19 KiB
Zombies apocalypse suitable for a rationalist setting
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Author: u/callmebrotherg now posting as /u/callmesalticidae*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3o6mu3/zombies_apocalypse_suitable_for_a_rationalist/
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Score: 7
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Created: 2015-10-10T04:08:54
Post:
Most zombie apocalypses seem to develop only because everyone made the worst decisions possible. Your usual Romero-style slow zombies, for example, probably shouldn't be able to reach and kill the majority of the human population from a single point.
Increasing their speed, their intelligence, and the rate of infection could all help.
So could making the virus airborne, either so that everyone but a few naturally immune people are infected or so that all corpses, everywhere, rise up at once if they're intact enough. Or including a human element, some organization which is using it for bio-warfare purposes and has intentionally increased its initial spread.
What kind of zombie would it take to plausibly reach regional, if not global levels of destruction, and what might the reaction be in either case, if we're trying to come up with a sequence of events where things go badly even though most people were acting intelligently, rather than because everyone held the Idiot Ball?
Comments:
u/Nighzmarquls [+22] (3 hours later)
If you want to make the zombies dangerous to humans. I think the most chilling and effective kind of 'zombie' to me would be something closer to the symptoms shown in the film the signal.
Prettymuch the humans are still fully cognizant, have intact memories, functional bodies and all of their skills.
It's just.
Now they want to kill everyone. In simple, sane, rational ways. They just go out and maximize getting the highest body count. They are actually ENTIRELY THE SAME from before their 'turned' EXCEPT that one little tweak.
That is the zombie apocalypse that would horrify me.
The ZOMBIES act rationally, they just had their goal structure cored out and replaced with a simpler and more brutal one.
u/NotAHeroYet [+3] City of Angles Municipal Government (11 hours later)
Do the people they kill become zombies, do they want to kill zombies? I do think this is the most terrifying type, though.
u/Nighzmarquls [+5] (13 hours later)
I think depending on your supernaturality either the people they kill become zombies, or the vector is water or airborne with a long incubation time.
I don't think they DO distinguish between zombies and regular humans. But they DO recognize if a human or a regular zombie is usable in a rational sense.
And from sheer observation I think the zombies would tend to a kind of uneasy truce eventually with each other and any humans that are sufficiently psychotic.
u/NotAHeroYet [+2] City of Angles Municipal Government (14 hours later)
Ah. Do they have any self-preservation, or once everyone else is dead, they want to die too? Do they want to kill animals? bugs? viruses? to ensure that this space rock never is infected with life again? Or do they exclusively want to kill humans?
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (a day later)
I think probably want to kill humans although I suspect the mechanism would also make animal lovers and pet owners want to kill dogs etc.
The murder impulse is probably comparably fuzzy as other base human drives if we want to keep this somewhat plausible.
But it should be prevalent and more or less replace most of the other motivators people feel.
So self preservation is not built in. But the smarter people and thus any rationalist zombies would recognize that if they die then it reduces their body count/murder potential.
u/FaceDeer [+7] (3 hours later)
I think increasing the incubation time and altering the infection pathways are the keys to making this work. Once a person is zombified it's generally pretty obvious, and generally speaking anything dumber than humans is not going to be much of a threat unless they have an overwhelming numerical advantage. So you need to get lots of people infected before they start turning into zombies.
Personally, I think it might be interesting to stop worrying about making a plausible disease and go back to zombie roots a bit. Make zombies magical again. Turns out hell really is full, or alien attackers are reanimating the dead to serve as their invasion army, or there's a curse on the land that prevents the dead from resting within it. Then you can just set the parameters however you like and come up with solutions within that framework.
u/Sagebrysh [+3] Rank 7 Pragmatist (15 hours later)
A long incubation time would be the real killer in any bad disease. Ebola will never spread into a pandemic, it hits you too fast. You get it, and die within a few days. Those few days are spent pucking and shitting out your slowly liquefying internal organs. That doesn't do much to infect the rest of the world.
Now if you took ebola, and changed nothing else but the incubation period. Increasing it to say, three months...that's a long time. You can interact with a lot of people in that time. Sneeze on them, cough on them, have sex with a hooker who then goes on to sleep with a few hundred other people, etc. By the time people start shitting out their innards, half the population is infected and you're past the point of recovery.
So if you made zombieism a virus with an extremely long incubation period, it could get spread to a huge percentage of the population who think the worst they have is a cold. And then they start turning, and all hell breaks loose.
This also plays merry hell for the survivors because, how do you know if someone you meet is infected? They seem and act perfectly normal, everything's fine for two months, and then one day they turn in the middle of your camp.
u/FaceDeer [+1] (16 hours later)
Well, that wouldn't work with Ebola specifically because the "pooping your guts out" thing is why it's so infectious. Without that it would probably be no more infectious and deadly than HIV. Which is certainly bad, but not end-of-the-world bad.
A nice "biological" approach to zombies that has come out recently are the clickers from "Last of Us". Having those zombies physically attacking people is almost an afterthought given that the pathogen spreads via airborne spores. In that case the zombies become more just a form of transportation to crack open defensive structures and get into peoples' personal spaces. The only downside is that they're still rather more obvious when they're in the infectious stage than someone with the sniffles would be. Maybe make up for it by giving the fungus super hardy spores that can contaminate an area for years?
u/duffmancd [+2] (4 hours later)
The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton does this really well - the dead just start rising and people have to deal with it. It's also in combination with the idea that zombies keep old minds just with different goals.
Just a warning that the series has a huge number of threads going on at once, this may be a benefit or detriment depending on your preferences.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+5] Roll the Dice on Fate (8 hours later)
Two stage virus: it had a pretty much unnoticeable first stage which effected 90%+ of the population, and then the first one turned, releasing particles telling the others to turn as well. So, you smell zombie on the wind and it gives a signal to your own dormant virus to switch you into a zombie in the next short while. For maximum effect have this secondary incubation period be about 8-16 hours, so that people can get on planes and such.
Now, some small percentage of the population are naturally immune to zombie-spores or whatever you want to call them. They are not, however, immune to a more concentrated dose of zombie matter like being bitten would provide. And there you have it: believable virus that does the job. Spores spread into the high atmosphere so that even isolated areas turn eventually.
However, you still need to make the zombies actually threatening to humans. Shamblers might seem shocking to domesticated humans, but back in our past we dealt with far most threatening problems than slow moving idiots while we have guns and building to fortify.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (an hour later)
There are a bunch of variables that you can tweak.
The biggest threat that zombies pose is that they they're an unknown; it would take time for epidemiologists to figure out that anyone bitten, scratched, etc. by someone with the disease will turn into one. I mean ... let's say that we're in a city of 80,000 people (which I am). I get attacked by some random guy who wanders into my backyard, he scratches me, I beat him to death with a crowbar, then what? I call the police, they come to the scene, and I eventually wind up in the hospital. While I'm there, my symptoms get progressively worse, meaning that there are lots of doctors and nurses around me. And that's when I turn. I attack the nurses and doctors; I wind up giving minor wounds to three of them. And it's entirely possible that they just think it's rabies or something like that and elect not to enact quarantine/isolation protocols. So far, no one has done anything wrong, but we can sort of see how an epidemic (of zombies) might spread from there, especially since the people who are going to go first are probably the ones with the most training in infectious disease protocol.
If the question is how to tweak the variables such that zombies are an actual threat ... I don't know. Just look at real world diseases that actually threaten us even without the walking dead involved?
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (an hour later)
So far, no one has done anything wrong, but we can sort of see how an epidemic (of zombies) might spread from there, especially since the people who are going to go first are probably the ones with the most training in infectious disease protocol.
Yes. The problem seems to be that you don't get to the point of the whole country beginning to come apart. A few cities, maybe a little bit more than that, but not much more.
Just look at real world diseases that actually threaten us even without the walking dead involved?
The primary common factor not shared with the walking dead is that they spread more easily than zombie viruses do. If we made something akin to the flu, maybe even the Spanish Flu, which only turned you into a zombie at some point after it killed you, then we could probably get a further spread than if the disease relied on the transmission of fluids.
u/rakov [+1] (10 hours later)
Yeah, with having to scratch someone it sucks: long incubation time means more time before infected can infect someone else. But if we make infection spread by air, it may make its way to the airport, and from there across the world.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (8 hours later)
That gets you up to a few dozen, maybe a hundred or so people. It's the disconnect between that and the whole world falling down that's problematic.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (a day later)
Here's my minimal list required traits for something to be a zombie:
- It's dead
- It's macroscopic. Viruses are not zombies.
- It doesn't think beyond the most basic level
- Anything it bites will die in a short-ish timeperiod and then become a zombie
- A headshot will drop it instantly. Other than that they aren't unusually resistant to harm, but they can more or less ignore bodily damage short of total destruction.
You can add extra bits -- it can infect through scratching, it can run superfast, etc -- as you like, but the above traits have to be there.
Here's the thing: Zombies just aren't a major danger.
Most of the comments are talking about making the disease airborne, or giving it a longer incubation, or etc. That's not about making zombies a global threat, that's about making a disease a global threat. Whether the disease makes you turn into a zombie or just kills you is irrelevant -- it's the disease that got you, not the zombie.
Sure, zombies can maybe get a town or two, maybe even a big city, but they aren't going to take over a decent-sized country. As soon as word gets out of what's happening the military is going to take them out with machine guns (to the head) and bombs. Even if you could pull it off, you're still limited to, at the very most, one continent, since getting them across oceans requires miraculous luck or intentional human action.
u/westward101 [+2] (2 days later)
This is going to be rationalist, right? It's not easy. Danny Boyle and Robert Kirkman both took the easy way out, skipping a month of time, bypassing the whole, "how did society get so fucked?" question. I've been stewing on this for a while....
First define "zombie". 28 Days Later isn't a "zombie" film according to purists. They're living humans that can be killed with enough damage, not just brain trauma. Non-zombies have some advantages to create an apocalypse. But disadvantages for a rationalist work. Fast zombies use a lot of energy and are limited to human mechanics. World War Z (the movie) style leaping doesn't work. You could concoct some "zombie fungus-strengthening the muscles" thing, but that doesn't work with a quick "infection to zombie" turnaround. And where does energy come from? If they're only eating hot flesh, they're going to run a calorie deficit almost immediately. John Ringo's books do an ok job with that. His zombies are driven into a murderous rage at the sight of normal people, but they do need food and water.
Even slow zombies need an energy source. How can they survive underwater and on land? And in a dark closet for a year? How can that be possible according to physics, much less biology? Where are the kcals coming from? Attack that question. Do they use photosynthesis? Do they hibernate?
Also, we live in a world with a substantial zombie literature. That's one of the hacks that Kirkman used in the Walking Dead. That's a world without zombies in popular culture. In TWD, people didn't understand how they worked (hence the big "we're all infected" reveal). Nowadays, first sign of a zombie epidemic and it's "headshot to recently dead grandma" all day long. Even airborne viruses take a long time to spread. Some rural places in, say Wyoming, would be weeks behind, say NYC. And they'd be watching it all on YouTube.
Finally, I think most apocalyptic fiction ignore the resiliancy of human societies. In the shittiest of times, people figure out ways to trade and to trust and protect each other. It'd be hard to get to an apocalypse-level, even with the dead rising. Personally, I don't think you can do a zombie apocalypse with "just" a zombie virus (I prefer a fungus). Human systems are pretty tough, it takes multiple failures to create a big disaster.
I am working on a little TWD fan fiction where yes, there's a zombie virus, but around the same time, right as people are fleeing the cities the road, as hysteria has peaked, an EMP hits, destroying most electronic-based technology. Was it a coincidental coronal mass ejection? Intentional terrorist attack? They're not sure yet. And may never know. Planes drop, cars stop. That pumps up the level of zombies pretty quick. No Internet, no phones. It's One Second After meets the Walking Dead. Then (following Forschten), those living with medical assistance start dying. And then, death from starvation. It's the only way I can see justifying an apocalypse.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (7 days later)
Then (following Forschten), those living with medical assistance start dying. And then, death from starvation.
And each one of those becomes a zombie? I like that.
u/dogcomplex [+1] (a month later)
Is that fanfiction done at all yet? I'd totally read that
u/rakov [+1] (9 hours later)
Increasing their speed, their intelligence, and the rate of infection could all help.
Problem is, result will be more like superheroes than zombies. To balance it out, we can make "zombies" generally intelligent, but mentally unstable.
I was thinking about it once, and imagined world where "zombies" are just like regular humans... except they can't resist temptation to ruin things. If a zombies passes little child, he just HAS to kick him in the ass, even if his moral principles forbid it. And they love destruction too, like blowing things up for the sake of it, or breaking sophisticated machines (more sophisticated, the better).
If that's not enough, zombies can be made very powerful: every of their body cells produces energy from, umm, quantum magic. And infection can be spreaded via air.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+1] (11 hours later)
It's not quite a zombie virus, but I've thought that contagious sociopathy would be interesting for a while now.
u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy (14 hours later)
Someone wrote a series about that.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (17 hours later)
Well, there's The Loving Dead, where it's an STD and doesn't take effect immediately.
u/Nepene [+1] (17 hours later)
I wouldn't say that most zombie movies do that. 28 days later style zombies are more popular now- fast super angry zombies with quick infection.
Films have done some additional things to make zombies deadly.
Super zombies. If 1/100 zombies turns into some sort of augmented zombie that can take on military forces then you have a force which can scale in size to match the actual military which is currently around 0.5% of the populace in America, with less being frontline combat troops.
You can have this coupled with their flesh eating traits, as Andrei Kruz did. What if the more people they eat the greater their strength, abilities, intelligence gets? If you contain it early you're good, but if you leave them to gestate they're a lot harder to kill.
You can have a wider range of zombies. Dresden did this. Extinct species coming back to life and attacking people means you have a notably larger population of zombies.
u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (20 hours later)
You can have this coupled with their flesh eating traits, as Andrei Kruz did.
I'm only finding him in Russian. Do you know if he's been translated into English?
u/IllusoryIntelligence [+1] (9 days later)
The everyone is infected method can make zombies more viable. In this scenario there is a global infection event and everyone who dies rises as a zombie, biting just causes more immediate turning in living subjects. This means that there are no true safe zones as there is always the risk of resurgence, if you want to make things tougher you could add in a possibility of over-exposure to zombie heavy areas increasing your risk of turning.
The Newsflesh trilogy took a similar approach.