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If you had one cubic foot and ten years


rashore

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This hypothetical question was posed by a friend of mine recently....

 

Let's say there is an Apocalypse/survival/prepper/ whatever kind of situation going on. Ten years from now. You have no idea what to be prepared for, or whats coming, you are absolutely blind for what, only that the survival capsule will be necessary 10 years from now. You only know you must pack that one square cubic foot of space with as much survival and such gear that can pack up and survive a complete break down of society and services.

 

You cannot touch your survival capsule till that 10 year mark. You cannot dig in bunkers or otherwise build "man-structures" to expand your one square foot. You can put up a megalith, fast growing tree, or such kind of marker to show where your capsule is buried- but it's footprint cannot exceed a 5 foot square of foot print upon construction or planting.

 

Your capsule is completely water and air tight. It would be buried below frost and heat lines, lets say 2-4 deep. It is exactly one square cubic foot, of perfect cube dimensions.

 

If you could pack an optimal one cubic foot for the future "holy crap crap hit the fan" kind of situation.. what would you include?

Edited by rashore
fixed typo of square to cubic
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2 Stainless steel knives

2 Multi-tools

2 large Stainless steel pots

2 medium Stainless steel pots

2 Stainless steel canteens

5+ Flint based fire starters

Maybe some fishing hooks. Because if I can't catch fish I can use them to hook land animals. Plus depending on what type of end-o-word situation a lot of what I might need could/would be readily available.

The reason I chose those items was for very exact reason. The large pots are for boiling water, thus the fire starters. the knives are for whatever I need to use them for. The smaller pots would be useful for cooking food. Canteens for holding the boiled water after it cools. A multi-tool is an obviously useful item. Another perk is that I can fit all item together. The big pots, then the smaller ones, after that the knives, multi-tool, and fire starts would fit. 

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1.  Thermal blanket

2.  Multi-tool

3.  Duct-tape

4.  Fishing line & lure

5.  Handgun & a little extra ammo

6.  How to do just about anything (there's more than one edition so the most relevant survival version)

7. Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things

8.  I think that's a little less than 1 square foot so pack the rest with all the medicine/first aid stuff that will fit.

 

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I'd vary that as follows (and you'd be surprised what you can stuff into 1x1x1 feet - I'm assuming that's the size you mean:

1 Large knife
1 Swiss Army knife
1 Large multi-tool
Flint fire starters (or good quality lighters)
1 Small frypan
1 Small saucepan/pot
1 water container (optional - I reckon you'd find one pretty easily..)
1 Spool fishing line, range of hooks
1 Small First Aid Kit (must include a small bottle of liquid antiseptic)
1 Roll Duck/t Tape
1 (folding?) Solar panel (largest that will fit) with 12/9/6/5v output and lots of adapter plugs
1 Small Dynamo torch
2 Emergency 'camping blankets' (the thin, flat, folding mylar-plastic kind)
Pens and notepad

The solar charger may seem odd but there may still be communications around, and you would almost certainly be able to find a phone/radio as you scavenge.. but finding a charger for same may be the issue..

Oh, and I'd pack it all in microfibre cloths - as we all know, you will need a towel..

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I'd pack multiple copies of "How Not To Succumb To Paranoia"

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21 hours ago, Goodf3llow said:

Whiskey and Alicia Keys

Lol, gosh, I hope you mean her music, and not her. I don't think she would fare too well being compressed into a foot cube with a bottle of whiskey and buried for 10 years :lol:

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m41b.jpg

I don't know why I felt the need to give a visual aid to the topic at hand. Just figured I'd show the amount of space we're dealing with. Now if I had my way it would be bigger on the inside. lol

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Since other people have kicked in... I'll give my list.

 

A small seed bank. A 2 pound block of iodized white salt. A knife and leatherman. Small sharpening stone. A mini Altoids tin pack of fishing tackle. A 20 foot coil of microfiliment suspension wire, 20 pound strength. A 50 foot bobbin of nichrome filament. A 50 foot spool of 28 gauge coated wire. One dozen stainless steel 1" alligator clips. 24" multistrand wire cutting saw. Magnesium flint and steel set. Three space blankets. A set of pocket field guides- army survival guide with my own local field and stream notes inserted, recipe book of early settlement cooking and house management, and field medical with my inserted herbal medicine notes. A dozen stainless steel appetizer picks, modern minimalist style. Shepards Watch. Pocket compass. 4" quality spyglass. One half-gross of various sized stainless steel sewing needles. Two brass measuring calipers, one 4 inch, one 6 inch. One stainless steel folding yardstick. One stainless steel collapsible travel cup. One microfiber wash cloth.

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The original post said "one square foot"  not one cubic foot.  I would fill a page with geometry and platonic solid explanations and put it in Rashore's square foot.  At the bottom of the page I would give instructions to find the one cubic foot package of survival gear I left for him.

I would add some tools to the fine lists already composed: 2 ax heads, 2 hammer heads, saw blades, 1 shovel head, 1 pick,  magnifying glass, awl, needles and stout thread,and  seeds,  Xeno is on to something good, You could make a  1 cubic foot pot with lid, and one or two slightly smaller nesting pots. They would take up little room.

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4 minutes ago, rashore said:

Since other people have kicked in... I'll give my list.

 

A small seed bank. A 2 pound block of iodized white salt. A knife and leatherman. Small sharpening stone. A mini Altoids tin pack of fishing tackle. A 20 foot coil of microfiliment suspension wire, 20 pound strength. A 50 foot bobbin of nichrome filament. A 50 foot spool of 28 gauge coated wire. One dozen stainless steel 1" alligator clips. 24" multistrand wire cutting saw. Magnesium flint and steel set. Three space blankets. A set of pocket field guides- army survival guide with my own local field and stream notes inserted, recipe book of early settlement cooking and house management, and field medical with my inserted herbal medicine notes. A dozen stainless steel appetizer picks, modern minimalist style. Shepards Watch. Pocket compass. 4" quality spyglass. One half-gross of various sized stainless steel sewing needles. Two brass measuring calipers, one 4 inch, one 6 inch. One stainless steel folding yardstick. One stainless steel collapsible travel cup. One microfiber wash cloth.

giphy.gif

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4 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

The original post said "one square foot"  not one cubic foot.  I would fill a page with geometry and platonic solid explanations and put it in Rashore's square foot.  At the bottom of the page I would give instructions to find the one cubic foot package of survival gear I left for him.

I would add some tools to the fine lists already composed: 2 ax heads, 2 hammer heads, saw blades, 1 shovel head, 1 pick,  magnifying glass, awl, needles and stout thread,and  seeds,  Xeno is on to something good, You could make a  1 cubic foot pot with lid, and one or two slightly smaller nesting pots. They would take up little room.

Whoops, I did say square foot and not square cubic foot. My bad, I did mean a one square cubic foot box.

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Hmm... my one cubic foot would contain:

1 small hiking backpack (rolled up and tied up tightly)


1 Swiss Army Knife,   1 6'' Hunting knife 1 Skinning Knife  1 small drawknife

1 small whetstone

1  hatchet heat and 1 axe head (easy enough to make handles)

2 small files

1 pair of pliers and 1 multi-screwdriver

2 cooking pots (small and med)

2 plastic water bottles (filled with dried oats) and 2 empty waterskins

1 small firstaid kit

1 fire making kit.

1 package of seeds (a mix of the three sisters, and a variety of cold weather crops)

1 too map and compass of surrounding area

1 notepad and several pens

1 small thin but strong tarp

4 small coils of cord/thin rope

1 fishing kit and 1 small trapping kit (several coils of snare wire mainly)

1 set of gortex ranger (it's super lightweight, thin, strong, and can be rolled up to fit in a pocket). 1 toque and 1 pair of gloves. 1 pair of socks and 1 spare pair of underwear.

 

Finally, any extra space would be filled with high protein energy bars, bottles of vitamins, salt tablets, packages of sugar and salt, candies, tea and coffee (those individual serving packages), ziplock bags of dried lentils, and plastic bags.

 

Well I think that covers everything I could/would want to pack in there (it'd take me a couple hours but I could make it all fit).

 

Edited by Bavarian Raven
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About 16 bottles of fine Scotch and a pack of cards, then I could trade and play for whatever I want and still have 3 or 4 bottles left over.

Edited by Likely Guy
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Gold and silver, and buy what I need from other survivors. If no one else survived? Then the odds are I wouldn't either.

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One bottle of Crown Royal, one of Pusser's rum, 200 Marlboro. And a rope, for when they ran out. 

Edit, and a packet of Scampi Fries.

Edited by oldrover
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If I had a cubic foot I'd see a doctor about it.

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Heirloom seeds of as many varieties as I could find, especially garlic.  A collapsible 22 rifle.  Flint & magnesium chips.  Yes, sewing needles straight and curved.  Dissolvable suture thread .  As many iodine bottles that would fill the rest of the empty space after I packed in a bunch of 22 bullets.  And a Bible, including copies of the Gnostic Gospels missing from it.  And if any room was left, an axe head, sharp.

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30cm isn't very big to put survival stuff in. Knives, flint/steel, thermal blanket, ultralight all-weather sleeping bag, mosquito net, manual water filter that is good to 0.01 microns (for filtering out viruses. I actually already own one of these), a set of ultralight clothing for all weather, imperishable food (pressed berry cakes, pemmican, dried dandelion roots), seeds for native edibles (plantains, blue camas, pineapple weed, wild rose, etc), a notebook, pencils, compass, water desalinator, collapsible fishing rod, a lot of different fishing lures, several hundred metres of extra fishing line, a machete (for utility and combat), compression sacks (to make everything fit), a small metal pot, siltarps, nylon rope, and a plastic water bladder (without water in it).

Edited by Podo
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