r/whowouldwin • u/ThePriestofVaranasi • Jul 09 '25

Challenge Every human on Earth vanishes, except for one random person in the US. A button is placed on the summit of Mount Everest that can be pressed to undo this change. Can humanity be restored?

Every human on Earth vanishes without a trace, except for one random survivor: Ethan from the United States. Moments after the disappearance, a mysterious device materializes before him, displaying a message:
"Humanity can be restored. To activate revival, you must press the button housed at the highest point on Earth—the summit of Mount Everest."

Ethan essentially has as much of a prep time as he wants to gather all the essentials like food, water, weapons, vehicles and everything else that has been suddenly abandoned. He can raid supermarkets, libraries, military depots, and pharmacies for supplies. Ethan can still die of old age so this prep time isn't unlimited.

Now, Ethan faces an impossible gauntlet:
He must travel to Nepal and ascend to the summit of Mount Everest without dying.

Can Ethan survive long enough to reach the button and restore humanity?

1.5k Upvotes

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54

u/sukarno10 Jul 09 '25

Is Ethan actually Tom Cruise’s character from Mission Impossible? If so, yes. If not, he could probably learn to fly a helicopter and get up to Everest, but 40% he crashes or something

9

u/Volsnug Jul 09 '25

99% he crashes. Some random dude trying to teach themself how to fly a helicopter (especially without access to the internet or flight sims) has no chance

12

u/AlexMourne Jul 09 '25

Helicopters cannot reach the highest point of Everest if I remember correctly. So you still need to climb

20

u/Stalking_Goat Jul 09 '25

Technically the altitude record for a helicopter is well above the peak of Everest. But that record was in open air; there are strong and unpredictable winds blowing over mountain tops, so I didn't fancy the chances of trying to land a helicopter on the top of Everest.

1

u/RedstoneEnjoyer Jul 09 '25

Well if Ethan is really really determined, he can simply crush helicopter near the summit, push the button and then wait for death. (assuming that Ethan is great helicoper pilot)

16

u/EncabulatorTurbo Jul 09 '25

They sure can, but so can high performance drones. I'd go that route, the goal would be to find a way to Nepal, probably by stealing a ship and docking it on the other side by just more or less running it aground, then locate high performance drones, and by yourself load a fuckload of them on a truck, and get it to nepal, and practice pratice practice before the attempt

7

u/WaitUntilTheHighway Jul 09 '25

I don't think it'd be possible to teach yourself to fly a helicopter without a pilot to train you. Maybe if you were able to find some absurdly good AI instruction or something. Seems extremely likely you'd kill yourself trying to learn to fly

2

u/9spaceking Jul 09 '25

Your mission should you choose to accept it…