Eh, it's what I studied in school, but I don't have any kind of professional resume behind me. I have more literacy in the field than passion for it.
Ah, gotcha. Same with me in psych and now medical training. I worked at a nursing home for a time, but it mostly for the nursing program I'm in. Outside of that, no work experience for my chosen field.
Right! I can't find it, but I think there was a government official who gave World War Z a glowing review for exactly that reason. The early chapters are supposedly a perfect picture of what goes on behind closed doors when a real crisis is evolving.
Damn, oh I believe that. The chaos, the uncertainty of information you're getting, your choices in how you respond to the threat -- and their consequences if you don't do your homework beforehand. Hell, I think we saw that just recently with the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the panic over Thomas Eric Duncan in Texas. There's nasty stories in the HIV/AIDS epidemic too. Although it's exaggerated in several respects, the movie
And the Band Played On highlights the mess in how the United States responded to the first outbreaks and the stigmatization of the gay community in the States and entire countries like Haiti abroad.
Contagion is damn scary too -- it's a bit exaggerated as well, but the final scene is spooky because it shows exactly how a new virus is born. Human deforestation forces bats to flee and set up shop on pig farms, where said pigs are exposed to bat droppings and whatever viruses they carry. Some transfered genes later and a little luck of the replicative draw, and bam, brand-spanking new and lethal strain of flu, or coronavirus (SARS from China in the early 2000's, or the new MERS from Saudi Arabia), or hemorrhagic fever (Ebola). Art imitates life too much some times. I have an unhealthy obsession with epidemiology.
Oooh, I have a copy of that and still need to read it. It reminds me, though, of an excerpt from The Lost City of Z. At the end of the book, the author is shown the ruins of a massive pre-Columbian structure in the Amazon that's been covered with vegetation and mistaken for a hill. There used to be massive cities in the Americas before European settlers arrived, but the native populations were wiped out by new diseases and their homes reclaimed by nature so quickly that we're still discovering they ever existed in the first place.
Oh wow. That's insanely amazing! See, Europe was a craphole for such a long time, especially like in the 12th and 13th centuries, and I know places like China were flourishing in much better conditions. The Aztecs and Inca had great cities I know too. I think it's rather arrogant to declare certain things about history when not all of it has been uncovered. Who knows what's lurking out there in the Amazon or the Congo or Indonesia, waiting to be discovered -- or, really what's beneath our feet. Wasn't Richard III just found under a parking lot in rural England?
I have two sequels in mind, one that takes place directly after At The Cabin (but it'd take place in Azure Rocks, not on the cabin, and from what I understood, henrytemp's idea have the cabin and the park as a setting), and one in the future starring the sons and daughters from Zack and the others.
However, if the story map is really proving to be an issue, I believe I have a solution. A few days ago, I was thinking about creating a story called "Tales of Silver Lake", where I would use just the Silver Lake scenario and its cabins to write a few short stories with different characters, but I guess we could also use it to accomodate branches from At The Cabin that stray a little from the more traditional approach, such as henrytemp's horror story idea or my own absurd alternate plots. What do you guys think?
Sounds good to me too! I like the idea of a thread focusing on the rangers too -- I can imagine Jennifer, Colin, and Ryan investigating whatever horror that pervades Silver Lake in a thread.