What's "Realistic" for a Zombie outbreak?

[The Grim Squeaker]

After reading this thread, combined with the well known argument that a "Shambling zombie" outbreak is incredibly unrealistic due to the ease of military response, the question occured to me -

At what level of "deadliness" would a Zombie outbreak be capable of overwhelming the world or a large first world nation (assuming only moderate incompetence ).

There's a wide range of zombie traits, but the most common variables as I see them are:

• Infectiousness -
  Ranges from "If you get bitten then it'll spread and you'll die and rise as a zombie" to "Anything that dies will rise as a zombie" to "Every living person who's died in the past will rise as a Zombie, in addition to anyone who gets bitten, scratched, or has a drop of zombie bodily fluids enter their bloodstream".
  This also relates to whether other mammals can get infected, including birds, cows, rats, monkeys.
  Also possible non physical vectors, such as diseases and how infectious they are, detectable, rate of infection and spread.
• Combat capabilities -
• Defense:
  How hard is it to kill a zombie?
  Ranges from: "Immune to pain but takes normal damage" (28 days later) to "highly resistant to damage due to ignoring it, massive physical trauma or destruction of brain required to destroy it" to "anything short of destroying the brain is useless. Is also very resistant to physical trauma (up to and including melee weapons wielded by humans, and even small calibre pistols)".
  There's also "chop it up limb by limb and each part will still be "alive" and capable of moving, attacking and infecting. Short of burning or grinding it up, it will remain a threat" & "small calibre pistols just annoy it" (Think Left 3 Dead Tanks).
• Offense (Includes speed):
  How fast is the zombie? Can it walk? Shamble? Run as fast as a human (28 days later)? Sprint faster than normal humans (Remake of "Dawn of the dead")?
  How strong is it? As strong as the original? Weaker than a normal human but with unending endurance (Mel Brooks's Zombies)? Peak of human strength but still "human strength? Capable of ripping through wooden doors easily and thin metal? (Dresden files zombies)
• How smart are the zombies?
  Assume an upper limit here, but can they use basic melee weapons and shields? (Doors, tire irons)? Can they open doors? Look for other ways in? Can they communicate and head for areas with survivors? Is there a hive mind with greater intelligence?
• How large and widespread is the initial outbreak?
• Where does it occur? (Some nations would be far better equipped to deal with it due to such factors as terrain, population density, military size, capabilities, experience and ruthlessness, how informed and ready to act (again, ruthlessness) the government is, prevalence of military training and firearms among the population (Switzerland as compared to Japan for example)

Keep it reasonable, The Flood for example is too much for example (due to infection vector at the minimum).
Thoughts?

[Vendetta]

They wouldn't be.

You really do have to have some kind of superwank to make zombies actually work as a doomsday scenario. They're too crap otherwise.

You'd need at least a massive and massively widespread initial outbreak (a significant percentage of total population dispersed relatively evenly) If you get something like 10% of initial population in the first rising, and they're spread evenly around a nation, then you might have some kind of noticable effect, but it will still be put down as soon as the military organises itself and starts cleaning up.

[Axiomatic]

You don't need superwank at all.

Just make the Zombifying virus airborne. Give it a long gestation period so that, after first outbreak, it has time to spread all over the world via aircraft.

One global zombie pandemic coming up.

[Vendetta]

That's essentially saying the same thing though. You need to go from zero to global pandemic all in one go. A totally undetectable disease which remains symptomless for a good few months before Suddenly! Zombies!

All you've done is superwanked the transmission vector.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Increasing the intelligence of the zombies is the most non-wankish way to make them dangerous I think. After all, poorly armed insurgents/terrorists/revolutionaries/etc all over the world have proven hard for even modern militaries to deal with; but they do that because they have tactics better than shambling around unarmed moaning about brains. Zombies that are smart enough to hide, to wear disguises*, to sneak into houses at night and infect people, to snipe from a distance or plant IEDs would be a lot harder to deal with than the classic mindless hordes.


* Especially effective if the zombifying agent is infectious enough that living people are already wearing masks.

[Bottlestein]

And we can answer this question in the OP very quickly: No zombie virus would work.

If something is shutting down your cells - tell me - does that make you a better warrior ?

[Solauren]

Since we are not talking about magical zombies....

First, how do you define Zombie?

Are we talking about the dead Shamblers, are talking about the 'Super-rabies' variant?

dead Shamblers, no chance of it being a problem. Sure, short term, it could be a localized problem, but not long term (i.e Shawn of the Dead).

A walking corpse that moves slowly? Oh, come on, that's easy to deal with. It's called a heavy blunt object, or oh, walk faster! Beat the thing back down with your baseball bat, or run it over with your car.

Super-Rabies variants (i.e 28 Days later, arguably Omega Man), are a bit harder. As a result of the infection, they appear to be stronger and faster then normal. i.e They are roid raging.

However, those are all local problems to deal with. Once the military gets involved, it's all over for the infection. They'll either mow everyone down that's obviously infected, and put those that are not in isolation until they are deemed 'safe', or they'll write the area off, blockade it, and bomb the shit out of it.


Now, if you want a doomsday scenario involing viral-zombies, the only way that it works is either
A)- Waterborne/Airborne spread. During this time, it acts like a minor cold to enable spreading. Followed by a 'flare up' period where it mutates and turns you into a 'Rabid Zombie'. During this time, if you spread the diease, it turns someone into a 'Rabid Zombie' as well. Gestation period would have to be at least several minutes or more, depending on initial infection. (Volume/location), and individual immunities.

B) - Biological warfare.
The only other way that it's really feasible is for a strain of Zombie virus to be a Airborne/Waterborne variant, and a large supply hooked into water treatment/processing plants and the sewer system. Turn it on about 1 am so it goes into the system.

People would be infected by anything involving water, followed by breathing, over the course of the day. Starting with their morning shower, then having a drink of water, washing dishes, brushing your teeth, washing your hands, or cleaning something with water.

By nightfall, a good deal of a target city should be infected, as well as minor outbreaks in other cities.

Do this in say, 6 or 7 major cities in a country, and you could have a problem.

[CSJM]

Well, the Resident Evil (movie-verse) kind of virus could work. Transmitted not only through humans, but also through animals and even insects. Marked preservatory qualities, capable of animating dead people and preventing decomposition. Zombification not instant, though with rather quickly developing symptoms. Zombified creatures retain their agility and have increased strength and endurance due to feeling no pain. Of course, Umbrella helped the thing become a pandemic, but I think it has sufficient capability for becoming one on its own. "Sufficient" as in "non-laughable", of course. A single T-Virus zombie in the middle of any populated area wouldn't cause a breakout larger than a few blocks from its location, if it's lucky. By itself. A worst-case scenario is such a zombie being discreetly killed by some thugs in an unmonitored area of the city. Rodents and carrion-feeding birds would get infected from that corpse, and be able to quickly spread the disease among their kin. Then stray dogs. Stray cats. Before long, people would start getting infected from bites and scratches of these vermin, all over the city and the suburbs. Among wild animals, the virus could spread like wildfire, especially among bird flocks. Since people don't die of the thing too quickly, there would be time for the hospitals to get a share of these "patients", before they "go rogue" and start infecting everyone - people in hospital beds will be especially susceptible, since they can't evade the attacks and will still "rise and walk" once zombified. If there's no warning for this kind of thing happening, it will take precious hours for serious military forces to mobilize and take the situation under control. By that time the most dangerous carriers of the disease - birds and rodents - will have carried it far beyond the reach of the army. Livestock will be infected. Through fishing predators, fish. Infected mosquitoes will be everywhere. Through fish, the virus can stretch over the ocean. It won't do it through birds because hunger-driven bird zombies won't travel that far for food, and there's no food for them in the waters. Since the humans' control of the ocean isn't even a fraction of that on the ground and in the air, we can expect all the ocean to be eventually consumed by the virus. Ecosystems will be royally wrecked - if we don't kill off the fish in rivers, fishing predators on land will be infected. If we do - they die of starvation. In the end, it may not be an apocalypse for humans - militaries of the world should be capable of setting up a sufficient defence against animals, and I guess the attitude towards mosquitoes will be far more hostile, to the extent that tiny aerosol flamethrowers will be sold, since the chance of a fire is better then a chance of people getting infected. Maybe eventually, a proper cure will be developed. But for the whole world, it'll be a disaster on a massive scale. Humans will need to radically change their diet, for one - livestock will be much more scarce, and fish will be all but nonexistant. Grain and other "farmables" (eh, forgot the proper word) won't suffer too much, except from swarms of zombie locusts and their kin. I guess humanity will survive, but a large part of it will wish it didn't.

All the above is an uneducated guess, at most. And, of course, just my opinion.
If you need me, I'm in my flameproof bunker.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think as far as world-ending zombie apocalypses goes, this is one of the most realistic vectors of infection and this is the most probable conclusion to that.

Seriously though, the aforementioned traits are going to be good candidates for overthrowing modern nations. Most of the popular fiction zombies in the movies just don't cut it.

[Mobius IO]

What you really need for a zombie apocalypse to work is for modern civilization to collapse. Having a large scale disaster as the trigger for the outbreak could do the trick. If for example a Wormwood scenario where the "virus" arrives as part of a meteor bombardment that kills a sizable percentage of the human race and collapses much of the worlds infrastructure.

[Shroom Man 777]

Or have waterborne rabies in a small-scale natural disaster setting? Like, think of Hurricane Katrina, and think of it coinciding with a contagious waterborne rabies! SUPER DOME OF THE LIVING DEAD!

[Lagmonster]

I never understood why zombies had to be 'natural' in the sense that they're created by parasites or viruses. Magical zombies work far better; Army of Darkness stands as the most entertaining example of what an actual army of the dead should look like - we just assume that those random piles of bones are made mobile by magic, and we go onward with our fun sword fights.

[Bottlestein]

^ Magical zombies are the only thing that "works". A virus would not work - neither would a parasite.

Again to everyone trying to think up "OMG global transition vectors" : why would a person with a viral infection NOT TAKE "DAMAGE" like anyone else? Do you become stronger when you have the flu? Are you able to survive days without food while you have the cold ?

Why do you think someone with rotavirus or herpes will magically become "bulletproof"? Why would this "zombie outbreak" be any more difficult to quell than a group of weak patients trying to break out of quarantine ?

[Mobius IO]

^ Magical zombies are the only thing that "works". A virus would not work - neither would a parasite.

Again to everyone trying to think up "OMG global transition vectors" : why would a person with a viral infection NOT TAKE "DAMAGE" like anyone else? Do you become stronger when you have the flu? Are you able to survive days without food while you have the cold ?

Why do you think someone with rotavirus or herpes will magically become "bulletproof"? Why would this "zombie outbreak" be any more difficult to quell than a group of weak patients trying to break out of quarantine ?

It's a convention of the zombie genre, just like (energy) shields and easy FTL in a lot of space Sci-Fi.

[Rossum]

I recently re-watched the new Doctor Who episode "The Unquiet Dead" and found it rather interesting at least on the Zombie Apocolypse theme. Basically there was a planet of aliens somewhere who claim their planet was damaged in the Time War and they became incorporeal (Doctor said they were made of gas but he only took one glance at them and they kept flying around through lit gas pipes and I have no idea why a sapient being made of gas would want to fly into a burning gas lamp). They can posses the dead in order to have physical bodies and througout the episode they kept strangling people so they could have more bodies to animate.

Doctor saves the day by convincing a psychic girl to close a rift in space that he had asked her to make ten minutes ago. The house she's in explodes which totally takes care of all the alien despite the fact that they've been flying around town for weeks and apparently have no fear of fire.

The possessed dead in this case were the traditional shamblers and I don't think they ever said anything worth listening to but the aliens that possessed them were fairly intelligent (okay, they were idiots who dropped their pretense of being nice about two seconds after getting a gate to Earth open but they could at least speak complete sentences).

I'm curious how effective an invasion of incorporeal body-possessing ghosts would be. I guess it depends on how durable their incorporeal bodies are and how much they can affect the physical world but the addition of actual sapience in the 'zombies', the potential to use equipment and weapons, and potentially a coordinated attack and command structure. A possessed body might be rubbish in a fight when compared with a trained soldier, but access to incorporeal spies and presumably a bit of intelligence could let them make up for any deficiencies in their physical presence.

I mean, if they can operate motor vehicles or hold guns then their threat level goes up significantly, assuming that there are a few billion of them (about as many of them on their planet as there are humans on Earth) then its just a matter of them finding enough bodies to posess. At the very least if humans destroy all the zombies and start cremating their dead then the ghosts can fly around making Whoo whoo noises while people are trying to sleep in order to pass the time.

[CSJM]

Because they would not become a group of weak patients, improbably enough. Think of a virus that was initially developed as a cure, or a stimulating agent. In the case of a T-Virus, a virus designed to keep an organism going as long as it is physically capable to function, designed as ultimate soldier-making material, with the fortunate side-effect of denying brain death but with the unfortunate side-effect of functionally disabling said brain as a result? If THAT kind of virus breaks loose, what you'll have is a bunch of fairly disorganized, but still strong and agile "patients" with a strong preference for "fresh" meat and a marked indifference toward physical harm that doesn't destroy the brain or disconnect it from the rest of the body. I'm not saying a quickly identified outbreak couldn't easily be contained. I'm saying that in a plausibly possible scenario, a virus not designed to hamper its carrier and capable of infecting creatures other than humans could, potentially, break out of control faster than forces could be mobilized against it. Especially if there is no actual information on the virus other than "it turns people into aggressive zombies and is transmitted through bites". By the time all of the virus's means of transmission are identified, the animals would spread it too far for the ensuing pandemic to be properly contained. If the military is quick enough, saturating a large area around the initial outbreak with lots and lots of neurotoxins (or nukes, for extra effectiveness) could probably kill off enough wildlife to stem the expansion of the virus, but those would be really drastic measures and would only be implemented if the virus's potential is understood quickly enough. If it isn't, as soon as it goes into the ocean the Earth's ecosystem is screwed. We don't have nearly enough ways of controlling the ocean life to prevent infected fish from spreading the virus everywhere.

[Rye]

^ Magical zombies are the only thing that "works". A virus would not work - neither would a parasite.

There are parasites and viruses that significantly modify the host's behaviour to zombie-like ends. Rabies, for instance, is a virus that makes people hydrophobic and bitey, since it's passed on in saliva. Sacculina is a barnacle that attaches itself to crabs and injects itself into one of the crab's joints before taking over the crab's functions and using it to produce its own young. There is a type of wasp from Costa Rica that paralyses Plesiometa argyra spiders and injects its larvae into the spider's abdomen, where they feed and grow. The spider then regains movement and the ability to spin webs and continues on as normal. The larvae grow, and just before they kill the spider, the spider spins a bizarre structure it never did before; a cradle for the wasp larvae. The spider is killed and the larvae cocoon themselves in the cradle the spider made.

This isn't "undead" zombification, but the biological case for mass behaviour-modification isn't magical, it's just a bit of an extension on things that already exist. The undead part is there for psychological reasons.

Why do you think someone with rotavirus or herpes will magically become "bulletproof"? Why would this "zombie outbreak" be any more difficult to quell than a group of weak patients trying to break out of quarantine ?

This reminds me of a fucked up story a guy I know from LA once told me. He saw a guy on PCP run from the police - through a third story window, dropped to the ground outside and broke both his ankles. He kept on running anyway, scaled a fence and got away. Imagine a mob of that shit, with people getting infected en masse by unknown means.

[Bakustra]

If we go with a parasite, that also explains why zombies are inarticulate. The parasite would presumably shut down stuff like speech centers to provide more food for itself. I'd bet that zombies are pretty poor at spatial reasoning too.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, eventually the parasite might evolve towards being more able to fit in to human society- such that generations down the line, zombies are nearly indistinguishable from humans- except for their cannibalistic tastes and odd behaviors. We might call such next-generation zombies "ghouls".

[Axiomatic]

That's essentially saying the same thing though. You need to go from zero to global pandemic all in one go. A totally undetectable disease which remains symptomless for a good few months before Suddenly! Zombies!

All you've done is superwanked the transmission vector.

Months? Give it a week.

You've also answered the question of "well, why don't the military just shoot them?" It's because the military breathe air, that's why.

[Lord of the Abyss]

^ Magical zombies are the only thing that "works". A virus would not work - neither would a parasite.

There are parasites and viruses that significantly modify the host's behaviour to zombie-like ends. Rabies, for instance, is a virus that makes people hydrophobic and bitey, since it's passed on in saliva. Sacculina is a barnacle that attaches itself to crabs and injects itself into one of the crab's joints before taking over the crab's functions and using it to produce its own young. There is a type of wasp from Costa Rica that paralyses Plesiometa argyra spiders and injects its larvae into the spider's abdomen, where they feed and grow. The spider then regains movement and the ability to spin webs and continues on as normal. The larvae grow, and just before they kill the spider, the spider spins a bizarre structure it never did before; a cradle for the wasp larvae. The spider is killed and the larvae cocoon themselves in the cradle the spider made.

This isn't "undead" zombification, but the biological case for mass behaviour-modification isn't magical, it's just a bit of an extension on things that already exist.

A cool example recently discussed here on SD.net would be the fungus that turns ants into "zombies" as part of its reproductive cycle. Some other zombifiers are also mentioned in the thread.

[weemadando]

Why do you think someone with rotavirus or herpes will magically become "bulletproof"? Why would this "zombie outbreak" be any more difficult to quell than a group of weak patients trying to break out of quarantine ?

This reminds me of a fucked up story a guy I know from LA once told me. He saw a guy on PCP run from the police - through a third story window, dropped to the ground outside and broke both his ankles. He kept on running anyway, scaled a fence and got away. Imagine a mob of that shit, with people getting infected en masse by unknown means.

I call bullshit.

People need to understand that the human body can't magically keep going through all injuries just because someone is wired to the eyeballs on PCP/zombie juice/jesus.

You can drop from a third (second in real terms) story window and though you might have jarred or caused mild sprains to your ankles/knees from the drop you can still operate, especially if you are running on adrenaline or other substances.

Someone with broken ankles will not mechanically be able to effectively run, let alone scale a fence. Even a moderate to severe sprain will cause nearly immediate swelling which will severely hamper the persons capacity to run efficiently, regardless of whether or not the joint (bones, tendons, ligaments and muscles) are all intact.

[Razor One]

I call bullshit.

People need to understand that the human body can't magically keep going through all injuries just because someone is wired to the eyeballs on PCP/zombie juice/jesus.

You can drop from a third (second in real terms) story window and though you might have jarred or caused mild sprains to your ankles/knees from the drop you can still operate, especially if you are running on adrenaline or other substances.

Someone with broken ankles will not mechanically be able to effectively run, let alone scale a fence. Even a moderate to severe sprain will cause nearly immediate swelling which will severely hamper the persons capacity to run efficiently, regardless of whether or not the joint (bones, tendons, ligaments and muscles) are all intact.

I'll grant this to be the norm in 99.99% of cases... then you get whacked out cases like This.

Thing is they were just batshit crazy and not on any drugs that medical tests could ascertain.

Zombie Apocalypses are fictional, fictional stories tend to focus on the exceptional or the special cases rather than the norm. It's what makes them fun entertainment but little more than that and I think the people that make the Zombie films know it too.

If they drew in the military like they damn well should if they're going for "Realistic" then the army takes one look at their script and rips them on everything that deviates from standard procedure. Eventually they're left with a lot of guys with a lot of guns, planes, tanks, bombs, and ammunition shooting an enemy that can barely, if at all, fight back resulting in a dull film full of explosions, IE, Transformers 2.

The film makers know this and tend to concentrate on the band of disparate survivors holding out in a sea of zombies inevitably making mistakes that have them turning into zombie food. They don't go beyond this perspective because they know that it will detract from the survival horror elements.

The only realistic zombie outbreak is one that gets contained and neutralised inside a month.

After several months, people will start pissing and moaning about how mass produced quantities of the Drug DeZombophon are costing tax payers millions of dollars and was it really necessary to declare a pandemic and lockdown the outbreak in the first place? Was the Zombie outbreak REALLY that bad?

Give it a year or two and people will barely even remember a zombie outbreak even happened. In other words, look to Swine Flu to see how a real zombie outbreak would get dealt with, only slightly less deadly.