The World after Zombies

[The Ero-Sennin]

demon of humanity

whatthefuckamireading.jpg

Now you're trying to force a means for Zombies to win by A.) Casting mankind as all idiots who will crack under duress and B.) Overestimating your animated corpses.

A horde of shambling corpses walking into a wall of everything from cluster bombs to stones hurled from slings? Guess who wins? Human wave attacks win because of two things going for them. Speed + Numbers. If you take one from the equation, you get idiots running hail mary to their deaths. This applies to all theoretical zombie outbreaks that involve the shambling, brain-eating walking dead.

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Honestly guys, they're walking corpses. If stray dogs, the climate, physical obstacles or bacteria and the larva of various insects don't get them, then human beings who have functioning brains, immune systems and (most importantly) guns will. Shaun of the Dead is actually quite accurate. How long did the zombie outbreak last before the military got their shit together and contained it? All of a day.

And there's another important thing everyone seems to overlook: Zombies are just as squishy if not more so than regular humans. It's hard to imagine a zombie mob being able to take down an M-1 Abrams tank-That's 60 tons of steel powered by a turbine engine. No amount of humans, zombie or not, can stand up to that. Unless the zombies can operate anti-tank guns (which by definition they CAN'T) the Abrams is going to mow them down, to say nothing of trucks, bulldozers and other vehicles.

Zombie Movies by definition were supposed to be a critique of capitalism and the consumer culture, and to reflect our own suppressed sadistic impulses. A primal fear of the dead returning to life as something inhuman and predatory. Stripped of the authorial fiat and the message the creator is trying to convey (that is, in REAL LIFE) zombies are easy pickings. Most people probably wouldn't have to buy shotguns to get through it-Just barricade the doors and windows, pop in a DVD boxset of 24, and then go out the next day with a Corpse Rake to clean up.

 

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

Ok, let's turn this around.

World After Zombies. Only the zombies were intelligent in some form and managed to win.

Either full Urban Dead/Warcraft Forsaken-style sentience or the Land of the Dead-style basic but growing intelligence. Humanity is extinct, and the main cast are left to ponder their current state/try to remember bits of their past lives while they all slowly rot. Unless they're magically preserved somehow, anyway.

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Then they're not zombies.

 

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

There are multiple types of zombies that are intelligent in some form. I named three versions in that post alone. And considering that for many people Romero zombies are the standard...

 

[GenocideHeart]

Early Romero zombies actually RUN, too - in Night of the Living Dead, at least two did. And they can deliberately do more complex things, like pick up rocks to break windows, intentionally break a car's headlights and use a garden shovel to cave someone's skull in.

One thing is a slow moving, stupid zombie, another is a relatively cunning one running at you full tilt. And unlike humans, zombies don't have to stop to catch their breath or to recover stamina - they can run after you all fucking day if need be. You, on the other hand, will have to stop running or have your heart explode and make you stop anyway. Except, of course, that the moment you stop moving is the moment you will STOP MOVING, if you get my drift.

The only kind of zombie that can actually be handled is the slow moving, slow reacting one. Let them run and it becomes considerably hairier already, since as mentioned, you get tired and they can run the marathon 50 times over and still be going strong. Let them make up rudimental plans and things rapidly go downhill.

 

[Shaderic]

This kind of reminds me of something that always bugged me about zombies.

Where the fuck does the gas come from?

OK, that's not exactly clear, so let me explain a bit. Humans rely on a couple of complex systems to move and stay alive. Zombies appear to only need the nervous system. So, where do they get the energy to move? The digestive and circulatory systems just don't function. SO WHERE DOES THE FUCKING GAS COME FROM?! Everything needs food, in some way, to function. Unless the virus somehow makes people plantlike, and converts light to energy (which it would be doing at an insane rate) there's no way that a zombie should be able to function effectively for anything resembling a reasonable amounnt of time.

Even if we say that the virus consumes the body itself to continue functioning, that's still, what, a lifespan measured in weeks, with the body becoming more and more useless as time goes on?

That's why I'm not really afraid of zombie attacks. The physics behind them are a little bit... stupid.

Unless these are magic zombies, in which case this can be solved with a strategic airstrike at the necromancer responsible.

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

Early Romero zombies actually RUN, too - in Night of the Living Dead, at least two did. And they can deliberately do more complex things, like pick up rocks to break windows, intentionally break a car's headlights and use a garden shovel to cave someone's skull in.

One thing is a slow moving, stupid zombie, another is a relatively cunning one running at you full tilt. And unlike humans, zombies don't have to stop to catch their breath or to recover stamina - they can run after you all fucking day if need be. You, on the other hand, will have to stop running or have your heart explode and make you stop anyway. Except, of course, that the moment you stop moving is the moment you will STOP MOVING, if you get my drift.

The only kind of zombie that can actually be handled is the slow moving, slow reacting one. Let them run and it becomes considerably hairier already, since as mentioned, you get tired and they can run the marathon 50 times over and still be going strong. Let them make up rudimental plans and things rapidly go downhill.

It's stuff like that though that kills it for me. Even in fictional settings, etc, and so forth where there's tons more shit that'd have to be explained, the sudden inclusion of zombies breaks my suspension of disbelief. Especially if it's a zombie apocalypse, it's just one of those things that auto-fails it for me because I can't see how the scenario would be plausible unless several requirements were met that ensured that your zombie apocalypse is the end, that's it for humanity. In those situations, I suddenly disconnect from the characters because there's no reason to care for their struggles or their victories, eventually they're all zombie food and/or zombies themselves. It is seriously the reason I cannot get into High School of the Dead, even with all of its glorious tits and ass and gun porn to distract me.

That's my problem with the zombie genre or any other apocalyptic scenarios where "we're all fucked" (see: Skyline).

 

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

Not everyone is necessarily fucked. Survivors in Urban Dead are still at parity with the Zambah hordes even after years if fighting. In one city. Granted they've got NecroTech Revivification Syringes, but still.

It is entirely possible for humankind to come out of a Zombie Apocalypse still a viable species. Bloody difficult perhaps, but doable. Even against <a href='http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12647106/' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>these ones</a>.

 

[GenocideHeart]

This kind of reminds me of something that always bugged me about zombies.

Where the fuck does the gas come from?

OK, that's not exactly clear, so let me explain a bit. Humans rely on a couple of complex systems to move and stay alive. Zombies appear to only need the nervous system. So, where do they get the energy to move? The digestive and circulatory systems just don't function. SO WHERE DOES THE FUCKING GAS COME FROM?! Everything needs food, in some way, to function. Unless the virus somehow makes people plantlike, and converts light to energy (which it would be doing at an insane rate) there's no way that a zombie should be able to function effectively for anything resembling a reasonable amounnt of time.

Even if we say that the virus consumes the body itself to continue functioning, that's still, what, a lifespan measured in weeks, with the body becoming more and more useless as time goes on?

That's why I'm not really afraid of zombie attacks. The physics behind them are a little bit... stupid.

Unless these are magic zombies, in which case this can be solved with a strategic airstrike at the necromancer responsible.

A possible explanation is that the virus draws power from the body rotting away. Decomposition DOES produce energy sources, namely gases. Where do you think marsh gas (highly volatile and horrifically lethal, y'know?) comes from? From the decomposing stuff in the marsh, that's where.

It'd also explain why "running" zombies just stand around unless they perceive food, in which case they start burning their energy reserves to reach it. They're not really static and slow moving, they're just in permanent power-save mode.

 

[Shaderic]

Yeah, but we also have to dedicate a lot of resources to MAINTAINING our bodies. Seeing as Zombies don't do that either, you're still going to see a lot of rapid destruction. Just walking a long distance, especially under the condition of being already dead, creates a lot of tiny tears. When you're alive, you can repair them pretty quick, and just take time off to relax and heal. Zombies do neither of those things, constantly damaging themselves without repairs. They can take the damage, but pretty quickly they'll start to having difficulty moving, muscles having been damaged so badly they just can't move. Not mention them starting to dry out.

And, even if we go with your marsh gas theory, that's still a finite amount of energy. And would be a very poor survival trait, what with the exploding and all.

Which kind of reminds me of one of the reasons I hated Frankenstein.
t:
Let's skip all the re-animation bull-shit for a second, and all the man-monster things too. The Creature taught itself to read, talk, and be sophisticated, through observation alone, in, what, a year? Fucking BULL. SHIT. No one learns that fast. No one. Furthermore, if Frankenstein wasn't such a freakin' idiot, a good chunk of the latter part of the book could have been avoided. Frankenstein could've revealed his research to the world, and become the fucking new age god and posterboy for science. Or, admittedly, been strung up and killed for crossing several lines, like sewing together corpses, robbing graves, and stepping into God's territory. But you know what? That would have been interesting too.

 

[GenocideHeart]

Technically, the Creature just re-learned how to do all the above. Its brain was already in an adult stage.

As for zombies, the whole POINT is that their bodies degrade steadily. Most zombie movies don't go in detail over what happens to the zombays once their bodies are sufficiently rotted over that they break down catastrophically, but at least two scenarios I know of (both Italian comics) addressed it, by stating that yes, zombies do eventually become immobile and powerless.

Unless they are mummified. Or drenched in embalming fluids. Or in a very cold and dry climate which preserves their flesh. The latter especially lets them go on more or less forever, as it severely reduces the degradation process. Mummies still had muscles and skin on them when found in very cold areas - 4000 years after their deaths.

 

[Elvarein]

Bah. But if you want to bring in the science? then you realise very quickly that zombies are impossible in reality. Just take two points of the top of my head.

First: Energy in our bodies is converted from food + oxygen and transported around by blood. So zombies are not supposed to breath or have a circulation. Their digestive systems also seem non functional so wait what?

Second: When you run, etc your muscles tear, and are regenerated. Your skin is constantly growing and dying, etc etc. If your body is dead and cells are no longer regenerating there is no freaking way your muscles will heal and in a very short amount of time, the zombie wont even be able to move.

Lets not even talk about embalmed things okay? Cause the muscles are totally non functional at this point.

 

[Shaderic]

That's one of the reasons I've never worried about a zombie thing in real life.

Reality will stop a zombie problem before it gets started. Barring magic, anyway.


Anyway, going back to the Creature for a second, it's not just the brain I'm talking about, when it comes to that thing's mental development. It takes time to learn all that stuff, even when some one is actively teaching you. This thing? TAUGHT ITSELF how to read and write (not neccesarily impossible, even in the given time frame) and how to talk and understand human culture (Significantly less possible). You're going from a total blank slate to a cultured and highly intelligent being, in about a year, if I recall correctly. Possible, if we forgive the time limit? Very much so, actually. But when you add that constraint... Impossible. Unless the Creature was also psychic and leeching knowledge of proper social ettiquette from people's brain, totally unlikely.

It says something about me that this bothers me more than the rest of the book. Which is, incidentally, very bad in my opinion.

 

[knight_of_ni]

Bah. But if you want to bring in the science? then you realise very quickly that zombies are impossible in reality. Just take two points of the top of my head.

First: Energy in our bodies is converted from food + oxygen and transported around by blood. So zombies are not supposed to breath or have a circulation. Their digestive systems also seem non functional so wait what?

Second: When you run, etc your muscles tear, and are regenerated. Your skin is constantly growing and dying, etc etc. If your body is dead and cells are no longer regenerating there is no freaking way your muscles will heal and in a very short amount of time, the zombie wont even be able to move.

Lets not even talk about embalmed things okay? Cause the muscles are totally non functional at this point.

Okay, I could list some stuff, but I'll just say Cracked.com already did an article on several reasons that a zombie apocalypse just WON'T happen. Of course, decay being a fuel doesn't work when you consider that maggots would be eating the muscles and that would put an end to any movement in a fair amount of time.

Zombies are essentially the least threatening "world end" scenario.

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Bah. But if you want to bring in the science? then you realise very quickly that zombies are impossible in reality. Just take two points of the top of my head.

First: Energy in our bodies is converted from food + oxygen and transported around by blood. So zombies are not supposed to breath or have a circulation. Their digestive systems also seem non functional so wait what?

Second: When you run, etc your muscles tear, and are regenerated. Your skin is constantly growing and dying, etc etc. If your body is dead and cells are no longer regenerating there is no freaking way your muscles will heal and in a very short amount of time, the zombie wont even be able to move.

Lets not even talk about embalmed things okay? Cause the muscles are totally non functional at this point.

Okay, I could list some stuff, but I'll just say Cracked.com already did an article on several reasons that a zombie apocalypse just WON'T happen. Of course, decay being a fuel doesn't work when you consider that maggots would be eating the muscles and that would put an end to any movement in a fair amount of time.

Zombies are essentially the least threatening "world end" scenario.

<a href='http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly.html' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Which I linked before but I'm linking here again.</a>

 

[daniel_gudman]

Zombies are essentially the least threatening "world end" scenario.

So the real danger of zombies isn't getting mauled by a bunch of undead, it's that 80-99% range of people just died. Leaving aside the morale implications of being either dead or all of your friends and family being dead, there's the fact that the guy that runs the electric plant and the guy that grows food and the guy that drives trucks full of stuff all over town, all those guys are dead.

It's not so much that people would get mauled, it's that an infection like that would collapse civilization cause it would run out of participants.

But if it's like, Resident Evil style monster-zombies, then it's a wizard's curse, where corpses are used as the curse-substrate. Nothing less magical would suffice.

 

[Mick]

<a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCnCRj5-bC4&NR=1' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCnCRj5-bC4&NR=1</a>

The Best Solution is to REMAIN INDOORS.

 

[Avider]

That was awesome.

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Indeed. Playing a zombie apocalypse for laughs I can get behind.

 

[Mick]

<a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fZu-edU5Sc' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fZu-edU5Sc</a>


I like the slow moving zombie movies and all, really I do, but after seeing this guy in The Horde bulldoze his way through the strong fast moving zombies, if only for a little while, slow moving zombies irl don't stand a chance at all against us.

You'd have to be really dumb or not paying attention to get bit by one.

 

[KageX]

You know the funny thing is that as it would logically fail the Resident Evil series gave a detailed explanation of how the T Virus would make a Zombie Apocalypse a credible threat even if parts of it were ignored so that humans survive as a species. And no this does not follow the movies and their sudden change between zombies and plagas without any real explanation or Alice suddenly gaining psychic powers. Yes I am somewhat bitter about the WTF turn the movies took.

Now onto the virus.
Not just bites and scratches provide means of infection it can be transmitted via bodily fluids and there is confirmation of water based transmission. So if the virus gets into a populated areas water supply it would spread quickly.
The virus replaces mitochondria providing a means of energy creation, and a logical need for the infected to eat. However the virus constantly breaks down the cells of the body for energy causing necrosis. The only way to slow this down is to consume something else for the virus to use as an energy source. If a zombie continues to eat they could potentially heal and replenish their cells for long periods of time, as the virus is constantly forcing the creation of new cells and consuming them for energy.
The virus damages the brain removing all higher brain functions, inducing rage, hunger and aggressiveness in the infected. Combined with their need to eat in order to continue functioning it explains their actions.

And then we get to the really scary part about infected humans. In some cases the virus can stabilize in a host causing more dramatic mutations. I am not talking about the one in a million chance of a Tyrant though the fact that the later versions produced by Umbrella show little to no signs of necrosis and higher thinking skills such as the Ivans is frightening. I am talking about the fact that any zombie not properly killed by destroying the brain or spine and simply rendered unconscious will become a stronger faster and much more dangerous Crimson Head. If the Crimson Head survives they will eventually become a Licker. It is not stated whether the later Evolved Lickers were produced artificially or as a part of this new bizarre lifecycle. While there is no information saying Lickers can actually survive for long periods of time, if they can then it is possible that they have become an entirely new lifeform on the foodchain. While lacking intelligence if they can reproduce than they could be a serious threat to mankind. After all they are a strong, fast, stealth based lifeform with the threat that a single bite, scratch, or exposure to fluids would prove fatal to any human being.

The worst part about the T Virus is that it infects everything. Everything. Though only mammals are seen reanimated every other form of organic life that has come into contact with the T Virus is altered by it. Insects and Arachnids become larger and more aggressive. Birds also become larger and attack beings that are still much larger than them. Invertabrates such as worms gain massive size. Even Sharks have been infected which means any form of fish could be a host for the virus. And plants can also carry the Virus. The fact that the entire biosphere could potentially be infected by the T Virus is a major concern. If anything you eat or any source of water could potentially infect you then mankind is basically screwed. And since the virus can be carried via water and is capable of infecting sealife it is very likely that it would spread quickly.

Are you beginning to see why it is such a threat in the Resident Evil Universe? And yet people are still willing to utilize it as a biological weapon. Logically due to cross contamination amongst species the RE world should be a mutated hellhole. There is no way that after multiple incidents of infection that something infected with the virus could not have escaped notice and went on to infect other things in the environment causing large areas to become filled with mutant abominations in a short amount of time. Eventually it would reach a point where zombies eventually die off due to lack of food and competition from other infected lifeforms more suited to be predators. Since necrosis does not occur in non mammalian lifeforms instead causing larger size and increased aggressiveness, the entire biosphere would become hostile to humans and any other mammal. Even a single bite from a small insect could be fatal to any uninfected mammal. A virus like that would quickly kill off all mammals.

Only a virus like this which literally provides a means of the infected humans having both the ability to heal(albeit not for long as the virus quickly consumes all any material including the bodies cells for energy) and a large area of infection (every organism on Earth) could potentially cause a true Zombie Apocalypse. This is not even going into humanity's reaction to such a a virus and the panic that would quickly cause the collapse of civilization.

Really the movies got one thing right. Once the T Virus was out it would quickly spread across the world due to the sheer number of lifeforms it can infect. The movies however misrepresent one thing. If such a virus where to exist there would be no human survivors. Eventually all humans would die off to the prevalence of the virus and the new larger more aggressive infected lifeforms taking the place of mammals. If Lickers and possibly Tyrants survive and proliferate humanities downfall would be all the quicker. So really the only way a Zombie Apocalypse would not be somehow contained and humanity survives would be if the T Virus or something like it got out. Anything else after the initial panic would probably be stopped dead in it's tracks in a few years at most. After all we humans are resilient and incredibly stubborn bastards. Walking corpses won't stop us where the Black Death and Ice Ages have failed.

Now can we get back on topic about what would happen if the infection was contained and how our favorite characters would deal with the aftermath. Even if you survive seeing the walking dead tear apart and eat people in the street including some if not all of your friends and loved ones would definitely be traumatic.
There is actually story like this in the Negima section of FF.net I have not read all of it but one of the first chapters deals with Sayo and how she as a ghost could do little but stand by and watch while her friends where killed.

How about a story where a vaccine was found because there are some people naturally immune to the disease that caused the virus. A survivor who had people die solely to protect him or her so that their blood could be used for a cure would be an interesting story. Despite the fact that their blood saved the entire human race the guilt over those who died to protect them would likely never go away especially if it was their friends or family.

 

[Mick]

Hm actually I wonder what people would do with the zombies from Return Of The Living Dead?

Those are fast, smart, and don't go down with headshots. You have to destroy them completely or they just keep coming.

And if you dispose of them the wrong way it just creates more.