A portal opens in the sky...

A commanding voice speaks and you learn you've been summoned to enter a survival test. The destination is a planet unknown. The nature and duration of the tests are unknown.

It is unknown if you will be joining others.

If you do not complete the test, the warp gate back to home closes. You will be stranded - forever.

Other than your clothes and a sack, you are allowed five items to carry with you on your person.

Will you take a light?

If you take a light, which one?

What else?

I will take
-a light that has the most runtime because if its really dark you dont need much light to see but it will last a long time (maybe my Fenix TK40)
- a Fällkniven S1 knife
-aa batteries
-something to make fire
-sunglasses if its really bright over there

I wouldn't bring a light. If there is no light on the planet, there would be no life. If there is no life, there would be no food. If there is no food...

1. a knife
2. water (in a platypus)
3. heavy duty solar blanket for shelter and thermoregulation (could also be used as a waterproof skin to make a boat/canoe)
4. fire starter (zippo lighter, or a butane lighter, but it must be one that uses a flint and steel sparking ignition... it could be a temporary light source, and then to make a flaming torch)
5. five gallon stainless steel bucket with an air-tight, water tight lid. (there are a million uses for a 5 gallon plastic container, and even more for a metal one with an air tight lid, including being a floatation device, seat, step-stool, hunter gatherer tool, small animal traping pit, water carrier/boiling/sanitizing cooking pot, shovel, on and on...)

6. my belt would be made of 550 paracord.

1. My knapsack would be made of paracord, with lots of extra paracord woven into its layers, so I get another item
2. Lots of weather balloons, for signaling, carrying water, use in conjunction with paracord to build shelter...
3. A durable weather and service proven knife with a sharpener and fire starter set.
4. A dynamo powered camera to document my adventures
5. A durable lightweight mess kit for boiling water and cooking food when found. Also can serve as bait to potential threats as a decoy camp fire meal.

6. A bible with lots of "notes" pages for light reading and entertainment. Maybe some encouragement too.

4. A dynamo powered camera to document my adventures

Click to expand...

lol... that's funny!

dc38 said:

1. My knapsack would be made of paracord, with lots of extra paracord woven into its layers, so I get another item
2. Lots of weather balloons, for signaling, carrying water, use in conjunction with paracord to build shelter...
3. A durable weather and service proven knife with a sharpener and fire starter set.
4. A dynamo powered camera to document my adventures
5. A durable lightweight mess kit for boiling water and cooking food when found. Also can serve as bait to potential threats as a decoy camp fire meal.

6. A bible with lots of "notes" pages for light reading and entertainment. Maybe some encouragement too.

Click to expand...

Nice thinking with the sak.

As for the rest, there are better, life sustaining and/or task oriented options...

ledmitter_nli said:

Nice thinking with the sak.

As for the rest, there are better, life sustaining and/or task oriented options...

Click to expand...

I completely agree, but it's hard to plan for an unknown environment and unknown task :/ so I just bundled what I thought might cover some broad fields of tasks lol. Para cord can be weaponized, and weather balloons can act as insulation, or even a distilling container..as for the bible, I'm just planning for in case the portal closes on me lol. The notes pages could be used as kindling

I don't know about the first four items (water? food? multitool?) but number five would be cyanide tablets. If nothing goes right, I'd rather a quick death by my own hand than a slow one by starvation or exposure. Or even worse, a painful death getting eaten by the local wildlife.

+

Funny thing, I just watched Pandorum last night on dvd.

anyway,, I'd take

good knife
extra pair of shoes/boots
D25LC2 xml2 twisty
a solar charger for my 18650
ibuprofen:laughing:

So a commanding voice summons you to potential death on another planet or dimension, and your first thoughts are "what should I bring"?

As for me, I am sending my assistant. She will bring a camera and 4 items of her own choosing.

I'd also wear a paracord belt. Inside my (9X16) 10-Liter scrim-reinforced waterproof vinyl sack (think about it) goes:

1. 12,000 strike flint striker
2. water (in a wide mouth 38oz stainless naglene bottle)
3. gerber multitool with a knife
4. polyester mesh reinforced clear vinyl tarp

Carried on my back:

5. two handed sword
6. a black, rolled up, ripstop polyethylene tarp as the sword sheath

Pick it apart if you can

OK... I'll play

Since all you have is vinyl and plastic, how are you going to sanitize/disinfect your water? (I know one way)

AND... If I knew that we were being supplied a "(9X16) 10-Liter scrim-reinforced waterproof vinyl sack", I wouldn't need my platypus filled with water, and I could have brought my "pre-charged Flux Capacitor" with that, if the portal closes, I could go back to start and try all over again.

1 ak47
2 survival knife
3 medical aid kit.
4 dynamo light.
5 300 rounds of ak47 ammo.

1. Mind altering drugs
2. See #1
3. See #1
4. See #1
5. See #1

Poppy said:

OK... I'll play

Since all you have is vinyl and plastic, how are you going to sanitize/disinfect your water? (I know one way)

AND... If I knew that we were being supplied a "(9X16) 10-Liter scrim-reinforced waterproof vinyl sack", I wouldn't need my platypus filled with water, and I could have brought my "pre-charged Flux Capacitor" with that, if the portal closes, I could go back to start and try all over again.

Click to expand...

Water "in a wide mouth 38oz stainless naglene bottle"

Yeah you choose 5 items you carry on your person and is feasible.

orbital said:

+

Funny thing, I just watched Pandorum last night on dvd.

anyway,, I'd take

good knife
extra pair of shoes/boots
D25LC2 xml2 twisty
a solar charger for my 18650
ibuprofen:laughing:

Click to expand...

Was Pandorum any good? I thought about picking it up on Blue-ray.

In that vein, you might like Event Horizon and Sunshine.

Water
food
light
batteries
toilet paper

38oz stainless naglene bottle

Click to expand...

hmmm... I thought that naglene was a type of plastic, I didn't know it was a company, nor did I know that they made stanless steel bottles.
Good job

Since you are carrying a multitool, you might want to reinforce your sword sheath with wire (that can be used for snares, bent into fish hooks, hold pots over a fire, etc), and hold the whole thing together with wraps of duct tape.

ledmitter_nli said:

I'd also wear a paracord belt. Inside my (9X16) 10-Liter scrim-reinforced waterproof vinyl sack (think about it) goes:

1. 12,000 strike flint striker
2. water (in a wide mouth 38oz stainless naglene bottle)
3. gerber multitool with a knife
4. polyester mesh reinforced clear vinyl tarp

Carried on my back:

5. two handed sword
6. a black, rolled up, ripstop polyethylene tarp as the sword sheath

Pick it apart if you can

Click to expand...

Paracord belt is self explanatory.
Waterproof vinyl sack can double as water storage, or filled with air for a flotation device.

#1 can be used for fire starting, and for shucking sparks for emergency illumination.
#2 water is a more immediate concern than calories. Might even use gatorade instead. Stainless steel bottle for cooking, sterilizing water, digging, bailing water.
#3 sparks, cutting, pulling bones, fashioning tools, prying open access panels in case there's off world technology so you can pull wires and wreak havok.
#4 shelter, poncho, solar still, rain collection, greenhouse, waterproof outer layer for a coracle, parachute, bagging.
#5 hacking, cutting, chopping, stabbing, prying, lever, signaling, cutting surface.

#6 duplicates the clear vinyl tarp functions whereas the black color can be used to absorb solar heat.

If there is one thing I might change it would be #4 and have a wank light instead. The clear vinyl tarp would be used for the sword sheath instead.

The survival test might entail a lot of darkness, a world full of water, or the test could be figuring out how to get from one platform to another through martian air.

What 5 items offer the greatest chance...

Poppy said:

hmmm... I thought that naglene was a type of plastic, I didn't know it was a company, nor did I know that they made stanless steel bottles.
Good job

Since you are carrying a multitool, you might want to reinforce your sword sheath with wire (that can be used for snares, bent into fish hooks, hold pots over a fire, etc), and hold the whole thing together with wraps of duct tape.

Click to expand...

Hehe ... that's going a little far, compounding multiple items within items together, it is cheating. In that sense you can embed tritium fobs to the sword hilt for light, wrap fishing line around the sword handle, layer bandaids around the sheath as well. Have to keep things more barebones.

You also do not know if there's fish to "fish".

That's part of the challenge.