Too many of them, not enough ammo!

[Bub666]

A fork with an identity crisis?

[Wyldwraith]

Hmm, I agree that if the uprising of the dead is a national or worldwide phenomena then we're probably screwed, but it beggars the imagination to come up with a source for the outbreak that would lead to such a widespread simultaneous outbreak. If instead the dead rising occurred locally or regionally then while metropolitan areas could easily become necropolii in a scant few hours I think that geographical barriers would slow such an epidemic more than anything mankind does. Say the outbreak occurs in LA as one of the previous posters have said. Ok, in 12-15 hours Los Angeles is gone and the horde(s) are spreading out chasing fleeing human beings into the suburbs and outlying small towns. Assume that within 3 days the entire West Coast is gone. Then what? You've got the Rocky Mountains, the Mojave Desert, the Grand Canyon, the Salt Flats of Utah. No, none of these are perfect barriers, but I think all of them would serve as a slowdown-filter for the plague's eastward spread. The exception would be infected human beings who have been bitten escaping the area by plane/helicopter/car/whatever. Yes, each of these would create small new epicenters for contagion, but beginning from 1 zombie is a far slower process than beginning from a few hundred, all concentrated in a specific Ground Zero. So yeah, I think the key determinant is unquestionably the scope of the initial rising. If it's everywhere simultaneously we're screwed, just as we'd be screwed if there was an everywhere/simultaneous outbreak of any Level 4 contagion. Apologies for the rough nature of the layout of my thoughts, but I feel it's an interesting point worth making.

[Publius]

Publius, I know you trust in the ability of the machine to respond quickly. Having not served in the millitary, I cannot attest first hand to how efficient or inefficent their inner workings are. However, judging by the slow response that I have noticed during the Los Angeles Riots, coupled with the tepid reponse to Hurricane Katrina, I can only say that I do not trust that the machine can work quickly enough to respond within a few hours to anything that happens. I am speculating, of course, but I don't believe that the commanders would make up their minds to deploy troops within the 24 hours of Zero Hour, and even if they were to order deployment within that time frame I don't forsee that boots would actually hit the ground within 48 hours of the order. I wasn't meaning to tout my own abilities. I was just a REMF. I just wanted to suggest that the military is likely to be able to get a handle on things in the long run. There is a good chance that most of the major cities will be screwed, yes. Most likely, millions will die. But eventually the living would rally and put a stop to the spread of the dead. You're probably right, based on the LA Riots (which I remember well) that the military won't mobilize quickly enough to secure Los Angeles. The first reaction of the base commanders at Edwards, 29 Palms, etc. will probably be to raise the installation threat condition and increase security at the gates and perimeter. Since the bases will probably be starting with no zeds inside, that'll help preserve their manpower and resources until the leadership figures out what's going on. The military can't do dick anyway. There's only 1.5 million people in the military. There are outbreaks in hundreds of thousands of hospitals and funeral homes and nursing homes. What are you going to do, send 10 soldiers to occupy and sweep an entire city? That's going to work like chopping firewood with a spork. Closer to 1.4 million active. Plus another 1.4+ million reservists. And around 700,000 law enforcement officers. Some law enforcement officers are also reservists, but that's still well over 3 million total. And you won't have hundreds of thousands of outbreaks, you'll have several thousand (I previously estimated the starting number of zombies at around 20,000, many of whom will be incapacitated in morgue drawers etc.). Most outbreaks will start out with a single weak zombie, some with two or three or four. Only very rarely more than that. Then what? You've got the Rocky Mountains, the Mojave Desert, the Grand Canyon, the Salt Flats of Utah. No, none of these are perfect barriers, but I think all of them would serve as a slowdown-filter for the plague's eastward spread. Exactly. That's why I said Europe would be worse off. But there is an awful lot of empty space filled with natural barriers in America. Lots of small towns would be zombie-free for days without the military or law enforcement lifting a finger, just because it'd take that long for zombies to manage to wander that far in the right direction on foot.

[Wyldwraith]

::agrees with Publius:: That was my point exactly. Every other plague has had a Patient Zero, or at least an initial epicenter. While I can imagine causes for reanimation that would be rather widespread, I have a really hard time envisioning a source that actually has worldwide "wellsprings" for the contagion all over the place. Add to your active military, reservists and law enforcement all the veterans still young/healthy enough to pitch in and (to a less effective extent) the huge mass of armed civilians. Yes, the majority may quickly succumb if on their own in an infested area, but most would break the model of simply increasing the ranks of the undead with their death. If your average armed redneck comprises even 10% of the population in a small town and manages to destroy ten ghouls before being infected then it's conceivable that the redneck population might dramatically slow or even (possibly) stamp out a small-scale infestation.

[Trin]

Maybe this is because I live in the midwest and population density isn't that high here... but I think that if literally everyone in the world died and came back as a GAR-style zombie I'd be okay. I mean, they're slow. They're stupid. They follow you. I figure I can drive slowly around the city and gather them all up behind me then drive out into the middle of a field in Kansas and set fire to the whole lot of them. I'd be like the zombie pied piper. And when it was all over I'd look at that pile of burning bodies and have a good cry... because some of these folks worked at Taco John's and Taco John's would never be open again.

[DubiousComforts]

They're stupid. They follow you. I figure I can drive slowly around the city and gather them all up behind me then drive out into the middle of a field in Kansas and set fire to the whole lot of them. But don't forget that while you're utilizing intelligence to solve the problem, your plan is doomed to failure because it's inevitable that some dumbass gun-toting freak will attempt to stop the car and kill you just to steal the hubcaps. Just like all the "accidents" that take place during deer hunting season, he'll fail miserably and only succeed in blowing up the vehicle, killing you both and leaving the living dead horde to feed on the leftovers. It sounds great on paper, though.

[Trin]

...some dumbass gun-toting freak... This might have been better stated as "some other dumbass gun-toting freak..." Yeah, Dubious, it's a valid point. In my example everyone in the world except me becomes a zombie. That might be a more survivable situation than if only half the world becomes a zombie. And I suppose that's the point GAR has been beating into us movie after movie.

[Wyldwraith]

Yeah, Dubious, it's a valid point. In my example everyone in the world except me becomes a zombie. That might be a more survivable situation than if only half the world becomes a zombie. And I suppose that's the point GAR has been beating into us movie after movie. I disagree, With GAR I mean. His whole message seems to be: "When push comes to shove man can't unite, even when faced with a common enemy threatening him with imminent extinction." Do you all truly buy into that? I think history has shown us the opposite in fact, that Man can ONLY be united by a common enemy, at which point our power becomes magnificent and terrible in our communal wrath...until we've knocked off that common enemy with that power and splinter back into a bunch of weak weeds, each trying to strangle the nearest weed to it for just a bit more sun and nutrients. IMO GAR isn't wrong to be cynical about the human condition. It's just that he's so busy overestimating our potential for self-destruction that he forgets the Common Enemy Unification behavior. Yes, Achilles may go sulk in his tent because things didn't go his way, but the Greeks don't give up the war over it, and Achilles goes back to work when he gets a reminder about that common enemy via Hector. Likewise the Trojan people may feel Paris is an idiot for stealing Helen, but the pro and anti-Paris factions don't start a civil war with the Greeks at the gates. I think it's just barely possible that an enemy so inarguably relentless, so utterly without ability/desire to discriminate between one man and the next, and so obviously bent on destroying us all in an incredibly overt/direct fashion just might lead to the greatest unification of Humanity in history. Until such time as we defeat the living dead, at which point the built up stress from the unification will express itself exponentially as the worst social fallout in history, probably leading to a World War.

[Debbieangel]

woww we have a lot of cynics around here! Don't you have any kind of hope for mankind? I would hope atleast where I live we would come together and make up some kind of plan to survive! I don't mean to sound confrontational but I am an optimist to the end. I always like to have hope...hope keeps you going! Besides, I know a lot of people with guns, bows and arrows where I live. That would give me a lot of hope to survive.Plus, I live in a rural area. I know some have said they would go out on the open road, not me atleast for awhile I would stay put and take my chances. Somehow if I was gonna die anyway dying in familiar surroundings would be comforting if and I mean IF there were no other safe place to go. But, I would have hope for us to survive!

[Trin]

I disagree, With GAR I mean. His whole message seems to be: "When push comes to shove man can't unite, even when faced with a common enemy threatening him with imminent extinction." Do you all truly buy into that? I hear ya. I think everything you're saying makes sense. I will agree that I get sick of GAR beating it into me that everyone is a self-serving a-hole in a crisis. Especially the military. Would they really look for the first chance to wave their guns around and threaten the very civilians they chose to protect when they entered the service? I hated that with 28 Days too, btw. Who resorts to raping the women less than a month into the crisis? But I digress... There's another aspect to this that I think bears mention. In the zombie apocalyse the masses are individually directly threatened. The entire world is under siege at the same time. This isn't a matter of coming together and sending the boys overseas to battle a common threat. It's a matter of everyone battling the threat individually in their own backyards. Or at least it starts that way. I think pulling together is harder when each individual is on the heels from the start. Look at 9/11. When the twin towers fell the nation united in providing support to NYC, giving of their extra resources. But what if a tower fell in every city? What if a tower fell on every block of every city? I think the unified response is delayed in that circumstance. If everyone everywhere is in need people would be forced to take care of themselves first and think about uniting second. Add in the notion that the government is gone and laws are no longer relevant and you may just have the catalyst for the self-destruction that GAR is talking about. Not saying that people wouldn't unite. I don't know. Like Debbie I'm an optimist and I'd like to think they would. Just pointing out that the situation is a bit different than history has contended with.

[Wyldwraith]

I completely get what you're saying Trin, If the dead were rising everywhere then yea, people are going to be busy covering their own asses at first. I don't agree though that just because they're busy doing so that this fact alone keeps them from uniting. I'll go back for an example to Hurricane Katrina again. DURING the flooding of the 9th Ward becoming more intense you had dozens of healthy uninjured people paddling AIR MATTRESSES up to collapsing houses and rescuing the old, infirm and injured, at great personal risk. Weren't those people in direct need/back on their heels themselves? Your point is taken, but at the same time I just can't buy into GAR's vision of EVERYONE being either a Rhodes, a Cooper or a Barbara waiting to happen. The way that he shows the reasonable people who are willing to work with others are always being hopelessly outnumbered/helpless to improve things because they're surrounded by idiots or self-destructive psychopaths just doesn't wash with my own experience of humanity in a crisis. Yes, the living dead rising to attack the living is pretty extreme. I DO expect a TON of people will go all Khardis-sociopath on us, or Wooley "Get off my land in 10 seconds or get shot"...but there will also be a couple guys passing in a truck who see eight zombies converging on a disabled car that has a woman and children inside, who will stop to blast the zombies and give the woman and her kids a fighting chance at least. I don't expect a marching parade of saints during the zombie apocalypse, but I refuse to believe all of humanity will stupidly march off a cliff/down the throats of zombies, or turn into devils either.

[SRP76]

Don't you have any kind of hope for mankind? No. Absolutely not. As far as "pulling together" goes: it may not be a matter of people wanting to work together; more a matter of being able to. You wind up with 5 people in a basement scared to death. In the next town, you've got another 5 people huddled in a shed. 17 miles of zombie-infested wasteland lies between them. Now, just how the hell are they supposed to "pull together"?! How are they even going to know each other exists? There is no "get on the internet and look someone up", or grabbing the cell phone. No communication, and the only thing you see when you peek out between the slats of the boarded-up window of your shed is ghouls....ghouls....ghouls. You could decide to just blindly break for it, and hope you run into another small group of people. But of course, that's exactly what people cry and complain about when they talk about Dawn '04, isn't it?

[Yojimbo]

-but there will also be a couple guys passing in a truck who see eight zombies converging on a disabled car that has a woman and children inside, who will stop to blast the zombies and give the woman and her kids a fighting chance at least. I agree that there will be heroes and people looking out for the other guy in the apocalypse, just as there were in Katrina and the Los Angeles Riots, however, people of this stock are few and far between. The majority of people are going to look out for number one. So while I have faith that pockets of survivors will hold out for as long as they can, I think that it will take a lot more than just a few survivors who, as SRP pointed out, are unable to coordinate their efforts, to restore society to it's full glory. In the Romero dead universe, there will be no end to the crisis, unlike Katrina and the Los Angeles Riots which, as destructive they both were at the time the flood waters eventually receded or the unrest finally abated. Society will never return to normal, per se. So, yes, there will be those folks who will shoot survivors on sight, or pillage the supplies of other groups, but in the world of the dead there will also be folks who are looking out for each other, as long as they are capable of doing so. In this sense, I have faith in humanity.

[Wyldwraith]

Well, SRP's point assumes that the crisis has already reached maximum ghoul-density before people try to band together. In large cities the infection may burn through fast enough to make that a probable/possible scenario, but I don't believe it can be equally applied across the board. I live in a residential area with about 100 houses spread over 3-4 miles, then nothing for 4-5 miles, until one gets to the main road leading to town. In my neighborhood I have two strong healthy male friends who work at home, who, like myself, actually have disaster preparedness kits. All of which include a moderately substantial amount of ammunition for a firearm of our choice(s). Now, barring being taken out by surprise in the opening moments of the crisis it's likely that my friends and I will manage to get together when CNN starts showing images of NYC in flames, with zombies dragging down riot police. Where's the wave of zombies that's supposed to keep us from getting together with our neighbors going to come from? If even a dozen of us can get our act together before the zombies from town randomly stagger our way there's hope we could link up with those lucky enough to end up in our area. Who knows how well we could do from there? I think it's unreasonably pessimistic to assume that everyone reacts the same way to potential danger. Every time one of the possible tracks for a hurricane to take points our way me and my stepfather clean all the guns/make sure they're in good working order. Then we lay out ammunition closer to hand than the usual storage. When the towers came down over 3,000 miles away we had the shotguns loaded within five minutes of the first report we caught on the TV. Is this an unusually sensitive reaction to potential or distant danger? You betcha. Is it still possible for catastrophe to catch us with our pants down? Again, yes. Our "paranoid" behavior pattern raises our odds of survival if everything comes apart though. Believe me, we aren't worried about zombies, but if one day it happens to be zombies, well, I guess that'll work too

[Publius]

I live in a residential area with about 100 houses spread over 3-4 miles, then nothing for 4-5 miles, until one gets to the main road leading to town. In my neighborhood I have two strong healthy male friends who work at home, who, like myself, actually have disaster preparedness kits. All of which include a moderately substantial amount of ammunition for a firearm of our choice(s). Now, barring being taken out by surprise in the opening moments of the crisis it's likely that my friends and I will manage to get together when CNN starts showing images of NYC in flames, with zombies dragging down riot police. Where's the wave of zombies that's supposed to keep us from getting together with our neighbors going to come from? If even a dozen of us can get our act together before the zombies from town randomly stagger our way there's hope we could link up with those lucky enough to end up in our area. Who knows how well we could do from there? Right on. The inner cities will turn into hellholes quickly. But across America there are tons of communities where neighbors are still neighborly, and where people will have time to start pulling together *before* they have direct contact with the undead.