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?

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u/captain-_-clutch Jul 09 '25

Boat across the ocean then helicopter around. Both of those you can get some experience without risking immediate death. Still dangerous but you can work your way into it over a few years. With enough books and videos plane is probably possible but meh. Also it's probably not feasible to find instructional dvds for the planes.

Helicopter and boat will have info on board to get them started and you can learn from there.

69

u/forever_a-hole Jul 09 '25

Learning helicopter from scratch with no one to teach seems way more dangerous and difficult than a plane. But I can’t do either and don’t know anything about flight other than playing Microsoft Flight Simulator a few times.

60

u/27Rench27 Jul 10 '25

One of my friends learned to fly helos a couple years ago. During his first sessions, he was telling me how hard it was just to hover 20ft off the ground without drifting in one direction or another

Ethan would kill himself long before he got good enough to fly to an Everest base camp lol

38

u/chinggisk Jul 10 '25

Yeah people in this thread are way underestimating how difficult it is to fly helicopters lol

20

u/captain-_-clutch Jul 10 '25

Didn't say it was easy, but it takes 50 flight hours for a helicopter license, 150 for a commerical license. Since he has no one to teach him outside of books let's go ahead and times that by 10. 500-1500 hours of hovering off the ground and he'll get the hang of it. He has nothing but time and resources.

3

u/Nydus87 Jul 10 '25

The resources aren't actually all that unlimited. What's the maintenance schedule like for those helicopters? Would Ethan be able to identify which helicopter in the hangar had been fully maintained and which one was suffering from acute loose bolt syndrome? The more delicate the machinery, the more important it is for it to be maintained, even if it's just sitting there.

4

u/Nago31 Jul 10 '25

How’s he gonna refuel that helicopter he’s learning on? Will those gas pumps keep working without power? Or the gas in those pumps kept from expiring?

I think Ethan is boned. One person just can’t do all the jobs necessary to get across the ocean and to the top of the mountain.

6

u/RelevantBet4676 Jul 10 '25

Planes/helos are usually filled by a tanker style truck with quick connects in my experience, so the “pumps” are powered from the truck. As a ex helicopter mechanic for the USAF for a while, I can tell you it’s easier than you think to hook up and fuel a helicopter. If I was Ethan I would go to a big airfield or military base to practice, plenty of room to hover and plenty of fuel to burn through and practice with.

1

u/JustARandomGuy_71 Jul 12 '25

And after the many months he needed to reach Nepal, will the batteries in the truck still be operational?

2

u/foxywoef Jul 10 '25

Boat probably has a higher chance of mechanical issues. And the longer Ethan takes to get to Tibet the more infrastructure will degrade

2

u/Seth_Baker Jul 10 '25

I wouldn't trust helicopter fuel after a few years.