AWKWARD ZOMBIE

For Christ's sake, just stop while you are ahead.

There are no rules about zombies set in stone. You'd be hard pressed to find a version of zombie that matches another version identically.

They go from shambling to running, to having freak mutated body parts, to just being dead people who are still alive in a strange way and act normal despite being technically dead.
Seriously, even the brain obsession isn't universal.

In other words, even if a zombie apocalypse were to happen (hint: it won't), there are half a billion different versions of zombies you can expect, and nobody, least of all you, would be prepared for potentially a very varied army.

He's ahead?

Not really, but I figured it was nicer than outright saying "You're crazy" or something. :/

Why is this still a thread. It was funny at first but this has been nothing but argument and insults.

related:


and agreeing 100% with exeres here

Well, one of the things is knowledge. Sure, everyone knows about zombies, but few people are READY for them. Just that, the lack of preparation, would likely cause denial of what they actually are and, more importantly and likely because of the denial, it may cause panic, which ruins everything.
Of course, most civilians would definitely panic first, which is a problem since they will become more zombies themselves, but that's something else.
The other main point is we know the lay of the land. Every time I go bodaciously ANYWHERE, I am planning my defense if zombies should happen. Out of hobby and challenge, not insanity. I make it hard for myself. Anyway, I know the quickest routes, I know where the bottle-necks are to funnel them in like in 300, and I know where I can get supplies, weapons, and vehicles. A platoon of soldiers dropped in wouldn't. That's the primary thing. What it comes down to isn't having weapons, training, and numbers (although those are important). It comes down to being able to survive. Living in the same place for 16 years has given me that ability, and it's those kind of people who would do best, in my book.

To quote the great Dan O'Brian:

Slow, mindless, "I got me a brain infection" zombies are the only plausible ones. When was the last time a virus gave you super powers. If they have any sort of super- or even par-human abilities, I am dead meat, dismal pun intended.

Which is surprisingly more easy if you have weapons, training and numbers.



And since when was it even biologically possible for a dead body to stand upright by itself? We are drifting into "It's magic, we don't have to explain it" territory.
Also
>implying Romero invented Zombies
Not you but Dan O'Brian.

Yeah, it may be that a military-based force might be best for total eradication. If non-military figures and perhaps even some of the armed forces themselves first discover what we're dealing with here, the military would put up quite the resistance. On the note of surviving and thinning down a zombie presence, I stand by my civilian-based force.
Something that came to me, though, is that there are people I'm describing in the military. Plenty of soldiers are well-prepared for this sort of threat. Not all soldiers are incompetent morons, far from it. I believe it was Mike Birbiglia who said "I love the troops, because if they weren't the troops, I would be the troops, and I would be the worst troops ever."
For survival, my opinion is that simply armed people will do equally as well or better than a militant force.

Solanum, the virus attributed to the undead, attacks the brain through the bloodstream. It feeds off the frontal lobe, destroying all higher-functioning actions. Around this point, the victim slips into a coma. After the frontal lobe is "melted" the corpse "reanimates" as a feral specimen. As such, it's basic mechanism is fight or flight. The body is now incapable of smooth, coordinated movement, so flight is out. As far as it is known, zombies only eat out of instinct. There. Is that science enough for ya?

Yeah. That would be for the kind of zombies also known as The Infected(TM) (As seen in various video games and movies). Now the problem with the (for example) Romero kind of zombies is, that they are corpses. Rotting corpses, often with holes of missing flesh in them coming from other zombies who fed on them. Missing flesh means missing muscle, missing muscle means no willing movement of the areas that muscle belonged to. Rotting muscle also isn't very good in supporting, say, two legs of a 160 pound person.

I was actually just using that to prove a point. My zombie is the Max Brooks Solanum zombie as layed out in The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. Those make the most sense to me.

You know, I was making fun of [CN] for making fun of this argument, but now I'm on his side. This is getting ridiculous.

no,this is getting interesting.

This is no different than when people theorize what they would do in the case of a fictional future where things are terrible and there is burning and death and etc. Just because this particular thread specifies zombies doesn't change the fact that people are simply having fun discussing "what if" scenarios. Some might take it more seriously than others, but honestly, if you're just going to criticize then what's the point in reading the thread?

Don't want this to come off as harsh. Let people have their fun.

The way you described that Solanum virus was pretty interesting badger, as it seemed at least slightly possible. The problem is, those zombies would still know fear. Exactly as you said, fight or flight. Also, it doesn't remove their ability to feel pain or enter shock. So basically you're just dealing with extremely stupid humans. Not exactly a challenge.

So let's disregard that, for the sake of keeping this argument fun. If I were to command the forces of Earth against a zombie invasion, the first thing I'd do is chuck a fuckload of scientist on it. Given a sample and sufficient resources, producing a vaccine shouldn't be much of a problem. Of course, it's possible it's a fast mutating one. I'd focus on the protein hull of the virus then. Try to find out it's composition and find an enzym or acid that breaks it down. It might be pretty hard to develop one that doesn't have severe side effects though. If you could find, you'd have found the cure. Even if the virus develops extremely fast, if you can inject the cure right after infection, it would be stopped before it can do it's damage. Probably best to develop a method to easily and quickly apply it, so that every soldier could get outfitted with a couple.

Also, it's extremely hard for me to picture scenario's of zombies vs. the army(especially the "classic" ones you seem to be talking about here) where the zombies don't get obliterated. Rag tag band of heroes? Not so much.

I don't have a problem with people discussing zombies and whatnot, I was doing it as well. My problem is that there is actually arguing going on, and online arguments inevitably become personal.

It might be better to establish an archetypal zombie. My vote is on the Max Brooks zombie from The Zombie Survival Guide.