So just as I start reading The Walking Dead, it ends with issue 193. Which is typical.
But it did in a roundabout way get my brain ticking toward this thread.
See, one of things that has always irked me, despite being a massive Zombie fan, is just how things could go so completely and utterly south. And it’s all the more irked because Fear The Walking Dead totally bailed on its promise to show the collapse.
I mean....sure, there’s existential dread to be taken into account, and a pretty fast initial spread as people cotton on that you need to nail them in the Bonce.
But we have armed forces. Well trained men and women with firepower, and importantly, discipline. Their foe are typically swarmy and slow. They don’t strike me as a particular logistical nightmare to combat. Indeed, I’d argue that Shaun of the Dead is likely the most realistic display of a Romeroesque outbreak. Because all Zombies would be Romero’s. Of course they would.
Mind you, I’m a dirty little pacifist, so have no appreciation for actual military logistics and limitations. So that’s where I’m leaning on you, Dakka. I want to hear hypotheticals, and experience (unless you don’t want to share your military experiences. I get that). And if you’ve got Nerd Culture stuff to cite, let’s hear them
So just as I start reading The Walking Dead, it ends with issue 193. Which is typical.
But it did in a roundabout way get my brain ticking toward this thread.
See, one of things that has always irked me, despite being a massive Zombie fan, is just how things could go so completely and utterly south. And it’s all the more irked because Fear The Walking Dead totally bailed on its promise to show the collapse.
I mean....sure, there’s existential dread to be taken into account, and a pretty fast initial spread as people cotton on that you need to nail them in the Bonce.
But we have armed forces. Well trained men and women with firepower, and importantly, discipline. Their foe are typically swarmy and slow. They don’t strike me as a particular logistical nightmare to combat. Indeed, I’d argue that Shaun of the Dead is likely the most realistic display of a Romeroesque outbreak. Because all Zombies would be Romero’s. Of course they would.
Mind you, I’m a dirty little pacifist, so have no appreciation for actual military logistics and limitations. So that’s where I’m leaning on you, Dakka. I want to hear hypotheticals, and experience (unless you don’t want to share your military experiences. I get that). And if you’ve got Nerd Culture stuff to cite, let’s hear them
read World War Z
Zombies make little sense - esp the non souped up ones - its really not easy for a healthy person to bite through clothes or skin - never mind both. And thats before degredation of muscles, teeth etc. If you add in T-Virus style Zobies or supernatural enhancements -then its nastier. Black Summer was not bad as the change was near instant.
Part of the point of Walking dead is that the Humans are more dangerous than the zombies - society is fragile, esp in big cities - they will fall apart quite quickly and then really bad stuff starts..
The premise that once society falls apart, then things get nasty/mad max-esque with every small group of jackwads form themselves is itself a huge fallacy of the genre, IMHO.
But yeah, unless coupled with some other major disaster (Plague, Nuclear War, Mass Famine, Enviro Disaster) then Zombies make no sense as an actual society destroying threat.
As said, zombies are really only the large threat during the initial outbreak. Especially if they decompose, as opposed to the ones in the Walking Dead which continue to keep going, it's the tribal nature of humans vs. anarchy that is the main threat.
I liked High School of the Dead, where many of the characters acknowledged that yes the zombies are rotting, and if we just survive long enough, they'll all be too rotten to pose any threat to anyone and the goal became surviving winter and the following summer.
This is one of the reasons why I've never really enjoyed the "slow" zombie genre. Particularly if you only get infected from dying or being bitten, etc.
As you stated, logistically there's little way for zombies to do anything. In addition it's easy to destroy them (burning would be super effective). A trained civilian in a decent position could dispatch dozens if not hundreds of zombies. A trained police SWAT unit...even more. A military base put on lock-down and armed? Impossible to disrupt with slow zombies.
And, if for some reason we did suddenly lose 50-70% of the population, the remaining stock of food, ammunition, oil, fuel, supplies, etc. would be overwhelming that the survivors would have almost zero issue finding a safe location and PLENTY of supplies/transportation, etc. This would also mean that rival groups of humans wouldn't realistically be battling over supplies. You'd have some violent groups of thugs who just want to hurt people, but none of this "Oh they have six cans of spam, let's go to war with them!".
A zombie apocalypse would simply mean adapting to a different way of life. You'd have time, equipment etc. to build zombie-proof structures etc. It wouldn't be anything like the films.
Now...28 Days Later rage zombies..and being infected by a drop of blood....that's something worth discussing.
Zombies are literal magic, nothing about them makes any sense at all if you try to explain them without magic. So they win because the magic "zombie apocalypse" spell says so.
Peregrine wrote: Zombies are literal magic, nothing about them makes any sense at all if you try to explain them without magic. So they win because the magic "zombie apocalypse" spell says so.
Yeah, to be a credible threat, they'd have to be actually reanimated and guided through necromancy rather than a virus that happens to bring you back from the dead.
Peregrine wrote: Zombies are literal magic, nothing about them makes any sense at all if you try to explain them without magic. So they win because the magic "zombie apocalypse" spell says so.
Yeah, to be a credible threat, they'd have to be actually reanimated and guided through necromancy rather than a virus that happens to bring you back from the dead.
And given magical food of some kind. Forget waiting for them to rot, just wait a day or two for the bodies to use up all of their stored energy and collapse into a useless heap.
Can a creature less dangerous then a grey wolf cause human instinction or civilisation collapse? No, this is completely absurd. Humans are really nasty critters. Even with a primitive technology, zombies represent very little threat. The vector of the zombie disease being through bites and with a ridiculously short incubation period is also extremely inefficient. Such an infection could hardly affect more then a few dozen person before its quarentined even in developping countries. If the virus was airborn and about as contagious as measle then it would catastrophically dangerous not because of zombies themselves, but because of the disease itself.
Zombies turn exothermic, so they would take considerably longer to "starve", especially since they can essentially hibernate when they have a lack of stimulation.
As someone who has actually survived a natural disaster, I can tell you this: It doesn't take much to totally screw up your life once you are cut off from resupply and utilities are down. After a flood when I was a child our town was basically cut off from society and without water or power for a few days. That was hell. Katrina was slightly worse, and New Orleans became a lawless, murderous, rape ridden cesspit with people fighting over supplies.
Now, these events were all localized. People outside the effected areas could send aid. Zombie outbreaks like the Walking Dead happened all over at once. No one place was any better than another. Also, starting slow makes it deadly in the long run. You don't think you have a problem until it's too big to handle. It's like the old saying about putting a frog in cool water and slowly heating it until the frog cooks. It won't jump out because it doesn't know it's in danger until it's too late.
Another thing to note is that in the Walking Dead universe no one knew about the concept of Zombies until it happened. It's not like reality where we have all debated it to death. They have to fly blind on every issue.
And technically, being freshly dead actually makes it easier to bite into someone. Our bodies have a natural strength limiter on them to prevent pain or damage from over exertion. Zombies wouldn't have this.
The Walking Dead has the extra element that everyone is infected and will become a zombie when they die.
Also in The Walking Dead, the zombism(?!) is linked to a more conventional plague. You only have to look at the real world reactions to SARS, swine flu, Ebola outbreaks, etc. to see that that would cause real panic, which potentially causes more problems than the initial infection itself (vigilantes, hoarding, panic buying, etc.). Hell I remember about 15-years ago when the UK managed to cause a petrol and food shortage on itself from panic buying at the rumour of another petrol refinery strike; that’s right, the strike never happened, but enough people drained the stockpiles in the supply chain to cause a fuel shortage, that then stopped food deliveries!
So I think TWD has some extra elements that make the initial collapse more believable, but I still think the threat from the actual zombies is overblown in most media (a personal niggle is no-one thinks to use motorcycle leathers, except for fashion reasons. To all intents and purposes they’re bloody armour and no human is biting through them!)
the other thing 'natural' zombies don't take into account is maggots unless your outbreak is in the winter
all that dead flesh would bring in flies by the cloud and maggot masses would swiftly liquidise and consume them (and they'd drop sooner than that as the brain would be one of the parts eaten first and destroying the brain destroys the zombie) so you wouldn't even have to wait for them to rot
for things to work your zombies need to have a built in insect repellant
cuda1179 wrote: Zombies turn exothermic, so they would take considerably longer to "starve", especially since they can essentially hibernate when they have a lack of stimulation.
As someone who has actually survived a natural disaster, I can tell you this: It doesn't take much to totally screw up your life once you are cut off from resupply and utilities are down. After a flood when I was a child our town was basically cut off from society and without water or power for a few days. That was hell. Katrina was slightly worse, and New Orleans became a lawless, murderous, rape ridden cesspit with people fighting over supplies.
The crime rate in New Orleans immediately after Katrina is still highly debated, but any sharp increase was very brief and definitely dropped significantly over the subsequent year. Rape and murders dropped off massively and have never since reached 2004 levels (though the former have been approaching pre-Katrina numbers, sadly).
What the Katrina analogy actually seems to say is that you are likely to get a burst of crime in during an extreme crises whilst the panic and shock is still high and people are fleeing but that people very quickly band together em masse.
LordofHats wrote: I liked High School of the Dead, where many of the characters acknowledged that yes the zombies are rotting, and if we just survive long enough, they'll all be too rotten to pose any threat to anyone and the goal became surviving winter and the following summer.
Heck, outlasting zombies in the winter is even easier than the summer. People do not understand just how fast freezing destroys tissues on a cellular level... and thus destroys zombies within hours, sometimes even as little as half an hour depending on how cold it is. Then all you have to do is pick up the pieces, stack them somewhere to freeze-dry, and burn them in the spring once they thaw.
Fast or slow, freezing cold kills them all in the same amount of time. They'd have to be smart enough to seek shelter... and if they're that smart they're not zombies. Ghouls, perhaps; not zombies.
Vulcan wrote: Heck, outlasting zombies in the winter is even easier than the summer.
I can see that. The story depicted a mild winter, so that wasn't really an option at the time XD
Not that we'll ever get the end of it. Daisuke Sato died in 2017 and Shoji Sato has mostly moved on to working on Triage X since HSotD went on hiatus in 2013/14. Shame. That series was brutally, hilariously, self-aware.
Just saw The Dead don't Die last week.. I really enjoyed how the town tried to deal with the zombies.. and the "in movie" rational of how the zombies came to be was totally funnier than anyting else I had heard
Plus the characters being "meta" about being in a zombie movie was a lot of fun..
Why would freezing or decay stop zombies when being dead hasn't? They're obviously vastly and incomprehensibly unnatural. Which is something I liked about the white walkers in ASOIAF was that it was winter, and there they were staggering through icy storms. As Peregrine stated, zombies are magical.
So just as I start reading The Walking Dead, it ends with issue 193. Which is typical.
But it did in a roundabout way get my brain ticking toward this thread.
See, one of things that has always irked me, despite being a massive Zombie fan, is just how things could go so completely and utterly south. And it’s all the more irked because Fear The Walking Dead totally bailed on its promise to show the collapse.
I mean....sure, there’s existential dread to be taken into account, and a pretty fast initial spread as people cotton on that you need to nail them in the Bonce.
But we have armed forces. Well trained men and women with firepower, and importantly, discipline. Their foe are typically swarmy and slow. They don’t strike me as a particular logistical nightmare to combat. Indeed, I’d argue that Shaun of the Dead is likely the most realistic display of a Romeroesque outbreak. Because all Zombies would be Romero’s. Of course they would.
Mind you, I’m a dirty little pacifist, so have no appreciation for actual military logistics and limitations. So that’s where I’m leaning on you, Dakka. I want to hear hypotheticals, and experience (unless you don’t want to share your military experiences. I get that). And if you’ve got Nerd Culture stuff to cite, let’s hear them
read World War Z
Zombies make little sense - esp the non souped up ones - its really not easy for a healthy person to bite through clothes or skin - never mind both. And thats before degredation of muscles, teeth etc. If you add in T-Virus style Zobies or supernatural enhancements -then its nastier. Black Summer was not bad as the change was near instant.
Part of the point of Walking dead is that the Humans are more dangerous than the zombies - society is fragile, esp in big cities - they will fall apart quite quickly and then really bad stuff starts..
Indeed, outside of a 28 days kind of instant infection scenario its not a believable logical scenario. Most would end like Sean of the Dead. Local outbreak cleaned up by the local gendarmes / guard in about 24 hours.
Once initial outbreaks are dealt with the rest of the populace is effectively innoculated. They will know what to watch for for potential infected individuals. It becomes a normal hygiene thing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Katrina was slightly worse, and New Orleans became a lawless, murderous, rape ridden cesspit with people fighting over supplies.
So, your average Tuesday night in the Big Easy then...
Nurglitch wrote:Why would freezing or decay stop zombies when being dead hasn't? They're obviously vastly and incomprehensibly unnatural. Which is something I liked about the white walkers in ASOIAF was that it was winter, and there they were staggering through icy storms. As Peregrine stated, zombies are magical.
The great weakness of the argument being, of course, that it is total nonsense.
Zombies haven't been portrayed as 'magical' since the days of the Evil Dead. Every single zombie movie/show in the last twenty/thirty years has tried to come up with scientific-sounding hokum to justify their existence, while just ignoring the very real science that says their 'idea' is bad and that they should feel bad.
World War Z has a veneer of science, but when characters with a scientific background are asked about the cause and behaviour, it basically boils down to "I don't know".
Zombies there aren't affected by decomposition or parasites because other animals and even microbes are killed by the zombie virus (although only humans reanimate). They do freeze in winter, and over time disintegrate. However, they aren't affected by the pressure of oceanic depths. The solanum virus is essentially magic, and the book tacitly accepts that.
Excommunicatus, the other works may attempt to portray the undead as "natural" events, but looking at them rationally it's clear that they're magical; that's what Peregrine and Nurglitch are saying. You can't analyse them using rational methods, you just have to take everything presented at face value. You can't predict what they'll do in situations not depicted, because there's no underlying rules you can assume.
I think the thing is that once you admit to their being magic in the story suddenly it's not about the zombies but the magic, so if you're trying to use the zombies as metaphors for consumerism or whatever it gets over-shadowed.
I liked the Rec. rationale behind zombies; for those of you who didn’t see it, even though the sequels were pants-on-head stupid, it was essentially a more advanced strain of rabies cooked up in a lab. The scientist who created it even had an innoculation (that didn’t work), and the rabies took hold in about ten minutes or so. And even the Zombieland rationale was fine; Mad Cow Disease that mutated. Both are probably the closest we’d ever come to zombies in the real world.
I always felt something like the Resident Evil series got a good theme going with the Zombies in having a fast infection, but also two key other elements alongside:
1) Human agents promoting the infection/spread of infection and working at high government levels. You could make this very believable if you took a "germ warfare" angle. Infiltration, chaos of war all coupled to a massive zombie outbreak; thus meaning military response is muted and the population far more vulnerable.
2) Superbeasts alongside the zombies. Even "Rage" zombies out of 28days later have major issues. They are super scary in confined spaces and mass numbers, but by and large they are pretty easy to avoid and disable. Now a hulking mass of bone and muscle that moves at high speed and with a rhino's hide. A creature that won't go down to conventional small arms fire - now that is something which can break a defensive point and let the zombies flood in.
In general zombies work great in small tight and local situations, but even a lot of the time its not the zombies which are the actual threat. Many times its people getting bitten and not revealing it; or people with alternate agendas or just being utterly crazy - people within the "safe zones" who open the doors; who expose others to risk. People are the real threat rather than the zombies.
Nurglitch wrote: Why would freezing or decay stop zombies when being dead hasn't? They're obviously vastly and incomprehensibly unnatural. Which is something I liked about the white walkers in ASOIAF was that it was winter, and there they were staggering through icy storms. As Peregrine stated, zombies are magical.
When zombies are literally magical in a world that has actual magic, then you would be correct.
In a world where there is NO magic, then there must be a biological cause. And just because something acts in a mindless zombielike manner doesn't mean it stops being technically alive.
Dehydration and freezing destroys tissue on a cellular level, rendering it non-functional. Doesn't matter how much 'zombie virus' there is if every cell has ruptured from freezing, or a limp microscopic sack with no water content. The muscle DOES NOT WORK under those conditions, and the body just lies there.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Overread wrote: 2) Superbeasts alongside the zombies. Even "Rage" zombies out of 28days later have major issues. They are super scary in confined spaces and mass numbers, but by and large they are pretty easy to avoid and disable. Now a hulking mass of bone and muscle that moves at high speed and with a rhino's hide. A creature that won't go down to conventional small arms fire - now that is something which can break a defensive point and let the zombies flood in.
Two problems. One, rhinos and the like are pretty darn rare even in Africa; in America they are kept in zoos designed to keep them from escaping. Can it be done? Possibly, but it wouldn't be a common threat.
Two, the military has been dealing with armored threats for over a century now; a LAWS will do a rhino just as easily as a BRDM. A Bushmaster will take an elephant just as easily as a BMP. And a 105 will drop zombies by the score regardless of what it is.
Two problems. One, rhinos and the like are pretty darn rare even in Africa; in America they are kept in zoos designed to keep them from escaping. Can it be done? Possibly, but it wouldn't be a common threat.
Two, the military has been dealing with armored threats for over a century now; a LAWS will do a rhino just as easily as a BRDM. A Bushmaster will take an elephant just as easily as a BMP. And a 105 will drop zombies by the score regardless of what it is.
I didn't mean undead rhinos I was referring more to monsters with super tough armour like skin layers. Even if the regular military can deal with heavy armour, your local police force likely can't do much at al and small arms wouldn't penetrate. The main point, though, was that whilst there were zombies, there were also other things far more dangerous even if they were rarer. Creating creatures that could thus tackle an actual real military response.
Two problems. One, rhinos and the like are pretty darn rare even in Africa; in America they are kept in zoos designed to keep them from escaping. Can it be done? Possibly, but it wouldn't be a common threat.
Two, the military has been dealing with armored threats for over a century now; a LAWS will do a rhino just as easily as a BRDM. A Bushmaster will take an elephant just as easily as a BMP. And a 105 will drop zombies by the score regardless of what it is.
I didn't mean undead rhinos I was referring more to monsters with super tough armour like skin layers. Even if the regular military can deal with heavy armour, your local police force likely can't do much at al and small arms wouldn't penetrate. The main point, though, was that whilst there were zombies, there were also other things far more dangerous even if they were rarer. Creating creatures that could thus tackle an actual real military response.
Yeah, having even just more mobile vectors of infection like Lickers from RE would make a big difference in making an outbreak actually do something IRL. Throw in Tyrant level threats and the army would be spread thin if there were multiple outbreaks occuring at the same time.
But surely, and I’m no biologist so may end up with egg on my face, the sheer velocity of certain armour rounds would bugger up an otherwise bulletproof creature?
Would the impact not still cause sufficient trauma to burst organs and the like? I mean, it’s not necessarily going to drop it in the blink of an eye, but a square shot on the bonce is still going to mess up the brain?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: But surely, and I’m no biologist so may end up with egg on my face, the sheer velocity of certain armour rounds would bugger up an otherwise bulletproof creature?
Would the impact not still cause sufficient trauma to burst organs and the like? I mean, it’s not necessarily going to drop it in the blink of an eye, but a square shot on the bonce is still going to mess up the brain?
Depends, with the right density of flesh and a thick enough bone structure you can get a surprising amount of resilience. Plus if the creature is already charging it might well maintain enough momentum to be a viable threat. Then again most zombie fictions, even iwth big beasties, rely often on two key elements of victor
1) Stealth and getting close; or tight confined spaces where firearms have limited fire arcs and can't blast things apart miles away
2) Volume of numbers. Like a Tyranid or Zerg swarm whilst you can take down stuff, more stuff is coming up right behind it!
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: But surely, and I’m no biologist so may end up with egg on my face, the sheer velocity of certain armour rounds would bugger up an otherwise bulletproof creature?
Would the impact not still cause sufficient trauma to burst organs and the like? I mean, it’s not necessarily going to drop it in the blink of an eye, but a square shot on the bonce is still going to mess up the brain?
Depends, with the right density of flesh and a thick enough bone structure you can get a surprising amount of resilience. Plus if the creature is already charging it might well maintain enough momentum to be a viable threat. Then again most zombie fictions, even iwth big beasties, rely often on two key elements of victor
1) Stealth and getting close; or tight confined spaces where firearms have limited fire arcs and can't blast things apart miles away
2) Volume of numbers. Like a Tyranid or Zerg swarm whilst you can take down stuff, more stuff is coming up right behind it!
Nothing a .50 can't go through like hot wax, or a grenade shrapnalize. Plus militaries are starting to float back to higher velocity rounds due to increasing use of body armor (USA looking in your direction).
Two problems. One, rhinos and the like are pretty darn rare even in Africa; in America they are kept in zoos designed to keep them from escaping. Can it be done? Possibly, but it wouldn't be a common threat.
Two, the military has been dealing with armored threats for over a century now; a LAWS will do a rhino just as easily as a BRDM. A Bushmaster will take an elephant just as easily as a BMP. And a 105 will drop zombies by the score regardless of what it is.
I didn't mean undead rhinos I was referring more to monsters with super tough armour like skin layers. Even if the regular military can deal with heavy armour, your local police force likely can't do much at al and small arms wouldn't penetrate. The main point, though, was that whilst there were zombies, there were also other things far more dangerous even if they were rarer. Creating creatures that could thus tackle an actual real military response.
I'll grant you the issue about police. I have a hard time imagining a living creature that could withstand a LAWS outside of a kaiju movie. We ARE talking about realism and zombies, not fantasy.
I watched a guy's youtube channel as he does "real world" scenarios concerning zombies.
He did an episode regarding Prisons as a Habitat (Walking Dead Season 3) . He noted some stuff I didn't know.
In the US, if a zombie infestation occurred there would be martial law. According to judicial regulations martial law does weird things. If that happens the military takes over prisons, private guards are let go. Prisoners serving terms under 10 years (What you are sentenced to, not what you have left to serve) are either let go, or can legally be conscripted into the military indefinitely, based on commanding officer's discretion. People serving over 10 years are put into solitary, or hard labor indefinitely, regardless of time left to serve. Those serving life or on death row are to immediately be executed by firing squad. This occurs even if the state you are in does NOT have the death penalty.
Nurglitch wrote: Why would freezing or decay stop zombies when being dead hasn't? They're obviously vastly and incomprehensibly unnatural. Which is something I liked about the white walkers in ASOIAF was that it was winter, and there they were staggering through icy storms. As Peregrine stated, zombies are magical.
When zombies are literally magical in a world that has actual magic, then you would be correct.
In a world where there is NO magic, then there must be a biological cause. And just because something acts in a mindless zombielike manner doesn't mean it stops being technically alive.
Dehydration and freezing destroys tissue on a cellular level, rendering it non-functional. Doesn't matter how much 'zombie virus' there is if every cell has ruptured from freezing, or a limp microscopic sack with no water content. The muscle DOES NOT WORK under those conditions, and the body just lies there.
There are a decent number of organisms that make stuff that lets their cells operate fine under conditions of extremely low tempaerature, or just freeze without dammage (eg fish that live under the arctic ice, lots of amphibians from cold parts of the world), or can survive extreme dehydration (eg tardigrades) so a zombie 'virus' could add these abilities to human tissue, especially if its an engineered virus
In the US, if a zombie infestation occurred there would be martial law. According to judicial regulations martial law does weird things. If that happens the military takes over prisons, private guards are let go. Prisoners serving terms under 10 years (What you are sentenced to, not what you have left to serve) are either let go, or can legally be conscripted into the military indefinitely, based on commanding officer's discretion. People serving over 10 years are put into solitary, or hard labor indefinitely, regardless of time left to serve. Those serving life or on death row are to immediately be executed by firing squad. This occurs even if the state you are in does NOT have the death penalty.
Interesting find and surprising we've never really seen a zombie film do that. Then again most tend to gloss over the "mass invasion" stage. The very start and the aftermath tend to be what we see in most zombie films; at least for large scale infestations and responses.
Overread wrote: Interesting find and surprising we've never really seen a zombie film do that. Then again most tend to gloss over the "mass invasion" stage.
It's easy to establish "the world as we knew it ended" by author fiat, but it's really hard to explain why the army didn't murderate them all before that point, or why no one managed to effectively implement basic quarantine procedures in the earliest stages, so like a good magician, the zombie apocalypse genre uses the simple slight of hand to draw attention away from potentially suspension of disbelief breaking elements.
I think one of the more brilliant parts of Shaun of the Dead is that the army actually showed up at the end and dealt with the zombies, the one thing most zombie films know to never do cause it's tantamount to explaining the magic trick.
Nurglitch wrote: Why would freezing or decay stop zombies when being dead hasn't? They're obviously vastly and incomprehensibly unnatural. Which is something I liked about the white walkers in ASOIAF was that it was winter, and there they were staggering through icy storms. As Peregrine stated, zombies are magical.
When zombies are literally magical in a world that has actual magic, then you would be correct.
In a world where there is NO magic, then there must be a biological cause. And just because something acts in a mindless zombielike manner doesn't mean it stops being technically alive.
Dehydration and freezing destroys tissue on a cellular level, rendering it non-functional. Doesn't matter how much 'zombie virus' there is if every cell has ruptured from freezing, or a limp microscopic sack with no water content. The muscle DOES NOT WORK under those conditions, and the body just lies there.
There are a decent number of organisms that make stuff that lets their cells operate fine under conditions of extremely low tempaerature, or just freeze without dammage (eg fish that live under the arctic ice, lots of amphibians from cold parts of the world), or can survive extreme dehydration (eg tardigrades) so a zombie 'virus' could add these abilities to human tissue, especially if its an engineered virus
That's... a fair point. With that caveat, the zombies would go dormant when frozen or dehydrated and re-animate under less severe conditions. So destruction of found bodies becomes very important...
Overread wrote: Interesting find and surprising we've never really seen a zombie film do that. Then again most tend to gloss over the "mass invasion" stage.
It's easy to establish "the world as we knew it ended" by author fiat, but it's really hard to explain why the army didn't murderate them all before that point, or why no one managed to effectively implement basic quarantine procedures in the earliest stages, so like a good magician, the zombie apocalypse genre uses the simple slight of hand to draw attention away from potentially suspension of disbelief breaking elements.
I think one of the more brilliant parts of Shaun of the Dead is that the army actually showed up at the end and dealt with the zombies, the one thing most zombie films know to never do cause it's tantamount to explaining the magic trick.
Well, the same thing basically happens in the 1968 and 1986 versions of Night of the Living Dead (let's all forget the theatrical abortions of the other two reboots of this movie). It's also, kind of, seen in 28 days later.
cuda1179 wrote: Well, the same thing basically happens in the 1968 and 1986 versions of Night of the Living Dead
I wouldn't consider this "zombie apocalypse" even though the genre spawned from Romero's work. They were more grounded relative to the times (and I thought it was like a mob that showed up at the end? Am I remembering it wrong?).
It's also, kind of, seen in 28 days later.
Yeah, and 28 Weeks Later doesn't shy from trying to show it with some success. Black Summer was a good stab at it for TV.
cuda1179 wrote: I watched a guy's youtube channel as he does "real world" scenarios concerning zombies.
He did an episode regarding Prisons as a Habitat (Walking Dead Season 3) . He noted some stuff I didn't know.
In the US, if a zombie infestation occurred there would be martial law. According to judicial regulations martial law does weird things. If that happens the military takes over prisons, private guards are let go. Prisoners serving terms under 10 years (What you are sentenced to, not what you have left to serve) are either let go, or can legally be conscripted into the military indefinitely, based on commanding officer's discretion. People serving over 10 years are put into solitary, or hard labor indefinitely, regardless of time left to serve. Those serving life or on death row are to immediately be executed by firing squad. This occurs even if the state you are in does NOT have the death penalty.
I... literally believe none of that.
Edit: two minutes research reveals that to be internet rumor bs. As someone who works with jails that's frigging insulting. Do research before you post such bs.
To be fair, it's YouTube. It's increasingly become the realm of fringe conspiracy nuts who are really, really good, at making lies look like gold. Some of the stuff I've found there does a really good job of looking authentic.
cuda1179 wrote: I watched a guy's youtube channel as he does "real world" scenarios concerning zombies.
He did an episode regarding Prisons as a Habitat (Walking Dead Season 3) . He noted some stuff I didn't know.
In the US, if a zombie infestation occurred there would be martial law. According to judicial regulations martial law does weird things. If that happens the military takes over prisons, private guards are let go. Prisoners serving terms under 10 years (What you are sentenced to, not what you have left to serve) are either let go, or can legally be conscripted into the military indefinitely, based on commanding officer's discretion. People serving over 10 years are put into solitary, or hard labor indefinitely, regardless of time left to serve. Those serving life or on death row are to immediately be executed by firing squad. This occurs even if the state you are in does NOT have the death penalty.
I... literally believe none of that.
Edit: two minutes research reveals that to be internet rumor bs. As someone who works with jails that's frigging insulting. Do research before you post such bs.
My apologies. The guy supposedly has a reputation for doing research, so it looks like I got suckered this time.
I’m also wondering about how there’s relatively little illness during Zombie Outbreaks.
With lots of mobile rotting flesh, we should expect a fly epidemic. Like, lots and lots of flies.
Whilst the maggots would help render down the Dead into a pile of bones, the adult flies remain a serious disease vector. And without ready access to antibiotics? That’s bad.
I know TWD sort of played with that during Season 4. But still. Should be a larger and more common issue.
I suppose we don't see the problem with plague because in most zombie situations the people are separate from the zombies. The survivors are rarely living in filth invested spots, in fact many are quite clean in all truth.
The other aspect is that zombies don't tend to leave flesh lying around and most variations appear to resist maggots and flies nesting in them whilst they are active zombies. One would also assume zombies consume their fallen. This would help reduce spread of maggots and the like considerably because there isn't the lying around flesh.
though yes with a total collapse medical supplies would be a very important and risky aspect to life. Though again we've vast stocks of basic things, so long as you could secure youreslf some freezers/coolers early on you could likely stock up quite considerably for a small group of survivors.
In North America one of the worse infested areas would likely be New Orleans.
Most of a zombie's brain is shut down. While they do herd-up and go after random moving/ loud things they tend to just aimlessly wander without outside stimulation. They also tend to follow the path of least resistance (in general).
This means that baring some other influence, after several years zombies would gradually work themselves into lower elevations. All the zombies between the Appalachian and Rocky mountains would eventually work themselves towards the Mississippi River, and then downstream. The end of the line is New Orleans, or if they are in the river the Gulf of Mexico.
The other aspect is that zombies don't tend to leave flesh lying around and most variations appear to resist maggots and flies nesting in them whilst they are active zombies.
They're depicted as being resistant to maggots, rot, and dehydration and the like because they become much less of a society-shattering threat if the bodies decompose to biological uselessness in a matter of days. The reality of things is... not that kind. Rather horrific, actually, how fast a body can be ripped apart by maggots... especially in warm weather.
so long as you could secure yourself some freezers/coolers early on you could likely stock up quite considerably for a small group of survivors.
The real trick would be maintaining power to the freezers, or finding a reliable source of ice for the coolers.
cuda1179 wrote: In North America one of the worse infested areas would likely be New Orleans.
Most of a zombie's brain is shut down. While they do herd-up and go after random moving/ loud things they tend to just aimlessly wander without outside stimulation. They also tend to follow the path of least resistance (in general).
This means that baring some other influence, after several years zombies would gradually work themselves into lower elevations. All the zombies between the Appalachian and Rocky mountains would eventually work themselves towards the Mississippi River, and then downstream. The end of the line is New Orleans, or if they are in the river the Gulf of Mexico.
That's a really interesting thought actually. Someone should use that.
The real trick would be maintaining power to the freezers, or finding a reliable source of ice for the coolers.
Short term it wouldn't be too hard - many hospitals already have their own generators and most urban areas will have ample stores with generators within them. Fuel is an issue, but in the short term at least you can drain cars and use garages - that is unless the mass fleeing panic drained the supplies, though an industrious person might use a map to find a local storage site.
One would assume most major reactors would have either been shut down or shut down on their own through safety shutoffs. However renewable energy sources like wind turbines might well keep going. In fact one could suppose that power generation following a major renewable program, could be quite a trivial matter for a smaller number of survivors. So long as the national grid remained active and functional power wouldn't be a huge problem. Of course logistically one might want to move closer to a reliable power source and potentially try to isolate it from the national grid so that it can supply a regular amount locally. Though honestly I've no idea about how much of the national grid could function without human operators and for how long it could maintain itself before it would break down. Still the infrastructure would be there.
You'd need someone trained in how to run said infrastructure to do that. There aren't that many of them - disturbingly few, in fact, given how vital their job is...
cuda1179 wrote: In North America one of the worse infested areas would likely be New Orleans.
Most of a zombie's brain is shut down. While they do herd-up and go after random moving/ loud things they tend to just aimlessly wander without outside stimulation. They also tend to follow the path of least resistance (in general).
This means that baring some other influence, after several years zombies would gradually work themselves into lower elevations. All the zombies between the Appalachian and Rocky mountains would eventually work themselves towards the Mississippi River, and then downstream. The end of the line is New Orleans, or if they are in the river the Gulf of Mexico.
That's a really interesting thought actually. Someone should use that.
The CDC once used a "zombie infestation" as a mock-run for a contagious disease. They gave the same advice they would for some other super-diseases: Stay inside, don't go out, make sure to have plenty of food and water, check your family for signs of the disease, and quarantine them if you find it. Also, they estimated the last place in the US to be touched by a zombie would be Glacier National Park.
The real trick would be maintaining power to the freezers, or finding a reliable source of ice for the coolers.
Short term it wouldn't be too hard - many hospitals already have their own generators and most urban areas will have ample stores with generators within them. Fuel is an issue, but in the short term at least you can drain cars and use garages - that is unless the mass fleeing panic drained the supplies, though an industrious person might use a map to find a local storage site.
One would assume most major reactors would have either been shut down or shut down on their own through safety shutoffs. However renewable energy sources like wind turbines might well keep going. In fact one could suppose that power generation following a major renewable program, could be quite a trivial matter for a smaller number of survivors. So long as the national grid remained active and functional power wouldn't be a huge problem. Of course logistically one might want to move closer to a reliable power source and potentially try to isolate it from the national grid so that it can supply a regular amount locally. Though honestly I've no idea about how much of the national grid could function without human operators and for how long it could maintain itself before it would break down. Still the infrastructure would be there.
Wind power is BIG where I live. There is a problem with it though. It requires A LOT of maintenance per windmill. From what I've been told the number of maintenance men needed per kilowatt hour is one of the highest out there as far as energy production goes.
cuda1179 wrote: The CDC once used a "zombie infestation" as a mock-run for a contagious disease. They gave the same advice they would for some other super-diseases: Stay inside, don't go out, make sure to have plenty of food and water, check your family for signs of the disease, and quarantine them if you find it. Also, they estimated the last place in the US to be touched by a zombie would be Glacier National Park.
I remember that. It was brilliant as a way of catching people's attention and didn't really cost anything. Stay inside, don't go out, stock up on food and water, and do what you can to keep the people you're with healthy are the basic steps to every disaster, be they natural, terrorist, or disease.
cuda1179 wrote: In North America one of the worse infested areas would likely be New Orleans.
Most of a zombie's brain is shut down. While they do herd-up and go after random moving/ loud things they tend to just aimlessly wander without outside stimulation. They also tend to follow the path of least resistance (in general).
This means that baring some other influence, after several years zombies would gradually work themselves into lower elevations. All the zombies between the Appalachian and Rocky mountains would eventually work themselves towards the Mississippi River, and then downstream. The end of the line is New Orleans, or if they are in the river the Gulf of Mexico.
That means Oklahoma is screwed. Most of Oklahoma is pool table flat.
porkuslime wrote: Just saw The Dead don't Die last week.. I really enjoyed how the town tried to deal with the zombies.. and the "in movie" rational of how the zombies came to be was totally funnier than anyting else I had heard
Plus the characters being "meta" about being in a zombie movie was a lot of fun..
-P
Try "Strippers vs. Zombies". You will enjoy it even more.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’m also wondering about how there’s relatively little illness during Zombie Outbreaks.
With lots of mobile rotting flesh, we should expect a fly epidemic. Like, lots and lots of flies.
Whilst the maggots would help render down the Dead into a pile of bones, the adult flies remain a serious disease vector. And without ready access to antibiotics? That’s bad.
I know TWD sort of played with that during Season 4. But still. Should be a larger and more common issue.
That´s debatable. Insect population has taken a big hit since modern agriculture started to use pesticides en masse. Back in the day your windshield was completely covered by dead flies when you went to vacation in the summer. Nowadays you are lucky, if you hit a single one of the buggers when you drive your car around..
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LordofHats wrote: Surely we're not just glossing over the masterpiece that is Zombeavers
What´s their MO? Let me guess: It´s sabotage of inland waterway transport routes by building dams all over the place. Such furry, rotten rascals!
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’m also wondering about how there’s relatively little illness during Zombie Outbreaks.
With lots of mobile rotting flesh, we should expect a fly epidemic. Like, lots and lots of flies.
Whilst the maggots would help render down the Dead into a pile of bones, the adult flies remain a serious disease vector. And without ready access to antibiotics? That’s bad.
I know TWD sort of played with that during Season 4. But still. Should be a larger and more common issue.
That 'ultra-flu' was silly on several levels, including it being cured with antibiotics.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’m also wondering about how there’s relatively little illness during Zombie Outbreaks.
With lots of mobile rotting flesh, we should expect a fly epidemic. Like, lots and lots of flies.
Whilst the maggots would help render down the Dead into a pile of bones, the adult flies remain a serious disease vector. And without ready access to antibiotics? That’s bad.
I know TWD sort of played with that during Season 4. But still. Should be a larger and more common issue.
That´s debatable. Insect population has taken a big hit since modern agriculture started to use pesticides en masse. Back in the day your windshield was completely covered by dead flies when you went to vacation in the summer. Nowadays you are lucky, if you hit a single one of the buggers when you drive your car around..
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LordofHats wrote: Surely we're not just glossing over the masterpiece that is Zombeavers
What´s their MO? Let me guess: It´s sabotage of inland waterway transport routes by building dams all over the place. Such furry, rotten rascals!
Counterpoint on the insects issue.
I do agree we’ve effed up their numbers of late. But they’re nothing if not prolific. And with so much dead meat up and walking around, with nobody clearing it away, that’s prime breeding ground.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’m also wondering about how there’s relatively little illness during Zombie Outbreaks.
With lots of mobile rotting flesh, we should expect a fly epidemic. Like, lots and lots of flies.
Whilst the maggots would help render down the Dead into a pile of bones, the adult flies remain a serious disease vector. And without ready access to antibiotics? That’s bad.
I know TWD sort of played with that during Season 4. But still. Should be a larger and more common issue.
That 'ultra-flu' was silly on several levels, including it being cured with antibiotics.
Did they ever actually state that it was the flu and not a bacterial infection?
The problem is, if its not magic, its a form of mad cow/super rabies. To be more than slghtly dangerous it has to spread very quickly. The downside in the real world is that real world diseases like that (Ebola) tend to burn through a population quickly.
Plus if its a disease then its just sick...people. Mankind has proven itself remarkably adapt at wiping out vast numbers of other people very quickly. As seen in Rwanda we can waste each other with sticks and knives at hyper prodigious rates.
If zombies are spread by a disease of sorts, I think that it would make the most sense to make it some kind of dormant infection. Something you get that doesn't really have much of an effect on you until some other triggering factor kicks in
Kind of like shingles. If you've ever had chicken pox you might just get shingles some time later in life.
The zombie disease could originate as some kind of low-grade symptom you'd pass off, or even be asymptomatic. Perhaps it just piggybacks on another bacteria or something. It will then lie dormant until activated.
Then when a certain condition is met it will suddenly kick in and zombify a person. That condition is death. Which I guess is actually pretty much the plot of TWD. everyone all ready has the infection.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’m also wondering about how there’s relatively little illness during Zombie Outbreaks.
With lots of mobile rotting flesh, we should expect a fly epidemic. Like, lots and lots of flies.
Whilst the maggots would help render down the Dead into a pile of bones, the adult flies remain a serious disease vector. And without ready access to antibiotics? That’s bad.
I know TWD sort of played with that during Season 4. But still. Should be a larger and more common issue.
That 'ultra-flu' was silly on several levels, including it being cured with antibiotics.
Did they ever actually state that it was the flu and not a bacterial infection?
The exchange (thank you interwebz) went like this:
It's a sickness from the walkers? No, these things happened before they were around.
Could be pneumococcal.
Most likely an aggressive flu strain.
I'm 95% confident that's where things sit for the rest of that storyline.
cuda1179 wrote: If zombies are spread by a disease of sorts, I think that it would make the most sense to make it some kind of dormant infection. Something you get that doesn't really have much of an effect on you until some other triggering factor kicks in
Kind of like shingles. If you've ever had chicken pox you might just get shingles some time later in life.
The zombie disease could originate as some kind of low-grade symptom you'd pass off, or even be asymptomatic. Perhaps it just piggybacks on another bacteria or something. It will then lie dormant until activated.
Then when a certain condition is met it will suddenly kick in and zombify a person. That condition is death. Which I guess is actually pretty much the plot of TWD. everyone all ready has the infection.
Except the condition 'death' pretty thoroughly eliminates the body's ability to do basic functions like, well, MOVE. For a human body to remain self-mobile, there needs to be at least some normal metabolism functioning. Heartbeat, sufficient blood volume, lungs functioning, cerebellum and spinal cord intact... that sort of thing. Even then, without some cerebral function the body will just lie there like a lump.
Long and short... yes, brain shots will destroy a biological zombie, but so will heart shots, and shots through the lung will disable one in short order, and major blood loss or dehydration will still kill such a zombie...
It's like people who want zombies to be the walking dead haven't noticed just how impossible that is, and people who want the walking infected haven't noticed what happens to people who get sick either.
Well, Zombies inherently require suspension of disbelief. And I’m a massive Zombie fan.
Hence, on occasion, I like to start this sort of discussion. Helps ground things a bit, and, much like a Zombie virus, get the old grey cells ticking over
Automatically Appended Next Post: Besides, one can always put any Zombie invasion down to ‘Necromancer hiding somewhere’.
Indeed, one of the best explanations of Zombies I’ve ever found is in Black Library’s Liber Necris. Supposedly a treatise on Necromancy by none other than Mannfred Von Carstein.
The description of ‘how it works’ is certainly interesting. I would say original, but perhaps ‘original so far as I’m aware’ is more interesting.
Zombies require a relatively small amount of Magic, as it’s effectively replacing the brain’s impulses. Skellingtons? The magic essentially forms an otherwise invisible musculature.
cuda1179 wrote: If zombies are spread by a disease of sorts, I think that it would make the most sense to make it some kind of dormant infection. Something you get that doesn't really have much of an effect on you until some other triggering factor kicks in
Kind of like shingles. If you've ever had chicken pox you might just get shingles some time later in life.
The zombie disease could originate as some kind of low-grade symptom you'd pass off, or even be asymptomatic. Perhaps it just piggybacks on another bacteria or something. It will then lie dormant until activated.
Then when a certain condition is met it will suddenly kick in and zombify a person. That condition is death. Which I guess is actually pretty much the plot of TWD. everyone all ready has the infection.
Except the condition 'death' pretty thoroughly eliminates the body's ability to do basic functions like, well, MOVE. For a human body to remain self-mobile, there needs to be at least some normal metabolism functioning. Heartbeat, sufficient blood volume, lungs functioning, cerebellum and spinal cord intact... that sort of thing. Even then, without some cerebral function the body will just lie there like a lump.
Long and short... yes, brain shots will destroy a biological zombie, but so will heart shots, and shots through the lung will disable one in short order, and major blood loss or dehydration will still kill such a zombie...
I mean, I know the whole zombie thing is impossible, just trying to see how close to possible we could get.
So, we'd need some kind of latent activating disease (possible), that deactivates parts of the brain while keeping other parts active (real life has examples), and that somehow also fights further disease and reforming endothermic beings into exothermic while totally transforming metabolism and reforming some king of new nervous system.
I feel like the Rage virus from 28 is the closest.
It shuts down higher thought, without the body being medically dead.
Add in a general lack of coordination to show the virus is particularly unpleasant, and we can satisfactorily arrive at plausible Romeroesque infected, where they’re still alive, but act like Zombies. The lack of hygiene, plus lack of any self preservation or sense of pain gets us damned close.
It shuts down higher thought, without the body being medically dead.
Add in a general lack of coordination to show the virus is particularly unpleasant, and we can satisfactorily arrive at plausible Romeroesque infected, where they’re still alive, but act like Zombies. The lack of hygiene, plus lack of any self preservation or sense of pain gets us damned close.
I'll agree with this statement.
I will also say that I prefer the idea of slow zombies much more than fast zombies. I like how slow zombies have always been both literally and metaphorically a slow death you can't excape. A slow zombie horde slowly closing in around a person is just so much more ominous than the jump-scare of the fast zombie.
In fact, add in something akin to advanced syphilis (google that at your own risk. Seriously. I take no responsibility) and you get the rotting look as well.
Vulcan wrote: Once you postulate even a tiny amount of magic, we've gone past the subject of the thread. Magic is not real.
Ahh but you're making a classic mistake on reality here.
See this thread makes its opening claim about dealing with regard to realism within the context of zombie settings. Now the thing is this means we already accept the unreal in the zombie; the realism issue is discussion around the presentation of the zombie in various films and books and games and how those creations don't stick to their own rules. We assume that they are "our world" just "with zombies" thus when we see missing things - like missing fly swarms. Or we see military forces unable to cope with brain dead sluggish walking corpses who should, in theory, be super easy to gun down with modern weapons etc... Basically its a discussion on the realism within fantasy.
So magic is perfectly acceptable to bring to the table.Indeed many of the early zombie films were all about magical or supernatural sources for zombies. It's more that more recent times have popularised the super-plague zombie often born of man made bioweapons. With magic the discussion shifts a little more overtly because its a bigger change in the rules of how the world operates; but still magic has rules and worlds built on it have rules that they should follow. Plus people are people; governments are governments etc... so we can make basic assumptions that it should be akin to how our world would react - with the modifiers (eg magic) that the story presents.
Regardless of how authors try to pseudo-science it up, proper zombies are straight up magic. Rage virus zombies might be plausible, but they'd still be attacking each other more than anyone else (no herds of rage zombies, they'd tear each other apart), and people out of physical control of themselves hurt themselves a lot and very quickly. They'd be a mass of torn muscles in almost no time and probably bleed out from many, many lacerations they acquire constantly. And that's not accounting for septic shock from untreated wounds or the inability to properly go to the toilet - yes, every rage zombie would have their pants full of poop and urine, at least until they got rid of their pants. Assuming they did get out of clothing - because you're a rage zombie and clothing is restrictive, they'll be way more susceptible to all those aforementioned injuries piling up.
So for rage zombies to work as they do in movies, it's basically back to magic. Magic to keep them from attacking each other, magic to keep them from hurting themselves constantly, magic to keep them from dying of poop related issues.
I always figured the rage virus had a pheromone type component, that stopped them attacking each other. Makes sense for a virus (as much as any of this make sense!), because it needs to put it’s energy into spreading the infection, not fighting itself.
There are also relatively common ways to protect oneself.
At a bare minimum, a Glossy Mag, sellotaped round the forearm can be jammed into the walker’s mouth, buying at least a few seconds (would’ve save Tyrese’s life in Walking Dead).
And, weather allowing of course, motorcycle leathers will prevent bites and scratches quite nicely.
I can see how a collapse could occur. In the US, the military is pretty small. The full US Army would have a hard time completely controlling the urbanized coastal areas (way too many people in complex terrain). If food/water/power were not able to be delivered to those areas within days they would be a mess and any zombie plague would spread easily.
As troops start having to gun down citizens and see society dissolving, some if not many will decide "hey, I need to get back to my family and take care of them". Add in the infrastructure required to rapidly and efficiently move troops and their gear and keep them supplied with fuel and ammo (and food and water) around the US would quickly be overburdened. A place like NY City could swallow a couple divisions pretty easily. Military capacity to handle actual mass casualty events isn't what you would think either. When trying to care for civilian casualties as well as their own the military capacity is just way way too low.
Looks at how the LA Riots overwhelmed the local and state law enforcement, and even the national guard and eventually active duty troops took a while to exert control. That was a relatively localized event. Turn more/most urban areas into that and it is feasible that on't control collapses.
Looks at how the LA Riots overwhelmed the local and state law enforcement, and even the national guard and eventually active duty troops took a while to exert control. That was a relatively localized event. Turn more/most urban areas into that and it is feasible that on't control collapses.
Note that these sorts of events are difficult to control because the police/military are hesitant to fire upon civilians, even ones engaging in rioting and looting. In a weapons free situation it's a different story. Zombies are generally too stupid to effectively siege even a group of soldiers on a residential rooftop.
And the USA is probably the nation best equipped to deal with a zombie outbreak (aside from maybe Switzerland), because a lot of the population owns firearms and gun shops are pretty common.
Looks at how the LA Riots overwhelmed the local and state law enforcement, and even the national guard and eventually active duty troops took a while to exert control. That was a relatively localized event. Turn more/most urban areas into that and it is feasible that on't control collapses.
Note that these sorts of events are difficult to control because the police/military are hesitant to fire upon civilians, even ones engaging in rioting and looting. In a weapons free situation it's a different story. Zombies are generally too stupid to effectively siege even a group of soldiers on a residential rooftop.
And the USA is probably the nation best equipped to deal with a zombie outbreak (aside from maybe Switzerland), because a lot of the population owns firearms and gun shops are pretty common.
Private gun ownership is almost nil in most urban areas, not enough to make a difference. Ammo and gun availability is very limited too.
And US Troops in a ''weapons free' situation are not going to want to kill their fellow citizens just because they are in a weapons free situation.
And US Troops in a ''weapons free' situation are not going to want to kill their fellow citizens just because they are in a weapons free situation.
Aye but once you've got hoards of people tearing each other limb from bloody limb and feasting on the organs things kind of change. Though yes its actually harder to kill than many realise (apparently in WW1 and 2 is was hard to get people to actually shoot to kill through conscripted armies); but I think once you're past the "are these really zombies are we really doing this" phase things change.
In general opening up automatic weapons onto concentrated blobs of people the result is generally one sided, esp if the large mass attacking has no artillery, no means of ranged retaliation and no means to coordinate its strikes. It's an extreme display if super primitive VS advanced weapons.
The only bonus zombies have is if they get a boosted start; eg an infectious cloud, which infects a major urban area. Even then without some kind of "hive mind" thing going on the zombies could be encouraged to flock in groups.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It strikes me that most Zombie stories depend on people being really rather stupid.
Now of course, nothing lowers the collective IQ of a crowd quite like stress and fear. But to the degree needed?
I think it works in tight situations - like being trapped on a space ship or oil tanker or in a locked research lab etc... But once you start giving them cities to run around in and countries I think too many zombie franchises rely not just on stupid, but also utterly insane characters. Those "mad" ones who open the doors to let the zombies in so they can kill their rivals etc...
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It strikes me that most Zombie stories depend on people being really rather stupid.
Now of course, nothing lowers the collective IQ of a crowd quite like stress and fear. But to the degree needed?
This isn't specific to zombie films, horror movies in general run on people doing stupid things for the sake of moving along with their absurd plots. I was raised on horror movies from a young age so it doesn't bother me, but for some it's just very hard to make that disconnect.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It strikes me that most Zombie stories depend on people being really rather stupid.
Now of course, nothing lowers the collective IQ of a crowd quite like stress and fear. But to the degree needed?
This isn't specific to zombie films, horror movies in general run on people doing stupid things for the sake of moving along with their absurd plots. I was raised on horror movies from a young age so it doesn't bother me, but for some it's just very hard to make that disconnect.
True - although sitting at our keyboards we may consider ourselves more competant than we are......I donlt mind poeple doing stupid stuff now and again - especially if they are called out on it but sometimes when the film/book/series depends on stupidity (see Promethius vs Alien) thats not good.
Buffy was all about not being the stupid blonde chased by monsters but even she (and her friends) would do stupid things.
Zombies work for me in a enclosed situation or if they are just apart of the problem - be that epedemics, alien invasions or the T-Virus.
I believe its a proven point that a person in panic makes poor reactionary choices that, given a more calm mind, they'd never make. I think the problem in a lot of films though is that they abuse this mechanic somewhat (like they abuse many things*)
*If you watch most modern cop shows it seems that murders are wrapped up in around 24 hours or so and forensics takes less than a day to fully do all the lab work on a crime scene; get the dna and find the killer
In Insurance terms, it’s referred to as ‘agony of the moment’.
See, the basis of UK Insurance law is the concept of ‘what would a reasonable person do?’. From there, one can establish fault.
But, Agony of the moment allows for odd situations. For instance, if you jump in your car, and take off without regard or looking? You’re in Tort. But, if you were being chased by an armed person intent on doing you harm? There’s no Tort.
The only "realistic" zombie scenarios are where its an aggressive virus that drives people violently insane, like 28 Days later. And even then its going to be too aggressive and burn itself out, or the hosts have to be too far insane to remember to drink, and succumb to environmental effects and/or dehydration.
The better zombie movies are where the victims go insane and aggro, but still remain capable of basic reasoning, which means it's much harder to just avoid or get away from them.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Well, Zombies inherently require suspension of disbelief. And I’m a massive Zombie fan.
Hence, on occasion, I like to start this sort of discussion. Helps ground things a bit, and, much like a Zombie virus, get the old grey cells ticking over
Automatically Appended Next Post: Besides, one can always put any Zombie invasion down to ‘Necromancer hiding somewhere’.
Indeed, one of the best explanations of Zombies I’ve ever found is in Black Library’s Liber Necris. Supposedly a treatise on Necromancy by none other than Mannfred Von Carstein.
The description of ‘how it works’ is certainly interesting. I would say original, but perhaps ‘original so far as I’m aware’ is more interesting.
Zombies require a relatively small amount of Magic, as it’s effectively replacing the brain’s impulses. Skellingtons? The magic essentially forms an otherwise invisible musculature.
As I said, interesting, if perhaps not original?
IMHO, the way that Days Gone on PS4 handled things makes far more "sense" in zombie mythos to me than most other media out there.
Spoiler that isn't so spoilerish: the zombies are infected via some kind of parasite, so the "dead" never really die, they evolve/mutate via whichever particular variation of the zombie parasite they get. In terms of fictional universes it does seem to neatly skirt the issues inherent in modern, real world virus response (ie, issues mentioned earlier in thread about quarantines and certain reactions based on thought out plans and risk matrices)
Can Firefly/Serenity "Reavers" be like zombies... but not quite?
That was a chemical or drug that was designed to get rid of the will to fight and be peaceful, but in a small number of people it caused psychopathic rages.
I don't know how they managed to build space ships etc.
I've always thought of a potential for a manufactured virus that is designed to wipe humanities will to fight or higher reasoning (and memory). But if that was targeted at other brain centres you could just produce people who were angry or scared/aggressive and just fought and attacked. I don't know how you would get them to attack other people and not other infected though.
To me slow zombies have never made sense. I mean in some of the movies you could just push them over and it wasn't until they lurked and jumped out they would bite you (thinking of the one in the shopping mall). Even in countries with a lack of guns easily available firearms like the UK we would use bats, sticks, tools, shovels etc to fight slow zombies and they wouldn't stand much chance.
Plague Inc tries to gamify a plague of some sort, and includes a pseudo walking dead situation with some kind of parasite worm that infects the brain.
Isn't there a parasite that lives in the guts of cats, which then gets pooped out and exposes mice, which gets in their brain and then makes them more "adventurous" and less fearful so they are more likely to be eaten by cats... cycle completes. I'm sure it's even been proposed that it lives in humans and in some of us causes more reckless behaviour as it changes our brain chemistry.
Reaver's didn't build ships but they flew them. Evidently Reavers didn't attack other Reavers. Thats like the super rabies virus idea: its a similar concept, but one that just makes you hyper aggressive, yes I could see that. Basically everyone who was infected was zinged with a super version of the Butcher's nails going full tilt at all times.
Reavers clearly had some construction skills, even if it was more akin to bolting things together rather than fine manufacture. So they'd steal and tear apart and then stick what they needed together.
Remember in the end of the film some very unique ships appear and they even have capital class ships to use.
I think the key is that Reavers were cannibalistic and clan orientated with a hyper strain of aggression in them. This made them very nasty because they could and would work together and they clearly could build and advance their own ships to their own ends. Even if they didn't care about radiation leaks and the like.
I would suppose that the Reaver mania came in ebbs and flows. Don't forget the first time they are seen the Reavers don't attack, they tag Serenity and follow it. That shows a significantly higher level of thinking than your typical zombie. It's just when in combat against others Reavers go into a near manic blood-rage-craze.
Also don't forget we never actually saw a Reaver outside of combat. The only one we got close too was one of the crew of an abandoned ship and we are never sure if that individual was ever infected with the virus or if they were simply the result of extreme and prolonged torture.
The (most acceptable) answer is just Romero's trilogy. How things go south is implied at the beginning of Dawn of the Dead. A mix of disorganization, stubbornness, incredulity, religious bigotry, desire to go against the authority creates thousands of isolated mini-outbreaks that lead to an overwhelmed civilization. You see people keep zombies in the basement because they are their friends and kin. Understandably, being people human, too human, cannot accept that these people are dead. You even have a scientist or officer at the beginning, in the tv station, talking about the fact that he is worried because people are not acting rationally. Later Romero movies show that the dead "change" (even recovering part of their cognitive functions, at least if properly stimulated) therefore gaining some sort of pseudo-life, invalidating most of the "why bacteria/insects do not..." criticism.
It's still unrealistic, but is the best you can have with this amount of acceptable suspension of disbelief.
AegisGrimm wrote: The only "realistic" zombie scenarios are where its an aggressive virus that drives people violently insane, like 28 Days later. And even then its going to be too aggressive and burn itself out, or the hosts have to be too far insane to remember to drink, and succumb to environmental effects and/or dehydration.
The better zombie movies are where the victims go insane and aggro, but still remain capable of basic reasoning, which means it's much harder to just avoid or get away from them.
Actual zambi organisms sort of do this.
it will force a creature it infects to do something to complete its life cycle, such as making parasitic worms making a snail climb high to get eaten by birds, or a fungi that makes ants climb up to high locations to spread spores.
there reason most zombino effects dont really work is because it never sufficiently answers the why. there is no reason to make a human walk around biting other people to spread more of the same to do it again. it serves no purpose in its life cycle unless say every time it bit some one it transferred over a more powerful version or a different step it is cycle which could be a cool hook. (normal psycho person > super mutated person > person mutates further into spore tower or something)
World War Z the book series lays out exactly how the world would handle a zombie invasion.
Essentially people would break off from one another but not like complete morons in the Walking Dead. Governments would still sustain themselves as tribalism brings people together. And many areas would be relatively safe, other areas like major cities not so much. Places already well defended and heavily militarized.
Deep sea pockets would be the most heavily packed with zombies from dead refugee ships floating throughout the pacific and the Altantic.
Zombies in general would only be a threat if people are dumbasses. Which they wouldn't be in certain areas of the countries. Some places would be entirely sacrificed to stop zombie infestations in their tracks, and having safe zones as bait areas. And true isolation areas like Hawaii and the upper rockies would be very safe from zombies. Because geography as a jerk and zombies really can't climb that well.
Zombies would freeze in certain parts of the country and would be unable to move entirely and during this time it would be the easiest to hunt them down, except heavily snowed areas of iceland and Canada and some parts of the US.
Some parts of China and most parts of europe would be dead zones with the exception of mountainous regions where it would be easier to defend.
In my view, countries are not so dumb to waste all of their militaries on defending regions that will be lost.
All it takes is one loss for the military to figure "Yeah that isn't working." and to go to high ground.
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Easy E wrote: The premise that once society falls apart, then things get nasty/mad max-esque with every small group of jackwads form themselves is itself a huge fallacy of the genre, IMHO.
But yeah, unless coupled with some other major disaster (Plague, Nuclear War, Mass Famine, Enviro Disaster) then Zombies make no sense as an actual society destroying threat.
Last i recall though TWD series kinda excuses it by saying that universe didnt popularize the zombie concept through films and what not. which is why they call them walkers instead of just zambis.
Desubot wrote: Last i recall though TWD series kinda excuses it by saying that universe didnt popularize the zombie concept through films and what not. which is why they call them walkers instead of just zambis.
Thats really lazy, even in-universe reasoning for the zombies somehow taking out the entirety of a government structure and military personnel is hilariously stupid. These aren't elaborate bioweapons, even in the ridiculous confines of Resident Evil Games the world is fine after the first outbreak. In the movies, they are completely idiotic and everyone dies. But in TWD its just like the Governments just sent all their important officials in to die.
Zombies are slow-moving and not assassins, even if one were to get into a government facility they would be trapped entirely in those sections. Fortified areas like Norad and others would be where all the government leadership would retreat to, and there would be no way people would be that stupid to lose the entirety of the leadership, there are always contingencies in place for disaster. Even in real life we have plans of actions set in place in the case of horrific plagues etc, and would be taken as a case by case scenario.
These TV Shows and Comics that show "Oh the Americans are too stupid!" they will all just die to the zombies! Is such a logical fallacy in itself, even if it did happen the US Military, Government and forces would be able to survive? In the case of an Alien attack? No, Humanity would be screwed if we faced off against a technologically superior race. But Against zombies: who have no weapons, no vehicles, no tactics, and no actual strategy would not be able to defeat humanity in any official capacity.
This is one of the largest problems that Zombie Apocalypse's face is that nations would persist, people have a national identity and are willing to come together to face adversary and what greater adversary than a unifying evil of a creature that eats you? Zombies do not have the capabilities to deal with a suitably prepared US and its government forces, if anything the US and several nations would be able to survive the war with the zombies and would be able to make although smaller stabilized region for the US to control and within maybe a hundred years would stablize the US regions and the world.
I read WWZ when it first came out but IIRC the chapter dealing with how the US Armed Forces were not up to the task was one of the dumbest things I have ever read off of a physical page (so, excluding the internet).
Manchu wrote: I read WWZ when it first came out but IIRC the chapter dealing with how the US Armed Forces were not up to the task was one of the dumbest things I have ever read off of a physical page (so, excluding the internet).
Manchu wrote: I read WWZ when it first came out but IIRC the chapter dealing with how the US Armed Forces were not up to the task was one of the dumbest things I have ever read off of a physical page (so, excluding the internet).
Are you referring to the Battle of Yonkers?
yeah up until that point the US military was doing fine, the only time they failed was at the battle of yonkers because they were entirely over confident which seems more pausible than the US military being defeated on the field
Thats really lazy, even in-universe reasoning for the zombies somehow taking out the entirety of a government structure and military personnel is hilariously stupid.
Im aware
no one really does zombies right. i dont think it can ever really be done right without magic or non actual dead zombies. i think the most brutal one that "could" be realistic is crossed
But Against zombies: who have no weapons, no vehicles, no tactics, and no actual strategy would not be able to defeat humanity in any official capacity.
Unless of course your Zombies are armed military contractors with a plan
So to go back to ‘existing disease which could replicate Zombies’.
We’ve established that tertiary stage syphillus (Google at your own risk. Do not post results on Dakka. Do not sue Mad Doc Grotsnik for retinal scarring) can easily replicate the look. Seriously, that’s a hideous disease.
For the general lack of coordination, there are no end of brain infections etc which could provide that (not that you’d want them to).
Rabies makes the infected want to spread it, usually through biting. So that’s the ‘why are they eating me/why you don’t want to get bitten’ bit largely covered.
But what about that most central of Zombie traits, the lack of pain? I mean, I don’t think total invulnerability to all but headshots is going to be realistic. But we see through illicit drugs, such as PCP, the human body able to keep going through severe pain. But are there disease which offer the same? Well, do the same. Because that’s probably not an offer one wants to accept.
We’ve established that tertiary stage syphillus (Google at your own risk. Do not post results on Dakka. Do not sue Mad Doc Grotsnik for retinal scarring) can easily replicate the look. Seriously, that’s a hideous disease.
For the general lack of coordination, there are no end of brain infections etc which could provide that (not that you’d want them to).
Rabies makes the infected want to spread it, usually through biting. So that’s the ‘why are they eating me/why you don’t want to get bitten’ bit largely covered.
But what about that most central of Zombie traits, the lack of pain? I mean, I don’t think total invulnerability to all but headshots is going to be realistic. But we see through illicit drugs, such as PCP, the human body able to keep going through severe pain. But are there disease which offer the same? Well, do the same. Because that’s probably not an offer one wants to accept.
Experimental combat / bio weapons seem a more likely route - who knows what stuff people are messing with around the world.
We’ve established that tertiary stage syphillus (Google at your own risk. Do not post results on Dakka. Do not sue Mad Doc Grotsnik for retinal scarring) can easily replicate the look. Seriously, that’s a hideous disease.
For the general lack of coordination, there are no end of brain infections etc which could provide that (not that you’d want them to).
Rabies makes the infected want to spread it, usually through biting. So that’s the ‘why are they eating me/why you don’t want to get bitten’ bit largely covered.
But what about that most central of Zombie traits, the lack of pain? I mean, I don’t think total invulnerability to all but headshots is going to be realistic. But we see through illicit drugs, such as PCP, the human body able to keep going through severe pain. But are there disease which offer the same? Well, do the same. Because that’s probably not an offer one wants to accept.
I mean with science going off lately with the whole crisper thing, you could say some company is making a bio engineered virus used to make or be an alternative non addictive pain killer that some how mutates into one that does it but also makes people absolutely BSC like people on pcp with infections only requiring saliva. but realistically a component police force after maybe the first encounter should be able to deal with it no problems. at least in the USA. set it in the uk then maybe the cultural differences would allow it to propagate.
Slow zombies were more of a thing in the era of "the dead rise from their graves" style zombies, where their numbers are largely formed around the idea that the dead vastly outnumber the living and everyone will someday join them. They were supernaturally impervious to force and only developed weaknesses as stories needed to give the heroes some means of fighting back. It's one of those things that have gotten less believable as they've added more believability to them. All the rules and structure and science makes them susceptible to rules, structure and science that doesn't really allow them to exist.
