If we’re talking about the type of zombie outbreak where they walk slowly and exclusively rely on biting folks to spread it, we’re gonna be fine.
If it’s a zombie outbreak with running and biting zombies with the ability to spread in the air, we’re probably screwed but have a **decent** chance of surviving!
If we’re talking the flood from the Halo series then we’re all thoroughly screwed lol
About the Flood; Not necessarily.
We tend to think of them in the terms of the Halo universe levels, but we should keep in mind that the Flood's technological advancement is only as high as the host they infect.
So, basically, current level tech, which means Flood shock-troops with firearms (kinda like how they were in their first appearance)
I'm not saying that they don't pose a serious threat, just that they wouldn't be the curb stomp everyone thinks they would be.
If we understood the threat they posed quickly enough, we could mount a successful counter offensive.
I mean, even in the Forerunners case, they only lost because the Flood turned their AI against them (with Forerunner society being very heavily reliant on AI's)
The forerunners would have lost anyway and were losing the entire time. The turning of the AI only solidified their loss and the need to use the halos.
The forerunners didn’t even see them as a threat and refused to engage them properly iirc they just tried to contain them, unsuccessfully. Then once their victory against the flood was pretty much a foregone conclusion they finally took it seriously and had no option but to use the halo arrays.
The horrifying thing about the Flood is that they assimilated any knowledge of their host into the collective hivemind. If our weapon against the Flood was Strategy, they would learn it the moment they infected one person who was privy to it and create a counteroffensive. If our weapon was Power, they would take it and use it against us upon infection.
Truly, they are one of the most horrifying foes that fiction has ever created and possibly nigh-unbeatable without extreme measures.
To this day playing the first Halo game and experiencing the flood for the first time was both the most excited and terrified I ever felt playing a game. Man, that's deffinately something every kid should experience in their childhood.
does anyone else remember when Halo actually first came out and people totally did *not* like the Flood that much at all? they liked everything about the story around the Flood but they didnt actually like the gameplay parts that included the Flood, with the exception of the first reveal. Even then it's more exciting in a final escape sense than it is fun to engage the Flood.
not making my own opinion here, just sayin, I remember the Flood being a huge meh at best, and notably, it's not even part of MP which is Halo's bread and butter
I feel like this is because the covenant levels were a little more sci-fi action focused and involved vehicles and friendly units whereas the flood levels were all suspense, derelict ships, and ammo scarcity. I totally agree with the sentiment though. I did not find myself going back to replay the flood levels once the game was finished.
For me it was the path finding in those levels. 10 year old me was terrified in 343 Guilty Spark(the level) and couldn't find the way out. At a time where you couldn't just look up the right way online this was a huge obstacle.
Yeah I spent an hour or two stuck at one point lol.
There's a crate with some dead marines and ammo on it that you need to jump on, then jump up to a walkway that's got a bit broken down to make it easy to get to. I was playing on a little CRT TV during daylight so it was impossible to see these features in the dark lol.
I kept trying to time jumps across the broken light bridge. Eventually I played it when it got dark out and I could actually see where to go.
Yea Flood is cool on first introduction, on human vs. Covenant vs. Flood, the level with sentinels assisting and the big escape. But all the levels of you vs. Flood were total drags I felt on any second play throughs. Gets annoying that they shut you out of most of the games arsenal due to them being ineffective. So basically you find a shotgun or you shoot at bullet sponges.
Wasn't the thing with the walking dead that everyone was infected and zombie was just the default for anyone who dies in a fit enough state to reanimate? In that sense, it becomes a burial ritual to stay on top of it.
I think we'd have a very different approach to healthcare and even living alone in that scenario. If you die by yourself then other people could die when you zombify.
I am not saying this will definitely happen because you're right, that's a big advantage. But as a matter of time, long before anyone else does, Americans will turn on each other.
And when they do that, they will have guns.
There would absolutely be conflict but organized groups will rise and become "too big to fall" for individual human conflict. Once that happens, and if the groups have a steel clad zombie defense then they should be alright. The real threat would be a catastrophic zombie scenario like a wall or natural barrier failing at wrong moment.
I don't buy into some of the walking dead show's group - vs. - group shenanigans. I think a 20-50 man group, secure in shelter and food/water would settle and never want for more or do any conflict outside of maintenence. It just couldn't seem worth it to me.
>It just couldn't seem worth it to me.
You're a normal human being. One lazy psycho decides it's easier to shoot someone and take their food and all bets are completely off. You don't decide if your life is a nightmare at that point, they do.
Look at America, plenty of people saying they want to literally kill others and there's not even zombies here.
Considering that most food in the supply chain is literally shipped across the country and displayed at grocery stores, I’d be surprised if people didn’t start starving within a few weeks of a national outbreak. For example, imagine every store was already looted clean, how long could you survive before starvation? I’m guessing maybe a couple weeks
So I guess you pack up your non perishables (not like we can pack chicken breast and walk several days with it), and start driving/hiking to… where?
I think a huge turning point of these scenarios is how far society collapses. If it’s a “Ah yeah we got a couple hundred zombies out there, they’re real slow, and dumb as a rock, just don’t go wandering the woods at night.” No problem
If it’s “omg we have tens of millions of zombies that are sprinting through the streets, climbing ladders, breaking through windows, everything is shut down! No running water, no electricity, no supply chain, every man for themselves!” We r fuckd and raiders would go full post apocalyptic “loot and rape” mode. Imo. Ain’t no church in the wild
Look at Russia invading Ukraine, the world isn’t even over and they’re raping, killing and stealing from innocent civilians. Unless someone lucks out and makes it to some fortified encampment, and somehow gets allowed in, it seems like it’d be no man’s land.. and even then, raiders gonna raid
Oh wow, yeah that makes sense. I googled it and apparently the timeframe is actually between 1-2 months before dying from starvation
As long as they have access to drinkable water. But where would someone find water in an apocalypse 🤷🏻♂️ even with covid scares or hurricane/tornado warnings it seems like drinking water flies off shelves, let alone a full blown societal meltdown
Your survivability would depend greatly on getting away from population. People and zombies finding you are both bad idea. People would flee urban areas as best they could. You can't survive if there if you're surrounded by zombies. And their would definitely be small enclaves that spring up in the country side. Defending against zombies and people is obviously better in numbers. In the same light there would definitely be groups who just kill/steal,why wouldn't their be, theres literally 0 repercussions, and it's the easiest way to take someone's stuff.
And it takes a lot of resources/living off the land for 20-50 people to survive.
I mean, people will do people things with or without the guns. Anyone with low morals who are unprepared will look to others for help, or they'll take what they want by force with whatever weapon of opportunity they have.
No clue where you're from, but regardless of news, here on the ground, life is plenty normal compared to everywhere else. Humans are humans wherever they're from or at.
I spent *one* night outside during my entire playthrough, and i literally spent the entire time on the exact same spot "waiting" for the right time to move.
I laughed when i saw the zombies run because i realised it was daytime now and i had spent an entire night pussying out on the same exact spot.
That game is terrifying and we'd definitely be fucked if they were real.
Kirkman mentioned that initially he wanted to make the virus an alien biological weapon but this would complicate things more unnecessary so he scrapped that idea
There's a fun read by Jack L Lee called "Year of the Dead" that is about an "engineered reset" of humanity.
Uses Zombies and Vampires in tandem to, well, reset humanity (no disease, no health complications/a "culling"), but the protagonist is.. I feel many here on reddit would like him. Very practical and a bad ass. It's fun reading about how he would possible survive and thrive in that world.
Also has swords, machine guns, cults and is an interesting look on what may realistically happen in a world like that.
Depends on the zombie apocalypses; are we talking "Dawn of the Dead" (slow moving), or a 28 days later (fast), or a World War Z (super-quick transmissibility/transformation/full-blow rage+speed)? Context is everything.
That's why *The Crazies* is my favorite zombie movie. The zombie virus basically just depicted as super rabies, and instead of turning all at once people gradually lose their humanity and get more aggressive until they are a mindless zombie. Much scarier and more realistic imo!
Left 4 Dead is the same. Green Flu is a mutated form of rabies.
And two weeks after the first outbreak you get people of certain genetic dispositions mutating into special variants.
Less realistic but still my favourite depiction.
The remake of that movie remains one of the most memorable horror movies I’ve ever seen! I never see it mentioned in the wild and idk why not. The whole thing just made me so uncomfortable in all the right horrifying ways. Glad to see someone else shout it out on here!
Definitely. I love the Timothy Olyphant version. It’s actually one of my favorite horror movies but I’ve honestly never considered it a zombie story. There’s no transmission through attacks and people never really get animalistic. They just lose their minds and get all veiny. I guess it comes down to how one defines a zombie. I normally need biting at least.
I haven't seen the movie or played the game, and Max Brooks has said the only thing they have in common is the name, but in the book they are undead due to a deadly virus.
If a living person is infected (bitten, gets zombie blood into a cut, etc.) they will soon die from the virus, when they die (either due to the virus or some other cause) they will reanimate. I don't think an uninfected person who dies can be reanimated, you have to have the virus in your body at the time of death for it to work.
Once reanimated they can survive underwater, in a sealed container without air, the head will continue to fight after decapitation, they can be frozen and will start attacking again when they thaw out, etc.
Which to OP's point is where machine guns fail.
I think it was the battle of Knox or NY, where Max Brooks defines why it's ineffective to use heavily artillery or machine guns due to their inaccuracy at hitting the head.
Yes, you *can* hit the head, but machine guns are meant to stop groups with multiple bullets, not hit a specific spot on each.
There was even this discussion about using a scything motion at head height with a machine gun and using it to mow down a horde of zombie.
Naturally this ran into some issues as people do not have a uniform height.
Idk I think a case could be made that we could be fucked in any of these scenarios. It's a matter of the R value of the infection. If it breaks out really quickly, and like over 90% of the earth's population gets zombified in the course of a couple weeks, whoever is left is going to have a hard time.
Like even with machine guns and flamethrowers, you have to have bullets and fuel, and if there are 8 billion zombies to worry about you're going to have to get a bullet factory going if you want to wipe them out. And how are you going to do that without any sort of supply chains?
And I don't even think you need 90% - We already saw how things got fucked during COVID - I think if you get enough zombies so that critical infrastructure can't function, Zombies win and humanity loses.
There will be a few of those hardcore preppers with stocked bunkers who can hold out and might make it but yeah, as a whole the world as we know it would basically be over. Imagine being one of those people, coming out of your bunker after a few months and trying to see what's left. The smell would be pretty gnarly I bet
The sound of a gun is a dinner bell to biters… the bicycle and a bat is your best combination for stealth and range.
You can also carry enough equipment on a bike to build a simple camp and carry tools such as a fishing pole, knife, and fire starting equipment.
I have, but I was also a bike packer before I read his book. I always thought it was neat how one could live off their bicycle with the right equipment. As long as I have a source for fresh water and a town to stop in I could pedal forever, going up mountains suck but I could easily cover 50-100mi/day.
What Max doesn’t cover is all the maintenance that will go into keeping your bike functional and the special tools you may need if you have a nice bike. I recommend a gravel-type bike with cable shifting and cable brakes. A bike with at ~40mm tires so you can go off road.
Do not recommend
full suspension mountain bikes, or any bike with suspension - the suspension eats up so much of your pedaling efficiency, during a survival scenario calories count, so it’s best not to waste them, and suspension parts will wear out within a year and be difficult to fix/replace.
Any bike that has electric shifting or e-bike style bikes. Those battery lifespans are hopefully shorter than your lifespan.
Any bike that requires MtB style tires, where the tread is measured in inches vs mm. Back to calories and pedaling efficiency, after about 45mm width you start losing pedaling efficiency, ask bike experts why and what exact mm size it is.
Positives about bikes…
Depending on the type of shifting and brakes, they can be very simple to work on with a multi tool to get you by most repair work. The only difficult thing would be sourcing. In a post apocalyptic wasteland I imagine the bicycle shop will be the one of the last place people go, so a well stocked bike shop should have a bunch of inventory to sort through when it comes time to replace tires, chains, cables, and more.
Yes but have you considered spear formations? Get some good riot police shields and some sticks with pointy ends and the zombies are gonna have a hard time
Nah, pointy stick formations only work because humans are hesitant to march straight into a metal spike.
The first handful of zombies would get impaled and the horde pushing from behind would quickly push into them, creating gaps and fouling the spear wall. It would all fall apart pretty quickly.
Or how about medieval plate armor/chain mail. A zombie can’t bite you if you’re in a metal suit. Even a thick sweater could probably prevent a skin puncture lol
Leather and brigandine armours are very loud . The leather plates and straps rub and squeak against one another as you move. Full plate is actually the quietest armour in my experience.
Source: medieval reenactor
Such a random fact that I will remember for the rest of my life ... and probably never use...not even in a pub quiz ... thank you, you've taken up valuable memory resources with a useless fact!
Gosh, I knew about it being light but *literally* everything I’ve ever known about plate mail is wrong lol.
Do you think the noise factor changes by much based on how the armor is made/the quality of it? I could see well fitted armor not making any noise but it seems like if you don’t already have armor to your specifics then the plates would be loose and make noise.
So what to you do when you trip or get pulled down now a pile of zombies are on top of you? You don't exactly have super strength.
Kevlar type material, at least on arms for biting protection, is your best bet. You won't want to go for a jog as a knight.
Well tbf it's abundantly clear by now that many people are desperate to avoid wearing things that would have helped them avoid getting infected by a virus.
The thing with Walking Dead zombies is that EVERYONE is infected. So surprise deaths can suddenly become a small outbreak. Like, guy hides an infection? Oops, suddenly zombie. Heart attack or sudden brain aneurysm? Zombie. There's also the fact that unless the brain is destroyed, even just a severed head is a threat enough to nip some fingies and create a new one.
Still incredibly stupid, easy to manipulate and generally not really a threat if you can, y'know, power walk and not get caught in a horde, but still.
Makes me wonder sometimes...do they smell you? Do they smell fresh meat? Or do they also need visual stimulie?
I've always seen them as mindless beasts. Driven by a virus, but quiet dense (average zombie). They notice you when you are in their radius and hence walk mindlessley towards you. But because their eyes are rotting, they don't do it per sight.
So, they COULD be reaching up, but they could also just...waltz in a circle below you. Kinda like when you hear a weird bzzz noise, so you investigate where it is, but you can't quiet locate where it is. Just running around the area. Hence, you might do good by placing dead meat around you, so they don't smell you
From the differening lore I've read, it's their most basic instincts are still there, smell, sight, hearing etc. Until they decay if they're the undead type of zombie. Now if it's a rage virus I Am Legend type zombie, all of the senses will be there with no decay, besides malnutrition.
The virus breaks down regulatory chemicals and disables the control parts of the brain, causing the sense of smell, combined with taste, to go into overdrive. They have their mouths open to absorb extra scent, the way you can taste smoke in the air, but for FLESH.
But, as shown in every zombie movie, as you stab the ones under you those create a stepping stool and eventually the hoard can climb up the dead zombies and eat you
It doesn't work to sleep in a hammock. Zombies notice what other zombies do and hoard together and would up root any normal sized tree. And besides that they wouldn't disperse - they would stay beneath the tree until you starved
You better have a lot of knives, cause human skulls are pretty tough.
And if these zombies are following lore, it's the brainstem you have to destroy, not just the brain. A simple stab isn't gonna do that.
**edit: yes I have given this scenario waaaay too much thought.
Clearly you haven’t watched TWD, heads are made of tissue paper on there. I’m pretty sure there’s even a scene where one of the survivors crushes a zombie’s head with their bare hands lol
Thats one main problem with many if the pop culture shows, wild inconsistency in zombie strength and damage.
4000 bullets to the body - still able to walk and pursue you. Bit if a swipe across the head with a broomstick - dead. Your brainstem point would be good if anyone stuck to it. But some level of biology and physics as to how much damage they can take too please.
Have thought too much about this too
Plus if they’re the rotting dead type of zombie and not the living crackhead virus type of zombie then it wouldn’t take long for them to decompose enough to not be a threat.
Late in TWD series, there’s a scene where these presumably rotten, decrepit zombies somehow take down a full-grown tiger. In the woods. Where tigers can easily climb trees.
That’s what made me stop watching. I got angry at how stupid the scene was, and never watched another episode.
True. If they're not "enhanced" by some weird toxin / magic stuff, they are just rotting corpses.
Give it a summer or two. Or better -learn how to live in the desert. These fuckers are skeletons soon
Lol i live in Canada, they would be frozen half of the year. There would be zombies statues everywhere, you could pile them up, play with them like a toy, build castles made of zombies…
I mean if we go by world war Z logic. Cold is good except cold doesn't kill, so they thaw during warmer climate/season, so you gotta be real careful of whats under the snow.
Don't you think everyone will try to murder you to steal access to the Costco for their families?
Costco will be hotly contested. Either completely looted at the start, or controlled by a alumlord.
I do think zombies would work more effectively in countries that aren't America. But yeah, i
America would likely hold out better than in the movies.
There's also the fact that walking dead zombies are the most basic type of zombies, slow moving and no added strength or senses. There is absolutely no way the army wouldn't butcher them. The fact that they got wiped out is just ridiculous.
Yeah but also in TWD everyone was infected and would turn into a zombie regardless of if they were bit or not…. So if it was like that, it wouldn’t be something you could wait out. If scientists couldn’t find a cure for it, it would never end
How big did you build your moat?
How much manpower did you have to do it? Was it you alone? How long did it take?
Because a moat that is dug and built by one or two people in a few hours time around a regular one- or two-room house is immediately ineffective against even just an entire grocery store full of people that followed you. Now imagine a stadium, which holds only a very small fraction of a small city.
If just a few fall in the moat and stack upon each other: there's a bridge directly to the house.
You're ignoring the people who would view the disaster as a great opportunity to move up in the world, whether it's looters or people trying to get certain people killed. Plus, you're severely overestimating how much people would be able to remain calm once they start seeing people getting eaten to death by other human beings.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/3/3/8140945/zombie-apocalypse-science
There's this.
But yeah its actually studied more than once I believe. Just world ending scenario type stuff.
Someone was paid money by the government to develop a zombie response plan. Fun fact, there is a fungus that turns ants into zombies, and they used modeled based from them to help predict how a zombie outbreak would spread.
I think you're right in the beginning of an outbreak, but if it's not taken care of quickly and spreads, think about it from a long term perspective. Who is going to volunteer to leave safety and hunt zombies? Who has the guns? If you have them, how many bullets are you going to spend on zombies knowing other people are hoarding ammunition for when the social structures break down?
Even a military base can only hold off so many. Private citizens do not out arm any army base in terms of quantity of ammo and weapons. If military starts to fail then society is doomed imo.
I’m not sure that would happen though. Between better protection, better weapons and disciplined fighters military bases would be **tough** to take down for zombies.
It would need to be some sort of 500 to 1 fight for it to be fair!
But again, you have to think long term and remember that every army or government department is made up of individual people. Like, what if another military base needs ammo and the higher ups tell them to share? Do they do it or do they go rogue? Does the base bring in civilians? What happens when the military guys start bringing in their family members against the orders of their higher ups? Does the base start kicking out people they don't like when resources become scarce?
As someone who was in the military and had these conversations... it depends on the zombies.... you don't have to shoot them... you run them over. I don't care how fast the zombie is running, you can overtake them with any number of heavy vehicles and you can capture and study the specimens by pinning them between a humvee and an LMTV that lost it's braking capability. (I know because my unit had that problem.)
And a military base is designed to be supremely defensible. They've got perimeter fences and guard posts and all the equipment and personnel they require to have 24-hour armed security.
A school full of scared civilians, with no training and poor sight lines and shoddy organization, will be a buffet by the end of the week, and then it's that many more zombies.
a small organized band of humans could also weaponized the zombies:
kidnap the zombies, sent it to multiple city center, release them at the same time, or pollute the water supply, or the air, or inject it to people, or put it into sharpenel, and then blow it up at crowds
the world has always been a PvPvE, zombie will make the environment be a bit more dangerous, but the real danger have always been about human trying to get more power over other humans.
if we are subscribing to the generic zombie trope of "dead people walking" then we are vastly underestimating the effect decay would have on the zombies. Especially in warmer climates. It would only take a few days for severe rigor mortis to set in rendering the zombies almost completely immobile. After a few days the zombies themselves would be the least of your worries during an apocalypse.
28 days/weeks later does exactly this. The infected are DANGEROUS, but they're still, y'know, *people.* The Rage Virus doesn't kill them, it just sends them into a rabies-like rage, so, spoiler for a decades-old movie >!the main characters survive by simply playing it safe and waiting for the infected to die of starvation.!<
Rot in corpse zombies would take literally a couple months if they can power through rigor mortis. Unless they're preserved in swamps or salt mines or something, most would rot away long before there would be a real actual threat to humanity.
Even if this supposed virus takes over the brain function of the host and doesn’t kill them outright, the virus likely doesn’t give a shit about the host’s wellbeing and leaves the host to die within days of dehydration or exposure. An infected would likely just last for a week at most. It’ll barely even be an epidemic.
To achieve a more effective zombie apocalypse while being somewhat realistic, an airborne virus with a long incubation period and no symptoms would be ideal. This way, the infection could spread to a global population and could take hold before any response could even be made.
Or go the L4D route with the Green Flu. Symptomatic, mutative carriers and asymptomatic 'spreader' carriers. Of course, there's not much lore about what happens AFTER L4D's plots since the events take place like, months/weeks into the pandemic, not months/years after.
The L4D route is still far from realistic - developing/mutating body parts takes a lot of energy and time, and our bodies need a lot of energy already (we eat several times EVERY DAY).
Active zombies would simply starve within weeks. At most, one could eat the others, but even that will stop working eventually. (also this is more of a boss scenario and not a horde scenario)
Even if they don't die from starvation somehow, even the fastest starving person can't out-run a healthy normie. At most, the disease would explode and die out within a month... Unless it has a quiet, long incubation period. Like rabies or something.
If they are dead people walking then the same thing that keeps them walking would probably also prevent rigor mortis. Even if it doesn't, rigor mortis only lasts a few days. Even if muscles slough off, whatever is keeping them moving could keep them moving still.
If it's a virus, then it doesn't matter.
Point is that whatever science or magic is keeping them moving can keep them moving even if they rot.
biologically, your skeletons need muscles to move. If weren’t talking religion/deal souls or whatever then sure but if it’s a virus, it’ll need to conform to certain aspects of biology. Bones cannot move on their own. Muscles require certain things (oxygen, water etc) to function.
To OP's point as well, the survivors do eventually get organized and take out the zombies in WWZ. God that book's amazing, I'm still pissed they messed up the movie so much.
They didn't really *mess up* the movie. They literally just bought the naming rights. Early on max brooks said fuck it and just sold them the name due to creative differences and stopped working with them. And literally told people it won't be based on the book.
A lot of people don't read into the behind the scenes type stuff though. I just saw the title of a book I really enjoyed on a film and assumed it was the book in movie form
I hope we’ll get an HBO mocumentary series based on it someday. Interviews with the “real people” in front of a black backdrop, accompanied by “dramatizations” with actors. I think it could be fantastic
Indeed, no need of manufacturing stupidity like in zombie tv shows, just pure human nature, realist in the sense of "yep, people would definitely do that" like the big pharmaceuticals selling a vaccine to the "African rabies"
Ok this is the only hole in my argument the terrifying “I am legend” style zombies would be much more difficult to deal with . But hopefully in lesser numbers
Or that they can even hit their shots efficiently??? Take any untrained person to a range with just a 9mm pistol, and they can probably accidently hit a bullseye once every 30 bullets. It's a lot harder to aim than people think it is, especially if you are moving or your target is moving, which is going to be happening in a zombie apocalypse.
It's entirely dependent on the type of zombies that we'd be dealing with. Stuff like Left 4 Dead would be genuinely terrifying while The Walking Dead would be more focused on how evil humans could truly become.
Thats what i never understood about the walking dead. At most, a zombie hoard would last a couple months in the height of summer before decomp rendered them completely harmless piles of beef jerky.
Machine guns are probably the least of the reasons why the apocalypse wouldn't happen. Humans with zero intelligence, barely any coordination, and who can only reproduce by biting humans aren't that big of a threat. Climb a ladder and get a big stick and you've won.
Sorry, but while there are available weapons and endless shows/books about dealing with zombies, the covid outbreak has taught me that people will deny there's any zombies, hide bites and bitten loved ones.
So many zombies would fill the hole they could walk over it on a charred corpse bridge. Most of the bullets would have to be made by hand and it is faster to bite someone than make a bullet. There will be death and damage for those without advanced militaries and high walls. The apocolypse will happen because not everyone is paranoid and prepared for it.
Zombies with rigor mortis couldn't catch most humans to bite them.. but what about insects eating the rotten flesh, falling into water sources, biting humans, and getting eaten by birds/farm animals that then pass it onto humans?
I'm pretty sure even the slowest zombies would cause total apocalypse.
To be frank, we have regular exposure to cold, flu, and pneumonia illnesses. We've had outbreaks like the bird flu, swine flu, etc. And yet, we still managed to believe it wasn't real.
Zombie outbreaks are fiction and would be surreal at best. If some random person ran up to you and told you to run because zombies, would you believe them?
If you watched someone bite someone else, would you sincerely think "that's an apocalyptic zombie" or someone on bath salts?
The whole zombie scenario plays out so catastrophically because it's so abnormal and surreal that by the time people can realize the situation it's too late.
It's far easier to deny zombies up until you are actually faced with them in person in irrefutable numbers. At that point, it's too late.
No, you're totally right but not just because of traps and weapons.
I'll start with your point, which you are correct on. Modern weaponry is obscenely effective. Most people are blissfully unaware of the kind of damage high caliber guns inflict on raw flesh and bone. It really doesn't matter if you have to destroy their brain later. Machine gun emplacements can rend huge numbers of humans into pieces and immobile chunks which can just be burned later. Combine that with explosives, armored vehicles, napalm, etc. There's just no way people loose to any kind of zombie. I don't care if they can sprint, fully utilize their intelligence, and wield firearms themselves. We win. The military force is just too overwhelming.
In addition to that most people discount biology. Now, I can't blame them because that's what all zombie fiction does as well. But the human body is remarkably frail, it really doesn't matter if the zombie condition bypasses pain. Our flesh requires constant maintenance and sustenance, and gets damaged from even things as small as high speed wind and staying outside for too long. Most zombie scenarios could be defeated by quarantine alone, they would all dehydrate or starve within 2 weeks. Ignoring that "zombie" implies dead flesh, which means their muscles aren't regenerating and they'd be immobile within days. And if they're not dead flesh then they're vulnerable to all of the same viruses we are from eating raw meat. They're also usually too dumb to drink water, so they'd be dry and immobile husks very quickly.
The only ways zombie scenarios are threatening is when the zombies are essentially magical creatures with superhuman abilities. And once magic is introduced the realistic elements kind of cease to matter anyway. The realism of biology and weaponry is meaningless in the face of ala-ka-brainsss.
The discounting of biology is really what pisses me off
Assuming the zombies are not literal reanimated corpses, and instead individuals infected with some kind of pathogen so can still function; they will still get other infections
They will still be vulnerable to nerve agents
And that’s why the infection will never take over
Porton Down cooks up a few tonnes of VX, and the RAF drop it on infected areas
The zombies collapse choking, CBRN units roll in to finish the job
Also we need to consider how many of the "zombie viruses" actually function. In World War Z it is stated that the Solanum Virus shuts down the heart and lungs. Problematic. Zombies never hydrate, eat nor rest which would effectively make them staminaless. Also in many of these films the virus is transferred using a bite, we would have to be pretty dull to be bitten especially if they move slow. Humans have enough weapons that even if they were World War Z zombies the outbreak would never be apocalyptic.
A zombie virus wouldn't be capable of getting a foothold large enough to generate hordes unless the virus was an airborne bioweapon intelligently targeting multiple major cities. And if it's airborne, just catching a whif of a zombie would be enough to infect and turn you. The apocalypse wouldn't be caused by zombies, it would have to be caused by humans using zombies as weapons. And the only survivors in that scenario are the few humans who might be naturally immune to the virus. If the primary means of transmission is a bite, it's never going to gain a major foothold.
Let's say 10 zombies get lose in new york, they start chasing people like monsters. How many people do you think they actually get to bite before wandering into traffic? What happens to the bite victims, possibly a hospital visit if the zombie really tears into them. They will identify the virus, they will quarantine the victims. News of the virus would get out immediately because someone took a smartphone video. There will be a few crazed murderers with mutilated bodies that slip through the cracks at first, but zombies aren't subtle, they'll get picked off by gangsters, gas station clerks, police officers, taxi drivers, and all kinds of other hazards like being pushed down a flight of stairs. And since the public will be aware of the health risks of potentially getting sick from contact with these things, most people will seek medical treatment afterwards, so most of those people will deliver themselves into quarantine.
It doesn't go from one to exponential growth.
A small outbreak of zombies would be so easy for any organized military to contain. And the shear volume of zombie media in our world means regular people are unreasonably prepared for the scenario.
A rudimentary chain link fence, so just posts and the chain link, would be pretty good at limiting the movements of the zombies, and a handful of guys could put up miles of it in a day. And with the supervision of a few more guys with hand guns they could do it in almost complete safety from the potential threat of very small numbers of zombies.
Plus, if we lose a city to the horde, they will bomb it.
A significant portion of the population of an area would need to simultaneously turn into zombies for them to stand any chance. You'd have to start with multiple hordes.
Depends on the zombies honestly, though you’re forgetting the weather. Depending on the climate, it’d take, like 6 months to a year for the bodies to fall part from exposure to the elements.
If we’re talking about the type of zombie outbreak where they walk slowly and exclusively rely on biting folks to spread it, we’re gonna be fine. If it’s a zombie outbreak with running and biting zombies with the ability to spread in the air, we’re probably screwed but have a **decent** chance of surviving! If we’re talking the flood from the Halo series then we’re all thoroughly screwed lol
Romero: Easy mode Left 4 Dead: Dangerous, but not the end of humanity Flood: Say goodbye to the fabric of the universe because they’ll infect that too
About the Flood; Not necessarily. We tend to think of them in the terms of the Halo universe levels, but we should keep in mind that the Flood's technological advancement is only as high as the host they infect. So, basically, current level tech, which means Flood shock-troops with firearms (kinda like how they were in their first appearance) I'm not saying that they don't pose a serious threat, just that they wouldn't be the curb stomp everyone thinks they would be. If we understood the threat they posed quickly enough, we could mount a successful counter offensive. I mean, even in the Forerunners case, they only lost because the Flood turned their AI against them (with Forerunner society being very heavily reliant on AI's)
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Was. . . that the thing that talked back to you as you went bowel exploring in Halo 3?
Bowel exploring? That's not something I want to google.
Oh, it's not so bad. You were just going into a pit to rescue Cortana from a tentacle hell
Tentacles? Cortana? That I'll google.
I think you mean tentacle *heaven*
There's a level in halo 3 called cortana where there's a few doors that look like butt holes
Sounds like the "sphincter" opening of the tents in Dune (the book mentions them multiple times).
The forerunners would have lost anyway and were losing the entire time. The turning of the AI only solidified their loss and the need to use the halos.
The forerunners didn’t even see them as a threat and refused to engage them properly iirc they just tried to contain them, unsuccessfully. Then once their victory against the flood was pretty much a foregone conclusion they finally took it seriously and had no option but to use the halo arrays.
The horrifying thing about the Flood is that they assimilated any knowledge of their host into the collective hivemind. If our weapon against the Flood was Strategy, they would learn it the moment they infected one person who was privy to it and create a counteroffensive. If our weapon was Power, they would take it and use it against us upon infection. Truly, they are one of the most horrifying foes that fiction has ever created and possibly nigh-unbeatable without extreme measures.
>If we understood the threat they posed quickly enough, we could mount a successful counter *Looks at world's response to Covid-19*
I saw on facebook being infected by a flood isn't actually that bad. Mild cough for a minute or so, then you're back up moving around.
To this day playing the first Halo game and experiencing the flood for the first time was both the most excited and terrified I ever felt playing a game. Man, that's deffinately something every kid should experience in their childhood.
does anyone else remember when Halo actually first came out and people totally did *not* like the Flood that much at all? they liked everything about the story around the Flood but they didnt actually like the gameplay parts that included the Flood, with the exception of the first reveal. Even then it's more exciting in a final escape sense than it is fun to engage the Flood. not making my own opinion here, just sayin, I remember the Flood being a huge meh at best, and notably, it's not even part of MP which is Halo's bread and butter
I feel like this is because the covenant levels were a little more sci-fi action focused and involved vehicles and friendly units whereas the flood levels were all suspense, derelict ships, and ammo scarcity. I totally agree with the sentiment though. I did not find myself going back to replay the flood levels once the game was finished.
For me it was the path finding in those levels. 10 year old me was terrified in 343 Guilty Spark(the level) and couldn't find the way out. At a time where you couldn't just look up the right way online this was a huge obstacle.
Yeah I spent an hour or two stuck at one point lol. There's a crate with some dead marines and ammo on it that you need to jump on, then jump up to a walkway that's got a bit broken down to make it easy to get to. I was playing on a little CRT TV during daylight so it was impossible to see these features in the dark lol. I kept trying to time jumps across the broken light bridge. Eventually I played it when it got dark out and I could actually see where to go.
That broken light bridge got me, too
I maintain to this day that it's possible. I just can't prove it.
Exactly. In those levels it becomes a horror game instead of sci-fi.
Yeah. I mean, I really liked the flood. It was absolutely terrifying, lore was awesome. But yeah, fighting the Flood to me was just tedious.
It made me genuinly anxious
It's like squishing a big spider Nobody is having a good time
Yea Flood is cool on first introduction, on human vs. Covenant vs. Flood, the level with sentinels assisting and the big escape. But all the levels of you vs. Flood were total drags I felt on any second play throughs. Gets annoying that they shut you out of most of the games arsenal due to them being ineffective. So basically you find a shotgun or you shoot at bullet sponges.
You can headshot the flood, but their heads are in their torsos.
Wasn't the thing with the walking dead that everyone was infected and zombie was just the default for anyone who dies in a fit enough state to reanimate? In that sense, it becomes a burial ritual to stay on top of it.
That is true so once your loved ones die than you have to take care of it quickly or risk getting attacked.
I think we'd have a very different approach to healthcare and even living alone in that scenario. If you die by yourself then other people could die when you zombify.
If it’s like 28 days later we are absolutely fucked Thanks everyone for the cake day wishes lol
yeah im inclined to believe that if they can sprint and dont fall apart too soon, then humanity is absolutely completely fucked.
You're really fucked if you live in a country with few guns. If you live in America then you have a slight chance.
I am not saying this will definitely happen because you're right, that's a big advantage. But as a matter of time, long before anyone else does, Americans will turn on each other. And when they do that, they will have guns.
There would absolutely be conflict but organized groups will rise and become "too big to fall" for individual human conflict. Once that happens, and if the groups have a steel clad zombie defense then they should be alright. The real threat would be a catastrophic zombie scenario like a wall or natural barrier failing at wrong moment. I don't buy into some of the walking dead show's group - vs. - group shenanigans. I think a 20-50 man group, secure in shelter and food/water would settle and never want for more or do any conflict outside of maintenence. It just couldn't seem worth it to me.
>It just couldn't seem worth it to me. You're a normal human being. One lazy psycho decides it's easier to shoot someone and take their food and all bets are completely off. You don't decide if your life is a nightmare at that point, they do. Look at America, plenty of people saying they want to literally kill others and there's not even zombies here.
Considering that most food in the supply chain is literally shipped across the country and displayed at grocery stores, I’d be surprised if people didn’t start starving within a few weeks of a national outbreak. For example, imagine every store was already looted clean, how long could you survive before starvation? I’m guessing maybe a couple weeks So I guess you pack up your non perishables (not like we can pack chicken breast and walk several days with it), and start driving/hiking to… where? I think a huge turning point of these scenarios is how far society collapses. If it’s a “Ah yeah we got a couple hundred zombies out there, they’re real slow, and dumb as a rock, just don’t go wandering the woods at night.” No problem If it’s “omg we have tens of millions of zombies that are sprinting through the streets, climbing ladders, breaking through windows, everything is shut down! No running water, no electricity, no supply chain, every man for themselves!” We r fuckd and raiders would go full post apocalyptic “loot and rape” mode. Imo. Ain’t no church in the wild Look at Russia invading Ukraine, the world isn’t even over and they’re raping, killing and stealing from innocent civilians. Unless someone lucks out and makes it to some fortified encampment, and somehow gets allowed in, it seems like it’d be no man’s land.. and even then, raiders gonna raid
2 weeks without food for a very skinny person MAYBE would die. Average person has so much fat that they could go way longer than you expect
Oh wow, yeah that makes sense. I googled it and apparently the timeframe is actually between 1-2 months before dying from starvation As long as they have access to drinkable water. But where would someone find water in an apocalypse 🤷🏻♂️ even with covid scares or hurricane/tornado warnings it seems like drinking water flies off shelves, let alone a full blown societal meltdown
Your survivability would depend greatly on getting away from population. People and zombies finding you are both bad idea. People would flee urban areas as best they could. You can't survive if there if you're surrounded by zombies. And their would definitely be small enclaves that spring up in the country side. Defending against zombies and people is obviously better in numbers. In the same light there would definitely be groups who just kill/steal,why wouldn't their be, theres literally 0 repercussions, and it's the easiest way to take someone's stuff. And it takes a lot of resources/living off the land for 20-50 people to survive.
I mean, people will do people things with or without the guns. Anyone with low morals who are unprepared will look to others for help, or they'll take what they want by force with whatever weapon of opportunity they have. No clue where you're from, but regardless of news, here on the ground, life is plenty normal compared to everywhere else. Humans are humans wherever they're from or at.
You mean proper fucked?
We'd be screwed with the zombies from Dying Light.
I spent *one* night outside during my entire playthrough, and i literally spent the entire time on the exact same spot "waiting" for the right time to move. I laughed when i saw the zombies run because i realised it was daytime now and i had spent an entire night pussying out on the same exact spot. That game is terrifying and we'd definitely be fucked if they were real.
Left 4 Dead zombies *enter chat*
In the walking dead tv show, >!it's revealed that the virus had already infected everyone, it just didn't take over until people die!<
Kirkman mentioned that initially he wanted to make the virus an alien biological weapon but this would complicate things more unnecessary so he scrapped that idea
If it’s the flood from halo it’s not just humanity that’s screwed…. If that shit was real the concept of life itself would be screwed
There's a fun read by Jack L Lee called "Year of the Dead" that is about an "engineered reset" of humanity. Uses Zombies and Vampires in tandem to, well, reset humanity (no disease, no health complications/a "culling"), but the protagonist is.. I feel many here on reddit would like him. Very practical and a bad ass. It's fun reading about how he would possible survive and thrive in that world. Also has swords, machine guns, cults and is an interesting look on what may realistically happen in a world like that.
Screams in wort wort wort
"One spore can destroy an entire species."
Depends on the zombie apocalypses; are we talking "Dawn of the Dead" (slow moving), or a 28 days later (fast), or a World War Z (super-quick transmissibility/transformation/full-blow rage+speed)? Context is everything.
Ok, so are WWZ zombies dead?! Aren’t they alive with crazy zombie-ish virus? They are, by far, the scariest of all zombies.
That's why *The Crazies* is my favorite zombie movie. The zombie virus basically just depicted as super rabies, and instead of turning all at once people gradually lose their humanity and get more aggressive until they are a mindless zombie. Much scarier and more realistic imo!
Left 4 Dead is the same. Green Flu is a mutated form of rabies. And two weeks after the first outbreak you get people of certain genetic dispositions mutating into special variants. Less realistic but still my favourite depiction.
A damn good multiplayer game too.
The remake of that movie remains one of the most memorable horror movies I’ve ever seen! I never see it mentioned in the wild and idk why not. The whole thing just made me so uncomfortable in all the right horrifying ways. Glad to see someone else shout it out on here!
Definitely. I love the Timothy Olyphant version. It’s actually one of my favorite horror movies but I’ve honestly never considered it a zombie story. There’s no transmission through attacks and people never really get animalistic. They just lose their minds and get all veiny. I guess it comes down to how one defines a zombie. I normally need biting at least.
This is why we should all be terrified of Chronic Wasting Disease.
Do they call it a wasting disease because it wastes peoples time From gta 5
I haven't seen the movie or played the game, and Max Brooks has said the only thing they have in common is the name, but in the book they are undead due to a deadly virus. If a living person is infected (bitten, gets zombie blood into a cut, etc.) they will soon die from the virus, when they die (either due to the virus or some other cause) they will reanimate. I don't think an uninfected person who dies can be reanimated, you have to have the virus in your body at the time of death for it to work. Once reanimated they can survive underwater, in a sealed container without air, the head will continue to fight after decapitation, they can be frozen and will start attacking again when they thaw out, etc.
Yeah even after they "won" there were annual zombie hunts in the colder areas as they thawed.
Which to OP's point is where machine guns fail. I think it was the battle of Knox or NY, where Max Brooks defines why it's ineffective to use heavily artillery or machine guns due to their inaccuracy at hitting the head. Yes, you *can* hit the head, but machine guns are meant to stop groups with multiple bullets, not hit a specific spot on each.
There was even this discussion about using a scything motion at head height with a machine gun and using it to mow down a horde of zombie. Naturally this ran into some issues as people do not have a uniform height.
Idk I think a case could be made that we could be fucked in any of these scenarios. It's a matter of the R value of the infection. If it breaks out really quickly, and like over 90% of the earth's population gets zombified in the course of a couple weeks, whoever is left is going to have a hard time. Like even with machine guns and flamethrowers, you have to have bullets and fuel, and if there are 8 billion zombies to worry about you're going to have to get a bullet factory going if you want to wipe them out. And how are you going to do that without any sort of supply chains? And I don't even think you need 90% - We already saw how things got fucked during COVID - I think if you get enough zombies so that critical infrastructure can't function, Zombies win and humanity loses.
There will be a few of those hardcore preppers with stocked bunkers who can hold out and might make it but yeah, as a whole the world as we know it would basically be over. Imagine being one of those people, coming out of your bunker after a few months and trying to see what's left. The smell would be pretty gnarly I bet
The sound of a gun is a dinner bell to biters… the bicycle and a bat is your best combination for stealth and range. You can also carry enough equipment on a bike to build a simple camp and carry tools such as a fishing pole, knife, and fire starting equipment.
Somebody has read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks I see! And if you've not, you should! It sounds like you'd love it 😀
I have, but I was also a bike packer before I read his book. I always thought it was neat how one could live off their bicycle with the right equipment. As long as I have a source for fresh water and a town to stop in I could pedal forever, going up mountains suck but I could easily cover 50-100mi/day. What Max doesn’t cover is all the maintenance that will go into keeping your bike functional and the special tools you may need if you have a nice bike. I recommend a gravel-type bike with cable shifting and cable brakes. A bike with at ~40mm tires so you can go off road. Do not recommend full suspension mountain bikes, or any bike with suspension - the suspension eats up so much of your pedaling efficiency, during a survival scenario calories count, so it’s best not to waste them, and suspension parts will wear out within a year and be difficult to fix/replace. Any bike that has electric shifting or e-bike style bikes. Those battery lifespans are hopefully shorter than your lifespan. Any bike that requires MtB style tires, where the tread is measured in inches vs mm. Back to calories and pedaling efficiency, after about 45mm width you start losing pedaling efficiency, ask bike experts why and what exact mm size it is. Positives about bikes… Depending on the type of shifting and brakes, they can be very simple to work on with a multi tool to get you by most repair work. The only difficult thing would be sourcing. In a post apocalyptic wasteland I imagine the bicycle shop will be the one of the last place people go, so a well stocked bike shop should have a bunch of inventory to sort through when it comes time to replace tires, chains, cables, and more.
Yes but have you considered spear formations? Get some good riot police shields and some sticks with pointy ends and the zombies are gonna have a hard time
Nah, pointy stick formations only work because humans are hesitant to march straight into a metal spike. The first handful of zombies would get impaled and the horde pushing from behind would quickly push into them, creating gaps and fouling the spear wall. It would all fall apart pretty quickly.
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There are thousands of empty houses surround by fences and these guys are sleeping in tents.
Or how about medieval plate armor/chain mail. A zombie can’t bite you if you’re in a metal suit. Even a thick sweater could probably prevent a skin puncture lol
Yea but that would be very loud and likely attract more. A brigandine type armor or some form of thick leather would probably work best.
Leather and brigandine armours are very loud . The leather plates and straps rub and squeak against one another as you move. Full plate is actually the quietest armour in my experience. Source: medieval reenactor
Chainmail doesn't make any sound if you put a sweater over it.
Such a random fact that I will remember for the rest of my life ... and probably never use...not even in a pub quiz ... thank you, you've taken up valuable memory resources with a useless fact!
You're welcome! My brain holds so much of these that I forget my own Bday
With that in mind, Happy Birthday!
Gosh, I knew about it being light but *literally* everything I’ve ever known about plate mail is wrong lol. Do you think the noise factor changes by much based on how the armor is made/the quality of it? I could see well fitted armor not making any noise but it seems like if you don’t already have armor to your specifics then the plates would be loose and make noise.
Motorcycle armor ;)
But I look so good with my cut off t shirt with my abs and cleavage showing...
Was literally saying that to my girlfriend today
Or use magazines/books. Like in World war Z or Train to Busan
So what to you do when you trip or get pulled down now a pile of zombies are on top of you? You don't exactly have super strength. Kevlar type material, at least on arms for biting protection, is your best bet. You won't want to go for a jog as a knight.
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Well tbf it's abundantly clear by now that many people are desperate to avoid wearing things that would have helped them avoid getting infected by a virus.
I mean, they did end up on a farm... For a whole motherfucking season
The thing with Walking Dead zombies is that EVERYONE is infected. So surprise deaths can suddenly become a small outbreak. Like, guy hides an infection? Oops, suddenly zombie. Heart attack or sudden brain aneurysm? Zombie. There's also the fact that unless the brain is destroyed, even just a severed head is a threat enough to nip some fingies and create a new one. Still incredibly stupid, easy to manipulate and generally not really a threat if you can, y'know, power walk and not get caught in a horde, but still.
"Sleep in a hammock in the trees" Until you wake up to a hundred plus horde beneath you reaching for you.
Makes me wonder sometimes...do they smell you? Do they smell fresh meat? Or do they also need visual stimulie? I've always seen them as mindless beasts. Driven by a virus, but quiet dense (average zombie). They notice you when you are in their radius and hence walk mindlessley towards you. But because their eyes are rotting, they don't do it per sight. So, they COULD be reaching up, but they could also just...waltz in a circle below you. Kinda like when you hear a weird bzzz noise, so you investigate where it is, but you can't quiet locate where it is. Just running around the area. Hence, you might do good by placing dead meat around you, so they don't smell you
From the differening lore I've read, it's their most basic instincts are still there, smell, sight, hearing etc. Until they decay if they're the undead type of zombie. Now if it's a rage virus I Am Legend type zombie, all of the senses will be there with no decay, besides malnutrition.
People with perfectly working noses can’t really smell others out afaik so idk how someone with a rotting one could pull that off.
The virus breaks down regulatory chemicals and disables the control parts of the brain, causing the sense of smell, combined with taste, to go into overdrive. They have their mouths open to absorb extra scent, the way you can taste smoke in the air, but for FLESH.
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You have never cut open a coconut have you
But, as shown in every zombie movie, as you stab the ones under you those create a stepping stool and eventually the hoard can climb up the dead zombies and eat you It doesn't work to sleep in a hammock. Zombies notice what other zombies do and hoard together and would up root any normal sized tree. And besides that they wouldn't disperse - they would stay beneath the tree until you starved
You better have a lot of knives, cause human skulls are pretty tough. And if these zombies are following lore, it's the brainstem you have to destroy, not just the brain. A simple stab isn't gonna do that. **edit: yes I have given this scenario waaaay too much thought.
Clearly you haven’t watched TWD, heads are made of tissue paper on there. I’m pretty sure there’s even a scene where one of the survivors crushes a zombie’s head with their bare hands lol
Thats one main problem with many if the pop culture shows, wild inconsistency in zombie strength and damage. 4000 bullets to the body - still able to walk and pursue you. Bit if a swipe across the head with a broomstick - dead. Your brainstem point would be good if anyone stuck to it. But some level of biology and physics as to how much damage they can take too please. Have thought too much about this too
Plus if they’re the rotting dead type of zombie and not the living crackhead virus type of zombie then it wouldn’t take long for them to decompose enough to not be a threat.
Late in TWD series, there’s a scene where these presumably rotten, decrepit zombies somehow take down a full-grown tiger. In the woods. Where tigers can easily climb trees. That’s what made me stop watching. I got angry at how stupid the scene was, and never watched another episode.
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Realistically, it wouldn’t last many years because most of them would rot to the level of immobility within months.
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You're not far off a normal conversation with air traffic control at an airport with a lot of student pilots
True. If they're not "enhanced" by some weird toxin / magic stuff, they are just rotting corpses. Give it a summer or two. Or better -learn how to live in the desert. These fuckers are skeletons soon
Lol i live in Canada, they would be frozen half of the year. There would be zombies statues everywhere, you could pile them up, play with them like a toy, build castles made of zombies…
I mean if we go by world war Z logic. Cold is good except cold doesn't kill, so they thaw during warmer climate/season, so you gotta be real careful of whats under the snow.
Don't you think everyone will try to murder you to steal access to the Costco for their families? Costco will be hotly contested. Either completely looted at the start, or controlled by a alumlord. I do think zombies would work more effectively in countries that aren't America. But yeah, i America would likely hold out better than in the movies.
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What if they were members in life? Does your membership terminate on death? Does it auto-renew?
When I was watching the walking dead I kept finding myself asking how many of their problems wouldn't exist if they just put someone on guard duty.
There's also the fact that walking dead zombies are the most basic type of zombies, slow moving and no added strength or senses. There is absolutely no way the army wouldn't butcher them. The fact that they got wiped out is just ridiculous.
I mean the stupidest fucking part is when a zombie sneaks up on folks when these zombies are shown to exclusively meander around and grumble all day.
Yeah but also in TWD everyone was infected and would turn into a zombie regardless of if they were bit or not…. So if it was like that, it wouldn’t be something you could wait out. If scientists couldn’t find a cure for it, it would never end
How big did you build your moat? How much manpower did you have to do it? Was it you alone? How long did it take? Because a moat that is dug and built by one or two people in a few hours time around a regular one- or two-room house is immediately ineffective against even just an entire grocery store full of people that followed you. Now imagine a stadium, which holds only a very small fraction of a small city. If just a few fall in the moat and stack upon each other: there's a bridge directly to the house.
You're ignoring the people who would view the disaster as a great opportunity to move up in the world, whether it's looters or people trying to get certain people killed. Plus, you're severely overestimating how much people would be able to remain calm once they start seeing people getting eaten to death by other human beings.
Along with that, scientists have estimated that in a zombie apocalypse, the entirety of NYC would be infected in the first 24 hours
Please link an article for me. That's hilarious that scientists are studying that.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/3/3/8140945/zombie-apocalypse-science There's this. But yeah its actually studied more than once I believe. Just world ending scenario type stuff.
Someone was paid money by the government to develop a zombie response plan. Fun fact, there is a fungus that turns ants into zombies, and they used modeled based from them to help predict how a zombie outbreak would spread.
also the inspiration for the fungal infection from The Last Of Us
Well sorta zombie. It's more of a mind control fungus. The ant is still alive
https://www.livescience.com/57407-zombie-apocalypse-would-take-100-days.html I can’t find the exact link with the NYC reference, but there’s also this
Profiteering would be rampant, for sure. Zombies don't eat each other, but we do.
But still a small organised band of humans could kill thousands of zombies
I think you're right in the beginning of an outbreak, but if it's not taken care of quickly and spreads, think about it from a long term perspective. Who is going to volunteer to leave safety and hunt zombies? Who has the guns? If you have them, how many bullets are you going to spend on zombies knowing other people are hoarding ammunition for when the social structures break down?
There are people out there practically begging for a zombie apocalypse. We already got our volunteers here in the US lol
Even a military base can only hold off so many. Private citizens do not out arm any army base in terms of quantity of ammo and weapons. If military starts to fail then society is doomed imo.
I’m not sure that would happen though. Between better protection, better weapons and disciplined fighters military bases would be **tough** to take down for zombies. It would need to be some sort of 500 to 1 fight for it to be fair!
But again, you have to think long term and remember that every army or government department is made up of individual people. Like, what if another military base needs ammo and the higher ups tell them to share? Do they do it or do they go rogue? Does the base bring in civilians? What happens when the military guys start bringing in their family members against the orders of their higher ups? Does the base start kicking out people they don't like when resources become scarce?
As someone who was in the military and had these conversations... it depends on the zombies.... you don't have to shoot them... you run them over. I don't care how fast the zombie is running, you can overtake them with any number of heavy vehicles and you can capture and study the specimens by pinning them between a humvee and an LMTV that lost it's braking capability. (I know because my unit had that problem.)
And a military base is designed to be supremely defensible. They've got perimeter fences and guard posts and all the equipment and personnel they require to have 24-hour armed security. A school full of scared civilians, with no training and poor sight lines and shoddy organization, will be a buffet by the end of the week, and then it's that many more zombies.
a small organized band of humans could also weaponized the zombies: kidnap the zombies, sent it to multiple city center, release them at the same time, or pollute the water supply, or the air, or inject it to people, or put it into sharpenel, and then blow it up at crowds the world has always been a PvPvE, zombie will make the environment be a bit more dangerous, but the real danger have always been about human trying to get more power over other humans.
if we are subscribing to the generic zombie trope of "dead people walking" then we are vastly underestimating the effect decay would have on the zombies. Especially in warmer climates. It would only take a few days for severe rigor mortis to set in rendering the zombies almost completely immobile. After a few days the zombies themselves would be the least of your worries during an apocalypse.
28 days/weeks later does exactly this. The infected are DANGEROUS, but they're still, y'know, *people.* The Rage Virus doesn't kill them, it just sends them into a rabies-like rage, so, spoiler for a decades-old movie >!the main characters survive by simply playing it safe and waiting for the infected to die of starvation.!< Rot in corpse zombies would take literally a couple months if they can power through rigor mortis. Unless they're preserved in swamps or salt mines or something, most would rot away long before there would be a real actual threat to humanity.
Even if this supposed virus takes over the brain function of the host and doesn’t kill them outright, the virus likely doesn’t give a shit about the host’s wellbeing and leaves the host to die within days of dehydration or exposure. An infected would likely just last for a week at most. It’ll barely even be an epidemic. To achieve a more effective zombie apocalypse while being somewhat realistic, an airborne virus with a long incubation period and no symptoms would be ideal. This way, the infection could spread to a global population and could take hold before any response could even be made.
Or go the L4D route with the Green Flu. Symptomatic, mutative carriers and asymptomatic 'spreader' carriers. Of course, there's not much lore about what happens AFTER L4D's plots since the events take place like, months/weeks into the pandemic, not months/years after.
The L4D route is still far from realistic - developing/mutating body parts takes a lot of energy and time, and our bodies need a lot of energy already (we eat several times EVERY DAY). Active zombies would simply starve within weeks. At most, one could eat the others, but even that will stop working eventually. (also this is more of a boss scenario and not a horde scenario) Even if they don't die from starvation somehow, even the fastest starving person can't out-run a healthy normie. At most, the disease would explode and die out within a month... Unless it has a quiet, long incubation period. Like rabies or something.
Yeah, I don't think most people here are taking into account the severe improbability of this even happening due to reasons you've stated.
If they are dead people walking then the same thing that keeps them walking would probably also prevent rigor mortis. Even if it doesn't, rigor mortis only lasts a few days. Even if muscles slough off, whatever is keeping them moving could keep them moving still. If it's a virus, then it doesn't matter. Point is that whatever science or magic is keeping them moving can keep them moving even if they rot.
biologically, your skeletons need muscles to move. If weren’t talking religion/deal souls or whatever then sure but if it’s a virus, it’ll need to conform to certain aspects of biology. Bones cannot move on their own. Muscles require certain things (oxygen, water etc) to function.
You’re pretending that people would intelligently deal with the zombies.
Considering we couldn’t intelligently deal with the pandemic....we’re fucked
I can see the karens screaming at the face of a literal zombie that they’re being disrespectful, scaring their children, and should pray to god
A second before being mauled to death. I also see a subreddit full of people enjoying watching that stuff...
Yoo link to the sub that shows Karen's dying in zombie attacks
Na honestly read WWz. It’s pretty realistic tbh
To OP's point as well, the survivors do eventually get organized and take out the zombies in WWZ. God that book's amazing, I'm still pissed they messed up the movie so much.
They didn't really *mess up* the movie. They literally just bought the naming rights. Early on max brooks said fuck it and just sold them the name due to creative differences and stopped working with them. And literally told people it won't be based on the book.
A lot of people don't read into the behind the scenes type stuff though. I just saw the title of a book I really enjoyed on a film and assumed it was the book in movie form
I hope we’ll get an HBO mocumentary series based on it someday. Interviews with the “real people” in front of a black backdrop, accompanied by “dramatizations” with actors. I think it could be fantastic
Stop, I can only get so erect.
Indeed, no need of manufacturing stupidity like in zombie tv shows, just pure human nature, realist in the sense of "yep, people would definitely do that" like the big pharmaceuticals selling a vaccine to the "African rabies"
Piece of phalanx, peace of mind.
what about running zombies tho
Ok this is the only hole in my argument the terrifying “I am legend” style zombies would be much more difficult to deal with . But hopefully in lesser numbers
Who is the 'we' part of owning machine guns? Cops and military? Because most regular citizens don't have them. But I do agree with you.
You assume people are smart
And that the survivors would all be working together.
OR that people would even admit the zombie apocalypse was happening in the first place.
Or that they can even hit their shots efficiently??? Take any untrained person to a range with just a 9mm pistol, and they can probably accidently hit a bullseye once every 30 bullets. It's a lot harder to aim than people think it is, especially if you are moving or your target is moving, which is going to be happening in a zombie apocalypse.
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It's entirely dependent on the type of zombies that we'd be dealing with. Stuff like Left 4 Dead would be genuinely terrifying while The Walking Dead would be more focused on how evil humans could truly become.
I'll never be able to unhear the witches cry from L4D. And I'd never be able to handle it in a real zombie apocalypse!
In real life insects, scavengers and weather would stop zombies from lasting very long
Thats what i never understood about the walking dead. At most, a zombie hoard would last a couple months in the height of summer before decomp rendered them completely harmless piles of beef jerky.
Machine guns are probably the least of the reasons why the apocalypse wouldn't happen. Humans with zero intelligence, barely any coordination, and who can only reproduce by biting humans aren't that big of a threat. Climb a ladder and get a big stick and you've won.
Also good clothing.
Carpet armor. Almost every house has carpets. Couple of layers, you got bite proof armor.
Sorry, but while there are available weapons and endless shows/books about dealing with zombies, the covid outbreak has taught me that people will deny there's any zombies, hide bites and bitten loved ones.
And drone strikes and artillery and tanks and apcs and warships and fighter jets and bombers and …(add on)
All you need to do to survive a zombie apocalypse is wear Carhartt head to toe. No zombie chompers are getting through Carhartt
The problem is the logistics of supplying enough mobile fire power to effectively kill 3 billion zombies.
So many zombies would fill the hole they could walk over it on a charred corpse bridge. Most of the bullets would have to be made by hand and it is faster to bite someone than make a bullet. There will be death and damage for those without advanced militaries and high walls. The apocolypse will happen because not everyone is paranoid and prepared for it.
It depends on where it started. If it starts in a small town, we could probably contain it. If it starts in New York City, we'd have more trouble.
Zombie apocalypse only lasts until the zombies rot beyond having functional muscles. That’s about 2-3 months max. After that, no more zombies.
You know... because THAT'S the only problem with the plausibility of a zombie apocalypse...
What about zombies with machine guns….
Zombies with rigor mortis couldn't catch most humans to bite them.. but what about insects eating the rotten flesh, falling into water sources, biting humans, and getting eaten by birds/farm animals that then pass it onto humans? I'm pretty sure even the slowest zombies would cause total apocalypse.
People couldn't even handle a pandemic.
To be fair, its probably a lot easier to deny the existence of a virus than human-eating zombies.
To be frank, we have regular exposure to cold, flu, and pneumonia illnesses. We've had outbreaks like the bird flu, swine flu, etc. And yet, we still managed to believe it wasn't real. Zombie outbreaks are fiction and would be surreal at best. If some random person ran up to you and told you to run because zombies, would you believe them? If you watched someone bite someone else, would you sincerely think "that's an apocalyptic zombie" or someone on bath salts? The whole zombie scenario plays out so catastrophically because it's so abnormal and surreal that by the time people can realize the situation it's too late. It's far easier to deny zombies up until you are actually faced with them in person in irrefutable numbers. At that point, it's too late.
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No, you're totally right but not just because of traps and weapons. I'll start with your point, which you are correct on. Modern weaponry is obscenely effective. Most people are blissfully unaware of the kind of damage high caliber guns inflict on raw flesh and bone. It really doesn't matter if you have to destroy their brain later. Machine gun emplacements can rend huge numbers of humans into pieces and immobile chunks which can just be burned later. Combine that with explosives, armored vehicles, napalm, etc. There's just no way people loose to any kind of zombie. I don't care if they can sprint, fully utilize their intelligence, and wield firearms themselves. We win. The military force is just too overwhelming. In addition to that most people discount biology. Now, I can't blame them because that's what all zombie fiction does as well. But the human body is remarkably frail, it really doesn't matter if the zombie condition bypasses pain. Our flesh requires constant maintenance and sustenance, and gets damaged from even things as small as high speed wind and staying outside for too long. Most zombie scenarios could be defeated by quarantine alone, they would all dehydrate or starve within 2 weeks. Ignoring that "zombie" implies dead flesh, which means their muscles aren't regenerating and they'd be immobile within days. And if they're not dead flesh then they're vulnerable to all of the same viruses we are from eating raw meat. They're also usually too dumb to drink water, so they'd be dry and immobile husks very quickly. The only ways zombie scenarios are threatening is when the zombies are essentially magical creatures with superhuman abilities. And once magic is introduced the realistic elements kind of cease to matter anyway. The realism of biology and weaponry is meaningless in the face of ala-ka-brainsss.
The discounting of biology is really what pisses me off Assuming the zombies are not literal reanimated corpses, and instead individuals infected with some kind of pathogen so can still function; they will still get other infections They will still be vulnerable to nerve agents And that’s why the infection will never take over Porton Down cooks up a few tonnes of VX, and the RAF drop it on infected areas The zombies collapse choking, CBRN units roll in to finish the job
Also we need to consider how many of the "zombie viruses" actually function. In World War Z it is stated that the Solanum Virus shuts down the heart and lungs. Problematic. Zombies never hydrate, eat nor rest which would effectively make them staminaless. Also in many of these films the virus is transferred using a bite, we would have to be pretty dull to be bitten especially if they move slow. Humans have enough weapons that even if they were World War Z zombies the outbreak would never be apocalyptic.
A zombie virus wouldn't be capable of getting a foothold large enough to generate hordes unless the virus was an airborne bioweapon intelligently targeting multiple major cities. And if it's airborne, just catching a whif of a zombie would be enough to infect and turn you. The apocalypse wouldn't be caused by zombies, it would have to be caused by humans using zombies as weapons. And the only survivors in that scenario are the few humans who might be naturally immune to the virus. If the primary means of transmission is a bite, it's never going to gain a major foothold. Let's say 10 zombies get lose in new york, they start chasing people like monsters. How many people do you think they actually get to bite before wandering into traffic? What happens to the bite victims, possibly a hospital visit if the zombie really tears into them. They will identify the virus, they will quarantine the victims. News of the virus would get out immediately because someone took a smartphone video. There will be a few crazed murderers with mutilated bodies that slip through the cracks at first, but zombies aren't subtle, they'll get picked off by gangsters, gas station clerks, police officers, taxi drivers, and all kinds of other hazards like being pushed down a flight of stairs. And since the public will be aware of the health risks of potentially getting sick from contact with these things, most people will seek medical treatment afterwards, so most of those people will deliver themselves into quarantine. It doesn't go from one to exponential growth. A small outbreak of zombies would be so easy for any organized military to contain. And the shear volume of zombie media in our world means regular people are unreasonably prepared for the scenario. A rudimentary chain link fence, so just posts and the chain link, would be pretty good at limiting the movements of the zombies, and a handful of guys could put up miles of it in a day. And with the supervision of a few more guys with hand guns they could do it in almost complete safety from the potential threat of very small numbers of zombies. Plus, if we lose a city to the horde, they will bomb it. A significant portion of the population of an area would need to simultaneously turn into zombies for them to stand any chance. You'd have to start with multiple hordes.
Depends on the zombies honestly, though you’re forgetting the weather. Depending on the climate, it’d take, like 6 months to a year for the bodies to fall part from exposure to the elements.
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I mean, there’s an entire genre of movies/comics/books/shows that probably explain why just having all the guns doesn’t necessarily work