How far into an outbreak before order breaks down?

[wyvern1096]

This may be more appropriate to the fiction section but more people seem to be in the this area.

I'm working on a handful of stories that merge into one larger work. What I'm curious about is how long y'all think it would take for social order to collapse. All the recently dead just sat up and a series of comet fragments will also hit a few major transport hubs/cities around the globe.

[SRP76]

According to Dawn, everything will be pretty much "every man for himself" in 3 weeks.

Brooks' "Zombie Survival Guide" suggests over a year (somewhere between 1 and 10). I think he's very optimistic, though.

I think it would only take a few days for mass panic, and maybe a week more to totally crash civilization.

[wyvern1096]

I should have added. These are slow zombies not fast ones. Also, about day 3 or 4 into the outbreak is when several cities and transport hubs are scrubbed from the map.

[Yojimbo]

One of Romero's themes has been that it does not take very long for society to collapse. Indeed, one need look no further than disasters such as Hurricane Katrina which resulted in anarchy within a few days to see real world evidence that Romero has it right. Impotent governmental response, thugs controlling the so-called "evacuation centers", bodies decomposing next to refugees who are dying of thirst.

Here in Los Angeles a whole riot can occur just because it's Labor Day and people are drunk and happy, or just because the Lakers won the Championship.

And all this without the benefit of zombies!

I would guess that once the dead rise, it be a matter of days before the utilities shut off and emergency response stops all together. People without television or air conditioning or telephones and electricity will venture out and go wild. Then the ice weasles will come!

[Danny]

i think the whole **** creek minus 1 paddle situation would come in waves, first youd have religous groups talking about the end of the world, needless to say panic follows, then as it worsens general panic and possibly rioting, them the full on "first blood" type gun nuts figuirign the worlds over so im gonna get my shotgun and go nuts type stuff, which all equals mroe death, which means more zombeis so then byby paddle im heading down the old **** creek.

[SRP76]

I think a deadhead takeover would happen far, far faster than your natural disasters and whatnot.

Things like a hurricane, they hit, then you have "aftermath", where all the other things go down. But when the dead walk, there's no such thing as "aftermath"; it's a never-ending assault.

Adding to this "no respite" carnage, is the fact that one zombie can grow into a hundred zombies pretty damned quick. Once they start to multiply, the numbers increase dramatically - and it doesn't take "days and days" for it to happen, either. It would be a massive explosion of their population, while ours has huge chunks taken out of it.

Now, if whatever is causing the dead to rise is happening everywhere, worldwide, then hang it up; game over. Why? Because we'd be starting with several thousands of zombies from second number one. Humanity goes down the toilet in hours, not days.

[jim102016]

I think a deadhead takeover would happen far, far faster than your natural disasters and whatnot.

Things like a hurricane, they hit, then you have "aftermath", where all the other things go down. But when the dead walk, there's no such thing as "aftermath"; it's a never-ending assault.

Adding to this "no respite" carnage, is the fact that one zombie can grow into a hundred zombies pretty damned quick. Once they start to multiply, the numbers increase dramatically - and it doesn't take "days and days" for it to happen, either. It would be a massive explosion of their population, while ours has huge chunks taken out of it.

Now, if whatever is causing the dead to rise is happening everywhere, worldwide, then hang it up; game over. Why? Because we'd be starting with several thousands of zombies from second number one. Humanity goes down the toilet in hours, not days.



It'd be different than a hurricane, trust me. Katrina knocked out communciations and transportation much faster than a plague like that would. Depending upon how receptive people are to believing the dead were coming back to life and how willing they'd be to get off their asses to help, I'd say the last straw would be the complete breakdown of the communication systems. Television, radio, phones, etc. Once those left alive (and sane) realized no more oranized efforts existed to combat the problem, complete chaos would emerge.

In the U.S., I give it a month.

[Legion2213]

It depends, I honestly think that a zombie outbreak could be contained....any dead in the UK would find themselves being filmed on mobile phones whilst our youth tormented them/beat them up. :D

Then again, in the current day, most of the UK and US armed forces are halfway around the world, not such a good time for a zombie outbreak.

Romero zombies could be taken down with bare hands/a baseball bat, no problem IMO.:sneaky:

DotD remake or 28DL zombies would **** us over quick style though...we'd fall quickly to those beasts!

[Danny]

DotD remake or 28DL zombies would **** us over quick style though...we'd fall quickly to those beasts!

just liek in dawn or 28 days late then?;)

[Arcades057]

Use real-world examples to find out. How long after Katrina was everything FUBAR? And 9/11, how many people were running around like chickens with their heads cut off?

Now picture it's a countrywide or worldwide situation, where you have the military potentially being relied upon to help the citizenry far from their homes.

I'd say the average Joe would be flipping his wig after about the 24th hour, and the popo and military about another day or so, followed by the government not long after.

[jim102016]

Use real-world examples to find out. How long after Katrina was everything FUBAR? And 9/11, how many people were running around like chickens with their heads cut off?

Now picture it's a countrywide or worldwide situation, where you have the military potentially being relied upon to help the citizenry far from their homes.

I'd say the average Joe would be flipping his wig after about the 24th hour, and the popo and military about another day or so, followed by the government not long after.


I was living in Northern NJ when 9/11 hit, could see the towers burning from a high point near by. We still had power, people were still driving their cars, still stopping for happy meals, etc. But I'd say within and around NYC it was mass confusion and panic, D.C. too. But you didn't have looting, people pulling pistols on each other for gas, food, and generators and so on like what happened in my neighborhood in Mississippi after the hurricane.

Police, federal agencies and the military do not make up enough bodies to contain or put down a nation-wide outbreak. We have too big a land mass in the U.S. with people all over the damned place. The only hope for victory would involve getting the average Joe involved. Now, whether or not these average Joes would be more effective if armed is another issue.