Anti-Zombie Fortress (have you seen this?) [Archive]

Thorn

12-Apr-2011, 08:15 PM

fine, the zombies cant get to you in your stilt building. Pretty soon you have a moat of hundreds and eventually possibly thousands of zombies below. Gonna get pretty claustrophobic in there. No way can you grow enough food or catch enough water from the sky. Sure you can have tanks but they will run out eventually. Now what?

No building can be a reliable defense because sooner or later you are just trapped inside and starve. Maybe a prison type enclosure could be big enough to grow crops and support you but you are still trapped. I think a small island is really the only feasible long term survival plan. Possibly nomadic caravans but that would be an awfully stressful way to try to survive.

I really dislike absolute statements, you certainly could have a structure that was a standing fortress that had enough area to grow crops, and harvest/produce/collect water. You are just taking a view of 'It couldn't happen". Near the ocean? You can convert sea water to drinking water. Small enough group with a large enough roof? You can grow plenty of high yield low surface area crops, then using other rooms inside for live stock. There is no way if you close your mind to the possibilities and structure the argument in your own mind to suit the need of your point of view.

There is always a way, and while I agree siege situations are less than optimal so is every other situation in a land where the dead walk the earth. You should not fall in love with any one plan because the world/fate/Mr. Murphy have a way of stepping in and changing things on you real fast.

BillyRay

12-Apr-2011, 08:32 PM

You certainly could have a structure that was a standing fortress that had enough area to grow crops, and harvest/produce/collect water. You are just taking a view of 'It couldn't happen". Near the ocean? You can convert sea water to drinking water. Small enough group with a large enough roof? You can grow plenty of high yield low surface area crops, then using other rooms inside for live stock.

Use rooms further down the tower for the livestock - if Zed does get in (and he always does), he'll be so busy eating the cattle/sheep/goats that you'll have a chance to escape.

No horses, tho' - Zed'll just ride them... :D

Thorn

12-Apr-2011, 09:26 PM

lol yeah... and that my friend no one needs.

Rancid Carcass

13-Apr-2011, 03:45 AM

I think a small island is really the only feasible long term survival plan.

The trouble with an island refuge, while it might seem like the perfect bolt hole it's just not a practical option when you think about it. A remote island is going to be a difficult place to reach, you're going to need either someone who can pilot an aircraft or a boat and is capable of navigating the open ocean. Personally I don't know anyone who can do any of those things and the realistic chances of bumping into some who can would be pretty remote – chances are when the apocalypse starts to kick off the first thing they'll do is sail away in a boat or fly away in a plane, or be pressed in to service by the government/military.
Then (assuming you don't live close by), you're going have to get to the docks or an airport/airfield and hope to goodness that there's a boat or plane/helicopter left capable of making the journey and that there's enough fuel, or enough fuel can be sourced locally, to get you to the island. It's also worth considering that these would probably be the first places that people would rush to in the initial panic in an attempt to get away, and that the zombies would gravitate towards a food source, so it's highly likely that these place will have a sizeable zombie population and even possibly overrun completely.
Assuming that you do eventually make it to the island, at the very least it's going to need a source of fresh water and fertile soil able to support crop growth over a long period of time. So picking an island randomly off a map as the world is going to hell around you is pretty much out of the question, which means that any viable plan to escape to an island would have to be planned and researched long before the dead stop being dead. I don't know about anybody else, but as much fun as it is to talk about this stuff, I haven't actually taken any steps to prepare for the apocalypse, and as much as I'd love to get juiced up and spend what time I've got left soaking up some sunshine, chances are if it did happen I'd be just winging it like everybody else.
By all means go for it but remember, on an Island you are still essentially trapped - you just have considerably less options if it all goes tits up for whatever reason. If you're on the mainland at least if your fortress/compound is breached, the crops fail or supplies run out or whatever, you can at least move on and start over (or at least have a fighting chance of doing that). You don't have that luxury on an island, it has to work out for the best, period. ;)

Wyldwraith

13-Apr-2011, 10:06 AM

I happen to like static strongholds,
That said, an ironclad means of escape should the worst happen is an absolute necessity. Be it a helicopter on top of your structure, a secured tunnel leading to somewhere you KNOW will be free of zombies or some other method, no static defense is so trustworthy that you don't plan for what to do if there's a massive security breach.

As for resources, that's pretty much a matter of falling into two groups. Either those who've prepared for some form of civilization-toppling catastrophe ahead of time, or those forced to "wing it" when the proverbial feces strike the air-moving blades.

I *have* an actual Z.A.S.K (Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit) I've put together ahead of time. Even going so far as to shift furniture so as to make my gun safe and cabinets placement be in my bedroom (where I am located 95% of the time 24/7/30-31/365. Not being rich, it's relatively elementary common-sense stuff, such as a first aid kit with the useful contents removed from the bulky box and transferred to a smaller water/puncture-proof wet-bag, a crowbar with dozens/couple hundred loop-arounds of athletic tape to form a comfortable grip, a whetstone, hunting knife and multi-tool. Maps of my city/county/state/SE Region of the US and a chart of the gulf-side coastline and nearby hazards to navigation/islands/platforms etc. Maglite, (one of the heaviest portions of the kit, about 5 dozen batteries of the 4 most common sizes I have use for)...my 3 extra magazines for my pistol (unloaded, since I don't want to trash the springs), firearm cleaning & basic field repair kit x2. Prescription medications that are no doubt expired or soon to be...but that experience has taught me work well enough. Compass, box of steel wool, 2 Zippo lighters, one of the cylinder water-resistant lighters, and (my newest addition back last Thanksgiving, a small shortwave radio with solar cells, crank charger, cord charger and slots to accept multiple sizes of batteries. Cool little thing.)

The whole backpack works out to about 37.5lbs. Not counting my field-pouch/belly/hip-pack for my additional ammo for my 12-gauge, .22 and .45.

None of which figures in more than 3 days food in shitty M.R.Es and some weird dehydrated food, and only 1 canteen for water. Nor is the kit exhaustive, since being an urban house-bound individual, I'm bound to have forgotten something vital...but at least there's SOMETHING I can just snag and go if there's a need. Sad thing is, my shitty "preparations" are probably in the upper 15% of Americans preparedness-wise.

But back to defensible locations...if you haven't put the prep work in ahead of time, 95% of structures are just very large Waiting-to-die-in waiting rooms +coffin combos. Either there's no effective means of escape from them, so you die in case of a breach by marauding psychos or whatever else...you develop a lack of a critical resource you hadn't counted on/prepared/given thought to the acquisition of (such as enough Vitamin C to keep from losing your teeth and ending up bed-bound cuz u have 0% energy, or enough Vitamin D so you don't go blind or have the macrophage production portion of your immune system hit the shitter)....or you and whoever else joined you in your box go stir-crazy and kill each other in a fit of acute cabin fever, because someone didn't count on needing, or wasn't able to acquire the means to keep the mind stimulated and allow for escapism from the shittiness of your day-to-day reality.

So yea, to my mind it's all a matter of getting out of a survival situation what you put into it. Preparation before or after the disaster is the decider...not how high the stilts of your freaky building are.

Thorn

13-Apr-2011, 08:18 PM

Agree with both posts above, any war effort maintained a long distance from you primary source of supplies and infrastructure is a challenge. We have learned over the course of years waging war that it is essential to be able to supply the vanguard of any effort with a long, detailed, and well thought out supply chain. Interrupting this chain can result in a failed effort.

Attempting to maintain a remote outpost is no different, an island location sounds great, but you would need to be able to move people, and everything else to it and from it without much complication. Mind you power boats could alert nearby other survivors, and require fuel. Row boats require man power to move and could mean you are tired when you get wherever you are going, and sail boats are unreliable in some weather conditions and hinge on easily damaged cloth sails.

I still like the idea of an island fortress, but it is never really my first choice. Just because you need vehicles to get too and from it, if they are stolen, damaged, or destroyed you are swimming... and if you are far enough out to be safe you are likely going to have trouble swimming that far with anything you need to take with you. I still believe they can work however.

Which brings me to Wyld's post, preparation is key, and it does not take much to be ready for any situation that would be termed a "disaster" in fact I think we should as people be prepared for these events. In the pioneer times they defended home, and family, and self. They were self reliant, we have come to count on others to protect and provide for us. Look at what happened in New Orleans, how long it took to get help there, the mess things became and how fast.

Imagine that is happening ALL OVER the country at the same time roughly and ask your self how comfortable you are with the response you can expect based on what we have seen in the recent past.

Being prepared is not only your right, it is your obligation, and it is just plain good sense.

mpokera

14-Apr-2011, 04:30 AM

what you guys seem to be stuck on is that islands are far away and remote. This just isnt so, I am not even talking about an island in the sea. My Zombie survival plan calls for relocation to an island in a relatively nearly lake, this lake contains several, all sizable enough to have room for growing crops and far enough away from shore to hopefully not draw attention from mainland zed herds. My plan is that we wouldnt be trapped on the island, several boats would always be handy and the shoreline of the lake should be extensive enough that even if zombies did gather on the shoreline nearest our island, we could always boat to the far shoreline, out of sight completely for supply runs, escape etc. No special skills would be required to get to the island, anyone can pilot a small boat. and it would be extremely defensible. I guess I shouldnt have spoken in an absolute, I think a fortress type situation of course could be large enough to survive in, I just think that barring the helicopter scenario (which does reply special skills) once surrounded you are pretty well trapped and sooner or later any defense does break down

Thorn

14-Apr-2011, 03:28 PM

Yeah Islands in lakes or rivers even could work depending on size, proximity to the shore, and location (near major urban centers?). There is one i have in mind near me in New York that would be excellent in my opinion, you just have concerns about other people coming in with the same idea or trying to take what you have ;)

So I agree remote is less appealing, and nearby areas are more but there are other concerns neither is a no go in my opinion each should be considered and taken on their own merit.

Your point about a fortress location breaking down eventually is very valid if one does not have an escape plan, and a way to deal with an undead host in full siege of your "castle" since they do not require supplies, and do not tire, nor require large sums of money to fund.. their campaign against you would be much more brutal than any siege of old.

Not to mention the disease and such they bring with them.

Preparation is also an issue, if you think back to medieval times the peasants worked the fields tirelessly and when a hostile host appeared they all retreated inside and took live stock and crops with them. The added bonus was most of the food stores were already kept within the caste walls, and they had the benefit of a well generally within the castle walls as well. In this case, there would be less of a warning, and likely less people working under your direction.. as well as less pre-planning to make things easier.

Again nothing is impossible, and I personally am open to every possibility. To me it is what is right at that time, in that situation. I am keeping my options open and planning on several possible courses of action all the time.

Trin

14-Apr-2011, 07:11 PM

Think Kansas people. That's right... Kansas.

Plenty of food, water, and fertile soil. Natural disasters are rare compared to the coasts and tend to be less destructive to communities as a whole. People are used to having power outages. People & communities understand how to be self-sufficient. Population density is extremely low compared to natural resources.

You literaly have hundreds of miles to run in any given direction. Your best defense is not walls or moats or oceans... it's space. You can see them coming from a great distance and dispatch them however you like. Assuming they find you at all.

And not only would you be safe from zombies but from other scavengers too. Your island is about to become VERY popular when the mainland is overrun. In Kansas you could pick any dirt road and travel 30 miles off the main highway and set up shop. For any would-be scavengers finding your base would be like finding a needle in a haystack... literally.

wayzim

15-Apr-2011, 02:07 AM

Of course you'd have to raise that much more food to keep the animals happy and healthy, but they could contribute to some of your power requirements with alittle fecal fuel. Also, depending upon the location, you might have to look out for lulls in precip, so invest in some tanks to handle any filterable fluids.
No peeing off the side of the fortress, dudes.

Oh, and just to punch a tiny hole in the scenario, remember what ultimately happened at Masada.
Granted, Zeds aren't the Roman army, but it shows the frailty of an otherwise very defendable position

Wayne Z

Wyldwraith

15-Apr-2011, 04:11 AM

The problem with Masada was that other than its geographical benefits, there was little to stop a besieging force from assembling the infrastructure required to overcome that geography. Not to mention the dearth of water sources inside the "fortress."

One advantage humans would have versus besieging zombies is that zombies do NOT ADAPT. If defenders come up with a particularly lethal defensive measure, a human besieging force withdraws until the commanders devise a counter-measure. Whereas with zombies, something as simple as dropping a 10lbs stone attached to a rope on the head of one zombies after another from 20-30 feet up could destroy hundreds per day, with no more cost than the physical exertion in lifting rock, maneuvering it into position, then hauling it back up via the rope once you've dropped it. Human attackers would use formations of shields carried in the overhead position to mitigate the dangers of dropped stones and burning pitch/boiling water/oil. Zombies will just stupidly stand there and continue clawing at the walls.

Assuming you have a massive food/water supply...just how many zombies could 4 healthy men and nothing more complicated than the roped-rock method I described destroy in 24 hours, or a week?

Zombie hordes may be vast, but they are still finite. Remembering that only a % of humans who fall prey to zombie attacks (especially once zombie numbers have risen to the point of threatening civilization overall) will be functional when they reanimate. A zombie with all the musculature of both arms or even 1 leg chewed away is going to be a zombie that's ineffective/unable to join the proverbial horde in its wanderings. Combine this circumstance with the fact that the total population of an area (+ X% more who wander in from nearby towns/cities) limits the numbers of zombies in your locale.

If you live in NYC, you're hosed, but if you live in Bumfuck, North Dakota, population 338, with the nearest "neighboring" town being 70+ miles away, then its likely that so long as you remain in Bumfuck, ND, you will never see more than 500+ zombies. Bad if you're in a 1 floor house they've surrounded. Nothing more than a time-consuming nuisance if you're well "forted up" and can devise a simple, reusable means of simple zombie elimination. I mean for crying out loud, tear a cinderblock out of the top of a non-load-bearing wall, and loop a rope/cable/garden hose through it and you have a Zombie Head-Smashing Pendelum to wield from your elevated position. Even if you only neutralize 25 zombies/day in Bumfuck, North Dakota, it will be less than 3 weeks before you've destroyed 500 zombies. And that's just 1 guy, swinging the cinderblock whenever he's bored and has nothing better to do.

The point I'm illustrating is that, for all their attrition-oriented advantages, the monumental idiocy of the zombie could/would be the best friend of the besieged. Unable to adapt, the finite # of zombies would eventually be extinguished by simply devised methods..leaving the fort-dwellers in peace (unless threats of the human variety, or a lack of supplies dislodges them).

DEAD BEAT

15-Apr-2011, 04:37 AM

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/anti-zombie-fortress

http://chzdailywhat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/zombiefort1.jpg

Thoughts?

Could that work for Ugly & Fat chicks as well! lol ;)

MoonSylver

15-Apr-2011, 05:57 AM

One advantage humans would have versus besieging zombies is that zombies do NOT ADAPT.

http://fraser.typepad.com/a_girl_a_gun/images/land_of_the_dead_zombieorig.jpg

Does not agree. :lol:

Could that work for Ugly & Fat chicks as well! lol ;)

http://my.project-jk.com/data/500/fat-girl-shaun.jpg

Needs love too. Has perused the menu, & decided that Dead Beat Meat is the main course. :lol: :nana:

Wyldwraith

15-Apr-2011, 10:19 AM

http://fraser.typepad.com/a_girl_a_gun/images/land_of_the_dead_zombieorig.jpg

Does not agree. :lol:

Your point is taken, but allow me to retort. Just how long did it take for ONE zombie to develop the kind of drive/smarts required to motivate/direct other zombies in the area around Fiddler's Green? Also, the Fools of the Green (tm), relied on nothing more than an ASSUMPTION that the river would indeed prove to be an effective barrier on their eastern flank for their survival. A simple, Roman-style earthworks that a well-read eight-year-old could direct the construction of at the first firm soil up from the riverbank, and Land would've had a far, far different ending.

Even allowing for speculation of "zombie evolution" (something I consider an oxymoron, and an additional order of magnitude more improbable than the rise of the living dead themselves)...we're still talking about defenders with average human IQs versus say, a precocious chimp leading a band of Reese's monkeys with the defective/degrading bodies of humans. Even the Bubs and Big Daddies of Zombiedom are damned slow to react to quickly changing circumstances. Example: Me and my guys are using the rope-tied cinderblock-swinging method to eliminate zombies crowding around our K-Mart/Walmart/Costco Distribution Center, when suddenly we see one zombie begin to make loud emphatic noises we haven't seen heard a single other zombie emit, as this zombie begins to gesture/flail its limbs wildly in conjunction with the sounds its making, and it doesn't stop until the other zombies uncharacteristically (in me and my buddies experience) turn away from the walls of our shelter, and shuffle over to this "Leader Zombie" and begin observing a series of actions he's pantomiming to show the other zombies what It (the Leader Zombie) wants them to do. (Let's say pick up heavy branches, rocks or some other bludgeon, and begin using them to bash on a specific portion of our shelter)....don't you think we'd turn our attention towards the elimination of said Leader Zombie?

Because, unlike people in the Green, who have semi-normal lives distracting them, people in a single besieged structure are (if they have any brains, and/or desire to keep breathing) undoubtedly maintaining a watch-rotation from a safe vantage that affords the observer a potential 360-degree view of their besiegers. That being the case, a recurve/compound bow, crossbow, any firearm....or even a deflated tire strung between 2 secured points + a rock (and some practice) could do away with any potential Big Daddy. Besides, in the event of an actual zombie apocalypse, what self-respecting zombie movie fan wouldn't consider the possibility that the zombies might not be mindless?

Eh, guess we could go back and forth like this forever, but it's really just reiterating my original point. Ie: Preparation being absolutely key.

Thorn

15-Apr-2011, 01:42 PM

Wyld you make some great points here, logical, well thought out, and well stated in an open minded discussion. I respect and enjoy these types of posts a great deal.

The rope bloc/rock method is a great addition to any make shift defense or even well thought out one, I am a fan.

I also agree, and sadly even if you take Land as an example Riley saw what was happening in this particular town saw that things were changing the problem was that while Zombies were adapting, and changing the survivors were not. The writing was on the wall, Riley gave warnings and orders to avoid the issue blowing up and he was ignored and not taken seriously.

Any good leader adapts to a changing battle field, and while there were rules of engagement "back in the day" about not killing leaders on the battle field these days we quite often take out command and communication and "take off the head" of the snake. It is a sound battle practice. If I see a zombie so much as show a single sign of being a "leader" type I am destroying it before you can say "Hello to Aunt Alicia".

Wyldwraith

15-Apr-2011, 06:17 PM

Amen Thorn,
Imagine if Riley's scarred n' slow buddy, an absolutely wicked shot, had been made aware of Big Daddy's existence. The zombie would've developed an allergy to a .308 round, that's primary symptom was breaking out in a little hole in front and a big hole in the back. Hell, one of THE biggest problems I had with Land (leaving aside all the characterization and character motive issues we've beaten to death many times) was that the inhabitants of the Green seemed, in large part, totally oblivious to the fact that they lived in a world where the apex predators were legions of flesh-devouring undead ghouls.

I know, I know, people have made the argument that that's how Kauffman and others wanted it...and that many of the inhabitants never saw a zombie for 2-3 yrs at a time that wasn't on strict lockdown (like in the fight cage). But seriously...take people in our real world. Let's say that for some completely inexplicable reason, EVERYONE EVERYWHERE besides in the U.S and Canada dies. Then, after years of this new status quo...all the people in Canada die. Wouldn't this be a HUGE DEAL to the people in the U.S when they became aware that the ONLY OTHER concentration of human population aside from themselves just went kaput?

I mean, if nothing else, wouldn't it raise the basic question along the lines of "If they all suddenly died after surviving for years after the rest of the world died, couldn't what JUST happened to them, happen to us?

Yet in Land the (St. Louis I believe it was) enclave, the only other population center the Green was aware of goes dark, and all the traders stop coming in....but there's next to no reaction. Yes, I understand that the working class in the Green were caught up in their dissatisfaction with Kaufman and those like him....but to the point of virtually ignoring the extinction of the next-to-last (as far as they know) pocket of humanity?

I just couldn't see how, at the very minimum, the people wouldn't be demanding in a voice of unrest/discontent so loud that the Powers That Be would have to comply or risk outright regime-change-by-force...that security measures protecting the Green be checked for signs of breakdown, that a new examination of possible gaps in their defenses be made...and perhaps a larger contingent of recruits be trained to increase the size of their security force. That scene where there's just the two guys occupying a watch-position that ZOMBIES are able to sneak up on and surround without their knowledge makes me cringe. What kind of watch vantage is that?

Then again, it's no news flash to anyone that GAR has been relying on leaps of stupidity to bridge the gaping holes in his rough and undeveloped plotlines.

Sometimes when watching a zombie movie, and despite knowing that characters consistently doing the smart and cautious thing would probably be less than action-packed drama, I fantasize about seeing a zombie movie where the characters really do the smart and cautious, calculating things. What it would like in action-packed moments, I often think it would make up in realism and sheer novelty...at least for us hardcore zombie movie fans.

I close by saying if me and Thorn were in the same safehouse during the zombie apocalypse that the chances of a Big Daddy managing to function in our area for longer than say...the first time it came within effective firing range approach 0%.

Trin

15-Apr-2011, 10:25 PM

I have difficulty faulting Romero's portrayal of the sheeple inside the Green. So they are not rising up and demanding action when they hear about problems from afar. They are in bad times and aren't really looking past the problems at their own footsteps. To their minds the leaders are dealing with it. That's the same mentality we have around the world today... the world's problems only inspire action if you are personally affected. The threats to our country are well-known and largely obvious, yet we do little to defend against them. And we all believe our leaders are dealing with it even though our eyes would tell us differently if we chose to look. This is where Land's message of "ignoring the problem" is very relevant to our times.

You made a point about the river being an issue because the people didn't defend it. I have problems with the river too, but not quite the same issue. In my view the river is a plot hole. It was presented that the river was uncrossable because the zombies were just too stupid to do it. And with Big Daddy's help he showed them how. I think that's wrong. I think the dumber the zombie the more likely he'll end up walking right into the river and blindly crossing it through nothing more than stupid perseverence. Add zombies falling into the river upstream now and again and I think that should've warranted river patrols. But in the world we were presented the river had never been an issue, and I have no problem with them ignoring it if it had not been an issue for years prior.

I agree that the scavengers who were out in the world witnessing the threat shouldn't have fallen into the "ignoring the problem" group. They saw what was becoming of the zombies, as evidenced by Riley saying, "Things are changing." They should've been dealing with it.

Sometimes when watching a zombie movie, and despite knowing that characters consistently doing the smart and cautious thing would probably be less than action-packed drama, I fantasize about seeing a zombie movie where the characters really do the smart and cautious, calculating things. What it would like in action-packed moments, I often think it would make up in realism and sheer novelty...at least for us hardcore zombie movie fans.
Don't you think that was Dawn '78? I've always believed that's why Dawn was the greatest zombie movie of all time... the characters were smart and calculated within the bounds of their characters.

wayzim

16-Apr-2011, 02:42 AM

[QUOTE=Trin;263247]You made a point about the river being an issue because the people didn't defend it. I have problems with the river too, but not quite the same issue. In my view the river is a plot hole. It was presented that the river was uncrossable because the zombies were just too stupid to do it. And with Big Daddy's help he showed them how. I think that's wrong. I think the dumber the zombie the more likely he'll end up walking right into the river and blindly crossing it through nothing more than stupid perseverence.QUOTE]

Wow, I'm sure someone must have thought about this before

But in a way, there were barriers keeping the Dead from the waterfront, and they had to go through them before Big Daddy could take his crew to the river.
You can lead a Zed to Water, but you can't make him Sink?
The only problem with this is that Cholo left skateboard boy at the docks, and where were they exactly? Was that within the barracades? I gotta go back and watch Land again.
But also, if a random Zom-Buoy happened fall in upstream, whose to say they'd walk in a straight line to the other side? Maybe one would have to deliberately aim for the city?
In the end, as you said, it's just plot.

Wayne Z

"When fans ask me how fast my spaceships fly, I tell them they fly the Speed of Plot. "

J Michael Strazynski, discussing his show Babylon 5

Wyldwraith

16-Apr-2011, 08:00 AM

I dunno,
I can maybe accept the "the people ignored it, cuz it didn't personally affect them. (though I question this, because Riley and the working-class leader guy both mentioned the trading convoys no longer coming in)", but the river thing I absolutely cannot get. Even if PRACTICALLY the river had never proven a problem...this was a society that drew its reassurance from having walled the dangerous outside world away from them. I can't see such a society taking a "whatever will be, will be" mentality and just hoping the river proves an effective barrier long-term. If a society has resources enough to maintain electric fences long-term, they can damned well pile up a steep earthwork a few feet on up from the riverbank. Psychologically, looking out to their west and seeing this great big gap in their walls should've been deeply disquieting to these people accustomed to living 24/7/365 in a siege mentality.

Just my .02 though.

Trin

16-Apr-2011, 05:56 PM

A better question might be why did they use electric fences? I'd trust the river to keep zombies out before I'd trust electric fences.

The place was just so poorly defended. We don't really know that they didn't have 24/7 guards along the river for a couple years, then malaise and boredom and lack of threat set in and they just stopped showing up for work. Or maybe Kaufman decided to cut the budget and stop paying them, forcing them to either work for free or say, "Screw it, not my problem."

Or maybe they had become increasingly short on guards as people left when they saw that the outside world that they stared at daily really didn't have more than a handful of zombies. Let's remember that Riley's car disappeared. Assumedly it wasn't still in the Green.

I don't buy that anyone is getting an uproar started over Cleveland's assumed disappearance. Mulligan's efforts show exactly what happens when someone starts to question Kaufman's rule. And he was rebelling against things that did affect them daily.

So many plot points could be debated in Land. You really just have to turn off the brain.

mpokera

17-Apr-2011, 03:49 AM

I agree with Wyld in that I think just assuming the river would be an effective barrier seems foolhardy to the point of 'asking for it'. Though I can also see, as others have postulated, that perhaps it wasw gaurded/patrolled for a long time without any incidents and they decided it was safe.

In my island retreat I have always considered that there will occasionally be zombies washing up, or walking up onto the shore from time to time. Defensive measures in the plan include keeping the shore sightlines clear and eventually erecting a fence around the perimeter. It doesnt have to be a strong barrier, just enough to keep one or a few zombies delayed until they are discovered by routine patrols.

One other factor I might mention in the debate over static fortress seige survival? The psychological effect on your group of the moans of the zombies. In WWZ it is described several times as having the ability to drive people mad in long exposure. A substantial "moat" would be loud and constant, making it hard for any survivors to rest well at any point. Just sayin

Thorn

17-Apr-2011, 08:26 AM

I always hated the river as a means of protection, I would want a fence or a wall, and I think you would too. All of us. Primary and secondary lines of defense are a must as are escape routes for all.

Now as to a siege, we have discussed that at length being inside anywhere with moaning and clawing hordes of undead trying to get to you can certainly drive you mad. But you either will or will not have the mental capacity to endure. You would need to keep an eye on people, make sure no one cracks, and the same is done routinely in the military. If someone is showing signs of fatigue or stress you deal with it.

Being on the road for the rest of your life with no place to call "home" also has it's own fatigue issues I can assure you. The never ending hunt for fuel, food,and shelter... never feeling safe. Never putting down roots. That is not for everyone. Imagine living your entire life in Vietnam during the war... on the go moving through the Jungle with no shore leave, no home time, and no planned time to return from active duty.

And I agree with Trin and Wyld on a lot of what was said.. especially taking out the smart zombie in Land. It should have happened.

mpokera

17-Apr-2011, 06:52 PM

Now as to a siege, we have discussed that at length being inside anywhere with moaning and clawing hordes of undead trying to get to you can certainly drive you mad. But you either will or will not have the mental capacity to endure. You would need to keep an eye on people, make sure no one cracks, and the same is done routinely in the military. If someone is showing signs of fatigue or stress you deal with it.
How exactly do you deal with it? If one or more of your party is cracking, going insane from the stress/despare/moaning? Hopefully in a way you can notice it and not just quietly until they snap and become a danger to themselves and others? Understand, I am not arguing with you Thorn, you make many valid points, just genuinely curious what could be done. Of course it would vary somewhat based on the size and composition of your group of course.

Rancid Carcass

17-Apr-2011, 07:58 PM

How exactly do you deal with it? If one or more of your party is cracking.

Just say the word Captain, I'll build him a cage... :D

Publius

18-Apr-2011, 11:08 AM

I really dislike absolute statements, you certainly could have a structure that was a standing fortress that had enough area to grow crops, and harvest/produce/collect water. You are just taking a view of 'It couldn't happen". Near the ocean? You can convert sea water to drinking water. Small enough group with a large enough roof? You can grow plenty of high yield low surface area crops, then using other rooms inside for live stock. There is no way if you close your mind to the possibilities and structure the argument in your own mind to suit the need of your point of view.

Convert sea water? Catch from the sky? Better yet, drill a well. Plenty of rural people get their water off-grid without huge storage tanks. Rooms for livestock would largely be a waste of space, you'd waste too much of your food-growing area feeding the animals. If you are restricted to a building, better convert to a near-vegetarian diet and minimize meat consumption. But as Wyldwraith points out, any place it would make sense to construct your redoubt would be very unlikely to have crowds of hundreds or thousands of zombies. It should be possible to leave occasionally to make use of crop/grazing land surrounding your building(s).

Thorn

18-Apr-2011, 01:02 PM

How exactly do you deal with it? If one or more of your party is cracking, going insane from the stress/despare/moaning? Hopefully in a way you can notice it and not just quietly until they snap and become a danger to themselves and others? Understand, I am not arguing with you Thorn, you make many valid points, just genuinely curious what could be done. Of course it would vary somewhat based on the size and composition of your group of course.

Great questions and points.

I agree, you need to be humane but you need to protect your group as a whole. If anyone shows sign of snapping or becoming a danger to themselves or others you need to deal with them. Locking them up, speaking with them, trying to identify and deal with their issues, work with them at length, even if that means execution.

In Great Britain during WWI they would execute soldiers on the grounds of cowardice in extreme cases of "shell shock" or fear and then give them a posthumous conditional pardon. That is a slippery slope but the needs of the group out weight the needs of the few.

As for digging a well, it is a brilliant idea, and one I touched on about sieges in this post but never in a zombie siege, I am all for it. A multi pronged solution works for me, Well, Catch basis, tarps to trap moisture, Salination, and foraging/looting.

Trin

18-Apr-2011, 02:48 PM

Here's the deal with the river. I've lived within a few miles of a large river all my life. I gotta say, I don't see any way any zombie is crossing that river. And if the channel was right (something that can be controlled) and the embankments at all imposing then nothing is washing up on shore. It would be the last thing I'd fortify from zombies. That's not to say I wouldn't fortify it at all, but a barbed wire fence and a once a day patrol is probably the most it would need.

Now, here's the rub. While I don't fear zombies coming after me from the river, looters are another matter entirely. That's the real threat. You have to assume that settlements are dotted up and down the river, and they use the river to gain access to areas to scavenge. It would be by far the safest way to travel. Even if a million zombies ring your settlement you always have an easy way to get in and out. But that easy access to your safe haven makes it easy pickings for looters.

So while I wouldn't fortify from the zombies I'd have a ton of eyes and guns watching for looters.

Oh, and the more you all ignore Kansas the more Kansas there is for me. :)

Thorn

18-Apr-2011, 07:14 PM

"You're boss down there. I'm boss up here".

North Dakota looks pretty good to me if my New York thing doesn't pan out ;)

I always fancied myself the Duke of New York.

Trin how far are you from there now, and what is your plan for getting there?

mpokera

18-Apr-2011, 07:47 PM

Rancid Carcass

18-Apr-2011, 08:59 PM

Of course one of the problems of living in Kansas is that it sits, correct me if I'm wrong, in Tornado Alley – imagine a twister ploughing through a horde of say fifteen thousand zombies – sooner or later they've all gotta come down - bad news if you're camped underneath! Would be a great scene in a film though - “It's rainin' Zak, Hallelujah! It's rainin' Zak”...or however the song goes. :shifty:

Though the upside of hiding out in Kansas is that you just might get whisked away to Munchkin Land and bypass the whole zombie apocalypse altogether. ;)

BillyRay

18-Apr-2011, 09:22 PM

Though the upside of hiding out in Kansas is that you just might get whisked away to Munchkin Land and bypass the whole zombie apocalypse altogether. ;)

Or the zombie apocalypse comes to Oz.

Ah, crap. I betcha somebody's already working on it...

(quick interweb search)

Ah, double crap:

http://www.amazon.com/Undead-World-Oz-Wonderful-Complete/dp/192671217X

890 :annoyed::annoyed::annoyed:

Mitchified

18-Apr-2011, 09:43 PM

Gives a whole new meaning to the song "If I Only Had a Brain".

acealive1

18-Apr-2011, 10:21 PM

doesnt need to go to this extreme, certain houses with high windows are perfect against zombies

Publius

19-Apr-2011, 10:46 AM

Thorn

19-Apr-2011, 02:09 PM

Flat and featureless does seem to make it more likely that you'll eventually get a massive swarm coming through. I'd pick a place where natural barriers tend to guide wandering zombies around you. Like the side of a mountain with rivers nearby (preferably rivers between you and the nearest cities).

Yes, natural features that dissuade zombies from moving to your location, high altitudes, out of the way locales, mountains, rivers, high river banks, a series of man made barriers such as trucks over turned that act as barricades on winding mountain roads, and ultimately a nice fortified building with a decent escape route. One where you do have changing of the seasons seems ideal to me for a variety of reasons. I have several plans in place my favorite and most ideal one is very well laid out.

My secondary, and beyond are less ideal but might be more realistic and it depends on where i am when it all goes down and how much time I have to get out of dodge.

You say New York to people and they all freak out because of the city, New York is a massive state and we have a very diverse topography we have two major mountain chains here, and a large number of lakes, remote locations, and easily fortified roads. We also have fishing, hunting, and trapping opportunities aplenty along with a climate and soil that allows for farming a good portion of the year plus naturally occurring apple trees and more.

Ignore Upstate NY if you like but I have a certain location in mind that is easily fortified, hell it is a castle ;)

We also feature other structures on islands with one road/bridge that could easily be knocked out or fortified. Lot's of back up plans if things go south and you can run to Canada easily from where I am thinking, or into any one of three other states without much difficulty.

mpokera

19-Apr-2011, 09:37 PM

Be sure to take a shortwave radio and generator with you Thorn, will want to communicate with other survivors, have always wanted to see upstate NY :)

Publius

20-Apr-2011, 10:55 AM

You say New York to people and they all freak out because of the city, New York is a massive state and we have a very diverse topography we have two major mountain chains here, and a large number of lakes, remote locations, and easily fortified roads. We also have fishing, hunting, and trapping opportunities aplenty along with a climate and soil that allows for farming a good portion of the year plus naturally occurring apple trees and more.

Don't have to tell me about that -- my wife's family is in Clinton County. NYCers tend to think that anything north of, say, Westchester is "upstate." North Countrymen know that you're not really upstate until you get past Albany and into the Adirondacks. ;)

Thorn

20-Apr-2011, 01:13 PM

Be sure to take a shortwave radio and generator with you Thorn, will want to communicate with other survivors, have always wanted to see upstate NY :)

Sounds like a plan ;) Have my radio ready to go, and portable solar panels. Also blueprints for DIY solar panels I posted here a while bak tha tcan be made really cheaply. (comparatively speaing)

Don't have to tell me about that -- my wife's family is in Clinton County. NYCers tend to think that anything north of, say, Westchester is "upstate." North Countrymen know that you're not really upstate until you get past Albany and into the Adirondacks. ;)

Agreed!

While I am not quite that Far North I know the area very well, grew up not far from there and lived up North during the summer around Peck's lake/Canada lake. Also well traveled around Lake George and more touristy areas that offer a lot of easily fortified locations but close enough to major stores of resources. I have several plans and fall back plans ;)

Like I said before zombie fans have planned this stuff out for years, it is kind of a hobby within a hobby.

wayzim

20-Apr-2011, 08:13 PM

the problem I see with the kansas scenario, (and for any other remote land based area) is that while it is true that there would be very few zombies in the area to start with. If we are assuming a full "world of the dead" scenario with almost all of the human population changed, eventually the hordes in the cities will have to leave because of no new prey. While zombies dont starve, they are compelled to hunt continually. This would most likely lead eventually to huge 'herds' wandering the plains of America away from the cities following wherever one happens on something to pursue, causing it to moan and draw more and more to it etc. The "chain swarm" effect from WWZ.
While remote Kansas is indeed flat and featureless (I live not far from there) I think over the long haul (years?) even that remote area would be found by the vast herds of zombies resembling the miles long herds of buffalo that once were there.
All those zombies from Wichita and Hutchinson etc have to go somewhere eventually....

Simpsons Did it!

Well, in truth - I did it, if you set your wayback machine to HPOTD (August 2000 ) and a little story called 'The Nuked and The Dead or; How I Learned To Stop Living & Love The Bomb. '

It's a bunker scenario which played off the line from the original Dawn about our untapped Nuclear resources. And is still in the fiction section.

Wayne Z

And the world...
The world was currently these flat ass plains which even Dorothy Gale found boring enough that she ran off to Oz on the first available tornado.

And much later in the story ...

He thought, oddly enough, about the bison which had once dotted the plains like an ocean of living bodies. The wooly beasts whose mass migrations would oft times stop human travel for days. But the creatures who now moved toward a spot on the horizon, tens of thousands strong, sought grazing lands of a different sort.

The Nuked and The Dead.

Thorn

22-Apr-2011, 05:47 PM

Hmmm how would these work out as a zombie fortress? Any thoughts?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Maunsell1.jpg

mpokera

23-Apr-2011, 04:11 AM

Hmmm how would these work out as a zombie fortress? Any thoughts?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Maunsell1.jpg

well, I think they would "work" splendidly as a defense. Assuming you have some way of lowering small boats for escape/foraging etc. They dont look particularly comfy of course, and in my opionion you could be nearly as secure on a small island anyway with much more room to move about, less feeling confined (which adds to mental stress/breakdown issues) and much more survivability in storm/wave (depending on if you are in ocean or lake of course) and of course much more area for growing crops

Wyldwraith

24-Apr-2011, 07:23 PM

As a resident (NOT native, thank you) of Florida, I have learned a couple things about the ocean.
They are:
1) You do NOT want to live within five miles of the ocean, and preferably 10-12. Your house might be sturdy enough to withstand the most absurdly intense Category 5 winds (unlikely, but possible, depending on construction)...but unless its a hermetically sealed environment 24/7, you WILL get flooded the first tropical storm (or Northeaster/Nor'easter for our New England brethren) that comes through. Why? Two words.

Storm. Surge. The storm itself might not have the wind strength to blow away a beachball by the time it makes landfall, but depending on coastal topography if the storm had that strength even a hundred MILES out from making landfall, you can STILL end up with 3 feet of water in your living room (and that's a pretty tame result. Houses and various types of infrastructure collapse before the onslaught of storm surge all the time. )

2) In a world without ready access to modern medicine, a coastal environment is inherently more unsanitary/possessed of biological factors that can result in serious illness. Depending on whether you're on a very large lake, the ocean (and what part of the ocean's coastline)...you can count on anything from infected insect bites to septic cuts garnered while out foraging for food along your stretch of coast. Wade out to knee-depth at low tide after some shellfish beds? One wave can dump you on a barnacle-encrusted rock. No big deal if you've got antibiotic ointments, but if you don't? Not to mention the legions of swarming insects so dense in many areas in the summer months you have to wear something over your mouth and nose to keep from inhaling tons of em.

The list goes on, but (with the exception of those well-versed in coastal life...and I DON'T mean having a summer house in some posh resort-type community) I don't believe that the gain outweighs the risks.

It's funny. Remember the scene from 28 Days Later, where the guy in the riot gear and his daughter were having a rough time as the last residents in their apartment building? Was just recently reading an article about apartment-building communities in Japan working together to gain like 90% of what they need inside their building. Had one half of this absolutely huge roof layered with soil and were growing high-yield veggies (like green and string beans), and the other half had their water-catch system that automatically drained into a timed irrigation mechanism with nothing more advanced than a wind-up clock as part of it. Then they simply hung their solar panels in such a way that 2 guys could move the entire arrangement to adjust for the focus of the sunlight. Ie: Starting out on the side of the building that gets all the morning sun, and ending up where the rays of the setting sun are cast. In conjunction with the larger stationary panels on stilts between rows of vegetables, they provide ALL of their own electricity.

Just goes to show, even in this modern age, people haven't lost the capacity to shape self-reliant lives for themselves and their community. A valuable trait if the dead ever rose, or in the far more likely instance of an extinction-level global disaster. Which, given the rock-solid and corroborated projections of sea-levels rising over the next 75 years, we should be thankful that spirit of innovation and self-reliant drive is still with us.