One of the things that's come to light recently is the first trailer for a brand new TV show called "Revolution".  It's an interesting and timely idea (but not unique, as others have done this before) where something happens that brings down the power.  But what's most interesting about it is the way the power is brought down.  Sure, it's a world as we know it ending disaster (but that's what makes them so much fun to write about, isn't it? ), however, when the dust settles and everyone is back to a stable level of living, somewhat akin to what our ancestors dealt with in the early 1800's, that's when things get interesting.

According to the trailer (linked above) there is the initial "crash" period where the lights go off.  What's most intriguing about this not that they go off, but how they do.  From what I can see, they use a failure, but not overly used idea of a jamming field.  Some would call it a dampening field, but either way, it works the same.  My guess (and I haven't seen the show yet, so I'm only guessing based on the trailer) is that someone was after absolute power, and the only way to get that was to drive everyone back to a more simplistic form of living.  IE, a handful of peasants with limited resources are easy to control.

But the politics behind it are not the big issue here.  Doing politics is easy (heavens, we're surrounded by them every day), but doing the other things are not.  The first thing they get right about the outage is that (given this is a man made dampening field) planes will start falling out of the sky, trains stop, lights go out, batteries no longer work (that's obvious given that this is a jamming field, so even simple circuits wouldn't work, unlike in a post emp/cme event) and so on.  Overall I like how they did that part as it would be quite accurate to the means by which the power goes out.

Now, fast forward 15 years (per the trailer) and you see an interesting adaptation that the suburbians have done.  First off, the entire street has been reduced to dirt.  IE, all concrete, blacktop, etc, is gone.  I don't figure that'll happen in real life if such a thing occurred, simply because concrete would be too useful.  Plus, who wants a muddy village center?  They would only remove it if it became so damaged that it was better to have dirt than pavement.  The part they did right, which I agree with, is that they turned every square inch of tillable ground into garden.  Front yards, back yards, side notes, all of it dedicated to growing food.

The only catch is, it's only enough food for basic family needs, and not enough for the larger picture.  If you watch the trailer a bit further you notice that they resolve this by adding fields.  You also notice that these fields are where houses once stood.  Yes, that was a burb.  Was, being the key word.  In real life if a disaster like this struck, that's exactly what would happen.  But in the end, they salvage spare parts and all the materials they'd need to survive by stripping those houses, and they'd get usable farmland.

They also start raising animals to provide other means of food and resources.  A very smart move in my opinion, and something to think about for your book and your characters.  IE, How will they survive, and what will they bring to the bigger picture?  What will they have to do food and resource wise to achieve a reliable, livable lifestyle.  Another thing to take note of in the trailer is that the houses, once bastions of modernity, are quickly (well, over 15 years) transformed into the more traditional early 1800's style homes as far as functionality goes.

Starting at the 2:07 point, pay close attention to the houses.  See the smoke coming out of the chimneys?  Notice that it's the middle of summer?  That tells me they've converted their homes to wood powered cooking and heating, another thing that'll happen in the aftermath of such a disaster, as all other sources of heat and cooking are finite, and would quickly run out, whereas wood is a renewable resource.  So remember that when working with anything in your books.  Most modern resources are finite.  They're designed to be that way.  So keep that in mind.  Renewable resources and semi-renewable (such as metal and wood) also have to be kept in balance, as they're not limitless and take a lot of energy to process.

Another thing they bring up is that militias and warlords rose up.  That is a very accurate portrayal of what would happen.  Like your country's constitution?  Kiss it goodbye.  Enjoy your freedom?  Wave goodbye to it the moment the lights go out, because all that will go out the door.  Take a look at Somalia, or Serbia or any other area where law and order have broken down.  It's not long before a warlord controlled fiefdom system emerges with the most powerful men taking full control.  The trailer shows some of this power being exercised ruthlessly.  Again, it's something we may not want, but it will happen in that type of scenario.

Something else to keep an eye on is the incredible amount of growth shown in the trailers that overgrow urban centers.  Depending on the degree to which the area is inhabited, that may or may not happen.  In cases like Chernobyl, the amount of growth is incredible, only because the area is completely uninhabited.  But even that growth is limited by the buildings, streets, etc.  Another example of urban growth is in Flint and Detroit Michigan.  It's still quite prevalent, but it's somewhat stunted due to human intervention.  So when looking for ideas and inspirations for how far nature would have gone to reclaim the land in your story, keep those two in mind.

The trailer also takes a quick snapshot look at urban centers and how they'd evolve into functioning cities similar to what our ancestors saw in the late 1700's, early 1800's.  Overall I think they'll give a reasonably faithful showing to the survival genre, but as with anything Hollywood, it's going to have its moments of pure entertainment nonsense.  Even so, I think this show will provide a nice idea engine for those of us who are writing in the survival genre.  So I look forward to this series this fall.  I just hope it doesn't suffer the same fate as Jericho.