Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-67.193.170.188-20170224122257/@comment-27794543-20170224134538

It's extremely unlikely anyone is alive from before the nuclear apocalypse since they'd have to be at least 97 years old. Given the lack of modern medicine, the nuclear radiation (even if the radiation level is survivable, I'd assume it still lowers life expectancy, increase chances of cancer, etc.), and Grounder warrior culture, I have a hard time buying any Grounders being that old. Mountain Men needed to rely on the Harvest Project to live, so they weren't that healthy. As for the Ark, it's unlikely they had any infants or children in space pre-apocalypse. Probably mostly researchers, so at least 18 years old + 97 years = 115 years & older, i.e. dead. While anything is possible, this is highly improbable.

I do question the extent of language change. Contributing factors include the lack of formal education, illiteracy, small villages, etc. Things like that accelerate language change. Compare to Mount Weather and the Ark – where everyone was educated, read book, and used computers – the two groups spoke today's English (though realistically, some language change would have happened in 133 years [e.g. compare books published in 1884 to today], but the two groups would still be able to understand each either [e.g. Americans vs. British], but having everyone on the show speak 2149 English would turn off audience members). Adding to the natural language change, the Grounders intentionally spoke in code. Here's a couple posts from David J. Peterson, the language creator: 1 & 2.

As for guns, Indra said: "Legend has it, if a Grounder picks up a gun, even to shoot another Grounder, Mount Weather will wipe out their entire village." Any guns were probably removed/destroyed. Even now, with the Mountain Men gone, culture/superstitions may still prevent many Grounders from touching a gun even if they had access to them.

Since they use building in Polis, I'd assume they'd do it in other places. Certain cities, like Washington, D.C. (Tondc), were badly damaged by the nuclear bombs. Grounders may also see advantages to create their own villages. Perhaps the woods provide better protection/security than living in towns. Mobility might be also an issue. However, given how populated this area is today, I would expect to see significantly more building ruins, but this might be a logistical problem (i.e. it's much easier to film forests than create different ruins for each city).

The thing that gets me is how did Grounder society even come to this state? The original group were people inoculated from the radiation by Becca. The Becca who was a super-genius who created two AIs (expert in machine learning and programming), one of which directly interacts with the human brain (expert in neuroscience, biomedical engineering, etc.), and created a radiation cure (expert in gene therapy, medicine, etc.). How'd they go from Becca to people who know practically nothing about modern science? I would think Becca would create a society where education, science, medicine, etc. were all highly valued skills. Instead we got a warrior culture with clans fighting each other.