I'm a survivor

Scenario:
You survived a war or natural disaster that wipes out a signficant percentage of the earth's population. The destruction was immense. If you were to make a decision for your co-survivors and yourself, give the TOP THREE (3) things (aspects, etc.) that you would re-establish and develop first to make life sustainable again.

My answer:

I survived a natural disaster. Let's just say this disaster was an earthquake.

The earthquake was intense and it was so strong that it wiped out majority of the population of the Earth. Turns out, I survived it. If I were to choose the TOP 3 things I would re-establish and develop first to make life sustainable again, I'd choose...

1.) Agriculture

Why I'd focus on agriculture because first, it would be the source of our food and livestock. It would be the source of life. Without food, we'd weaken, resulting to our death.

2.) Education

I chose education to be one of the aspects so that people who survived could start a new beginning in their lives. With education, we could learn new things which would eventually lead us into starting businesses, setting up buildings, etc. We could teach each other to propagate food for the survival of each individual. Education is important.

3.) Infrastructure

Why infrastructure? The earthquake must have destroyed almost everything, and to develop life again, we need infrastructure to start businesses, education, families, transportation, etc. It covers almost everything we need to sustain life once more.

The Nine Billion Names Of God (Reaction Paper)

Who knew that God could have nine billion names? The Tibetan monks in Arthur C. Clarke's story did. The Nine Billion Names Of God.

Summary

Basically, the story is about these Tibetan monks who try to find out the nine billionth name of God because if they do so, their belief is that the world would end. No theories of science, no scientific principles and mathematical equations, they just believe it would. The only science I've found in the story is the Mark V. The Mark V is a computer which the monks used to find out God's nine billionth name. to do so, they hired engineers to do the job for them. Eventually it worked, they did find out God's nine billionth name and the world came to an end.

My Insight

I think it's WEAK Science Fiction because the author failed to explain where the Science is in the context. The fact that the world would end without any scientific explanation makes it weak.

The Nine Billion Names Of God (Group Blog)

Members:
1. EJ "Porbs" Lagman
2. Nikka Ramos
3. Patricia Lacap
4. Nikee De Guzman
5. Chinchin Suarez


The powerpoint presentation for our report could be found here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/60782306/scifict

Introduction

Our group reported on the short story of Arthur C. Clarke. The story is basically about these Tibetan monks trying to find out the 9 billionth name of God because they believe that when they do, the world would eventually come to an end. In order to do so, they hired engineers to program the Mark V. Good news is, it worked. Bad news, the end of the world came to be. This blog entry contains the evaluation for the short story -- whether we classify it as good or weak SciFi, our short, individual insights, and our conclusion.
----------

Individual Insights

Patricia Lacap: I think it's weak SciFi­ ­ because the story is not plausible) and it exaggerated the ending of the story.­ ­

Nikee De Guzman: I say it's weak scifi. The story was good but based on our theme its pretty weak, due to exaggeration of apocalypse (making the story weak) and lack of basis and facts for possible apocalypse.

Nikka Ramos: I too, say it's weak SciFi. It lacks scientific basis on the short story and it lacks detail on the apocalypse.

EJ Lagman: Weak SciFi. I expected more from Arthur C. Clarke. The world won't just end because you found out the 9 billionth name of God. It doesn't make sense.

Chin-Chin Suarez: I see it as weak SciFi because the story was exaggerated on how the monks see the Apocalypse.

Our Take On The Story (Conclusion)

Generally, the group would conclude that the short story is of WEAK SCIFI because as to our theme (Apocalyptic) it falls short on details and we see that how the author ended the story is quite exaggerated. You find out the 9 billionth name of God and *poof* the end of the world happens? It lacks scientific proof and principles which makes it weak for us.