Day Zero booklet

Toswo is an artificial intelligence centre that monitors AI risk. Day Zero is the part of the site for the worst case that monitoring cannot prevent: an AI-related crisis that gets out of control and takes away the systems people rely on, such as power, networks, payments, logistics and information. It is a plan for that day, written calmly.

We do not know if or when this will happen. Most AI incidents recorded so far are small and local. Day Zero exists the way a fire exit exists: you hope never to use it, and it is much easier to find before the alarm.

Why an AI centre has this section

An organisation that tells people when AI systems fail should also tell them what to do when failure is not small. That is the only reason this section exists. It is not a general survival site. For floods, storms, earthquakes and ordinary outages, use your government's emergency service and the Red Cross or Ready.gov first; many of our guides help there too, but they were not written for that.

What we mean by an "uncontrolled AI crisis"

No single event. It is a family of situations, in rough order of how plausible they are today:

1. A large AI-assisted cyberattack on infrastructure, causing days or weeks of power or network outages.
2. A cascading failure of AI-dependent services (cloud, payments, logistics), so shops, cash machines and deliveries stop for a while.
3. A flood of false information that makes it hard to know what is true during an emergency.
4. Autonomous or "agentic" systems acting outside their limits, with sudden economic or operational shocks.
5. The worst case, loss of control of very advanced AI. This is hypothetical. No household can solve it by preparing; what protects people is that others work on AI safety, and what Day Zero can do is keep knowledge, people and small groups able to recover.

What each one would mean for you, and what helps.

What is known and what is not

• Many AI researchers and company leaders signed the one-sentence Statement on AI Risk in 2023: that reducing the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside pandemics and nuclear war. Others think the concern is overstated. We do not claim to settle that.
• The International AI Safety Report treats loss of control as a hypothetical scenario, and at the time of its 2026 edition reported that fully autonomous, end-to-end cyberattacks had not been seen, while criminals and state groups already use AI to help with attacks.
• So the honest position is: uncertain, low-probability for the severe cases, worth cheap preparation.

What Day Zero is not

• Not a prediction and not a reason to panic. Nothing here says a crisis is near.
• Not a replacement for emergency services. Where they work, call them first.
• Not medical advice. See how these guides are reviewed.

What you get

1. An offline copy of knowledge on a drive you can read without the internet: medicine, water, food, tools, mathematics, science, maps. See Downloads.
2. A timeline so you always know the next job: the first 72 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 6 months, one year.
3. A shopping list to build before it happens: what to store.
4. A way to work with other people: groups and teamwork and finding other groups.
5. Honest limits: what an offline archive can rebuild, and what it cannot.
6. A rehearsal: the weekend drill.
7. Answers in plain language: the Day Zero questions, and how this compares with other resources.

How it connects to the monitor

The AI risk monitor shows today's level and every event behind it. Day Zero is for what to do if events escalate past what monitoring can contain. Most days you will only need the monitor. If you only do one thing, download the kit once while the internet works, and check it again each month.

The order of priorities

Every plan in these guides follows what kills people fastest:

1. Injury and exposure (hours)
2. Water (days)
3. Sanitation and disease (days to weeks)
4. Food (weeks)
5. Shelter and fuel (weeks, sooner in winter)
6. People: organisation, trust, rest (always)
7. Tools, trade and knowledge (months to years)

When you do not know what to do next, ask which of these is least secure and fix that.

Check people and injuries, secure drinking water (about 4 litres per person per day), stay warm and dry, avoid risks, and find your household and neighbours. Do the same steps in the same order, calmly, and write them down.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

The first three days decide most outcomes. Do the same things in the same order, calmly, and write them down.

Hour 0 to 3: stop, check, gather

1. Check people. Everyone present, children and older people first. Treat injuries (see the medicine guide).
2. Check the danger. Fire, gas smell, flooding, unsafe buildings. If unsafe, leave and go to your agreed meeting point.
3. Fill every container with water now, while the taps still work: bathtubs, pots, bottles, clean buckets. Water often stops before anything else.
4. Charge what you can while there is power: phones, power banks, radios, torches.
5. Take cash and documents out: ID, medical records, medicine lists, property papers, a paper map.
6. Do not spend the first hours on the internet. If it works, use it for news and for the downloads you did not make; if not, switch to a battery or hand-crank radio.

Water

• Amount: plan at least 4 litres per person per day (about 2 to drink and cook, 2 for washing). Children, pregnant women and hot weather need more. Store at least 14 days if you can.
• Make unsafe water safe, in this order of preference:
  1. Boil. A rolling boil for 1 minute (3 minutes above 2,000 m). Let it cool covered.
  2. Bleach. Plain household bleach (5 to 9% sodium hypochlorite, no scent, no additives): 2 drops per litre of clear water, double for cloudy water, stir, wait 30 minutes. It should smell faintly of chlorine afterwards.
  3. Sunlight. Clear plastic (PET) bottles, filled with clear water and left in full sun for 6 hours (2 days if cloudy). Recommended by the World Health Organization for emergencies.
  4. Filters. Ceramic or hollow-fibre filters remove most bacteria and protozoa; boil or treat as well if viruses are a risk.
• Cloudy water: let it settle and pour it through a clean cloth first. Disinfection works badly in muddy water.
• Never drink water from places where sewage, chemicals or dead animals may have entered, even boiled.

Shelter and warmth

• Stay in your home if it is safe: it is already shelter and it is where your family will look for you.
• Keep one warm room. Close off the rest. Layers, hats and blankets matter more than heating.
• Never burn charcoal, run a generator, a grill or a camp stove indoors. Carbon monoxide has no smell and kills in hours.

Food in the first days

Eat what spoils first: fridge, then freezer (a closed freezer keeps food frozen for about 48 hours), then dry goods. Do not open the freezer more than needed.

Hygiene

Wash hands with soap and treated water before eating and after the toilet. Bury waste at least 30 m from water sources and 15 cm deep if there is no sewage service.

Talking and finding each other

Agree two meeting points in advance (near home and outside your neighbourhood) and one person outside your area everyone calls. Leave notes. See the communication guide.

Do this today, while the internet works

• Download the offline kit and keep it on a drive.
• Print this guide and the medicine guide.
• Store water, and know how you will treat more.

Days 4 to 7 turn survival into stability: two independent water sources treated every time, a latrine 30 m from water, one warm dry room, an eaten-first food plan, and a daily meeting with a written log.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

The first 72 hours are about staying alive. Days 4 to 7 are about making the place you are in safe to stay in. Write the plan on paper and tick it off.

Day 1 to 3 (short version)

Check people, water, warmth and shelter, then find the others near you. Count what you have: water, food, medicine, fuel, tools.

Day 4: water for the long run

• Aim for 4 litres per person per day for drinking and cooking, more for hot weather and for anyone ill. Washing comes after.
• Find two independent sources: rain collection, a stream, a well, a spring. Water from rivers and ponds needs treating every time.
• Treat: boil for 1 minute (3 minutes above 2000 m), or filter through cloth then add unscented household bleach (2 drops per litre, wait 30 minutes), or use a sand-and-charcoal filter and then boil.
• Keep drinking water in clean closed containers, separate from washing water.

Day 5: sanitation, the thing people skip

Disease from bad water and waste kills more people than hunger in the first months.

• A latrine at least 30 m from any water, downhill if possible, with a lid or covering of earth or ash after each use.
• Hand washing station (a container with a tap or a hole, soap or ash) next to the latrine and where food is prepared.
• Burn or bury rubbish. Keep food covered. Do not let waste water run toward your water source.
• Anyone with diarrhoea drinks oral rehydration solution (1 litre clean water, 6 level teaspoons sugar, half a teaspoon salt). See medicine.

Day 6: shelter, fuel and food

• Choose one warm, dry, defensible room or building for sleeping. Make it draught-free and dry before you make it comfortable.
• Count fuel. Plan cooking for one fire a day. Cook in batches. Use a hay box or a wrapped pot to keep food hot.
• Eat the perishable food first (fresh, chilled, thawed), then tins, then dry staples. Do not waste a thawed freezer; cook and share it or dry/smoke it.
• Write the food list with dates and the ration per day. Plan so that the total lasts, not so that everyone is full on day one.

Day 7: the group

• Meet everyone around you. Ask what each person can do: medical, building, farming, repair, cooking, teaching, radio.
• Agree who decides what (see teamwork), a daily meeting time, a watch rota, and a simple rule for sharing.
• Make the first map: water, shelter, shops and workshops, fuel, farmland, hazards, other groups.
• Start the written log: date, weather, supplies, who did what, problems. It is how the group remembers.

End of week one: check yourselves

1. Everyone has clean water and a latrine and a hand-washing place?
2. Everyone has somewhere dry to sleep and warmth?
3. Food counted and ration set?
4. Injured and sick looked after?
5. A way to know what the others are doing (meetings, signals, radio)?

Any "no" is the job for tomorrow. Next: the first 30 days.

In week two build a routine and quarantine the sick. In weeks three and four plant fast crops, cut firewood for next winter, repair shelter, and start teaching each other. End the month with a second water source, a working latrine and a counted food store.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

After a week you are no longer in the emergency. The aim of the first month is routine: every day needs the same few jobs done by the same people.

Week 2: build routine

• A daily timetable: water, cooking, cleaning, watch, repairs, rest, meeting. Rotate hard jobs.
• Sleep. People who sleep badly make bad decisions. Keep night watch short and shared.
• A health check once a day: wounds, fever, diarrhoea, feet, teeth, mood.
• Quarantine anyone with a contagious illness in a separate room with one carer.

Week 2 to 3: food that is not stored food

• Plant what grows fast first: radishes (3 to 4 weeks), lettuce and leafy greens, beans and peas in the right season, potatoes and onions from what you have. Sow where it gets 6+ hours of sun and where you can water.
• Seeds: use what you have stored, what shops had, what you can save. Keep a few of every plant for seed. Do not eat all your seed potatoes or beans.
• Preserve surplus: dry (sun, air, a low fire), salt, smoke, ferment (cabbage, vegetables), pickle in vinegar. See food and agriculture.
• Protein: beans and lentils, eggs, small animals, fishing and trapping. Learn the local laws and the local risks; poisonous plants and mushrooms are a real danger. Do not eat a plant you cannot identify with certainty.

Week 3: shelter and fuel for the coming season

• Repair roofs and windows. Insulate one room well rather than many badly.
• Firewood takes months to dry. Cut, split and stack now for the next winter and keep a year ahead as soon as you can.
• A safe stove or fireplace with a working chimney; carbon monoxide kills. Never burn charcoal or fuel in a closed room.

Week 4: tools and salvage

• Make a list of every tool and who knows how to use it. Sharpen, oil and repair before you need them.
• Start the salvage clock: what is useful but will not last (tinned food, fuel, medicine, batteries) is used or secured first; what lasts (metal, tools, books, glass, cloth, seeds) is collected carefully.
• Set up a workshop corner: vice, files, hammer, saws, drills, nails and screws, wire, cordage.
• Begin to teach each other: first aid, water treatment, knots, fire-making. A skill held by one person is a risk.

End of the month

Look at the whole list again:

1. Water: a second source and rain collection.
2. Waste: a working latrine, clean kitchen.
3. Food: the garden planted, a preservation routine, a count of stored supply with weeks left.
4. Fuel: wood for 3 months drying.
5. People: a group that meets, a record that is kept, someone else you can trade or share information with.

Next: the first 6 months.

Plan calories first (grain, potatoes, beans, roots), compost and rotate, preserve the harvest at once, stack firewood for the whole winter, keep a medical log, and trade fairly with neighbouring groups.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

By month two the stored food starts running out. Months 2 to 6 decide whether the group feeds itself through the next winter.

Food: one real growing season

• Plan calories first: potatoes, wheat, barley, oats, rye, maize, beans, squash, root vegetables. Greens give vitamins but not enough energy.
• Rule of thumb: a person needs roughly 2,000 to 2,500 kcal a day. One adult needs the produce of about 500 to 1,000 m² of well-managed intensive beds with grain or potatoes as the base, much more with dry-land grain. Start with beds you can manage; expand each season.
• Compost everything. Rotate crops. Mulch to hold water. Save seed from your best plants every year.
• Keep chickens, rabbits or goats only if you can feed them without taking food from people.
• Preserve the harvest the day it comes: drying racks, salt, smoking, root cellar, jars sealed with salt or vinegar. See food and agriculture.
• Seeds you save from open-pollinated varieties grow true; seeds from hybrids do not. See what to store.

Health

• Keep a medical log: who has what, doses, expiry. Plan for childbirth, broken bones, dental pain and chronic illness: these are the things that go wrong.
• Vaccination, antibiotics, insulin and dialysis cannot be replaced: use stock carefully for the people who need them most, and plan for the day it ends.
• Practice hygiene as culture: washing hands, safe cooking, clean water. It saves more lives than any medicine you hold.

Shelter and energy

• Stock firewood for the full winter before autumn. Insulate and repair.
• Small solar panels with a battery run lights, a radio and a reader (see reader power). A water wheel or wind pump is a project, not a task for week one.

Skills and tools

• Learn and teach: basic carpentry, sewing, leatherwork, pottery, simple blacksmithing, soap, rope, brick or cob building. Each one makes the group less dependent on dwindling salvage.
• Children and teenagers learn alongside: reading, mathematics, practical work. Education is part of survival, not a luxury.

Trade, other groups and travel

• Make contact with neighbouring groups. Agree on peaceful trade and information sharing: water sources, disease, hazards, seeds, skills.
• Take care with strangers: meet in the open, keep weapons out of sight but ready, never walk alone. Be fair; reputation lasts longer than any stock.
• A market day with simple barter (labour, tools, seed, food, cloth) rebuilds trust and gets scarce skills moving.

Check at six months

1. A first harvest in, stored, and enough planned to last the winter.
2. Fuel stacked, shelter sound.
3. Everyone's health known; medicine rationed on a plan.
4. Tools repaired; at least two people for every key skill.
5. Neighbours known, and a way to warn each other.

Next: the first year.

A year is one full cycle: plant, grow, harvest, store, endure winter, plant again. By the end you should have two harvests of seed, a root cellar, sustainable wood and clay supplies, trained helpers for each skill, and written agreements with neighbours.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

A year is one full cycle: plant, grow, harvest, store, endure the winter, plant again. If a group completes that, it is stable. This guide is about what to have by the end.

Food that repeats

• Two harvests' worth of seed saved and stored in more than one place.
• A root cellar or a dry store for grain, tubers, beans; cured, dried, fermented foods for the winter and the hungry gap before the next harvest.
• Orchard and perennials: fruit and nut trees, berries, asparagus, herbs. They take years: plant in the first year to eat in the third.
• Rotate crops and fields; manure and compost for fertility; water management (ditches, ponds, rain tanks).
• A reliable way of storing and recording what you have: counts, dates, rations.

Materials and tools

• Wood and charcoal sustainably managed (coppice). Charcoal is the first step to metalwork.
• Clay for bricks, tiles, pots. Lime for mortar and plaster. Stone and earth for building.
• Leather, wool, linen, rope. A loom and a spinning wheel serve a whole community.
• Iron: salvage first (scrap steel is plentiful for years), and small forges to reshape it. Smelting new iron from ore is a late step; see the rebuild path.
• Soap, vinegar, lime, salt: the chemistry of hygiene and preservation. Salt (from the sea, springs or mines) is trade-worthy.

Energy

• Wood, water and sun first. A small stable electrical system (solar panels, a charge controller, batteries or a hand-crank) is enough to power a reader, a radio, a few lights.
• Learn to repair solar panels, wiring and batteries from salvage; they will outlast the shops.

Health and population

• Records of births, deaths, illness, to see patterns.
• Trained helpers: midwives, first aiders, a person who can pull a tooth and set a bone.
• Look after mental health: grief is real. Shared meals, rest days, songs and stories.

Knowledge and school

• A reading room with the reader device and printed key pages.
• Teaching: every child learns reading, arithmetic, safety, farming, and one craft.
• A library of paper for the vital: medicine, farming, water, crafts, maths.
• Apprenticeships keep craft skills alive.

Other groups

• Treaties and trade with neighbours; agree on shared water, grazing, and paths.
• Share knowledge: copy your archive for another group and ask them to copy yours.

End of year one

1. One complete season cycle survived and recorded.
2. Food, seed, fuel and shelter secure for the next winter.
3. At least two trained people for each essential skill.
4. A functioning school and a library.
5. Written agreements with neighbours.

From here the questions change from "how do we survive?" to "what do we rebuild first?". That is the rebuild path.

Build in steps: 14 days of water and light, a month of food, a real first-aid kit, basic tools, a seed set of open-pollinated varieties, a small solar kit, and two copies of an offline library. Each step helps on its own.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

Prepare in steps. Each step is useful by itself, and you can stop at any step and be better off than you were.

Step 1: water and light (one weekend)

• Water: 4 litres per person per day for 14 days, in food-grade containers. A filter (ceramic or hollow-fibre) and unscented bleach or tablets.
• Light: torches and a head torch with spare batteries, candles, a lantern.
• Warmth: blankets, a sleeping bag for each person, warm clothes.
• Fire: lighters, matches in a waterproof tube, a ferrocerium rod.

Step 2: food for a month (one month)

• Rice, oats, flour, pasta, lentils, dried beans, sugar, salt, oil, powdered milk, tinned vegetables, fish, fruit, nut butter, honey. Eat and rotate it so it never expires.
• Multivitamins and iodised salt.
• A camping stove and fuel, a pot, a can opener, a hand-crank grinder.

Step 3: medicine and hygiene

• A real first-aid kit: bandages, gauze, tape, tourniquet, scissors, tweezers, thermometer, gloves, antiseptic, burn dressings, oral rehydration salts.
• Your own prescription stock as far as the law and your doctor allow; ask the pharmacist how to store it.
• Soap, toothbrushes, toilet paper, bin bags, a bucket with a lid.
• A printed medical guide (for example Where There Is No Doctor).

Step 4: tools

• Axe, handsaw, hammer, screwdrivers, pliers, wrench, file, utility knife, tape, wire, rope, nails, screws, tarp.
• Gardening: spade, fork, hoe, trowel, watering can, buckets.
• Sewing kit and spare needles; a sharpening stone.

Step 5: seeds, the long-term food

Buy open-pollinated (heirloom) varieties suited to your climate. Hybrids (F1) do not produce seed that grows true. Ask local gardeners and local seed banks which varieties do well where you live.

A seed set that covers calories, protein, vitamins and storage:

Role	Plants
Calories	potatoes (tubers, not seed), maize, wheat, barley, oats, rye, buckwheat, squash
Protein	beans (bush and runner), peas, lentils, chickpeas, soya where it grows, sunflower
Roots and storage	carrots, beets, parsnip, turnip, swede, onions, garlic, leeks
Greens	kale, cabbage, spinach, chard, lettuce, radish
Fruit crops	tomato, pepper, cucumber, melon where the climate allows
Oil and fibre	sunflower, flax
Herbs	mint, thyme, sage, calendula, chamomile, yarrow, basil

• Keep two to three growing seasons of seed in different places.
• Storage: dry, cool, dark. Seed with a few percent of moisture, sealed in jars or foil with a desiccant sachet, in a cool room. Most vegetable seed keeps 3 to 5 years; onion and parsnip seed 1 to 2; beans, peas and tomato often longer. Test germination every year on damp paper and replace what fails.
• Learn seed saving now, in your own garden: it is a craft.

Step 6: energy and communication

• A small solar panel, a charge controller and a battery; a hand-crank or solar radio; rechargeable batteries. See reader power.
• A handheld radio with the local emergency frequencies programmed. See communication.

Step 7: knowledge

• Put the Downloads kit on two drives in two places, with a small low-power device and a spare charger that can read them.
• Print the pages you cannot lose: first aid, water, food preservation, seed saving, basic tools, maps of your area.

Step 8: practise

• Once a year, spend a weekend without mains power, water or shops. You will find what is missing for less than it costs when it matters.
• Learn first aid with a certified course. Learn one craft from a person.

Stop serious bleeding with firm pressure, cool burns with clean water, wash and cover wounds, and use oral rehydration solution for diarrhoea. Keep essential medicines cool and dry, and get professional help whenever it can be reached.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

This is general information for emergencies when no professional help can be reached. It is not medical advice. Where a clinic or a doctor can be reached, call them first.

Keep a longer reference offline: Where There Is No Doctor and Where Women Have No Doctor (free from Hesperian) and the WikiMed encyclopedia in the offline kit.

Make the first minutes count

• Severe bleeding: press firmly and continuously on the wound with cloth, and do not remove soaked cloth, add more on top. For a limb wound that does not stop, a tourniquet placed above the wound (5 to 7 cm) and tightened until the bleeding stops can save a life. Write down the time. Do not loosen it yourself.
• Not breathing: if you are trained, give chest compressions (about 100 to 120 a minute, 5 to 6 cm deep) for an adult. Untrained: compressions alone are still better than nothing.
• Burns: cool with clean running water for 20 minutes. No ice, butter or toothpaste. Cover loosely with clean cling film or a clean cloth.
• Broken bone: keep the limb still in the position found, pad and tie it to the body or a splint, check that fingers or toes stay warm and pink.
• Choking: encourage coughing; if they cannot cough or speak, five back blows then five abdominal thrusts.

Dehydration from diarrhoea or vomiting

This is the commonest killer of children in emergencies and it is treatable at home. Oral rehydration solution (World Health Organization home recipe): 1 litre of safe water, 6 level teaspoons of sugar, ½ level teaspoon of salt. Give small sips often, a cup after each loose stool. Continue breastfeeding. Seek help if there is blood in the stool, sunken eyes, no urine for 8 hours, or the person cannot drink.

Wounds and infection

Wash your hands, rinse the wound with plenty of safe water, remove dirt, cover with a clean dressing and change it daily. Signs of infection: spreading redness, heat, swelling, pus, a red streak, fever. A deep or dirty wound needs tetanus protection; check your vaccination dates now.

Fever

Rest, fluids, light clothing. Paracetamol (acetaminophen) at the dose on the pack reduces pain and fever. A fever with a stiff neck, a rash that does not fade when pressed, confusion, trouble breathing, or in a baby under three months is an emergency.

Keep what you depend on

• If you or someone you care for takes regular medicine (diabetes, heart, blood pressure, epilepsy, asthma, HIV, transplant), keep at least a month, ideally three, and a written list of names and doses. Ask your doctor about it now.
• Most insulin in use can be kept at room temperature (below about 30 °C) for roughly four weeks; check the leaflet of yours.
• Rotate stock so it does not expire.
• Antibiotics are prescription medicines. Do not stockpile them for self-treatment. Misuse harms you and everyone after you.

A small kit

Gloves, tourniquet, pressure bandages, gauze, tape, scissors, tweezers, thermometer, oral rehydration salts, paracetamol, any personal medicines, a printed list of contacts and allergies.

Five habits stop most outbreaks: clean water only, hand washing, separating waste from water and food, isolating the sick early, and keeping records. Quarantine new arrivals for 14 days if you can, and keep it humane.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

When there are no hospitals, infectious disease is usually the largest killer after the first weeks: dirty water, crowding, bad sanitation, dead bodies left unburied, rats, lice and mosquitoes. Most of it can be prevented by habits, not medicine.

The five habits

1. Clean water only. Boil or filter and treat every drink and every cooking and washing source (water guide).
2. Wash hands with soap or ash and water after the toilet, before food, after caring for the sick.
3. Separate waste from water and food. Latrines downhill and far from wells; cover food; keep flies off.
4. Isolate the sick early: a separate room, one carer, a bucket for waste, no shared plates.
5. Keep records: who is ill, since when, symptoms. A pattern (many people with diarrhoea in two days) means the water or food is the cause: stop that source at once.

Quarantine

• New arrivals stay apart for 14 days if you can, in a separate shelter, with food left at a distance.
• Anyone with fever, a cough that is getting worse, a rash, or vomiting and diarrhoea is kept separate until it is clear what it is.
• The carer wears a cloth mask and gloves if available, washes hands and clothing, and does not care for others the same day if possible.
• Quarantine only works if it is fair and humane: people who are isolated get food, water, company at a distance and respect. If they are punished, people will hide illness.

Common killers and what helps

• Diarrhoea (cholera, dysentery, typhoid): oral rehydration solution, safe water, rest. Dehydration kills, not the germ (medicine).
• Respiratory illness (flu, pneumonia, tuberculosis): ventilation, distance, rest, fluids, warmth; keep the sick away from babies and the old.
• Wounds and tetanus: wash with clean water, remove dirt, keep clean and dry. Tetanus vaccination before it happens is the only real protection, so keep it up to date.
• Measles, whooping cough and others: only vaccination prevents them. Keep vaccination records safe and, where you can, vaccinate before.
• Malaria and other mosquito-borne illness: nets, long sleeves at dusk, drain standing water.
• Lice and fleas carry typhus: wash clothes hot, change and air bedding, cut hair if infested.

Pests

• Store food in metal or thick plastic with lids, off the floor.
• Burn or bury rubbish every day. Do not leave food scraps.
• Cats, traps and clean habits protect stores from rats more than poison.

The dead

• Do not leave bodies in the open near water or homes. Bury at least 30 metres from water and 1.5 metres deep where possible; bury those who died of disease quickly, with gloves, and wash after.
• Mark graves and keep a record of names and dates. Grieving properly matters for the living.

Animals

• Do not eat animals that died of unknown illness. Cook meat and eggs through. Wash hands after handling carcasses.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

Get inside, into the middle of a building with thick walls; stay at least 24 to 48 hours; remove outer clothing and wash; move upwind and uphill from chemical smoke; never burn fuel in a closed room. Do not take iodine tablets without official advice.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

This guide is about dangers you cannot see or smell. The advice is deliberately simple: get inside, get away from the source, wash, and wait.

Radiation and fallout

• Shelter first. Go inside and stay in the middle of a building, ideally a basement or a room with thick walls and as much earth, brick or concrete around you as possible. Mass blocks radiation; thin walls and windows do not.
• Stay in for at least 24 to 48 hours unless there is an immediate danger like fire. Radiation from fallout drops quickly: a rough rule is that every time the time since the event is multiplied by 7, the dose rate falls by about 10 times.
• Do not go out to look. Do not drink rainwater or eat fresh outdoor produce in the first days.
• Decontaminate: take off outer clothing and shoes at the door (this removes most of the dust), put them in a bag outside, wash exposed skin and hair with soap and water. Do not scrub hard or use harsh chemicals.
• Water: sealed containers and deep wells are safer than open water. Boiling does not remove radioactive material.
• Iodine tablets (potassium iodide) only protect the thyroid from radioactive iodine and only if taken at the right time on official advice; they are not a general protection. Do not take them without that advice.
• Symptoms of a high dose (vomiting within hours, burns, tiredness) mean serious exposure; rest, fluids, and keep the person away from others' contaminated clothing.

Chemical spills and toxic smoke

• Move upwind and uphill from smoke, yellow or chemical-smelling clouds, leaking tanks. Gas is often heavier than air and sinks into basements and low ground.
• Seal one room: close windows and doors, tape gaps, and turn off air systems.
• Never mix bleach with ammonia or acids (it makes toxic gas). Never burn charcoal, gas or fuel in a closed room (carbon monoxide has no smell).
• Wash skin and eyes with clean water for 15 minutes after contact with an unknown chemical.
• Avoid industrial areas, laboratories and farms with stored chemicals when salvaging.

Fire

• Fire spreads faster than people think. Get out and stay out. Crawl under smoke. Close doors behind you.
• Keep water, sand and a shovel near any stove or forge. Never leave a fire unattended.
• Clear brush around the shelter. In dry weather, keep fires small and in stone rings.
• After a fire, check for hidden embers for several hours.

Floods and collapsed buildings

• Move to high ground; do not walk or drive through flowing water (30 cm can carry a person).
• Do not enter damaged buildings alone. Look for cracks, leaning walls, hanging objects, gas smells and exposed wires.

Protective kit worth having

N95 or FFP2 masks, goggles, gloves, boots, a long-sleeved coverall, plastic sheeting and tape, duct tape, a battery radio, a Geiger counter if you can afford one and know how to use it.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

Find a midwife or trained helper early, keep everything clean and warm, put the baby skin to skin and breastfeeding within the first hour, and know that heavy bleeding after birth is the main emergency. Keep children's routines, teach them, and keep records.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

Children are the future of any group, and birth without help is one of the biggest risks. Plan for it before it is needed.

Childbirth

• Find a midwife or trained helper in the group early, and let them train others. A person who has attended births is more valuable than any equipment.
• Most births go well with a calm, clean, warm place, privacy, water and rest.
• Get ready: clean towels, clean sheets, clean string or ties, sterilised (boiled) scissors or blade, a bowl, a blanket, warm water, soap.
• Wash hands well, and keep the area clean. Infection after birth is a major danger.
• After the baby is out: dry and wrap it, put it skin to skin on the mother, cover both with a blanket, and let it breastfeed within the first hour.
• Cut the cord after it stops pulsing (a minute or more), between two ties, with a clean blade.
• Heavy bleeding after the birth is the most dangerous emergency: massage the lower belly firmly until it is hard, put the baby to the breast, empty the bladder, press and call for help. Keep the mother warm and lying down.
• Danger signs: labour that does not progress after many hours, bleeding before birth, fits, high fever, a baby that does not breathe (dry it, rub the back, give gentle breaths).
• If there is any way to reach a clinic during a hard labour, do it.

Babies

• Breastfeeding is the safest food when there is no clean water and no formula. A mother needs extra food and water.
• If the mother cannot, find another nursing woman. Powdered formula needs clean water and a clean bottle; unclean bottles kill babies.
• Keep babies warm and dry. Keep them away from people with coughs or diarrhoea.
• Vaccinations and growth records matter. Keep the records safe.

Children

• Routine is the best medicine for fear: meals, sleep, tasks, play and lessons at set times.
• Tell the truth, simply and calmly. Let them ask. Let them help with real jobs.
• Teach: reading, counting, safety, hygiene, farming, a craft. Start a school as early as day 30 with whatever you have. See the curriculum.
• Protect them from fire, water, tools, strangers and each other. Never leave small children unwatched near water.
• Orphans and lost children: every child needs a named adult responsible for them. Write names, ages and families.
• Nutrition: children need protein and fat as well as calories; eggs, beans, milk, fish, nuts and seeds are worth planning for.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

Start with a month of dry staples and rotate them, learn to dry, salt, smoke and ferment, plant fast crops first, and save seed from open-pollinated varieties. Plan calories first: grain, potatoes, beans and roots.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

How much

An adult needs about 2,000 kilocalories a day, children and heavy workers differ. For a month for one adult that is roughly: 10 kg rice or flour, 3 kg dried beans or lentils, 2 litres of cooking oil, salt, sugar, and whatever fats, vegetables and spices your household really eats. Store what you already cook, so nothing is new in a crisis.

What keeps

• Years: white rice, dried beans, lentils, salt, sugar, honey, dried pasta, oats, vacuum-sealed or tinned food (check cans for swelling and rust).
• Months: flour, whole grains, cooking oil (cool and dark), nuts.
• Keep food off the floor, dry, cool, sealed against rodents and insects. Rotate: eat the oldest first and buy new.

Preserve without power

• Drying (sun or low heat): fruit, herbs, thin-sliced meat or fish with salt. Dry until brittle.
• Salting and fermenting: cabbage and vegetables in brine, 2 to 3% salt by weight, kept under the brine.
• Smoking and pickling extend life, but need care.
• Canning: acidic foods (jam, pickles, fruit) can be water-bath canned. Low-acid foods (meat, beans, vegetables) must be pressure-canned. Home canning them any other way can cause botulism, which is often fatal.

Cook safely

Cook thoroughly, keep raw and cooked apart, wash hands and surfaces. Do not cook indoors on open fires or charcoal without strong ventilation.

Grow

1. Start now, with what grows where you live. Learn two or three reliable calorie crops (potatoes, beans, squash, grains, root vegetables) and a few vegetables for vitamins.
2. Keep seed. Buy open-pollinated ("heirloom") varieties: seed saved from them grows true. Seed from F1 hybrids does not.
3. Store seed dry, cool and dark, in labelled paper envelopes in a sealed jar. Most keep for several years; test before you rely on it.
4. Feed the soil: compost, crop rotation, beans in the rotation. Poor soil, not poor seed, is the usual reason for small harvests.
5. Water wisely: water early, mulch to keep moisture, collect rain.

Rebuilding food knowledge

The offline kit includes gardening, home improvement and farming material (Appropedia, Stack Exchange archives); see Downloads.

Plan light, warmth and cooking first, then a small solar and battery set for a radio and reader. Never burn charcoal, gas or fuel in a closed room: carbon monoxide has no smell and kills.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

Safety first

• Carbon monoxide kills silently. Never run an engine, generator, grill, camp stove or heater that burns fuel inside a home, garage or tent.
• Fuel stored in approved containers, away from living space and ignition.
• Batteries: never short-circuit them, keep lithium cells from heat, do not charge swollen cells.
• Fire: keep a bucket of water or sand, a fire blanket and a tested smoke alarm with spare batteries.

Light and charging

• Several LED torches and lanterns that take common batteries (AA or AAA), plus a crank or solar one.
• A power bank or two, kept at about half charge in storage and topped up every few months.

Small solar

A 100 W solar panel, a charge controller and a 12 V battery (lead-acid or lithium iron phosphate) are enough to run lights, charge phones and radios, and power a small fan or laptop. Learn how to wire it before you need it, fuse the battery side, and keep panels clean and in full sun.

Heat and cooking

Cook and heat with what you can get safely and ventilate. A rocket stove or a cooking pit uses far less wood than an open fire. Insulate before you heat: blankets, closed rooms, draught-proofing.

Water and pumping

A hand pump or a bucket and rope over a well is more reliable than any electric pump. Keep spare seals and parts.

Tools worth having

Hand saw, axe, hammer, files, a good knife, hand drill, screwdrivers, adjustable and fixed spanners, pliers, a multimeter, tape, wire, fixings, cordage, a sewing kit, sharpening stones. Learn to sharpen and to repair, not just to buy.

Repair knowledge

The offline kit contains iFixit repair guides, electronics and engineering archives and open textbooks; see Downloads.

Keep a battery or hand-crank radio, agree two meeting points and a contact far away, leave dated notes, and use messengers between groups. Handheld radios reach a few kilometres: check your local rules.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

Plan before the day

• Two meeting points: one near home, one outside your area. Everyone knows the route to each, on foot.
• One contact person outside your region whom everyone calls or writes to. Long-distance links often work when local ones fail.
• A paper list of addresses and numbers, and a paper map.
• Leave notes where you were and where you went, with the date and time.

Listening

• A battery or hand-crank AM/FM radio is the most reliable source of news. Keep spare batteries.
• Shortwave receivers carry broadcasts across continents.
• Learn which stations broadcast emergency information in your country.

Talking at short range

• Licence-free handheld radios (FRS/GMRS in the United States, PMR446 in Europe) work over a kilometre or two in town, further in open country. Agree a channel in advance.
• Amateur (ham) radio reaches across towns and continents and is the backbone of emergency communication. Transmitting needs a licence, which means passing an exam, and is worth doing now. Free study material is in the offline kit.
• Low-power mesh messengers using LoRa radio (for example the open-source Meshtastic project) send short text messages over several kilometres without a network. They need setting up in advance.

Signals

Three of anything (whistle blasts, flashes, shots) is the common distress signal. A mirror can be seen for many kilometres. Agree household signals for "come home" and "danger".

Information hygiene

In a crisis rumours spread faster than facts. Prefer information you can check, from more than one source, and share only what you know first-hand.

Aim for 5 to 15 for a household group and 30 to 60 for a band, list every skill and train two people for each, decide who decides what in advance, write decisions down, and share food and work openly and fairly.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

People rebuild; machines do not. Most plans fail not for lack of tools but because a group could not work together. These are the habits that keep groups together.

Size

• A household or family group of 5 to 15 can run a kitchen, a garden and a watch rota.
• A band of 30 to 60 can specialise: farmers, builders, medics, teachers. It is large enough to share risk and small enough that everyone knows everyone.
• Beyond 150 people, informal trust breaks down: you need written rules, councils and several settlements that cooperate.
• Several small groups that trade and share are stronger than one big group.

Skills

Make a skills list in the first week. Every group needs:

1. Water and sanitation
2. Health: first aid, midwifery, dentistry, herbs
3. Food: growing, preserving, cooking, animals
4. Shelter and fuel: building, repair, carpentry
5. Making and repair: metal, textiles, electrics
6. Teaching and records
7. Peace-keeping and mediation
8. Communication and navigation

Two people for each. Cross-train. Never let a skill live in one head.

Decisions

• Agree who decides what before a crisis: one person for watch and safety in an emergency, the group for big decisions (moving, sharing, rules).
• Hold a short daily meeting and a longer weekly one. Write the decisions down.
• Rotate roles so no one holds power for long.
• Decide the rules for sharing food and tools early and fairly. Perceived unfairness destroys groups faster than hunger.

Conflict

• Expect it. Tiredness, fear and grief make people short-tempered.
• A mediator nobody thinks is on one side. Listen to both, write the agreement, and review it.
• Consequences must be known in advance, proportionate and applied equally, including to leaders.
• Care for the people who do not work: children, elderly, sick. A group that abandons them loses its reason to exist.

Safety

• Watch rota, short, shared, with a simple signal. Do not leave anyone alone on watch for long.
• Strangers: meet in the open, offer water, ask what they need, and share news. Most people want what you want: safety.
• Do not rely on force to solve food problems: trade, labour and agreements last longer.

Morale

• Shared meals, a rest day, songs, stories, games for children. These are not extras; they are maintenance for the thing that holds everything else together.
• Honesty about supplies and danger. People can face bad news; they cannot trust a leader who hides it.
• Mourning: mark deaths properly.

Working with other groups

• Trade what you have too much of.
• Share knowledge (seed, medicine, repair).
• Agree on water, boundaries and paths.
• Exchange messengers and news regularly.

Write a short list of rules, agree who decides what, make decisions publicly and in writing, repair harm rather than punish by default, give accused people a fair hearing, and never use torture or collective punishment.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

Groups last when members believe the rules are fair, known and the same for everyone. They fall apart when they do not.

Few, clear, written rules

Write a short list at the start (10 rules, not 100), read aloud to all:

1. Everyone has a right to water, food and shelter according to need.
2. No violence against members. Disputes go to the mediator.
3. No theft; what is stored belongs to the group and is shared by agreed rations.
4. Work is shared; everyone who can work, does.
5. Strangers are met with courtesy and caution.
6. Children, the sick and the old are protected.
7. Decisions are made as agreed, and written down.

Decisions and leaders

• Choose a small council (3 to 7), with different skills, plus people to run particular jobs.
• Terms are limited and can be ended by the group.
• Big matters (moving, war, new members, big trades) go to everyone.

Disputes

1. Both sides tell their story to a mediator or the council.
2. Witnesses, then a decision with reasons, written down.
3. The remedy is usually repair: return what was taken, work to make up for it, apology, compensation.

Serious wrongdoing

• Violence, rape or murder must be dealt with: protect the victim first, hold a fair hearing with the accused able to answer, with several judges not involved in the case.
• No torture, no revenge killings, no collective punishment. Methods that you would not accept for yourself will be used against you.
• Penalties: loss of rights, extra work, restitution, guarded confinement, and as a last resort removal from the group. Removing someone is a death sentence in hard winters, so keep it for the worst cases and give food and tools.
• Record every case and decision.

Outsiders and new members

Welcome people who can work and will keep the rules. New members have a trial period, are told the rules, and are fully included after.

Fairness on food

The fastest way to break a group is secret hoarding or unequal rations. Count the stores openly, ration openly, and punish cheating from leaders hardest.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

Most stress reactions are normal and ease within weeks if people sleep, eat, move and talk. Use look, listen, link; keep routine and roles; mark the dead; and never leave anyone alone who talks of ending their life.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

After the physical emergency, the long strain is fear, grief and exhaustion. Groups often break from this, not from hunger.

What is normal

• Sleeplessness, nightmares, anger, numbness, crying, guilt, panic and a feeling that nothing matters are normal reactions to abnormal events. Most ease within weeks if people sleep, eat, move and talk.
• Grief comes in waves for months and years. There is no right way.

Simple care: look, listen, link

1. Look for people who are withdrawn, not eating, very agitated or not sleeping.
2. Listen without fixing or judging. Ask what they need. Stay with them.
3. Link them to food, water, rest, family, a job, and to someone who can check on them again tomorrow.

Habits that protect

• Sleep in shifts that give everyone at least 6 hours.
• Eat regularly, drink water, wash.
• Move: walking, work and stretching help.
• Routine and roles: a daily job gives a reason to get up.
• Together: shared meals, music, stories, games, prayer or quiet, children's play.
• Mark the dead: a ritual or a name read aloud helps people carry on.
• Limit news and rumours that fuel panic. Share what is known and what is not.

Warning signs

• Talking about wanting to die, giving belongings away, withdrawal, reckless acts, heavy drinking.
• Do not leave the person alone. Remove means of harm (weapons, medicines, ropes). Stay with them, listen, and share the watch. Say it directly: "Are you thinking of ending your life?" Asking does not cause it.

Leaders

Leaders carry the most. Rotate leadership, take rests, share decisions, and have someone you can say the hard thing to. Burnout makes bad decisions.

Children

Children show stress as clinging, bed-wetting, tantrums or silence. Routine, honesty, hugs, play and a job to do help most.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

Use what spoils first, secure what lasts (tools, metal, glass, books, seed, solar panels), learn to make what runs out, and teach repair skills while there is salvage to practise on. Check buildings and chemicals before taking anything.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

For a few years after the stores close, the world is full of useful things nobody is making any more. They are a loan, not an income. Use the things that spoil first, collect the things that last, and learn to make what runs out.

What expires first

Item	How long	Notes
Fresh and frozen food	days	eat or preserve at once
Medicine, antibiotics, insulin	months to a few years past date	store cool; check each type
Petrol and diesel	1 to 2 years if untreated (diesel often longer)	use first; keep sealed and cool
Batteries (alkaline, lead-acid)	a few years; lead-acid die faster if not kept charged	keep charged and dry
Tinned food	often years past the date if the can is sound	discard swollen or leaking cans
Dry rice, beans, flour (sealed)	years to decades	keep dry and sealed
Rubber, tyres, plastics	degrade in sunlight over years	store in the dark

What lasts

• Metal tools and sheet steel, nails, bolts, wire, pipe. Rust is the enemy: oil and keep dry.
• Glass, ceramics, bricks and stone.
• Cloth and rope if kept dry.
• Books and printed paper if kept dry.
• Seed if stored well.
• Solar panels (decades), copper wire, magnets and electric motors (long-lived).

Order of work

1. Use what spoils first, carefully.
2. Secure what lasts: tools, metal, books, seeds, panels. Keep an inventory.
3. Learn to make what runs out: soap, rope, cloth, pottery, lime, charcoal, leather.
4. Teach the repair skills while salvage is still there to practise on.

Rules

• Check before you take: buildings may be unstable, contaminated, or belong to someone. Do not take from people who are alive.
• Never enter damaged buildings alone. Mark places you have searched.
• Watch for chemicals, gas, asbestos, sharp metal, electrical hazards. Wear gloves, boots, a mask.
• Keep a log: what was taken, from where, and what is left.

Make tools first, then things that make other things. Start with charcoal, clay and pottery, lime, soap and rope; use scrap steel in a charcoal forge; leave smelting iron from ore to the second year. Wear eye protection with lime, lye and fire.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

Salvage will run out. These are the crafts that, learned early, let a group make what it needs. Each one has a dangerous step: learn it from a person if you can, and start small.

Charcoal

Wood heated with little air becomes charcoal, which burns hotter than wood and is needed for metalwork. Stack wood in a pit or a metal drum, light it, cover it with earth or a lid to starve it of air, and leave it until it cools. Never open it while hot.

Clay, bricks and pottery

• Clay is found in stream banks and cuttings. If a ball rolls into a thin coil without cracking, it is workable.
• Mix with sand or crushed fired pot to stop cracks, shape, dry slowly in shade, then fire in a pit or kiln with wood to a red heat for several hours.
• Pots store water, grain and fermented food. Bricks and tiles build stoves, chimneys and roofs.

Lime, mortar and plaster

Burn limestone or shells at high heat for a day to get quicklime. Quicklime burns skin and eyes: wear goggles and gloves. Slake it in water carefully. Mix with sand for mortar and plaster. It also disinfects latrines and walls.

Soap

Boil fat with lye made from wood ash and water. Lye is caustic and burns: gloves and eye protection, never touch with bare hands. Soap saves lives by making hand-washing work. Ash and water alone is a weaker substitute.

Rope, cord and cloth

• Rope: twist plant fibres (nettle, flax, hemp, bark, grass) into strands and then twist strands in the opposite direction.
• Cloth: wool, flax or cotton spun on a spindle and woven on a simple frame loom. Plan flax and sheep early.
• Needles and thread: keep a large stock of steel needles; they are worth gold.

Leather

Tanning animal skins takes weeks with tree bark and water. Fresh skins rot fast: scrape, salt, and dry them if you cannot tan at once.

Metal

• Scrap steel is plentiful for years: use it first. A charcoal forge with a bellows can heat steel to bright orange for shaping with a hammer and anvil (a block of steel or an old railway rail).
• Quench in water or oil to harden, and then temper by gentle reheating for toughness.
• Wear eye protection, leather gloves, closed shoes. Forges set things on fire; keep water near.
• Smelting iron from ore (a bloomery furnace) takes a large pile of charcoal, a team and many tries. It is a project for the second year, not the first.

Glass, paper and ink

These are later crafts. Keep a record of the instructions in the archive (Survivor Library has many) and try small batches when other needs are met.

Principle

Make tools first (axe, saw, knife, needle, pot), then things that make other things (lathe, loom, press). Teach a second person every craft.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

Record your last and first frost, rainfall, water sources and hazards today, then adapt: water first in dry places, fast preservation in the tropics, fuel first in the cold, and move out of cities early if you can.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

The plans in these guides are general. Adapt them to your climate: seed, season, water, building and the dangers all change. Always ask local farmers and elders what grows, when and how.

Record your own place today

Write down for your location: the last frost and the first frost, rainfall by month, the longest dry spell, flood and fire risk, the nearest river and spring, the common wild foods, and the poisonous plants. Keep it with your archive.

Temperate (mild summers, cold winters)

• Crops: potatoes, wheat, barley, oats, rye, beans, peas, brassicas, carrots, onions, apples.
• Season: plant after the last frost; store root crops and grain for a long winter.
• Fuel: firewood stocked a full year ahead; insulation matters most.
• Risks: cold in the first winter, floods in spring, wet rot in stores.

Dry and hot (arid and semi-arid)

• Water is the project. Find wells, springs, wadis, qanats and cisterns; dig swales and mulch; shade gardens.
• Crops: sorghum, millet, barley, chickpeas, lentils, dates, figs, pomegranates, olives, melons, onions, garlic. Plant in cool seasons or with irrigation.
• Building: thick earth or stone walls, shade, ventilation; sleep cool at night.
• Risks: heat stroke (shade, water, salt, rest in the hottest hours), dust storms, flash floods, salty soil from irrigating without drainage.

Tropical and wet

• Crops: cassava, yam, sweet potato, taro, banana and plantain, rice, maize, beans, peanuts, leafy greens, citrus, coconut.
• Food spoils fast: dry, smoke or ferment at once; store in dry airtight pots.
• Risks: malaria and dengue (nets, standing water), parasites in water, fungus in stores, storms and floods.

Cold and short summer (high latitude and altitude)

• Crops: barley, rye, oats, potatoes, turnips, cabbage, kale, peas, hardy roots; use cold frames and short-season varieties.
• Energy: fuel is life. Cut wood in the first summer, insulate one room, share heat.
• Food: fish, game and stored fat; dry and smoke in summer.
• Risks: frostbite and hypothermia (dry layers, no sweating), carbon monoxide from closed stoves, short light in winter.

Coasts and islands

Fish, shellfish and seaweed; salt production by evaporation; rain tanks; storm shelters; beware of tide, tsunami (go high after a strong quake) and polluted shellfish.

Cities

Cities are dangerous: no farmland, sewage, crowding and fire. If you can, move out early to farmland with water and tell your group where you go. If you must stay, collect rainwater, plant roofs and balconies, and form blocks with a shared plan.

Languages

The archive includes Wikipedia in Persian and other languages (Downloads). Translate the plans into your language and share them: a guide that people can read is worth more than a perfect one they cannot.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

Meet your neighbours now, make a household plan with two meeting points, give a copy of your archive to another household, and after a crisis send two people to the next settlement within a day. Trade news, seed and skills.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

No single group can rebuild alone. Several small groups sharing knowledge, seed, tools and news recover faster, and a loss in one place does not erase everything.

Before it happens

1. Meet your neighbours. Know who has medical, farming, repair and radio skills.
2. Make a household plan with two meeting points (near home, and outside your area) and a contact person far away.
3. Share the archive. Give a copy of your drives to one other household and agree to refresh them. This is the role of a custodian (the monthly habit).
4. Agree who goes where. If the area is unsafe, have a destination with water and farmland and a route.

After it happens

• Day 1 to 3: meet at the first meeting point; leave notes with the date, who is here and where you are going.
• Week 1: send two people (never alone) to the next settlement within a day's walk to share news and learn what they have.
• Weekly: meet at a regular point (market day) with news, trade and a messenger.

Signals and radio

• Written notices at crossroads, notice boards and meeting places.
• Messengers on foot or bicycle between groups: simple, reliable and no power.
• Radio: handheld radios (PMR446 in Europe, FRS/GMRS in the United States) reach a few kilometres; amateur (ham) radio can reach far with a licence and training. Check your local laws now. Agree a daily time to listen (for example, on the hour) and keep messages short.
• Do not broadcast your supplies or locations.

What to share

• News and warnings (disease, hazards, bandits).
• Seed and animals (to keep the gene pool broad).
• Skills: send an apprentice, or a teacher for a season.
• Copies of the archive. The group that has the reader and drives is a school for the others.
• Labour for big jobs (harvest, building, mills).

Agreements

Write down: shared water and paths, trading terms, how disputes are settled, how strangers are treated, and what is done if one group is in famine. A written agreement that both sides know holds longer than a handshake.

Custodians

A custodian keeps a verified copy of the Toswo archive, tests it, copies it for others, and teaches people to use the reader. If you hold a copy, tell your neighbours. If you do not, find the nearest one.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

Once a year, turn off mains power and water for a weekend and do nine tasks (water, toilet, cooking, light, first aid, reading the archive, radio, planting, meeting neighbours), score each 0 to 3, and write down what failed.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

Nobody can honestly say these plans work until people have tried them. Run this drill once a year, with whoever lives with you. Treat what fails as the most useful result.

Before

• Choose a weekend and warn those affected. Do not do this with a sick person, in extreme weather, or if it would put anyone at risk.
• Pack the stockpile as in what to store. Print this page.
• Agree a stop word: anyone can end the drill at once for safety.

Friday evening

• Turn off the main electrical supply and the main water tap. (Do not turn off a gas supply, and do not turn off power needed for medical devices.)
• Phones stay off except for emergency.
• From now on: only your stored water, light and food.

Saturday

Do each of these and write the time it took and what went wrong:

1. Water: collect, treat and drink 4 litres per person. (Boil one batch, filter another.)
2. Toilet: use a bucket or a pit latrine, with a hand-wash.
3. Cook two meals on a camp stove or fire, without taking anything from the fridge.
4. Light and warmth all evening.
5. First aid: each adult treats a pretend wound, bleeding, burn and fracture splint.
6. Read a guide from your drive on the reader device, powered by solar or a power bank. Find the instructions for something real (for example, how to purify water).
7. Radio: make contact with one other household, or listen to local broadcasts.
8. Plant something from your stored seed and test germination on damp paper.
9. Meet with your neighbours and ask for their skills.

Sunday

• Repeat the weakest task.
• Score each task 0 to 3: 0 not done; 1 done with great difficulty; 2 done; 3 done easily and could teach others.
• Total below 18 out of 27 means more preparation before it matters.

Write the report

1. What we did, who was there, the weather.
2. What failed (be specific: the filter clogged, the stove ran out of fuel, no one could read the drive).
3. What took more time or stock than we thought.
4. What we will buy, learn or change in the next 30 days.
5. A date for the next drill.

Keep the report with your archive and share it with your neighbours. Toswo has not run this drill for you; the lessons are yours.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

Use a low-power device (tablet, laptop or Raspberry Pi) running Kiwix, a 50 W solar panel with a charge controller and battery, spare cables, and two copies of the drive. A Pi serving Wi-Fi can share the library with every phone in a camp.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

A drive full of knowledge is useless if nothing can read it. Plan the reader as carefully as the library.

What you need

• A low-power device to read the archive: a laptop, tablet or small computer (for example a Raspberry Pi) that can run the Kiwix reader. Keep two, plus the app installers for each operating system on the drive.
• A way to charge it: a small solar panel (20 to 100 watts is plenty for a laptop and lights), a charge controller, a battery (a 12 V battery or a power bank), and the right cables and adapters.
• A storage plan: two copies of the drive in different places, protected from water, heat and shocks.

Power budget

Device	Typical draw
Tablet or e-reader	2 to 10 W
Small single-board computer	3 to 10 W
Laptop	20 to 60 W
LED light	1 to 5 W

A 50 W panel in good sun gives roughly 150 to 250 watt-hours a day. That is enough for several hours of reading on a laptop or all day on a tablet.

Share it

• A small computer with Wi-Fi can serve the archive to every phone and tablet in the group with no internet (the Internet-in-a-Box and Kiwix-hotspot approach). See Downloads.
• A reading room in one building with a table, a lamp and the device.

Keep it working

• Keep spare cables, chargers and batteries; they fail before the archive does.
• Protect from damp and dust: silica gel, sealed containers.
• Copy the drive every year and check its checksum.
• Print the vital pages in case all devices fail.

Save health, water, food, tools, mathematics, science, computing and maps in that order. Keep two copies on two media in two places, check them with their SHA-256 sums, refresh them monthly, and keep the reader device too.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

Civilisation is a body of knowledge that has to be kept alive in people, books and machines. If the internet disappeared, three things would decide how fast it could be rebuilt: what was saved, whether it can still be read, and whether anyone knows how to use it.

What to save

Start with what keeps people alive, then what rebuilds tools:

1. Health and first aid: WikiMed, Hesperian guides.
2. Water, food, shelter, energy: Appropedia, practical Stack Exchange archives, the guides on this site.
3. Mathematics and science: open textbooks (OpenStax, LibreTexts), Wikipedia's science pages, simulations.
4. Engineering and repair: electronics, mechanics, materials, iFixit.
5. Computing: an operating system with its source code and compilers (Debian), language documentation, computer science references.
6. Aerospace and Earth: aeronautics and space references, maps, geology.
7. Maps of your region.

Everything above is listed with its newest release on the Downloads page. For what an archive can and cannot rebuild, read the rebuild path; for the plan after the first days, 7 days, 30 days, 6 months and one year.

How to keep it

• Two copies, two places, two kinds of media. A drive at home, one with someone you trust.
• Check the files with the published SHA-256 sums when you copy them and once a year.
• Refresh every month if you can; at least once a year. Drives fail: spinning disks often last 5 to 10 years, flash drives left unpowered may lose data in a few years, optical discs can last decades if stored well.
• Keep the reader too. Store the Kiwix application for every operating system you may use next to the archives.
• Print what you cannot lose: medicine, water, food and the instructions to rebuild basic tools. Paper has no battery.

How to teach it

Written knowledge is not enough. Learn a craft with a person who has it, write down what you learn, and teach it to someone younger. Schools, libraries and workshops that keep working are the real archive.

Reading

• The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch, Lewis Dartnell.
• Where There Is No Doctor, Hesperian.
• OpenStax textbooks in your field.

Read, make, test, teach every week. Year 1 foundations, year 2 practical sciences, year 3 engineering, year 4 specialisation and teaching a class. Mathematics comes first and the first graduates teach the next.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

An archive does not train anyone by itself. A plan, a teacher and a workshop do. This is a plan that fits a group with a few readers, a reading room and a small workshop.

Principles

1. Read, make, test, teach. Every week has all four.
2. Mathematics first: arithmetic, algebra, geometry, then calculus. Everything else depends on it.
3. Teach the teachers. The first graduates teach the next ones from month six.
4. Write down what you learn in your own words and keep it with the archive.
5. Keep records: who has passed which checkpoint.

Year 1: foundations

• Reading, writing, arithmetic, fractions, measurement.
• Algebra and geometry; units; estimation.
• Basic science: forces, energy, heat, light, electricity, the cell, hygiene.
• Workshop: tools, measuring, cutting, joining, fire safety.
• Checkpoint: can build a measured, working object (a table, a sled, a filter) from a drawing.

Year 2: the practical sciences

• Trigonometry, introduction to calculus, statistics.
• Physics: mechanics, fluids, thermodynamics. Chemistry: elements, reactions, acids and bases, combustion, soap.
• Biology and agriculture: soils, plants, animals, nutrition, disease.
• Workshop: pottery and brick-making, forging, carpentry, textiles.
• Checkpoint: builds a water pump, a charcoal kiln or a simple mill that works.

Year 3: engineering

• Calculus and differential equations; materials science; structures.
• Electricity and magnetism; motors, generators, batteries; circuits; solar systems.
• Machines: levers, gears, water wheels, steam, internal combustion.
• Medicine and public health for all engineers.
• Checkpoint: builds and repairs a solar-battery system, a water wheel or a generator.

Year 4: specialisation and teaching

• Choose one: civil (building, roads, water, bridges), mechanical (tools, machine shop), electrical, chemical (soap, lime, fertiliser, glass), agricultural, medical, computing (using the archive device, simple programming).
• Apprentice with a practitioner.
• Teach a younger class for a term.
• Checkpoint: a project the group needs, designed, built, documented and taught.

Using the archive

Use the Downloads groups: open textbooks (OpenStax, LibreTexts), Stack Exchange archives for questions, Wikipedia for reference, Survivor Library for old practical methods, Kolibri for lessons.

History and civics

Include one hour a week of history and ethics. Study how past societies collapsed and recovered, what worked, and what failed. A rebuilt world without that memory repeats the mistakes.

Printing

Print the textbook chapters your class needs most: devices fail first. See the printable booklet.

Review status: not yet checked by a named professional. Read how these guides are reviewed and check anything medical or dangerous with a qualified person where you can.

An archive makes recovery faster, but it is a map, not the territory. It can teach foundations and guide the order of steps; it cannot replace practice, industry or people. Rockets and aircraft need a supply chain of thousands of industries.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

Short answer: an offline archive makes recovery much faster, but it is a map, not the territory. It can teach and guide; it cannot replace people with skills, tools, materials and time.

What the archive can do

• Teach foundations well. With open textbooks and Q&A archives, motivated people can learn mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, electronics, mechanics, medicine and farming to a high level. Many engineers are taught from books.
• Prevent rediscovery. Knowing what works, and what to avoid, saves generations of trial and error.
• Guide the order of steps. Charcoal, then iron, then water power, then machine tools, then electricity, then chemistry, then electronics: the dependencies are known.
• Preserve history and science as text, tables and maps: encyclopaedia articles, primary sources, data.

What it cannot do

• Replace practice. A welder, a machinist, a midwife or a farmer learns by doing, with a teacher. Reading is the start.
• Replace industry. Precision parts, pure metals, fuels, chemicals and electronics depend on many linked factories. A book does not make a lathe, and a lathe does not make a better lathe without skill and time.
• Replace people. If the people are not there to learn and to teach, the archive is a shelf.

Can we rebuild rockets or aircraft?

Not directly. Spaceflight and modern aviation depend on supply chains of thousands of industries (aluminium and titanium alloys, composites, precision machining, electronics, fuels, testing). An archive teaches the science and the engineering, and a trained generation can use salvage and rebuilt industry to climb back, but the ladder has many rungs:

1. Farming, health, shelter, sanitation (years 0 to 5)
2. Charcoal, ceramics, glass, bloomery iron, water mills (years 2 to 10)
3. Machine tools, steam power, reliable steel, chemicals (a generation or more)
4. Electricity, electronics, radio and engines (a generation or more after that)
5. Aviation and then space (only with the earlier steps in place)

Salvage can skip some steps for a while, particularly for electrical equipment, metal and glass, but only while it lasts.

Can it teach engineers?

Yes, with conditions. A programme that works:

1. Mathematics and physics first (OpenStax, Khan-style lessons, the Stack Exchange archives).
2. Workshop alongside books: each theory lesson is followed by making something.
3. Teach teachers: the first graduates teach the next ones.
4. Write down the local lessons, in language the next generation will understand.
5. Measure: tests, exercises, projects, a record of who knows what.

What about history?

A text archive keeps what was written (Wikipedia, books, data), not the full depth of human experience. Pair it with oral history from the people who were there, written down soon. Include the mistakes: they are the most valuable part.

What to download first

See Downloads: the groups "Teaching and history", "Practical skills", "Medicine" and "Science" are the core. The Rebuilding knowledge guide explains how to keep them.

The guides are written from public, established sources (Hesperian, WHO and Red Cross guidance, FAO handbooks and others). No named doctor, nurse, farmer or engineer has signed off any guide yet; numbers are approximate and corrections are welcome.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

People may act on these guides in an emergency. They deserve to know how far to trust them.

Where the guides come from

They are written by Toswo from public, well-established sources: Hesperian's Where There Is No Doctor, the World Health Organization and Red Cross guidance on water, sanitation and first aid, FAO farming handbooks, the Survivor Library collection, army and civil defence manuals, Lewis Dartnell's The Knowledge, and standard textbooks.

Status today

• Not yet reviewed by a named professional. No doctor, nurse, midwife, farmer, engineer or civil-defence specialist has signed off any guide. Each page says so.
• Numbers are approximate (water quantities, seed life, planting areas, power budgets). They are starting points, not guarantees.
• Nothing has been tested in a real disaster. The weekend drill is how you test it in your own home.

What we ask of readers

• Use qualified help first wherever it exists.
• If you are a doctor, nurse, midwife, farmer, engineer, teacher or emergency worker, read a guide in your field and tell us what is wrong. Corrections are published on the corrections page with the date and the name of the reviewer, if they agree.
• If a local guide in your language or climate contradicts ours, trust the local one and tell us.

What will change

When a professional reviews a page, the page will say who, when and what they changed. Until then, treat each page as a well-sourced draft for people who have nothing else.