Printable View
this is a very unusual thread. But my fiancee has a strange fascination with Zombies, and has often gone through the steps of explaining how and/or why Zombies might come to being. I believe it's total nonsense of course, but every so often she forces me to watch a Zombie flick with her.
I didn't say a broken bone wouldn't matter. I'm saying that muscle matter and tendons won't. Zombies get +1 verses Kinesiology.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
It's not that crazy an idea that zombies will multiply through attacking a human. You think there won't be that many, so even then, if a single man on the street bites you, you're not going to lie down and die right there. You're going to get the hell out of there, far away from the zombie, perceived crazy hobo or whatever you think it is. It won't take long for you to bleed out and die or 'become infected', depending on the severity of the wound, and then bam - you're a walking corpse, so unless someone gets mobbed, which is unlikely unless they're trapped somewhere, early-stage multiplication is not far-fetched. Then there's the freshness conundrum I've mentioned. Really not so difficult.
Anyone who attempts to explain the zombification process is fooling themself. The process is never explained; there is only what can be seen and understood: they eat flesh, they shamble around, they'll hear you if you make noise, they'll grab your mullet, and so on and so forth.
I'm pretty sure that given the zombies' ubiquitous inability to even conceive the idea of using cover and for the most part relatively slow moving speeds teaching the grunts enough marksmanship to manage headshots at sufficient ranges with reasonable degree of reliability wouldn't exactly be all that difficult. Heck, by what firsthand accounts I've heard of basic army training, most ought to be able to manage it almost as is - no return fire to worry about after all so you can take a pretty good aim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Moody
And when you add heavy weapons and armoured vehicles to the equation, the zombies are mincemeat. It is difficult to imagine a more rewarding target for an artillery barrage or tank gun fragmentation shells than the classic shambling horde of living dead, and rest assured the ones still "alive" afterwards will not be in any condition to do much beyond snarling at the infantry who saunter by and finish them off with headshots. It's not like armies tended to have shortages of their standard-issue small arms ammunition anyway, usually quite the contrary.
Nevermind now what fun stuff can be done with the air force.
And if things really get out of hand, nuclear sterilization is always an option. A ruthless dictatorship like China would actually be particularly prone to employing that as a solution if for some unfathomable reason its million-man conventional forces were insufficient, as it has less cause to worry about public opinion than more democratic regimes.
One of the bigger flaws in most "apocalyptic zombie horror" scenarios is that they entirely ignore the mind-boggling amounts of firepower modern armies can muster with contemptuous ease. They are, after all, equipped and designed to destroy each other despite both sides having tanks, artillery, combat aircraft, serious planning ability and gazillion grunts with guns to throw into the grinder; all the zombies have is a bunch of shambling idiots incapable of anything other than "pursue-eat" level of reacting to their environment, and even insects are much more sophisticated than that.
Not much of a contest there, I'd say.
Says who ? Certainly not most popular fiction, where the amount of bits missing has a noticeable tendency to coincide with the degree of mobility reduced (not that it is usually great to begin with). Besides, by that logic the buggers would still be ambulatory as skeletons which is pretty much taking the whole discussion to the fields of sword-and-sorcery fantasy, and rarely if ever supported by source material.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
Given the very limited and monomanical parameters zombies invariably operate by such a "crazy hobo" is going to attract police attention right fast, and given the behavioral patterns of the critters considerable police attention right soon after. Or at least around here the cops are prone to intervening if they get reports of some crazy attacking people at random or, God forbid, eating them. If the conditon is contagious enough to infect the living through, say, bites à la rabies (not an universal trait of the "zombification" process, it might be added - many variations of the theme only affect already dead bodies) it's not going to take all that long before this is going to get noticed, although this depends on the gestation period.Quote:
It's not that crazy an idea that zombies will multiply through attacking a human. You think there won't be that many, so even then, if a single man on the street bites you, you're not going to lie down and die right there. You're going to get the hell out of there, far away from the zombie, perceived crazy hobo or whatever you think it is. It won't take long for you to bleed out and die or 'become infected', depending on the severity of the wound, and then bam - you're a walking corpse, so unless someone gets mobbed, which is unlikely unless they're trapped somewhere, early-stage multiplication is not far-fetched. Then there's the freshness conundrum I've mentioned. Really not so difficult.
Serious wounds inflicted by the "crazy hobo" would be taken to medical professionals anyway. Heck, if there's reason to believe the source of even minor injuries carried some kind of weird disease (in this case likely initially mistaken for some sort of rabies) I'm under the impression the normal procedure is to see a doctor anyway. So much for "bleed out and die", and human teeth are really poor weapons for killing or even seriously wounding animals - nevermind now human-sized ones that actively struggle - to begin with; the zombies' ubiquitous serious lack of any and all technique, sophistication and tactic in their use doesn't help at all.
And it's not like it'd actually take the authorities that long to play connect-the-dots with the victims of previous assaults turning into new slavering cannibal idiots either, in the case the condition is of the fluid-transmissable variant. Doubly so as it'll sooner or later happen under direct medical supervision, and after that the least they're going to do is quarantining all the victims under armed guard and likely issuing a public statement of the phenomenom so people have an idea of what to avoid and what they should immediately report to the authorities.
If, however, the critters become numerous enough to become an actual threat - which in practice really requires fairly dense concentrations; the capabilities of lone ones being pretty limited - it becomes reasonable to assume anyone they manage to pull down gets very earnestly munched on by the whole pack, or at least the ones close enough to figure out there's fresh food available and able to get at it past their fellows. Given that the creatures rarely display any particular interest in killing people per ce - that just happens as the side effect of getting eaten - and are really rather incompetent at and ill equipped for it in any case the unfortunate victim is going to remain alive, although hopefully not conscious, for a while into the meal before perishing and thus most certainly "fresh meat" as far as the zombies are concerned. They sure as Hell aren't going to be chasing after new prey while the previous one's still unfinished, that's for sure.
I also severely doubt at their ability to perceive when a living body they're chomping actually kicks the bucket and turns into a slowly cooling corpse, for that matter, or particular interest in the distinction while in their "feeding frenzy". One suspects that level of diagnostics to be a little beyond the capabilities of monomanical eating machines equipped with the mental aquity of a mold, unless the packade deal includes some sort of mystic "life sense".
All of which adds up to the victims of zombie hordes nigh certainly having a tendency to end up as so much bloody shreds and gnawed bones ill suited to standing up and shambling off in search of living humans to snack on.
The Zombie Survival Guide tries, you know. But then that was one of the parts I found particularly contrived.Quote:
Anyone who attempts to explain the zombification process is fooling themself. The process is never explained; there is only what can be seen and understood: they eat flesh, they shamble around, they'll hear you if you make noise, they'll grab your mullet, and so on and so forth.
This doesn't mean there wasn't some underlying internal logic in all the variations of the theme. What gets "zombified", how the condition spreads, and what exactly the resultant monsters are capable of vary a fair bit between different versions, but so far as I know they tend to nonetheless be internally consistent.
Don't kill the zombies - let's all join them and become one big happy family! :2thumbsup:
I personally think that if a zombie apocalypse was to happen, it would be like the situation from the film 28 Days Later - accident at a research lab somewhere unleashes a disease which causes madness in anyone infected, the madness would cause a condition not unlike zombification, where the victims behaviour would be animalistic and primitive, with their only thoughts being the need to kill.
I personally will be building my own bunker to protect against any sort of apocalypse, be it nuclear, biological or zombie. I will dig a small room under my garden, which shouldn't cost much apart from the wood used to keep it from collapsing. I would then wire it up with a generator and it's own water supply, and then case the insides with a thick concrete wall. Then buy plenty of supplies, and i'd like to see the zombies/nukes/biological weapons get me in there.
Depends on how their girls look...:juggle2:Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
Hear hear!Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
actually the book doesnt ignore the millitarys strengths it actually is quite good - as i said it started out as a disease and it didnt make people zombies straight out the infected people spread the disease as they fled infected areas so by the time zombies started appearing infected people were everywhere - how many soldiers are there in the US? 10% of the population? less? imagine every single city came under attack by a force that doesnt sleep and doesnt need to eat (in the book they do eat human flesh but they dont NEED to) - the army cant be everywhere at once and they didnt relise what they were up against until they had allready lost significant parts of the country cutting supply lines and production capability - couple this with zombies that arnt stupid (the ones in the book dont just wander aimlessly around) and you can see why it caused so much troubleQuote:
I'm pretty sure that given the zombies' ubiquitous inability to even conceive the idea of using cover and for the most part relatively slow moving speeds teaching the grunts enough marksmanship to manage headshots at sufficient ranges with reasonable degree of reliability wouldn't exactly be all that difficult. Heck, by what firsthand accounts I've heard of basic army training, most ought to be able to manage it almost as is - no return fire to worry about after all so you can take a pretty good aim.
And when you add heavy weapons and armoured vehicles to the equation, the zombies are mincemeat. It is difficult to imagine a more rewarding target for an artillery barrage or tank gun fragmentation shells than the classic shambling horde of living dead, and rest assured the ones still "alive" afterwards will not be in any condition to do much beyond snarling at the infantry who saunter by and finish them off with headshots. It's not like armies tended to have shortages of their standard-issue small arms ammunition anyway, usually quite the contrary.
Nevermind now what fun stuff can be done with the air force.
And if things really get out of hand, nuclear sterilization is always an option. A ruthless dictatorship like China would actually be particularly prone to employing that as a solution if for some unfathomable reason its million-man conventional forces were insufficient, as it has less cause to worry about public opinion than more democratic regimes.
One of the bigger flaws in most "apocalyptic zombie horror" scenarios is that they entirely ignore the mind-boggling amounts of firepower modern armies can muster with contemptuous ease. They are, after all, equipped and designed to destroy each other despite both sides having tanks, artillery, combat aircraft, serious planning ability and gazillion grunts with guns to throw into the grinder; all the zombies have is a bunch of shambling idiots incapable of anything other than "pursue-eat" level of reacting to their environment, and even insects are much more sophisticated than that.
Not much of a contest there, I'd say.
:inquisitive:
Wiki gives that the infected dies within 20 hours (and is paralyzed after 11 hours, that's according to The Zombie Survival Guide), hardly enough time to the victims to flee very far and easily countered by information.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Moody
To put it simple, World War Z is about the only plague scenario that gets less effective with time (long timescale). The Egyptians stopped it 5000 years ago for example, how?
Compare this virus with a purely theoretical desease that got an incubation time on about 37 days (speculated for the black death) and infects about a week before any symtoms shows up, is airborne and about as infective as a common cold. 100% mortality rate.
I've capped a few Zombies in my time, having 4+ plus mates with ya and all having snooker/poll table ques (I got over 120) then going in a phanlanx formation can easily get the -Cencord- if you live in bristol find my house, I and the people in my house will be the only ones not un-dead, I also got a crossbow and a couple of ordance weoponry (including a iron police night night stick)
All Finns carry knives about their person 24/7. Just ask the Swedes. Any zombies that turn up here are likely to get knifed to (second) death, or brained with an empty beer bottle in a late-night sausage kiosk queue brawl.
The other participants of the tussle may wonder a bit why these guys don't get their own ironmongery out, though, but hey - their problem.
:viking:
What do you mean, 'not most popular fiction'? What facets of popular fiction, then, depict zombies whose limbs fail and leave them crippled and pathetic?Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
Right, so a wounded man heads to a hospital or clinic, has his wound treated and then heads home to become a zombie and bite his roommates, family or neighbours. Solid. Once the 'authorities' figure out that victims become new zombies, which will take quite some time (maybe not in Finland..), what can they do then? The new zombies will have migrated to other parts of the city and won't be traced easily, even if they know the the former identity of the flesheaters. How will they quaratine victims who aren't zombies yet? Issuing a public statement would only induce hysteria and lead to things like looting as people take their safety in their own hands or aim to benefit from the breakdown in social order. Even calling the military in would be a long and difficult process as kill teams wander the city to hunt zombies, and I seriously doubt that any government would consider having their air force bomb the tar out of one of their own cities, especially the larger ones where zombie attacks will be more dangerous.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
How about when the victim stops screaming and thrashing? Mystic life sense indeed. Even after a victim goes into shock, it won't be long until they really do snuff it, considering blood loss and organ failure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
The condition of the zombies is always irrelevant, except the condition of the frontal lobe, which will probably rot away eventually.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
Humans are weak. Go behind a locked door. Problem solved.
It depends on a door.If its a stupid Anglo-Saxon door that opens inside its easy to brake, not much body weight needed.But if its a smart Finnish door that opens to outside.Its a whole another ball game.:clown:
You'd be fine anyway. Any zombies would freeze from exposure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kagemusha
I actually worry more about the super heroes of the world turning into flesh eating zombies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Zombies
:help:
They're to die for.... :laugh4:Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
Don't kill the zombies - let's all join them and become one big happy family!
Depends on how their girls look...
Marvel Zombies was the dumbest thing I'd ever read.Quote:
Originally Posted by lars573
Interesting concept but they weren’t able to pull it off IMO. Tripped the trigger of all the horror fanatics out there though. :shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
Never read it. So is it one of those Marvel things that was better in concept than execution? Like say "Heroes reborn"?Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
I never read Heroes Reborn, but Marvel Zombies was just a big bundle of stupidity. Hulk bites the Silver Surfer's head off, as well. That would totally never happen.
The ultimate line borrowed a lot in concept (like how Ultimate FF suits and HR FF suits are nearly indentical) from Heroes reborn. Just no Spider-man or X-men in the HR universe. But it was poorly ececuted by Rob Liefeild (who was given Avengers and Captain America) and Jim Lee (who got FF and Ironman). Like the Manderin was a modified Doom-bot so Dr. Doom could control Hydra without Hydra ever knowing who they really worked for. Or Cap spent the last 50 years (this was 10 years ago) on ice. But Truman had him frozen because he wouldn't publicly back Hiroshima. But they thawed him out for Korea and Vietnam (but out of costume). They're ended up being 2 Thors. And then the ending where Jim Lee combined his Wildstorm universe with the HR universe. Where the Daemonites and Skrulls had, with Dr. Doom's help, nearly conquered the earth.
That doesn't sound so bad, actually. I never liked Thor, though, so two of him is a big minus.
The problem was they ended up trying to cram 30 years of stories and characters into 12 issues. The net result was waves of villians/threats coming at them. Like the Avengers had wave after wave after wave of their old rogues gallery thrown at them. All off whom Loki manufatured out of thin air. Hulk had a really bad Emo hair cut. The FF jumped right from Namor to the Inhumans. Ironman started tracking Hulk but went to Whirlwind. Then Living laser shows and dies. Then the first Ironman (a new character called Rebel O'reilly) was resurected by Dr. Doom, for no appearant reason.
There was one good concept in HR though. Victor Von Doom, Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and Rebel O'Reilly were all uni buddies. They called themselfs "Atomic knights of the round table!" Well Doom was mostly there because Reed was his roomate and he dragged him to parties, poker nights, and booty calls.
The best thing about Heroes Reborn was getting to see some fan fav artists (except for Liefeild, who I dislike and was happy that he got kicked off his book) on titles they would not normally have been on. IMO the stories were weak and were held together by buzz more than substance.
Marvel Zombies was a pretty far fetched story but had some neat twists and offered some interesting “what if” scenarios. The most difficult thing about the books for me was getting past the visuals of zombies, I hate them so much.
Well they were supposed to be ravenous undead things. Also Marvel asked what Zombie type special woul the fans want next. Guess what the majority said? Apes.
Kick out their teeth, infinite blowjobQuote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
Way to find a silver lining Fragony!Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
Zombies hunger for brains and I have been told that’s the area where I do my thinking, it may be a more appealing region for a zombie than I thought!
That comment begs a follow-up, but I'm going to refrain on behalf of my warning record.
There is a scene in the lastest reanimator movie that follows that sort of logic. Then of course a rat gets into a fight with the severed appendage and loses.Quote:
Originally Posted by yesdachi