Feasibility of Zombie Holocaust

[Gemini]

Gents,

The way I see it, there really is only a couple of scenarios in which the living dead would have a plausible chance to overwhelm the living and drive us to the brink of extinction.

One would be for the infection to spread via bite and for the reanimated corpses to sprint and attack like rabid animals ala DOTD 04.

The other scenario, and the only one in which the shambling "classic" zombie would have a chance to overrun us, would be for all people to reanimate once deceased (in addition to the virus being spread by bite); in this situation the sheer volume of living dead would compensate for their limited mobility. This scenario is I believe the basis of the Romero movies althought the idea is not fully fleshed out in the series.

This is where I think Max Brooks may have gotten it wrong. I love his books, but I don't see how the living dead could inherit the planet if the disease is spread only via bites AND the dead shamble along at a slow pace; they would just be too easily massacred. The only way a bite-only contagion could spread like that were if the zombies were as dangerous as those in DOTD 04.

On another note, I liked the idea in the original NOTLD of the satellite bringing back with it strange forms of radiation which caused the dead to reanimate, but this idea was never elaborated.

Opinions?

[SRP76]

One of my favorite arguments returns!:hyper:

I'm in the minority, but I believe we're screwed when zombies attack. Shamblers can wipe us out quickly and effectively.

People make several assumptions when thinking these zombies are easy to defeat:

1. That people know what to do with zombies. Not true. Sure, everyone on this board would leap into action and headshot these things into oblivion, but we're in the tiny minority. There are far, far more people that don't give a crap about zombies, know nothing about zombie fiction, and think we're all just losers for watching. Cool people watch American Pie, after all.

2. That even if people knew what to do with a zombie, the response would be rapid and effective. This is a fucking joke. I once saw a newscast with an unarmed jackass in a stopped van holding off police for like 4 hours. Give me a fucking break. They won't move on a ghoul until it mauls at least 1,000 people.

3. That nobody will intentionally put themselves into harm's way "just because it's cool". Yes, they WILL. Like the retards that went TO where a hurricane was forecast, just to "experience it" (I mentioned this in a previous thread somewhere). Then you have the idiots that will try to rape zombies, stick them in their basement to show their friends, all manner of stupidity. These fools will be chomped, and become ghouls themselves, swelling the ranks.

4. That people would even take reports seriously. They don't now, so they won't in the future. People blow off terrorist alerts; you think they won't blow off "zombie raid"? Think again. And even those that believe it don't care unless its at their door. They will gleefully ignore a guy down the street getting butchered, as long as they themselves are free to watch their American Idol at 8 o'clock. This total apathy will let zombies run amok quite easily.

5. That people will do one fucking thing to save themselves. This goes hand-in-hand with #4. They will not lift a finger to help themselves. People who don't immediately start looking for a government handout, and bitch if "THE AUTHORITIES AREN'T HANDLING THIS FAST ENOUGH" are a very small minority. Most will sit on their sorry asses and cry the blues. And that's the truth.

Now in a world where everyone holds hands and sings campfire songs, Romero's shamblers could be put down quickly. But I've never seen a world like that, outside of Star Trek reruns. In our realm, once the first handful of zombies starts biting and someone shambles outside the initial containment area, all hell will break loose.

[Ghost Of War]

People are stupid and ignorant. Stupidity and ignorance will get a LOT of people killed, and then those people will get up and kill, and the people they kill will GET UP AND KILL! By that time, there'll be too many shamblers shambling about.

If we're talking about "infected" a la 28 Days Later, then yeah, maybe it'll happen quicker. But either way I reckon we'll be fucked.

[BillyRay]

People make several assumptions when thinking these zombies are easy to defeat:

1. That people know what to do with zombies.


Well, that's a factor that you don't see in Zombie Flicks. In a Vampire or Werewolf flick, there's always somebody who steps forward and says: "I saw this in a movie, (X) defeats (Monster)."

But never in a zombie film. It always takes a couple shots to the chest, the zed falling and getting back up, and somebody getting bit in the process, before the main characters figure out to AIM FOR THE @#$%-ING HEAD.

I know, I know, the stupidity of the main characters make a film more interesting. (Drives the story, they tell me); but in a "Real-Life Scenario" enough folks would have the idea to AIM FOR THE @#$%-ING HEAD....



On another note, I liked the idea in the original NOTLD of the satellite bringing back with it strange forms of radiation which caused the dead to reanimate, but this idea was never elaborated.


Check out the "Zombie Intelligence: Bub vs Big Daddy" thread. There's a ton of great ideas being postulated and argued ad infinitum.

(That's not a criticism, that's why we're here. For sweet, sweet Geek talk)

[SRP76]

Another thing to consider: most people are pathetic, pants-pissing cowards.

I remembered one example here on this board. Someone posted a video of three dumbassed "gangstas" running amok on a train (or bus or subway or whatever).

Now, these guys were like 150 soaking fucking wet, and their punches couldn't even get a guy to drop his damned grocery bag! In other words, NOT Conan the Barbarian. NOT deadly.

There were like 50 people sitting there. Against 3 skinny thugs that you could break in half with about one punch. Yet, what did those 50 people do?

That's right, they ran to one end of the train, huddled in absolute fear of these guys, and watched them beat on one guy in a 3-on-1 attack. Even after they stepped away, and the guy got back up (in the process proving to everyone that their attacks aren't dangerous, and therefore nothing to fear), those people STILL fled and trembled.

Now, consider that. Replace the scrawny thugs with a snarling, slathering, dead creature. What do you think's going to happen? I can tell you right now that I will take on an Eminem lookalike that thinks he's bad LONG before I try jumping on some undead monster. And I bet you the world that so would almost everyone else.

So yeah, there will NOT be any "let's kill the ghoul". There will be shitting in pants, screaming in terror, and begging for their miserable lives, which the ghoul will ignore as it begins breakfast.

That's just a specific incident, but it's not uncommon. It happens the same way, everywhere, every day.

People will kill zombies? Please. They won't even stand up to a punk on the fucking bus. And he's NOT trying to eat you alive.

[Gemini]

Thanks for the feedback, interesting. According to these opinions it sounds like human incompetance, apathy, and cowardice would do us in more than the zombies; we would defeat ourselves.

Another factor that would complicate an effective response would be the emotional connection many would feel with infected and reanimated loved ones, like the mess in the apartment building in the original Dawn; and bleeding heart groups would no doubt protest massacring the Z's, claiming that they are still somehow human and that their elimination would amount to genocide.

But would we regroup and ultimately prevail ala WWZ?

Is that movie going anywhere BTW? I have heard a release date this year??

One thing about DOTD 04 - even if we somehow mounted the most effective counter attack possible and avoided the human frailties mentioned in this thread we would be totally FUCKED by that rabid horde - like it or not those Z's were 10x deadlier than Romero's.

[SRP76]

But would we regroup and ultimately prevail ala WWZ?



I doubt it. That book takes a lot of liberties with reality. Like for instance, the United States west of the Rockies being safe. Excuse me? The most populous state in the union is located there. There will be more ghouls in Los Angeles alone than in about a 1/3 swath of the center of the country. The West Coast is a death trap. There are a lot of things like that in the book.

If you got lucky with thousands of survivors, whole military units, and all that all in one place like in the book (yeah, good luck) it might be possible. But still only possible. At the end of the day, you still have to scour literally every square millimeter of the planet, blasting every single ghoul off it. If you divide surface area by number of survivors, multiplied by time taken to clear each area, you find that it's not probable.

[Andy]

But would we regroup and ultimately prevail ala WWZ?


I Like to think humanity would prevail, Not through fighting Z's as it seems to be a never ending and very tiring task, especially in the latter stages of a Zombolocaust, every single 1 you kill would be replaced with 10 others and using guns is more than likely a no-no as youd be very limited on ammo. It would be endless and very tiring close quarters combat and you'd make a mistake soon.

I Think humanity would prevail due to our ability to hide away, buckle down and wait and let nature and decomposition take its toll on the undead.

[SRP76]

By my estimates, you need a minimum of 300,000 survivors to actually cover the planet in the way you need to. That's all of them actually doing so every waking moment of their lives, and living to be over 100 years old. And it would take their entire lives. Probably not fun.

A more reasonable situation would be at least 10 million survivors. They would still work near-constantly, but they'd be done in "only" about 5 years. 10-15 years if they do it realistically, only scouring and fighting about 10 hours a day, every day.

You need all ten million perfectly spaced in starting positions, and in constant, perfect coordination throughout, though. If not, you've got to add year to it.

[Gemini]

I live in VT and I would feel pretty damn safe here during a Zombielocaust. It has been above freezing here about three of the past ninety days.

If ever there was a place for key military and civilian groups to assemble it would be up north above the freeze line with strategic forays into the south on sweep and destroy missions.

And no the encampment by the Lake in WWZ would not be an effective method to retreat north!

[Legion2213]

This is a simple cut of how I see it...

GAR shambler Zombies: I don't think it would be that bad if people accepted what needed to be done early on, the tide could be stemmed, I could take down half a dozen with a cricket bat...as could every able bodied person.

28 Days Infected: Would spread a lot faster, might tip the balance even though they are technically easier to kill, I don't see anybody having a chance without ranged weapons.

Dawn 04 Zombies: We are fucked. They are fast, you need a headshot to kill them and they won't eventually starve like the Infected. Dawn 04 models are the worst case scenario IMO.


.

[SRP76]

Dawn 04 models are the worst case scenario IMO.


.

I'll disagree with that. The worst case would be those brain-eating Return jokers. The ones that can't be killed at all (which is just one more thing I hate about that movie). Talk about impossible. You'd have to invent some kind of weapon that can literally flash-cremate a human body in less than 1 second, while also being portable.

[Legion2213]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of those films (as zombie films)...those zombies are like John Carpenters "The Thing", every individual cell is capable of survival and independant thought and action.


.

[krakenslayer]

I'll disagree with that. The worst case would be those brain-eating Return jokers. The ones that can't be killed at all (which is just one more thing I hate about that movie). Talk about impossible. You'd have to invent some kind of weapon that can literally flash-cremate a human body in less than 1 second, while also being portable.

The idea is horrific, but was kind of ruined by Return's misguided (for me) comic tone.

Although, in the sequel it turns out that high voltage electricity destroys them, which makes sense - if you imagine the zombies in Romero's films have had their brain reactivated and can be killed by destroying the brain, the zombies in the Return movies have had their whole nervous systems reactivated and can only be killed by cremating/shorting out all of their nerve tissue.

[rongravy]

Bring it on, just not the fast ones. I've only got a little over a month of not smoking under my belt.

Live here in the Arkie mountains in an RV, raid for gas while I can, try to live off the land as best as I can too.
Grow my own bud, hunt some deer and other wild game with a bow, fish alot...
Get all Grizzly Adamsed up!

[Wyldwraith]

I disagree,
With the exception of Dawn '04 zeds, or Rage-Infected, I just can't see zombies wiping us out. You can't even make the endless horde argument if you factor in the enormous damage that even 4-5 fully loaded A-10s could do to a wall of solid biomass, ie thousands/tens of thousands of zombies packed into relatively confined urban areas.

Yes, people can be stupid, foolish, ignorant, apathetic, incompetent and cowardly. They can ALSO be valiant, adaptable, motivated, inventive and highly capable of learning from their mistakes and those of others.

Frankly, I don't buy into generalizations or anecdotal evidence. For every bus full of sissies you've got 80yr old retirees fighting off gangs of home invaders. People are simply too varied in quality of character, natural ability, and basic adaptability.

One of the VERY FEW things I liked about Dawn '04 was the way it realistically depicted that someone with a nothing of a dead end retail job can be the most effective survivor you could come across simply because they have the innate tendency to act in tune with what their common sense & instinct is telling them, rather than reacting to a situation once there's no other choice, and because they possess that written of blessing of being able to keep their heads when all about them are losing theirs.

In fact, one could even make the argument that a high degree of training in conventional survival skills might tend to make one less likely to change tactics, explore alternative means of survival, and more close-minded because they believe they already know everything they need to in order to survive.

Sure, there's an initial advantage for the trained survivalist, but desperation is the mother of invention. The guy who makes his way to a highly secure, well-stocked little hideaway probably won't be the guy who finds the key to large scale/efficient neutralization of the undead, for the obvious reason he hasn't needed to.

Beyond all that though, I have a difficult time stomaching the idea that we're really so far gone as a species that uncoordinated entities moving at a slow walk that desire our flesh are really all it takes to exterminate us.

Or what about this: Everyone makes much of the concept "For every zombie you kill, ten take their place"...ok, on the ground/in the trenches it might seem that way, but in actuality all you need is 1 guy in 10 who destroys 10 or more zombies before dying. At that ratio, the zombies lose.

Plus there's the wearing out of connective tissue issue. I don't believe that the non-repairing bodies of the undead would have connective tissue that endured for any substantial length of time.

[Mr.G]

Another factor that would complicate an effective response would be the emotional connection many would feel with infected and reanimated loved ones, like the mess in the apartment building in the original Dawn.

I really don't think I could blow off a family member's head with a gun but I see no issue with a knife/screwdriver/sword that would make me unable to do so.

I understand there is little logic there but the alternative helps me sleep at night.

[Zombie Snack]

I think you underestimate the realitive ease that the human race has for mass killings, look at just the last 100 years the attempted genocides that have taken place, because of political/racial/ethnic/religous differences. Look at all the wars that have been fought, there are countries at war somewhere in the world at any given times, men charging into battle, hand to hand combat, killing and being killed, over border disputes, political agendas, for freedom, for resources, or just to see who has the biggest peter. There are plenty of people who would not hesitate to kill a reanimated corpse that was trying to eat them. In a slow zombie situation i have no doubt that the military can and would stop it one way or another, if they couldnt stop the initial outbreak with standard military search and destroy recon missions there would be other options, to protect the entire living world from being lost to zombies i believe every military option could be used if needed, even nuclear.
In a romero style slow zombie outbreak, I just think the complete overwhelming defeat of the human race is not a possibility, sure a lot of people would die, but humanity would survive. Now for a 28 days later/fast zombie outbreak, I believe for the most part humanity would be fucked, there may be pockets of survivors but there would be so much nuclear fallout from all the countries world wide with nukes blowing up there neighbor countries that are infected to prevent the spread into there boarders, even possible nuclear bombs on a countries own soil to attempt to stop an apocolyptic fast zombie/viral oubreak..in a matter of hours/days..very short days the governments would be forced into total destruction of the infected areas to prevent world wide destruction...thats my thoughts anyways. peace

[Gemini]

So does everyone here agree that in GAR's world, the dead reanimate regardless of how they died; that they don't need to be bitten to be infected but that it must be something in the atmosphere which causes it to happen? This I believe was true even through LOTD where the dude who hung himself was reanimated; I don't believe he had been bitten he just commited suicide. The bites are deadly and will cause death, but death in any instance will result in reanimation.

As I said, if the plague was spread through bite only AND the zombies are slow (Max Brooks' vision) then I feel the outbreak would be repelled relatively easily.

[krakenslayer]

So does everyone here agree that in GAR's world, the dead reanimate regardless of how they died; that they don't need to be bitten to be infected but that it must be something in the atmosphere which causes it to happen? This I believe was true even through LOTD where the dude who hung himself was reanimated; I don't believe he had been bitten he just commited suicide. The bites are deadly and will cause death, but death in any instance will result in reanimation.

As I said, if the plague was spread through bite only AND the zombies are slow (Max Brooks' vision) then I feel the outbreak would be repelled relatively easily.

Yeah, in Dawn and Night "every dead body, that is not exterminated, gets up and kills", not just those that were bitten. In Day, the severed head of Pvt. Johnson, the soldier who died under gunfire in the corral scene, is later seen to be undead and active in Logan's lab. The suicide in Land and the homicide victims in Diary also back this up.

Anyone that dies, of any cause, becomes a zombie. There is something in the atmosphere, the electromagnetic spectrum, outer space, or within our bodies that is causing it to happen everywhere virtually at once. The confusion about bites is due to the fact that a zombie bite in Romero's films is almost always fatal, which "spreads" the problem by creating more zeds. The bite doesn't cause the zombie; the bite causes a dead body, which in turn becomes a zombie.

Now as to why a zombie bite is so dangerous, this (from Romero's own pen) sheds some light on one possible reason: http://forum.homepageofthedead.com/showthread.php?t=14640

[Gemini]

Yeah, in Dawn and Night "every dead body, that is not exterminated, gets up and kills", not just those that were bitten. In Day, the severed head of Pvt. Johnson, the soldier who died under gunfire in the corral scene, is later seen to be undead and active in Logan's lab. The suicide in Land and the homicide victims in Diary also back this up.

Anyone that dies, of any cause, becomes a zombie. There is something in the atmosphere, the electromagnetic spectrum, outer space, or within our bodies that is causing it to happen everywhere virtually at once. The confusion about bites is due to the fact that a zombie bite in Romero's films is almost always fatal, which "spreads" the problem by creating more zeds. The bite doesn't cause the zombie; the bite causes a dead body, which in turn becomes a zombie.

Now as to why a zombie bite is so dangerous, this (from Romero's own pen) sheds some light on one possible reason: http://forum.homepageofthedead.com/showthread.php?t=14640

That makes perfect sense. When you consider how many people die every minute on this planet (natural causes or otherwise) and the fact that each death would result in immediate attack of the living, it's easy to see how the plague could spiral out of control. In fact it equals the speed advantage zombies have in Dawn 04 and would create a crisis just as threatening.

The link was awesome, actually didn't know Romero could write like that. With the popularity of Brooks' books maybe GAR should throw his hat into the ring instead of making another movie that might be as weak as 'Diary'.

[Wyldwraith]

Wow,
So GAR is essentially saying that if you excise the bitten area within sixty to ninety seconds of the bite then the person lives?

Well damn, isn't that another big steaming heap dropped on the forehead of our sacred Canon. I mean, if you can handle it like a snake bite then it stands to reason that some researcher somewhere would figure this out if the undead phenomena went on long enough.

Interesting.
-----------

As for the zombie holocaust concept itself. I do agree that in the GAR zombie phenomena that WHATEVER is causing the dead to rise causes all brain/spinal cord-intact zombies to reanimate/rise.

To expound on an idea I mentioned in passing in a previous post, I believe that the notion of overall decay being the main enemy of the zombie's physical body is false. What is the zombie's worst enemy? Wear and tear.

A zombie is a dead body. Its cells do not repair themselves, and no element of its body maintains the autonomous maintenance & repair functions of the living human body. For the most part, and for quite some time in all but extreme environments this is mainly irrelevant. So much of the zombie's body is no longer useful or needed by the ghoul that the breakdown of this useless biomass troubles it not at all.

The problem arises in the basic physical structures required for motion. Cartilage which cushions the joints from damage by transmitted kinetic energy, or even simply acting against gravity to stand upright. Connective tissue of various kinds that serve to allow muscle and bone to work together in the performance of physical tasks, basic locomotion etc.

Then there are the muscles and bones themselves. While we're alive, each and every time we exert any part of our body physically we do a small amount of damage to muscle and bone. It's this biological principle that allows us to improve our musculature via exercise. First we damage/break down the muscle while exercising, then our bodies are spurred to repair the damage and increase the density of the affected strands of muscle, resulting in bigger/more powerful muscles after consistently repeated workouts.

The zombie's body does NOT repair muscle tissue broken down during its post-reanimation exertions. As certain as the apple which falls due to gravity's action upon it, the zombie's physique will inevitably and rather rapidly destroy itself simply by moving. First will come weakness in the muscles that have broken down, then the extremities will simply cease functioning. In fact, it would be a race between the connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, certain cartilage) drying out, or wearing down, before finally snapping, and the muscle fiber/strands of muscles in the limbs breaking down, wearing out and finally becoming useless/totally inoperative.

Not being an authority on orthopedics or the chronology of tissue breakdown, I'm not equipped to put a set deadline on how long a specific zombie might remain functional, but the basic fact of their non-healing natures guarantees that each zombie would have a relatively short window of potential activity before these breakdowns occurred. None of which even takes into account the potential problems facing those zombies who expired as a result of being fed on by one or more zombies. Besides the abdominal cavity, the flesh of the extremities is after all the next most likely target to feed on.

In the face of these factors, how are zombies supposed to last long enough to even come close to wiping out humanity?

Lastly, I indict the zombie's body due to the chillingly relentless behavior for which it is celebrated as a monster. We often talk about how a zombie will never stop trying to get at live humans once it becomes aware of them, but that very repetitive relentlessness of pursuit would only accelerate the physical breakdown of a ghoul shambling across countless miles in pursuit of fleeing humans, or smacking its limbs hundreds if not thousands of times against a transparent barrier, beyond which they can see warm humans.

Anyways, that's my view of why zombies lack the endurance to drive humans anywhere near extinction.

Thoughts?

[krakenslayer]

Wow,
So GAR is essentially saying that if you excise the bitten area within sixty to ninety seconds of the bite then the person lives?

Well damn, isn't that another big steaming heap dropped on the forehead of our sacred Canon. I mean, if you can handle it like a snake bite then it stands to reason that some researcher somewhere would figure this out if the undead phenomena went on long enough.

Well, it seems people had figured it out by the time of Day. Sarah pretty quickly dealt with Miguel's arm and seemed to think he had a slim chance of surviving (who knows what would have happened if he hadn't got himself killed).

In other situations, like in Land when Cholo gets bitten, it's likely that the victims and survivors immediately on-hand know they lack the tools and the skills required for a successful super-fast limb amputation, at least one that doesn't simply bring about an even slower and more agonizing death that still results in zombification.

Or maybe they city-dwellers didn't know; I mean, there were no research stations there that we saw and unless they knew to amputate within 60 seconds it's unlikely that they would have discovered this trick worked (it would naturally be a couple of minutes at least before anyone dared to try such a thing). Maybe Sarah believed it would work in theory because of her studies, the benefit of which the city-dwellers did not have.



As for the zombie holocaust concept itself. I do agree that in the GAR zombie phenomena that WHATEVER is causing the dead to rise causes all brain/spinal cord-intact zombies to reanimate/rise.

To expound on an idea I mentioned in passing in a previous post, I believe that the notion of overall decay being the main enemy of the zombie's physical body is false. What is the zombie's worst enemy? Wear and tear.

A zombie is a dead body.

Whoa, wait, stop, I have a theory on this. I think I might have mentioned it somewhere else on here too.

What is a dead body? It's a lump of meat in which all cellular, metabolic and autonomous mechanical action has stopped. Now clearly this doesn't fit the definition of a zombie. A dead body, by definition, does not walk around, or feel hunger, or chase people (never mind the higher thought processes of Bub and BD. Basically, it is inaccurate to call a zombie a dead body except in an artistic context. It has been a dead body, it is not a dead body any more.

There are clearly some chemical, electrical and metabolic processes happening inside, we can see these manifested in things as obvious as limb movement and basic co-ordination, and more subtly in breathing (even moans and groans) and the continued workings of the cardiovascular system (blood still spurts from their wounds, as if under vascular pressure).

I think we make the mistake of assuming that, since a zombie doesn't immediately need it's bloodflow, doesn't require a steady stream of cellular oxygenation, it doesn't have these functions in the first place. I would propose that zombies DO have these processes, albeit in a much more sluggish, imperfect form (so slow they can last ten years on one stomachful of food, like a reptile). Their hearts continue to beat (if they have them), their lungs continue to intake air (if they still have them), etc. etc.

If this was true, it would answer a number of questions:

1) Why zombies can last years without rotting away to nothing

2) Why blood spurts from them when shot and they are seen to breathe

3) Why Logan said they don't NEED any bloodflow, as opposed to they have NO bloodflow

4) Why some zombies from the same time frame have rotted much more than others (they have lost their heart/respiratory function to damage and their cells have begun to decay)

[Mike70]

Whoa, wait, stop, I have a theory on this. I think I might have mentioned it somewhere else on here too.

What is a dead body? It's a lump of meat in which all cellular, metabolic and autonomous mechanical action has stopped. Now clearly this doesn't fit the definition of a zombie. A dead body, by definition, does not walk around, or feel hunger, or chase people (never mind the higher thought processes of Bub and BD. Basically, it is inaccurate to call a zombie a dead body except in an artistic context. It has been a dead body, it is not a dead body any more.

There are clearly some chemical, electrical and metabolic processes happening inside, we can see these manifested in things as obvious as limb movement and basic co-ordination, and more subtly in breathing (even moans and groans) and the continued workings of the cardiovascular system (blood still spurts from their wounds, as if under vascular pressure).

I think we make the mistake of assuming that, since a zombie doesn't immediately need it's bloodflow, doesn't require a steady stream of cellular oxygenation, it doesn't have these functions in the first place. I would propose that zombies DO have these processes, albeit in a much more sluggish, imperfect form (so slow they can last ten years on one stomachful of food, like a reptile). Their hearts continue to beat (if they have them), their lungs continue to intake air (if they still have them), etc. etc.

If this was true, it would answer a number of questions:

1) Why zombies can last years without rotting away to nothing

2) Why blood spurts from them when shot and they are seen to breathe

3) Why Logan said they don't NEED any bloodflow, as opposed to they have NO bloodflow

4) Why some zombies from the same time frame have rotted much more than others (they have lost their heart/respiratory function to damage and their cells have begun to decay)

the zombies are also shown in several scenes to be salivating. that would strongly suggest that their digestive process is still at work even though they don't actually require nourishment.

which brings us to the real crux of the problem: how the fark are they operating without an energy source? their muscles clearly work and that requires a steady supply of oxygen, sugar, sodium, chloride and potassium. now if they don't require nourishment (hell some of them don't even have stomachs) where are things that keep their muscles working come from? what is enabling them to salivate?

in short, i think that none of what is presented in the movies makes the slightest bit of scientific sense. it is a contradictory mess. without the intake of certain elements (actually ions but i won't bore you with the specifics), muscles will not fire and saliva cannot be produced. hell, the simple production of saliva requires at least 6 elements (sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chlorine, iodine, bicarbonate and phosphate ions; a host of other proteins and enzymes are also required.

again, the idea that these things don't eat for nourishment is ludicrous when considered against what a body needs simply to move around.

add on: the part about not needing blood flow is nuts too in light of their obvious ability to move around. here we reach the ultimate scientific ridiculousness of truly "dead" zombies. to move around there has to be some mechanism delivering the required nutrients to muscle tissue.

[Wyldwraith]

That's my point,
In order to attempt to provide even the loosest of descriptions as to why a zombie wouldn't rapidly break down, one has to go back to making HUGE assumptions, to the point that Kraken is basically saying zombies are living humans with very low-level metabolic activity. (Don't believe that, was just providing the example)

I'll try to go point by point.
1) The infamous blood splatter from zombies subjected to severe trauma. If you look at the VAST number of examples where this alleged "blood flow" is present, you'll notice they are hits to head or extremity. In both cases, an until such times as the fluids completely dry out within what remains of the vascular system, this can be explained by the blood that pools within the scalp and extremities of a post-rigor cadaver.

1a) Basic forensics has a term to explain this phenomena. It's called Ballistic Spatter, and can be emitted even by cadavers that are violently traumatized in areas where blood has pooled.

2) Slowdown of decay rate as depicted by the later movies, ie: Day and Land. There's a MUCH simpler explanation for this than some form of weird & contradictory "undead bio-chemistry". In the absence of prey, many zombies simply remain motionless until such time as prey or an environmental cue that may indicate the presence of prey (such as a human voice being amplified and speaking continually over a bullhorn, ala the opening scene in Day, where we see the delayed-reaction swarming of zombies, or the lawn-ornament-like zombies encountered by the raiders at Land's beginning). If a certain % of zombies go months/years without any physical exertion, its more reasonable to believe these zombies would remain far more functional/mobile than ghouls that stayed on the move for the majority of the intervening months/years.

2a) As previously discussed, to believe in a zombie-type that doesn't fall apart within 10-14 days of rising, one MUST believe that *some sort of unexplained phenomena, of potentially a variety of sources* is retarding/impeding the basic decay process. Otherwise Kraken's limited-but-functional metabolic theory is automatically destroyed by a fact that any mortician can tell you about. In the absence of life, the relatively fragile tissues holding the intestines in their proper place break down, followed by a sooner rather than later rupturing of the abdomen due to the bulging of said intestinal mass against the abdominal wall/cavity, and the bloat which plagues the abdomen as gasses build up. Consistent short-term rupture of the abdominal cavity would destroy Kraken's theory otherwise as previously stated.

3) I just propounded on a long essay related to body wear and tear post-mortem, so I won't belabor the point further.

Not that it was a BAD idea Kraken. It has the value of at least sallying forth and attempting to defend GAR's work via an imaginatively creative stab at a logical cause for what we see of zombie conditions in the movies.

I stand by my assertion that whatever GAR may have envisioned, whatever flavor of zombie possibility you subscribe to, unless the ghoul body can somehow generate or absorb energy and maintain its physical infrastructure, the laws of physics, let alone biology say that the undead are perforce a short-term phenomena.

Of course this is just my .02. I am neither GAR nor a possessor of any sort of medical degree, just a guy with a pet theory trying to apply common sense to an imaginary movie monster subtype.

[Gemini]

I believe many of Max Brooks' ground rules can be used to fill in the gaps of GAR's dead world. For instance, in 'Complete Protection From the Living Dead' it was explained that microbes responsible for the breakdown and decomposition of dead tissue are repelled by the disease, which saturates the flesh of the zombie. This greatly decreases the rate of decay. I believe it was written that zombies would remain functionally mobile for 3 - 5 years depending on environmental conditions.

---------- Post added at 01:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:46 AM ----------

The same alien properties of this pathogen could be responsible for providing fuel for the reanimated tissue somehow; the science and physiology that are known by humans are useless to explain this condition because it outside the realm of our knowledge.

[Legion2213]

Regarding a few dick heads terrorizing train passengers, these scum are protected by law, people are generally afraid to step in when they see criminal scum rampaging around because they know that there are plenty of weasel lawyers out there who will do their best to criminalise the law abiding citizens who step in to defend their fellow citizens from these worthless filth...it would be pretty obvious that zombies were a different matter and folks would be far more likely to have a pop at them IMO.


.

[Wyldwraith]

No,
I just don't buy the notion that any pathogen, no matter how advanced, can provide the necessary energy to almost completely retard decay AND the energy required for movement, perceived sensory impulse transmission and processing, AND provide/distribute the biochemical resources required to repair or at least offset the constant damage being done to extremities, joints connected to those limbs and the related connective tissue.

The only feasible way it could work is if the zombies have some means of converting the flesh they consume into the necessary energy. The problem with that as a primary means of energy/resource intake & processing is the huge number of zombie attack victims that are disemboweled by the ghoul(s) that brought them down and fed on them.

I mean, zombies go for the belly and particularly the intestines they scoop out and devour the way lions go for the throat to choke their prey to death. Why would a pathogen or evolved biological process drive its hosts to engage almost invariably in a behavior that renders new hosts/converts incapable of storing the fuel they need to function?

It's a reach, but perhaps if the theories about zombies taking in the energy/fuel needed to continue functioning are valid, the ghouls might have developed processes to harvest those energies/resources that take place in the mouth instead of the stomach?

If they really are producing some sort of putrid drool that's responsible for their infectiously 100% lethal bite, maybe that drool functions primarily as many venoms do. As a form of pre-digestion like that used by spiders to liquefy the insides of insects before the spider sucks them out. Venomous snakes do likewise, beginning digestion with their initial strike.

If something similar is occurring in the zombie drool/saliva, then maybe they draw the required chemicals/nourishment directly through the tissues inside their mouths from the flesh they chew on. Maybe that's why they stick religiously to warm living flesh. The chemical process only works on tissues which still contain living cells/ample cellular energy, fresh proteins and uncorrupted enzymes.

If the venom/pre-digestion theory isn't your cup of tea, what about the processes that take place in living bodies exposed to hydrochloric and sulfuric acids? The acid primarily contacts skin, but significant exposure proves fatal because the acids leech calcium and potassium from the body at ever-increasing rates.

If the process is chemical instead of biological, then no specific organs would be needed to trigger the drawing out of the chemicals/energy. Again, they could be absorbed directly into the undead tissues inside the mouth, and transmitted to where the undead body needs them. Differences in acid and base levels could be what draws the chemical resources onward throughout the undead body as its tissues seek chemical equilibrium.

Just a couple ideas, but the best I could do at trying to view other theories about zombie physiology as valid. I still maintain that what energy the zombie body contains goes toward reanimation and keeping them functional until its exhausted after a short time and the body begins to break down because it cannot repair itself.

Still, I tried to keep an open mind and concocted my best speculations as to what might continue powering a zombie.

Regardless, slow shambling undead lack the ability to overwhelm us. Cause hideous numbers of casualties certainly, but their initial success would lead to dense concentrations of ghouls that can be dramatically thinned from the air, by artillery, or simply by tanks rolling over vast numbers of them and firing nasty fragmentation shells into concentrated masses.

In the post-9/11 world, military facilities have become well-practiced at the lockdowns sure to be ordered if zombies become numerous/widespread enough to cause significant civil disturbances. Even an incorrect initial assumption that what's happening are signs of bio-terrorism would have the benefit of consolidating police and securing military bases. At least some bases would be saved from early contamination or somewhat later overrunning.

One thing we NEVER see in the movies is enough military elements surviving to act effectively. What effect might even a few surviving divisions or air elements under the command of someone who's grasped the truth have?

Thoughts?

[Legion2213]

One thing we NEVER see in the movies is enough military elements surviving to act effectively. What effect might even a few surviving divisions or air elements under the command of someone who's grasped the truth have?

Thoughts?

This annoys the hell out of me, speaking for GAR films, I don't think he has any respect for the military (my opinion), they are always portrayed as useless (Dawn, Day) or untrustworty scum (Diary).

In Dawn 04 we get the impression that there is still *some* kind of functioning US military when we see that helicoptor fly over the mall.

The only zombie films that feature a fully intact and victorious military (to my knowledge) are "Shaun of the Dead" and "The Zombie Diaries"

Edit: 28 Days Later also runs with the "military are scum" theme as well.


.

[strayrider]

By my estimates, you need a minimum of 300,000 survivors to actually cover the planet in the way you need to. That's all of them actually doing so every waking moment of their lives, and living to be over 100 years old. And it would take their entire lives. Probably not fun.

A more reasonable situation would be at least 10 million survivors. They would still work near-constantly, but they'd be done in "only" about 5 years. 10-15 years if they do it realistically, only scouring and fighting about 10 hours a day, every day.

You need all ten million perfectly spaced in starting positions, and in constant, perfect coordination throughout, though. If not, you've got to add year to it.

How about ONE well-organized starting position of 10,000 survivors. They secure a rural area, set up an agrarian society, and slowly repopulate the planet over a 300-500 year period. Kind of like the expansion of Western civilization in the early period of American history.

http://blog.beefmagazine.com/beef_daily/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/northdakotacowboys.jpg

Let's assume that they have good breeding stock.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/0801/nfl.cheerleaders.divisional.playoffs/images/op51-23001-mid.jpg

"Ric'em rac'em ruc'em, take those gun and really...FIGHT!"

:D

-stray-

[Gemini]

Are we completely overlooking the Theological aspect here? Is everyone here Atheists?

[Wyldwraith]

I'm not,
However, the problem with introducing theological arguments into these debates are numerous. Here are the Top 3 Reasons its a *Bad Idea*.

1) A theological argument has as its foundation elements of "faith", in whatever form that loaded word/concept takes for you. The inherent problem there is that a persuasive or informative statement based upon the intrinsically unprovable nature of faith is a non-starter. By that I mean: How do you intelligently, reasonably, *non-offensively* respond to a statement that is unconfirmable, and has no elements that can be examined/critiqued by use of reason/logic.

2) To elaborate on the element of giving offense. Religion, or more specifically faith, is the ultimate social powder keg waiting to go BOOM when discussed, rationally examined and again, critiqued. This is inevitable when faith enters a discussion that a variety of different individuals are taking part in, because those participants come from a wide variety of walks of life, with each participant almost certainly cherishing a theological/philosophical position varying wildly from the positions of their fellow participants.

This specific issue is only compounded by the need for all of us here to remain within the boundaries of politely acceptable conduct. There's that old saying about not discussing religion or politics, due to the anger and heated conflicts that often arise from such conversations.

3) Lastly, and this goes partially back to reason #1. We like to get down to the nitty gritty and explore every potential detail/possible detail of the subject matter under discussion. These conversations/debates tend to center on the tangible details we draw from canon.

I mean no offense when I say that the intangible nature of religious/faith issues can cause offense faster than any issue I've ever seen.

------

As for the # of individuals, amount of equipment and necessary starting position(s) to beat back the undead and secure a significant amount of land upon which a community/communities can be established as foundation of the rebuilding effort...

I reject the feasibility, or even desirability of a worldwide-scale operation against the undead. Too much required manpower, firepower and other supplies to make it workable. Like the previous poster I'm all about locating a favorable conjunction of geographic features to give a survivor enclave being established the maximum chance of surviving against undead and hostile human threats, as well as granting logistical advantages (such as building around a large freshwater spring, or at the base of a mountain stream/river, where snow melt can augment water resources.

It's much more possible to purge a single geographical region than huge tracts of infested lands. Guess that puts me in the Wait Them Out camp. Build up a self-sufficient enclave that can act as a rallying point for scattered survivors to journey towards.

All this assumes that I'm wrong about military effectiveness. In light of all the veterans of urban combat that are also accustomed to coping with harsh and undeveloped environments, I maintain that even a sizable minority fraction of the military which survives to regroup somewhere is capable of eliminating literally hundreds of thousands of zombies with an economy of force deployed.

One could even take a page from WWZs Redecker Plan and manipulate zombie horde movements via baiting them into a desired position with a substantial number of human beings. It's harsh, but a couple thousand humans in trucks/military transports etc could draw zombies like flies to feces. If you can then anticipate where a large concentration of undead will be at a specific time, you need relatively little in the way of military ordinance to massacre them.

Lure a mass of zombies onto a bridge over a large drop then collapse the bridge, lure them into one of the literally THOUSANDS of towns in the US built dangerously close to and beneath sizable dams, then blow the dam. The opportunities are endless, and many potential operations that could yield six digits of destroyed zombies could be carried out by a couple dozen individuals from the Army Corps. of Engineers.

Worried about the vast numbers of zombies created when L.A is overrun? What about some carefully positioned and extremely oversized charges detonated deep in the San Andreas Fault? The Big One could do a thorough job of neutralizing the threat of the L.A zombies moving east en masse. The list goes on and on and on.

It's stuff like this that makes it impossible for me to believe the military would be helpless in the face of the undead. Take the simple and classic overrun roadblock so common in survival horror movies.

We see the hapless soldier doggedly firing their weapons into the center mass of zombies who continue getting up and moving forward until they overrun the troops amid screams and spraying of blood. The reality would be more like executed Failure to Stop drills. Two taps to the torso, 1 to the head. Which quickly leads these trained combatants to realize the headshots are doing the work. The vehicle-mounted .50 machineguns begin strafing the horde at average neck level, causing masses of ghouls to drop due to spinal cord damage and bullets that went a bit high into the heads. Multiple SAWs open up in a devastating storm of downrange lead, literally tearing bodies to pieces as the range closes. Claymores/Shaped charges are detonated, the concussive shock of which liquefies soft tissue and pulverizes bone, disabling God-only-knows how many zombies.

Thats just a couple of platoons worth of firepower. Completely unsupported by the nastier elements of mechanized infantry, pre-ranged artillery strikes, or (my personal favorite) the decades-old cry over the radio "BROKEN ARROW!" Which is essentially the descent of the fury of God Almighty on a specific area in response to fixed positions being overrun. Zombies are tough, but they're just tinder when the GPS-guided 5,000lbs JDAMS you can hit a toilet bowl with start to fall from 25,000 feet.

Again I say, the collateral damage would be hideous, but shamblers have no answer to a bloated/runaway military-industrial complex of the world's last superpower.

[SRP76]

Are we completely overlooking the Theological aspect here? Is everyone here Atheists?

What theologial aspect? Religion only affects how certain people would react to the dead. The zombies themselves are unchanged. They wil eat anyone in front of them, regardless of what that person believes or is doing at the time.

[Gemini]

What theologial aspect? Religion only affects how certain people would react to the dead. The zombies themselves are unchanged. They wil eat anyone in front of them, regardless of what that person believes or is doing at the time.

The aspect is, perhaps it is a higher being that is responsible for the reanimation and automation of walking corpses, in which case the condition would defy all science and logical reasoning ..perhaps the "when there's no more room in hell" quote could be a viable explanation.

And I say this with no leanings toward any particular faith.

[Rancid Carcass]

The aspect is, perhaps it is a higher being that is responsible for the reanimation and automation of walking corpses, in which case the condition would defy all science and logical reasoning ..perhaps the "when there's no more room in hell" quote could be a viable explanation.

I think this is the passage you're looking for:

"This is what the great LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with zombies. The Nile will teem with the dead. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. The living dead will go up on you and your people and all your officials. For you are getting too big for your britches trying to figure my shit out."

— Exodus 7:1–4: 2010: Redux

:D

[deadpunk]

The aspect is, perhaps it is a higher being that is responsible for the reanimation and automation of walking corpses, in which case the condition would defy all science and logical reasoning ..perhaps the "when there's no more room in hell" quote could be a viable explanation.

And I say this with no leanings toward any particular faith.

This is an interesting aspect of GAR's films. You never see a church. For all we know, holy water will dispel the effects of a bite and zombies can't encroach upon Holy Ground...

However, if that were the case, I think that survivors would have figured it out rather quickly and the movies would have been entirely different following Night.

We can logically assume that the holy rollers immediately ran to their nearest place of worship on the first night. (And personally, I think an old school Catholic Church would make for an ideal fortress, but I digress...) Had the religious aspect panned out for the saved, most people would have jumped on the Jesus Band Wagon and it would all be history.

[Wyldwraith]

Another reason not to like the "theological origin",
If God is causing hundreds of thousands of cannibal corpses to rise in one great wave worldwide then there is no hope, and no point even bothering to resist for five seconds.

Since the God of most monotheistic traditions tends to doom those who don't accept His/Their edicts to eternal damnation, we could actually end up arguing whether or not attempting to avoid being eaten by zombies would cause you to end up in Hell when you die, and THAT is NOT a conversation I see going well.

Why? One reason: Some folks will (reasonably enough) recoil in absolute revulsion from a God that demands His flock roll over and allow themselves to be eaten alive, OR ELSE. Those same folks are likely to say unflattering things about such a God, then some other wise-ass is going to bring up the Old Testament behavior of the Judeo/Christian God as they draw certain parallels.

Followed by a Holy Flame War erupting here. ::shudders::

All right, believe I detailed the crux of the reason that discussing whether or not the Divine sent legions of cannibal corpses after the living is a BAD IDEA. Your mileage may vary, but I sincerely doubt it.

[Gemini]

This thread got way, way, off topic.. so I'll try to boil it down here.

Max Brooks' zombie vision: infection spread only by bite, zombies slow shamblers

Human Extinction Threat Level: 6 (slow spread, easy extermination of zombies)

GAR zombie vision: all dead rise regardless of cause of death, bites spread the infection only in that they cause death, zombies slow shamblers.

Human Extinction Threat Level: 8 (quick spread, zombies easily exterminated but their numbers would swell much higher than in Brooks' vision before we could mount an effective response; this also would be a permanent threat and the entire world would need to learn to immediately destroy the brain of any deceased to keep the threat at bay)

DOTD 04 vision: infection spread only by bite, zombies fast and maniacal

Human Extinction Threat Level: 9.5 (quick spread due to viciousness and speed of outbreak, z's ranks would swell dramatically, difficult to exterminate due to their formidable attack; nuclear weaponry perhaps our only option)

Does anyone disagree with the above threat levels? Any other mainstream zombie scenario (save ROTLD) I am forgetting about?

[bd2999]

Really as far as zombie stuff 28 DAys Later is most likely because it just requires the disease to drive normal people insane and into killers. They are still alive so no worries about how to bring the dead back. It is spread through body fluids and so on.

I think as far as slow zombies not being able to spread something like an infection is not always true. You have to consider how personel this would be if the dead were return by whatever means. Families would die first, you cannot kill that it is your brother for example. Then they infect others and it goes on from there. Sure if you have a cool military response and gun them down at the start you can deal with it but just consider how fast things get out of hand and how long it would take for everyone to even realize what is going on. Then with the panic from that alone people would die all over and add to the numbers. The military would have issues with zombies regardless because they are not something you really set out to fight and head shots are harder than you would think on numerous foes.

The faster zombies would be more of a threat but even they can be dealt with if you deal with it fast. The problem is the initial state of panic is enough time for them to greatly increase their number and just tare through populations. If it is from one area you can always localize the starting point and lock it down. You have more of a problem if the dead are just starting to come back for no real reason. It is not localized, no area or disease to quaranteen or anything. Just one big mess because you can have it under control but it could flair up again any time and you can never be sure you got them all.

Not to mention how many people would probably just start kicking the bucket when you cannot get food at the store anymore. I doubt I could live in such a scnerio for sure. People are often more dangerous during any crisis let alone one that can be this personel.

[Mike70]

Really as far as zombie stuff 28 DAys Later is most likely because it just requires the disease to drive normal people insane and into killers. They are still alive so no worries about how to bring the dead back. It is spread through body fluids and so on.


true but that scenario makes zero sense as well. the infected in 28 days later are supposedly driven stark staring mad by a "rage virus", yet they don't attack each other. what are they unionized? the whole eating and drinking thing is equally ludicrous. the soldiers say they want to see how long it would take for one of them to starve to death. that is ridiculous because they would die from dehydration long, long before they ever got close to starving to death.

i guess what i am saying is that none of these entirely fictional scenarios makes even a little bit of sense.

[hadrian0117]

Well, that's a factor that you don't see in Zombie Flicks. In a Vampire or Werewolf flick, there's always somebody who steps forward and says: "I saw this in a movie, (X) defeats (Monster)."...

Well, the characters in The Return of the Living Dead were familiar with Night of the Living Dead "You mean the movie lied!" Not that it helped them.

It would be very hard to have a "genre savy" character in a Romero Living Dead film since Romero more or less started the genre as we know it. I've always assumed that they take place in an alternate universe where the idea of making movies about reanimated corpses the eat people never caught on. Max Brooks played with this idea. He never mentions Romero by name, but does describe "movie zombies" indentical to Romero's and points out how "real zombies" differ.

I've read fan fiction that plays with the idea too. I don't remember the title, but there's a story in the fiction section where a zombie outbreak takes place in the future that follows Romero's rules to the letter and a time traveler get's sent back to '60s to the set of NoLD to figure out why Romero was able to predict it so well.

It turns out Romero got most of his ideas from the time traveler.

[Gemini]

I'm not sure why 28 Days Later would even be a consistent subject in a zombie forum, considering it's not a zombie movie. Certainly inspired by Romero, but not a zombie movie.

[JDFP]

I'm not sure why 28 Days Later would even be a consistent subject in a zombie forum, considering it's not a zombie movie. Certainly inspired by Romero, but not a zombie movie.

Oh boy, here we go again. I agree with you completely that "28 Days Later" is NOT a zombie movie and does NOT have zombies, but this is another of those topics here that has been around the block more than Lindsay Lohan.

Haha, Gemini, I dig your jive, you're going to be fun around here...

j.p.

[Gemini]

Oh boy, here we go again. I agree with you completely that "28 Days Later" is NOT a zombie movie and does NOT have zombies, but this is another of those topics here that has been around the block more than Lindsay Lohan.

Haha, Gemini, I dig your jive, you're going to be fun around here...

j.p.


:cool:

[Wyldwraith]

@Geminin:
In regards to fast-moving zombies, why do you say nuclear weapons would be our best bet? As depicted in Dawn '04 fast-movers still tend to cluster, and any concentration of hostiles is highly vulnerable to air-to-ground weapons, bombs, artillery, TANKS etc.

If the fast-movers are spread solely by bite there must be an epicenter of the epidemiology. Even if they rise like GAR zombies from every recently dead, unsecured corpse, they're going to be concentrated in the major metropolitan areas.

Hell, why can't you simply deploy thermobaric devices and flash-incinerate everything short of reinforced concrete and tempered steel in a given area. We've had nasty devices capable of creating 2000 degrees+ F. infernos which last for 3-6 minutes since the late 70s/early 80s. To say nothing of simple napalm or white phosphorous.

I'm not normally a big believer in the "Burn 'Em" strategy, because it's remarkably difficult for civilians to strategically deploy incendiaries capable of human cremation in whole or part, but the military has a variety of nasty devices to do exactly that.

I mean, if you're willing to write off the city, how many wide-dispersion incendiary devices that can be delivered from either a couple hundred miles away or from 40-50,000ft up do you need to literally burn an entire city to the ground, or at LEAST raise the ambient temperature high enough to boil the brain inside the derma?

If we're really discussing feasibility of a global threat, it doesn't make sense to bypass the successes or failures of the harshest/most destructive measures employed by militaries being directed by ever more desperate politicians, staring at the red stain rapidly engulfing the map of their nation (indicating the vast amount of territory being lost to the Infected by the hour).

We live in an age of automated intelligence-gathering. It's no longer reasonable to assume our government would remain in the dark for long as to what was transpiring in its urban centers. Re-tasked satellites, overflights of UAVs, old fashioned recon flights...a lot has happened to America in the last decade to beat into the government's skull the need to speed its crisis response time.

How do we weigh these facts in our ideas/potential scenarios of what may transpire should the dead rise?

[Gemini]

@Geminin:
In regards to fast-moving zombies, why do you say nuclear weapons would be our best bet? As depicted in Dawn '04 fast-movers still tend to cluster, and any concentration of hostiles is highly vulnerable to air-to-ground weapons, bombs, artillery, TANKS etc.

If the fast-movers are spread solely by bite there must be an epicenter of the epidemiology. Even if they rise like GAR zombies from every recently dead, unsecured corpse, they're going to be concentrated in the major metropolitan areas.

Hell, why can't you simply deploy thermobaric devices and flash-incinerate everything short of reinforced concrete and tempered steel in a given area. We've had nasty devices capable of creating 2000 degrees+ F. infernos which last for 3-6 minutes since the late 70s/early 80s. To say nothing of simple napalm or white phosphorous.

I'm not normally a big believer in the "Burn 'Em" strategy, because it's remarkably difficult for civilians to strategically deploy incendiaries capable of human cremation in whole or part, but the military has a variety of nasty devices to do exactly that.

I mean, if you're willing to write off the city, how many wide-dispersion incendiary devices that can be delivered from either a couple hundred miles away or from 40-50,000ft up do you need to literally burn an entire city to the ground, or at LEAST raise the ambient temperature high enough to boil the brain inside the derma?

If we're really discussing feasibility of a global threat, it doesn't make sense to bypass the successes or failures of the harshest/most destructive measures employed by militaries being directed by ever more desperate politicians, staring at the red stain rapidly engulfing the map of their nation (indicating the vast amount of territory being lost to the Infected by the hour).

We live in an age of automated intelligence-gathering. It's no longer reasonable to assume our government would remain in the dark for long as to what was transpiring in its urban centers. Re-tasked satellites, overflights of UAVs, old fashioned recon flights...a lot has happened to America in the last decade to beat into the government's skull the need to speed its crisis response time.

How do we weigh these facts in our ideas/potential scenarios of what may transpire should the dead rise?

Good post, you made me think. When I said "nuclear" I was not being specific but referring to a broad spectrum of WOMD, which would be effective to combat a bite contagion due to the concentration at the source of the outbreak, like you said.

In a GAR universe the outbreak would be more uniform globally, mirroring civilian populations with clusters near hospitals, funeral homes, and morgues, not centralized enough to warrrant WOMD. In the GAR universe I could see low tech battles winning the war with trained marksmen foot soldiers or skyscrapers loaded with rifleman similar to what Brooks' touched upon regarding what Yonkers should have been. In the (GAR-inspired) Max Brooks' universe I see the Yonkers battle as completely realistic - air to ground weapons and shock and awe tactics would fail miserably due to the Z's durability and extremely narrow kill shot range - direct damage to the brain. We would need to go low tech with the shambling Z's and employ simple common sense purging methods.

The ferocity of the Dawn 04 zombies would not give us this luxury on the ground and would force us to resort to use of WOMD which fortunately would be made more effective because the plague would be heavily concentrated near its point of origin.

[Wyldwraith]

Good post, you made me think. When I said "nuclear" I was not being specific but referring to a broad spectrum of WOMD, which would be effective to combat a bite contagion due to the concentration at the source of the outbreak, like you said.

In a GAR universe the outbreak would be more uniform globally, mirroring civilian populations with clusters near hospitals, funeral homes, and morgues, not centralized enough to warrrant WOMD. In the GAR universe I could see low tech battles winning the war with trained marksmen foot soldiers or skyscrapers loaded with rifleman similar to what Brooks' touched upon regarding what Yonkers should have been. In the (GAR-inspired) Max Brooks' universe I see the Yonkers battle as completely realistic - air to ground weapons and shock and awe tactics would fail miserably due to the Z's durability and extremely narrow kill shot range - direct damage to the brain. We would need to go low tech with the shambling Z's and employ simple common sense purging methods.

The ferocity of the Dawn 04 zombies would not give us this luxury on the ground and would force us to resort to use of WOMD which fortunately would be made more effective because the plague would be heavily concentrated near its point of origin.

Excellent post,
Regarding ground operations versus fast-moving ghouls. I believe the key is airpower. Deploy units to elevated vantage points inaccessible from the ground (similar to Vietnam's Air Cavalry) to create kill-zones/crossfires. Employ precision-strike incendiaries and/or high-yield concussive charges to break up dense concentrations of hostiles, using ground troops to mop up stragglers.

The actual killzone of a zombie is relatively small, but there are a variety of ways to render zombies combat ineffective. Strafe em at knee level and headshot at leisure for example.

I agree that fast-movers limit viable options/avenues of response. Your post(s) got me thinking though. Will have to digest and get back to you with more well thought out response.

[EvilNed]

Not to mention how many people would probably just start kicking the bucket when you cannot get food at the store anymore. I doubt I could live in such a scnerio for sure. People are often more dangerous during any crisis let alone one that can be this personel.

This! Word! The food supply in todays modern society would diminish fast. Just think about it, this is the number one reason why even slow zombies could easily cripple todays world. It doesn't take a fast zombies to kill that truck driver that was supposed to deliver those eggs or whatever.

First off, let's take a look at some things: The military could organize, yes. But right now, in most countries, the military is organized for offense in the middle east. Very few countries keep armies at home for immediate strike against something like this. Sure we have the national guard and stuff like that, but even that would take a day or two to organize efficently against a threat like this. And just imagine the regular army. They wouldn't get pulled in and organized until the government started to realize that this outbreak might not be as easily contained as they thought. We're talking three or four days at the least. Possibly even a week!

During that week, the zombies would easily have managed to cripple smaller towns, and major cities would be in a state of complete havoc. Not only the zombies, but seeing as regular food shipments would cease, looting would begin amass once people started to realize that this is for real and there's no new food coming in. The shamblers are only part of the problem.

And in all that chaos, the zombies would multiply rapidly. Just imagine all those zombies that would spread out of hospitals all over. Even if it's just infected-by-bite zombies! They'd spill right out into the streets into the massive anarchy that would take place on the streets.

Now, if we're talking about Romero zombies, where anyone who dies becomes a zed head, then we're really fucked. All those people killed in lootings would get up and kill. And they in turn would get up and kill. The chaos would pretty soon evolve into a huge slaughter. And considering the non-existing food supplies many people, especially in the cities, would die off of starvation. And what does that create? More zombies. Hundreds of them, soon to be thousands.

Just look at Katrina... Where you had evacuation and preparation before the storm hit. You think you're gonna have the same luxuary in the case of a zombie attack? Not a chance. It'll be the same in any country really, it'll hit like a shit storm that won't go away. Nobody will be prepared for it... Unlike Katrina! And in Katrina it didn't really go as planned, did it? How can you possibly expect THIS to?

[SRP76]

Hospitals would burst with zombies. Once a few of them get into the patient areas, game over. A bunch of helpless people hooked up to electronics and various fluids, just lying there like a roast. They'll get bitten, chewed up, and otherwise maimed, then croak pretty quick. Five minutes later, the zombie population in the hospital has multiplied manyfold. Everyone wounded would go out real quick, because they will receive no care. The staff is too busy getting attacked to do anything.

Once they start pouring out, you've got a problem. This isn't fantasyland where the place has two doors. There are literally dozens of exit points to a hospital (if not hundreds), and many of them just give way to tunnels, skyways, etc. that lead to other buildings (like rehab centers). More meat, more buildings overrun, and no zombie has even seen the sunlight yet. After mass panic all over the medical block (or two; some of these medical plazas are absolutely sprawling), you get zombies popping out of the woodwork everywhere. In front, behind, beside...whole lot of death.

[Wyldwraith]

Hospitals would burst with zombies. Once a few of them get into the patient areas, game over. A bunch of helpless people hooked up to electronics and various fluids, just lying there like a roast. They'll get bitten, chewed up, and otherwise maimed, then croak pretty quick. Five minutes later, the zombie population in the hospital has multiplied manyfold. Everyone wounded would go out real quick, because they will receive no care. The staff is too busy getting attacked to do anything.

Once they start pouring out, you've got a problem. This isn't fantasyland where the place has two doors. There are literally dozens of exit points to a hospital (if not hundreds), and many of them just give way to tunnels, skyways, etc. that lead to other buildings (like rehab centers). More meat, more buildings overrun, and no zombie has even seen the sunlight yet. After mass panic all over the medical block (or two; some of these medical plazas are absolutely sprawling), you get zombies popping out of the woodwork everywhere. In front, behind, beside...whole lot of death.

Fair enough,
Just for example/edification though. I live in Florida. At Pensacola ALONE (discounting two National Guard airfields, and 2 more Air Force bases in the panhandle, + 2 in South Florida) There are at any time day or night eight to ten squadrons of F-18 Hornets, and a variable # (normally 1-2 more flights) of F-16s being hopped hither and yon in groups around the southeast. The F-16s I mean, the F-18s are based here. Beyond those are the classified numbers of bombers, air-to-ground attack helicopters, and a host of support infrastructure.

Just the jets that I named, assuming you can only get 1 in 4 armed, fueled and airborne are capable of flattening large portions of Atlanta, Savannah and Valdosta GA in a matter of a couple hours. Let's throw Tallahassee in for good measure. What major population centers are LEFT until you reach Panama City? That's the population epicenters of 1 metropolis, and 3 middling-sized cities just GONE. Everyone either dead or hopelessly trapped by geography. How? Ever tried traveling through Georgia or Florida without using bridges and I-75/275? You can't. Even on foot there are a substantial number of geographical boundaries to discourage movement.

I'm no authority on anywhere else. Not even terribly informed about my home area, but I know that much.

How hard is it to destroy the significant points of entrance/egress to large population centers, trap the population and callously leave millions to die, then fry their undead asses at your bombers' leisure?

Sure, my plan is downright quintessential EVIL mass-murder bordering on genocide, but why wouldn't it work?

[EvilNed]

It'd work if the airfield wasn't overrun. I'd wager alot of scared people would flock to any nearby military base. Probably bringing the infection with them, and spreading it inside. You'd probably see alot of that in the early stages of the outbreak. People not checking for who's injured or not.

There's really no way a military base would stay untouched for long. It'd be overrun way before anyone figured it was time to use a fighter jet to level some zed heads. Either the military let the hordes of desperate civilians in, and they starve to death inside (besieged) or are eaten up from within. Or, they don't let the civilians in. And the civilians try to break their way inside, in which case you're going to end up with a lot of "recently deceased" right at your doorstep, if you know what I mean.

[Wyldwraith]

It'd work if the airfield wasn't overrun. I'd wager alot of scared people would flock to any nearby military base. Probably bringing the infection with them, and spreading it inside. You'd probably see alot of that in the early stages of the outbreak. People not checking for who's injured or not.

There's really no way a military base would stay untouched for long. It'd be overrun way before anyone figured it was time to use a fighter jet to level some zed heads. Either the military let the hordes of desperate civilians in, and they starve to death inside (besieged) or are eaten up from within. Or, they don't let the civilians in. And the civilians try to break their way inside, in which case you're going to end up with a lot of "recently deceased" right at your doorstep, if you know what I mean.

Again fair enough,
Yet I think you're underestimating the kind of security hard-asses base security both at home and abroad have become. The U.S Military has been burned BADLY, but more importantly, REPEATEDLY for "doing the compassionate thing", and thereby costing more lives in the very near future than if they'd turned away those seeking entrance atm.

9/11, Oklahoma City, bombing of the Cole, a list of Embassy bombings longer than your leg. At what point do base security get the message that security protocols exist to save lives?

Let's say that I'm wrong though. Doesn't the D.H.S working in tandem with various military resources have contingencies in place for securing valuable military assets if a crisis is in the offing?

Ultimately, I believe this issue comes down to whether or not you believe the U.S Gov't/Military have learned & adapted from Katrina, 9/11, our experiences with hostiles overseas, and other domestic terrorism.

We know that there are Continuity of Government contingencies ready to go on a moment's notice. Doesn't it stand to reason that those plans require the safeguarding of military assets for later deployment?

Of course, I could be totally off-base, and such an unorthodox crisis could catch the folks in charge napping. It seems like its a question that won't/can't be answered unless/until it's put to the test.

Just my .02

[EvilNed]

I don't think this has anything to do with the US in particular. I just don't think the response time of any military would be quick enough if the threat actually came from within. And military bases WOULD get flooded by refugees (soon to be zombies in many cases) the world over.

Has nothing to do with it being the US or the UK or China or whatever. They've got their tanks pointed in the OTHER direction. And suddenly the zombies start popping up by the hundreds all over. And chaos ensues, etc. etc.

I'm sure, given the perfect conditions, the military could react. But when something like this hits the fan... I'd call it as far from perfect conditions as possible. There'd be confusion all around. Air striking zombies would mean killing lots of fellow citizens. I can see alot of people having a problem with that, for one. The long list of possible fuck ups is endless, really.

[Wyldwraith]

Wait,
Are you honestly making a friendly-fire argument against the U.S military? ROFLMAO. The guys whose commanders INVENTED the euphemisms "Acceptable losses" and (my favorite) "Situational Collateral Damage".

Out of the four armed conflicts the U.S military have fought, in fully 50% of them THEY killed more of their own than the ENEMY DID.

The average soldier might take exception with turning their weapons against their own people, but pilots are educated officers. If ANYONE controlling advanced weapons systems throughout the entire military could understand and accept the necessity of killing hundreds of thousands to save millions it would be them.

After all, how many combat pilots do you need to follow orders if they haul out the heavy hardware? Or what about all the subs roaming offshore with their enormous arsenals of nukes? No zombies on board them, and no way for refugees to interfere with them.

I'm NOT saying that blasting the country to pieces is the smart way to go. Just saying that I have difficulty believing that if you're willing to entertain morality-free possibilities, that zombies couldn't be beaten back from designated quarantine cordons that take advantage of local geography.

Yes, a great many assets and the bulk of our manpower is overseas, and still more assets can always be expected to be compromised in the event of large-scale civil disturbances of ANY sort.

The question then becomes what fraction of what remains do you need to do the job?

One other thing, I agree with the previous posters about the breakdown of civil order causing as many deaths (hence creating more zombies) than zombie attacks themselves initially. Just that I don't believe the breakdown will be comprehensive, and certainly not simultaneous.

For example: What about the small towns in the south with lots of gun-owning rednecks and VERY small numbers of initial zombies? You don't really need to know to shoot them in the head if 4 rednecks open up at 25-30 feet with 12-gauges loaded with double-ought buckshot or slugs aimed at the center mass. Two hits, three MAX will render a zombie non-mobile from even torso-aimed gunshots.

Or what about the unique military oddities scattered around the country, like Fort Knoxx? There's a massive military presence there 24/7/365 to protect the gold. And THEY *would* gun down a bunch of refugees who tried to rush their perimeter.

I'm not saying that you aren't going to lose 65-70% of territory within even the highly militarized nations. Of course you will. Just that we count the truly frightening power of a desperate military pulling out all the stops out way too easily in these debates sometimes.

[Gemini]

Hospitals would burst with zombies. Once a few of them get into the patient areas, game over. A bunch of helpless people hooked up to electronics and various fluids, just lying there like a roast. They'll get bitten, chewed up, and otherwise maimed, then croak pretty quick. Five minutes later, the zombie population in the hospital has multiplied manyfold. Everyone wounded would go out real quick, because they will receive no care. The staff is too busy getting attacked to do anything.

Once they start pouring out, you've got a problem. This isn't fantasyland where the place has two doors. There are literally dozens of exit points to a hospital (if not hundreds), and many of them just give way to tunnels, skyways, etc. that lead to other buildings (like rehab centers). More meat, more buildings overrun, and no zombie has even seen the sunlight yet. After mass panic all over the medical block (or two; some of these medical plazas are absolutely sprawling), you get zombies popping out of the woodwork everywhere. In front, behind, beside...whole lot of death.

Nice horror imagery :skull:

[EvilNed]

Wyldwraith, wether or not the US shoots down more of it's own than most other countries (statistics which I have not seen and cannot comment on, but I will tell you my commissar really perfected this doctrine at the battle of Stalingrad and it worked wonders!) we're still talking about thousands of US citizens getting missiles in their face. I'm not so sure that would be as easy to accept for most.

You also have to take into effect that by the time air strikes are ordered many pilots might have deserted to find their family or would have been consumed in the initial chaos. Again, the possibilities for any well-organized home defence to fuck up are endless. Remember, we're talking chaos and carnage on a global scale. The psychological effects would be enormous, and I'd imagine the desertions (and casualties) within the national guard, army and police departments would sky-rocket a few days after the outbreak started. Not because of bad or low morale, but because of the fact that most would probably want to try to be with, and protect, their families in times like these.

[Publius]

When you consider how many people die every minute on this planet (natural causes or otherwise) and the fact that each death would result in immediate attack of the living, it's easy to see how the plague could spiral out of control.

Not as many as you might think. About 8,000 per day in the U.S., compared to about 305 million living. And they tend to be the weakest and most decrepit people, often with seriously atrophied muscles and brittle bones. The healthier corpses are more likely to have died violently (e.g. in car crashes) and may have head trauma or spinal injuries that prevent reanimation. About one in four will be autopsied (preventing reanimation via removal of the brain) and many of the rest will be zipped into body bags and/or locked in morgue refrigerators very shortly after death. They'll do more useless thrashing around than attacking.

---------- Post added at 10:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:28 PM ----------


We see the hapless soldier doggedly firing their weapons into the center mass of zombies who continue getting up and moving forward until they overrun the troops amid screams and spraying of blood. The reality would be more like executed Failure to Stop drills. Two taps to the torso, 1 to the head. Which quickly leads these trained combatants to realize the headshots are doing the work.

Quite right. The rise in the use of body armor by criminals, terrorists and potential military adversaries over the past 10-20 years will have helped a lot in dealing with zombies, as police and military personnel get a lot more training in the use of head shots than in the past (when center mass shots were almost exclusively relied on in many training programs). I think it was 2005 when the Air Force switched over to using failure drills in their basic firearms qualification courses. Surely the Army and Marine Corps were well ahead of them.

---------- Post added at 10:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 PM ----------


Families would die first, you cannot kill that it is your brother for example. Then they infect others and it goes on from there.

In the old days people used to die at home and get laid out for viewing at home. That doesn't happen much anymore. Most people die in hospitals these days and (as noted above) are in a body bag or morgue fridge pretty quickly. If not laid out on an autopsy table with their brain in a pan.

---------- Post added at 10:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 PM ----------


Hospitals would burst with zombies. Once a few of them get into the patient areas, game over. A bunch of helpless people hooked up to electronics and various fluids, just lying there like a roast. They'll get bitten, chewed up, and otherwise maimed, then croak pretty quick. Five minutes later, the zombie population in the hospital has multiplied manyfold. Everyone wounded would go out real quick, because they will receive no care. The staff is too busy getting attacked to do anything.

Hospitals will be hit or miss. Like I noted above, just under 8k people die per day in the U.S. There are 6k hospitals. Some won't have any zombies to start with. Most will have a small handful. Half of them will be the bodies of people in their 80s with no teeth and broken hips. And hospitals are full of people trained to restrain people acting oddly without being bit or bled on (especially since the AIDS epidemic started). And it's really not that easy to bite someone to death, ROTLD depictions of zombies biting right through craniums notwithstanding.

So, a few hospitals won't have any zombies. Of those that do, some will descend into chaos quickly, but others won't. Some will restrain the tiny number of zombies without trouble and set to diagnosing them. Others will restrain the zombies with some nurses, orderlies and doctors suffering non-lethal bites, but then they'll have hours or days to figure out what's going on. And since plenty of zombies will be handily available for examination by top medical doctors from the get-go, it won't take long to figure that out.

[Wyldwraith]

>>>Hospitals will be hit or miss. Like I noted above, just under 8k people die per day in the U.S. There are 6k hospitals. Some won't have any zombies to start with. Most will have a small handful. Half of them will be the bodies of people in their 80s with no teeth and broken hips. And hospitals are full of people trained to restrain people acting oddly without being bit or bled on (especially since the AIDS epidemic started). And it's really not that easy to bite someone to death, ROTLD depictions of zombies biting right through craniums notwithstanding.

So, a few hospitals won't have any zombies. Of those that do, some will descend into chaos quickly, but others won't. Some will restrain the tiny number of zombies without trouble and set to diagnosing them. Others will restrain the zombies with some nurses, orderlies and doctors suffering non-lethal bites, but then they'll have hours or days to figure out what's going on. And since plenty of zombies will be handily available for examination by top medical doctors from the get-go, it won't take long to figure that out.<<<

This,
I've always wondered how the confusion about whether zombies are screwed up/diseased/drugged live people, or reanimated corpses persists for any length of time given how quick CDC RRTs arrive on scene and begin securing infected subjects of the epidemic at hand in order to begin the preliminary round of tests as step 1 in the process of getting a handle on what is happening.

For example, when TWO cases of Bubonic Plague showed up in New Mexico in 1997 the CDC had a full team of epidemiologists/forensic pathologists and MDs who specialize in Communicable Disease there in 36hrs. The other half of this process is that the CDC nearly always works hand-in-hand with National Guard units when the potential exists for public panic/unrest. Southern California and the isolated Hanta outbreak that affected TWO merchant marines and five or six medical personnel merited a mandatory county-wide curfew and a four block quarantine cordon surrounding the hospital. (Though that was more about keeping people from getting in than out, and to prevent interference with the teams working to pinpoint the primary vector of the virus once they'd determined there was a possibility that at least two of the infected orderlies might've been exposed outside the hospital, where they'd been working with hospital maintenance.

My point is that there is substantial precedent/reason to believe that there WOULD be relatively immediate and in-depth medical examination of infected subjects through all phases of the disease. That being the case, unless the D.H.S or State Dept. decided to classify the CDC findings, I don't consider it reasonable to believe that the medical community wouldn't rapidly establish the nature of their end-stage subjects. Ie: Reanimated Corpses. Even if disbelieving doctors tried to cling to some half-assed theory that the disease was causing a massive slowdown of the metabolism to account for the non-existent heartbeat & respiration, the brainwave results are impossible to ignore. They'd be looking at brain activity in the Limbic Center, portions of the Motor Cortex and the area of the brain responsible for processing sensory information, but the total/near-total lack of activity in other areas would indicate the patient should be comatose, not visibly agitated and highly responsive to sensory stimuli.

At the very least, the VERY VERY least, the results would be so frighteningly contradictory in the way they flew in the face of conventional medical wisdom that the CDC would hit the panic button and be screaming for maximum containment.

None of which IMO seems conducive to perpetuating the denial-based concept that the zombies are merely living victims of bio-terrorism or some sort of drug that renders them psychotic.

That said, I DO believe that the gov't is likely to try and keep a lid on this discovery due to their obsession with avoiding public panic. (Don't understand why it would be better to let people believe their neighbors were drugged psychotics with severe metabolic issues, but it seems to be the government's trend.)

Have other ideas about this, but they belong in a different thread.

[EvilNed]

36 hours is plenty of time for zombies to multiply. Too much time, infact. The problem with zombies vs. regular diseases is that zombies... multiply and are much more dangerous. I don't trust doctors knowledge of how to restrain people because, and let's face it, zombies ARE stronger than your average sick patient.

A zombie is naturally stronger, seeing as it doesn't have nerves and pain holding it back. No doctor would be able to restrain a zombie without getting so much as a scratch. It's unrealistic. Zombies are dead. Zombies have no mental restrictions. Zombies are stronger. They ARE going to bite doctors and nurses, that's just the way it is. No hospital is safe. I disagree on the hit and miss case. Even people who died as frail and weak can awake as zombies anew and have no mental restrictions whatsoever. They'd get any doctor who approached them.

[Gemini]

36 hours is plenty of time for zombies to multiply. Too much time, infact. The problem with zombies vs. regular diseases is that zombies... multiply and are much more dangerous. I don't trust doctors knowledge of how to restrain people because, and let's face it, zombies ARE stronger than your average sick patient.

A zombie is naturally stronger, seeing as it doesn't have nerves and pain holding it back. No doctor would be able to restrain a zombie without getting so much as a scratch. It's unrealistic. Zombies are dead. Zombies have no mental restrictions. Zombies are stronger. They ARE going to bite doctors and nurses, that's just the way it is. No hospital is safe. I disagree on the hit and miss case. Even people who died as frail and weak can awake as zombies anew and have no mental restrictions whatsoever. They'd get any doctor who approached them.

Exactly.

Not only would a newly reanimated corpse not feel any pain from a prior medical condition, their primordial instinct to feed is so strong they they reanimate in a frenzy: pure, motorized instinct, employing every last stitch of mobility left in the physical body.

A key factor here, which would affect all of the scenarios speculated above, is down time between death and reanimation. Would a corpse have time to be thrown in a body bag or autopsied or would it attack within moments?

I'm sure this is an ongoing discussion but is there a consensus for down time between death and reanimation?

[Publius]

A zombie is naturally stronger, seeing as it doesn't have nerves and pain holding it back. No doctor would be able to restrain a zombie without getting so much as a scratch. It's unrealistic. Zombies are dead. Zombies have no mental restrictions. Zombies are stronger. They ARE going to bite doctors and nurses, that's just the way it is. No hospital is safe. I disagree on the hit and miss case. Even people who died as frail and weak can awake as zombies anew and have no mental restrictions whatsoever. They'd get any doctor who approached them.

Yeah, maybe. Not sure I buy that an 80-something year old grandma who died after a couple months in a hospital bed is going to harder for hospital staff to restrain than a 21-year-old gangbanger flipping out on PCP. Zombies are beyond homicidal and not deterred by pain, but their reaction time is slowed and they don't seem particularly strong based on the movies. With few exceptions like scenes where they rip a human body in half, which are clearly ridiculous and just an excuse for gory special effects, and involve large numbers of zombies anyways. I acknowledged that some medical personnel will get bitten, surely bitten a lot more often than dealing with your typical batshit crazy ER patient, but not bitten in all cases. In some cases they'll get things locked down quickly. In cases where someone is bitten, there's a good chance they won't be bitten to death. In which case the zombies will still be secured and they'll have several hours or even a couple days to assess the situation before the injured personnel are a threat.


A key factor here, which would affect all of the scenarios speculated above, is down time between death and reanimation. Would a corpse have time to be thrown in a body bag or autopsied or would it attack within moments?

The question is how many bodies will be available when reanimation starts. I mentioned 8,000 deaths per day recently. But those are obviously spread out over the course of a day. If a body is typically bagged or locked in a fridge drawer within, say, 6 hours, that means only 2,000 of the dead from the previous 24 hours are "unsecured" at any particular time. The rest will be thrashing around inside body bags, pounding on the ceiling above their fridge drawer, etc.

[EvilNed]

I go by the movies, and as you said, the zombies seem to be stronger in the movies. And the situations when zombies are stronger in movies are when they are closer to meat. I think their instict would kick in harder the closer they get to their food, and their prying hands would be tougher to get off ya than that of a dobermans jaws!

[SRP76]

The rest will be thrashing around inside body bags, pounding on the ceiling above their fridge drawer, etc.

That helps zombies even more. There is not one person on the face of the planet that can ignore a flopping bodybag. You WILL open it. And get a very unpleasant surprise.

[Publius]

I go by the movies, and as you said, the zombies seem to be stronger in the movies. And the situations when zombies are stronger in movies are when they are closer to meat. I think their instict would kick in harder the closer they get to their food, and their prying hands would be tougher to get off ya than that of a dobermans jaws!

Maybe I'm biased by the fact that NotLD '68 is my favorite and the one I've seen most, followed by Dawn. Day is a bit different in that respect. But it seems that in the earlier movies, the zombies are pretty darn slow and not much of a threat unless you're swarmed, get taken by surprise through recklessness (like Roger in Dawn), or just don't resist (like Helen in Night). Their instinct kicking in due to being close to food doesn't keep Barbara from pushing past a whole bunch of them pretty easily. And consider the interview with the police chief:


Reporter: Chief, if I were surrounded by six or eight of these things, would I stand a chance with them?

Chief: Well, there's no problem. If you had a gun, shoot 'em in the head, that's a sure way to kill 'em. If you don't, get yourself a club or a torch, beat 'em or burn 'em, they go up pretty easy.

. . . .

Reporter: Are they slow-moving, Chief?

Chief: Yeah, they're dead, they're . . . all messed up.

Even so, like I said, even when someone is bitten they're not likely to be killed immediately unless swarmed. Pretty much the only place you can bite someone and kill them within seconds is the throat, and you've gotta do a lot of damage at that. A single zombie would have to be pretty lucky to rip someone's throat out. Otherwise immediate medical attention (which you'd have in the hospital) would probably be able to keep most bite victims alive for a while. They're pretty good at keeping people with traumatic injuries alive these days. And that's key to buying the hospital some breathing room.

---------- Post added at 05:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:28 PM ----------


That helps zombies even more. There is not one person on the face of the planet that can ignore a flopping bodybag. You WILL open it. And get a very unpleasant surprise.

AFTER getting attacked by and restraining the few not in body bags? Imagine a largish hospital with 5 or 6 bodies on hand. At least one's probably been autopsied and not a threat. One or two may still be in their hospital bed or the OR or on a gurney when they reanimate. The rest will probably be in the fridge. After the hospital staff restrain the one or two unsecured ones, think anybody's going to be opening morgue drawers without a lot of care and backup?

[SRP76]

AFTER getting attacked by and restraining the few not in body bags? Imagine a largish hospital with 5 or 6 bodies on hand. At least one's probably been autopsied and not a threat. One or two may still be in their hospital bed or the OR or on a gurney when they reanimate. The rest will probably be in the fridge. After the hospital staff restrain the one or two unsecured ones, think anybody's going to be opening morgue drawers without a lot of care and backup?

Of course they will. After an attack, the whole area will be full of people who don't know what the hell just happened (whose instinctive reaction is "hey, this guy's still alive!"), and the people who got attacked will be in the process of getting removed/fleeing the scene. It's not like you get attacked by a zombie, survive, then simply go about your job, while nobody else shows up.

Then there's the fact that there will be no putting down the first couple zombies without a massive bloodbath in the first place. They don't have to beat people down, they only have to bite someone. A LOT harder to stop someone from biting you than people seem to think. If you're close enough to "restrain" one, you're close enough to get chomped. With all the general noise and calls for help, there will be more and more bodies packing the space, causing more people to get caught out of perfect position, and being bitten. And the big issue is that a zombie "bite" is more than that; it isn't simple. It's more of a "tear a large chunk of your flesh off your body" deal. Lots of blood, lots of screaming in agony, and immediate letting go of the ghoul by anyone who has this happen to them. You get your forearm ripped away, you will let him go, guaranteed. This allows him to snag someone else who's groping for him in an attempt to "restrain" him.

The more people who try to "help", the worse it will get. Because not only will people be getting in each other's way, causing more injury and mauling, but this will lead to panic. And once that panic starts getting around, forget it. People who aren't even in direct danger will cause a whole extra level of trouble when the screaming and stampeding starts.

[Wyldwraith]

I go by the movies, and as you said, the zombies seem to be stronger in the movies. And the situations when zombies are stronger in movies are when they are closer to meat. I think their instict would kick in harder the closer they get to their food, and their prying hands would be tougher to get off ya than that of a dobermans jaws!

That *can't* be our standard,
If it is, our Last Best Hope will be a retrovirus-modified hottie in a red minidress.
If we're going to discuss these topics at all, there has to be a basic respect for the immutable laws of physics.

80lbs wasted-away seniors who just died after a protracted fight with cancer simply CANNOT under ANY circumstances be stronger than 200+lbs orderlies trained to restrain criminals amped up on adrenaline + trauma-released endorphins + crystal meth/PCP.

Yes, a complete insensitivity to pain and a total disappearance of the physical safeguards built in to prevent major injury due to overexertion WILL allow a given subject to perform greater initial feats of strength than the same body if it was alive and functioning as a regular human being. Only makes sense.

HOWEVER, what does NOT make sense is ignoring the Laws of Thermodynamics. You know, those immutable things that have been governing the rate of universal expansion, the gravitational constant of the universe, the principles of inertia and momentum?

To make it clearer. Let's say that Subject A is a Living 90lbs 80yr-old woman with significant muscle atrophy and loss of mass due to prolonged amounts of time laying in a hospital bed suffering the ravages of end-stage cancer. We will for arguments sake give Subject A a Strength Rating of 2/10.

Subject B is a 225lbs 25yr-old male orderly. Not a major health buff, but we'll say he plays some pickup basketball/touch football on the weekend, or goes to a gym 3-4hrs/week. Strong enough to do his job as an ER orderly without a major incident that would get him fired (such as allowing a patient he was restraining to seriously injure a nurse or doctor, exposing the hospital to major liability). We'll give him a Strength Rating of 6.5/10

Subject C is the zombie equivalent of Subject A. 80yrs old, 90lbs, muscle atrophy. She/It has no capacity to feel pain, and her built-in safeguards against overexertion are gone. She exists only to attack and feed upon living human flesh of any target she can get her hands on and teeth into. For 0% pain and 0% overexertion safeguards we'll give the Zombie Pathogen the EXTREME benefit of the doubt and TRIPLE the Strength Rating she had while alive. Giving her a 6.0/10

Subject D is a 2nd Male Orderly, of exactly the same dimensions/activity level as Subject B. 25yrs old, 225lbs, Strength Rating of 6.5/10

Scenario: Subject A expires amidst a Code Blue instigated by the flatlining of one of more vital attributes (Heartbeat or Respiration, which of course will cause the other to fail as well momentarily). 2-3 Nurses, 1 Doctor, 1 Physician's Assistant are attempting to resuscitate her, 2 Orderlies are standing by, ready to perhaps wheel her bed to the elevator and up to an operating room should the doctor find it needful.

Subject A dies, reanimates, becoming Subject C. She opens her eyes, snaps bolt upright in bed, momentarily shocking everyone motionless because the monitors STILL ATTACHED are still blaring the Flatline Warning Tone. Subject C launches herself at the nearest target, the nurse who was operating the hand-pump oxygen mask being held over her face until a second ago. Subject C sinks her teeth deep into the forearm of Nurse-1, who has instinctively adopted the defense posture and thrown her arms up in front of her face. Subject C rips a mouth-sized chunk of flesh out of the screaming and bleeding Nurse-1s arm, takes a moment to chew/swallow, then goes in for another bite.

Doctor-1 reacts, screaming "ORDERLIES! RESTRAIN THE PATIENT!"

Subjects/Orderlies B & D recover from their momentary surprise at seeing a flatlined elderly woman pounce on a nurse and jump forward to obey the Doctor's order. Trained to deal with violent patients, they employ said training to quickly overpower and strap down the rabidly thrashing undead woman.

Conclusion: While the undead condition would in fact augment the physical capabilities at the zombie's disposal, there is an upper limit to the benefit of pain insensitivity and the ability to exert muscles at 150% of safe tolerance. A living human being of sufficient size and strength, not to mention greater coordination and the ability to utilize acquired skills to gain leverage, could in fact overpower many zombies without being bitten.

Note: MANY of the individuals in grave enough condition to be near death will be intubated or have oxygen masks held in place over the mouth and nose by a simple elastic band running around the back of the head. These individuals, should they expire, will in all likelihood end up restrained before the zombie can discover a simple brute-force means of removing the mouth obstruction preventing them from biting.

I gave the dead woman in this hypothetical massive benefit of the doubt, and FAR more strength than I believe she could bring to bear, but logically it still isn't enough to overpower a good-sized Orderly who restrains violent/uncooperative patients who could cripple themselves if allowed to continue moving/thrashing as part of their regular duties.

I also gave her the logical element of surprise, which resulted in the closest individual becoming infected, but the zombie's own singleminded nature makes it likely it would continue attacking their first target unless or until another target got closer than the original target. The zombie isn't going to bite one chunk out of one person, then ignore them and bite another, etc etc etc. They're going to doggedly stay after the first target to give up the sweet flesh unless that target becomes more difficult to access than a new target.

A previous poster mentioned there are 8k deaths in the US per day. Wouldnt a very high percentage of these be the very old and very young, dying of natural causes?

[EvilNed]

Put it this way...

Any HUMAN, non-zombie, druggie comes into a hospital. He grabs a nurse, but is restrained. He let's go.

Now, imagine if that was a zombie in his place. That zombie is not going to let go until either the skin that he's grabbed tears off from his victim, or the same thing happens to his hand. It's not as if this zombie is psychologically going to "give up" when he's overmanned. He won't give up until he's had a taste of that flesh.

I think a lot of people here assume to "little" of zombies. One single zombie might be slow, yes, but he'd be much stronger than your average human being because of his non-existing mental barriers. A zombie will not let go. The doctors and nurses WILL get bit. It would also be a cascade of things. Any hospital that is not instantly hit by the zombies will be in a day or two when the shit has really hit the fan and the injured are piling up in line to see a doctor.

The hospitals that do not fall within the first few days are just building up for an even bigger massacre down the road.

[Publius]

Then there's the fact that there will be no putting down the first couple zombies without a massive bloodbath in the first place. They don't have to beat people down, they only have to bite someone. A LOT harder to stop someone from biting you than people seem to think. If you're close enough to "restrain" one, you're close enough to get chomped.

Doesn't seem that hard in the movies. Someone who is grabbed instinctively tries to keep the zombie's mouth away from their body until they can break free. You generally get bitten if (a) there's too many to handle at once or (b) one takes you by surprise from an unexpected direction (like Roger). In a hospital (a) is very unlikely at first, and (b) will probably work once if at all. So you get one bite victim with immediate medical attention and several hours minimum until you have to worry about him.

Plus, in the movies (correct me if I'm wrong, please) you don't see zombies reanimate and immediately lunge at people. To the contrary, they seem slowest immediately after reanimation, as though it takes a while for the virus to get the body "revved up." Roger, for example. This has been advanced as a reason why the zombies in Night seem slower and easier to evade than the zombies in the later movies, and makes a lot of sense to me: zombie activity levels would be on a curve, ramping up fairly quickly at the beginning, then slowly declining over months or years (depending on climate etc.).


Now, imagine if that was a zombie in his place. That zombie is not going to let go until either the skin that he's grabbed tears off from his victim, or the same thing happens to his hand. It's not as if this zombie is psychologically going to "give up" when he's overmanned. He won't give up until he's had a taste of that flesh.

I think a lot of people here assume to "little" of zombies. One single zombie might be slow, yes, but he'd be much stronger than your average human being because of his non-existing mental barriers.

We ARE all talking about Romero zombies, right? Where in the movies does a single zombie grab someone hard enough to tear their skin off? There may be a couple I'm not thinking of, but for every one there's dozens of examples of someone shaking loose from a zombie's grip. What about the quotes from Night I gave above? I think you are assuming too much of zombies given what we actually see of them in the movies.

---------- Post added at 06:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:37 PM ----------


I also gave her the logical element of surprise, which resulted in the closest individual becoming infected, but the zombie's own singleminded nature makes it likely it would continue attacking their first target unless or until another target got closer than the original target. The zombie isn't going to bite one chunk out of one person, then ignore them and bite another, etc etc etc. They're going to doggedly stay after the first target to give up the sweet flesh unless that target becomes more difficult to access than a new target.

Exactly. To the extent that a zombie will have the element of surprise and superhuman grip strength, it will try to keep gnawing on that nurse's bleeding arm, while other personnel are able to grab it (having just had an object lesson in the importance of avoiding its teeth) and strap it down. Then they will treat the victim's injuries. Once the victim starts showing signs of a bizarre infection, he or she will be quarantined and probably won't be a threat any longer.

[EvilNed]

We see Zombies tear limbs apart with no real apparent struggle, and they rip bellies wide open on a regular basis. All without too much of a strain. I'd say they're very, very strong!

[Publius]

We see Zombies tear limbs apart with no real apparent struggle, and they rip bellies wide open on a regular basis. All without too much of a strain. I'd say they're very, very strong!

A single zombie? All the examples of such feats that I can think of involve several zombies teaming up on one person.

[EvilNed]

True, you're right there, but look at them, it's not really as if they stand there pulling for minutes at end. And try go ahead and biting someone. It's gonna take awhile until you can take a chunk. Even in Dawn this seemed to be relatively easy for a zombie. That afro-zombie took a chunk out of his wife without any problems whatsoever.

[Publius]

True, you're right there, but look at them, it's not really as if they stand there pulling for minutes at end. And try go ahead and biting someone. It's gonna take awhile until you can take a chunk. Even in Dawn this seemed to be relatively easy for a zombie. That afro-zombie took a chunk out of his wife without any problems whatsoever.

And yet a lot of the zombies seem barely able to walk without falling over. A paradox. Maybe the strength of zombie muscles varies according to proximity to the brain, so jaws are the strongest. ;)

[SRP76]

Another problem that gets overlooked here is the issue of vanishing ghouls.

I don't mean zombies with invisibility powers. I mean dead bodies that get up before you know it. Like this:

Some gangbanger gets shot up at 2 AM in the slums. His buddies and assailants take off doing their thing across the neighborhood, leaving Willy Deadguy lying on the sidewalk. Some people in the 'hood call the cops, paramedics, etc., then start rubbernecking.

Before much of a crowd gets out into the street, 2 minutes have passed. Since people don't want to risk getting shot up, you might not have anyone going out to the body at all. By this time, Willy Deadguy gets up. This is long before any police or ambulance arrives; it'll take them at least 3 more minutes.

Two things can happen:

1. Some rubbernecker gets attacked. The few people out there freak at the sight of a dude getting chewed up, and run back inside. Even if they don't, the panic itself will gather more attention than the ghoul. Lost in the shuffle, Willy Deadguy wanders off after one of the running rubberneckers.

2. Nobody's out there yet, and Willy Deadguy aimlessly wanders off.

At this point, "THE AUTHORITIES" arrive, and find concerned citizens, scared people, maybe a bitten victim...but no Willy Deadguy. Where'd he go? Oh, shit.

This kind of thing can become a really huge problem. Battling a zombie or group of them is bad enough; not knowing where the hell they are, and fumbling about a city block trying to locate one without getting sneak-attacked can be a lot worse.

[Gemini]

Just watched Dawn again. What a horror epic and classic.

But what a horrific soundtrack and several scenes so cheesy they made me cringe (Rambo at the end, nurse zombie anyone?)

Anyway, let's boil this thread down with a simple vote:

Who here thinks that should the dead rise (according to GAR rules) they would pose a realistic threat to drive us to the point of extinction? Conversely, who thinks the problem would be contained and dealt with?

[Wyldwraith]

Put it this way...
Any HUMAN, non-zombie, druggie comes into a hospital. He grabs a nurse, but is restrained. He lets go.
Now, imagine if that was a zombie in his place. That zombie is not going to let go until either the skin that he's grabbed tears off from his victim, or the same thing happens to his hand. It's not as if this zombie is psychologically going to "give up" when he's overmanned. He won't give up until he's had a taste of that flesh.

I think a lot of people here assume to "little" of zombies. One single zombie might be slow, yes, but he'd be much stronger than your average human being because of his non-existing mental barriers. A zombie will not let go. The doctors and nurses WILL get bit. It would also be a cascade of things. Any hospital that is not instantly hit by the zombies will be in a day or two when the shit has really hit the fan and the injured are piling up in line to see a doctor.
The hospitals that do not fall within the first few days are just building up for an even bigger massacre down the road.

Going to take this response point by point:

1) You contend the zombie will not release its initial victim. Answer: It doesn't have to. Each time it comes up with a mouthful of flesh it provides an opportunity for others to pull it off its victim and restrain it.

1a) SRP says that many people will inevitably be bitten trying to restrain a zombie. I contend that the following is more likely. The zombie wants to do 2 things to its victim. Bite off and consume mouthful after mouthful of warm human flesh, and grasp the victim to prevent them from fleeing.

Therein lay the key to how a zombie ends up restrained without multiple people being bitten. As I stated above, at regular intervals the zombie's mouth will be off the victim's body as it chews and swallows. That leaves the two arms grasping the victim. The most straightforward way to rescue the person being attacked and simultaneously restrain the attacker you now know *for whatever reason* wants to eat the flesh of the person it attacked is for two people to grab an arm each at wrist and elbow *on a coordinated cue*, and then pull the arms out wide and completely straight as each pulls backward and to one side with sufficient force to keep the zombies arms straight and to pull it backwards and away from its victim.

How can it bite anyone else? With its arms held out as far to each side as they'll go, and forcefully enough to keep them like that, the zombie's jaws can't reach either of the pair holding its arms, or anyone else unless you believe it can drag both men holding it forwards.

At that point all that needs to be done is for someone to slip in from behind and pull something that can be firmly tied muzzle-like over the zombie's mouth.

Just because this infected person just took a chunk out of someone doesn't mean medical staff who see gore, hideous injuries that would give most of us nightmares for months, and some really horrible stuff on a regular basis are going to freak out and just stand there while a patient "in the middle of a psychotic break" continues to rampage.

2) Exactly how is *This zombie* going to bite more than one, TWO people MAXIMUM before being restrained? Also, what leads you to believe these bites are likely to be fatal wounds rather than serious gashes that are readily stitched up or dressed?

The whole idea that hospital staff have to have been personally on-scene to witness a zombie attack before they become wary of what's happening in the hospital is a LOAD OF B.S that ANYONE who's either worked or had a protracted stay in a hospital knows.

Info spreads LIGHTNING FAST among the hospital staff. Anything unusual/of interest will be grapevined all over the hospital in minutes. Gossip is a primary coping method and part of the esprit de Corps uniting the hospital staff. You can be SURE that if a patient seriously/severely injures an Orderly/Nurse or (this would be explosive) Doctor, that EVERY ONE of the staff will have heard about the old woman who was flatlining but somehow launching rampaging bite-oriented attacks that injured someone.

Who WOULDN'T gossip about that? More importantly, what hospital is going to expose itself to massive liability by not warning the staff about the number of violent attacks on staff by patients suffering from an unknown affliction?

After the FIRST serious injury, the hospital WILL take steps to prevent it from happening again. Especially if they have ANY reason to believe it wasn't an isolated incident.

One could then make the logical connection that by the time significant numbers of the bitten begin showing up at the hospitals, the staff are going to be distrustful and hyper-wary.

What's illogical/unreasonable about my assessment?
One other thing: I am NOT saying that a large number of hospitals won't end up overrun due to a combination of factors. I'm just providing what I believe to be probable reactions that will STOP SOME hospitals from sharing the grim fate of other hospitals that do succumb.

Plus, if a hospital can hold it together for any length of time despite the growing danger, there's no reason to believe the police, CDC & National Guard won't respond as well.

As always, I remain open to the views of others. I simply believe that there's a tendency to overestimate in the zombies' favor. After all, the movies CAN'T show us humans getting it right to begin with, else there would be no movie.

[EvilNed]

Okay, so around 20% of the zombies are going to be restrained before they bite more than one person. I can agree on that. Now we still have loads of other deadies being unaccounted for. Including the nurses and doctors that were killed and will now go home and die rather than staying at the hospital and helping to keep the hundreds and hundreds of infected victims to keep calm.

See where I'm going here? The Doctors restraining skills aside, the hospitals are still quickly going to crumble. They will flood with the dead in one out of two situations:

1) Early in the initial outbreak, when nobody really understands whats going on. Or:

2) A day or two later, when so many injured people have turned up due to some hospitals being knocked out and many people being wounded. This is a hotbed for zombiemunching.

[Publius]

Including the nurses and doctors that were killed and will now go home and die rather than staying at the hospital and helping to keep the hundreds and hundreds of infected victims to keep calm.

Do you think they're going to LET them go home? I doubt it. I think after a few minutes examining the restrained zombie, everyone who had been bitten or scratched or drooled on will be held for observation. Possibly everyone who had been in the ROOM. But at a minimum anyone with severe bites. The possibility that some kind of extremely dangerous infectious disease is present is just too obvious.

And even if they aren't held, a nurse or doctor who goes home is going to realize that he or she has picked up some kind of nasty infection long before dying and reanimating, and check back with the hospital to find out how they concerned they should be about it. Assuming the hospital doesn't get concerned first and call them back in.

[Wyldwraith]

Only 1 in 5 zombie will end up restrained without biting more than 2 people?

How could a hospital that has to say, treat/keep still, and prevent the rival gangbangers they're treating at the same time for knife and gunshot wounds from killing each other in the hospital supposed to even function if they CAN'T efficiently restrain patients?

There are mass-casualty protocols, part of which is ensuring they have a higher than usual # of police on hand during the crisis. (Almost all hospitals, just like schools in the SE US at least have a couple of Sheriff's Deputies in each Middle and High School, and 6-8 per County Hospital.) That's on a regular day. A mass casualty crisis will probably merit 2 more cars at the hospital. So 2-4 more Deputies. Off-duty medical personnel also get called in/beeped/voicemailed to come in when a mass-casualty situation begins.

Given that numerically the average hospital will begin with 2-3 zombies, which may or may not be too young, too old, or too structurally damaged due to the trauma which killed them, it's quite likely that a significant % of hospitals will make it through their initial contact with the phenomena relatively unscathed.

Someone mentioned that approximately 8,000 people die per day in the US, and that there are approximately 6,000 County Hospitals. Doesn't it then become relevant to determine how many of the 8,000 are intact enough to reanimate, and how many are too young to be ANY threat, and how many to pose only a limited threat?

It would be THAT fraction of the 8,000 dead/day and how they are dispersed among the 6,000 Hospitals which would have much to do with how the Hospitals fare. Florida for example would have more than its fair share of skeletally wasted recently deceased senior citizens. On the flip side, an area with a higher than average density of individuals 18-40 would be in the most jeopardy IMHO.

Ultimately its all theory and speculation (Thank God), so reasoning it out is the best any of us can do.

[Publius]

Someone mentioned that approximately 8,000 people die per day in the US, and that there are approximately 6,000 County Hospitals. Doesn't it then become relevant to determine how many of the 8,000 are intact enough to reanimate, and how many are too young to be ANY threat, and how many to pose only a limited threat?

That was me. 8,000 per day was a rough estimate based on a figure I had for "1 death every 11 seconds." On further review, it looks like that's too high. The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics says (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm) that there were 2,426,264 deaths in 2006. The population of the U.S. is about 3.3% higher now than in 2006, so if we adjust the 2006 death total accordingly and divide by the number of days in a year, it comes to approximately 6,867 deaths per day.

Of those 6,867, about 94 will be 4 years old or younger (mostly under 1 year). Another 18 will be 5 to 14 years old. 220 will be between 15 and 34 years old. 759 will be 35-54 years old. 797 will be 55-64 years old. 1,104 will be 65-74 years old. 1,888 will be 75-84 years old. And 1,987 will be 85 years old or older.

Now, some major causes of death: Cancer accounts for 23%, cardiovascular disease for 34%, and respiratory diseases for 8%. Accidents kill 333 per day, including 124 in motor vehicle accidents. Suicide kills 91 per day (46 by firearm), and homicide accounts for 51 per day.

Accidents, homicide, and suicide are the leading causes of death for the 15-34 year olds. Accidents are still the leading cause of death in the 35-44 group but a few diseases are close. Beyond that it's overwhelmingly disease.

You can find tables with lots of other details from the Census Bureau here (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/births_deaths_marriages_divorces/deaths.html).

---------- Post added at 04:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:27 PM ----------

I should note that on the other side of the coin, it looks like the U.S. autopsy rate is much lower than I originally thought. I found a cited rate of 26% in the U.S. before, but it turns out that that was based on a study of Houston hospitals. Nationwide, the rate is only about 5% (down tenfold over the past 50-60 years), but varies widely by region. It's worth noting, however, that young and apparently healthy bodies are much more likely than average to be autopsied.