PC How long would you survive a zombie apocalypse?

[Syphon583]

This philosophical discussion ignores the fact that zombie infections are magical in nature in basically all media, other than maybe 28 Days Later.

In The Walking Dead they play it up as a disease but you have zombies melted into the ground with nothing left but half of their head and they're still 'alive.' And decapitation stops everything below the neck but somehow the head still tries to bite you, and it never relies on any fuel from a body. That's necromancy at work. In 7 Days to Die you have crawler zombies whose bodies are almost completely destroyed and drained of blood but you can poke them and make them bleed to death. Plus you have burning zombies you can kill with fire. That's necromancy mixed with drugs.

In short, everything you think you know about how the disease could work will go out the window once our dark lords actually rise up and decide to rid the planet of us.

Referring to a discussion about surviving a zombie apocalypse as 'philosophical' is pretty bold. This is pure fantasy, and I think people know that. Any sane person who thinks about biology for a few minutes should come to a realization that a zombie apocalypse is literally impossible due to necrosis. This discussion is for fun. So of course these things are going to be ignored.

Well..... this would be possible for ... fungus. zombie ants can be "heavy" damaged but still able to walk

The term 'zombie ant' is quite misleading. The ant, while infected, is not dead. It's not in control of its own actions, but it is definitely not dead, and therefore, not a zombie.

Of course, we can debate what you define as a zombie, but in general terms, I'm pretty sure mist will agree that it is a reanimated corpse. This is why I think it's funny that people categorize '28 Days Later' as a zombie movie. Even Danny Boyle, the director, doesn't categorize it as a zombie film.

 

[meganoth]

Referring to a discussion about surviving a zombie apocalypse as 'philosophical' is pretty bold. This is pure fantasy, and I think people know that. Any sane person who thinks about biology for a few minutes should come to a realization that a zombie apocalypse is literally impossible due to necrosis. This discussion is for fun. So of course these things are going to be ignored.

The term 'zombie ant' is quite misleading. The ant, while infected, is not dead. It's not in control of its own actions, but it is definitely not dead, and therefore, not a zombie.

Of course, we can debate what you define as a zombie, but in general terms, I'm pretty sure mist will agree that it is a reanimated corpse. This is why I think it's funny that people categorize '28 Days Later' as a zombie movie. Even Danny Boyle, the director, doesn't categorize it as a zombie film.

I on the other hand am pretty sure that most of the participants in this discussions seem to accept the "modern" vague definition of a zombie made popular by newer movies, otherwise this objection would have been launched a few pages earlier.

 

[theFlu]

Now since this strain was the same for all of those people, since it has the same genetic background for all 10009 doses, they were all the same and if one would mutate, then the remaining 10008 would do the same.

I think you may have phrased this part poorly, as the rest of your post makes better sense - while this sounds more like quantum entanglement. But to get 10k identically mutated infections, you need to have cloned the mutated strain. Not impossible, just requires the mutation to occur early in the manufacturing, and it being a competitive version of the original - you'd likely have both the mutated strain and the original in each host, so the mutant would have to compete with the original.

 

[Syphon583]

I on the other hand am pretty sure that most of the participants in this discussions seem to accept the "modern" vague definition of a zombie made popular by newer movies, otherwise this objection would have been launched a few pages earlier.

I wasn't aware there was a new modern definition of zombies. Guess I'm getting old.

 

[Maharin]

For me this discussion was never about zombie lore (at least my parts of it ).  Zombie lore is, almost completely, unrealistic and extremely unlikely to result in an apocalypse... as others have said.

Which is why I was suggesting other things, like long incubation periods that create a more likely chance for infection spreading (presumably through fluid transfers and the like) before someone becomes a man-eating zombie.  Or maybe something that mutates quickly so that the "zombie" outcome happens after different symptoms over time which would keep the population guessing.

Imagine if the common cold virus (a rhinovirus I believe) was co-opted by a zombie virus that only did its work AFTER your cold ran its course.  Phase one: get a cold, spread it around and survive, seemingly with no lasting damage.  Phase two: turn into a zombie some time later.  Also, just like the cold, different people would have different severity of symptoms in the first phase so it would be very difficult to know for sure if someone has the zombie bug.  In that scenario getting the common cold would likely be a societal death sentence.

 

[Maharin]

And clearly wikipedia tells us that mutation comes from errors while processing (copying) DNA via RNA. Errors in a chemical process that are not predetermined by the DNA (even though not completely random).

Also, the faster a virus replicates the more likely there will be mutations.  Even minor symptoms can be nearly impossible to avoid because our immune systems get overwhelmed by the sheer number of viruses very quickly.  Even if our immune systems then stomp them out relatively quickly after figuring out how to kill them we'll still have a lot of the virus in  us to pass on to others before that happens.

Disease vectors adds another whole gotcha factor.  Ticks can carry lots of diseases and not be affected by them personally yet can spread them quite effectively.  If there was a virus that could infect a bacteria that feeds on micro-plastics... watch out world.

 

[Matt115]

Of course, we can debate what you define as a zombie, but in general terms, I'm pretty sure mist will agree that it is a reanimated corpse. This is why I think it's funny that people categorize '28 Days Later' as a zombie movie. Even Danny Boyle, the director, doesn't categorize it as a zombie film.

No. it don't have reanimated corpse fun fuct : CONPLAN_8888-11.pdf (stratcom.mil) it's offical plan of USA military against zombie. So yes 28 days laters is a zombie movie. why? Well they are not vampires. Zombie eat flesh - vampire not. L4D2 have zombie , this same cod or NZA. So make definition is not easy - ghuls are alive creatures that evolved from humans, vampire only drink blood so everything no matter if alive or not but eating human flesh main point of zombie.

Referring to a discussion about surviving a zombie apocalypse as 'philosophical' is pretty bold. This is pure fantasy, and I think people know that. Any sane person who thinks about biology for a few minutes should come to a realization that a zombie apocalypse is literally impossible due to necrosis. This discussion is for fun. So of course these things are going to be ignored.

Zombie apocalypse is impossible but - considering ant's human zombies are possible ( but very very unlikly) but it would be just... guy just stand somewhere high and wait until spore show ups and then corpse just died.

This world is soooooooo boring 

 

[Matt115]

For me this discussion was never about zombie lore (at least my parts of it ).  Zombie lore is, almost completely, unrealistic and extremely unlikely to result in an apocalypse... as others have said.

Which is why I was suggesting other things, like long incubation periods that create a more likely chance for infection spreading (presumably through fluid transfers and the like) before someone becomes a man-eating zombie.  Or maybe something that mutates quickly so that the "zombie" outcome happens after different symptoms over time which would keep the population guessing.

Imagine if the common cold virus (a rhinovirus I believe) was co-opted by a zombie virus that only did its work AFTER your cold ran its course.  Phase one: get a cold, spread it around and survive, seemingly with no lasting damage.  Phase two: turn into a zombie some time later.  Also, just like the cold, different people would have different severity of symptoms in the first phase so it would be very difficult to know for sure if someone has the zombie bug.  In that scenario getting the common cold would likely be a societal death sentence.

Idk why but this is interesting - Servitors from warhammer 40k (lobotomized cyborgs) would be possible but zombie virus not .

 

[meganoth]

I wasn't aware there was a new modern definition of zombies. Guess I'm getting old.

Well, Danny Boyle might not classify its movie as a zombie movie, but the general public does. Just search for "zombie movies" in google and 28 days later will show up in position 4 of the list shown. Danny is the creator of the movie but he hasn't any more say in what a zombie is than everyone else.

 

[BFT2020]

I am sure that is a reference to something I should know, but can't make it out.

1) I answered the OPs question (a bit too literally)

2) I am an engineer so I always remember to state uncertainty

3) I am an engineer and this sounds funny in my head

Also no reference intended.  But if there is actually one, I will take credit for being so subtle that even I didn't catch it at first  

 

[Syphon583]

Well, Danny Boyle might not classify its movie as a zombie movie, but the general public does. Just search for "zombie movies" in google and 28 days later will show up in position 4 of the list shown. Danny is the creator of the movie but he hasn't any more say in what a zombie is than everyone else.

I never said Danny Boyles' opinion was god's written word. The public sees that movie as a zombie movie because they look like zombies, they smell like zombies, they behave like zombies, but they are not zombies. At the end of the day I'm cool with it being described as a zombie movie. The fact that the movie is popular in the zombie genre, though, doesn't change the classic definition of a zombie.

I follow the classic definition. You follow the "modern" definition. That's cool. ElDudorino pointed out the irony of philosophically discussing something that is impossible in nature, and I was defending the room because regardless of those facts, it is fun to have a hypothetical discussion as to how long you think you'd survive.

 

[doughphunghus]

Maybe "how long would you survive.. as a zombie"?

There have been a few movies that had the "zombies" be more like normal people. Well, still zombies but they could talk/walk. And even a fun movie i really enjoyed (below). I think it would be a neat idea when bandits arrive to be able to play as a zed (as your character skin, with its abilities, and can carry guns/etc but food is people and animals now) and the "hordes" are the bandits. Also: you should be able to recruit zeds you find wandering to be part of your horde. Everything else about the game is the same (just zeds don't attack you, and mostly people spawn in pois). With a lot of human models added and using the "coyote ai" where it attacks and then runs away for the non bandit humans. I encourage someone to make this mod/overhaul.

behold: aaah! Zombies!... which i may have posted a long time ago but i forget

https://imdb.com/title/tt1027762/

 

[Maharin]

Just about every monster ever made has evolved its definition over time.  Vampires have come a long way and are very different from their origins.  Same for werewolves (lycanthropes in general) and, well, you name it.  To say it stops being something because someone added to or changed the lore is kind of pointless.  Most fabled creatures have origin stories from many cultures and from the distant past.  Who's version is correct?  The oldest one?  The most popular one?  /shrug

 

[Rotor]

 Who's version is correct?  

Mine!.... ofcourse .

 

[Matt115]

Just about every monster ever made has evolved its definition over time.  Vampires have come a long way and are very different from their origins.  Same for werewolves (lycanthropes in general) and, well, you name it.  To say it stops being something because someone added to or changed the lore is kind of pointless.  Most fabled creatures have origin stories from many cultures and from the distant past.  Who's version is correct?  The oldest one?  The most popular one?  /shrug

Well.... and many interesting creatures like  guy without head but with spiders legs were forgotten

 

[Roland]

At the end of the day I'm cool with it being described as a zombie movie.

Well then how about being cool with this thread being described as a zombie pandemic conversation even if we aren’t  sticking to classic definitions?

 

[Syphon583]

Well then how about being cool with this thread being described as a zombie pandemic conversation even if we aren’t  sticking to classic definitions?

I have nothing against this discussion. It's a fun discussion. I was defending this discussion when someone else was trying to call it out for ignoring basic biology. It was others who decided to pile onto one thing I said.

Good grief.

 

[Roland]

I have nothing against this discussion. It's a fun discussion. I was defending this discussion when someone else was trying to call it out for ignoring basic biology. It was others who decided to pile onto one thing I said.

Good grief.

My post was just a joke. Don't take it so seriously. Sorry if that didn't come through in the text format.

 

[Syphon583]

My post was just a joke. Don't take it so seriously. Sorry if that didn't come through in the text format.

Yeah, that's my bad. Tone and text just don't play together well, but I've spent enough time here that I should know you better by now. Cheers!