1. SURVIVOR
The survivor assignment depicts an apocalypse scenario where the entire planet’s
population is wiped out by the avian flu, except for thirteen people. After arriving at a bunker,
their plan is to outlive the virus, which would take around two years. However, there are only
enough supplies for four people to survive the two year wait. The bunker includes a sewage
system, water, seeds, some clothes, a few books, medical facilities but no operating material,
and a greenhouse. Among the people inside the bunker are a scientist, a priest, a married drug-
addicted hippie couple, a single pregnant mom with a five-year-old daughter, an army officer
with a mental instability, an elderly woman, a disabled person, a lawyer, a lazy welfare
dependent, a doctor, and a university professor. Other than the pregnant woman, her
daughter, and the elderly woman, there were no genders assigned to the people in the bunker
so we were able to choose them ourselves. The same rule goes for the specific occupations,
such as the doctor and the scientist, we could choose what they specialized in. For the most
part, I feel like our group chose the right people, with a few minor adjustments. We decided to
keep the scientist, the doctor, the single pregnant woman, and the university professor. We
decided to keep the genders equal, having two men and two women so the pregnant woman
and the scientist were the two females and the the doctor and university professor were the
two males. We chose to make the scientist a botanist, that way they could specialize in taking
care of the greenhouse, growing food and such. We wanted to keep the doctor a general doctor
so they would know how to take care of a broad and general area of situations. We decided to
make the university professor an engineering professor so they could specialize in building
things and making sure the bunker functioned correctly. We decided to keep the pregnant
2. woman alive because she has proved that she can reproduce and is already a mother so she can
take care of the children while they repopulate the world. Among the people we decided to
sacrifice were the priest, the married hippie couple, the five-year-old girl, the army officer, the
elderly woman, the lawyer, and the lazy welfare dependent. We chose to sacrifice the priest
because we thought he didn’t serve as much as a function and it was a necessary sacrifice. The
hippie drug addicts weren’t going to make it because they were drug addicted and couldn’t be
trusted. The five-year-old girl had to go because we already had our four people we were
keeping alive. Looking back on it now, it was probably a bad idea sacrificing the little girl and
separating the mother from her but oh well, that’s what we chose and we’re sticking to our
guns. We chose to terminate the army officer because he had a mental instability, which we
thought was something significant that would threaten the rest of the group, however, it was
pointed out in class that it simply could have been dyslexia, which wouldn’t have been a big
deal. The elderly woman definitely had to go because she didn’t serve much of a purpose and
she was already getting close to her time anyway. We sacrificed the disabled person because
being disabled would limit what they could do and we only had room for four people so we had
to sacrifice them. The same goes for the lawyer, we had to sacrifice people and they didn’t
make the cut. Lastly, the lazy welfare dependent had to go because you can’t be lazy and
depend on others during the apocalypse, you have to pull your own weight, so they had to go.
Overall, I thought this was a fun assignment and it really made you think and look at things
differently. I wouldn’t mind doing more activities like this one.
