Back to the way things were? Or...

[HorrorHiro]

This question works for any sort of Apocalyptic scenario, but regardless zombies or not eventually small pockets of humanity would be the only ones left. I think We're Alive is close to this point seeing as (from a broad perspective) things have gotten calmer and more routine, the dust has settled if you will. The survivors left in the story have carved out a place for themselves (in some cases literally) in this dystopian world that they all now call home. BUT! Humans are still humans, the same self-destructive species we were before the systems of the world crumbled into oblivion, and at this point most of the humans left are either self serving groups led by Tyrannical individuals (such as Gatekeeper, Marcus, and we don't have enough information on Durai or the Mallers and what they are doing to really place him in this category.) Either that of your on your own (yes the Tower is a self-serving group although not led by Tyranny and or corruption...yet,) and any group that doesn't fall into the standard self-serving hierarchical category are most likely Nomadic by nature of those who make up the group. But even with the human races numbers dwindling more and more these pockets of humanity still war with each other.
So my question is do YOU think that the human race will still ultimately be the cause of its own downfall? Or do you think that the human race would survive long enough regain a place on this planet again? I know we would all like to believe the latter but I think the lesser is much more likely.
And if humanity did survive long enough do you think that the governing ways that we are oppressed by today would be attempted again? OR! Do you think that more people would prefer living their lives in an Anarchistic "Free For All" anything goes AS LONG AS you let it go type of world/society and if so do you think that they would immediately forcefully oppose whatever governments were being built?

[HardKor]

Well this is certainly an interesting question. I guess the first place to start is question whether or not the cause of humanities initial downfall is still around. I’ll use the We’re Alive situation and assume that eventually the zombies will fade away (based on the weak zombies coming from Catalina it seems they are capable of starving to death so I’m just going to run with it and say they eventually all die off.) So the zombies are gone, maybe a year or two after the initial outbreak, and all that’s left are the remnants of humanity trying to carve out a new existence in the ruins of the old world.

My thoughts are that there are going to be multiple, isolated, pockets of survivors each making a new society for themselves. Some are going to be rather chaotic, looking to seize as much as they can from the ruins and building a “might makes right” philosophy. Personally this is how I interpret the Mallers. They spread themselves out to seize as much “territory” as possible while everyone fights for what they can get their hands on. Eventually the strong begin to separate themselves from the weak and subjugate them. Other groups are going to be led be strongman types and form a totalitarian system like we saw at the Colony. Scared people flock to a safe area for protection and end up going along to get along out of fear. Finally we have the example of the Tower. I think a lot of survivor groups would end up looking something like this. People come together for survival and end up trying to govern themselves in a sort of democratic style. Someone rises up to be the nominal leader but is really only holds the title as long as the group allows them to be. Meanwhile everyone does their best to pitch in to the best of their ability while sharing the supplies (I keep thinking 17th-18th Century pirates as I write this). It’s the type of system that works well on the small scale but has always seemed to fail in our current complex society.

I’ll wrap up this increasingly long post with the prospect that if humanity manages to survive and thrive once again, these beginnings of new societies will most likely expand and change to fit new situations. Basically we would probably see humanity start again and who knows what this new beginning will evolve into in another 10000 years.