Zombie Outbreak - where to hide?

[awayfarer]

A zoo is another good idea. Some security but not too onerous. Fences, moats, and large caged areas should provide enough cover for a group of people, plus the animals will probably give you some warning if a break-in occurs (though you'd have to learn to feed them and in time you'll run out of special food).

Two words: Zombie bears.

 

[Jim Hague]

That I don't really buy. Good old fashioned highly trained US armored cavalry is vastly more lethal than any number of AK toting, heroin smoking, brainwashed, preteen death squads. Particularly against mindless zombies that tend to swarm.

Any tank or APC will be pretty much immune to everything the zombies can do. Plus they can run the zombies down if ammunition runs a bit short. Even the machine gunner is 100% safe in the urban warfare variants with remote turrets.

Errr...no. It's very easy to throw a tread on a tank in a lot of cases. Armored APCs could easily simply be immobilized by thousands of mindless corpses pressing in on them. So what you have are high-tech, armored coffins. WWZ covers this in the defense of New Jersey - tanks aren't designed as anti-personnel weapons, ammo is finite and you literally have an enemy capable of waging 'total war; zombies are 100% dedicated, 100% of the time.

Conventional warfare simply doesn't work, because humans can't engage in total war - we need to eat, to sleep, suffer morale and other psychological issues. We feel pain and fear. Zombies know none of this. Slow and stupid they may be, but they are relentless. They don't worry about supply lines, the wounded, or resting. They give 100% all the time. They're not like living things - they're like the weather. Environmental hazards, y'know?

 

[TheYeti1775]

Yes, and those people would quickly find themselves booted if they came to post here, as we would not abide the suggestion that our members are sheeplike, unthinking masses.

So, let us not worry about those people, and instead worry about those who are here, no?

Glad to know I would get booted for thinking that.

What is meant by it, reacting to a situation will lead you to failure more likely than planning for it.
For DnD terms, not a signal one of our fellow playing groups would go storm the Abyss without taking a few precautions along the way.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Errr...no. It's very easy to throw a tread on a tank in a lot of cases. Armored APCs could easily simply be immobilized by thousands of mindless corpses pressing in on them. So what you have are high-tech, armored coffins. WWZ covers this in the defense of New Jersey - tanks aren't designed as anti-personnel weapons, ammo is finite and you literally have an enemy capable of waging 'total war; zombies are 100% dedicated, 100% of the time.

Conventional warfare simply doesn't work, because humans can't engage in total war - we need to eat, to sleep, suffer morale and other psychological issues. We feel pain and fear. Zombies know none of this. Slow and stupid they may be, but they are relentless. They don't worry about supply lines, the wounded, or resting. They give 100% all the time. They're not like living things - they're like the weather. Environmental hazards, y'know?

The problems with your logic is that you are forgetting a very basic thing: Zombies can get destroyted. No matter what it is, if it gets hit with a powerful explosive shell, or gets burned to a crisp, it is not going to be dangerous. Also, zombies are not very mobile. They are pretty much limited to just walking anywhere they go. Meanwhile, conventional military forces have all kinds of ways of getting around that lets them retreat, regroup, attack when they have the advantage, and resupply in the middle of battle. The difference in mobility, firepower, and intelligence between a modern military and a bunch of shuffling zombies is simply too great.

Zombies are interesting creatures in fiction, but they only work in scenerios in which a small group of people have to survive an encounter with a localized problem of zombies. Any scenerio in which zombies become a problem for an area larger than a single town or city is going to be filled with problems and plot holes.

 

[TheYeti1775]

*snip*filled with problems and plot holes.

To fill your plot hole, give it a 2 week incubation.
You are bit in a random encounter.
You go get treated.
You go home.
Go to work.
During this time others are bitten and sent home after these seemingly random happenings that no one puts 2 and 2 together.
Then 2 weeks later people have traveled on business and they all begin turning in various locations around the world. Repeat and than you have your epidemic where no one can fully mobilize to combat the problem.
Using Katrina as a Real Life example, they had problems recalling both Police Officers and Guard personnel. If you have outbreaks nationwide, many will look to protect their own first before answerin that call.

 

[Jim Hague]

The problems with your logic is that you are forgetting a very basic thing: Zombies can get destroyted. No matter what it is, if it gets hit with a powerful explosive shell, or gets burned to a crisp, it is not going to be dangerous. Also, zombies are not very mobile. They are pretty much limited to just walking anywhere they go. Meanwhile, conventional military forces have all kinds of ways of getting around that lets them retreat, regroup, attack when they have the advantage, and resupply in the middle of battle. The difference in mobility, firepower, and intelligence between a modern military and a bunch of shuffling zombies is simply too great.

Except that those explosive shells don't utterly annihilate a soft target, assuming they hit it at all. Incineration mostly kills by shock and organ failure, and often results in massive property damage - napalm is nice, but are you going to use it in a city? Retreat only works as long as the troops are supplied. You discount the psychological wear and tear of fighting an enemy that simply does not stop to eat, sleep or feel fear. Sorry, but the military forces of the world are neither omnipotent nor omnipresent.

Zombies are interesting creatures in fiction, but they only work in scenerios in which a small group of people have to survive an encounter with a localized problem of zombies. Any scenerio in which zombies become a problem for an area larger than a single town or city is going to be filled with problems and plot holes.

You really, really need to read WWZ and bone up on epidemiology. Seriously - the problem is the societal damage caused, not that zombies destroy everything in their path. Without getting political, consider recent US responses to local disasters and the utter lack of control there, then consider that in the face of an unknown but rapidly spreading outbreak.

 

[TwinBahamut]

To fill your plot hole, give it a 2 week incubation.
You are bit in a random encounter.
You go get treated.
You go home.
Go to work.
During this time others are bitten and sent home after these seemingly random happenings that no one puts 2 and 2 together.
Then 2 weeks later people have traveled on business and they all begin turning in various locations around the world. Repeat and than you have your epidemic where no one can fully mobilize to combat the problem.
Using Katrina as a Real Life example, they had problems recalling both Police Officers and Guard personnel. If you have outbreaks nationwide, many will look to protect their own first before answerin that call.

First off, the two-week incubation thing is somewhat against the grain of most examples of the genre. But, that is a minor complaint, so I'll let that slide.

More importantly, you have set the scenerio for an epidemic, but not an apocalypse. The problem is... what happens after people start getting sick and turning into zombies? In the real world, there are all kinds of things that would logically happen, any one of which would limit the impact of the zombies, or stop the problem entirely. Even assuming it gets to the point where there are half a million zombies running around New York City, what would stop the miltary from just pulling a safe distance away, and bombing the city to the ground and soaking it in napalm? At some point, the problem will be contained.

Remember, above all else, that the most common method zombies use to spread the "zombie disease" is biting or some other kind of direct physical contact. This kind of spread is slow and easy to avoid, and is not the kind of contagion that leads to global pandemics.

 

[Jim Hague]

First off, the two-week incubation thing is somewhat against the grain of most examples of the genre. But, that is a minor complaint, so I'll let that slide.

Because it doesn't fit what you think, but does fit a typical scenario?

More importantly, you have set the scenerio for an epidemic, but not an apocalypse. The problem is... what happens after people start getting sick and turning into zombies? In the real world, there are all kinds of things that would logically happen, any one of which would limit the impact of the zombies, or stop the problem entirely. Even assuming it gets to the point where there are half a million zombies running around New York City, what would stop the miltary from just pulling a safe distance away, and bombing the city to the ground and soaking it in napalm? At some point, the problem will be contained.

Uh? That's called public outcry, laws, Congress...the military isn't just going to go and bomb an American city, man. Just evacuating Manhattan would take a Herculean effort, and likely expose the survivors to the outbreak. Thus your conclusion breaks down. Not to mention that, again, these tactics work against living beings. You vastly over estimate the destruction even a nuke could unleash. These weapons don't vaporize, leaving a neat little lot.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Except that those explosive shells don't utterly annihilate a soft target, assuming they hit it at all. Incineration mostly kills by shock and organ failure, and often results in massive property damage - napalm is nice, but are you going to use it in a city? Retreat only works as long as the troops are supplied. You discount the psychological wear and tear of fighting an enemy that simply does not stop to eat, sleep or feel fear. Sorry, but the military forces of the world are neither omnipotent nor omnipresent.

First, you don't need to "utterly annihilate" a zombie to disable it, and "shock and organ failure" works well against zombies (at least modern disease-born zombies). And, yes, they would use napalm on a city. Seriously, you think they are going to play nice against something you are pointing out is very dangerous? Also, what do you mean, "only works as long as the troops are supplied"? Why would supply lines be broken (in the age of military supply reserves and air dropped supplies), and why would a few supply problems prevent soldiers from hopping onto helicopters or just driving out of town?

You really, really need to read WWZ and bone up on epidemiology. Seriously - the problem is the societal damage caused, not that zombies destroy everything in their path. Without getting political, consider recent US responses to local disasters and the utter lack of control there, then consider that in the face of an unknown but rapidly spreading outbreak.

Err, no, I don't need to read WWZ. Not my kind of book, at all. I think I will just leave it at a "I disagree" on the rest.

 

[Jim Hague]

First, you don't need to "utterly annihilate" a zombie to disable it, and "shock and organ failure" works well against zombies (at least modern disease-born zombies). And, yes, they would use napalm on a city. Seriously, you think they are going to play nice against something you are pointing out is very dangerous? Also, what do you mean, "only works as long as the troops are supplied"? Why would supply lines be broken (in the age of military supply reserves and air dropped supplies), and why would a few supply problems prevent soldiers from hopping onto helicopters or just driving out of town?

Zombies don't feel shock, don't worry about bleeding or organ failure - they're dead. As for logistics, or your supposition that the military would be able, let alone willing, to turn WMDs on civilian populations...ah, no. You've got a very, very skewed view of how modern militaries are deployed and act, and we'll leave it at that.

Err, no, I don't need to read WWZ. Not my kind of book, at all. I think I will just leave it at a "I disagree" on the rest.

If you don't want to familiarize yourself with the literature and tropes, please don't act as if you've got some sort of objective answer.