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Zombie apocalypse now?

Started by Spear80, January 23, 2018, 02:49:59 PM

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Spear80

So a while back I had the tv on while I was doing something else entirely, not really paying attention. Some documentary was on and on came this scientist, suggesting that we had arrived at a point that some a-hole in his basement might actually make a zombie virus.

Now this might have  been along the lines off one of those fake documentaries about hillbillies hunting Yeti in the rocky mountain, I wasn’t paying attention so I couldn’t tell you, but it got me thinking.

If said a-hole did release the virus, how far would it get?!!!!!      seeing how almost everyone has at this point been exposed to zombie lore in some way of another. They might not like to watch the shows, or read the comic or whatever, but they probably heard a thing or two. Because usually that’s where it goes wrong, in movies and tv shows not knowing the lore, Entire swat teams, empty their clips into zombies that keep coming closer. The army tries to show restraint until its to late and the zombies come over the sandbags, which was a moronic idea anyway. And then when the entire populace near ground zero, all the cops and the army are zombified there’s no stopping it.

Wouldn’t a cop, faced with a person dribling  someone else’s face down his front, having watched a season of TWD, just ride the recoil a little and put that round through the head. And then be more wary when dealing with the owner of the chewed upon face. 

A nurse, fangirling over Rick,  wouldn’t she be a little less like to handfeed someone, who’s snapping at everyone that passes him, while grievously hurt. Or an anarchist a little less likely to cry foul after seeing that homeless person, biting someone’s  face of  because he’s vaguely recalling smoking out to Zombieland.

Andol

You are probably right, given that the rabbies is almost like the Rage Virus for people. Plus they believe the Soviets might have been working on something like that, but who knows. They made a lot of fucked bio weapons. So if you weaponize the human version of mad cow or rabbies then you would probably get something akin to zombies/Rage virus/ or even the Trixie victims from the movie The Crazies.

What might cause people to halt in their shooting would be shock, but we can hope in that the one example I read in a news paper that sounded remotely like a zombie... even though it wasn't... the officer acted correctly with a shot to the head after those two shots to the belly didn't work. It was some naked guy extra high on bath salts chewing on another guys face like a zombie... so yeah I always joked that paitent zero had been found with that one. Still have the article pinned up in my room from 7 years ago. XD




Slywyn

Believe it or not most governments have contingency plans in place for things like this. It might spread, might even take over a few major cities or something depending on dormancy time and so on, but I don't realistically believe that a 'zombie apocalypse' could ever happen. People have seen too many zombie movies at this point.
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Andol

The United States has 7 in place including a zombie virus carried in on a object from Outer Space if you can believe it.




Oniya

The CDC uses a 'zombie apocalypse' scenario as a guide for more mundane pandemics.

https://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombie/index.htm
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
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Inkidu

As much as I love the zombie genre. Barring the actual fungal jump proposed in The Last of Us (which is unlikely as ants and humans are far away). it's not going to happen. Did you ever hear about any rabies epidemic collapsing a neighborhood let alone a municipality?

The truth is that zombie outbreaks all exist in worlds where the zombie genre never existed. Now it's so oversaturated into pop culture that even governments have plans to deal with it, if they didn't already.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Andol

Eh maybe for Governments it is a better safe than sorry measure... I mean who knows what kind of things exist in the boundless reaches of space that could get out of control on Earth, if not for a few easy preventative steps such as telling a crew of ship... "Yeah we are going to blast you out of the sky now" or "Sorry you all have kill each other up there... no coming back here for you".




Oniya

To be fair, the CDC uses it as a 'talking point' and a way to get Joe Average thinking about what to do during a pandemic-type emergency.  I mean, if someone were to say 'Hey, check out this info on what to do if there's an antibiotic-resistant pneumonia outbreak...' (the top antibiotic-resistant species out there causes pneumonia, although it tends to be isolated to vulnerable populations) sad to say, but very few people are going to look.  If you say 'Hey, check out this info on what to do during a zombie apocalypse' - you're going to get a significantly larger number of people looking, if only because of the 'wait - CDC has zombie apocalypse info?' factor.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Andol

#8
True that Oniya... True that... XD However the plan I mentioned I think were US Department of Defense plans for such thing. They where looking into space-borne, supernatural, rising from the grave, biological weapon, a new form of pandemic, and others... which over all sounded pretty silly in some cases, especially when you consider this was how tax payer dollars were used. XD




Oniya

#9
Quote from: Andol on January 24, 2018, 02:48:52 PM
True that Oniya... True that... XD However the plan I mentioned I think were US Department of Defense plans for such thing. They where looking into space-borne, supernatural, rising from the grave, biological weapon, a new form of pandemic, and others... which over all sounded pretty silly in some cases, especially when you consider this was how tax payer dollars were used. XD

Kiiiiinda would like to see a source for that before I give it any creedence.  Sorry, but it sounds like some blogger taking the existence of the CDC page and running with it.

EDIT:  Okay, found it - and it's been taken out of context.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/16/politics/pentagon-zombie-apocalypse/index.html
Quote
"The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario," Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command, told CNN. "This document is not a U.S. Strategic Command plan."

In other words, it's about the same level of thing as the CDC preparedness information. 

QuoteOfficials familiar with the planning of it say zombies were chosen precisely because of the outlandish nature of the attack premise.
"Training examples for plans must accommodate the political fallout that occurs if the general public mistakenly believes that a fictional training scenario is actually a real plan," the document says. "Rather than risk such an outcome by teaching our augmentees using the fictional 'Tunisia' or 'Nigeria' scenarios used at (Joint Combined Warfighting School), we elected to use a completely impossible scenario that could never be mistaken as a real plan."
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Andol

Ah... well... my mistake... still the out space one makes me remember the warnings of Lovecraft and knowing to much. Even if he was secretly talking about his own xenophobic and raciest fears... space is still a vast expanse. Wither a fun place to explore or a hell just waiting to be accidentally opened... just who knows.




Deamonbane

Given the kind of response that Ebola brought, one could safely assume that a slow, natural start to a viral zombie infection would be quickly contained, diagnosed and quarantined. Hospitals would be quickly notified, media outlets would issue alerts, folks with the burgeoning symptoms would quickly hospitalize themselves.

Or order for something like that to spread to apocalyptic proportions, not only would the spread have to be simultaneous in various heavily populated areas, the medical infrastructure and emergency response systems would have to be catastrophically impaired, as well as having to have a solid spread before redundancies can kick in.

In sum, it would have to be an intentional attack.

That said, are we talking the traditional, Night of the Walking Dead zombies, or something like World War Z, or the Zombie-vampire hybrids from I am Legend?
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Andol

Hmm really I would think that the World War Z/Rage virus style of zombie would be really the only kind that could spread quickly enough that it would cause problems. Even then I have never understood how a group of zombies could withstand an attack from a force equipped for large scale Cold War tank warfare... as in... run all those things over with your armored boxes that zombies can't get inside XD.

Well there is always the chance that it could spread from less well developed countries that are less populated. Then again as people have already said, the lore has been spread too much through our world that it would at worse probably become a Shaun of the Dead situation XD... Everyone goes oh shit for about five seconds to realize what is happening... and then things go from there. XD





Arkaniel

Theoretically speaking, it depends on where the plague hits first, and indeed how quickly someone ‘turns’. The turning within seconds upon death is pretty unrealistic. The rage virus from world war Z could work, but even that is, from what little I know a pretty fast turning rate, even for rabies and the like.

Also, don’t underestimate how little access there is to weapons in many parts of the world. In the walking Dead, they find guns and ammo and whatnot in practically every house, so to speak. Here, I’m not sure there is more than one or two guns in the entire town I live in. In some countries, the regular police officers even walk around unarmed. Nor should you underestimate how quickly a transmittable virus can spread in a densely populated region like western Europe. From pretty much any position in Western Europe, you can reach a million people within less than a day of walking, unlike say Russian, Northern America or whatnot.

The only reason viruses and diseases don’t cause catastrophe here is because despite our dense population, hygiene and healthcare infrastructure is top notch here, besides which, most Western Europeans are immunised to nearly every major virus/disease, whether through inoculations or natural resistance after centuries of plagues and whatnot. That said, a supposed zombie virus won’t be stopped by that.

A saving grace, of course, is that unlike in North America, most houses here are build in solid double stone walls. Scenes of zombies crashing through walls and whatnot are nearly impossible here.

Oniya

Quote from: Arkaniel on January 26, 2018, 12:39:03 AM
A saving grace, of course, is that unlike in North America, most houses here are build in solid double stone walls. Scenes of zombies crashing through walls and whatnot are nearly impossible here.

Windows are going to be your 'weak points'.  Most exterior walls (even here in the US) have a certain level of structural integrity, just to support the upper floors/roof of the house.  Certain interior walls are rated as 'load bearing' as well.  Unless you install Lexan or security bars though - windows are glass, even if they've got that wire mesh running through them.  Even tempered glass will break under the right conditions.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Inkidu

Quote from: Arkaniel on January 26, 2018, 12:39:03 AM
Theoretically speaking, it depends on where the plague hits first, and indeed how quickly someone ‘turns’. The turning within seconds upon death is pretty unrealistic. The rage virus from world war Z could work, but even that is, from what little I know a pretty fast turning rate, even for rabies and the like.

Also, don’t underestimate how little access there is to weapons in many parts of the world. In the walking Dead, they find guns and ammo and whatnot in practically every house, so to speak. Here, I’m not sure there is more than one or two guns in the entire town I live in. In some countries, the regular police officers even walk around unarmed. Nor should you underestimate how quickly a transmittable virus can spread in a densely populated region like western Europe. From pretty much any position in Western Europe, you can reach a million people within less than a day of walking, unlike say Russian, Northern America or whatnot.

The only reason viruses and diseases don’t cause catastrophe here is because despite our dense population, hygiene and healthcare infrastructure is top notch here, besides which, most Western Europeans are immunised to nearly every major virus/disease, whether through inoculations or natural resistance after centuries of plagues and whatnot. That said, a supposed zombie virus won’t be stopped by that.

A saving grace, of course, is that unlike in North America, most houses here are build in solid double stone walls. Scenes of zombies crashing through walls and whatnot are nearly impossible here.

Eh the only really plausible apocalyptic plague scenario is a fungal one, (or maybe a parasite that can mimic human behavior), where the bite is not a requirement. A spore that "blooms" across large swaths of land are the only ways to really spread an infection in a first or even second-world place.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Arkaniel

Quote from: Oniya on January 26, 2018, 10:24:23 AM
Windows are going to be your 'weak points'.  Most exterior walls (even here in the US) have a certain level of structural integrity, just to support the upper floors/roof of the house.  Certain interior walls are rated as 'load bearing' as well.  Unless you install Lexan or security bars though - windows are glass, even if they've got that wire mesh running through them.  Even tempered glass will break under the right conditions.

Most people here do have hatches on their windows and I hope that we have the common sense to close them if the zombies come. Also we have triple layered burglar proofed glass.

Oniya

Hatches are good.  That isn't a standard thing over here.  Burglar glass (typically two layers of glass separated by high-tensile-strength plastic) is going to deter your smash-and-grab types (so - looters), but is still going to likely give way to increasing weight before the walls.  If we're talking the 'implacable horde' that we saw in WWZ, I'd trust the hatches more than the burglar glass, because it also provides a visual shield - one less way for you to get on the zombie's menu of choices.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Livrainbows

Reminds of me a John Ringo series, with rabies driven mad zombie types...

not the best books though and they never really explain why/who did the whole zombie thing. Shame, ruined good premise and stuff.

Remiel

Yet the book was still infinitely better than the movie.  I assume we're still talking about World War Z?

Mathim

#20
Quote from: Spear80 on January 23, 2018, 02:49:59 PM
So a while back I had the tv on while I was doing something else entirely, not really paying attention. Some documentary was on and on came this scientist, suggesting that we had arrived at a point that some a-hole in his basement might actually make a zombie virus.

Now this might have  been along the lines off one of those fake documentaries about hillbillies hunting Yeti in the rocky mountain, I wasn’t paying attention so I couldn’t tell you, but it got me thinking.

If said a-hole did release the virus, how far would it get?!!!!!      seeing how almost everyone has at this point been exposed to zombie lore in some way of another. They might not like to watch the shows, or read the comic or whatever, but they probably heard a thing or two. Because usually that’s where it goes wrong, in movies and tv shows not knowing the lore, Entire swat teams, empty their clips into zombies that keep coming closer. The army tries to show restraint until its to late and the zombies come over the sandbags, which was a moronic idea anyway. And then when the entire populace near ground zero, all the cops and the army are zombified there’s no stopping it.

Wouldn’t a cop, faced with a person dribling  someone else’s face down his front, having watched a season of TWD, just ride the recoil a little and put that round through the head. And then be more wary when dealing with the owner of the chewed upon face. 

A nurse, fangirling over Rick,  wouldn’t she be a little less like to handfeed someone, who’s snapping at everyone that passes him, while grievously hurt. Or an anarchist a little less likely to cry foul after seeing that homeless person, biting someone’s  face of  because he’s vaguely recalling smoking out to Zombieland.

It depends on two main things, I think. First, can the zombies run a la 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead? Second, does any dead person with an intact brain reanimate almost immediately upon death regardless of the cause? Those two factors in tandem would lend the most likelihood that it would indeed spread and, in my opinion, quickly lead to us being overwhelmed and losing to the tide of undead, never to regain any semblance of the civilization we once had if any of us survived at all.

Other things like it being waterborne or airborne even, or if it can infect animals as well, would just compound it, but those would be easier to deal with than not being able to outrun them in a situation where putting distance between you and them is the only way to survive, or waking up in bed next to a loved one who had a fatal aneurysm in the night and having them bite your face off.
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Wayfarer

doesn't really matter how fast they are. If this were to happen IRL we are not above NUKING our own to save humanity. no virus or zombie can outrun an H-Bomb. After all, It would be the humane ( from a big govt perceptive ) thing to do.

Oniya

Right.  Then you have radioactive zombies from the 'not immediately vaporized' regions.   :P
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Wayfarer

no you don't. MSD's per mega-ton a pretty accurate now thanks to all of the 50's-60's era testing. even a 50 mile margin of error would eliminate "glow in the dark" Z's.

Wayfarer

in addition to killing zombies. the bomb has the added effect of being far more lethal to people. If people are depopulated from a large area due to fallout, what will any surviving Z's feed on?