What to do with the dead (Split from Cemeteries in T2K)

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by kato13

People are forgetting the kinda gross but nonetheless productive options.

Making soap
Turing into compost.
Feeding to pigs.

Soap making? Well you need lye or the equivalent to make. The old method was wood ashes. If you have wood for fire, you could cremate the cadaver? But I'd go for that one probabley in theroy if not in practice. At least not in the current mind set.

Compost.. Meat does NOT compost well and takes a relative long time compared to plants. The large bones would have to be fired to turn into the useable minerals too I think. A very LONG term solution as well as smelly. You're in theroy still burying them.

NO on feeding the pigs. Hogs are suseptable to many/most of the disease and parasites humans are. IF you contaminate the food source it WILL come back and bite you. Now IF the community is that depraved, I can see them eating 'long pork' directly, and instead of making soap they make soup.

[Legbreaker]

Theres a problem with mass graves.
They take a hell of a lot of manpower, fuel and or time to dig.

In areas of higher death toll, bodies may be simply hauled away into the nearby forest and left. If near a river or the ocean, tossing them in might be a common disposal method.

Only where food, fuel and labour are in relatively good supply would proper burials (mass or individual) actually take place. Cremation is an option that might also see more use as you only need a pile of wood, actual size of the pile varied by number of "burials".

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Theres a problem with mass graves.
They take a hell of a lot of manpower, fuel and or time to dig.

In areas of higher death toll, bodies may be simply hauled away into the nearby forest and left. If near a river or the ocean, tossing them in might be a common disposal method.

Only where food, fuel and labour are in relatively good supply would proper burials (mass or individual) actually take place. Cremation is an option that might also see more use as you only need a pile of wood, actual size of the pile varied by number of "burials".

One method would be to place the bodies in a building your going to demolish anyway and burn them there with combustables. Or placed in cellars and burn the building on top of them. This would be for mass burials though as I feel most individual deaths within a family/group would be still dug out of respect for the group. (or burned, what ever their custom at the time is)

[Legbreaker]

Absolutely. It's a technique often used in games I play in - when we bother to do anything beyond leave them laying where they fall (after they've been stripped of course).

[Rainbow Six]

I always assumed that an effort would be made to get rid of corpses to prevent the spread of disease.

Always thought the easiest way to achieve this would be mass burnings?

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Theres a problem with mass graves.
They take a hell of a lot of manpower, fuel and or time to dig.

It takes some motivated people, a hell of a time, and some kind of motivation for the guys doing the job: either higher pay or threat of their own death. I think that the higher pay would be the best way to achieve that. Mass Graves were used to burry corps during the great plague

However, I found something interesting that we entirely forgot. That was a common way of getting rid of the corps during the great epidemics of the Middle Ages, and I'm sure that this will be used again: You let the raven do the job for you. Then, I never thought of this but raven's population might be growing tremendously in T2K.

[kalos72]

A creative idea for mass graves...

Why not use them to mark your outer perimeter...a 20 foot wide ditch filled with decaying bodies is sure to make the average refugee or marauder question is this is such a good idea.

My group came up with this last night....they will use a ditch line across parts of Jersey to keep people from crossing and on any bridge they dont want access to.

Walking across a 1000m bridge stacked 3 deep with bodies will have a similar effect.

Of course, smell is an issue. How far can you smell a pile of dead bodies?

[jester]

You can smell dead bodies pretty far in warmer weather. And you are going to dig a trench? Mass grave.


I suggested in the cemetary string,

Abandoned mine shafts or caves or holes, even abandoned wells. Basements and cellars of old demolished buildings, sewers, turning them into a sort of crypt. As Grae said buildings that are ruined and then just burn them, a small gully or depression is good, all you have to do is cover it.

At sea or at lake if its a LARGE body of water, just make sure you put them in a proper container and weight. This was done after the Super Huricane that devestated Galveston in the 1920s. They took the bodies out to sea and dumped them. However, they were not tied to weights, so many came back on the tide.

If you have a large enough flowing river, send them down stream and let someone else worry about it. Although this could contaminate your water supply.

Those are the only quick and easy options I can think of.

Where it is practical to dig a mass trench style grave in my view would be in a sandy desert where the digging is easy, or in a arctic enviroment where it never melts, although this could be difficult as well. Another fairly easy way is to burry them in rocks, it is easier than digging and a bit quicker.


Or, build a wooden platform and leave them like the early native american custom and as they do in india. Just wrap them and put them on a platform exposed to the elements.

Burning could be easier if you had a good supply of say grass or reeds you could make bundles and continuously place bundles of them for fuel. When you have the platform filled with people you light it and have a mass burning. The downside, will it be enough to burn the remains?

[kalos72]

Your kinda missing my point...

If people dont want to exert the energy for mass graves...just stack them up on a bridge or across some county line to deter people from crossing into your territory. Two birds..one body.

As for the actual need for mass graves, I dont see much of a need normally. You wont find hundreds of people dead in the same spot often. Maybe a large group of refugees?

But they would most likely be strung out over a few miles...so unless its across your pasture, who cares?

In a more urban environment, if people start dieing off, most likely from lack of food, most people will move to another location rather then just sitting down and dieing. Again, another location means who cares?

[jester]

Okay Vlad the Impaler

One problem with that is disease, as well as the wicked smell that will make you wretch. And imagine the clouds of flies and of course attracting vermin and predators that will develope a taste for human flesh. That is what is dangerous when animals start to look at people as a food source rather than looking at them with fear. Alot of dangers doing it that way.

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by kalos72

A creative idea for mass graves...

Why not use them to mark your outer perimeter...a 20 foot wide ditch filled with decaying bodies is sure to make the average refugee or marauder question is this is such a good idea.

My group came up with this last night....they will use a ditch line across parts of Jersey to keep people from crossing and on any bridge they dont want access to.

Walking across a 1000m bridge stacked 3 deep with bodies will have a similar effect.

Of course, smell is an issue. How far can you smell a pile of dead bodies?

Why not build a wall out of them, work for the 300

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Spread out the bodies enough (or if you really have a lot of them), and you will, after 3 years or so, have rich farmland!

Originally Posted by rcaf_777

Why not build a wall out of them, work for the 300

I was thinking once the bodies had decayed down to the bones, they could be used as field boundaries and walls....

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Originally Posted by Graebarde

Soap making? Well you need lye or the equivalent to make. The old method was wood ashes. If you have wood for fire, you could cremate the cadaver? But I'd go for that one probabley in theroy if not in practice. At least not in the current mind set.

Compost.. Meat does NOT compost well and takes a relative long time compared to plants. The large bones would have to be fired to turn into the useable minerals too I think. A very LONG term solution as well as smelly. You're in theroy still burying them.

NO on feeding the pigs. Hogs are suseptable to many/most of the disease and parasites humans are. IF you contaminate the food source it WILL come back and bite you. Now IF the community is that depraved, I can see them eating 'long pork' directly, and instead of making soap they make soup.

Plus the use of humans as food could open up another can of worms,
the human equivalent of "Mad Cow Disease" or it is sometimes known as Crutzfield-Jakob's Syndome, IIRC.

I think you'd most likely see mass graves and if there is fuel to run them, mostly likely steam shovels, backhoes and bulldozers would be used.

Chuck

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by Nowhere Man 1966

Plus the use of humans as food could open up another can of worms, the human equivalent of "Mad Cow Disease" or it is sometimes known as Crutzfield-Jakob's Syndome, IIRC.

There is no such risk. You are right that a similar disease existed among canibals in Papua New Guinea (it is named "Kuru") but that was never due to eating human flesh. It was the result of populations eating human brains and viscera: warriors eating brains and women eating viscera (actually women developped it more often than men).

From what I know it was studied by an Australian scientist (If the Australians around can give him the proper credit please, I don't recall his name) who actually warned the western world about Creutzfeld-Jacobs long before the disease induce by cow appeared.

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Originally Posted by Mohoender

There is no such risk. You are right that a similar disease existed among canibals in Papua New Guinea (it is named "Kuru") but that was never due to eating human flesh. It was the result of populations eating human brains and viscera: warriors eating brains and women eating viscera (actually women developped it more often than men).

From what I know it was studied by an Australian scientist (If the Australians around can give him the proper credit please, I don't recall his name) who actually warned the western world about Creutzfeld-Jacobs long before the disease induce by cow appeared.

That's true, I forgot about the brain matter being the harbor of Mad Cow/CJ.

Chuck

[jester]

Damn Mo! I thought I was the only one who used Kuru over Jabob Crutchfields disease! For the same reason you stated.

I would also note that, it is not just brain matter but ALL nerve tissue, but mostly brains and spinal tissue.

But that also brings up another issue.

Not just mad cow disease, but also any number of other other livestock diseases that could either be passed to humans.


And of course we could have,

SOILENT GREEN!!!!!!

[Mohoender]

I came across it a few years ago because of a TV report on it. Then, I became curious.

[jester]

Originally Posted by Mohoender

I came across it a few years ago because of a TV report on it. Then, I became curious.

Oh, we studied it in anthropology class in college. One woman an older one even discussed how they used to skin and dress their meals.