Talk:Islandia (1983: Doomsday)

Population
You give the population of this island "nation" to be 3,513. This is on a coral island of just 6.5 (six and an half) square miles, or a population density of 585 persons per square mile. You state this is only on a portion of the island(s), which doesn't really make sense - every bit of the island(s) would have to be inhabited or crowding would begin to be a big problem to the regime.

Also, the population of the island after the two ships came ashore -- "approximately 810 people" - would probably not survive long on just the provisions onboard the two ships and in the cupboards of the three or four households on the islands. And what's with the "approximately 810"? You are writing the story, and exact numbers are just as easy to come upon (especially at such low numbers). Besides 810 is not quite an approximate figure. "Around 800" would be an approximation. I'm figuring that the 810 would be basically the crews of the two ships - most of them being on the cruise ship, of course.SouthWriter 17:09, July 13, 2010 (UTC)

Doomsday Survival
The Biscayne National Park, containing the town of Islandia, would have been outside of the blast zone of the largest probable yield of a direct hit on Miami. The fallout would not have settled on the islands in the park, but would have been blown northeast up the coast toward Ft. Lauderdale. There is a chance that some of the fallout from Key West or Havana may have settled on the keys - including those inside the park.

As for cruise ships surviving, it would depend on whether they were at sea at 9:00 pm on September 25, 1983. Chances are that any that were docked in Miami would have been destroyed. Most likely, however, on a Sunday evening all the ships would have been on their way to the Bahamas and other ports of call in the Caribbean. The probablilty of a ship returning to Miami and turning south to any port available that evening or in the days following is slim. If one was returning empty, after dropping its passengers safely in the Bahamas, it's skeleton crew would have probably numbered below a hundred and would not take its chances in the coral reefs off of Islandia.

The survival of eighteen people in TWO families is a bit odd. That would have had to have been two "extended" families that had since left the town by 2000 (pop. six, in one family and three households). I assume you are going on 1980 figures not available (so far) to my research. Are you sure about the "two families," or are you just guessing?

The housing for whoever ended up there would, most assuredly, be a problem. In 2000 there were five housing units, with two of them apparently empty. If these houses were there in 1983, then there could have been as many as five families averaging 3.5 persons per household. It is hard to imagine these households living in a failed town inside a national park, but it is possible. I suspect that there would not have been very many refugees taking to the islands since there was plenty of land in south Florida to which to flee (without having to find a boat).

After the South Florida War, though, there may have been loyalists that fleed to the islands (much like the Nationalist Chinese did to Taiwan). With very little resources, these people would have had to surrender, retaining 'sovereignty' at the mercy of the victors of that war (not a good situation for a military dictatorship [or stratocracy]). The whole scenario seems a bit forced, but perhaps it could work.SouthWriter 17:09, July 13, 2010 (UTC)