Scale: Solo | Timeframe: First 72 hours
Phase 0 is the first 72 hours, and the ordering built into survival triage is blunt: water, shelter, and fire are what keeps a body alive hour to hour, food and first aid are what keeps it functioning past the first day, and psychology and security are what keeps a person or group making good decisions instead of panicking or getting robbed while the first two are being handled. Salvage and navigation thread through all of it — orientation decides where you’re going, and salvage decides what you take with you.
Water, Shelter, and Fire come first because the physics doesn’t wait: finding and rating a water source, boiling or filtering it, building a debris hut or lean-to and binding it with knots, and getting a fire going all solve problems that start killing within hours, not days. Food and First Aid come next — foraging, hunting, fishing, and basic preservation keep the body fed once the first crisis has passed, and first aid covers bleeding, burns, fractures, and infection with whatever improvised supplies are on hand.
Psychology and Security aren’t physical threats, but they decide whether the physical work above gets done well. Psychology covers the panic response in the first hours and the slower morale collapse of being entirely alone; Security covers reading danger before it arrives, staying warm, and the escape routes a real crisis forces on short notice. Salvage and Orientation & Navigation support everything else: salvage ranks what to grab from ruins — fuel, medicine, books, seeds, tools — before time or competitors take it, and navigation covers finding direction and reading weather without instruments, which decides whether any of the rest happens in the right place.
Immediate Survival
The three problems that start killing within hours, before anything else matters.
Sustaining the Body
Keeping the body fed and treated once the first crisis has passed.
Human Factors
The mental and defensive work that decides whether the physical priorities above get handled well.
Resources and Direction
What to grab and which way to go, supporting every domain above.