World War Z

[Kurando]

So... Apparently I am not the only one who is worried about a Zombie Holocaust!

Interesting! I was talking to a "normal" girl the other day and she told me about how worried she was about a Zombie attack and that she has re-occurring dreams about it and that it effects her day-to-day life. She said that she always thinks about how to defend herself, and she even intentionally passed over a really nice apartment because it was on the ground floor and instead took a crappy apartment on the 3rd floor because it was more easily defendable against a Zombie attack.

I too am pretty "normal" otherwise, but I often think in the same terms as her. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like "...is it going down?"

Anyone else?

[Captain Fishpants]

Had a flick through this the other day and it reminded me of Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka - the whole idea of interviewing the survivors of a catastrophic war/epidemic thing. Talking head documentaries like this are fun, if they are done well.

WWZ might make an interesting TV drama-documentary thing.

[TosaInu]

Bitten by a zombie or run over by a truck. It will happen or not. When it happens you better make sure your and others life was good. Worrying about what might happen is not part of that.

[KukriKhan]

... the whole idea of interviewing the survivors of a catastrophic war/epidemic thing. Talking head documentaries like this are fun, if they are done well.

WWZ might make an interesting TV drama-documentary thing.

If we get Borat and Geraldo Rivera to do the interviews, I think we have a winning product.

[Lemur]

There's already a book on this subject, with the title World War Z no less. (Lemur read it, have to confess, and I can only give it an "eh" rating.)

If the bacon-lovin' robots don't get us, the zombies definitely will. Shotguns and canned goods!

[Crazed Rabbit]

Now, I will occasionally ponder how my environment would affect a zombie attack, and the supply of anti-zombie weapons in the garage (shovel, axe, etc.), but buying a bad aparment because of fear of zombies seems a bit over the top.

Crazed Rabbit
PS Huh, a thread with a real old member, a CA guy, and two admins posting first.

[Major Robert Dump]

Theres also a book called "The Zombie Survival Guide" that was, as far as I know, the first of its kind. Had it for a few years now, very fun read

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Crazed Rabbit
PS Huh, a thread with a real old member, a CA guy, and two admins posting first.

+mod

What are you doing in this thread Crazed? You're only a member.

[Lemur]

Theres also a book called "The Zombie Survival Guide" that was, as far as I know, the first of its kind. Had it for a few years now, very fun read

Sam author as World War Z, as I just noticed. This guy, Max Brooks, definitely has his finger to the undead pulse of America.

[Rodion Romanovich]

The Hollywood interpretation of the "zombie" cultism/religion always make me think of the masses deprived of own thought when exposed to propaganda. That they happen to eat brains makes the methaphor even more ironic. I don't know if it's intentional or not that the Hollywood zombies are depicted in such a way. As for the origins of zombies, wiki says: "A zombie is an undead person in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system [...] zombies are humans who have had their 'Ti Bon Ange' or soul stolen by supernatural means and shamanic medicine, and are forced to work for their 'zombie master' as uncomplaining slaves on isolated plantations", which makes for an interesting parallell with the European slave-driven plantages established by early colonists in America, and how the victims of these would have been thinking about their situation, and how they in folklore and tales would escape reality into a fantasy inspired by the real-life horrors they escaped from. Folkloric tales of various forms similar to the zombie myth, i.e. undead rising to fight the living in various ways, seem to exist in many other cultures too, but with other directions. Medieval France apparently being the rise of the classical European ghosts who would usually be victims of crimes and would return to haunt the uncaught criminal and sinner who slayed them - perhaps a methaphor of conscience, a tool of instilling God-fearing, or just a myth risen from the dogmatic desire that no crimes would go past unpunished and the myths see those perpetrators that in real life escape punished. And wiki also mentions the existence of the "undead" in the old Sumeric "Epic of Gilgamesh".

I don't fear any mythological folklore zombies, but some of the real-world concepts that have influenced various forms of literary zombie myths are IMO scary, and the metaphors close enough to real-life concepts that are worth fearing:
- the oppressive plantage owners, and the concept of slavery
- the Hollywood type of zombie which is in my interpretation a metaphor of brainwashed masses who have fallen for propaganda and act without own thought

Perhaps it's this real-life connection that makes zombies such successful horror movie characters... As it subconsciously makes you relate to real-life things that you fear, even when you don't believe in supernatural ghosts. The concepts of the zombies do exist, but they are seldom presented by hideous-looking living dead, but rather by charismatic persuasive human beings. As for hideous-looking people who look like walking dead, perhaps our strange mutations and most twisted forms of genetical research, as well as the ways in which we breed ourselves humans and expose ourselves to different forms of poisonous substances and cause an unnatural selection which selects the most psycopathic and cold-hearted of us from each generation, perhaps something both looking and acting like a zombie, like a machine, will be reality when thousands of more years of "civilization" have passed.

[yesdachi]

- the Hollywood type of zombie which is in my interpretation a metaphor of brainwashed masses who have fallen for propaganda and act without own thought

And is it any surprise that they all went to the mall (Dawn of the dead?)!
The effects of marketing last past death! (or would it be un-death?)

[Husar]

PS Huh, a thread with a real old member, a CA guy, and two admins posting first.

I noticed that as well.

Concerning zombies, no I never worried and getting a new appartement because of them sounds to me like someone needs psychiatric help.
And I really mean that, it sounds like a case of superficial phobia or so.
As kids we sometimes played on an old graveyard and noone was worried, never heard about zombies back then, for me they are a movie product and nice experience points in the Gothic series...

[Mithrandir]

Kurando



Welcome back .

[Lemur]

For anyone with some time to kill, here's a video Zombie survival guide.

[Moros]

Is there also a thread about this, I believe there was. Tips enough to defend yourselves.

Tough I must say, no attack meant, that fearing a zombie invasion is rather bizarre to me. No?

[yesdachi]

Tough I must say, no attack meant, that fearing a zombie invasion is rather bizarre to me. No?

I am more afraid of zombies than I am of global warming.

[Dâriûsh]

Where does that leave ManBearPig?



It almost seems lame to admit, but I have pondered how this part of town would fare in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

[Watchman]

I read the Zombie Survival Guide once. Thought it was kinda contrived at a fair few points.
Then I thought how much the "shambling zombie horde" gig resembled the worse examples of lack of tactics, say the uglier examples of "human wave" attacks à la WW1, the Soviets in WW2 and the Chinese at times in Korea. Well, minus any and all firepower, support, or use of cover or stratagem.
Then I thought of just how cracked amounts of firepower even small, modest modern armies have at their disposal with no particular shortages of ammunition.

Around that point my train of thought began aproaching gory enough splatter scenes I figured it best to get off the subject, and concluded the poor zombies are going to need some really absurd starting conditions to not get blown into red paste in a very short order.

[GoreBag]

Well, watchman, that's assuming that people are actually going to be organized quickly enough to a) contain the menace and b) deal with it accordingly by preparing things like barricades, keeping supplies and maintaining a certain degree of fire control (head shots only, right). Seriously, if you called your police department and told them that there was a zombie attack, they'd either hang up on you or drive to your house to give you an earful for abusing the emergency phone line. It'd take far too long to set up a proper, organized defence against a zombie attack for survival tips to be useless.

Zombie attacks are pretty much my greatest worry. I keep a child-sized baseball bat in my room in case of zombie attack in my sleep, and I discuss and modify plans with my more aware friends regularly, not because it's scheduled, but because we all understand. When I visit a new friend's place or enter a new work environment, I keep my eyes open for potential zombie weapons and escape routes. I've weirded some people out by asking them directly, "Where do you keep your zombie weapons?"

The Survival Guide is a good read. I remember in particular the diagram explaining why, in a zombie attack, you should not have a mullet, since it makes you easier to grab from behind. This worries me, since my hair is incredibly long and I'd keep it in ponytail pretty much the whole time. Besides that, I'd survive at least a little while.

[Watchman]

Well, watchman, that's assuming that people are actually going to be organized quickly enough to a) contain the menace and b) deal with it accordingly by preparing things like barricades, keeping supplies and maintaining a certain degree of fire control (head shots only, right). Seriously, if you called your police department and told them that there was a zombie attack, they'd either hang up on you or drive to your house to give you an earful for abusing the emergency phone line. It'd take far too long to set up a proper, organized defence against a zombie attack for survival tips to be useless.

...and when folks finally figure out what's going on, they'll call in the army to cordon the afflicted area. Then they roll in the tanks and mechanized infantry with artillery and air support.

You tell me how much chance a horde of zombies has against even one APC with an autocannon, nevermind entire damn divisions of full-fledged MBTs... "Hey Joe, there's a few climbing on your tank." "Oh, MG them off for me willya? I'm kinda busy running over this bunch."

Besides, given that zombies want to eat either people or their brains (ever the weak spot of the critters), you'd think there usually was very little left of their victims to "reanimate" into something even remotely dangerous. Kind of a logic flaw in the whole scheme, that one.

[GoreBag]

Well, as far as I know about the 'brains' thing, that came into play in Return of the Living Dead, which was a spoof. No problem there. Yeah, there are pieces of zombies missing. I'm not sure I see your point there.

How would 'folks' call in the army, anyway? Do you know how to summon APC's? Conjure an infantry platoon? I don't. The 'military rescue' is one of the more popular scenarios as an end to a zombie attack, but I don't see much sense in planning if it's not for a worst-case scenario, and that, to me, means a full-blown, four-alarm zombie holocaust where I need to worry about myself, a handful of friends who can do more than keep me company, and a few breeding partners for when the whole thing boils over and the deaders have all rotten away too much to be threatening.

[Watchman]

Well, people with bits gnawed off them are going to lacking be a fair few muscles and tendons they'd need intact to move around effectively (or at all), you see. And as lone zombies aren't terribly dangerous in just about all the variations of the theme (their main merit tending to really be persistence), if someone gets taken down by them there's almost certainly a handful of the critters involved.

Which means the victim is going to get eaten pretty thoroughly.

Which means what'll be left to "reanimate" into a new zombie will be pretty much lacking in the ability to move, or do anything else for that matter. Expect perhaps groan, but that'll just help the eventual extermination squads find it.

As for the army, they'll get called in eventually. Cops have a tendency to look into cases of assault and murder, although if they've seen a few zombie movies themselves they may actually be able to figure out the headshot trick and be able to deal with small numbers by themselves. In any case if they can't contain the situation their upper brass will go to their superiors. And that, in practise, means the army (or something like the US National Guard in some cases, depending on the country); I don't think it gets advertised all that much these days, but one job of the military *is* still to stomp on internal unrest if necessary. Monopoly on legitimate violence, remember ?

And the equivalent of large numbers of people going berserk and trying to kill the rest of the population mainly with their teeth certainly qualifies for the politicos giving the marching order. At which point the totally outgunned zombies are history.

Worse for the folks in the afflicted area before the troops roll in of course, but then quite a few of them ought to take a hike pretty soon after they realize something bad is going on anyway. Which is going to get assorted atuhorities involved on the crisis management side of things too, quite possibly including soldiers called in to lend a hand (one of the more productive uses for armies is internal disaster relief anyway). And the curious reports from the field filtering up the chain of command just might speed up the military mobilization, when you think about it...

[Crazed Rabbit]

What are you doing in this thread Crazed? You're only a member.

Hey, I've been here as long as you, and longer than Lemur!

Watchman: what if zombie outbreaks simultaneously occur at military bases, meaning they have to fight for their own survival before rolling into town for the rescue, which could give the zombie infestation time to spread very wide.

Crazed Rabbit

[Watchman]

...and this happens exactly how ? Martians drop zombie bombs on them from their flying saucers ? The Cult of Cthuluhu does some weird ritual perhaps ?

Anyway, military bases are the locales just about best equipped to promptly stamp out local zombie infestations. They've got it all; weapons, trained and fit people conditioned for teamwork, supplies, communications, vehicles, chains of command... And once they've dealt with whatever few zombies pop up before being exterminated they'll be under no illusions something is seriously wrong, especially when they get reports of similar incidents in other bases. Now I may not be familiar with military SOP, but I'm kinda hazarding a guess they're going to go on fairly high alert at all ths weird crap. And once the civil authorities start calling them - and for that matter, off-duty soldiers on home leave - they'll be already pretty much mobilized...

So, basically, unless whatever causes the zombification is something extremely contagious and virulent that somehow manages massive outbreaks all around the place all at once - in which case human civilization as we know it can probably kiss its ass goodbye anyway - so the troops can't contain possible cases inside their bases, which if you ask me would require a straight act of divine powers or something similarly ridiculous, outbreaks in military bases are only going to get the soldiers involved earlier.

[GoreBag]

True, Watchman, not everyone who falls to a zombie becomes a zombie; sometimes, there's just not enough left. But zombies tend to leave their fallen prey after a short lunch if there is some other distraction around, keeping the 'fresh is best' axiom in their...uh...minds.

Crazed has a point there, too...that there might be simultaneous outbreaks. Some people fear the military and their crazy experiments most, thinking that they'd be the ones to instigate such an outbreak. In any case, it'll still be days before the military comes charging in to the rescue, days during which it is important to keep your head. But like I said..worst case scenario is what concerns me. If I can plan for that effectively, then a few days before the cavalry arrive won't be so bad at all.

[Watchman]

True, Watchman, not everyone who falls to a zombie becomes a zombie; sometimes, there's just not enough left. But zombies tend to leave their fallen prey after a short lunch if there is some other distraction around, keeping the 'fresh is best' axiom in their...uh...minds.

A staple of the "zombie horror" genre (and a major building block in the visceralness of the horror sought to generate) is that the things pretty much eat you alive - it's not like they're actually terribly good or skilled at killing people anyway, and their primary interest is eating after all.

Meat doesn't come much fresher than kicking and screaming when you munch on it, now does it ? And aren't the about biggest concentrations of what might be termed "flesh", and thus what are going to get the most attention from the zombies, things like thighs and haunches and similar concentrations of muscle mass - which it just so happens are also pretty central to animals' ability to move around...?

And there's quite a few key muscles and tendons whose mangling will pretty much cripple entire limbs or parts thereof too...

See what I mean with logic flaw ? If zombies want to eat the flesh of the living, there's no reason why they'd just gnaw around the edges a bit. And that'll result in the new recruits to their shambling horde being, well, kind of ambulatorily challenged, and thus little threat to anything which can move.

The fact that the critters can't coordinate their actions worth a jack (being functionally brainless tends to do that) also means they're not going to wait for their more mobility-challenged comrades. Which means that if they've chased you around for any lenght of time they're no longer a shambling horde but a long line of stragglers all over the place, and anyone who has found a defensible position and has something decent to kill them with thus can deal with them piecemeal as they arrive...

Betcha the army search-and-destroy squads, no doubt mechanized, will make use of that little detail too.

[GoreBag]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you holding to the idea that the zombies will have extrmely limited locomotion because their limbs will have been partially eaten? THEY'RE DEAD AND THEY CAME BACK TO LIFE. The logistics that apply to human motion are obviously out the damn window.

[Watchman]

And are you telling me they'll be able to act as if any broken bones they had, weren't, and major muscle clusters they might've had gnawed off, weren't ? The way they invariably stumble and drag for example damaged legs rather speaks against that.

I'm not going to go into the variously stupid explanations for the zombification process itself and the source of their motive power (although an obsession with eating would suggest the presence of metabolism and hence need for nutrition, all in all a measure of what can be termed "life"), but if it's anything short of outright demonic possession or something similarly grossly supernatural (in which case the buggers might as well grow ten foot tall and fart fire, all the bets being off) physical damage will slow them down even if they do not as such pay it any heed.
A missing leg is a missing leg, and you're not going to be able to stand on it period.

Which brings us back to the major logical problem with the critters using their potential new recruits as their main source of sustenance, whatever benefit they now may derive from that. Not the most brilliant way to procreate/replenish casualties, I'd say.

[Sir Moody]

Actually watchman in World war Z the zombies start as an infection in china - like sars but worse - china covers it up until its too late and theres an explosion of zombies i think the book mentions the number of zombies at over 1 billion - add the fact they are only killable with head shots and you start to see why the army couldnt handle it - its a good book but have i ever seriously wondered what i would do in a zombie attack? not really

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I thought Z said 2....

You tease...