World War Z

[Spring Bass]

Frick, FLOW just agreed with me, the space time continuum is collapsing under the weight of improbability.

I think it would have been more realistic to have the zombies move quickly, and perhaps have part of the intial infection be air born. If you sneezed on someone and they were infected, it could present all sorts of interesting conflicts outside of the infection itself - what if a person has a cold, what happens to the person sitting next to them - are they turned out?

That's pretty much what happened in the setting of the Will Smith I Am Legend movie (although those aren't zombies in the traditional sense either). The disease was spread by blood-to-blood contact for a long time, so it was just a growing problem for a while. Then it jumped to become airborne, and wiped out most of humanity.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Who is to say they weren't? Like I said, there was nearly a year before the outbreaks led to the Great Panic. That's a year when local law enforcement plus private citizens (and the occasional Special Forces team) were putting down zombies as they showed up. It's just that eventually they were overwhelmed....

That's the part I don't find plausible. Look, I trained for a long time for fighting against enemies who moved quickly, could shoot back at you, were intelligent, etc.. A bunch of mindless zombies who'd swarm you while you're sitting on a roof, or on top of a truck trailer, etc., untouchable? With loaded weapons and a couple of hundred rounds? That's nothing to anyone who has trained with a weapon. And you've got over 10 million active hunters in the U.S.. Rather than being overwhelmed by some gradually rising numbers of zombies, you'd much more likely see a very quick extermination, followed by occasional maintenance kills. Unless you were talking about some airborne contaminant that spread very quickly.

FLOW, this isn't a universe where people are aware of zombies and "the rules" as a pop culture phenomena. In fact, some of the chapters suggest that they thought of it as just some weird Rabies-like disease, which could be prevented with vaccination. One of the other chapters mentions that there are a whole ton of bad, mistaken beliefs about the zombies, too.

I know. I've read it. I just think that the writing about how people would react is not credible. For some folks, sure. But if there are cops, Special Forces, and civilians who are killing them for more than a year, than it is going to be clear to everyone that it isn't a myth. And at that point, you're going to have tens of millions of armed, trained (military experience) people looking to shoot zombies in the head the second any of them are spotted. It'd be a slaughter. I'm just not seeing how such a population could ever get behind the power curve and overwhelmed. And frankly, I think that's the case even if you discount the military altogether. The reality of the number of armed households in the U.S. is just a huge, huge factor.

Come to think of it, has there ever been a zombie movie actually show how a slow moving, transmission by bite zombie apocalypse actually gets going? The first example I can think of is Night of the Living Dead, which I thought did a really outstanding job from the realism department. Even considering that you got the jump start of the recently dead rising without being bitten, a realistic portrayal had the locals rather easily tramping around killing them very easily. Then there's something like 28 weeks, which also was realistic but those were really fast movers.

I dunno, people would have to be incredibly slow and stupid -- and unarmed -- for the number of zombies ever to get to dangerous levels.

He just exaggerated the level of complacency so he could make a point about how Americans quickly tune out any crisis...

Okay, fine. I found the level of exaggeration to be not remotely credible, though it may work as social commentary. The U.S. managed to keep its fear/paranoia/concern of the Communists going for many decades, and we did the same for at least a decade with the threat of islamic terror groups. I don't see the support for the idea that we'd just get complacent when the cops, special forces, and other civilians are shooting zombies in the streets. Shit, that's when we'd overreact as a people, regardless of what the government was telling us.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Frick, FLOW just agreed with me, the space time continuum is collapsing under the weight of improbability.

Heh.

I think it would have been more realistic to have the zombies move quickly, and perhaps have part of the intial infection be air born. If you sneezed on someone and they were infected, it could present all sorts of interesting conflicts outside of the infection itself - what if a person has a cold, what happens to the person sitting next to them - are they turned out?

Ah, now that's a cool idea. Because it would introduce the element of paranoia, where lots of people who aren't infected start getting targetted by their fellow citizens. Rather than people trusting each other and banding together, you'd see people isolating themselves in much smaller groups, fighting against other people, all of which my give the real Z's a much better chance to get going. But you really need airborne contamination for that to work.

And quick zombies is why 28 Days Later was far more terrifying than any of the schlock of George A. Romero.

Agreed, but Night of the Living Dead worked because it had a few people trapped in a farmhouse with just one weapon. That scenario isn't a threat to the country as a whole, but it was certainly terrifying for the people inside. In contrast, the remake of Dawn of the Dead was stupid. Andy sitting on the roof of his gun store could have easily killed upwards of 1000 a day. That's 100 an hour during daylight, not even one kill every 40 seconds. But that didn't happen, because then you'd have no movie.

There is a great book called On Killing, by a Westpoint soldier, that gives an idea of the effects that training has had since WW2 to modern day training. It is what makes it difficult for me to buy the shit show at Yonkers.

Same here. And really, the myth of troops just putting their weapons on full auto and blasting away has never been true -- ammunition discipline has always been taught because ammunition has always been limited. Heck, the fact that the U.S. military's basic assault rifle didn't even come with a full auto setting illustrates how important it deems aimed fire and ammunition control.

[Ixodes]

Come to think of it, has there ever been a zombie movie actually show how a slow moving, transmission by bite zombie apocalypse actually gets going? The first example I can think of is Night of the Living Dead, which I thought did a really outstanding job from the realism department. Even considering that you got the jump start of the recently dead rising without being bitten, a realistic portrayal had the locals rather easily tramping around killing them very easily. Then there's something like 28 weeks, which also was realistic but those were really fast movers.

I dunno, people would have to be incredibly slow and stupid -- and unarmed -- for the number of zombies ever to get to dangerous levels.

When GRRM visited Minneapolis a few years back, a group of us were at the hotel talking with him and this very subject came up. George said that zombie movies skip Act 2. You have an Act 1 where the zombies are first introduced then you go right to Act 3 where the zombies are ruling the world. There isn't a whole lot of explanation of how, exactly, that happened.

Yeah, an apocalypse of slow moving zombies would never really get off the ground in the US. Alot of gun owners will have a .22 and it's totally realistic to have 200-500 rounds sitting around. If each .22 killed 50-100 zombies, how long could an outbreak last? And that's just .22, not including any other calibers or shotguns. Heck, my kids can shoot a .22 good enough to take out many, many zombies as long as they were in an elevated position or something.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

When GRRM visited Minneapolis a few years back, a group of us were at the hotel talking with him and this very subject came up. George said that zombie movies skip Act 2. You have an Act 1 where the zombies are first introduced then you go right to Act 3 where the zombies are ruling the world. There isn't a whole lot of explanation of how, exactly, that happened.

Yeah, they usually show the obligatory newpaper headlines in some gutter "police overwhelmed", "military disaster", or some such, but with no detail at all.

Alot of gun owners will have a .22 and it's totally realistic to have 200-500 rounds sitting around. If each .22 killed 50-100 zombies, how long could an outbreak last? And that's just .22, not including any other calibers or shotguns. Heck, my kids can shoot a .22 good enough to take out many, many zombies as long as they were in an elevated position or something.

I suppose it's not a surprise that I was thinking exactly the same thing. A .22 would be perfect. No real stress from shooting it, very easy to handle, and lots and lots of very light ammunition. I seriously think you'd have websites up posting number of kills, best shots, etc.. It'd be like a sport for some folks. The life expectancy of a zombie in the U.S. would be...not long. Just way too many guns, and way too many people who know how to use them. And the stupidity of the z's makes it just too easy to put yourself in an impregnable location on gas station roof somewhere and plink away with impunity.

[Merentha]

28 Weeks still relies on the military being completely and utterly incompetent. They actually had a semi-decent plan, but then decided to a) let the engineering guy's keycard access the cell they put his wife in B) not guard a person with the Rage virus c) somehow let the guy with the Rage virus into the safe room d) had an absolutely terrible fallback plan. e) somehow quarantine doesn't include killing unauthorized aircraft.

[Arthmail]

Another question i always have is, do zombies in the traditional sense not decompose? I mean, we have instances of them freezing in the book, and while their flesh is dead it is still technically matter. It can and will be damaged by changing conditions. All matter degrades over time.

[Merentha]

Another question i always have is, do zombies in the traditional sense not decompose? I mean, we have instances of them freezing in the book, and while their flesh is dead it is still technically matter. It can and will be damaged by changing conditions. All matter degrades over time.

In WWZ,somehow, bacteria and other decomposers avoid the dead flesh. How they still move, I'm not sure, but I suspect you'd eventually have them mummify or desiccate without actually rotting.

[Arthmail]

28 Weeks still relies on the military being completely and utterly incompetent. They actually had a semi-decent plan, but then decided to a) let the engineering guy's keycard access the cell they put his wife in B) not guard a person with the Rage virus c) somehow let the guy with the Rage virus into the safe room d) had an absolutely terrible fallback plan. e) somehow quarantine doesn't include killing unauthorized aircraft.

Yea, but that was 28 Weeks. I think they should have stuck to the narrow confines of the initial outbreak, perhaps show people trying to survive 48 days into the infection. I didn't mind the movie, but i had to hand wave Robert Carlyle's character having that much access - though technically they might have given it to him as he seemed to be a very important part of the reconstruction effort. Overall the movie was not as good as the original, but it did have some nice moments.

When he abandons his wife and runs for the boat, that was a great bit. And despite all of the comments that called his character a coward for running, he did try to defend her to the best of his abilities. She insisted on going into the other room for that kid, and while he fought them off for awhile eventually his fear overwhelmed him. I mean technically there was nothing he could do to save her at that point in any case.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Yea, but that was 28 Weeks. I think they should have stuck to the narrow confines of the initial outbreak, perhaps show people trying to survive 48 days into the infection. I didn't mind the movie, but i had to hand wave Robert Carlyle's character having that much access - though technically they might have given it to him as he seemed to be a very important part of the reconstruction effort. Overall the movie was not as good as the original, but it did have some nice moments.

When he abandons his wife and runs for the boat, that was a great bit. And despite all of the comments that called his character a coward for running, he did try to defend her to the best of his abilities. She insisted on going into the other room for that kid, and while he fought them off for awhile eventually his fear overwhelmed him. I mean technically there was nothing he could do to save her at that point in any case.

Oh hell, I messed up. I was thinking of 28 Days Later, and how that virus began. I think the movie lost its way when they ended up at that mansion with the military, but in terms of the spread of the virus being realistic, I thought it did a great job. Fast zombies, very rapid reinfection. That one would be almost impossible to stop no matter how good the military was. 28 Weeks later did have some pretty bad/inexplicable military decisions on the quarantine, but at least you could count those as sort of one-time lapses in judgement by a couple of people, not the sort of lasting, mass stupidity you'd need with typical slow-moving zombies. But damn, it also did a great job showing how fast that infection could spread.

Honestly, I'm kind of curious if the film version of WWZ is going to change up the story a bit, because it is going to be focusing very largely on that "Act II" missing from most other movies. And I'm wondering if it is possible to film it as written and make it look credible at the same time. I wonder if they'll make the method of transmission different, or perhaps speed up the zombies, or try something else to explain how it can actually happen.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

FLOW - while I agree with many of your points, I think that you're giving hunters and civilians too much credit.

1. In the beginning, there will be very severe limits to what they can do, as the govt will be eager to avoid vigilantism and worried about people shooting uninflected.

2. By the time it's bad enough that civilians get involved in large numbers, many thousands will be turned - beyond the ability of the military and police to control.

Edit - they can still fight and win, I mean they can't effectively control the spread on a local level. Too spread thin, too many infected.

3. One must remember that many of those tens of millions of hunters and veterans will be among the infected, unless you're positing that they will kill anybody who gets close enough to them to infect them, which I don't buy.

4. Although I agree that many zombies would be killed, a lone gunman or a family cannot realistically hold off or cleanse a whole city or decent-sized town. Zombies never stop coming, but eventually you'll run out of food or ammo.

5. Regarding WWZ in particular, the infection had a relatively long (several days) incubation period in living hosts, who were then able to spread it to others without biting them. I think this would mean a very scattered initial outbreak, with nobody really sure what was happening, and far too spread out for a few Alpha teams to control. It'd be eradicate in some areas, but you can't go to every town in the US and clear it, especially when the book tells us more infections were popping up all the time.

6. I find the mention of hospitals as key spreading points very plausible. Hundreds of infected brought together, with staff and visitors and other patients to infect. These pour out in a wave and quickly overwhelm their neighborhoods.

Basically I guess I should say that given the hospital issue, rural areas would be a lot safer than urban (rural would also have more of these NRA types).

I think the most realistic slow zombie apocalypse book I've read was Day-by-Day Armageddon, which made a lot of sense both in the speed of the spread (anyone who died for any cause was reanimated) and the reaction of the government and military.

[Nukelavee]

The scene with him running for that boat was one of the most terrifying things in any monster movie...because I didn't know there was a boat. I was just thinking in terms of "well, of course you'd run, until you drop, because they'd eat me, but...I can't run forever".

It was like King's "The Long Walk", at a sprint.

[Merentha]

Is there any reason why the zombies walk in WWZ? Because the easiest way is to have them run at the start and as the bodies start to desiccate, they'd start shambling. Give them a few hours of sprinting and bursts of infections start being plausible, which then leads to areas being suddenly locally outnumbered, which leads to a small horde, which snowballs, etc. If they're running for a bit, it also means that people will be shooting at anyone running, which, well, leads to some pretty obvious problems, especially if the undead can/will infect the recently dead.

[Spring Bass]

That's the part I don't find plausible. Look, I trained for a long time for fighting against enemies who moved quickly, could shoot back at you, were intelligent, etc.. A bunch of mindless zombies who'd swarm you while you're sitting on a roof, or on top of a truck trailer, etc., untouchable? With loaded weapons and a couple of hundred rounds? That's nothing to anyone who has trained with a weapon. And you've got over 10 million active hunters in the U.S.. Rather than being overwhelmed by some gradually rising numbers of zombies, you'd much more likely see a very quick extermination, followed by occasional maintenance kills. Unless you were talking about some airborne contaminant that spread very quickly.

We'll have to agree to disagree, then. I have no doubt that individuals and local law enforcement could handle the first couple of outbreaks, but when it just keeps on coming, whether by the infected refugees sneaking into the country or the smugglers doing stuff like pulling up to a quiet part of the coast and dumping a whole bunch of infected folks/zombies . . . I'm not going to rule it out if the federal government was mostly sitting on its ass and being actively unhelpful by promoting fake miracle drugs and normality.

Well, I'm mostly not going to rule it out. The extra complacency plays a part in it, so that's obviously not completely realistic.

I know. I've read it. I just think that the writing about how people would react is not credible. For some folks, sure. But if there are cops, Special Forces, and civilians who are killing them for more than a year, than it is going to be clear to everyone that it isn't a myth. And at that point, you're going to have tens of millions of armed, trained (military experience) people looking to shoot zombies in the head the second any of them are spotted. It'd be a slaughter. I'm just not seeing how such a population could ever get behind the power curve and overwhelmed. And frankly, I think that's the case even if you discount the military altogether. The reality of the number of armed households in the U.S. is just a huge, huge factor.

They didn't think it was a myth - they just under-estimated the problem, and the federal government did nothing to do a real organized response to the problem. Moreover, there was a reason for their complacency besides just false beliefs about Phalanx effectiveness (and exaggeration for the social satire): the spread and movement of the zombies likely dropped off during the winter, only to show up again in full force in spring (you can figure out that the Great Panic started in April from some of the hints about chronology in the chapters).

As I mentioned above, I don't think they'd be rushing to simply slaughter a bunch of zombies, either - not at first. The book mentions a whole bunch of myths that were going around about zombies, and that people were desperate to see elements of remaining humanity in them. Just look at the people taking their zombified relatives to America and the Developed Countries in search of a "miracle cure".

Come to think of it, has there ever been a zombie movie actually show how a slow moving, transmission by bite zombie apocalypse actually gets going? The first example I can think of is Night of the Living Dead, which I thought did a really outstanding job from the realism department. Even considering that you got the jump start of the recently dead rising without being bitten, a realistic portrayal had the locals rather easily tramping around killing them very easily. Then there's something like 28 weeks, which also was realistic but those were really fast movers.

One of the follow-up movies (Day of the Dead) had the outbreaks eventually overwhelming law enforcement and the government, though. Of course, the Romero zombies were nastier because everyone came back as a zombie after death until the head was destroyed. There was no way to completely quarantine off zombie-infested areas and wipe them out completely - the best you could do would be to figure out systems for cleaning up outbreaks as they occurred, until somebody figures out how to prevent the resurrection process.

5. Regarding WWZ in particular, the infection had a relatively long (several days) incubation period in living hosts, who were then able to spread it to others without biting them. I think this would mean a very scattered initial outbreak, with nobody really sure what was happening, and far too spread out for a few Alpha teams to control. It'd be eradicate in some areas, but you can't go to every town in the US and clear it, especially when the book tells us more infections were popping up all the time.

For people who received extremities bites (or infected donated organs), it is mentioned in the Brazilian doctor section that it could potentially take weeks, particularly if the virus was only present in trace amounts.

[Arthmail]

I'm not particularily keen on this notion that people under estimated the entire thing as a sort of hand wave to remove a certain level of common sense for large portions of the population, government, and military. I mean, Mad Cow went around and people effectively shit their pants, destroying the industry of entire nations - and how many people were actually killed from it? You look at some nations, like Japan for instance, and they wear surgical masks because people start talking about the avian flu. I think there is an almost unconsicous awareness that something of magnitude is bound to happen, at some point - with all of the shit we create in labs its only a matter of time. I think it is why the genre of post-apocalyptic is so popular. I think in many instances people, on a basic level, want it to happen, to get away from the boring grind of everyday existence - i mean, they will probably die when put into that situation but everyone likes to think that THEY are the ultimate badass.

I really liked the book, i did, i found certain sections fascinating, and some were very gripping. But when part of the problem with a book like this is that for shit to happen people have to be stupid in massive numbers, then i'm less inclined. People shat on Prometheus because the characters made poor decisions, but i can accept that a great deal more on a micro level than a macro one, especially with the wealth and resources of first world nations. I would imagine that second and third world nations would truly get fucking trounced by something like this, but unless the perameters of the pandemic were altered - and by this i mean it was air born, which i don't actually remember hearing about directly as a cause, only as a possibility, and the zombies were 28 Days Later fast - i find it hard to concieve of some of the things happening as they were presented in the book. I do not give as much credence to FLOWs idea that hunters and people with guns would be the deciding factor, but i do think he is right that a strong army presence would have drastic effects on outcomes.

[Horselover Fat]

aimed, semi-automatic fire at 200, 300, and 500 yards,

Semper Fi bro

[Arthmail]

Oh hell, I messed up. I was thinking of 28 Days Later, and how that virus began. I think the movie lost its way when they ended up at that mansion with the military, but in terms of the spread of the virus being realistic, I thought it did a great job.

It lost its way a little bit at the end, but i felt it was fairly realistic. I mean, i have seen the criticism that these soldiers would not have descended so deep into crazy town in such a short amount of time, but i think that given the speed with which their world collapsed you would have severe stress on a level that even soldiers are simply not conditioned to deal with. I mean sure, they are used to the horrors of war, but for the most part they understand it on a level where they have a chance to survive and return home. For them, home is always there, it is a rock and a foundation. Then suddenly this pandemic sweeps through and kills everyone and everything that they know. This is ten thousand times worse than the blitz, because how bad are bombs compared to a plague that kills pretty much fucking everybody? I mean they were in London and what, five people met up and got away from a city with a population of like eight million, what sort of psychological scars would that put on you.

The difference between Jim's group and the future Doctor Who's group was that Jim and his crew were so set on survival that they didn't have time to stop and think about the horror of what was going on. The soldiers had the chance with a little bit of proper training, to heavily defend themselves and then watch the world go to shit. Mothers, sisters, brothers, friends, fellow soldiers - everyone was fucking infected, and i think you could see the toll taken on them.

[MisterOJ]

Thanks a lot fuckers.

After reading through part of this thread, I decided it was time to read World War Z. So I bought it last night at bedtime and was going to read a chapter or two before going to sleep. I wound up reading half the damn thing, which kept me up till 1 a.m. and now I feel like a fucking zombie this morning from lack of sleep.

I blame all of y'all. Assholes.

[Spring Bass]

I really liked the book, i did, i found certain sections fascinating, and some were very gripping. But when part of the problem with a book like this is that for shit to happen people have to be stupid in massive numbers, then i'm less inclined. People shat on Prometheus because the characters made poor decisions, but i can accept that a great deal more on a micro level than a macro one, especially with the wealth and resources of first world nations. I would imagine that second and third world nations would truly get fucking trounced by something like this, but unless the perameters of the pandemic were altered - and by this i mean it was air born, which i don't actually remember hearing about directly as a cause, only as a possibility, and the zombies were 28 Days Later fast - i find it hard to concieve of some of the things happening as they were presented in the book. I do not give as much credence to FLOWs idea that hunters and people with guns would be the deciding factor, but i do think he is right that a strong army presence would have drastic effects on outcomes.

I agree that the Army would have made a huge difference. Like I said way up-thread, there's sort of a "all your ducks in a row" element to it because Brooks is being satirical in many of the collapse chapters. Without the completely shitty Presidential Administration, I don't think it ever gets out of hand - and even with them, I doubt you'd get a Yonkers-equivalent battle in New York City at all. I mean, where were they planning to retreat to after getting a symbolic victory?

I also wonder if the release date plays a factor. WWZ was released in 2006, which means that he was probably writing it in 2005 and earlier. He couldn't have predicted the spread of stuff like Youtube, smartphones with cameras, etc.

[Lord of Oop North]

Something that I don't think was mentioned in the book, but I feel is a natural consequence of the donor organs transmitting the infection, is that the blood supply of the entire hospital system would likely have been compromised, and contributed greatly to the spread of infection as more and more people were coming in injured.