Why a classical zombie outbreak would be rather underwhelming

imperialwar

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First let return to the OP vision for this thread.
A classical Zombie outbreak.
Well in my books a classical outbreak is all dead bodies buried in a particular area returning to the surface once more. It never seems to be a world wide event. Rather some random town in the US.
Yes Zombies are slow and ponderous, but your classical zombie also has a lunge for you. Covering the last 3-5 feet in moments.
I have shaken my head at people that suggest you only have to push the zombie to arms length to get away. Which means putting your hands on the zombie. Providing them an opportunity to bite you. Remembering they can bite you anywhere to infect you.

Evacuate LA ? now i am not an American citizen and am unfamiliar with the size or layout of this city. Surely though all thoroughfares out of the city could not contend with the waves of people fleeing via car. Creating massive traffic jams. Sure the zombie may only move slow, but you aren't moving any ware. I think also this is assuming everyone will and is able to obey this order. What about the elderly and infirm ? they would need to be taken out by ambulance or perhaps at a stretch a bus. Then what happens when there is the inevitable traffic accident ? Slows everything down again. Then there are those that give into the human condition: greed. Not every one is going to flee, rather the more undesirable side of society will stay behind to loot and pillage. More often then not getting themselves added to the horde in the end.
I have read discussions about zombies not having super human strength. This may be so for long decayed cadavers. How ever recently dead converts have a non deteriorated muscle mass. Now they are dead the function that limits human strength to prevent injury and skin rupture would presumably be switched off. Now this is a leap i admit, but for the sake of the classic zombie we will make that leap. As eventually in classical films the zombies bash the door down in the end. So then they can now reach their full potential strength limits. Fair enough they don't have adrenalin but they also know nothing of pain.
The idea of a medical facility containing the outbreak is absurd. Self preservation dictates here. Who, even if bitten, is going to knowingly hand themselves in ? Knowing full well there is no cure short of a shotgun blast to the head ? even though if they know eventually they will die from the infection and become a zombie no one would hand themselves in if they knew a shotgun awaited their fate. No one i know wants to hurry their own death. So then they avoid the inspection points and eventually turn and bite someone.
We have now come to the spread. Is it the bite ? or is it the saliva ? let's go with the saliva. But lets say the word hasn't gotten out about the saliva spreading just yet. You are married, get bitten when you are in another room from your wife, you kiss each other out of affection, she is now infected...kids ? kiss your kids goodnight, infected...
Someone put out a 24 hour incubation period in their posts. Which holds true in most classical films. Having said that it doesn't require you to be dead to incubate. In fact quite the opposite. People getting bit, then turning at some critical juncture 24 hours later. They die and instantly become a Zombie, usually biting the person nearest to them.
Slaying of the horde. Has anyone here knowing killed someone ? Let me clarify that. Any one here not professionally trained as a solider, police officer, professional hit man, armed security guard, etc, knowingly killed someone ? Now imagine it was Grandma that died 2 years back. Could you still pull the trigger ?

One guy mentioned swords, (i can't be arsed going back and getting his name.) i just have one question for him. Do you now how fatiguing it is to swing a sword for hours on end ? Trust me it is debilitating, particularly on the shoulder, elbow and wrist joints. I train Kendo / Kenjuitsu and even the wooden Boken eventually take their toll.

I am in the school that incendiary weapons aren't effective against Zombies. To me the odds of the brain pan compromised and allowing the brain to exposed to the flame are slim. Then we could also argue that the brain would boil in its own fluids. Hmm, which now makes me ask a question. I had always thought the brain was one of the first areas to decompose, so why do shots to the head achieve anything ? Some one please point me in the right direction if i am errant about this.

Any way i step of my soap box for now, but suggest any posters here look for a game system called " All flesh must be eaten ". It is a Roleplay system of rules aimed directly at Zombie apocalypses.

Sinc,

Imperial War
 

excessum ado

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Johnn Johnston said:
bluemarsman said:
What if the infection occurs in a poor third world country with weak government and military?
I'm guessing you've never played RE4. A lot of people have and as such, have a lot of training in taking out third-world zombies. I have a lot of faith in gamers everywhere to keep down zombie rebellions, mainly due to Dead Rising's sales figures.
Maybe your unsure but the enemies in RE 4 werent zombies. They didnt fit the description of zombies. They didnt bite. They could run if they needed to. They carried weapons and they were organised and thought logically. They were villagers crazed by a parasite not zombies.
 

Drong

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I think a lot of you put far to much faith in people, like Tommy Lee Jones says in Men in Black; A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it
 
Feb 13, 2008
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I had always thought the brain was one of the first areas to decompose, so why do shots to the head achieve anything ? Some one please point me in the right direction if i am errant about this.
Usually the cause of zombification is the control of the spinal cord, which gives movement; hence shredding the brain destroys the motor memory capable of it walking.

If you're still happy about a single zombie not having any effect, Take a look at how one small piece of machinery put 25 million lives into anarchy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_1965].

Stick ONE zombie in the middle of that, and we have invasion.

AFMBE is cool though, I'd also look out for "Last Night on Earth" :)
 

00exmachina

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Marbas said:
How is the infection going to spread rapidly if the body has to die first? People do not hang around dead people. And if the zombie looks irregular, people are not going to go: "Hey buddy are you alright?" without being at least a little cautious. Zombies probably aren't going to be any good at grappling, and biting someone without getting your ass kicked is really hard. Also, it's tough to break skin by biting someone. You can't do it in a flash. I would know, I've tried. You don't have to kill the zombie, you just have to push it far enough so that you can run away.
[\quote]
Well depenting on the method of infection ou consider, the virus could stay dormant until the person dies (like the romero zombies), or one of the virus side effects could be the wide spread destruction of tissue, like necrotising faceitis, or ebola.
 
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Pie said:
For fucks sake. READ The first post.
Yes, let's get our fantasy scenario realistic! *rolls eyes*

South East Blackout. One Zombie. Only Bites = Devastation.

Hurricane Katrina. One Zombie. Only Bites = Devastation.
 

Zemalac

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The_root_of_all_evil said:
South East Blackout. One Zombie. Only Bites = Devastation.

Hurricane Katrina. One Zombie. Only Bites = Devastation.
So now you're assuming that the zombie outbreak will be accompanied by a disaster of much greater scale? Isn't that like arguing that one man can destroy a city with his bare hands and then somehow giving him a nuclear bomb?
 
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Zemalac said:
The_root_of_all_evil said:
South East Blackout. One Zombie. Only Bites = Devastation.

Hurricane Katrina. One Zombie. Only Bites = Devastation.
So now you're assuming that the zombie outbreak will be accompanied by a disaster of much greater scale? Isn't that like arguing that one man can destroy a city with his bare hands and then somehow giving him a nuclear bomb?
No, now I'm being forced to take a contrary position due to insistence on 'the rules!!!1!'; so I'm saying that any situation that can leave the public off guard leaves it ripe for insemination by zombies.

Given that half the posters here would obviously recognise a zombie and obviously have no problem killing it...
 

Jdopus

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How about if we throw another factor in, hearing the half life zombies cries of 'Oh god help me' certainly creeped me out.

Someone mentioned that zobification involved control of the spinal cord, so lets say the victim retains control of some functions, are you going to be able to kill someone while they're begging for help?

Also, a thought crosses my mind, there is NO WAY that a virus could possibly be developed enough to operate the human nervous system, which leads me to believe that the only possible zombie outbreak could come from reasonably intelligent parasites, but exactly how intellegent are they?

If they have animal predatorial instincts it would be fairly easily dealt with, but what if they were able to think for themselves?

A zombie lumbering around in crowds = cannon fodder
A zombie lurking in the dark jumping out on passers = serious threat

Just a few interesting thoughts to add
 

Zombie_King

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I have to disagree with the majority of you, because I don't think you grasp this concept. Damn, I'm past 100, no one's gonna read this /cry. Now, let me clarify, I've read about Max Brooks's books (Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie Wars[yes, they're all capitals]). He really grasps the psychological concept of a zombie, the walking dead. The thing is, if there was a huge zombie outbreak, we wouldn't know that everyone was infected, they'd just have a mysterious wound. And of course, zombies and science-fiction, so even if you saw a zombie, you wouldn't shoot it in the head, and if anyone saw you do it, you'd be arrested (and, as I can assume, senteced)for murder. The government at least has enough common sense (just enough) to "know" that they're not dealing with zombies, until they capture one, experiment on it, and realize their mistake. And even if we knew there were zombies, we would have to put up defenses, and let me tell you, half of you uninformed doofuses would put up just a fence and maybe get eaten. The smart ones (i.e. the one's with Max Brooks's books) would...well, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, go read the book yourself, you lazy bastard. Also, the thing is, by the time we found out, there would be hundreds of thousands, if not MILLIONS of zombies, and they would pose a much bigger threat. But let me change the subject to geography for a second.
[Geography]-->The paragraph above me is about a zombie break in America, and an uncontrolled one, that spread inside America, but this is unlikely. For one, life would still go on if a few hundred people in some small town were eaten/zombified. If it was a couple thousand, the government would probably be notified, and take small steps to stop it, but not enough, and they would also probably acquire a zombie for testing. By that time, many people would have left the country, and some of them would've been infected. But we're talking about America. America, the gun-toting, fat-eating, ignorant-prone, lovely country that is freaking insane. I'm just saying, if the outbreak started somewhere in a well-protected, well-fortified, well-armed town, the citizens would band together and would probably kill the zombies. But that's just us. We have huge disasters, and we recuperate from them. If it started in a 3rd World country, most of them would become zombies before the government (If any, maybe just a well-organized militia) could step in.
-->As for the media, the killings wouldn't be classified as 'zombies,' and if the bodies were taken away, the government wouldn't provide many facts either. But most of the well-informed, intelligent people, who know about zombies would probably realize that these 'mysterious killings' could be the beginnings of an outbreak, and they would take minimal steps, and the further along the outbreak went, the more steps they'd take. The thing about a zombie outbreak, is even for a while, even when a couple thousand people were dead, the government, and most (lucrative) media establishments wouldn't report 'zombies,' but they'd probably make a big thing of the government coming in and taking the bodies. We would only have widespread coverage of the zombies after the outbreak reached maybe medium, maybe 5-10 thousand dead, the government would realize that this is bigger than they expected, and press releases would soon follow.
-->As for the psychological aspect of a semi-large zombie outbreak, I can nearly guarantee that once news of zombies spread, suicide rates would raise AT LEAST 30%. Maybe from cult killings (i.e. insert-cult-name-here has 'predicted' zombies would come, and it is there time to go to heaven, and blah blah blah), maybe from huge amounts of stress. Most of them will be in well-fortified, protected, sustained, large establishments. Most of their residents would go insane, and kill themselves (if not others). Because that's a major problem, most of the people wouldn't realize that you have other threats. The occasional bandits and stress. One of the most important things in a zombie outbreak is, once your situated, protected and well-regulated. Besides keeping safe, keep yourself entertained. Even with that, most people don't realize, in a zombie outbreak, THERE ARE F_CKING DEAD PEOPLE WALKING AROUND!!!. Most people wouldn't realize the implications of this. I can say, right now, as I'm typing on my keyboard, sitting in my chair, that I could easily blow a zombies brains out, but I'd be wrong. And so would most of you. I doubt half of you have ever even handled a gun, let alone fired it, but when your excited or scared, your nerves are frayed, and you shake the gun, you become spazzy, and your accuracy is shot. If you can score a headshot with a handgun, you have a lot of luck/skill, my friend. If a zombie was walking towards me, I'd probably have to run up and put the gun to its temple to score a headshot, and trust me, the last thing you wanna do is get close to a zombie. Hand to hand combat is not easy with a zombie, and the only thing that will kill it is a curb-stomp to the face. No amount of punches could crush its skull. And let's say you do score that magical punch to the face that shatters its skull. I can't say your fist is doing well either. The thing is, that if you were physically and mentally able to move yourself towards a zombie, then you probably have extensive training in hand-to-hand combat and have done it in a real situation. But if you were to, you probably would not know that this would be a zombie, and would probably try to subdue it the same way you would a human, obviously leading to a bite. You'd probably be uninformed, because if I saw a zombie, I probably wouldn't have a gun on me, and I'd run away as fast as I could.
-->That's the problem with a zombie outbreak. You wouldn't know soon enough. Don't rely on the media/government to tell you the facts until you already know them. Be prepared.
 
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Given my avatar, it should be obvious I've read a bit about Zombies and the media; but this is usually where the misapprehensions kick in.

Most of the big monsters are simply allegories used in fiction, as not even the Bible believes in the Living Dead (Which is itself an oxymoron). It's meant to determine Bureacracy, Racism and a number of Human conditions quite away from the "Urrgghh..Brains." role. I agree with most, if not all, of what Zombie King said (although I'd paragraph more often ;) )

It wouldn't be underwhelming, because even with Romero's classic Zombies, it implies a problem far deeper within the bowels of humanity. We're so reliant on modern rules of living that the first thing that can break these will shatter our comfy world into chaos.
 

Zombie_King

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Thank you, TROAE (the acronym sounds better in my head xD), sorry though, whenever I log on as my profile, it won't show me other people's avatars. Since I'm too lazy to message a mod, what's your avatar?
 

Zemalac

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It would be really interesting to create a simulated world on some supercomputer and run a few simulated zombie outbreaks on it. Change various variables until we have a basic idea of what would happen if the outbreak was in America, third-world, UK, etc, or if the zombies were faster than normal or whatever. That's the only way I can see to resolve the issue, other than actually designing a zombie virus and unleashing it. But that would mean that we would only be able to test it once.

But anyway, after much consideration, I think I'll stick to my original plan of relocating to Mars if there's a bad zombie outbreak. Feel free to join me.
 

Rolling Thunder

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What Max Brooks clearly has never done is study history. Now, before you say: 'Why Fondant, you incompetent ass, there has never been a zombie outbreak before!' I do not mean directly. This means all my conclusions are purely expositional, as are Mr Brooks's. But from what I've seen of 20th centuary man, they do not surrender. Give them propaganda, give them shelter and give them hope, and they'll fight to the death. Yes, there will be suicides, and fear- but there was this in Soviet Russia in 1941. The Wehrmacht was an unstoppable killing machine leaving behind it naught but fire and death. And they stopped it. They held it together and stopped it. This, I calculated, will be what happens upon the release of the walking dead.


Now, dinosaurs, they're what worry me.
 

H0ncho

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There are two (1 new) main arguments presented in this thread since my last post:
1st, about government incompetence
2nd, about the stupidity of the crowd

About government incompetence: Yes, they are extremely incompetent. But in the event of a zombie infestation, well - the governments first instinct is lockdown, and establish more order. The entire definition of a government and it's most ancient task is as the entity which has the monopoly on force in an area.

This could be observed in the Katrina accident: The national guard was deployed alrite, it was helping people that was the problem. The governments first impulse is always to deploy troops, to keep order. There is no need to worry that they will deploy too late. They are almost always deploying too early.

2nd, about the stupidity of people.
I do not assume that people are too smart. I only assume, as another poster wrote, that when people see shambling horror attack and chewing on people's heads, they'll know what to do.

Or actually, they won't even have to know what to do. They only need not to go say "hi, you wanna bite me?" to it. Zombies are not supermen. Their lacking mobility and their lack of discretion will make it so that they are quickly removed from the company of people with brains.

To illustrate this point, let me use Brooks timeline. Brooks mention the stage at which only a couple of zombies are loose, and the next stage is when the entire continent of Africa is engulfed in zombies. What about the middle stage? When everyone has seen a zombie, and has gotten some basic idea of how the curse works. They will be able to stay away from the dead, and eventually people will organize resistance with or without government help. When resistance is organized, zombies will be hopelessly outnumbered, outwitted and outmaneuvred.

To criticize brooks again: The timeline assumes that Americans will be sceptic about the zombie curse even when 60-70 % of Africa has become zombified. Nuh-uh, not likely. There are reporters in Africa, and TV-cameras, and governments. You likely see footage from Africa at least once a week... The assumption that people will just ignore that an entire continent of people just died - ludicrous.

Remember also that we live in an age in which communication is easier than ever. E-mails, mobile phones and the tubes means that information spreads, and it doesn't spread through institutions which the government will be able to control but rather on a person-to-person basis. A zombie outbreak could *maybe* be covered up once, but not twice, thrice or anything like that.

Also let me remind you all that the premises for the debate was defined relatively clearly in the opening post. I speak about bite-spread zombie curses. Waterborne or airborne is another issue altogether: It could be devastating if unprepared for. Ultimately, however, knowledge is the bane of all zombie curses as the castle doctrine and the removal of all infected would probably stem any outbreak.
 

H0ncho

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Also, Fondant, excellent point about history.

You mention WWII; let me take an example from WWI.

In WWI, you would get an order: Charge! And you would charge. You would charge against some unseen enemy, you would be shot at with machine guns, normal guns and artillery fire. You would risk dying suddenly and violently; limbs would be crushed, torn apart and blood would splatter all over the place. The soldiers saw this all around them. Yet they charged. And charged again, if they survived. In this war they fought for idiotic reasons, and they knew it. They were mostly conscripts, too. Are people then suggesting that trained soldiers or even civilians will lose the will to fight over some wandering hobos charging them at 3-6 km/hour, when they are fighting for their homes?
 
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Zombie_King said:
Thank you, TROAE (the acronym sounds better in my head xD), sorry though, whenever I log on as my profile, it won't show me other people's avatars. Since I'm too lazy to message a mod, what's your avatar?
One of the Vashta Narada victims from Silence in the Library...basically a skeleton in a spacesuit being controlled by them; repeating their last lines before they died. Zombies come in a wide variety of forms.

"Are you my mummy?" :)

As for Honcho...

Actually, I think I can point Fondant your way: Fondant, Honcho doesn't believe your reports of all the atrocities that are happening at the moment in South Africa because surely 60-70% of them can't be at war with each other without anyone believing it?

And I'm a little puzzled how a saliva/bite based virus can't be waterbourne unless it's killed by contact with the air...

Knowledge is equally bane and curse of the Zombies. Let's say that we do get reports of Zombification in Iraq, for instance...what do the American Military do then? Especially as no-one can really be sure if it's not just another Bin Laden story.