The Nathan James in Walking Dead (RAR)

[Themightytom]

Last Ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ship_(TV_series)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walki ... TV_series)

I don't actually know how to do a RAR so hopefully I am doing this right. Imagine that instead of the Red Flu ravaging the earth, it is the plague from the Walking Dead. In the show Rick was in a coma for five weeks or so according to the show creators, and we can tell from Fear The Walking Dead that everything fell apart incredibly quickly.

The USS Nathan James was in the arctic for three months, so let's say they are seeking the primordial sample, find it and the Russians attack, they don't hold anybody long enough to discover what's really going on, until Captain Chandler contacts his superiors. only a very garbled explanation is given. Dr Rachel Scott shares what she knows, what she doesn't know is that when Neil attached his gene to the virus it mutated into the zombie virus. The Nathan James deploys a team to the cruise ship to get fuel and supplies and... wake up a lot of walkers.

Where do they go from there? Could they even pull off the fuel transfer, how does this affect future events? Assuming Dr. Scott has the same ability to use what's on the ship to reverse engineer the virus from the primordial sample what should they do, what could they manage in adhering to the Last Ship timeline, and what could they do adhering to the walking dead timeline, imagining that all the characters in both are in the same universe.

Both series have book versions, if anyone is familiar with them feel free to chime in, but my understanding is Last ship the book didn't end very well, and Walking Dead became very very complicated.

[Themightytom]

Either I did this wrong, or not enough people care about either series. Womp

[Crazedwraith]

No enough sitcom characters gaining comic book powers.

(Not actually seen either series.)

[Patroklos]

There is far less infrastructure available in the a walking dead world than a last ship world. Its possible that they could effect a gravity feed fueling from some of the few locations that still use that, but the chances of anyone onboard knowing how to do that is nill. Sure they could scrounge up some trucks and go for bunkered marine fuel sites but if they are going through that much effort whats the real point? There are no aircraft to shoot down. There are not submarines to hunt. There is no targeting data to shoot a Tomahawk. Operating a DDG in this world is a colossal waist of resources. Real world warships of the complexity of an Arleigh Burke destroyer need near constant logitstics support from an advanced industrial base anyway. I am not talking about fuel, but spare parts, lubrication oil, etc. Most of it wouldn't work after a month anyway even if you had the tanks topped off with fuel.

Even if they got a cure to the virus 99.99% of people are not infected. They are dead. I suppose it will be cool to not turn into a zombie when you die but it doesn't do anything about the current zombies or rebuild the world.

[Zixinus]

A thought: they do not need to keep all the abilities of the warship intact. Just the engine and life-support stuff. Phalanxes and other warfare weapons would be unnecessary. They don't need the ship at its full capacity. They just need it to work as a ship.

They would want to keep a ship, even if not a warship (maybe a few low-maintenance yachts?). Water is a good defense against zombies in the walking dead, IIRC. One of the best plans would be to find a nice, zombie-free island to colonize. Or just find a nice island relatively close to the main shore (so they can go back to raid for supplies), dezombify that and establish that as a colony. Should be easy for military people. Re-establish America from there.

[Patroklos]

Ageed 100%. Water (or sheer cliffs, or any gravity enforced barrier) are excellent for most zombie types in fiction. A boat is a great choice. You don't even need your own island. A boat tied to a pier with the brow removed is just about as well secured.

The Nathan James is simply a gold plated waste in this scenario. Even as just a people mover it uses gas turban engines that are horribly maintenance intensive and required high quality fuel. Honestly, what you want are some easy upkeep diesel tugboats that have low draft, can muscle their way in and out of ruined ports, and can push/tow barges full of your salvaged loot and/or mobile living quarters to new/safer locations.

[Me2005]

The USS Nathan James was in the arctic for three months, so let's say they are seeking the primordial sample, find it and the Russians attack, they don't hold anybody long enough to discover what's really going on, until Captain Chandler contacts his superiors. only a very garbled explanation is given. Dr Rachel Scott shares what she knows, what she doesn't know is that when Neil attached his gene to the virus it mutated into the zombie virus. The Nathan James deploys a team to the cruise ship to get fuel and supplies and... wake up a lot of walkers.

If they pull off the fuel transfer (IIRC, it went badly and they lost a crew member even without zombies to fight), they are well set up. That's a pretty big if though, they sent like 3-4 marines/seals/specialists into a cruise ship. That, again IIRC, was full of dying infected because it was set up as a mobile hospital.

There is far less infrastructure available in the a walking dead world than a last ship world. ...

I only watched part way through the first season, but in the show they hit up existing naval bases for needed parts and carried enough spares to cobble things together otherwise for many months, possibly years. Their biggest problems were A) Fuel and B) Food, and the ammunition they had was only an issue in that they were frequently fighting a Russian ship. Small arms rounds would be a bigger issue, but they could also probably use their cannon on the walkers better than they could the living enemy combatants (which is to say, extremely well IIRC - they hit individuals/groups of individuals with that thing). I'm also not sure there's really less infrastructure available either - the time that it took for things to fall apart is about the same, and there's very few people left alive after the virus in Last Ship, probably the same or fewer than in TWD. They hit up major naval bases and don't encounter much in the way of people, let alone resistance. The biggest issue they have is a Russian ship dogging them for the cure, which they won't be as interested in in this case since the virus doesn't kill, it reanimates.

What happened to the Navy in TWD's timeline? In Last ship, they all succumbed to the virus and died, so they were really the last ship. If other ships are out there anywhere (way more likely in TWD; as you guys have outlined already ships are great defense against walkers and even docked a USN ship is going to be pretty solid defense against them), they could meet up, administer the cure, and reform society somewhere.

[Themightytom]

Am I over estimating the value of administering the cure in walking dead? It seems like any protected community is immediately at risk because the second someone dies unnoticed, as in the prison, suddenly they are biting and infecting more and self building an army.

That being said, I have no idea how the "Contagious cure" could work, since there were practically no large populations left in TWD timeline by the time the Nathan James returned, and Dr Scott said she could only manufacture limited doses of the i injected cure. According to the comments here I just consigned the crew of the James to a slow death aboard their ship, they could hole up and get by with scavenging, and attempt some kind of area clearing strategy, to prolong things. The massive herd in the quarry for example would be nice target practice.

What if they took a larger base, like Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia? It wasn't stated as destroyed, there would be other ships there to scrounge parts from and a much larger town to scavenge. I would imagine dense population areas have an advantage in having more supplies available, but the major downfall being hordes of zombies.

[Themightytom]

Also thanks for posting everyone, I was starting to feel like Rick with the radio.

[Zixinus]

The cure would be useful in that, if widely distributed, it would stop the growth of the zombie population. If they want to reestablish civilization, having an internal outbreak every damn time someone accidentally dies would be crucial.

[Patroklos]

True, but that's not going to affect the zombie population at all. Within a month of the collapse (if I understand the Walking Dead timeline close enough), 99% of the human population were zombies. That's billions to low millions worldwide. Sure new deaths technically add to the disparity there but its statistically irrelevant.

Now, when it comes to day to day living, yes. Its nice to know that some dude who died inside your defenses isn't going to go to the other side.

What if they took a larger base, like Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia? It wasn't stated as destroyed, there would be other ships there to scrounge parts from and a much larger town to scavenge. I would imagine dense population areas have an advantage in having more supplies available, but the major downfall being hordes of zombies.

The real world doesn't work like that. That's like saying if you had access to a Toyota factory you could keep your car running forever. That is technically true, but unless you happen to be a shit hot mechanic as well those parts aren't going to help you. A USN crew serve as caretakers and operators of their ship. To that end they know how to do preventative maintenance and some minor repair work. They do not do anything beyond routine work, what we in the biz call intermediate or depot level maintenance, as the technology and knowledge needed for most of our equipment is beyond what you could expect from a generalist operator (what the crew are). That's what the shipyards are for.

[Joun_Lord]

True, but that's not going to affect the zombie population at all. Within a month of the collapse (if I understand the Walking Dead timeline close enough), 99% of the human population were zombies. That's billions to low millions worldwide. Sure new deaths technically add to the disparity there but its statistically irrelevant.

Now, when it comes to day to day living, yes. Its nice to know that some dude who died inside your defenses isn't going to go to the other side.

Not going to help against the zed population but as you said it would help for people behind defensive lines. Which will be important for survivors.

There would still probably be very little rebuilding. I think mostly any civilization would wind up like Fidder's Green in Land of the Dead or the West Coast in World War Z though no doubt on a smaller scale or London in 28 Weeks Later, a community behind powerful protection carving a niche in the land but not really actively trying to recover land. Even if all the zombies dropped dead they just wouldn't have the population base to spread out. Having a cure would be excellent for stopping some of the problems we see in those scenarios (people getting bit during supply runs into the zombie infested areas, suicides and deaths in the zone, and zombie outbreaks in the population) but overall will not be much of a game changer.

The best bet for the James is to probably establish a protected enclave on a shore location and leave the boat as a getaway incase things go pear shaped. Use the helicopters to try to recover survivors and find still operating military units and go from there.

The main problem for the crew of the Nathan James is the military from what we've seen in TWD seems to be affected by the virus and turn into complete idiots (though they aren't really the only). Should they not be affected quite so bad as the soldiers who rushed into a zombie infested house, horsing around and playing golf outside the wire, rushing into zombies with riot shields, still taking torso shots, using a tank on a building you are trying to capture, trying to surrender after getting your tank blewed up by the people who owned the building you were blowing up, and probably more (considering I stopped watching TWD after like the 3rd season and stopped watching FTWD after the 1st episode of the 2nd season I dunno) they might be able to do okay.

But even in TLS the Nathan James crew could be kinda dumb. The SEAL or whatever who got killed by rushing through an infected ship, being able to magically know that CH-53 Sea Stallions and random Euro choppers were Russian, being unwilling to negotiate with any fucking body, the Captain thinking he was immune to electricity, having the Captain and XO going on a boat ride for monkey's in infected territory, going on a boat ride in infected territory when they have a chopper, and the crew acting like idiots over the Doctors cure experiments and dead monkeys.

I like the show but goddamn is it dumb. Its definitely Micheal Bay.

[Thanas]

The Nathan James will obviously win because they are so manly and rugged and because the war criminal torture -contractor is such a charming southern rogue.

*vomits*

[Joun_Lord]

I take it you're not a fan Thanas?

But how can you not be what with the realistic portrayals of everyone? Generic Muslim terrorists THAT WE DON"T NEGOTIATE WITH, generic Russian villains who wear black and gas masks in the arctic to let you know how EVIL!!! they are, untrustworthy foreign people who hate freedom and telling the truth, and of course the freedom loving and patriotic Muricans who are so American that when they jerk off they spew freedom. I mean thats sounds realistic to me.

Clearly you don't love freedom enough.

[Thanas]

don't forget the black baltimore politician which turns into a literal nazi. Can't trust black democrats, obivously.

[Joun_Lord]

Well of course you can't trust them dirty dems, law and order breaks down and they go burning bodies to power abortion machines no doubt as part of an Obamacare white genocide mandate!!!

Seriously though, that whole thing was pretty stupid. I'm relatively positive that burning fresh human bodies would be very energy intensive, putting far more energy in then you'd ever get out like a repeat of the Matrix battery thing. Maybe if they were like mummies (I remember reading somewhere some mummies in Egypt were actually used like firewood) but no these were fresh corpses still with all the juices and jiggly bits.

I'm not even sure what they were going for with that beyond "politicians bad". Maybe some stupid class struggle allegory of rich people seeing the poor as an expendable resource to maintain their comforts? I dunno.

[Micro-Balrog]

The zombies in Walking Dead are fairly non-dangerous.

The crew are in such trouble because they keep doing dumb things and are very low on supplies.

It should be trivial to butcher large amounts of these zombies if you can scavenge for supplies even on the scale that the Nathan Hale has.

[Patroklos]

don't forget the black baltimore politician which turns into a literal nazi. Can't trust black democrats, obivously.

Seems pretty accurate given recent events, actually.

[Thanas]

don't forget the black baltimore politician which turns into a literal nazi. Can't trust black democrats, obivously.

Seems pretty accurate given recent events, actually.

Call me when baltimore is building concentration camps and start heating the city by burning dead concentration camp inmates.