Most blatant idiot plot

[Jayngfet]

So, I was checking out Neon Genesis Evangelion again and halted at the idiocy of the Battle against Bardiel. The entire plot from that point on relies on the pilots transporting the EVA to fly through a cumulus cloud.

Of course any pilot with any sort of training knows that flying through that SPECIFIC type of cloud is suicide in NORMAL circumstances. If the strong winds, ice, and possibly lightning(which was CLEARLY VISIBLE before they entered the damned cloud) don't kill you, pressure will, small aircraft have been known to implode going through these things.

And yet these two supposedly hyper competent pilots decide to fly straight through the middle of one of these things carrying what is essentially one of mankind's last hope. Idiots:smallfurious:

So, I'm wondering if any lapses of common sense can top this, if there are any moments of sheer FOOLISHNESS that can compare.

[Innis Cabal]

Its a cruddy, over hyped anime. What do you expect?

[Berserk Monk]

Its a cruddy, over hyped anime. What do you expect?

Damn! I wanted to be the first person to say this.

[Cracklord]

Never read Dominic Deegan, have you?

[Catch]

So, I'm wondering if any lapses of common sense can top this, if there are any moments of sheer FOOLISHNESS that can compare.

Every single episode of 24. It's like an hour-long commercial for torture.

[Ravens_cry]

*scampers behind rock to watch thread from a distance*

[SurlySeraph]

Every single episode of 24. It's like an hour-long commercial for torture.

This thread is about blatant violations of common sense. If "Torture does not actually work" was a blatant violation of common sense, there wouldn't be so many people who believe it works.

Back on topic. There's one episode of House where, despite several ultrasounds and I think at least one MRI, no one notices that the patient they're working on has a uterus and undescended testes.

[Lord of Rapture]

Its a cruddy, over hyped anime. What do you expect?

Eh, I wouldn't say it's crap, since it still had some entertainment value. But on the over-hyped part, Emiya Shirou just called. He wants his title of Captain Obvious back.

OT: I've been lucky to stay away from a lot of bad media, but I'm afraid I have to nominate Kannazuki no Miko for the title. *twitches* Dominic Deegan's orcrape ain't got nuttin' on that. >_<

[Tyrant]

Every single episode of 24. It's like an hour-long commercial for torture.
I'm not going to claim to have seen every episode of every season of 24, but the ones I have seen are not all hour long torture fests. Even Hostel, which is torture porn, isn't a 90 minute torture fest.

[Jayngfet]

Never read Dominic Deegan, have you?

I'm one of the freaking snarkers old guard from the epic thread, so no. I've read the excripts of lord dominus. I generally don't use DD in this because then I'd be ranting on every single panel.

[Mystic Muse]

James Bond Goldfinger

*runs*

[FoE]

Signs, Signs, Signs. Worst case of Fridge Logic ever. "Wow, wasn't that a great movie? I loved the ending and ... wait, what were the aliens going to do when it rained?"

Also, 28 Weeks Later. After we discover that we've found a carrier of the disease that just destroyed England, let's prevent anyone else from getting infected by stick her in a room with no guards! And then we'll herd all the non-Infected civilians into an easily accessible warehouse once the power goes out! That's sure to work out well!

[Vic_Sage]

Signs, Signs, Signs. Worst case of Fridge Logic ever. "Wow, wasn't that a great movie? I loved the ending and ... wait, what were the aliens going to do when it rained?"
The aliens probably didn't even know that would happen.

[darkblade]

The aliens probably didn't even know that would happen.

They had been watching the earth for some time before. You'd think they'd pick up on the fact that our planet is basically death for them.


Although biggest idiot plot award goes to everything Marvel since Secret Invasion. Normally Marvel civilians have the survival instincts of 90s computer game lemmings but what the hell were any of them thinking when they handed Norman flippin' Osborn better known as the Green Goblin command of the highest government agency and direct control over all registered heroes.

[Ravens_cry]

The aliens probably didn't even know that would happen.
Our planet is something like 70 percent covered in dihydrogen monoxide. The aliens were in orbit, how did they NOT notice that factoid?

[Closet_Skeleton]

That deus ex machina was equally lame in Day of the Triffids, but at least there it made some sense. Why weren't they just wearing protective anti-water armour?

That Eva thing sounds more like "did not do the research" than idiot plot.

If there's something that's the opposite of idiot plot but just as bad, I nominate Death Note.

[Bhu]

So, I'm wondering if any lapses of common sense can top this, if there are any moments of sheer FOOLISHNESS that can compare.

Since I get to review films (especially bad films) I can name a few hundred examples, most from horror/exploitation films.

For example the plot of Skinned Alive (I think thats the name). The protagonist is THE WORLDS LONELIEST MAN (cliche #1), who falls in love with a prostitute (cliche #2) despite knowing shes bad for him (possible cliche #3). He figures 'we can make this work'.

He later finds her skinning a client alive, and eating him. He still figures 'we can make this work', despite her possibly being a cannibalistic serial killer.

She later takes a bullet directly between the eyes to little effect, revealing she may be an immortal flesh eating monster, and his thoughts are still apparently 'we can make this work'.

How lonely would you have to be...

[Starscream]

The original story of Snow White comes to mind. Not the Disney one. She's not exactly a genius in that version, but in the original she is truly Too Dumb To Live.

You see, in that story the witch comes to visit her not once but three times. The first time she offers Snow White a scarf. But she ties it too tight around White's neck and she falls over as if dead.

The dwarves show up and cut the scarf and she revives. The next day the witch comes back and gives Snow a poisoned comb. When she puts it her hair, BAM, instant coma again. The dwarves return and remove the comb. Instant recovery.

The third day the witch comes with the apple. A half white half red apple. Because even a moron like Snow White can recognize a pattern somewhat, the witch proves the apple is safe by eating the white half. Snow takes a bite of the red, it gets caught in her throat, and she goes down again.

The dwarves don't know what's wrong with her this time, and decide she is really dead. But because she still looks nice they put her in a glass coffin and don't bury it. Later on a prince happens by and sees the lovely corpse and decides he must have her. The dwarves agree, and as his servants pick up the coffin they drop it, dislodging the apple from her throat. She wakes up and marries the guy who tried to purchase her corpse.

Everyone in the story is an idiot. The queen/witch is an idiot for trying the easily reversible scarf and comb. Did she think that they dwarves would simply bury her without removing something stuck in her hair or tied around her throat? And she apparently didn't disguise herself very well because at the wedding the guests make her put on red hot iron shoes and dance until she dies.

The dwarves are idiots. They left Snow White alone three days in a row after there were attempts on her life the first two times. And they didn't even advise her to not let the witch in either. And didn't they consider decomposition when they thought up this "glass coffin on display" plan?

The prince is an idiot. He tried to buy a sexy cadaver. History is silent on what he wanted it for. It's probably best not to think about it. I wonder if he was disappointed when she woke up.

And above all, Snow White is a blithering idiot. She lets the witch in three days in a row. She accepts the gifts three days in a row. She falls for the incredibly transparent "red/white apple" trick. Then when some necrophile nobleman buys her dead body she wakes up and decides to marry him. If it's out of gratitude, shouldn't she marry the clumsy servants?
If this story has a moral, it's that sometimes Disneyfication is an improvement.

[Vic_Sage]

Pretty much every single Protag in the original source material of a Disney movie is a blithering idiot.

[hamishspence]

Does that include Mowgli?

Aladdin never came across as especially idiotic in the story, as I remember it.

[Yarram]

On Disney, I've always thought that the characters from Aladdin were pretty doughy, especially when it comes to wasting wishes...
I mean for goodness sake? Why wish to become a prince? What a waste!
Also, wishing to become a Genie was kinda dumb too... Why not go even further?

Even the end was frustrating. Rather than wishing for something again, then palming the lamp off to Jasmine to have two wishes before she wishes for the Genies freedom he just wasted it. So much for the cunning, rugged street-rat.

[kamikasei]

...The entire plot from that point on relies on the pilots transporting the EVA to fly through a cumulus cloud.

Of course any pilot with any sort of training knows that flying through that SPECIFIC type of cloud is suicide in NORMAL circumstances.

...But the plot doesn't rely on their flying through that specific type of cloud, just through any cloud. The fact that that specific type of cloud is dangerous in its own right wasn't part of the plot, but an overlooked detail. I don't think this is an idiot plot, just a case of failing to do the research. If they'd made a big deal out of flying in to a cumulus cloud causing the plane to crash or something, then maybe.

(Unless I'm forgetting something important about the episode...)

[Yora]

There's a great number of Star Trek episodes, that get you running for a barrel of mind bleach, just because of their stupidity. TNG has some serious offenders. I heard Voyager has them too, but I think I did not bother to watch enough of the show to remember that.

I think that part with the plane and the cloud is rather silly, though. So the animators did not know that real world pilots do not fly through a specific real life form of cloud, that looks very similar to that cloud the drew. That's a completely justified oversight, not real stupidity. And it does not affect the plot at all.

I can see how some parts of DD are not what everyone prefers, but I can't remember anything that was just plain stupid and did not make any sense.
But then, DD is in the same line as Halo and WoW. People like to scream all day that it's awful. Not because they care, but because they think it makes them look intelligent and cool if they rant about it.

[DomaDoma]

I've only seen the first two episodes, but School Days would already be my first choice. If you really like the guy so much - especially if, as I'm led to understand, it's going to drive you into some kind of murderous rage - for god's sake don't go to such lengths to hook him up with another girl.

[Hermit]

I've only seen the first two episodes, but School Days would already be my first choice. If you really like the guy so much - especially if, as I'm led to understand, it's going to drive you into some kind of murderous rage - for god's sake don't go to such lengths to hook him up with another girl.

It's worse when it's blatently obvious to all involved that the main bloke is sleeping with any female with a pulse, yet they all remain convinced he's a good person.

Also, the last episode. Just all of the last episode.

[quicker_comment]

I'm not a pilot, but are you sure cumulus clouds are as dangerous as you think?


Aircraft entering cumulus clouds may expect to encounter turbulence and icing. The operational relevance of these effects will depend upon the aircraft type and will be insignificant in safety terms for larger transport aircraft. Flying beneath a cumulus cloud, aircraft may experience turbulence associated with down drafts and wind shear. The severity of such turbulence and icing will depend on the extent of the instability (often indicated by the size of the cloud) and the outside air temperature.

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Cumulus

[Dienekes]

Every single episode of 24. It's like an hour-long commercial for torture.

I fail to see a problem here.

Though actually, there are quite a lot in the glorious world of comics.

[Johel]

The last Die Hard.

The Big Bad send his girlfriend with an helicopter and 2 henchmen to manually disconnect the West-Coast electric grid. So far, it's ok, nothing wrong. Maybe the grid HAD to be deactivated that way.
But Nooooooo !! A few hours later, when McLane kills everyone there (including BB's girlfriend), Big Bad just blows the whole building by sending billions of m³ of gas... which somehow shut down the electric grid for the whole West-Coast.

The Big Bad's plot was mainly for money. He had had no qualm about killing people or destroying infrastructure before. So why would he waste hours and risk his girlfriend's life if he just could blow things in the distance with a single click ? Costed him nothing (that's it, less than losing a helicopter, 2 henchmen and his hot chinese chick) and could be done in a few minutes. Also, this had the advantages to actually make SURE that an idiot wouldn't just reactivate the electric grid...

His excuse ? Something along the line of :
"-Ok, now, it's personnel, Mclane, no more mister nice guy".
It was cool, really. But damn, it was stupid to not have used the trick sooner.

[Bouregard]

Pokemon.

Ashs Mum:

Happy travel son, oh and if you meet dangerous firelobbing, electrocuting and mindcontroling monsters while you sleep in dark forest mae sure to bring some home!

[loopy]

Firefly - "The Message". Basically the whole plot revolved around the crew being ludicrously vague and that Tracey guy wandering in and overhearing the wrong parts of conversations.

They could have told him what their plan was in about 5-10 seconds if they'd cared to.

Not a fan of that episode.

[daggaz]

Every single episode of 24. It's like an hour-long commercial for torture.

Bless you, dear. :smallsmile:

[Tyrant]

Our planet is something like 70 percent covered in dihydrogen monoxide. The aliens were in orbit, how did they NOT notice that factoid?
Not that it makes a huge difference (they should have still known about it), but I am pretty sure it was the stuff in the water and not just good old H2O that was killing them. I took the whole point of the girl's "ability" to be that she was pointing out all the random crap that was in the water and it was all those glasses of water tainted with various things that were used against the alien at the end. She also pointed this out with water about every place else they went, showing that our water is impure. Again, the aliens still should have scanned the substance covering most of the surface and in the very air, but I don't think it was just the water that killed them. Otherwise wouldn't they melt if it was humid?

Bless you, dear. :smallsmile:
Seriously, do you guys even watch 24? This is like the discussion about Inglorious Basterds where some people were going on and on about how it was all about torturing Nazis (which is apparently an immoral act). After the movie actually came out, it was quickly apparent who actually watched the movie and who hadn't. 24 has torture but it isn't non stop torture for 24 straight episodes for however many seasons have been on. It's not even a tenth of that.

[Johel]

Seriously, do you guys even watch 24? This is like the discussion about Inglorious Basterds where some people were going on and on about how it was all about torturing Nazis (which is apparently an immoral act). After the movie actually came out, it was quickly apparent who actually watched the movie and who hadn't. 24 has torture but it isn't non stop torture for 24 straight episodes for however many seasons have been on. It's not even a tenth of that.

Well, I don't know about 24 (didn't watch) but torturing anybody is, by most standards, an immoral act...
You're basically making somebody feel miserable and helpless.
While some medical treatment DO make people feel the same, they are at least expected to bring some positive feed back to the patient. Torture doesn't.

At best, it's a very efficient, though ruthless, way to make somebody confess. The confession itself is less than reliable. The fact that the victim's believes and actions are themselves monstrous doesn't give us license to become monsters ourselves...though I won't question the fact that, sometime, there's no alternative. Humans ain't paladins :smallamused:

At worst, it's just a way for a sadistic individual to humiliate a foe while getting informations as a bonus. And that's this part that most people will concider, as that's how the torturer is supposed to make it appears to his victim ("-We really have fun, don't we ? Please don't say a word, for I would then have to stop. We don't want that, don't we ? :smallyuk:").

[Kaiser Omnik]

Well, I don't know about 24 (didn't watch) but torturing anybody is, by most standards, an immoral act...
You're basically making somebody feel miserable and helpless.
While some medical treatment DO make people feel the same, they are at least expected to bring some positive feed back to the patient. Torture doesn't.

At best, it's a very efficient, though ruthless, way to make somebody confess. The confession itself is less than reliable. The fact that the victim's believes and actions are themselves monstrous doesn't give us license to become monsters ourselves...though I won't question the fact that, sometime, there's no alternative. Humans ain't paladins :smallamused:

At worst, it's just a way for a sadistic individual to humiliate a foe while getting informations as a bonus. And that's this part that most people will concider, as that's how the torturer is supposed to make it appears to his victim ("-We really have fun, don't we ? Please don't say a word, for I would then have to stop. We don't want that, don't we ? :smallyuk:").

Many experts tend to say that torture is not efficient at all; people will say anything, confess things they have never done, just to make it stop. Just saying.

[Tengu_temp]

The prince is an idiot. He tried to buy a sexy cadaver. History is silent on what he wanted it for. It's probably best not to think about it. I wonder if he was disappointed when she woke up.


Now, now. That's not idiocy, that's just peculiar tastes.

[Nerd-o-rama]

To the original comment: really? That's what bothered you about Evangelion's plot? REALLY? And I have to agree with kamikasei that that's merely an overlooked detail, not an irredeemable flaw in the scenario. The whole Bardiel thing could have happened in literally any other way and the plot would have turned out the same.

Also: NERV? Redshirts? Hyper-competent? HAHAHAHA!


Firefly - "The Message". Basically the whole plot revolved around the crew being ludicrously vague and that Tracey guy wandering in and overhearing the wrong parts of conversations.

They could have told him what their plan was in about 5-10 seconds if they'd cared to.

Not a fan of that episode.I have to agree on this one, though. That whole episode kinda barreled straight downhill after the corpse woke up. Pretty CGI ice planet, though.

I haven't read the books, but this near-novella-length critique (http://www.alternatehistory.com/gateway/analyses/Drakaproblems.html) of S. M. Stirling's Draka series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Domination) provided entertaining reading. Apparently, it's one of the largest-scale idiot plots in fiction, since it requires every major power in the world between the 17th and 20th centuries to be completely moronic.

[Mewtarthio]

Even the end was frustrating. Rather than wishing for something again, then palming the lamp off to Jasmine to have two wishes before she wishes for the Genies freedom he just wasted it. So much for the cunning, rugged street-rat.

Because he realized that the lamp was slavery? He genuinely wanted to free the genie, and exploiting as many wishes as possible would be counter to that goal.

Re: Signs: I personally like the theory that the aliens were on earth for some completely alien reason. Sort of a species-wide equivalent of "I dare you to jump in that acid vat!" Nothing, however, can forgive "His lungs were closed! No poison got in! That's why he had asthma!"

[MCerberus]

Neverwinter Nights had a pretty standard fantasy plot. Save the city blah blah blah. until

It turns out that this whole thing is the plot of the lizard queen, who has made world-ending curses and put them right below the palace. You travel back in time for little reason and also someone put one of the doom weapons (TM) inside of a snowglobe.

Of course a lot of the missing links to get to this point where in a completely optional 25 floor dungeon out in the middle of nowhere. In fact your reason for going into it goes away half-way through.

Oh, and then the city gets attacked by half-dragon Balors. Seriously.

[The Demented One]

Our planet is something like 70 percent covered in dihydrogen monoxide. The aliens were in orbit, how did they NOT notice that factoid?
Fridge Brilliance: Water's never explicitly stated as their weakness, only "a method in Israel." It's not the fact that it's water that kills them...it's that it's water in the house of a priest, who's just had his faith renewed. It's holy water.

...yeaaaah. So not really.

[Johel]

Many experts tend to say that torture is not efficient at all; people will say anything, confess things they have never done, just to make it stop. Just saying.

Well, I did say it was efficient to make people confess but that the confession was unreliable. They used it during the middle age (and still use it in several countries) when the goal is the confession itself. Truth is irrelevant if the person is already guilty in your mind. :smallamused:

[Kaiser Omnik]

Well, I did say it was efficient to make people confess but that the confession was unreliable. They used it during the middle age (and still use it in several countries) when the goal is the confession itself. Truth is irrelevant if the person is already guilty in your mind. :smallamused:

Sorry, for some reason I completely missed the sentence about reliability.

[kamikasei]

...yeaaaah. So not really.

Actually, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if that was supposed to be the actual plot. Not that that's a good thing...


Neverwinter Nights had a pretty standard fantasy plot. Save the city blah blah blah. until

Not seeing how what you describe qualifies as an Idiot Plot. The term doesn't just mean "I thought the plot was stupid".

[Johel]

Actually, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if that was supposed to be the actual plot. Not that that's a good thing...

Pseudo religious reference in a movie that is NOT supposed to be about religion ? With Mel Gibson as the main character ? Come on !! :smallwink:

[Dr. Bath]

That deus ex machina was equally lame in Day of the Triffids, but at least there it made some sense. Why weren't they just wearing protective anti-water armour?

Do you mean day of the triffids (I really don't recall any deus ex machina in that, just people starting to fight back and hiding on islands) or War of the Worlds? War of the Worlds had something similar to death water in that diseases killed them, but that is fairly reasonable. Remember the indigenous people of Easter Island? They didn't get on well with the common cold either.

[The Demented One]

Actually, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if that was supposed to be the actual plot. Not that that's a good thing...
I think "holy water kills aliens!" might be slightly more...less...bad...than "water kill aliens." But damn, it is hard to spin that movie so it doesn't suck.

[ondonaflash]

At best, it's a very efficient, though ruthless, way to make somebody confess. The confession itself is less than reliable. The fact that the victim's believes and actions are themselves monstrous doesn't give us license to become monsters ourselves...though I won't question the fact that, sometime, there's no alternative. Humans ain't paladins :smallamused.

"Those who do battle with monsters must be wary, lest they thereby become monsters, for as you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil.


Well, I did say it was efficient to make people confess but that the confession was unreliable. They used it during the middle age (and still use it in several countries) when the goal is the confession itself. Truth is irrelevant if the person is already guilty in your mind. :smallamused:

"Everybody is guilty of something." Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

[Jayngfet]

I'm not a pilot, but are you sure cumulus clouds are as dangerous as you think?

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Cumulus

Yes, yes I am. That's what I was taught, and I looked around a bit before making this thread. Even if/though the aircraft could go straight through a towering cumulous unharmed, and even IF the EVA could also go through unharmed, there's still the matter of the fact that one they touched ground NERV should have checked the EVA for damage or somesuch. After all it just flew across a freaking ocean through a stormcloud.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Do you mean day of the triffids (I really don't recall any deus ex machina in that, just people starting to fight back and hiding on islands) or War of the Worlds? War of the Worlds had something similar to death water in that diseases killed them, but that is fairly reasonable. Remember the indigenous people of Easter Island? They didn't get on well with the common cold either.

I mean Day of the Triffids, which ends with them finding out that salt water kills trifids. Which makes sense for land based plants.


This thread is about blatant violations of common sense. If "Torture does not actually work" was a blatant violation of common sense, there wouldn't be so many people who believe it works.

The problem is that common sense isn't common and is often wrong when put through scientific analysis.

[Eldan]

The original story of Snow White comes to mind. Not the Disney one. She's not exactly a genius in that version, but in the original she is truly Too Dumb To Live.

You see, in that story the witch comes to visit her not once but three times. The first time she offers Snow White a scarf. But she ties it too tight around White's neck and she falls over as if dead.

The dwarves show up and cut the scarf and she revives. The next day the witch comes back and gives Snow a poisoned comb. When she puts it her hair, BAM, instant coma again. The dwarves return and remove the comb. Instant recovery.

The third day the witch comes with the apple. A half white half red apple. Because even a moron like Snow White can recognize a pattern somewhat, the witch proves the apple is safe by eating the white half. Snow takes a bite of the red, it gets caught in her throat, and she goes down again.

The dwarves don't know what's wrong with her this time, and decide she is really dead. But because she still looks nice they put her in a glass coffin and don't bury it. Later on a prince happens by and sees the lovely corpse and decides he must have her. The dwarves agree, and as his servants pick up the coffin they drop it, dislodging the apple from her throat. She wakes up and marries the guy who tried to purchase her corpse.

Everyone in the story is an idiot. The queen/witch is an idiot for trying the easily reversible scarf and comb. Did she think that they dwarves would simply bury her without removing something stuck in her hair or tied around her throat? And she apparently didn't disguise herself very well because at the wedding the guests make her put on red hot iron shoes and dance until she dies.

The dwarves are idiots. They left Snow White alone three days in a row after there were attempts on her life the first two times. And they didn't even advise her to not let the witch in either. And didn't they consider decomposition when they thought up this "glass coffin on display" plan?

The prince is an idiot. He tried to buy a sexy cadaver. History is silent on what he wanted it for. It's probably best not to think about it. I wonder if he was disappointed when she woke up.

And above all, Snow White is a blithering idiot. She lets the witch in three days in a row. She accepts the gifts three days in a row. She falls for the incredibly transparent "red/white apple" trick. Then when some necrophile nobleman buys her dead body she wakes up and decides to marry him. If it's out of gratitude, shouldn't she marry the clumsy servants?
If this story has a moral, it's that sometimes Disneyfication is an improvement.

Ever read the original version of sleeping beauty?

Queen: "Hey, King? We only have 12 golden plates, but have to invite the 13 queens of the fairie. What should we do?"

King: "Well, I suggest we don't invite one of them."

Queen: "Oh, good idea. Which one?"

King: "Probably the one who will be most angry and is also the most powerful sorcereress of them."

[Eldan]

Do you mean day of the triffids (I really don't recall any deus ex machina in that, just people starting to fight back and hiding on islands) or War of the Worlds? War of the Worlds had something similar to death water in that diseases killed them, but that is fairly reasonable. Remember the indigenous people of Easter Island? They didn't get on well with the common cold either.

Actually, it makes little sense. Human diseases have evolved to efficiently infect humans. Not aliens. Their biochemistry should be extremely different. I mean, it's rare that diseases jump from one species of earth life to another.

[Johel]

Actually, it makes little sense. Human diseases have evolved to efficiently infect humans. Not aliens. Their biochemistry should be extremely different. I mean, it's rare that diseases jump from one species of earth life to another.

It's not so much about human disease than bacteria and virus as a whole.
In War of the Worlds, aliens die because our atmosphere is full of microorganisms that, while harmless to us, might very well be deadly for a non-immune species.

[Klose_the_Sith]

At worst, it's just a way for a sadistic individual to humiliate a foe while getting informations as a bonus. And that's this part that most people will concider, as that's how the torturer is supposed to make it appears to his victim ("-We really have fun, don't we ? Please don't say a word, for I would then have to stop. We don't want that, don't we ? :smallyuk:").

I fail to see exactly what you're ranting about in this bit ...

Is it sadistic military personnel, or is it simply the people who've made a different lifestyle choice, cause dude ...

Not cool to rant on those people for being different. Just saying. :smallannoyed:

[Eldan]

It's not so much about human disease than bacteria and virus as a whole.
In War of the Worlds, aliens die because our atmosphere is full of microorganisms that, while harmless to us, might very well be deadly for a non-immune species.

That's my point, actually: how do viruses from our world enter alien cells, if they have any? What do bacteria eat in an alien body? How do parasites get in?

[ondonaflash]

Not cool to rant on those people for being different. Just saying. :smallannoyed:

It is acceptable when their life-style choice intrudes on others who try to live their lives in peace.

This may be a bit of a rant, but it does bother me a bit when people say "You should be able to live how you choose", that's wrong. That statement should go "You should be able to live how you choose, so long as your decisions do not prevent others from living how they choose." Its a simple rule that if followed strictly and to the letter, with not interpretation or deviation, would make the world a better place!

*ahem* Sorry about that.

[Johel]

@Eldan :
Virus would probably have a hard time, indeed, since most use our own genetic system to reproduce (aka, they hijack our cells to replicate themselves). They are overspecialized parasites that make us sick because their replication process destroy our cells and consume a lot of resources.

Bacterias, however, are autonomous cells on their own.
They feed by assimilating matter around them. Details vary from one bacteria to another but the idea is that they make us sick because they are feeding on our body's resources, produce toxins the way we produce excrement and keep increasing in numbers, which means an increasing toll on our body.
Human body fight back by increasing temperature (as high enough temperature can kill or at least slow down some bacteria) and producing antibodies, among other things. Most bacterias will proliferate easily in a living host because most of the matter is already processed for an energetic purpose, which make assimilation easier. Also, the general hot and wet environment of an living host is good for most species of bacterias.
I don't know the whole scientific terms in English, sorry.

A alien or a human body, provided they are both organic and follow roughly the same biological rules (respiratory system, circulatory system, digestive system), would provide an roughly equal breeding ground for bacterias.

@ondonaflash :
Yep, that's the idealist version of the thought. :smallsmile:
Chaotic Goodness...

For a more cynic, evolutionist version, take the former. Basically, since every single living creature is in competition with others for resources, it's stupid to conciser the well-being of others, even inside your own species, since they'll soon or later turn into competitor in any taken field. Unless not considering their welfare could result in a direct threat to you as an individual, you better ignore or use them. Basically, a combination of "might makes right" and "the end justify the means" with a serious dose of egoism. :smallamused:
Chaotic Neutral, bordering Chaotic Evil...

[Lord Seth]

After reading through the examples, I have to conclude that at least 50% of the posters don't even understand what an idiot plot is.

[warty goblin]

@Eldan :

For a more cynic, evolutionist version, take the former. Basically, since every single living creature is in competition with others for resources, it's stupid to conciser the well-being of others, even inside your own species, since they'll soon or later turn into competitor in any taken field. Unless not considering their welfare could result in a direct threat to you as an individual, you better ignore or use them. Basically, a combination of "might makes right" and "the end justify the means" with a serious dose of egoism. :smallamused:
Chaotic Neutral, bordering Chaotic Evil...

Although individuals compete for resources, individuals don't live very long. Successful genes do. These are exactly the genes that code for behavior that is likely to pass them along, which are not neccessarily those that maximize the longevity of the individual that carries them.

The distinction between this and your argument is rather profound. Mating for example does nothing for the individuals involved in terms of survival, and in fact impose a net penalty due to the energy spent locating and winning a mate, warding off rivals, caring for young et cetera. Individuals trying to survive have no reason to do any of these things. Genes trying to survive have every reason to induce these behaviors in the individuals who carry them.

Thus cooperation between individuals can be, genetically, a very valid strategy because although the resource cost may harm the survival odds of any one individual, it might raise that of the entire group. If said group is reasonably homogeneous in genetic makeup, that raises the survival chance of the genes that encode for cooperative behavior.

[Piedmon_Sama]

Although biggest idiot plot award goes to everything Marvel since Secret Invasion. Normally Marvel civilians have the survival instincts of 90s computer game lemmings but what the hell were any of them thinking when they handed Norman flippin' Osborn better known as the Green Goblin command of the highest government agency and direct control over all registered heroes.

They didn't. Norman was appointed head of Superhuman Defense or whatever by the President. Nobody voted for him. That said, he's increasingly popular, but that's due to

1. He was the leader of the Thunderbolts, who were hyped up in a massive media campaign as America's greatest heroes.
2. He was prominent in the defense against the Skrulls--he personally killed Varanke, the Skrull Princess leading the invasion. That image was replayed on news networks across the nation.
3. Reformed villains are nothing new in the Marvel Universe. As Norman points out: Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, and others have all been villains or outlaws in the past.
4. There have been many other villains bearing the name "Goblin," and several other people using the mask of the Green Goblin. Norman was able to use this to claim that, while he had been the Green Goblin, all the worst crimes were committed by other people wearing the costume.

Given that most people don't care enough to run background checks on their elected officials who are supposed to represent them, what do they care about this guy, really? The courts exonerated Norman, the government trusts him, that's probably good enough for most people who aren't investigative reporters.

[Winterwind]

After reading through the examples, I have to conclude that at least 50% of the posters don't even understand what an idiot plot is.In that case, maybe it should be clarified for the sake of those who don't.

An Idiot Plot - a term coined by Roger Ebert - is not the same thing as an idiotic plot (where you think that what happens is dumb), though many will likely fall in that category. An Idiot Plot is a plot that works only because every character in it behaves like an idiot. If the premise of the plot is stupid, but the characters in it behave intelligently (or at least not like completely brainless morons), no matter how much you hate the plot, it is not an Idiot Plot.

[Solaris]

That's my point, actually: how do viruses from our world enter alien cells, if they have any? What do bacteria eat in an alien body? How do parasites get in?

Point of order? In War of the Worlds, the aliens were similar enough to us that they fed on our blood. I should think that something of similar enough biology to gain sustenance from our blood would also be of similar enough biology to interest terrestrial microbes.

[pita]

The end of Death Note had Light deliberately scheming in an over the top way and failing at it, idiotically. It looked like one of my worse schemes, just his involves life and death. Life lesson: Don't scheme like a tool when just doing the job will do a better effect.
I thought he was smart enough to realize it.
Stupid writer person.

[Winterwind]

Point of order? In War of the Worlds, the aliens were similar enough to us that they fed on our blood. I should think that something of similar enough biology to gain sustenance from our blood would also be of similar enough biology to interest terrestrial microbes.We eat meat of other animals all the time, and most of the illnesses that plague these animals are completely harmless to us. It is not unheard of (swine flu or mad-cow disease come to mind), but quite unusual for a sickness to jump from one species to another. So... no, Eldan is quite right there. Them being able to gain sustenance from us means nothing.

[Starscream]

Ever read the original version of sleeping beauty?"

That one is even creepier than Snow White. In the original version the princess gets the spindle (a thorn or a piece of flax in some tellings) stuck in her finger and sleeps for a hundred years.

Then the prince finds her. And *hem*hem* "marries" her while she is still in a coma. And they have kids. While she's in a coma. Then when one of the babies is crawling on her looking for food it sucks the thorn from her finger reviving her.

I mean, it's implied that the prince in Snow White was a little disturbed, but that's pretty blatant right there.

There's also an entire second act to the story that got left out of the Disney version, involving the prince's ogre mother and her plans to eat her daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

Again, Disney made a good decision when they decided to make it a romance/comedy/adventure film with funny fairies and a dragon slaying.

[Eldan]

I'd have prefered real fairy queens.

Oh, and as a six-year old, I was severely disappointed when I went to watch Snowwhite and they left out the part with the iron shoes and the burning coals.

[Solaris]

We eat meat of other animals all the time, and most of the illnesses that plague these animals are completely harmless to us. It is not unheard of (swine flu or mad-cow disease come to mind), but quite unusual for a sickness to jump from one species to another. So... no, Eldan is quite right there. Them being able to gain sustenance from us means nothing.

I disagree. While it is unusual, there are still enough cross-species infections between terrestrial life that it does still happen often enough that it's a concern. Them gaining sustenance from us indicates they're playing with the same biological rules as we are, which means that some microbe, somewhere, is gonna look at them like lunch. It's biology, not physics (well, not straight physics). We're not as concerned with statistical probabilities as we are with possibilities. Given the worldwide nature of their attack, it does seem that they were simply asking to catch a plague that they had no immune system to defend against. Recall, the book tells us that after their however many eons of civilization, they'd wiped out plague and therefore no longer had immune systems. That might've been an unreliable narratory, but it seems to fit the explanation for the sudden eradication of their species after a couple weeks occupying Earth.

[Eldan]

And with enough superscience to defeat earth, they can't defeat a generalist microbe infection? It just seems unlikely to me. Remotely possible, but still...

Edit: Right. The book explanation might help there. Weakened immune systems and no practice in medicine. I only saw an old movie.

[Lord Seth]

In that case, maybe it should be clarified for the sake of those who don't.

An Idiot Plot - a term coined by Roger Ebert - is not the same thing as an idiotic plot (where you think that what happens is dumb), though many will likely fall in that category. An Idiot Plot is a plot that works only because every character in it behaves like an idiot. If the premise of the plot is stupid, but the characters in it behave intelligently (or at least not like completely brainless morons), no matter how much you hate the plot, it is not an Idiot Plot.Yes, this. That's why the cloud thing in Evangelion is not an idiot plot no matter how you slice it, neither is the "torture works" in 24, and various other examples don't work either.

I'm going to give an example of an actual idiot plot and you'll see how it works as an idiot plot, let's take something from the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series. The set-up you need to know: Sonic was exiled to an alternate universe while the Sonic from THAT universe (who's evil) took Sonic's place in our universe, and did a lot of flirting with the girls. Sonic manages to make it back and the evil Sonic, while still in our universe, has meanwhile taken off for evil plots unknown. Now I'll quote something from Dan Drazen's review of #151 about it why what follows it is an idiot plot:

For those of you just joining us, an Idiot Plot is
a story that can only proceed so long as the characters act
like complete idiots. It never occurs to Sonic to connect the
friendliness of the girls with his own time of absence. It
never occurs to either of the girls to thank Sonic for the
swell time or to complain about any incipient venereal
diseases so Sonic can go "Say WHAT?!?" and deny that he was
even keeping company with them. It doesn't occur to him to
report his abduction and time of absence to Princess Sally who
might be able to make the connection for him. Everybody acts
like idiots. Hence, we have an Idiot Plot.

For a far older example of an idiot plot, take Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. Now the idiot plot in this case can perhaps be forgiven because the play is hilarious, but here's the set-up: Two sets of twins were separated at an early age. One set knows about the other set and in fact is going around the world trying to find them. They come into the town where that other set actually lives, and let the mayhem begin as lots of cases of mistaken identities happen. But the thing is, neither of them actually put it together that maybe this might be where their twins--who again, they have been looking for--have been living. It's a hilarious play, but it's hard to deny the fact that it's an idiot plot. My Shakespeare professor did so some speculation as to why the characters couldn't figure it out, though; regardless, whether justified or not, it's still an idiot plot.

[Oslecamo]

Actually, it makes little sense. Human diseases have evolved to efficiently infect humans. Not aliens. Their biochemistry should be extremely different. I mean, it's rare that diseases jump from one species of earth life to another.

In case you didn't notice, a lot of diseases are capable of rapid evolution to adapt to new conditions, and some of them are indeed capable of jumping from species to species. That's why you shouldn't eat an animal that wasn't killed by your or another human. Also the main reason why diseases are still one of Humanity's main problems.

Anyway, an interesting theory I heard about War of the Worlds is that the aliens had long ago wiped out all diseases from their own planet, up to the point they had actually forgoten about them. So they didn't take any precautions about it when invading Earth.

If you argue that wiping out all the bacterias and viruses of your enviroment would detroy your ecosystem, guess what, you're completely right. And that's why the aliens went on to try to conquer Earth.

[Solaris]

And with enough superscience to defeat earth, they can't defeat a generalist microbe infection? It just seems unlikely to me. Remotely possible, but still...

I agree with the 'remotely possibly, but highly unlikely' assessment, but you gotta remember - Wells couldn't write a book about the Earth getting extincted (heehee, making up words as I go along is fun) back in his day.
That, and it kinda fit the invaders' hubris. They didn't even consider terrestrial microbes as a threat, what with having beaten the pants off of their own eons ago. They saw themselves as being so far above humans that they may as well have been gods, and after the initial invasion knew they owned the planet. They might've been counting on their superscience, only to realize the rules were a little different on the much more biologically diverse and biologically (not climatically) harsher planet Earth. For all we know, it was one super-disease or a whole widespread assault of many different diseases. It wouldn't be the first time in Earth's history that a technologically-superior foe lost to foreseeable effects not directly related to his enemies. Look at the German assault on Russia in WWII. The Germans didn't lose to the Russians, they lost to the winter. They knew about the Russian winter, but they attacked anyways. I can see the aliens being similar - after all, their world was dying and they were getting desperate. They might've cut corners, skipped the ol' booster shots 'cause they figured human diseases couldn't infect them only to find out random microbe #34544634234 could.

[Johel]

Thus cooperation between individuals can be, genetically, a very valid strategy because although the resource cost may harm the survival odds of any one individual, it might raise that of the entire group. If said group is reasonably homogeneous in genetic makeup, that raises the survival chance of the genes that encode for cooperative behavior.

100 % true...for social insects.
Most mammals haven't reach that level yet and that's why we keep evolving while most ants haven't change much in millions of years. Our genetic pool actually keep mixing and changing, thanks partially to competition and the mating selection that follows while ants just recycle the old DNA pattern, with only spontaneous mutation (which is basically error in the DNA code) as evolution.

Most mammals (as well as birds, reptiles, fishes, ect...) use the group only for
Swarm protection : if 100 others are around, your chances of getting eaten lower, as there's 99% chances that somebody else will get eaten. You don't have to be the strongest, just don't be the weakest. So, competition on an individual level against your own species.
Greater choice for mates : you don't copulate with the first individual of opposed sex you cross : you can be picky...which is, basically, competition, since you have to be yourself a good mate, which means, for a male, better than the rest of the group (females are an other story, mainly because, in a given period, a male can impregnate dozens of females while a female can only get pregnant once. Offers and demands work for the beautiful sex)
Labor division (sometime) or at least synergy is some tasks, such as watching for predators, protecting the kids, searching for food, the latter being somehow less of an advantage, since more food must be found to feed everyone. This is perhaps the only real example of working social contract and "gene of the group" thinking in non-insect world : you protect another's offspring, even if you don't have offspring.

Note that, in species such as communitarian bats, where hierarchy is much loose than say wolves, each member has offspring and feed the offsprings of each others but, if one person cheat, all the others break the social contract as well, until somebody resume the contract on its own. So, individual interests remain the first drive, even on a genetic level.

But you are right, some species (mainly insects) have reach the level where they no longer care about their individual genetic pattern.

@Eldan : (about infection)
I didn't read the book but there's a reason why you don't send troops into a foreign combat zone without a adaptation time : they'll be sickened for the first ten days or so. That's it, unless you got vaccine...which any alien invader should. :smallsmile:
Yet, even genius can sometime miss something. And sometime, when they do, it screw things big time.

@Klose_the_Sith :
Sorry, I just saw your entire post. Since the page had changed, I hadn't seen you were only partially quoted.
I was ranting about torture as a whole, when used against unwilling targets. Nothing against masochists, if that was the people you were referring to.
Live and let live.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I'm sorry but a non-critical reasearch failure on an easily changeable detail (every angel but the last appeared from nowhere the plot needs not explain how Barachiel got there) does not an Idiot Plot make. Then again people seem to think anyone aside from the Genre Savvy Magnificent Bastards and Deadpan Snarkers who makes a mistake must have the Idiot Ball implanted. Or that characters can't act stupid ever. Just saying.

Now then just in general I would like to nominate almost every version of the Zombie "Apocalypse" as a blatant idiot plot. Because high caliber weaponry, bite proof body armor, multi-ton armored vehicles, and air power do not mean anything. Because zombies don't feel pain, and can never say have bones broken and limbs shredded by aforementioned modern weaponry. Of course the stupidity of humanity is much a core trope of the genre so take that as ya will. I strongly dislike all zombie apocalypses, especially anything involving "viruses" for this reason. Mileage may vary I guess.

[Oslecamo]

Look at the German assault on Russia in WWII. The Germans didn't lose to the Russians, they lost to the winter. They knew about the Russian winter, but they attacked anyways.

Ahem, altough every other big army that tried to attack Russia ended up being seriously f**** up by it's winter, the bad weather alone surely didn't push the germans all the way back to Berlim to the point the german leader prefered to kill himself than fall on Russian hands.

[Johel]

I'm sorry but a non-critical reasearch failure on an easily changeable detail (every angel but the last appeared from nowhere the plot needs not explain how Barachiel got there) does not an Idiot Plot make. Then again people seem to think anyone aside from the Genre Savvy Magnificent Bastards and Deadpan Snarkers who makes a mistake must have the Idiot Ball implanted. Or that characters can't act stupid ever. Just saying.

Now then just in general I would like to nominate almost every version of the Zombie "Apocalypse" as a blatant idiot plot. Because high caliber weaponry, bite proof body armor, multi-ton armored vehicles, and air power do not mean anything. Because zombies don't feel pain, and can never say have bones broken and limbs shredded by aforementioned modern weaponry. Of course the stupidity of humanity is much a core trope of the genre so take that as ya will. I strongly dislike all zombie apocalypses, especially anything involving "viruses" for this reason. Mileage may vary I guess.

Actually, most of this sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

If the Z can't reach you and you can roll them over, then you can just ignore most of them and start rebuilding from that point (Day of the Dead ?). Of course, fuel becomes a problem. And since most international trade would be cut... VERY usefull and easy to come by.
If the cause of the Z is a infection of some kind, bite proof body armors are necessary and so are helmets. Both are actually used (28 days latter ?) but availability to all civilians isn't a token. And since the Zpocalypses usually happen overnight, forget about "government readiness". Usefull but not available to all.
Heavy machineguns, while not able to "shred bodies like paper", can still do a very messy job. But you must have enough of it at the right spots. Most Zpocalyspes deal with how isolated civilians fare. So, don't expect them to have such weaponry, since those who have it must probably hide or try to regroup. Usefull but not available to all.
Air power is used once (28 weeks later). But the situation was such that there was a clear and valid target. Thickly mobs of Z that can be targeted aren't legion. And again, with everybody taken by surprise, most pilots would probably just get eaten before reaching the cockpit. And if they do, they'll still need a large crew to maintain their jets. So, yes, that one is useless.



Ahem, altough every other big army that tried to attack Russia ended up being seriously f**** up by it's winter, the bad weather alone surely didn't push the germans all the way back to Berlim to the point the german leader prefered to kill himself than fall on Russian hands.

There was the fact that, when you start a war with countries that have about twice your manpower and industrial might, you're bound to lose if you can't end it quick. USSR had been building up since the '20, even if the true war industry only kicked by 1942. Germans could have won against USSR if they had reached Moscow before the first winter. They didn't. Also, even if they had, since most of the Russian war industry had been moved in the Ural, the Russians could still have kept fighting.

It was really the problem of not being fast enough (they were already very fast but not enough, still) and having to fight against another military dictatorship which had twice their population and no qualm about "patriotic sacrifice".

[Soras Teva Gee]

Actually, most of this sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

And I see much above a city level of loss pretty ridiculous, much less global threats. Though I give a partial exception for George Romero's all-the-dead-everywhere-at-once scenario as opposed to some kind of viral outbreak.

[Jayngfet]

I'm sorry but a non-critical reasearch failure on an easily changeable detail (every angel but the last appeared from nowhere the plot needs not explain how Barachiel got there) does not an Idiot Plot make. Then again people seem to think anyone aside from the Genre Savvy Magnificent Bastards and Deadpan Snarkers who makes a mistake must have the Idiot Ball implanted. Or that characters can't act stupid ever. Just saying.

Now then just in general I would like to nominate almost every version of the Zombie "Apocalypse" as a blatant idiot plot. Because high caliber weaponry, bite proof body armor, multi-ton armored vehicles, and air power do not mean anything. Because zombies don't feel pain, and can never say have bones broken and limbs shredded by aforementioned modern weaponry. Of course the stupidity of humanity is much a core trope of the genre so take that as ya will. I strongly dislike all zombie apocalypses, especially anything involving "viruses" for this reason. Mileage may vary I guess.

As I said before that wasn't by itself the whole problem. One would assume that after a long time suspended by cables in open air NERV would have checked EVA 03 out a bit. I mean they were going to implant a SOUL into the body but didn't even bother checking for anything whatsoever.

[Ubiq]

Three pages in and nobody has mentioned Jeepers Creepers yet?

[Johel]

Three pages in and nobody has mentioned Jeepers Creepers yet?

What was wrong about it ? :smallconfused:
The monster only needed a harvest every 10 years or so, right ?
And he was usually the quiet type (until some idiots broke into his house).

[Johel]

And I see much above a city level of loss pretty ridiculous, much less global threats. Though I give a partial exception for George Romero's all-the-dead-everywhere-at-once scenario as opposed to some kind of viral outbreak.

Lucky us, that's about 75% of the Z movies :smallbiggrin:

[Thrawn183]

The last Die Hard.

The Big Bad send his girlfriend with an helicopter and 2 henchmen to manually disconnect the West-Coast electric grid. So far, it's ok, nothing wrong. Maybe the grid HAD to be deactivated that way.
But Nooooooo !! A few hours later, when McLane kills everyone there (including BB's girlfriend), Big Bad just blows the whole building by sending billions of m³ of gas... which somehow shut down the electric grid for the whole West-Coast.

If this has been addressed already, I apologize. Remember the part where he's explaining why he's doing what he is doing and he says, "Everything I have done can be undone?" This all gets back to him justifying to himself what he's doing. Up to that point he really hadn't killed many people, he'd killed enough to cover his tracks, but he never wanted a wholesale slaughter of people. He just kinda lost it when his girlfriend.... well you've seen it so I won't post a spoiler.

[FoE]

Three pages in and nobody has mentioned Jeepers Creepers yet?

What specifically made it an idiot plot?

If anything, those kids were somewhat smart about dealing with the monster. It was just nigh-indestructible.

[Solaris]

Ahem, altough every other big army that tried to attack Russia ended up being seriously f**** up by it's winter, the bad weather alone surely didn't push the germans all the way back to Berlim to the point the german leader prefered to kill himself than fall on Russian hands.

Bah, my point is made. The Russian winter is not a new thing, and yet people keep attacking them during the winter.


Now then just in general I would like to nominate almost every version of the Zombie "Apocalypse" as a blatant idiot plot. Because high caliber weaponry, bite proof body armor, multi-ton armored vehicles, and air power do not mean anything. Because zombies don't feel pain, and can never say have bones broken and limbs shredded by aforementioned modern weaponry. Of course the stupidity of humanity is much a core trope of the genre so take that as ya will. I strongly dislike all zombie apocalypses, especially anything involving "viruses" for this reason. Mileage may vary I guess.

Amen! Preach it!

[warty goblin]

Bah, my point is made. The Russian winter is not a new thing, and yet people keep attacking them during the winter.

It should also be pointed out that it is just as cold on the Russian side of the lines. Winter does tend to favor the defender in some ways, but until '44 every successful Russian offensive was launched in the winter. It wasn't that the Germans were neccessarily idiots for fighting in the winter, but they fought in the winter like idiots.

[Tavar]

Also, the Germans didn't invade in the winter. They just didn't account for the fact that Russia is freaking huge, and so there was a good chance that they'd still be fighting when winter hit.

[Solaris]

It should also be pointed out that it is just as cold on the Russian side of the lines. Winter does tend to favor the defender in some ways, but until '44 every successful Russian offensive was launched in the winter. It wasn't that the Germans were neccessarily idiots for fighting in the winter, but they fought in the winter like idiots.

Yes. The Russians prepared for it, but the Germans did not. Hence, the Germans were - as you say - idiots.

[Mystic Muse]

007 goldfinger.

This movie was so bad.

a guy who can throw a hat that will break people's neck and cut through steel bars?
a girl who doesn't notice the humongous gash in the side of the car?
a fan turning water red?
the badguys not wearing gas masks in lethal gas?
how slowly the badguy was going to kill Bond? really?
killing a girl by making her skin suffocate from painting her to death? And she didn't wake up?
breaking a golf ball with your bare hands?
the plan itself. Seemed way to easy to implement.
horrible music.
the granny with the machine gun.

maybe this movie didn't have an idiot plot but it was an idiotic movie.

[JonestheSpy]

Man, no one's yet mentioned the most famous, highest-grossing Idiot Plot of modern times yet: The Phantom Menace.

So the Republic sends two of its trusted guardians to Naboo to see what's going on, right? But when said guardians get back to the capital, do es it occur to anyone to ASK THEM what, in fact, is going on on Naboo? Of course not, because that would mean the last third of the movie doesn't happen, nor any of the sequels because the oh-so-clever conspiracy fails.

Really, the Republic is overthrown because no one remembered to ask the Jedi about their mission, and the 14 year old girl who was supposed to be so on the ball that she was elected queen of a planet didn't think to say "Don't believe me? I've got two Jedi as witnesses!"

Idiot plot indeed.

[Soras Teva Gee]

As I said before that wasn't by itself the whole problem. One would assume that after a long time suspended by cables in open air NERV would have checked EVA 03 out a bit. I mean they were going to implant a SOUL into the body but didn't even bother checking for anything whatsoever.

Right well two points you seem to not be considering. First only Kaworu has any kind of appearance before revealing itself. Heck Barachiel isn't even the first to penetrate the Geofront undetected. Most just appear somewhere a little outside of Tokyo-3. Clearly if they aren't manifesting their AT field angels have almost unlimited stealth abilities.

Second, the angel was disguising itself as Eva 03. What are Evangelion Unit's again, not machines that's for sure? Is there a meaningful difference to find.

(Oh and the contention they were going to implant a soul isn't really supportable, since we only have a detailed case in Eva 01 which is not a production model. Eva 02 has at best a partial since Asuka's mother went insane not disappeared. Others are debatable given their two pilots' natures. Eva 03 could just as easy been a further experiment in not needing one. If the design actually calls for one in the first place. Yui is played as a accident near as I can gather)

[Cracklord]

007 goldfinger.

This movie was so bad.

a guy who can throw a hat that will break people's neck and cut through steel bars?
a girl who doesn't notice the humongous gash in the side of the car?
a fan turning water red?
the badguys not wearing gas masks in lethal gas?
how slowly the badguy was going to kill Bond? really?
killing a girl by making her skin suffocate from painting her to death? And she didn't wake up?
breaking a golf ball with your bare hands?
the plan itself. Seemed way to easy to implement.
horrible music.
the granny with the machine gun.

maybe this movie didn't have an idiot plot but it was an idiotic movie.

Two words.
Sean Connery.

But aside from that, yes, it was terrible.
However, there are worse movies.

[kamikasei]

As I said before that wasn't by itself the whole problem.

However, it's the entire problem you saw fit to describe in your OP. If you want to make a second, separate argument go ahead, but your original criticism is simply invalid and switching to the second argument doesn't retroactively correct it.

[Reverent-One]

Man, no one's yet mentioned the most famous, highest-grossing Idiot Plot of modern times yet: The Phantom Menace.

So the Republic sends two of its trusted guardians to Naboo to see what's going on, right? But when said guardians get back to the capital, do es it occur to anyone to ASK THEM what, in fact, is going on on Naboo? Of course not, because that would mean the last third of the movie doesn't happen, nor any of the sequels because the oh-so-clever conspiracy fails.

Really, the Republic is overthrown because no one remembered to ask the Jedi about their mission, and the 14 year old girl who was supposed to be so on the ball that she was elected queen of a planet didn't think to say "Don't believe me? I've got two Jedi as witnesses!"

Idiot plot indeed.

Chancellor Valorum sent the Jedi secretly, without permission from the Senate. As such, they couldn't just show up to the senate and say, "yep, this all happened". Even if they had done so, it's questionable whether that would have done anything at all, the Republic was extremely corrupt at this point, and the Trade Federation had a lot of influence.

[Tyrant]

Well, I don't know about 24 (didn't watch) but torturing anybody is, by most standards, an immoral act...
You're basically making somebody feel miserable and helpless.
While some medical treatment DO make people feel the same, they are at least expected to bring some positive feed back to the patient. Torture doesn't.
The thread I am referring to made a big deal because it was NAZIs being tortured. To be clear, the original argument was concerned people were going to think it was okay because they were NAZIs. Special emphasis was being placed on the fact they were NAZIs, not that they were people. The argument clearly went off track and it was very clear half the people posting didn't watch the movie and refused to listen to anyone who had (here's a hint that's not what the movie is about). Yes, torturing is immoral. I was referring to the fact the thread made it sound like it was wrong specifically because they were NAZIs and not because they were people.

Man, no one's yet mentioned the most famous, highest-grossing Idiot Plot of modern times yet: The Phantom Menace.

So the Republic sends two of its trusted guardians to Naboo to see what's going on, right? But when said guardians get back to the capital, do es it occur to anyone to ASK THEM what, in fact, is going on on Naboo? Of course not, because that would mean the last third of the movie doesn't happen, nor any of the sequels because the oh-so-clever conspiracy fails.

Really, the Republic is overthrown because no one remembered to ask the Jedi about their mission, and the 14 year old girl who was supposed to be so on the ball that she was elected queen of a planet didn't think to say "Don't believe me? I've got two Jedi as witnesses!"

Idiot plot indeed.
They brought the issue up in the Senate and it was decided they weren't going to listen to them. The opposition had enough power to shout her down, essentially. That was the point and why she was manuvered into trying to get the Chancellor thrown out. It makes sense when you realise a majority of the Senators were under Palpatine's control so they were puppets dancing to his beat.

[TengYt]

Man, no one's yet mentioned the most famous, highest-grossing Idiot Plot of modern times yet: The Phantom Menace.

So the Republic sends two of its trusted guardians to Naboo to see what's going on, right? But when said guardians get back to the capital, do es it occur to anyone to ASK THEM what, in fact, is going on on Naboo? Of course not, because that would mean the last third of the movie doesn't happen, nor any of the sequels because the oh-so-clever conspiracy fails.

Really, the Republic is overthrown because no one remembered to ask the Jedi about their mission, and the 14 year old girl who was supposed to be so on the ball that she was elected queen of a planet didn't think to say "Don't believe me? I've got two Jedi as witnesses!"

Idiot plot indeed.

Huh? The Jedi do tell everyone about what happened on Naboo. Hell, the Republic fleet arrives at the end and carts off the Trade Federation guys. They also tell everyone about Darth Maul. Hell, the Queen steps in front of the entire Senate to tell them her planet was invaded.

[Lord Seth]

Quite honestly the Star Wars prequels were so full of idiot plot it's hard to pick just one example.

[FoE]

In reference to the zombie critics: zombie movies do not generally deal with "military versus zombies" scenarios. I think it's generally accepted that zombies cannot beat tanks and well-armed soliders. In fact, the zombies in Shaun of the Dead were trounced by the military.

Zombie movies tend to focus on small groups of regular people who are not armed to the teeth and are ill-equipped to find food, water, shelter and medical supplies while trying to fight off the undead.

[Texas_Ben]

Firefly - "The Message". Basically the whole plot revolved around the crew being ludicrously vague and that Tracey guy wandering in and overhearing the wrong parts of conversations.

They could have told him what their plan was in about 5-10 seconds if they'd cared to.

This, this a thousand times.

[Tyrant]

In reference to the zombie critics: zombie movies do not generally deal with "military versus zombies" scenarios. I think it's generally accepted that zombies cannot beat tanks and well-armed soliders. In fact, the zombies in Shaun of the Dead were trounced by the military.

Zombie movies tend to focus on small groups of regular people who are not armed to the teeth and are ill-equipped to find food, water, shelter and medical supplies while trying to fight off the undead.
The above is something to remember in most zombie movies.

In general, I think the whole zombie apocalypse assumes a few things for it to be possible (not overly probable, just possible). The first is that it almost has to be the Romero "everyone who dies is coming back" style zombies. Starting with that, just ask yourself, how many people die every day in some way that leaves there body at least somewhat intact? You can write off nurshing homes and some hospitals in the first few hours. After that, is the government really going to come out and say at the very begining "the dead are coming back to life, shoot them in the head"? Do you really believe they will? How many people will really believe it's happening until Bob the neighbor is trying to eat them? After that, how many people have what it takes to start blowing the brains out of people they used to know?

So, now what happens? People say, send in the military. Okay. How many people are on active duty that aren't "otherwise engaged" overseas right now? Can you guarantee every one of them that is here will show up and that some won't stay with their families to protect them? I am guessing they aren't going to bother sending out MPs to round those guys up because they have bigger problems on their hand. On top of this, if the bases are near a population center they may already have a situation on their hands with zombies. I think they could hold out, but it's wasting time in mobilizing if they're busy fighting zombies on the perimeter on bases that weren't really designed to repel a serious threat (chain link fences can only do so much). Add to that, any civilians in the area may be heading there for shelter. The military will have it's hands full in some cases. Now, how much ordinance is actually kept on hand (I know it's considerable in a lot of locations, but not all of them)? How long can it last spraying rapid fire into masses of zombies? A lot of this also goes for the police, only more of them will stay with their families. Add to that, how long do the power plants stay online when there are no workers because they are either defending their families, scared, or dead (or undead)? Once they're offline, things start collapsing.

Order is likely to collapse quickly with corpses eating people. You get looting and rioting. That's more corpses that likely become zombies. On top of that, who's going to treat the injured? The hospitals will be death traps. The first few hours will be chaos as even the higher ups won't be sure what is happening or how to respond. Nuke the cities is very likely an absolute last resort answer, and by then it's a useless gesture. I believe if order isn't restored, or enforced, in a few days then the situation will spiral beyond any hope of maintaining society. Also remember, while this is happening people are still dying and reanimating. The zombie numbers are growing while the number of live humans is shrinking. Though improbable, it isn't impossible that the numbers will hit the tipping point where the dead outnumber the living.

I don't consider that the most probable scenario. However, for everyone saying, "but the government/military will save us" really? I take it you don't stay up on current events. I think the reaction to Katrina is all the evidence anyone needs to see that the government isn't as ready for some things as people want to believe they are (and I am going to go out on a limb and assume "zombie apocalypse" is pretty far down on the priority list for things needing a workable strategy). And the US is hardly alone on that issue. That is somewhat countered by the high rate of gun ownership in the US, but that could also raise it's own problems in some situations. I don't think it would wipe out as much of the population as the movies depict, but I do believe it would put a heck of a dent in it.

Like I said, I don't think it's probable, but with the right events (which aren't really that far fetched) it is possible under the Romero scenario.

[GallóglachMaxim]

We eat meat of other animals all the time, and most of the illnesses that plague these animals are completely harmless to us. It is not unheard of (swine flu or mad-cow disease come to mind), but quite unusual for a sickness to jump from one species to another. So... no, Eldan is quite right there. Them being able to gain sustenance from us means nothing.

In societies which had large numbers of domesticated animals (for instance, in Europe) for a long time, most animal diseases already jumped and infected humans. To tell how dangerous species-jumping diseases are, look at 'virgin soil' epidemics which can be traced back to introduced livestock (the introduction of pigs to the Americas was a big one, since pigs carry a lot of diseases and were completely alien).

And a +1 for Phantom Menace, those characters made some completely insane decisions.

[rubakhin]

Firefly - "The Message". Basically the whole plot revolved around the crew being ludicrously vague and that Tracey guy wandering in and overhearing the wrong parts of conversations.

They could have told him what their plan was in about 5-10 seconds if they'd cared to.

Not a fan of that episode.

My mind chose to rationalize that as Mal reverting back to military authority mode and expecting and demanding complete control over that poor kid's life. Such that it didn't even occur to him that Tracey could react with anything other than obedience. Which is creepy and horrible and nearly made me dislike the character until I learned that everybody else's interpretation was that the episode was just badly written.

Now, why the rest of the crew went along with it is something else altogether.

[darkblade]

1. He was the leader of the Thunderbolts, who were hyped up in a massive media campaign as America's greatest heroes.

This is despite the fact that ninety percent of their book between Civil War and Secret Invasion was spend on in fighting and desperately trying to cover up their worst aspects such as Venom's cannibalism, Swordsman's desire to bring back his dead sister with the implication of incest or the fact that Penance is Robbie Baldwin who the public hates because he survived a disaster that was in no way his fault. Yeah real PR machine there.



2. He was prominent in the defense against the Skrulls--he personally killed Varanke, the Skrull Princess leading the invasion. That image was replayed on news networks across the nation.

He shot one Skrull? This shows what? Leadership ability, patriotism, morality? No it shows that he knows how to aim a shotgun. I fail to see how this is any reason to give him a seat of power. If it had been been the criminal Master Mind Marty Stu The Hood who shot Varanke or hell if it had been Spider-man and they wouldn't have awarded him anything.


3. Reformed villains are nothing new in the Marvel Universe. As Norman points out: Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, and others have all been villains or outlaws in the past.

I'll give you this point.


4. There have been many other villains bearing the name "Goblin," and several other people using the mask of the Green Goblin. Norman was able to use this to claim that, while he had been the Green Goblin, all the worst crimes were committed by other people wearing the costume.

Except for the fact that he was found impaled on his own Glider shortly after dropping Gwen Stacey of the Brooklyn Bridge on live TV with the sliding time scale this would have been in the mid-90s now. People should still remember this.

[Tyrant]

Except for the fact that he was found impaled on his own Glider shortly after dropping Gwen Stacey of the Brooklyn Bridge on live TV with the sliding time scale this would have been in the mid-90s now. People should still remember this.
Politicians are able to ignore things they said or did mere months ago in a lot of cases despite considerable evidence that they did those things. The Goblin's case is a little more extreme, I admit. Given the things that happen on the average day in on the Marvel earth, maybe something like that can be swept under the rug. Then again, they constantly hound the mutants and Spider Man, so maybe not.

[Solaris]

So, now what happens? People say, send in the military. Okay. How many people are on active duty that aren't "otherwise engaged" overseas right now?
It's cute when people say that, you know. That information is outdated - as it turns out, we're drawing down Iraq and haven't stepped up Afghanistan yet. Ergo, you're looking at around three hundred thousand Soldiers, plus the Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy ready to roll. Our reaction speed for a problem overseas is under seventy-two hours - and it would take us about that much time to bugout, too. Our reaction speed for a problem at home is under twenty-four hours. That would be an ugly twenty-four hours, but even assuming a casualty rate of roughly a third in that time period, you're looking at about half a million warfighters all told. We wouldn't be fighting an enemy, we'd be exterminating an infection. It's all a question of ammo.


Can you guarantee every one of them that is here will show up and that some won't stay with their families to protect them?
Considering nearly everyone on active-duty is nowhere near his family? I'm betting a lot of guys will show up. The families that are nearby would be brought in, screened, and kept safe in accordance with the US military's primary objective: Protect US citizens. For those less noble members of the armed forces, they have the choice of deserting and making a run across infested terrain or sticking with their unit for the counter-offensive.


On top of this, if the bases are near a population center they may already have a situation on their hands with zombies.
Almost all US military bases support a population center. Ft Wainwright, for example, has Fairbanks. These centers tend to be rather well-armed and at least partially trained for combat, as well as being isolated enough that they won't be dealing with the massive outbreaks larger population centers will.


I think they could hold out, but it's wasting time in mobilizing if they're busy fighting zombies on the perimeter on bases that weren't really designed to repel a serious threat (chain link fences can only do so much). Add to that, any civilians in the area may be heading there for shelter. The military will have it's hands full in some cases.
Yep, got this part right. Chain-link fences are about all we have, but HesCo barriers are awesome for this kind of thing and take all of ten minutes to set up. It'll be hard, but 'hard' is what the military does.


Now, how much ordinance is actually kept on hand (I know it's considerable in a lot of locations, but not all of them)? How long can it last spraying rapid fire into masses of zombies?
Enough. Suffice to say that just about every military base has sufficient ammunition and supplies to stand off an enemy assault. Just because it's never happened before doesn't mean we aren't prepared for it.


A lot of this also goes for the police, only more of them will stay with their families.
You can bet the police, reservists, and NG won't show up for the party for that very reason. They're looking to protect their families, who they have access to.


I don't consider that the most probable scenario. However, for everyone saying, "but the government/military will save us" really? I take it you don't stay up on current events. I think the reaction to Katrina is all the evidence anyone needs to see that the government isn't as ready for some things as people want to believe they are (and I am going to go out on a limb and assume "zombie apocalypse" is pretty far down on the priority list for things needing a workable strategy). And the US is hardly alone on that issue. That is somewhat countered by the high rate of gun ownership in the US, but that could also raise it's own problems in some situations. I don't think it would wipe out as much of the population as the movies depict, but I do believe it would put a heck of a dent in it.
I take it you don't keep up on current events nearly as much as you think - the failure in Katrina was all on the local level, not the federal. FEMA was messing up in the aftermath, but what can you do when the locals won't help you? This is not open for discussion; I've said my piece, you've said yours, and we will each believe as we like.
You would be amazed how many units/organizations have plans for just such an event. I know FEMA's got plans for outbreaks similar, and our brigade has always had a plan for dealing with a hostile invasion. My battery actually had a specific plan for a zombie uprising back on our base in Iraq (entirely too much free time on our hands). It read, as you might expect, like a plan for a bugout followed by setting up a fortified perimeter back home.

[Jayngfet]

Right well two points you seem to not be considering. First only Kaworu has any kind of appearance before revealing itself. Heck Barachiel isn't even the first to penetrate the Geofront undetected. Most just appear somewhere a little outside of Tokyo-3. Clearly if they aren't manifesting their AT field angels have almost unlimited stealth abilities.

Second, the angel was disguising itself as Eva 03. What are Evangelion Unit's again, not machines that's for sure? Is there a meaningful difference to find.

(Oh and the contention they were going to implant a soul isn't really supportable, since we only have a detailed case in Eva 01 which is not a production model. Eva 02 has at best a partial since Asuka's mother went insane not disappeared. Others are debatable given their two pilots' natures. Eva 03 could just as easy been a further experiment in not needing one. If the design actually calls for one in the first place. Yui is played as a accident near as I can gather)

The Evas NEED souls to make AT fields. It's outright stated that no soul=no AT field.

And to the first: The angel seemed to have been in the stormcloud(which I've ranted on already), followed by hitching a ride on the EVA when it passes. Meaning that there was already some form of the infecting fungus on the EVA, which spread when it started up. Furthermore it isn't so much "unlimited stealth abilities", so much as the angels mature then. From the volcano episode it seems like they exist as a kind of tiny fetal form which matures rapidly once they awake, in very little time they grow into their current forms.

To the second: I was assuming they check things like the organs, flesh, cybernetic components fairly regularly. After all when you're dealing with what is simultaneously the last hope for mankind and a weapon supposedly incapable of being stopped by anything other than similar creatures you want to make sure it works and stays healthy at all times. It's kind of assumed that they do this so that the EVA's don't fail in the middle of an attack and doom humanity.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Sure is Real-World Political Discussion in this thread


And to the first: The angel seemed to have been in the stormcloud(which I've ranted on already), followed by hitching a ride on the EVA when it passes. Meaning that there was already some form of the infecting fungus on the EVA, which spread when it started up. Furthermore it isn't so much "unlimited stealth abilities", so much as the angels mature then. From the volcano episode it seems like they exist as a kind of tiny fetal form which matures rapidly once they awake, in very little time they grow into their current forms.

To the second: I was assuming they check things like the organs, flesh, cybernetic components fairly regularly. After all when you're dealing with what is simultaneously the last hope for mankind and a weapon supposedly incapable of being stopped by anything other than similar creatures you want to make sure it works and stays healthy at all times. It's kind of assumed that they do this so that the EVA's don't fail in the middle of an attack and doom humanity.The first point is a fairly consistent failing on NERV's part - they also failed to recognize the very similar Iruel, which infected NERV's computer systems, until it was too late.

Both of these can be explained, though it seems like slightly sloppy storytelling, by the fact that NERV's lovable bastard of a commander is operating on a hidden agenda based on prophetic information, not to mention the fact that he's intentionally emotionally manipulating his pilots (particularly Shinji and Rei) into taking particular actions to satisfy this prophecy. He doesn't want everything to run smooth and pleasantly, although it would be insane to think that all of the terrible stuff that happens to NERV is part of his scenario, or inevitable.

[Drakyn]

I'm going to give a new example and a variation on an already-discussed one.

New: World of Warcraft's ongoing Alliance vs Horde plot as of WotLK. After many events in which they are told to stop squabbling and get along to fight a big problem, with every lore character identified as sensible unable to give a good reason to fight but plenty of reasons for peace, Blizzard HAS to create an idiot plot for the fight to go on, and WotLK - and Cataclysm, by the looks of it - deliver. Two new characters (Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream) are introduced who hate the other faction's guts, both command an abnormal amount of respect very quickly (in one case partially excused by being royalty, in the other, son of a respected hero, but both undermined by (A) newbiness to leadership on this scale of both parts, in Garrosh's case having no practical experience, and in Varian's being in charge of ONE PART of an alliance), and both being possibly the most one-dimensional and contrived characters in the history of the game series. Look up their dialogue in Trial of the Crusader on WoWwiki if you want some prime lulz.

Tangental: Infection-based zombie apocalypses always strike me as phony based on one logic chain. They usually presume that:
1: infection is via bite.
and
2: the undead attempt to kill and eat people.
Given this, apparently the only way you can have the infection spread is to have countless zombies that are JUST FAST ENOUGH to grab and bite someone, but simultaneously NEVER numerous or strong or quick enough to actually do them in and eat the corpse. Realistically this sort of thing should hit a critical mass pretty quickly where there's too many zombies (a smallish horde) for them to leave anyone they bite alive enough to run away, drop dead out of reach, and zombify undisturbed. This train of thought kicked in partway through World War Z and pretty much nullified the book's realism for me, which, ironically, probably would not have happened if didn't present itself so overtly realistically to begin with, at least compared to the average zombie thingy.

[Querzis]

I'm going to give a new example and a variation on an already-discussed one.

New: World of Warcraft's ongoing Alliance vs Horde plot as of WotLK. After many events in which they are told to stop squabbling and get along to fight a big problem, with every lore character identified as sensible unable to give a good reason to fight but plenty of reasons for peace, Blizzard HAS to create an idiot plot for the fight to go on, and WotLK - and Cataclysm, by the looks of it - deliver. Two new characters (Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream) are introduced who hate the other faction's guts, both command an abnormal amount of respect very quickly (in one case partially excused by being royalty, in the other, son of a respected hero, but both undermined by (A) newbiness to leadership on this scale of both parts, in Garrosh's case having no practical experience, and in Varian's being in charge of ONE PART of an alliance), and both being possibly the most one-dimensional and contrived characters in the history of the game series. Look up their dialogue in Trial of the Crusader on WoWwiki if you want some prime lulz.

Its not really just that. If you actually read the dialog from quest givers and NPC, you should realize that LOTS of people both in the Horde and in the Alliance have just been waiting for a long time for an excuse to kill each other again and this go back to the very beginning of WoW. In other words, while Wrynn and Garrosh are both really idiots, many of the most aggressive members of the Horde and the Alliance automatically joined them when they heard that they both wanted to destroy the other factions. Old hatred dies hard, pretty much all the races in both faction have been almost exterminated at least once by one of the race in the other faction (the only exception being tauren). And most species in Warcraft are long lived which means most of them still remember it. Hell, without Jaina and Thrall, the war between the two factions would have started again a long time ago.

[Drakyn]

Its not really just that. If you actually read the dialog from quest givers and NPC, you should realize that LOTS of people both in the Horde and in the Alliance have just been waiting for a long time for an excuse to kill each other again and this go back to the very beginning of WoW. In other words, while Wrynn and Garrosh are both really idiots, many of the most aggressive members of the Horde and the Alliance automatically joined them when they heard that they both wanted to destroy the other factions. Old hatred dies hard, pretty much all the races in both faction have been almost exterminated at least once by one of the race in the other faction (the only exception being tauren). And most species in Warcraft are long lived which means most of them still remember it. Hell, without Jaina and Thrall, the war between the two factions would have started again a long time ago.
Except that instead of appealing to any of the "old hatred dies hard" they created two NEW characters, and, as you say, made them both idiots. And since they're both idiots, and it's an easily stated fact that war between the Alliance and Horde is idiotic - especially in the trying times they're in and will be soon - it's fairly fair to declare this an idiot plot, I'd say. Especially, and I say this is the crux of it, ESPECIALLY because of the way blizzard has handled it. There are so many ways to give better in-game dialogue, characterization, and motivation to Varian and Garrosh in a manner that would make them idols in the eyes of their factions rather than psycho bloodthirsty nutsos and nigh-universally-loathed mental deficients respectively. This is because any other way than the one taken would be better. Any. Again, if you haven't played through it yourself/taken a peek, take a look at the dialogue from trial of the crusader. Four faction leaders; two pacifist, two plot devices. Neither of the pacifists so much as utters a peep during the entire raid, because that would derail the wonderful WAR BACK IN WARCRAFT train, which is expressed with much enthusiastic twelve-year-old-epeen-waving by their peers.

[Solaris]

Tangental: Infection-based zombie apocalypses always strike me as phony based on one logic chain. They usually presume that:
1: infection is via bite.
and
2: the undead attempt to kill and eat people.
Given this, apparently the only way you can have the infection spread is to have countless zombies that are JUST FAST ENOUGH to grab and bite someone, but simultaneously NEVER numerous or strong or quick enough to actually do them in and eat the corpse. Realistically this sort of thing should hit a critical mass pretty quickly where there's too many zombies (a smallish horde) for them to leave anyone they bite alive enough to run away, drop dead out of reach, and zombify undisturbed. This train of thought kicked in partway through World War Z and pretty much nullified the book's realism for me, which, ironically, probably would not have happened if didn't present itself so overtly realistically to begin with, at least compared to the average zombie thingy.
Yep. That was a major fridge logic problem I had with WWZ, too.

[Tyrant]

It's cute when people say that, you know. That information is outdated - as it turns out, we're drawing down Iraq and haven't stepped up Afghanistan yet. Ergo, you're looking at around three hundred thousand Soldiers, plus the Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy ready to roll. Our reaction speed for a problem overseas is under seventy-two hours - and it would take us about that much time to bugout, too. Our reaction speed for a problem at home is under twenty-four hours. That would be an ugly twenty-four hours, but even assuming a casualty rate of roughly a third in that time period, you're looking at about half a million warfighters all told. We wouldn't be fighting an enemy, we'd be exterminating an infection. It's all a question of ammo.
The point wasn't to be cute. The point was that a number of the members of the armed forces are presently engaged in other areas of the world. That is a fact last time I checked. I never said a majority, as you seem to think I did or at least that I implied that. I didn't. And to be clear I am also considering the people we have elsewhere and not just the 2 current hotspots. Our people on the Korean Peninsula aren't going to do us a lot of good, for instance. Our people in nuclear subs aren't going to do much unless we go straight to nuking cities. All I'm saying is that we have people spread all over the place and they will have their present problems, plus the undead to deal with (though their present fortifications will come in handy). They will suffer casualties. I highly doubt it will be total or anywhere near it, but people will be lost thus reducing the fighting capability of the military, which was the point.

And since you bring it up, what exactly is the extermination plan that the higher ups are going to green light right away?

Considering nearly everyone on active-duty is nowhere near his family? I'm betting a lot of guys will show up. The families that are nearby would be brought in, screened, and kept safe in accordance with the US military's primary objective: Protect US citizens. For those less noble members of the armed forces, they have the choice of deserting and making a run across infested terrain or sticking with their unit for the counter-offensive.
I'm talking people on leave or those who don't live on base (or heck, maybe they have a girlfriend in the nearest town). It's not like 100% of the military is ready to jump at a moment's notice no matter how much we all want to believe it is and this isn't like going to fight the enemy of the week. Again, I don't believe it will be a huge number of people, but every person matters and each one is one less guy doing his job.

You can bet the police, reservists, and NG won't show up for the party for that very reason. They're looking to protect their families, who they have access to.
So, if no one is locally maintaining order, how do you go about your extermination plan? You need to know who's infected and who isn't. Given that civil order is going to be thrown out the window, that won't be an easy task. And of course, how long until the civilian leadership finally comes around to making the decisions that have to be made (acceptable losses and all that)? Again, it's not like nuking (or even causing major destruction within) the cities is going to be given the greenlight right off the bat.

I take it you don't keep up on current events nearly as much as you think - the failure in Katrina was all on the local level, not the federal. FEMA was messing up in the aftermath, but what can you do when the locals won't help you?
So, given that you agree that local government is likely a lost cause, how is that not relevant? You're talking about less than a million people to deal with keeping order for 300,000,000 (or rather some combination of people and zombies that roughly equals that) people with no local support that can be counted upon while likely having to deal with a civilian government holding one arm behind your back. We're not even considering any potential problems we may have with our neighbors or even our enemies deciding to make a huge mess of things. I don't think it is any one thing that would do it. It would have to be a chain of bad situations cropping up to allow it to happen. If everything goes good for them, sure the military could hold onto some things and probably create a safe haven. I don't doubt that. I do doubt that everything will happen with perfect prescision and that the other factors that occur all the time in the real world won't choose that moment to rear their ugly head and start screwing things up. Mistakes happen (yes, even in the military) and people do stupid things. Those are universal constants and I think given the nature of the situation, if those two constants choose to make themselves known it won't end well.

This is not open for discussion; I've said my piece, you've said yours, and we will each believe as we like.
I want to be clear I am not trying to be confrontational with you. I am not in the military and most of what I know comes from talking with people who are, having a good idea of what people can do in stressful situations, knowing there are reasonable odds our assorted enemies will view this as the moment to make some kind of move, and believing that if this were happening it's clear fate (or whatever) absolutely hates us and will screw us every way it can.

I do have some questions about moving men and equipment however. Following current events (this is purely for frame of referrence and not in anyway a discussion on any policies involved) I keep hearing that we still have not completed moving people to Afghanistan from the last round of troop increases ordered months ago and all talk of sending even more men is followed by saying it will take months to accomplish that transfer as well. Now, obviously that isn't a jump up and bite your face off situation at the moment, but given it's importance I am assuming they aren't exactly dragging their feet in the process. So, when you say moving people in the time frames your talking about, how total of a move are we talking and how much is actually handled by the military (I know it's not 100%)? It's a serious question that I am asking because I believe you are able to answer it, not a critique.

As another side question, what kind of fuel reserves does the military posses (all together)?

Edit to add:

Tangental: Infection-based zombie apocalypses always strike me as phony based on one logic chain. They usually presume that:
1: infection is via bite.
and
2: the undead attempt to kill and eat people.
Given this, apparently the only way you can have the infection spread is to have countless zombies that are JUST FAST ENOUGH to grab and bite someone, but simultaneously NEVER numerous or strong or quick enough to actually do them in and eat the corpse. Realistically this sort of thing should hit a critical mass pretty quickly where there's too many zombies (a smallish horde) for them to leave anyone they bite alive enough to run away, drop dead out of reach, and zombify undisturbed. This train of thought kicked in partway through World War Z and pretty much nullified the book's realism for me, which, ironically, probably would not have happened if didn't present itself so overtly realistically to begin with, at least compared to the average zombie thingy.
Take this for what you will, because I consider the virus the least plausable method. I think to work (or at least try to work) it assumes some kind of mass infection at the get go, all over the world. Tainted food, space virus, whatever. Something turns a noticeable percentage of the living into undead. Sometimes, it just makes them sick first. In turn, they make other people sick too. Then they die and eventually reanimate. Once they're "back" they crave flesh and start biting people. At the begining, there are still lost of living people so if a zombie starts chowing down on someone and another random person runs by they are likely to leave their present meal and chase the new thing making noise that looks like it tastes good. That first corpse, assuming another zombie doesn't find it first, becomes another zombie. As time goes on, there are fewer people and groups of zombies start to form so this happens less and less as the living are mostly devoured by the hordes. Zombies aren't smart, so they won't necessarily stay with that first kill if another warm blooded thing runs by. From there it's just a matter of how long it takes to go zombie. Once they turn, the others don't eat them. Maybe they stop eating even sooner than that. Of course, these later zombies will be missing pieces. So long as they don't go for the brain (and in most movies they just want flesh, period, not the brain specifically) and only cause minimal damage the new zombie should at least be mobile.

It's not perfect. Like I said I find the virus route the least likely (unless it's the Resident Evil movies T-Virus route in which case we're all screwed) and the one that might be contained if the origin can be discovered.

[Piedmon_Sama]

This is despite the fact that ninety percent of their book between Civil War and Secret Invasion was spend on in fighting and desperately trying to cover up their worst aspects such as Venom's cannibalism, Swordsman's desire to bring back his dead sister with the implication of incest or the fact that Penance is Robbie Baldwin who the public hates because he survived a disaster that was in no way his fault. Yeah real PR machine there.

Which doesn't mean it failed. Remember, in the Marvel Universe, the governments of the United States and Canada have been behind the Weapon Plus and Sentinel programs; in the first case they were abducting people to torture and experiment on them, to turn them into superheroes. In the second case they created robots to hunt and terminate a segment of the population (mutants). And don't forget the Wonderland Facility hidden in Canada, where they were literally gassing mutants to death (it was a terrible book and we'd all rather ignore it, but it's canon). They've already gotten away with a ton of ****, essentially, Osborne and the Thunderbolts are just one more on the list.


He shot one Skrull? This shows what? Leadership ability, patriotism, morality? No it shows that he knows how to aim a shotgun. I fail to see how this is any reason to give him a seat of power. If it had been been the criminal Master Mind Marty Stu The Hood who shot Varanke or hell if it had been Spider-man and they wouldn't have awarded him anything.

It shows that Osborne was reacting and fighting the Skrulls, and, as the media spun it, defeating them, whereas Stark has been branded an almost treasonous failure and Nick Fury is now a criminal, even though both of them did more.


Except for the fact that he was found impaled on his own Glider shortly after dropping Gwen Stacey of the Brooklyn Bridge on live TV with the sliding time scale this would have been in the mid-90s now. People should still remember this.

Like Tyrant said, the public has a short attention-span. Norman has admitted he was mentally ill, and people haven't forgotten what a shady bastard he is, but remember exactly what his job is. People are terrified of mutants, and rogue superhumans in general. They want someone who can get the job done, more than they want someone who's squeaky-clean. Norman's showed that he can handle this business, and people believe he's shown more aptitude than Tony Stark or the now-dissolved SHIELD. So they might think he's a bastard, but they're glad to have him if they think he can keep super-powered criminals and alien-invaders away.

[Hawriel]

Im going to win this thread.






Any episode of Three's Company.

[Vic_Sage]

For the whole Norman thing there is an oft forgotten third Green Goblin who did kidnap Harry at one point and Norman was able to spin it so that guy was the Goblin the whole time. And on the Civil War tip it was just stupid overall, though Cap was the biggest idiot out of everyone.

[GallóglachMaxim]

Tangental: Infection-based zombie apocalypses always strike me as phony based on one logic chain. They usually presume that:
1: infection is via bite.
and
2: the undead attempt to kill and eat people.

It was my understanding that in most examples the zombies attempt to eat living people. The number of people who would stay alive while being eaten long enough that their bodies would no longer make servicable zombies must be incredibly low. In most cases the zombies dig in (probably into the torso, for ease of eating), the victim dies, and the zombies lose interest. The victim, now dead and infected, eventually becomes a zombie with some bits missing. It doesn't make much sense that the infection still takes over the body after they die, but I don't remember any example where killing an infected person stopped them from becoming a zombie unless they were killed in a manner also fatal to zombies.

[/thinking too much about this]

[Solaris]

The point wasn't to be cute. The point was that a number of the members of the armed forces are presently engaged in other areas of the world. That is a fact last time I checked. I never said a majority, as you seem to think I did or at least that I implied that. I didn't. And to be clear I am also considering the people we have elsewhere and not just the 2 current hotspots. Our people on the Korean Peninsula aren't going to do us a lot of good, for instance. Our people in nuclear subs aren't going to do much unless we go straight to nuking cities. All I'm saying is that we have people spread all over the place and they will have their present problems, plus the undead to deal with (though their present fortifications will come in handy). They will suffer casualties. I highly doubt it will be total or anywhere near it, but people will be lost thus reducing the fighting capability of the military, which was the point.
Spread all over the place, but centralized on our bases. Like I said, it'd probably take us genre-savvy soldiers all of five minutes to realize "Hey, I've seen this movie before."
My M4 is located two floors below me. I got an armored truck two blocks down the road from me, fueled up and maintained weekly. I have a final solution to the undead problem.
We maintain enough personnel on the Korean Peninsula to, as my brother put it, "Form a speed-bump for the North Korean Army." I doubt they'd do much better against the zed, but other places like my very own Ft Wainwright - the Alaskan garrisons - would be a good point to launch attacks against the zed uprising. Most, but not all, military bases are located reasonably far away from civilization (aside from our parasite-towns). I agree that we (active-duty) would suffer perhaps as much as twenty-five percent casualties in the first hundred hours, less in the more isolated bases. After that, I estimate we will have established large zones of control surrounding our bases and begin the process of re-establishing civil rule. We learned from our recent 'brush wars' about not letting lawlessness get out of hand.


And since you bring it up, what exactly is the extermination plan that the higher ups are going to green light right away?
The plans we have are more for uprisings/invasions than outbreaks (though, like I said, we've heard FEMA's got some for actual zombie-style outbreaks). They can be adapted quickly enough. We can only speculate, as these things fall under opsec and the Army frowns on people talking about this kind of stuff. That said? It'd involve a very heavy-handed presence in civilian areas. If we ever need to violate the Constitution to institute martial law, that is. I can see that little document being the biggest hindrance to us doing what needs to be done, as people who outrank us all would resist declaring a zombie uprising a military invasion.
CID listeners know where they can shove it.


I'm talking people on leave or those who don't live on base (or heck, maybe they have a girlfriend in the nearest town). It's not like 100% of the military is ready to jump at a moment's notice no matter how much we all want to believe it is and this isn't like going to fight the enemy of the week. Again, I don't believe it will be a huge number of people, but every person matters and each one is one less guy doing his job.
Right, but my point is that the guys who're across town are more likely to bring our families in. In my unit, at least, I can honestly say we would have one guy desert - and I know who it is, too. He wouldn't be missed. He sure wasn't the second half of the deployment. We may hate the Army, hate our command, and hate everything that lives, but our bond, our esprit de corps, is strong enough that most of our men wouldn't desert in the face of a crisis on par with worldwide zombie uprising.
Hell, most of us would love for just that thing to happen. We're a little nuts.


So, if no one is locally maintaining order, how do you go about your extermination plan? You need to know who's infected and who isn't. Given that civil order is going to be thrown out the window, that won't be an easy task. And of course, how long until the civilian leadership finally comes around to making the decisions that have to be made (acceptable losses and all that)? Again, it's not like nuking (or even causing major destruction within) the cities is going to be given the greenlight right off the bat.
Nobody, until the military makes the appearance of order. See, the crucial part would be us marching in and making a big show of smacking down the initial contacts. Once the American people have it in their heads that the world is not ending, the lie becomes truth and the civil breakdown stops. This could be as soon as 'within the first hundred hours' for small towns near bases, or as late as 'several months down the line' for large cities located away from bases.
Those police and other local law-enforcement agents who don't help us protect and preserve? We deal with them.


So, given that you agree that local government is likely a lost cause, how is that not relevant? You're talking about less than a million people to deal with keeping order for 300,000,000 (or rather some combination of people and zombies that roughly equals that) people with no local support that can be counted upon while likely having to deal with a civilian government holding one arm behind your back. We're not even considering any potential problems we may have with our neighbors or even our enemies deciding to make a huge mess of things. I don't think it is any one thing that would do it. It would have to be a chain of bad situations cropping up to allow it to happen. If everything goes good for them, sure the military could hold onto some things and probably create a safe haven. I don't doubt that. I do doubt that everything will happen with perfect prescision and that the other factors that occur all the time in the real world won't choose that moment to rear their ugly head and start screwing things up. Mistakes happen (yes, even in the military) and people do stupid things. Those are universal constants and I think given the nature of the situation, if those two constants choose to make themselves known it won't end well.
It is, it's very relevant. The initial chaos would be what sets up the typical zombie movie of civilians fighting for their lives. I know that we don't have enough men (being that we're outnumbered about a hundred to one, civilians to military) to even dream about holding the US against a zombie uprising. Our task therefore would not be to hold the US, but to get the local civilian authorities in gear to hold it.

On a tangent, because I like to rant about the idiot things the Army's made me do:
Boy, don't I know it mistakes happen. 'Mistakes' describes about half of my deployment. We have in the Army a very competent group of enlisted men led by semi-competent officers who cling to old methods of waging war. Would you believe that, after training for a year on fighting a counterinsurgency in a highly mobile war, some F*tard general had us dig foxholes and fighting positions around our perimeter? Cold War stuff. Y'know what happened when we took contact (training, not the real deal)? We didn't even bother with the foxholes, 'cept for about two guys. We just took up whatever cover was handy and shot back. On paper, digging fighting positions looks like a good idea, but in reality all you need is a berm. Dig a hole, die in it. Build a wall, hide behind it. Stealth is


I want to be clear I am not trying to be confrontational with you. I am not in the military and most of what I know comes from talking with people who are, having a good idea of what people can do in stressful situations, knowing there are reasonable odds our assorted enemies will view this as the moment to make some kind of move, and believing that if this were happening it's clear fate (or whatever) absolutely hates us and will screw us every way it can.
Ah, I believe the expression is Murphy's Law. Yes. I am familiar with Murphy and his Law. I believe I served under him. *grumblegrumbleLTgrumblegrumble.*
I sincerely believe that any enemy who decides to pick a fight with us during a zombie uprising will live to regret it. We have ICBMs for a reason.


I do have some questions about moving men and equipment however. Following current events (this is purely for frame of referrence and not in anyway a discussion on any policies involved) I keep hearing that we still have not completed moving people to Afghanistan from the last round of troop increases ordered months ago and all talk of sending even more men is followed by saying it will take months to accomplish that transfer as well. Now, obviously that isn't a jump up and bite your face off situation at the moment, but given it's importance I am assuming they aren't exactly dragging their feet in the process. So, when you say moving people in the time frames your talking about, how total of a move are we talking and how much is actually handled by the military (I know it's not 100%)? It's a serious question that I am asking because I believe you are able to answer it, not a critique.
My estimate of twenty-four hours (out of Iraq, upon rethinking Afghanistan would take a little longer) is basically "Drop everything and run." We'd be leaving behind/destroying just about everything that can't kill something.


As another side question, what kind of fuel reserves does the military posses (all together)?
"Sufficient". Months, most places.


It was my understanding that in most examples the zombies attempt to eat living people. The number of people who would stay alive while being eaten long enough that their bodies would no longer make servicable zombies must be incredibly low. In most cases the zombies dig in (probably into the torso, for ease of eating), the victim dies, and the zombies lose interest. The victim, now dead and infected, eventually becomes a zombie with some bits missing. It doesn't make much sense that the infection still takes over the body after they die, but I don't remember any example where killing an infected person stopped them from becoming a zombie unless they were killed in a manner also fatal to zombies.

[/thinking too much about this]

Not in the case of Brooks-style zombies. They need to live five hours to become infected... even though he ignores that in a lot of his anecdotes.

[warty goblin]

The other major difficulty with the zombie epidemic getting off to a huge start is that containment is not particularly hard. After all if the infection is spread by wounds, just strip search everybody*. Anybody with a wound, chain them to something solid for a while, out of reach of anybody else, and see what happens. Anybody still human after a couple hours is OK, anybody not, well, they're tied up and easy to shoot.

*Actually, if it's summer, just pull a leaf from The Puppet Masters and have everybody go naked all the time. Real easy to tell who's still got a functioning brain then.

[Vic_Sage]

Damn you people are ruining Zombie movie for me.

[Lord Seth]

I'm starting to think The Zombie Survival Guide should be mandatory reading.

[Solaris]

Glaring inconsistencies and all, yes. Yes it should.

[Tyrant]

That said? It'd involve a very heavy-handed presence in civilian areas. If we ever need to violate the Constitution to institute martial law, that is. I can see that little document being the biggest hindrance to us doing what needs to be done, as people who outrank us all would resist declaring a zombie uprising a military invasion.
This is the kind of thing I was referring to. Being slow to allow the military to do their job either through some desire to see the constitution protected (which is kind of the point of fighting for the "american way of life" I always thought) or through them not allowing heavy operations in areas they think they can use again in the future (cities, primarily). Potentially misguided ideals slowing everything down. I assumed martial law would be declared pretty quickly.

Once the American people have it in their heads that the world is not ending, the lie becomes truth and the civil breakdown stops. This could be as soon as 'within the first hundred hours' for small towns near bases, or as late as 'several months down the line' for large cities located away from bases.
How does the word get out (in a convincing manner) when the power goes out? I agree with your idea of setting the example and people following, but I think setting that example will take some serious work. Also, I think you're somewhat discounting just how earthshattering this event would be. This would be like the sun not rising tomorrow. There are very few things people accept as "facts" about life and people staying dead once they die is one of them. It's a real game changer that I believe it is safe to say large numbers of people will take to mean the world is in fact coming to an end. If you can change their mind of this fact, I agree it can work.

Having said that, what happens after the clean up? The dead still keep returning to life. What's the long term strategy?

On a tangent, because I like to rant about the idiot things the Army's made me do:
Boy, don't I know it mistakes happen. 'Mistakes' describes about half of my deployment. We have in the Army a very competent group of enlisted men led by semi-competent officers who cling to old methods of waging war. Would you believe that, after training for a year on fighting a counterinsurgency in a highly mobile war, some F*tard general had us dig foxholes and fighting positions around our perimeter? Cold War stuff. Y'know what happened when we took contact (training, not the real deal)? We didn't even bother with the foxholes, 'cept for about two guys. We just took up whatever cover was handy and shot back. On paper, digging fighting positions looks like a good idea, but in reality all you need is a berm. Dig a hole, die in it. Build a wall, hide behind it. Stealth is
I've heard it said by numerous people that we have a real problem of preparing to fight our previous war and not trying to plan to fight our next war. I am taking it this is a good example of that.

I sincerely believe that any enemy who decides to pick a fight with us during a zombie uprising will live to regret it. We have ICBMs for a reason.
I'm sure after a point we would use them. However, following a real crappy scenario, what happens if one our nuclear capable enemies think this is the time to hit? Do we add nuclear exchange on top of our list of problems? Or, say we cut and run as many places as we can to attempt to shore up the homeland. What happens to those places we were previously occupying if the neighboring governments decide to start something (and somehow have the capability to do so)? Someone makes a big move and cuts off/seizes/destroys oil wells and our foreign flow is cut off (though it hurts other countries more than us, from everything I have read on the topic and it's not like we'll have a lot of commuters at this point). Our enemies that have navies choose to use them. Maybe our allies too. Do our alliances even hold up in this scenario? By pulling out to protect ourselves, do we doom ourselves in the long run? Does anything resembling an economy survive this? That's the kind of things I could see happening. Anyone waiting to make a move will make it if (yeah, this is the big if) they can secure their own locations (assuming their goal is conquest and not simply destruction) once we are out of their neck of the woods. I would also assume any sleeper cell type enemies will realise this is the time to make their move. Basically anyone really looking to settle a score could use the chaos of this event to make their move and things could escalate in a hurry (and if that happens, once again it won't be the zombies that are what people should worry about).

I want to be clear, I have no doubt that if they were allowed to work the military could deal with masses of zombies with firepower and armored vehicles. That's not something I question. It's more in just how quickly they will actually be brought out against the problem and how long it takes the leadership to let them loose, all while the rest of the world is likely going to hell in a handbasket and everyone else deciding to do god only knows what. I think the problem is more complicated than an extermination run.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Ahem.

Sure is real-world political discussion in this thread.

[FoE]

Agreed. Guys, take it to the PMs before you get this thread locked.

So, uh, Idiot Plots? Sure hate dem Idiot Plots.

I think they comprise roughly half of episodes of Smallville. :smalltongue:

[Yoren]

Since were talking about zombie movies, I thought a lot of people were holding the idiot ball in 28 Weeks Later.

First off all the soldiers appear to be wearing standard kevlar vests and helmets, which are awesome for stopping bullets but if the later scenes are to be believed not that great at stopping zombie bites.

Secondly the "containment" plan. Basically once the people in charge realized that they had a zombie on the loose they herded all the civilians into a dark, crowded, poorly secured room and locked the doors. To make matters even worse the doors to the room are so poorly secured that the zombie breaks in with little effort. Since everyone's jammed in there in the dark with no personal space and no one knows whats going on, a bunch of people are bit and turned. To make matters worse the doors are so poorly secured that not only do they allow the zombie to break in, they allow everyone else to break out. Now instead of containment they have a bunch of zombies running willy nilly through the London. Which turns into a bunch of zombies running willy nilly through Europe cause some idiot forgot to close the France-UK tunnel. I don't know you but putting all the potential zombies together in one room and then not defending that room just seems like its asking for a whole hoard of zombies.

[Tyrant]

{Scrubbed}

[Vic_Sage]

{Scrubbed}

[Solaris]

{scrubbed}


How does the word get out (in a convincing manner) when the power goes out? I agree with your idea of setting the example and people following, but I think setting that example will take some serious work. Also, I think you're somewhat discounting just how earthshattering this event would be. This would be like the sun not rising tomorrow. There are very few things people accept as "facts" about life and people staying dead once they die is one of them. It's a real game changer that I believe it is safe to say large numbers of people will take to mean the world is in fact coming to an end. If you can change their mind of this fact, I agree it can work.
We lie to them. We tell them it's a disease of some kind, and "They" are working a cure. "We're just there to provide emergency assistance in the initial phases of the crisis." Coupled with the emotional impact of having to fight for your life, then all of the sudden here's the Army sweeping down the streets in armored vehicles and fire teams to exterminate the zombies besieging you, and people will be more than willing to believe that lie or any others we tell them.
Despite a propensity for hysterics, I've noted that humans have a tendency to be survivors. While there might be panic in the beginning, they'll pull through. A human will perform to the standard expected of him, no less. It's something hardwired into the species as a whole. I'm not saying everyone will pull through, not by a long shot. Some people are useless meat. I'm saying that, overall, most people will adapt and overcome. The difference between most soldiers and most civilians is, honestly, just confidence.


Having said that, what happens after the clean up? The dead still keep returning to life. What's the long term strategy?
Once you know about it, zombies become only a minor threat. Hospice care begins to look more like prison lockdown, and police run routine checks on residents in their areas just in case. Ambulances would carry weapons. Things like that.


I've heard it said by numerous people that we have a real problem of preparing to fight our previous war and not trying to plan to fight our next war. I am taking it this is a good example of that.
Yep. It'll be funny when I'm the F*tard twenty years down the line. Fortunately, the urban/counterinsurgency war has prepared us reasonably well for the zombiepocalypse.


I'm sure after a point we would use them. However, following a real crappy scenario, what happens if one our nuclear capable enemies think this is the time to hit? Do we add nuclear exchange on top of our list of problems? Or, say we cut and run as many places as we can to attempt to shore up the homeland. What happens to those places we were previously occupying if the neighboring governments decide to start something (and somehow have the capability to do so)? Someone makes a big move and cuts off/seizes/destroys oil wells and our foreign flow is cut off (though it hurts other countries more than us, from everything I have read on the topic and it's not like we'll have a lot of commuters at this point). Our enemies that have navies choose to use them. Maybe our allies too. Do our alliances even hold up in this scenario? By pulling out to protect ourselves, do we doom ourselves in the long run? Does anything resembling an economy survive this? That's the kind of things I could see happening. Anyone waiting to make a move will make it if (yeah, this is the big if) they can secure their own locations (assuming their goal is conquest and not simply destruction) once we are out of their neck of the woods. I would also assume any sleeper cell type enemies will realise this is the time to make their move. Basically anyone really looking to settle a score could use the chaos of this event to make their move and things could escalate in a hurry (and if that happens, once again it won't be the zombies that are what people should worry about).
Mm, Stage Two of the war. I can't provide anything more than vague speculation on that subject, but I do know that we stand rather close to a nuclear exchange right now - zombies or not.


I want to be clear, I have no doubt that if they were allowed to work the military could deal with masses of zombies with firepower and armored vehicles. That's not something I question. It's more in just how quickly they will actually be brought out against the problem and how long it takes the leadership to let them loose, all while the rest of the world is likely going to hell in a handbasket and everyone else deciding to do god only knows what. I think the problem is more complicated than an extermination run.
Definitely.
True, it's more complicated than an extermination run, but the sweep is the first and most important step. That's the step we're good for. After that, picking up the pieces, that's what the civilians have to do. From what I saw in Iraq, the military can give civilians all the tools they need to pull through but it's up to the civilians to use them.


Since were talking about zombie movies, I thought a lot of people were holding the idiot ball in 28 Weeks Later.

First off all the soldiers appear to be wearing standard kevlar vests and helmets, which are awesome for stopping bullets but if the later scenes are to be believed not that great at stopping zombie bites.
Heehee, I noticed the opposite. "Oh, at least they're not wearing full body armor." I agree, though. In the zombie war you don't need body armor (unless they're not the super-strong, non-blood-spewing type).
Seriously, those soldiers had on helmets and LBVs and not much else. That's a lot lighter than what I wear when I'm shooting artillery, and a lot lighter than I expected those guys to be wearing simply because of how the Army brass thinks. The Army is fond of making us wear about sixty more pounds of armor than we have to simply to shut up Ma and Pa Civilian.


Secondly the "containment" plan. Basically once the people in charge realized that they had a zombie on the loose they herded all the civilians into a dark, crowded, poorly secured room and locked the doors. To make matters even worse the doors to the room are so poorly secured that the zombie breaks in with little effort. Since everyone's jammed in there in the dark with no personal space and no one knows whats going on, a bunch of people are bit and turned. To make matters worse the doors are so poorly secured that not only do they allow the zombie to break in, they allow everyone else to break out. Now instead of containment they have a bunch of zombies running willy nilly through the London. Which turns into a bunch of zombies running willy nilly through Europe cause some idiot forgot to close the France-UK tunnel. I don't know you but putting all the potential zombies together in one room and then not defending that room just seems like its asking for a whole hoard of zombies.
They jumped into the Idiot Ball Pit for that movie. I got the impression that it spread not because some idiot left the tunnel open, but because they let the carrier off the UK.

[averagejoe]

I'm starting to think The Zombie Survival Guide should be mandatory reading.

While entertaining, there are actually quite a few inaccuracies and bad advice given in that book. If one can get past the premise, however, World War Z is as good a zombie story as I have read, even if, as in the survival guide, it's nauseatingly evident how in love with Japan Brooks is.

Zombie stories are, I think, necessarily idiot plots, and pointedly so. Forget the global devastation for a moment, pretend that somehow the zombies were able to overwhelm the armed forces, or that a large portion of the armed forces mutinied, something like that. Even after one accepts the premise, most or all of the people who die in zombie films do so 1) because they are idiots or 2) someone who was an idiot put them in a dire situation. They are technically idiot plots because they are driven by the idiocy of the characters, but the idiocy of the characters is the point. It's like calling it narm when Bugs Bunny shoots Elmer Fudd in the head.

[Solaris]

While entertaining, there are actually quite a few inaccuracies and bad advice given in that book. If one can get past the premise, however, World War Z is as good a zombie story as I have read, even if, as in the survival guide, it's nauseatingly evident how in love with Japan Brooks is.

Annoyed by his Japanophilia too, huh?

[averagejoe]

Annoyed by his Japanophilia too, huh?

At least it was just confined to the one chapter in WWZ. The gushing about katanas, shuriken, and Shaolin spades, coupled with the Japanese having elite zombie assassin squads, just made me bang my head against my desk.

[Bhu]

Zombie stories are, I think, necessarily idiot plots, and pointedly so.

Well really, most horror genres are idiot plot devices. For most American horror films (and god knows how many foreign ones) the entire point of the film is the neat death scenes, so you need various characters to get from point A to point B so they can die, no matter how unrealistic it is. This is why teenagers walks up to doors with ominous sounds coming from behind them with blood oozing out onto the floor and say "Bob? Is that you?"

It's just sort of become a widely accepted staple of the genre that encourages lazy writing.

[Saph]

Forget 28 Weeks Later, the original 28 Days Later is a perfect example of an idiot plot. Pretty much the entire story is driven by the characters acting like morons.

The zombie virus is blood-borne and a splash is enough to infect. So what weapons do the protagonists pick to fight the zombies? Baseball bats and machetes. You know, the kind of weapons that are guaranteed to splatter blood. With all the resources of a deserted metropolis to pick from, it occurs to none of them to get a gun.

The infected zombies are incapable of climbing high obstacles or crossing large bodies of water, so naturally the protagonists immediately get out of London and go on a road trip across England, staying as far as possible from all high obstacles and bodies of water, and taking time along the way to do things like splitting up and wandering around alone in small, dark, enclosed spaces that might contain zombies.

Finally the protagonists meet some soldiers, who naturally have also been affected by the crazy-stupid gas and proceed to start a war with the protagonists. The protagonists win by setting loose one infected zombie in the soldiers' base, which proceeds to kill all the soldiers because none of the soldiers remembered to load their weapons.

[Johel]

If this has been addressed already, I apologize. Remember the part where he's explaining why he's doing what he is doing and he says, "Everything I have done can be undone?" This all gets back to him justifying to himself what he's doing. Up to that point he really hadn't killed many people, he'd killed enough to cover his tracks, but he never wanted a wholesale slaughter of people. He just kinda lost it when his girlfriend.... well you've seen it so I won't post a spoiler.

Wasn't that the part just before Maclane tell him
"-Stop your bull****, it has always been about money. You just make yourself a excuse, here." ? :smallwink:


The zombie virus is blood-borne and a splash is enough to infect. So what weapons do the protagonists pick to fight the zombies? Baseball bats and machetes. You know, the kind of weapons that are guaranteed to splatter blood. With all the resources of a deserted metropolis to pick from, it occurs to none of them to get a gun.

Film is set in the UK.
Firearms fall under much more strict laws in Britain than in the US.
You'll be extremely lucky to find one and chances are good it already has a owner that won't let you have it. The ammunitions can also quickly become a problem.
Blunt weapons aren't a bad choice. Even if there's some blood around, it's still a lot less than cutting weapons.

@Solaris : the 72 hours is to send *something* there, using the Air Force as transport, with just enough support to avoid being left alone.
You're still looking mainly at infantry, with light armored vehicles and maybe a few helicopters (the "Galaxy" class airplane is just that badass...).
But the US army, while the best equipped in the world, doesn't have to capacity to air lift across the world more than a few thousands people in 72 hours. You just don't air lift whole armies, that would require too many pilots, aircrafts, fuel and logistic.
Most of the troops will be brought by sea and that's at least a full week, maybe more depending on where you want to send them.
As for the 24 hours for "Homeland Security", I don't know. You're probably right on that one

[Saph]

Film is set in the UK.
Firearms fall under much more strict laws in Britain than in the US.
You'll be extremely lucky to find one and chances are good it already has a owner that won't let you have it. The ammunitions can also quickly become a problem.

Check my location tag, Johel. :P

The reason I'm calling the protagonists idiots is because me and my friends figured out a better survival strategy after 20 minutes than the protagonists managed after several days. You get a gun, you find a place where the zombies can't reach you (it's London, it's not difficult) and you wait for them to die. You do not use a machete, you do not take road trips across the countryside, and you do not go wandering around alone in dark buildings armed only with a melee weapon!

[Johel]

Check my location tag, Johel. :P

The reason I'm calling the protagonists idiots is because me and my friends figured out a better survival strategy after 20 minutes than the protagonists managed after several days. You get a gun, you find a place where the zombies can't reach you (it's London, it's not difficult) and you wait for them to die. You do not use a machete, you do not take road trips across the countryside, and you do not go wandering around alone in dark buildings armed only with a melee weapon!

...that was the initial plan of the man and his daughter, right ? They did hide in a skyscrapper, raiding other apartment for food and blocking the stairs with a anti-riot shield...
It went good for food.
Not so much for water, though.

And again, guns aren't that easy to come by in UK...and in most Europe for that matter. :smalltongue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom#Licensing_and_l egislation
For what I get, that's basically the same rules that in Belgium (except for the little legislatif hick-up we had two years ago...).
There's very few gun shops and those will likely be the first place to be looted in the case of Z-pocalypse...

[Saph]

And again, guns aren't that easy to come by in UK...and in most Europe for that matter. :smalltongue:

I live where the movie was set! You can get guns easily . . . if everyone in the city's dead or a zombie. Just because something's illegal doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[Starshade]

And again, guns aren't that easy to come by in UK...and in most Europe for that matter. :smalltongue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom#Licensing_and_l egislation


UK isnt the rest of the europe. In Norway you got almost an equal number of guns per person as in US.
In fact, where i live, most homes got a gun, or several. Most popular is rifles meant for moose or fox/hare hunting, protecting sheep against bear or other predators, another popular one is the shotgun, and some got fine calibre pistols or rifles for target shooting.

[Johel]

I live where the movie was set! You can get guns easily . . . if everyone in the city's dead or a zombie. Just because something's illegal doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The problem isn't the illegal part.
It's the supply. London is about 8 millions people. Given that few people can buy a gun, I doubt there's even 8.000 guns in store... which means 1 gun available for looting for every 1.000 people.

In the 28 days of madness that follows the initial infection, people WILL loot the guns. That doesn't mean everyone can have one. So, yes, sure, "loot a gun store and bunker in a skyscraper" is a good plan for an individual.
But it's not a valid one when half the city's going to do the same. Unless you are a 7 feet tall muscular giant, I doubt you can loot a gun when everybody's doing it. That's it, without being kicked to death (or simply shot).

The reason why the protagonists had no gun was mainly because they weren't among the initial looters. Like most people, they were scared, they didn't know what was happening, they had faith in the government to "take care" of the problem, and they probably just locked themselves somewhere, waiting. So, unless you are ready to loot a gun store at the first sign of civil unrest, you won't have one. If you ARE ready to do just that, no wonder that you think "you can get guns easily" : you probably already own one.

So, again, yes, the plan is good if you get past the "get a gun" point. But your chances to complete that part are about 1/1000 so... Better go for the baseball bats or an iron bar.


In Norway...

Well, I was thinking "EU" when saying "Europe" but you're right.
Even though Oslo's inhabitants sure aren't that concerned about foxes and hunt. And that's were a Z-pocalypse "à la 28 days later" would start : big city. Most Z-pocalypse scenarios tend to show that, indeed, people living outside of big cities survive more easily, just because they are armed and there isn't much zombies around.

[FoE]

Besides the relatively low number of firearms available in London compared to, say, Texas, I excuse the lack of guns among the non-military survivors because they may not have known how to operate firearms, which is likely. And given the relatively short timeframe between the initial outbreak and Jim's awakening in the hospital, it's not like anyone would have had time to take a course or read a manual.

On the other hand, machetes are very user-friendly. All you need to know is that the pointy end goes in the other man.

As well, guns are somewhat noisy, which means they aren't conducive to sneaking through a city while trying to escape the notice of the Infected.

[Saph]

On the other hand, machetes are very user-friendly. All you need to know is that the pointy end goes in the other man.

Okay, let's think about this for a second. You're fighting a creature which is a threat mainly due to its infective blood, which is so deadly that one drop of it entering your system means instant death. So the weapon you're going to choose to combat it is . . . a machete? A slashing melee weapon that sprays blood everywhere? Does this sound like a good idea to you? :P

[Nevrmore]

Also if you think that a person can find a machete for the first time in their life and use it effectively, than it's abundantly clear that you've never been near one, or any weapon for that matter.

[Johel]

Also if you think that a person can find a machete for the first time in their life and use it effectively, than it's abundantly clear that you've never been near one, or any weapon for that matter.

Machetes, as tools, need nearly no practice to be used.
It's lighter than a axe and a lot more balanced.

Now, I have no idea about how easy it is to use it as a weapon but slashing for sugarcanes or branches isn't going to be that different than slashing at the arms of somebody who's charging you mindlessly. Granted, you'll not be very elegant and will still die if swarmed. But one-against-one ? You just slash the thing until it drop dead from blood lose.

Worst case, you can just handle it with both hands, point it right in front of you and let "zombie" impale on itself on it. Chances are you'll be knocked back but if we are working on "28 days latter" scenario, the Z are still alive and won't come back as undead once you've ran the matchete through their chest. You might still want to get that mask and studded vest, thought. :smallwink:

[Oslecamo]

Also if you think that a person can find a machete for the first time in their life and use it effectively, than it's abundantly clear that you've never been near one, or any weapon for that matter.

Do I need to point out that untrained humans have been using pretty much any and every sharp thing they can get their hands on to kill each other from the dawn of times, both by acident and anger?

Sure against a trained warrior you're screwed, but against a mindless zombie it's a quite good bet, and definetely better than trying to use your bare fists.

[averagejoe]

Well really, most horror genres are idiot plot devices. For most American horror films (and god knows how many foreign ones) the entire point of the film is the neat death scenes, so you need various characters to get from point A to point B so they can die, no matter how unrealistic it is. This is why teenagers walks up to doors with ominous sounds coming from behind them with blood oozing out onto the floor and say "Bob? Is that you?"

It's just sort of become a widely accepted staple of the genre that encourages lazy writing.

You mistake what I mean. That humans are stupid, panicky, paranoid, selfish animals is more or less the main theme of zombie films. In a good zombie film it won't be a matter of someone walking alone down a hallway not running when there's clearly danger, it will be someone refusing to work with the group and bringing everyone else down, someone thinking he has a better chance of survival and going off on his own, but also exposing everyone to the Z. Or other things. My point is that zombies are very stupid opponents. One can walk away from them pretty successfully. The only way they are possibly a threat is through self sabotage, and in good zombie films that self sabotage will be handled in fairly realistic ways. It's people behaving like idiots, but in such a way that makes you think, "Wow, someone might actually do that, and it might get me killed."

[darkblade]

At least it was just confined to the one chapter in WWZ. The gushing about katanas, shuriken, and Shaolin spades, coupled with the Japanese having elite zombie assassin squads, just made me bang my head against my desk.

Two chapters. The blind Gardener and the Otaku kid. Both of whom would they have been from any other country would have died in pages and not have single handedly saved their country.

[averagejoe]

Two chapters. The blind Gardener and the Otaku kid. Both of whom would they have been from any other country would have died in pages and not have single handedly saved their country.

No, I left that one out on purpose. I thought his escape from his apartment was fairly well done, and no more implausible than some of the other stuff in that book. He didn't even help save his country until he met the gardener guy who was so in tune with nature and stuff that he became a whirling shovel-wielder of zombie death. That was just a kung fu movie thing that I nearly put down the book. Even if you disagree with my other points on the kid, that was at least survival horror.

[Nevrmore]

Do I need to point out that untrained humans have been using pretty much any and every sharp thing they can get their hands on to kill each other from the dawn of times, both by acident and anger?

Sure against a trained warrior you're screwed, but against a mindless zombie it's a quite good bet, and definetely better than trying to use your bare fists.
It's not that you would be a total retard and hold it by the bladed end or anything, but it takes knowledge of how to swing effectively so you don't totally ruin your wrist and arm on impact. Cutting through a swath of leaves or sugarcane probably doesn't offer much resistance and thus little chance of injury. Trying to cut through human bone and muscle is a different story.

[FoE]

You're right: I have little experience with machetes. But I'm guessing that the learning curve for knowing how to properly swing a machete is a little lower than learning how to load, aim and fire a shotgun.

[Nevrmore]

My point's never been that a gun was more effective than a melee weapon. My post says that anyone who doesn't know the dangers of improperly wielding a machete has probably never had to use any weapon before - that includes guns. Having any sort of offensive item that you don't know how to operate correctly is immensely hazardous to yourself, it doesn't matter what.

Also a shotgun is probably a bad choice to use against these rage zombies if the point is to avoid bloodshed too close to your person. Unless you're packing slugs, the spread of buckshot will render anything but relatively close shots ineffective.

[loopy]

You're right: I have little experience with machetes. But I'm guessing that the learning curve for knowing how to properly swing a machete is a little lower than learning how to load, aim and fire a shotgun.

Not much lower.

...No, wait, I'd imagine if I ever had to fire a shotgun it'd end up breaking my shoulder/jaw/finger.

So yeah, machete wins... as a last ditch defence.

[Johel]

You're right: I have little experience with machetes. But I'm guessing that the learning curve for knowing how to properly swing a machete is a little lower than learning how to load, aim and fire a shotgun.

Yep. Exactly that. :smallsmile:
Even a shovel is good against living Zs. They are basically weak chimps infected with rabies.

While bones might be a problem, muscles aren't more resistant than coconuts. And you don't need to cut the Z into tiny pieces. To injure the Z is enough. To cut off his head in one swing would be awesome but several wounds at the neck or belly are all we need here. If you can chop a hand, all the best. An arm ? even better. Blood lose will kill it. Just keep him at bay to avoid infection.

[FoE]

My point's never been that a gun was more effective than a melee weapon. My post says that anyone who doesn't know the dangers of improperly wielding a machete has probably never had to use any weapon before - that includes guns.

And my point has never been about the effectiveness of melee weapons vs. guns. My point is that if you're an untrained survivor with no experience in weapons, you're probably smarter to pick up a club or an axe or, yes, a goddamn machete than try to learn how to use a firearm from scratch. There's a myriad of ways that could end badly. You could end up hurting yourself just trying to load the goddamn thing, or you could put a bullet in a friend's head because you don't know how to aim properly or account for the recoil of a gun. Imagine if that happened during an Infected attack!

Unless you propose to fight the Infected hand-to-hand, which is even more ludicrous if you don't know what you're doing.

[Nevrmore]

Yep. Exactly that. :smallsmile:
Even a shovel is good against living Zs. They are basically weak chimps infected with rabies.

While bones might be a problem, muscles aren't more resistant than coconuts. And you don't need to cut the Z into tiny pieces. To injure the Z is enough. To cut off his head in one swing would be awesome but several wounds at the neck or belly are all we need here. If you can chop a hand, all the best. An arm ? even better. Blood lose will kill it. Just keep him at bay to avoid infection.

Um, isn't that exactly what you're trying to avoid doing? If your plan to kill the being with infectious blood is to make it bleed to death then you're not a very good tactician.

[Nevrmore]

And my point has never been about the effectiveness of melee weapons vs. guns. My point is that if you're an untrained survivor with no experience in weapons, you're probably smarter to pick up a club or an axe or, yes, a goddamn machete than try to learn how to use a firearm from scratch. There's a myriad of ways that could end badly. You could end up hurting yourself just trying to load the goddamn thing, or you could put a bullet in a friend's head because you don't know how to aim properly or account for the recoil of a gun. Imagine if that happened during an Infected attack!

Unless you propose to fight the Infected hand-to-hand, which is even more ludicrous if you don't know what you're doing.
Are you intentionally being hypocritical? You just said "My point's never been about the effectiveness of melee vs. guns, but here's how melee weapons would be superior to guns."

Again, I never said it's better to have a firearm than try to use a machete to the first time. I said any weapon, no matter what, when used incorrectly, poses a danger to yourself. Your argument that a melee weapon is less dangerous than a gun is irrelevant because I never made a counterpoint to that in the first place.

[FoE]

Are you intentionally being hypocritical? You just said "My point's never been about the effectiveness of melee vs. guns, but here's how melee weapons would be superior to guns."

Well obviously guns are preferable against the Infected, in the hands of a skilled user. But you'd be an idiot to try and use a gun if you don't know how.

The number of people who accidentally shoot themselves or their loved ones is significantly higher than the number of people who accidentally beat themselves to death with a baseball bat.


I said any weapon, no matter what, when used incorrectly, poses a danger to yourself.

I agree.

[Johel]

Um, isn't that exactly what you're trying to avoid doing? If your plan to kill the being with infectious blood is to make it bleed to death then you're not a very good tactician.

Well, I DID say that I would personally go for blunt weapon : little to no blood spilled, little to no chance to hurt yourself, unless you're playing Bruce Lee...then you deserve to die. :smalltongue:
But if you have a machete, blunt damage isn't going to kill your target as fast as slashing damage.

Blood itself isn't dangerous. It's the fact that you can get contaminated by blood-to-blood contact (or saliva-to-blood contact). If you got the helmet and thick vest we were talking previously, you don't have to worry too much about the blood leaking from your opponent. Just don't let him scratch or bite you. We all agree that gun is the must IF

you can find one
you have some practice
you have plenty ammunitions.


Second to that is blunt weapon, then slashing weapon.
For both of these, you want something :

easy to find
easy to use
with at least arm-reach


First things that hits my mind :

Anything that looks like a club
Shovel
Machete

[FoE]

Well, I DID say that I would personally go for blunt weapon : little to no blood spilled, little to no chance to hurt yourself, unless you're playing Bruce Lee...then you deserve to die. :smalltongue:
But if you have a machete, blunt damage isn't going to kill your target as fast as slashing damage.

It's worth noting that you don't necessarily need to kill the Infected — just impair them. A broken leg or jaw will certainly slow them down.

[Johel]

It's worth noting that you don't necessarily need to kill the Infected — just impair them. A broken leg or jaw will certainly slow them down.

While you're perfectly correct, I consider it merciful to kill the poor lad rather than let him starve...

[Mr. Scaly]

You mistake what I mean. That humans are stupid, panicky, paranoid, selfish animals is more or less the main theme of zombie films. In a good zombie film it won't be a matter of someone walking alone down a hallway not running when there's clearly danger, it will be someone refusing to work with the group and bringing everyone else down, someone thinking he has a better chance of survival and going off on his own, but also exposing everyone to the Z. Or other things. My point is that zombies are very stupid opponents. One can walk away from them pretty successfully. The only way they are possibly a threat is through self sabotage, and in good zombie films that self sabotage will be handled in fairly realistic ways. It's people behaving like idiots, but in such a way that makes you think, "Wow, someone might actually do that, and it might get me killed."

I think the beginning of Dead Rising with the woman and her dog needs no introduction here...

[bosssmiley]

X-Men 3

"Oh, woe is us! Jean Grey has mutant uberPMS at over 9000! If only we had some way of negating her power, like a mutant whose special mutant power was to negate the powers of others. How sad there are no mutants like that in this film, and that instead the powerful, but out-of-control woman must die at the hands of a man (in accordance with Hollywood orthodoxy)."

[Cut to Leech and Rogue facepalming]

[Johel]

I think the beginning of Dead Rising with the woman and her dog needs no introduction here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5bOKcdf5Vs&feature=PlayList&p=11D06D4354F2F092&index=1
"-Madonna !! My Madonna is out there !!"
3:30

[Grumman]

X-Men 3

"Oh, woe is us! Jean Grey has mutant uberPMS at over 9000! If only we had some way of negating her power, like a mutant whose special mutant power was to negate the powers of others. How sad there are no mutants like that in this film, and that instead the powerful, but out-of-control woman must die at the hands of a man (in accordance with Hollywood orthodoxy)."

[Cut to Leech and Rogue facepalming]
Problem: Leech can negate the powers of others, but only if he gets within range. Lacking a mutant healing factor, this may be difficult.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Stay clear of real world politics, please. The prohibition on that topic is broad one. If you point requires you to talk about a branch of government, the U.S. Constitution, etc., you're better off not engaging in that strain of discussion.

[kamikasei]

For dealing with zombies - especially if you have a group and aren't just one person on your own - and assuming that you don't have any particular training or special resources - wouldn't spears be ideal?

[Yoren]

X-Men 3

"Oh, woe is us! Jean Grey has mutant uberPMS at over 9000! If only we had some way of negating her power, like a mutant whose special mutant power was to negate the powers of others. How sad there are no mutants like that in this film, and that instead the powerful, but out-of-control woman must die at the hands of a man (in accordance with Hollywood orthodoxy)."

[Cut to Leech and Rogue facepalming]

Wouldn't both of them get desintegrated by the "uberPMS" once they got close, since neither of them are made out of the same material as Wolverine's pants?

[Johel]

For dealing with zombies - especially if you have a group and aren't just one person on your own - and assuming that you don't have any particular training or special resources - wouldn't spears be ideal?

living zombies vs group of survivors :
Yes, spears are a option, if you can impose enough discipline into individuals to NOT run away if things get messy. Hold the line or die...
undeads vs group of survivors :
Spears are worth something only if you can aim for the head. Same rule apply for discipline.
zombies vs 1 survivor :
spears will get you swarmed and killed, unless you can protect your flank.
1 living zombie vs 1 survivor :
spear is excellent.
1 undead vs 1 survivor :
less excellent but still good.

[Eldan]

Boar spears. Or whatever they are called in english. If it stops a raging boar, it stops an undead.

[FoE]

I think the beginning of Dead Rising with the woman and her dog needs no introduction here...

What. An. Idiot.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Boar spears. Or whatever they are called in english. If it stops a raging boar, it stops an undead.They're called "boar spears". And I agree, but only if there's only one undead and he's charging you straight on.

[Eldan]

Well, quite frankly, against more than one undead, I'd be dead anyway.

[kamikasei]

The idea is simply to be able to take the zombie down without getting within their reach. Obviously there are limitations, but I can't see how a spear would be worse than a machete, even before you get in to formations and boar spears.

[Johel]

The idea is simply to be able to take the zombie down without getting within their reach. Obviously there are limitations, but I can't see how a spear would be worse than a machete, even before you get in to formations and boar spears.

Never said it was worse :smallsmile:
Just pointing out the limits.

The only advantages of a machete over a spear I think of are :

It can be used in close quarters. I know, the spear's point is to avoid close quarter by killing the Zs before they get close enough. But still, just in case you get caught off guard, a 60cm blade is a lot more usefull than a pole in a grapple situation (mainly because you can slash and pierce, even if it's weak. You can also use it to choke, as you would with the pole).
It's a lot easier to carry, store, ect... Try walking 1km with a 1,2m (or more) wooden pole, then do the same with a 60cm at your belt. You'll understand what I mean.
It can be used for several tasks. Spears are just weapons, walking sticks and eventually mast for the tent...which you won't use in a zombie-infested environnement (you *can* but there are safety issues)

[Dvil]

Well, doesn't a boar spear stop the boar at least partly through pain? If they're Hollywood zombies, then you're boned. A boar spear would only really be useful against a single pain-sensitive zombie, or maybe two (if onw was a fair amount nearer than the other).

[The Glyphstone]

I'm pretty sure it's not the pain...speared boars can still kill the spear-holder before they figure out you killed them. I think it's the cross-brace on the boar spear, they literally try to push themselves up the spear to stab you, but get themselves stuck on the crossbrace.

[warty goblin]

Even if the zombie is immune to pain, a spear will do a lot of soft tissue damage, and handled by someone with the bearest grasp of what they are doing can strike faster, harder and with at least the same precision as a sword or bladed weapon in the same person's hands.

Operating it tag teams, one or two people with spears, and a third armed with a 'finishe weapon such as an axe could be quite effective. Two spears to the ribcage should be enough to pin a zombie long enough for the Kill Maker to get in there and mess up some brains. For foraging, use two group supported by shooters running overwatch to clear and hold an area temporarily, then send in people to scavenge whatever is needed.

Long term of course scavenging is going to fail. There's onl so much preserved food out, and not all of that is going to be safely accessible. What you really want to go for is seeds for crops, ammo, raw materials like iron and steel, and so on. The sooner one can get the subsistance farms running, the better.

[Avilan the Grey]

{Scrubbed}

[Avilan the Grey]

{Scrubbed}

[Grey Paladin]

{Scrubbed}

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Or don't avoid real world politics. :smallsigh: Locked for review but it's not coming back, so I'm not going to scrub every single thing that's wrong with the above. Please steer clear of real world politics. You can do that by staying far from politics or by staying far from real world.