World War Z: Announced

[Darkwolf71]

Here's the thing, there wouldn't *be* a horde in NYC. There might be 80,000 - 160,000 ghouls in the city. With some 8 million *living* to take them out. The people west of the Mississippi don't really need to lend a hand in that scenario. And you don't need special equipment. just the firearms (legal and illegal) in the city and whatever hand weapons can be grabbed or made on the spot. How many baseball bats are there in NYC?

Like I said, you are looking at a -Shaun of the Dead- situation, not WW Z.

There is *one* zombie scenario that I know of that would get you "hordes". -The Abandoned- by Ross Campbell, it is available as a graphic novel. In the story line everyone who is twenty-three or older dies. No explanation, it just happens one night (at midnight?). Once you turn 23, you also die. Then you Rise. Instant zombie apocalypse. They are the slow style of zombie as well. My preference.

But in a Romero type of universe (or even the remakes) you just don't get hordes.

I find your faith in human's ability to not panic quite interesting. I don't care how many zombie movies you've seen, books read, games played. If it actually started to happen? People would FREAK. Not everyone, but a likely most, at first.

Yes, weapons are readliy available, but the number of people able to effectivly use them? Considerably less, I imagine. And the ones who try and fail? your 160,000 begins to grow exponentially.

And of course, you and I are talking about the US, where firearms are pretty common. Countries with more gun control would be much worse off.

 

[bento]

Here's the thing, there wouldn't *be* a horde in NYC. There might be 80,000 - 160,000 ghouls in the city. With some 8 million *living* to take them out. The people west of the Mississippi don't really need to lend a hand in that scenario. And you don't need special equipment. just the firearms (legal and illegal) in the city and whatever hand weapons can be grabbed or made on the spot. How many baseball bats are there in NYC?

Like I said, you are looking at a -Shaun of the Dead- situation, not WW Z.

There is *one* zombie scenario that I know of that would get you "hordes". -The Abandoned- by Ross Campbell, it is available as a graphic novel. In the story line everyone who is twenty-three or older dies. No explanation, it just happens one night (at midnight?). Once you turn 23, you also die. Then you Rise. Instant zombie apocalypse. They are the slow style of zombie as well. My preference.

But in a Romero type of universe (or even the remakes) you just don't get hordes.

I spent *decades* afraid that the zombies would actually rise. Silly I know. But once I started to dwell on the thought logically (and discovered why I had the fear) I came to realize how absurd most zombie story lines really were.

While I am glad you were able to logically flesh out why zombie hordes could never happen this way, you're essentially arguing about fantasy, and not the real world. Since there are no such things as zombies, your argument holds no water.

Personally, the book had a logical-enough set up for me to get sucked into it and read it in less than a day. Huzzah Mr. Brooks on giving us this great yarn!

 

[Darkwolf71]

While I am glad you were able to logically flesh out why zombie hordes could never happen this way, you're essentially arguing about fantasy, and not the real world. Since there are no such things as zombies, your argument holds no water.

Personally, the book had a logical-enough set up for me to get sucked into it and read it in less than a day. Huzzah Mr. Brooks on giving us this great yarn!

Agreed. I put off reading this book for a long time because I thought The Zombie Survival Guide was trash. When I finally got to it, I was quite suprised. Good book, I think it could make a great movie. In fact, I think the 'flashback' nature of the story would (will) be better served as a film.

 

[replicant2]

Head shots

The other piece of information to consider that favors the existence of zombie hordes is the "head-shot knowledge factor," or more precisely, the lack thereof.

Brooks' zombies follow the same laws as George Romero's, but in his world it's assumed that Romero's movies don't exist, and therefore people don't have a blueprint for slaying zombies via headshots or otherwise destroying the brain. Without this knowledge, I could readily imagine scenarios where a single zombie could bite and infect 10-15 panicked people, especially after a braver soul tries to stab or club the creature with no effect.

In Brooks' novel the populace of course eventually figured out the zombies' vulnerability and disseminated the information, but by then it was too late.

 

[mmu1]

Writers of monster books/movies almost always eff-up their portrayal of military equipment and tactics, because the army needs to be slaughtered in order for the premise to work.

You might lose tons of lives if someone blunders and lets infantry get overrun, but in the end, it'd just be target practice for armor, artillery, and aircraft. (which is why the author needed to come up with the boneheaded assertion that artillery and bombs doesn't work on zombies)

...heh, anyone ever seen a video of a mine-flail tank in action? Those would come in handy.

 

[mmu1]

The other piece of information to consider that favors the existence of zombie hordes is the "head-shot knowledge factor," or more precisely, the lack thereof.

Brooks' zombies follow the same laws as George Romero's, but in his world it's assumed that Romero's movies don't exist, and therefore people don't have a blueprint for slaying zombies via headshots or otherwise destroying the brain. Without this knowledge, I could readily imagine scenarios where a single zombie could bite and infect 10-15 panicked people, especially after a braver soul tries to stab or club the creature with no effect.

In Brooks' novel the populace of course eventually figured out the zombies' vulnerability and disseminated the information, but by then it was too late.

Meh. I think it'd take a 20 year-old soldier with a gun roughly a minute to figure out those things needed to be shot in the brain. It's not that big a mystery - when you shoot at something human-shaped, you have all of two targets - center of mass and the head.

Sort of going off on a tangent here, but I never liked how immune to physics zombies always are... Unless they're magical, they still need the leverage provided by bones and muscles to move around - shots that shatter vertebrae, scapulas, clavicles, pelvises or femurs will go a long way to disabling them.

Obviously, two or three shots likely wouldn't do much, but fire a couple of dozen shots into one, and it won't be going anywhere. They're not golems.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Sort of going off on a tangent here, but I never liked how immune to physics zombies always are... Unless they're magical, they still need the leverage provided by bones and muscles to move around - shots that shatter vertebrae, scapulas, clavicles, pelvises or femurs will go a long way to disabling them.

Obviously, two or three shots likely wouldn't do much, but fire a couple of dozen shots into one, and it won't be going anywhere. They're not golems.

Not at all. Much of the damage you describe is disabling due to pain. Take away the pain and you need to completly destroy those body structures to be effective. Damaging them isn't enough. Find that hard to believe? Research what kind of physical punishment someone can take when hopped up on PCP. I promise, you will be suprised. Take away the pain and the human body is an amazing machine.

Now, back into the fiction, take away the need for breathing and blood circulation. All of a sudden nothing short of complete destruction of bone will slow the thing down. The problem is, most ammunition is designed to do soft tissue damage. They don't do much to harder bones. Bones that are protected and to a point held together by the surrounding meat. So, you need a headshot.

 

[Umbran]

Take away the pain and the human body is an amazing machine.

And let us remember that Brooks' zombies are... really amazing, in that sense. They will keep moving for months with no intake of energy - once you let go of the most basic rules of thermodynamics, all bets are off. This is a fantasy, so we really cannot assume that normal rules always apply...

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Also, disabling them doesn't necessarily take them out of the picture. The scene with the military clearly showed that, as zombies who had their legs or even up to their torso blown off, simply crawling their way toward the troops.

Plus, like these zombies can survive deep underwater environments so I think they can take a lot. The submarine scene will be crazy to watch in the movie.

 

[Umbran]

Hm. We should note that there's been talk about said movie for nearly a year already (like here). Even with the writer's strike, I'd imagine a bit more information would be out there now...