Guide to Being a Post-Apocalyptic Warlord (Illustrated)

The world could collapse, so be ready

A lot of people are pessimistic about the future, which means one thing: You need to prepare to be a post-apocalyptic warlord.

Yeah, when civilization ends, you don’t want to be at the bottom of the pecking order, ending up slave labor in some cobalt mine or something. You want to be the warlord bossing people around.

First thing, you need to obtain a scary mask.

If people can’t see your dumb face, they might be intimidated by you.

That’s just because, I’m sorry, but your face just isn’t that scary and intimidating. But if you have a mask, people will just imagine you must have a really scary face. And that’s important to grabbing rule.

But there is more to rule than a scary mask (that’s only about 20% of being a warlord). You also need your fleet of vehicles to rule the land and attract your followers.

People will flee in terror at the sound of your engines.

Vrooom!

Of course, for those engines to make that sound, you’ll need to properly maintain them. We’re talking not just repair, but scheduled maintenance.

Don’t forget to change the oil.

Remember: It’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland, so you can’t take your car to Jiffy Lube. So be on top of any weird sounds you hear and try to study as much car repair as you can.

And once you’ve amassed your fleet of terror-inducing vehicles, you’ll need to make a permanent settlement to house your people and do all the aforementioned vehicle maintenance.

Cozy but sandy.

Of course, your people will need food, so it will help to have a knowledge of farming to help in a program to grow your community crops.

Don’t forget crop rotation.

You’ll also need water, so try to know the ins and outs of running a water treatment plant to make sure that water is safe to drink.

This will probably take some time to build.

And to keep your cars running, you’ll need to get them fuel. But gasoline cars are on their way out; I’d look into electric. That means spending time researching better lithium batteries. Make sure you have a lab well equipped for that.

It will be really hard to keep a lab coat white in these conditions.

And don’t forget the needs of the people. They have to stay healthy to be able to strike terror, so make sure to build a hospital. And try to show you care about your community, make some appearances at the hospital. It wouldn’t hurt to hand out balloons to kids while there; you do need the support of families to stay in power.

Be a part of the community.

Now that you have all the infrastructure, it’s time to strike terror and raid other settlements!

Except, personally, as a warlord, you won’t have a lot of time for that because of all the bureaucracy you're in charge that’s needed to keep your infrastructure maintained. Prepare to spend a lot of time in board meetings.

I hope you’re good with PowerPoint.

So, being a warlord isn’t easy, but if you follow my advice, you can rule the wasteland — unless the board votes you out for not meeting quarterly earnings goals.