Clever Ways To Easily Survive 7 Famous Fictional Universes

7 Game Of Thrones: Go Get A Job On Booze Island

Let's say you wake up in Westeros, the magical, wondrous land of Game Of Thrones. Where do you go? If you're not a bloodthirsty pervert, there's precious few options. Since you're on the internet reading about the ins and outs of fictional universes, we're assuming you're not the type who would want to sit on the Iron Throne -- all those sharp swords are terrible for your posture.

In this universe, staying away from shitstorms of violence seems impossible. There's the battle for the throne, the zombiecicles in the North, and generally people being murderous dicks everywhere, all the time, for no reason. (Plus, don't forget about all the literal dicks you'll be exposed to.) Is there anywhere that's even relatively safe? Also, seeing as how the world is a never-ending gauntlet of pain and suffering, how about somewhere where you can have a goddamn drink and relax for a moment?

Which brings us to ... the Arbor.

The Arbor is an island in the southwest corner of Westeros, known primarily for wine production. Think about it: In a world full of nonstop horrors, machinations, and calamities, these guys are famous for their booze. The Arbor's so booze-filled, in fact, that the ruling house is literally called Redwyne. That definitely sounds like something someone came up with while in a compromised state of mind.

Just the fact that the Arbor is separate from the mainland alone should double everyone's life expectancy there. The worst thing to ever happen in the Arbor seems to be the Redwyne kids bullying one character, Sam -- which, in a world full of giants, insane cults, and pregnant ladies being stabbed doesn't seem all that bad. So why not head to the Arbor, get a job on some vineyard (we doubt they have dragons working the fields), and let the world destroy itself while you destroy your sobriety?

6 Terminator Franchise: Move To The Southern Hemisphere, Ideally Brazil

According to the Terminator movies, the future is full of killer robots of all shapes and sizes trying to murder us, probably out of revenge for every time you kicked a vending machine. The few surviving humans dress in rags and live in shitty bunkers; the only positive thing in their lives is that, with all those neon lasers and killbots flying around, everything looks like a metal album cover now.

But wait, that's how people live ... in future Los Angeles and thereabouts. Not all the world looks like that. In fact, some major countries got off pretty easy, all things considered. According to the Terminator canon, for instance, the only cities in Brazil to get hit with a nuke when the machines took over were Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, both far to the south.

So, Brazil's northern shore should be relatively fine. We're not saying it's paradise down there (limited energy, no telecommunications, we're back to paper porn, etc.), but it should be far from the mess we see in the U.S. You could live out your days like a Nazi war criminal in the South American jungle, and by "jungle" we mean modern cities like Fortaleza, which has roughly the same metro population as Seattle, only with way more rain and public nudity.

And if you think this is just us making wild assumptions, think again: The Terminator 2 novelization and a deleted scene from the movie tell us that countries in the Southern Hemisphere got off way easier after the robot apocalypse. The book notes that "most of the human survivors of Judgment Day come from the Southern Hemisphere," while the T2 script clarifies that the bulk of the freedom fighters we see fighting in Los Angeles are actually immigrants:

So, if you think the machine uprising is imminent, you might want to start taking Portuguese and samba classes.

5 Star Trek Franchise: Why Not Live On The Moon?

For all of Earth's Utopian posturing, the Star Trek universe is a pretty goddamn dangerous place. You could be assimilated by the Borg, shot down by the Romulans, or forever lost in Commander Riker's eyes. So if you were to find yourself suddenly living in Trek times, where would you go? Your first impulse might be to head to Risa, the pleasure planet where free love is pretty much mandatory:

Unfortunately, the worst thing about Risa isn't just the bothersome clattering of freakish alien genitals from the cabana next door -- its history is full of kidnappings, sabotage, and time-traveling con artists. You might be tempted to move to Earth, which is potentially safe ... as long as you never, ever go anywhere near San Francisco, which is home to Starfleet HQ and is therefore constantly being attacked.

But even Earth itself is still a big, blue target. So, how about this: Go live on the moon.

If you lived in one of the Federation's lunar colonies, you'd be able to pop down to Earth whenever you like, but you'd have the safety of being removed from most interplanetary conflict. Think of it as the Earth's suburbs -- sure, you'd be living away from the excitement and cultural heritage of the planet, but there's probably some moon equivalent of Taco Bell or Bed Bath & Beyond you can hang out at.

The Lunar Colonies are home to 50 million people, and in the history of all the crazy shit that's happened on Earth, the moon has only ever been attacked once -- in the evil parallel universe where everyone has a goatee and acts like a dick. Which, if you think about it, is kind of a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen on the "good" universe's moon. That's just science.

4 DC Universe: Don't Live On The Coasts ... Or In Smallville

If you live in the DC Universe, eventually your city is going to get fucked up. That's just a fact of life. Supervillains seem to have a habit of committing their crimes in major metropolitan regions, which makes sense, considering that is where people and money both reside.

However, if you look at this handy map of the major DC superhero cities, you might notice something:

This was made by an industrious fan, and those crime stats aren't officially sanctioned by DC Comics, but the important thing is: Most cities that have enough crime to need a superpowered defender happen to be located on the coasts (lending credence to our theory that Aquaman is secretly a criminal mastermind). In these comics, you never hear about Milwaukee being taken over by supervillain gangs like Gotham City, or Santa Fe being entirely wiped out by a cyborg pretending to be Superman like Green Lantern's Coast City. Guess where that last one was located.

You might once or twice read about a small Midwestern town being invaded by starfish-shaped aliens, but when it comes to the cities on the coasts, shit like that happens every month. Therefore, your chances of annihilation are much lower if you simply move to America's nice, quiet middle section ... unless it's the petite town of Smallville, Kansas. Don't live there, either. Especially if all the teenagers in town look like 30-something underwear models -- that means you're in the CW version of the town and should get as far away from that godforsaken hellhole as possible.

I Am Legend is set in a disturbing future in which 94 percent of all people have died from a virus, 5 percent have turned into vampire-like mutants, and the remaining 1 percent is apparently just Will Smith.

Smith spends his days walking around NYC's ruins and his nights hiding from the mutants, since they have that whole "deathly allergic to sunlight" thing going on. Leaving aside the inconsequential little detail that (spoilers!) Smith dies at the end, this seems like a fairly sensible survival strategy, right?

Actually, no. That's super dumb. A much better approach would be to, for starters, get the fuck out of New York City. Or any big city. Not only are those places full of mutants (since they had a high population before the virus), but they're full of buildings and other convenient spots where someone who is scared of sunlight could easily hide from it. Remember, this isn't like a zombie invasion, where the uglies are relentlessly looking for brains all day -- these mutants have to take lengthy breaks to avoid the sun like frail emo children. Therefore, the perfect place to live would look something like this:

Seriously, try to imagine a bunch of light-hating freaks trying to reach you someplace with lots of sun and open spaces, like a farm in southern New Mexico. Watching that pathetic spectacle might make up for the lack of sitcoms on TV. Or, if farm life isn't for you, how about some quiet, sunny place on the coast? Or an RV in the middle of the desert? Or, at the very least, anywhere that isn't a city, you dumbass.

And, sure, you'd be lonely as hell, but we'll take that over lonely as hell except for the inhuman creatures who try to murder you every night.

2 Starship Troopers: Bypass The Alien Attacks By Working On A Space Station

Starship Troopers is what you would get if you asked Mussolini to make a science fiction version of The OC: Everyone is young and good-looking, but the ideals of fascism are ever looming. This is mainly due to the brutal, dehumanizing war between the humans and an alien species colloquially known as "the bugs," presumably because they bug people so much. We see no other reason for that nickname.

The war stretches across many planets, causing millions of deaths in the universe. Unfortunately, staying out of this conflict isn't an option for humans, not just because you're not considered a citizen until you've served in the military, but also because the bugs could wipe out your city with a meteor at any time. Your only choices are apparently die in an invasion or die in a spaceship trying to prevent an invasion.

But, actually, there's a third option: Get a gig on one of the many space stations. The spaceships have to stop for refueling and repairs, so there are places that act as way stations between planets. Someone has to stay in those places and, like, make coffee. Technically, you're in the military.

Since the bugs seem to dickishly attack planets only (or defend the ones we're dickishly attacking), by staying in a space station you'd be bypassing all of the danger. In the movie, we see a large station that actually has stores and places for eating/drinking, making it more livable than some cities we've lived in.

And if you can't get a job in a space station, try the place appropriately known as Sanctuary, a secret Earth-like planet that never gets attacked because the bugs don't even know it exists. In addition to serving as a military base, the planet is also being colonized, and you know what that means: cool pilgrim hats, yes!

1 Star Wars Franchise: Why Does Anyone Stay In The Empire-Ridden Part Of The Universe?

You find yourself in the Star Wars galaxy. What do you do? Answer: Get the fuck out of the Star Wars galaxy.

Seriously, think about it -- the biggest danger in all of George Lucas' creation (aside from the constant threat of being deleted from existence and replaced by Hayden Christensen) would be the Empire, but the Empire is ruling only the galaxy. Which raises the question: How big is this old-ass, faraway galaxy? Well, we don't have to guesstimate using only the information provided by Star Wars Monopoly and the Underoos commercials, because the poindexters at Lucasfilm published an actual map of the Star Wars galaxy:

It looks pretty giant, but remember that in the reality of these films, there's such a thing as a hyperdrive, which allows ships to travel at near light speed. Using the events of the first movie and this handy map, we could calculate how fast the hyperdrive is -- if the good people at Tor.com hadn't already done that.

In Star Wars, the Millennium Falcon journeys from the outskirts of the galaxy, on Tatooine, to Alderaan, which is (uh, was) right near the galaxy's core.

The size of the galaxy, according to the map, is 120,000 light years across -- so figuring that the Falcon's journey to Alderaan seemingly took a couple of days to complete, we can reason that the ship can travel around 25,000 light years per day. So, if even the Millennium Falcon (which most people seem to regard as a piece of shit) can travel that far in that span of time, that means one could easily cross the entire galaxy in less than a week.

So why not just leave the galaxy? If you lived in a town that was ruled by a totalitarian regime full of evil wizards, and freedom was only a few days' drive away, you would get the hell out of there as fast as possible. And best of all: According to the movies, there are at least two neighboring galaxies. Come on, there's gotta be something cool somewhere in there.

Also check out 5 Fictional Universes Where Being A Regular Person Sucks and 27 Mind-Blowing Statistics About Fictional Universes.

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