So in about five months (near end October) the network stops giving bribes of 96 or 48 shitcoins when reward goes to zero.  What's then to keep people mining (or even merge-mining) it?

Transaction fees are gonna go through the roof (at 2 txns per block, perhaps 25 IXC per txn fee needed?) or merge mining is gonna be dropped.

What happens to shitcoin then?  Best get out before everyone else figures it out.