User blog comment:JERealize/What lies beyond Panem?/@comment-174.118.30.215-20120320234516

my opinion is that the rest of the countries in the world have died off.

if you think about it, Panem is the only country we hear of in the books. i'm not saying that their aren't any other survivors elseware that will certainly rebuild a new country. i'm saying that no other previously existing countries exist anymore. the new country would have to start from scratch, even with all the ruins that they can salvage knowledge from. it would take generations to finally have any of the communities become noticable by Panem (by the way, Panem [if i'm correct] wasn't entirly from scratch; it's a reinstated america), let alone, become an equal match of power to Panem. i believe this because a country that was damadged but was able to pull through (like Panem) should have all the technology and ingenuity of everything they learned and even more (like Panem). this includes transportation (which could let them discover Panem), comunication (which would lead them into Panems broadcast frequencies or TV CHANNELS ("wink-wink-nudge-nudge"), or even the fact that they already know eachother (it would be hard for one country to forget about another in the first place). resources, although are far fewer, shouldn't be a problem for any surviving countries. Panem is restricted to supplying itself without trade, but is still able to produce entire ecosystems (arenas for hunger games) and huge technologicaly advanced weapons (muttations and lazers [one lazer gun is only seen in the book series, when katniss discovers the two refugies who are heading to district 13 in book 2, one of which has aquired a lazer gun]). if Panem can have this tachnologies, why not any other surviving countries: because their are no other surviving countries - only newly founded ones!