The World after Zombies

[Antimatter]

The basis of this is actually quite simple.

Take your favorite universe, apply a helping of zombie apocalypse, and then well, eliminate the zombie threat.

This is a world where the treat is contained if not eliminated. The characters have survived, and been changed by the experience.

How was the situation resolved in your world? How have your characters changed as a result?

Remember, most of the story shoudl take place POST zombies, although flashbacks to the events would be allowed.

 

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

It's called World War Z.

 

[Lord Raa]

I don't consider zombies to be any kind of a treat.

In fact, the thought of the zombie apocalypse scares the crap out of me.

 

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

I don't consider zombies to be any kind of a treat.

In fact, the thought of the zombie apocalypse scares the crap out of me.

As I mentioned, there's a book called World War Z which details, documentary-style, a global zombie apocalypse caused by world leaders hilariously fucking up fighting against a small, isolated infection of a zombie virus that winds up nearly wiping out all life on Earth. Things like "rescuing" infectees from "persecution & mass murder" during the initial outbreak in China and bringing them to various cities worldwide for asylum (thereby making the infection global), or the US government issuing out a placebo called Phalanx that's supposed to be a vaccine against the virus but actually does nothing, millions of people flee to the Arctic circle because they think the cold will save them from the zombies and promptly all freeze to death, etc.

It's excellent.

 

[Lord Raa]

I don't consider zombies to be any kind of a treat.

In fact, the thought of the zombie apocalypse scares the crap out of me.

As I mentioned, there's a book called World War Z which details, documentary-style, a global zombie apocalypse caused by world leaders hilariously fucking up fighting against a small, isolated infection of a zombie virus that winds up nearly wiping out all life on Earth. Things like "rescuing" infectees from "persecution & mass murder" during the initial outbreak in China and bringing them to various cities worldwide for asylum (thereby making the infection global), or the US government issuing out a placebo called Phalanx that's supposed to be a vaccine against the virus but actually does nothing, millions of people flee to the Arctic circle because they think the cold will save them from the zombies and promptly all freeze to death, etc.

It's excellent.

I have it in both written and audio format.

I do not think that you read my post correctly because I was indulging in some light trolling.

However, Antimatter has corrected his typo and now my post looks out of place.

 

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

Ah, I see it now.

 

[Prince Charon]

Relevant to the discussion: <a href='http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=97517' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Living in a Post-Zombie world</a>

Not sure why everyone assumed that the zombie-making whatever would automatically persist, though.

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

<a href='http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly.html' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Also extremely relevant.</a>

 

[voidseeker]

Wrath of the lich king.....

 

[daniel_gudman]

So really what we're talking about is there's a massive pandemic that's something like 80-90% lethal and one of the symptoms of infection was zombieism, but that's not really that relative to this discussion because really we're talking about a few survivor characters making their way through the empty wasteland post-total-die-off?

 

[Avider]

"The World after Zombies"


Yes.

 

[zerothedestroyer]

Sounds like that I am Legend Naruto crossover I read a while back. Wasn't particularly thought provoking, but, when you think about, not much about zombies is.

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Okay. Zombies in the classic sense would get mowed down by droves in any world where crowds of people are generally known either as "dead" or "dead and just not knowing it". Slow moving targets with no survival instincts that are only a threat in mobs to the infeebled, young, old, stupid, or any combination of the above?

It's not so much a world ending apocalypse as it is a turkey shoot.

 

[Prince Charon]

Okay. Zombies in the classic sense would get mowed down by droves in any world where crowds of people are generally known either as "dead" or "dead and just not knowing it". Slow moving targets with no survival instincts that are only a threat in mobs to the infeebled, young, old, stupid, or any combination of the above?

It's not so much a world ending apocalypse as it is a turkey shoot.

Only for the people who don't panic and/or behave like utter morons. So, there goes about 70-80% of the population.

 

[GenocideHeart]

Okay. Zombies in the classic sense would get mowed down by droves in any world where crowds of people are generally known either as "dead" or "dead and just not knowing it". Slow moving targets with no survival instincts that are only a threat in mobs to the infeebled, young, old, stupid, or any combination of the above?

It's not so much a world ending apocalypse as it is a turkey shoot.

Only for the people who don't panic and/or behave like utter morons. So, there goes about 70-80% of the population.

This man speaks the truth. Most normal people are going to take a look at that recently deceased loved one coming after them shuffling on his/her feet and FREAK THE FUCK OUT because after all, life isn't a movie, and yet, there's something right outta a bad B-movie intent on gnawing their face off.

By the time the few people with nerves of steel take control of the panicking masses, they won't be masses any longer.

 

[Lord Raa]

Okay. Zombies in the classic sense would get mowed down by droves in any world where crowds of people are generally known either as "dead" or "dead and just not knowing it". Slow moving targets with no survival instincts that are only a threat in mobs to the infeebled, young, old, stupid, or any combination of the above?

It's not so much a world ending apocalypse as it is a turkey shoot.

Only for the people who don't panic and/or behave like utter morons. So, there goes about 70-80% of the population.

This man speaks the truth. Most normal people are going to take a look at that recently deceased loved one coming after them shuffling on his/her feet and FREAK THE FUCK OUT because after all, life isn't a movie, and yet, there's something right outta a bad B-movie intent on gnawing their face off.

By the time the few people with nerves of steel take control of the panicking masses, they won't be masses any longer.

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[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Okay. Zombies in the classic sense would get mowed down by droves in any world where crowds of people are generally known either as "dead" or "dead and just not knowing it". Slow moving targets with no survival instincts that are only a threat in mobs to the infeebled, young, old, stupid, or any combination of the above?

It's not so much a world ending apocalypse as it is a turkey shoot.

Only for the people who don't panic and/or behave like utter morons. So, there goes about 70-80% of the population.

This man speaks the truth. Most normal people are going to take a look at that recently deceased loved one coming after them shuffling on his/her feet and FREAK THE FUCK OUT because after all, life isn't a movie, and yet, there's something right outta a bad B-movie intent on gnawing their face off.

By the time the few people with nerves of steel take control of the panicking masses, they won't be masses any longer.

Maybe in a world where there aren't zombie movies, but you seem to be forgetting about this amazing thing called the military. They can blow zombies right the fuck up with bombs, missiles, artillery shells and other weapons from range without the emotional difficulties civilians would have with mowing down their former loved ones turned monsters. On top of that, add on even half of the 18 million people in the US with hunting licenses and as The EroSennin said, you're not looking at an apocalypse so much as a turkey shoot. That's not even counting the millions of people who WOULD keep their heads and start running over zombies with cars, beating them to death with baseball bats, or dropping toasters on them from the second story window.

You might have trouble killing Zombie Granny Genocideheart, others won't.

Let's also consider the zombie as a species: They're basically designed for failure. Think about it. In order to actually spread the disease or eat, they have to go up against their number one predator (living humans) every time. That's like having to fight a lion every time you want to have sex or make a sandwich. No species can survive like that. For one thing, biting is a terrible way to spread a disease-It's slow, it's easily noticeable, and it's easily preventable.

If the CDC learned there was a zombism disease, they wouldn't have to spend half the effort they do on figuring out how to stop it because containing it is simple compared to containing swine flu: Blow the head off the guy biting people. Problem solved. For another, in this day and age where almost everyone in the developed world has a cameraphone or even just a cell phone, do you really think that a zombie outbreak could go unnoticed? That's not exactly something you can just sweep under the rug. It'd be on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, you name it in a matter of minutes. Why would the government try to cover something like THAT up? There wouldn't be much point.

Zombies are also very, very weak to numerous things that living humans don't have to worry about for a simple reason: We have an immune system, they don't. Maggots are going to start eating them alive, their gut bacteria will quickly begin to devour them, their inability to take in more water will cause them to dehydrate and then desiccate, their slow reflexes and poor coordination will leave them helpless to manage the terrain, once their eyes are gone they will be blind (which will happen very quickly), and let's not even get into the stray dogs, birds, and other animals that are going to see zombies as walking kibble and are going to chow down. Humans are only the top predators because we're smart, we're organized, and we're well armed. Zombies are none of these things.

The only reason zombie apocalypses occur in fiction at all is because the plot demands it. The moment you really think about it the concept falls apart.

 

[GenocideHeart]

The military can't account for HUMAN STUPIDITY, which you gleefully overlook. There's always going to be the selfish asses who endanger everyone else, the idiots who know they are infected and hide it only to turn in the middle of a fucking crowd and force the military to open fire on everyone indiscriminately to cut losses, the people who will simply be panicking too hard for even the military to keep under control (there's a reason why the protocols for disastrous events call for keeping the masses in the dark... but good luck doing that with the LIVING DEAD IN THE STREETS), the lunatics who think zombification is the next stage of human evolution or some such nonsense, and those who just plain are too dumb to use the brain Mother Nature gave them for anything other than zombie food.

The military can protect themselves, but any attempts to protect the remaining 85% of humanity is doomed to abject failure. Rioting, murder, pillaging, rape and arson will become commonplace as the panic spreads, and the military simply can't afford to split their forces on two fronts, because unlike normal people, zombies don't surrender, don't get tired and don't stop if they lose a random body part that isn't the head. They'd have to commit themselves to fighting zombies, they can't afford to babysit the rest of mankind, so we'll be on our own. If you think anything else will happen, you're a hopelessly optimistic fool. Destroying the threat comes first, you can always make more babies later.

In short: anyone not in the military will be fully expendable until the zombie plague is under control. Doing it any other way is pointless suicide.

EDIT: Also, zombies won't have many predators. You say animals would chow down on them. Newsflash: the vast majority of animals WON'T eat rotting prey. Why, you ask? For the same fucking reason we don't eat rotten meat - they would get sick from it.

The only ones who would do that are carrion eaters... and carrion eaters include rats and flies. Which notoriously are very good at spreading diseases. Do you really want those already-virulent little bastards to possibly become zombie plague carriers? As if the zombies themselves weren't bad enough? We can't even keep rats out of our goddamned towns, if they start eating zombies and become plague carriers, especially in the middle of a civil unrest situation like what a zombie plague would entail, it'd spread like fucking wildfire and the military would be forced to exterminate the carrion eaters IN ADDITION to the zombies. Something that the human race, in all its history, has tried and always FAILED to do. Good luck there.

No, the only sensible way to deal with zombie carcasses is burn them before the wrong kind of animal eats them and starts spreading plague to places it really has no business being in. Letting animals 'deal' with the plague is just asking for Swine Flu MkII, ie the virus mutating to either become MORE virulent or to attack animals as well. And the last thing we need is zombie rats, zombie snakes, zombie cats and the like on top of human zombies. A zombie plague needs to be stopped dead before it gets a chance to adapt to non-human hosts, because if it does, we're so boned I don't know where to begin to describe it.

And that, of course, assumes the zombie plague is restricted to humans to begin with AND can't spread via insect bites. If it isn't, it's pretty much Doomsday. We'll never be able to rein it in. We can't even rein in the fucking common cold, and struggle to keep West Nile Virus in check (with little success - it has recently spread to Central and West Europe, thanks to airplanes carrying infected mosquitoes from the US).

 

[demon of humanity]

The military can't account for HUMAN STUPIDITY, which you gleefully overlook. There's always going to be the selfish asses who endanger everyone else, the idiots who know they are infected and hide it only to turn in the middle of a fucking crowd and force the military to open fire on everyone indiscriminately to cut losses, the people who will simply be panicking too hard for even the military to keep under control (there's a reason why the protocols for disastrous events call for keeping the masses in the dark... but good luck doing that with the LIVING DEAD IN THE STREETS), the lunatics who think zombification is the next stage of human evolution or some such nonsense, and those who just plain are too dumb to use the brain Mother Nature gave them for anything other than zombie food.

The military can protect themselves, but any attempts to protect the remaining 85% of humanity is doomed to abject failure. Rioting, murder, pillaging, rape and arson will become commonplace as the panic spreads, and the military simply can't afford to split their forces on two fronts, because unlike normal people, zombies don't surrender, don't get tired and don't stop if they lose a random body part that isn't the head. They'd have to commit themselves to fighting zombies, they can't afford to babysit the rest of mankind, so we'll be on our own. If you think anything else will happen, you're a hopelessly optimistic fool. Destroying the threat comes first, you can always make more babies later.

In short: anyone not in the military will be fully expendable until the zombie plague is under control. Doing it any other way is pointless suicide.

EDIT: Also, zombies won't have many predators. You say animals would chow down on them. Newsflash: the vast majority of animals WON'T eat rotting prey. Why, you ask? For the same fucking reason we don't eat rotten meat - they would get sick from it.

The only ones who would do that are carrion eaters... and carrion eaters include rats and flies. Which notoriously are very good at spreading diseases. Do you really want those already-virulent little bastards to possibly become zombie plague carriers? As if the zombies themselves weren't bad enough? We can't even keep rats out of our goddamned towns, if they start eating zombies and become plague carriers, especially in the middle of a civil unrest situation like what a zombie plague would entail, it'd spread like fucking wildfire and the military would be forced to exterminate the carrion eaters IN ADDITION to the zombies. Something that the human race, in all its history, has tried and always FAILED to do. Good luck there.

No, the only sensible way to deal with zombie carcasses is burn them before the wrong kind of animal eats them and starts spreading plague to places it really has no business being in. Letting animals 'deal' with the plague is just asking for Swine Flu MkII, ie the virus mutating to either become MORE virulent or to attack animals as well. And the last thing we need is zombie rats, zombie snakes, zombie cats and the like on top of human zombies. A zombie plague needs to be stopped dead before it gets a chance to adapt to non-human hosts, because if it does, we're so boned I don't know where to begin to describe it.

And that, of course, assumes the zombie plague is restricted to humans to begin with AND can't spread via insect bites. If it isn't, it's pretty much Doomsday. We'll never be able to rein it in. We can't even rein in the fucking common cold, and struggle to keep West Nile Virus in check (with little success - it has recently spread to Central and West Europe, thanks to airplanes carrying infected mosquitoes from the US).

Geno speaks the truth humans will go nuts in a zombie example in games is red dead redemption undead nightmare you see all kinds of crazy like people who became cannibals and eat other people, those who can't let go of there loved ones even if there zombies and feed other humans to them, humans who after killing an infected loved one shoot themselves.

as for adaption to none humans oh yes that is dangerous undead nightmare shows this as well undead cougars and bears not fun

 

[GenocideHeart]

Videogames aren't a good example for a zombie apocalypse. If anything, the mass panic spread by dangerous illnesses is more accurate.

The thing is that generally, in the case of epidemics, the victims don't AGGRESSIVELY TRY TO INFECT YOU as well - they just lie around and don't bother you. That's not the case there, of course. And frankly, the average person will flip out on seeing a maggot-infested corpse coming at them with teeth bared and gnashing. The military will have their hands full keeping the people calm without shooting them, let alone deal with the zombays.

The crazies are a different can of worms, and after seeing what scientologists can do in support of their cause, I dread to think of a Church of Zombism arising.

 

[demon of humanity]

Videogames aren't a good example for a zombie apocalypse. If anything, the mass panic spread by dangerous illnesses is more accurate.

The thing is that generally, in the case of epidemics, the victims don't AGGRESSIVELY TRY TO INFECT YOU as well - they just lie around and don't bother you. That's not the case there, of course. And frankly, the average person will flip out on seeing a maggot-infested corpse coming at them with teeth bared and gnashing. The military will have their hands full keeping the people calm without shooting them, let alone deal with the zombays.

The crazies are a different can of worms, and after seeing what scientologists can do in support of their cause, I dread to think of a Church of Zombism arising.

Church of zombism dear lord no we have enough religious nutballs already

 

[Takerial]

The way I see things.

Is that the world would remain pretty isolationist for quite awhile after the zombie threat is eliminated.

I mean think about it. How do you know it is gone for good? Especially in the cases where you might not know the actual origins of the zombie virus. And you don't always know if you got ever last bit of the strain, or maybe it mutated into something else that will infect us.

This will lead to a lot of small communities forming and just a general distrust to outsiders.

A rise in cults no doubt. Even the smartest of people will join things like cults when they are confused, scared, and vulnerable. Even some of the most hardcore survivors will become victims to this.

A lot of crime, possibly conflicts between neighboring communities over resources. You'll likely have city states like the old days going to war and such.

Mercenaries will likely be very common as well.

 

[Ryoiichi Matsumoto]

EDIT: Also, zombies won't have many predators. You say animals would chow down on them. Newsflash: the vast majority of animals WON'T eat rotting prey. Why, you ask? For the same fucking reason we don't eat rotten meat - they would get sick from it.

The only ones who would do that are carrion eaters... and carrion eaters include rats and flies. Which notoriously are very good at spreading diseases. Do you really want those already-virulent little bastards to possibly become zombie plague carriers? As if the zombies themselves weren't bad enough? We can't even keep rats out of our goddamned towns, if they start eating zombies and become plague carriers, especially in the middle of a civil unrest situation like what a zombie plague would entail, it'd spread like fucking wildfire and the military would be forced to exterminate the carrion eaters IN ADDITION to the zombies. Something that the human race, in all its history, has tried and always FAILED to do. Good luck there.

No, the only sensible way to deal with zombie carcasses is burn them before the wrong kind of animal eats them and starts spreading plague to places it really has no business being in. Letting animals 'deal' with the plague is just asking for Swine Flu MkII, ie the virus mutating to either become MORE virulent or to attack animals as well. And the last thing we need is zombie rats, zombie snakes, zombie cats and the like on top of human zombies. A zombie plague needs to be stopped dead before it gets a chance to adapt to non-human hosts, because if it does, we're so boned I don't know where to begin to describe it.

And that, of course, assumes the zombie plague is restricted to humans to begin with AND can't spread via insect bites. If it isn't, it's pretty much Doomsday. We'll never be able to rein it in. We can't even rein in the fucking common cold, and struggle to keep West Nile Virus in check (with little success - it has recently spread to Central and West Europe, thanks to airplanes carrying infected mosquitoes from the US).

Actually, World War Z takes care of that problem. It presents the idea that the flesh is toxic to both human and animal. Not even the carrion animals will consume the flesh, because they all die. Humans are just the only ones who will reanimate.

IIRC, maggots wouldn't even touch zombified flesh.

 

[Avider]

Okay. Zombies in the classic sense would get mowed down by droves in any world where crowds of people are generally known either as "dead" or "dead and just not knowing it". Slow moving targets with no survival instincts that are only a threat in mobs to the infeebled, young, old, stupid, or any combination of the above?

It's not so much a world ending apocalypse as it is a turkey shoot.

Only for the people who don't panic and/or behave like utter morons. So, there goes about 70-80% of the population.

This man speaks the truth. Most normal people are going to take a look at that recently deceased loved one coming after them shuffling on his/her feet and FREAK THE FUCK OUT because after all, life isn't a movie, and yet, there's something right outta a bad B-movie intent on gnawing their face off.

By the time the few people with nerves of steel take control of the panicking masses, they won't be masses any longer.

Maybe in a world where there aren't zombie movies, but you seem to be forgetting about this amazing thing called the military. They can blow zombies right the fuck up with bombs, missiles, artillery shells and other weapons from range without the emotional difficulties civilians would have with mowing down their former loved ones turned monsters. On top of that, add on even half of the 18 million people in the US with hunting licenses and as The EroSennin said, you're not looking at an apocalypse so much as a turkey shoot. That's not even counting the millions of people who WOULD keep their heads and start running over zombies with cars, beating them to death with baseball bats, or dropping toasters on them from the second story window.

You might have trouble killing Zombie Granny Genocideheart, others won't.

Let's also consider the zombie as a species: They're basically designed for failure. Think about it. In order to actually spread the disease or eat, they have to go up against their number one predator (living humans) every time. That's like having to fight a lion every time you want to have sex or make a sandwich. No species can survive like that. For one thing, biting is a terrible way to spread a disease-It's slow, it's easily noticeable, and it's easily preventable.

If the CDC learned there was a zombism disease, they wouldn't have to spend half the effort they do on figuring out how to stop it because containing it is simple compared to containing swine flu: Blow the head off the guy biting people. Problem solved. For another, in this day and age where almost everyone in the developed world has a cameraphone or even just a cell phone, do you really think that a zombie outbreak could go unnoticed? That's not exactly something you can just sweep under the rug. It'd be on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, you name it in a matter of minutes. Why would the government try to cover something like THAT up? There wouldn't be much point.

Zombies are also very, very weak to numerous things that living humans don't have to worry about for a simple reason: We have an immune system, they don't. Maggots are going to start eating them alive, their gut bacteria will quickly begin to devour them, their inability to take in more water will cause them to dehydrate and then desiccate, their slow reflexes and poor coordination will leave them helpless to manage the terrain, once their eyes are gone they will be blind (which will happen very quickly), and let's not even get into the stray dogs, birds, and other animals that are going to see zombies as walking kibble and are going to chow down. Humans are only the top predators because we're smart, we're organized, and we're well armed. Zombies are none of these things.

The only reason zombie apocalypses occur in fiction at all is because the plot demands it. The moment you really think about it the concept falls apart.

Oh, hey.

Dave, I didn't know you were on this site.



Frankly, a zombie plague that's communicable only by bite is gonna be shut down, and hard. The mode of transmission is too slow and limited and obvious, which translate to easily contained.

The only way for a zombie plague of that nature to really become a threat is if you turn everybody into movie level idiocy. While there's a lot of self flagellating misanthropists who think humans are the dumbest of the dumb and whatnot, we didn't get to the moon by staring blankly at it.

I mean, it's not like humans have never faced a disease that seems to strike everywhere and killed everybody and spread like wild-fire and went extinct over it. Oh wait, we have. Oh wait, we're still here. It seems like we have dealt with diseases that were way more easily transmitted, and we're still here.


You literally have to force an outbreak to happen.

No, a more dangerous threat is something airborne/animal carried. And then the danger's not really the zombie, that's just horrific, the danger is the disease that's gonna kill you. Reanimation is just a side effect.

And perhaps the 100% fatality. But that's also detrimental to transmission if the carrier phase is too short.

 

[demon of humanity]

Okay. Zombies in the classic sense would get mowed down by droves in any world where crowds of people are generally known either as "dead" or "dead and just not knowing it". Slow moving targets with no survival instincts that are only a threat in mobs to the infeebled, young, old, stupid, or any combination of the above?

It's not so much a world ending apocalypse as it is a turkey shoot.

Only for the people who don't panic and/or behave like utter morons. So, there goes about 70-80% of the population.

This man speaks the truth. Most normal people are going to take a look at that recently deceased loved one coming after them shuffling on his/her feet and FREAK THE FUCK OUT because after all, life isn't a movie, and yet, there's something right outta a bad B-movie intent on gnawing their face off.

By the time the few people with nerves of steel take control of the panicking masses, they won't be masses any longer.

Maybe in a world where there aren't zombie movies, but you seem to be forgetting about this amazing thing called the military. They can blow zombies right the fuck up with bombs, missiles, artillery shells and other weapons from range without the emotional difficulties civilians would have with mowing down their former loved ones turned monsters. On top of that, add on even half of the 18 million people in the US with hunting licenses and as The EroSennin said, you're not looking at an apocalypse so much as a turkey shoot. That's not even counting the millions of people who WOULD keep their heads and start running over zombies with cars, beating them to death with baseball bats, or dropping toasters on them from the second story window.

You might have trouble killing Zombie Granny Genocideheart, others won't.

Let's also consider the zombie as a species: They're basically designed for failure. Think about it. In order to actually spread the disease or eat, they have to go up against their number one predator (living humans) every time. That's like having to fight a lion every time you want to have sex or make a sandwich. No species can survive like that. For one thing, biting is a terrible way to spread a disease-It's slow, it's easily noticeable, and it's easily preventable.

If the CDC learned there was a zombism disease, they wouldn't have to spend half the effort they do on figuring out how to stop it because containing it is simple compared to containing swine flu: Blow the head off the guy biting people. Problem solved. For another, in this day and age where almost everyone in the developed world has a cameraphone or even just a cell phone, do you really think that a zombie outbreak could go unnoticed? That's not exactly something you can just sweep under the rug. It'd be on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, you name it in a matter of minutes. Why would the government try to cover something like THAT up? There wouldn't be much point.

Zombies are also very, very weak to numerous things that living humans don't have to worry about for a simple reason: We have an immune system, they don't. Maggots are going to start eating them alive, their gut bacteria will quickly begin to devour them, their inability to take in more water will cause them to dehydrate and then desiccate, their slow reflexes and poor coordination will leave them helpless to manage the terrain, once their eyes are gone they will be blind (which will happen very quickly), and let's not even get into the stray dogs, birds, and other animals that are going to see zombies as walking kibble and are going to chow down. Humans are only the top predators because we're smart, we're organized, and we're well armed. Zombies are none of these things.

The only reason zombie apocalypses occur in fiction at all is because the plot demands it. The moment you really think about it the concept falls apart.

You're over estimating the military and humanity in general here. Yeah they will have nerves of steel perhaps at first but that will erode when near endless hordes come at them and they will run away like cowards. remember they are only trained to fight other humans not monsters once they fight something they were not trained for there will is gonna erode civilian will is gonna even faster regardless of having guns or hunting licenses. You seem to think they untie when its quite the opposite religious and science nutjob faction will come out and the government will lose control unless they get tyrannical and that might make things worse.

Also remember the true terror of zombies is not them alone its mass numbers and if this world war z bit has evolving zombies growing fastre and stronger then the military's chances dropped from slim to none