing only a few thousand individuals at best.
It Remain's Primitive For Quite Some Time
All of this wonderful technology exists because we have a lot of resources and free time. I don't have to build my own house, fashion weapons to defend it, grow or hunt all of my own food, etc etc so I am able to specialize in a task that does not concern food, water, shelter or security. When society is taken back to where these 4 basic human necessities are the primary concern of day to day life it tends to create a scenario where you are so busy being concerned with ensuring day to day existence that you cannot stop and ponder anything but those necessities. Finding or growing food and not getting attacked by somebody else equally hungry whilst trying to build literally every tool you need will be what the majority of everybody's time is spent on. This will ensure that technological or social progress is stunted fairly significantly. Your children survivors and their descendants will basically have to rebuild human progress starting from the iron age or possibly even further regressed.
