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Thread: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

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    Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    Inspired by: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...th-ALL-threats

    I've always had a big problem with (Present & Post) Zombie Apocalypse RPGs, movies, books, etc because I honestly cannot conceive of classical (or even the new running Rage style) zombies managing to destroy human civilization. Also, just to clarify, I'm talking about bite/bodily fluid transmission of the disease, swift transformation, and undead-ness. Headhsot kills.

    So how, oh how, do authors of fiction expect us to believe that a non-airborn bug manages to spread all over the Earth, and is so devastating that governments collapse, 95% of human beings are dead and eaten, and only a small group of hardened survivors can keep going on. I mean, I've played games of All Flesh Must Be Eaten and brought this up every time my character suggest something intelligent like "Let's find the military." There is no way in Hell a 1st world country like America could not handle a zombie threat.

    But for the sake of argument, let's say worst case scenario, zombie ground zero is in a huge urban center like New York City, or Tokyo. That means the infection spreads fast, and suddenly you have a few million zombies spreading out and hunting the flesh of man. After the military looses their first few response teams, even a halfway competent military could deal with zombies once they figure out what the fuck is going on. Because the military has methods of DECIMATING zombies without ever exposing themselves to infection. Aerial bombardment, artillery, naval bombardment, armored divisions, etc. For fuck's sake, I can see THIRD WORLD NATIONS holding back a zombie horde. I mean, I know its about the scary experience when we play it in RPGs, and watch amazing shows like The Walking Dead, but honestly, I just don't buy how they normally sell it.

    Anyone with me on this?

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    Re: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    Because zombies aren't the real point of those stories. Zombies are just a "force of nature" that show up to see how the main characters react in a stressful situation. They're just a new trope in the "Man vs Nature" theme of story telling. Really easy to replace the howling snowstorm keeping the team of scientists in their remote research lab with howling zombie hoard keeping the team of scientists in their remote research lab. Then you see how the people inside respond to being together under stress and what they do to each other.

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    Re: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    Quote Originally Posted by shadowpavement View Post
    Because zombies aren't the real point of those stories. Zombies are just a "force of nature" that show up to see how the main characters react in a stressful situation. They're just a new trope in the "Man vs Nature" theme of story telling. Really easy to replace the howling snowstorm keeping the team of scientists in their remote research lab with howling zombie hoard keeping the team of scientists in their remote research lab. Then you see how the people inside respond to being together under stress and what they do to each other.
    Exactly. Every good zombie movie, or comic, or whatever is about the people, and the flesh-eating corpses are just creepy window-dressing.

    Plus they serve as metaphors; rampant consumerism being the most prominent.

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    Re: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    They'd be utter hell in densely-packed urban environments. Some places, like the underclass tenements in urban China and some of the densest cities in India, would be total losses. Seriously. Roiling mass of wall-to-wall undead.

    They'd never take the plains, though. Spread out countries like Russia and the US might lose a major city or two, but it would probably be less bad than what happened to some parts of Europe in WWII.
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    Re: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    Quote Originally Posted by DJ-Anarchy View Post
    Anyone with me on this?
    Yes, I am.

    I hate Zombie games and movies for the exact reasons you state. Humanity is stupid, but not that stupid.

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    Re: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    Quote Originally Posted by shadowpavement View Post
    Because zombies aren't the real point of those stories. Zombies are just a "force of nature" that show up to see how the main characters react in a stressful situation. They're just a new trope in the "Man vs Nature" theme of story telling. Really easy to replace the howling snowstorm keeping the team of scientists in their remote research lab with howling zombie hoard keeping the team of scientists in their remote research lab. Then you see how the people inside respond to being together under stress and what they do to each other.
    I realize that. I even said the same thing in the OP. Its about the experience. But classical zombies are incapable to doing what they are said to have done in most settings. I'm complaining about THAT, not the purpose and tropes of such settings.

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    Re: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    Well, if you go by the Romero zombie setting, it's not really a fluid/bite transmission as much as the fact that anyone who dies (no matter how) reanimates. Whether a person is bitten by a zombie and dies of infection, or if they hang themselves. If the head is intact, they come back.

    On the other hand, I happen to agree with you. Not only should the military/well-armed civilians be able to deal with the threat, but there are also other things to consider. Rivers, mountain ranges, sparsely populated areas, oceans and whatnot. I think there was an article on Cracked dealing with why a zombie apocalypse wouldn't happen...

    Back to the first hand, I'm willing to suspend disbelief when it comes to zombies.
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    Re: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    Not really with you, no. If the zombie "plague" is highly transmissible and has a high mortality rate, especially if they are fast zombies, things are going to Hell in a hurry. Whether or not animals can become infected has a big impact on just how bad things will get, but generally, I can easily buy what is often shown: someone gets infected and gets on a plane, knowing or not knowing what he or she is carrying, people make stupid mistakes, the infection spreads rapidly because people are trying to save or reason with infected family and friends, etc.

    Sure, the military can use high-powered bombs and wipe out large swathes of a city's population at once, but things have to get pretty bad before I imagine they would consider that. And by the time they're getting so bad we're deciding to nuke our own cities, it might be out of control. America is not invincible.

    Fighting the actual zombies is more or less the easy part, regardless of how dangerous they are. It's the zombie disease part that is hard to fight. And there are a lot of variables with that. Do animals get infected? Do slain zombies spread the disease? Do all exposed dead rise or just those killed by zombies? Can the disease spread into water sources? How fast does the disease claim its victims? Is there a cure? How strong and fast are the zombies? If bodily fluids and bites transmit the disease, anyone in melee with a zombie is at great risk of infection. Anyone bitten that tries to hide it or doesn't realize what he or she is carrying is going to infect others.

    At any rate, yeah, with a quick-acting, highly virulent zombie plague, and especially if we're talking about fast zombies, I can see it quickly getting out of control and there is only so much artillery can do to stop something like that. The military's effectiveness is greatly helped or hindered by the effectiveness of its government, and I'm not real positive about our government's track record with disasters. Or anything, really. We can't even get decent healthcare for our citizens. I don't think I am going to trust the G-men to respond with exactly the right plan for an unforeseeable and highly devastating zombie epidemic.

    The Wyzard speaks truth, though: it probably won't claim the whole country, especially once it gets into the more spread-out areas (unless maybe animals become zombies, too). Still, what I wouldn't be able to buy is that we would quickly and cleanly bomb the problem into oblivion.

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    Re: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    Quote Originally Posted by Claire Redfield View Post
    Not really with you, no. If the zombie "plague" is highly transmissible and has a high mortality rate, especially if they are fast zombies, things are going to Hell in a hurry. Whether or not animals can become infected has a big impact on just how bad things will get, but generally, I can easily buy what is often shown: someone gets infected and gets on a plane, knowing or not knowing what he or she is carrying, people make stupid mistakes, the infection spreads rapidly because people are trying to save or reason with infected family and friends, etc.

    Sure, the military can use high-powered bombs and wipe out large swathes of a city's population at once, but things have to get pretty bad before I imagine they would consider that. And by the time they're getting so bad we're deciding to nuke our own cities, it might be out of control. America is not invincible.

    Fighting the actual zombies is more or less the easy part, regardless of how dangerous they are. It's the zombie disease part that is hard to fight. And there are a lot of variables with that. Do animals get infected? Do slain zombies spread the disease? Do all exposed dead rise or just those killed by zombies? Can the disease spread into water sources? How fast does the disease claim its victims? Is there a cure? How strong and fast are the zombies? If bodily fluids and bites transmit the disease, anyone in melee with a zombie is at great risk of infection. Anyone bitten that tries to hide it or doesn't realize what he or she is carrying is going to infect others.

    At any rate, yeah, with a quick-acting, highly virulent zombie plague, and especially if we're talking about fast zombies, I can see it quickly getting out of control and there is only so much artillery can do to stop something like that. The military's effectiveness is greatly helped or hindered by the effectiveness of its government, and I'm not real positive about our government's track record with disasters. Or anything, really. We can't even get decent healthcare for our citizens. I don't think I am going to trust the G-men to respond with exactly the right plan for an unforeseeable and highly devastating zombie epidemic.

    The Wyzard speaks truth, though: it probably won't claim the whole country, especially once it gets into the more spread-out areas (unless maybe animals become zombies, too). Still, what I wouldn't be able to buy is that we would quickly and cleanly bomb the problem into oblivion.
    That's just the thing though, even worst case scenario that you described (save for the animals zombies, never really liked that trope) it is not physically possible for the infection to reach EVERYWHERE (if we still agree it is non-airborne). And even with an inefficient government, the second you hit the GO button, even a relatively small military force should be able to mop up no problem. Even a small naval fleet could decimate zombies at leisure. Just sit in the harbor, and blow the shit outta the land. Mop up with marines/navalmen. And that is just the navy. I can see quarter of our military dealing with a zombie horde in the millions without real effort.

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    Re: Zombie Apocalypse: I call bullshit

    I guess it depends on how you set it up.

    If some sort of superplague turned everyone but Will Smith into a zombie, then we'd all be zombies and would have a hard time reconstructing a non-zombie civilization.

    If you need magic to kill zombies, then we'd be in trouble because we don't seem to have much magic.

    Otherwise, it's just a matter of how tough the zombie are, how quickly it spreads, and how much we freak out before we manage to mount an effective zombie resistance. It seems likely that some manner of civilization will survive, though even a small 'apocalypse' will probably herald a new dark age while we train to regain lost infrastructure and whatnot.

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