Zombie Survival, Order of Operations! [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

DaedalusMkV

2013-10-17, 02:18 PM

2, 1, 5, 3, 4.

Shelter is top priority. Until you've got a safe place to stay, you're functionally dead as soon as you get too tired to function properly. You can go a couple of days without food or water in a pinch, while you'll be lucky to last 48 hours without shelter, so that's your next priority after shelter. Water more important than food, obviously, since we can live more than a week without food, but you'll need a good supply of both or your shelter is basically just a tomb. You're going to need a trustworthy group of allies before long as well, to cover each other's back while sleeping and generally be much more efficient about everything. One person is a guy hoping his castle keeps him safe while he sleeps, four or five is a garrison that can make sure the castle stays safe. One person raiding a grocery store for food is prey; four or five is a strike team with someone covering their back and an escape plan. After that comes weapons; in a slow zombie scenario I'd actually rate weapons right at the top, but these are fast zombies and planning to stand and fight against them alone is way too risky. The weapons are pretty much purely for last resort defenses and raiding to acquire things you need, and in practice will rank below reliable transportation in the form of a big truck and a huge supply of gas.

Finally, we've got medical supplies. Which are a priority only in the sense that I don't particularly want to get an infected scratch from brushing up against a rusty nail and die of blood poisoning. In practice they don't help the zombie scenario at all, and are pretty much only for random accidents.

Overall, though? The very first thing I'd want is a battery-powered two way radio. I don't care what the scenario is, there are still a whole bunch of soldiers and other survivor groups out there, and there's almost certain to be someone out there with more resources than me with a plan to make things better, and I'd much rather team up with them than go it on my own. In-person communication is all well and good, but having a range of a couple hundred kilometers is so, so much more useful in the long run.

HamHam

2013-10-17, 02:23 PM

5, 2, 3, 1, 4

First thing you need to do is rally together with whoever else is left. Then secure a base of operations, then the means to deal with zombies on the way to getting the last two objectives.

CarpeGuitarrem

2013-10-17, 02:23 PM

Why are you distinguishing between "Food" and "Other People"?

:smalltongue:

Traab

2013-10-17, 02:34 PM

Why are you distinguishing between "Food" and "Other People"?

:smalltongue:

Because if they are the same thing to you, the list no longer matters. Only BRAAAAINS!!!!

shadow_archmagi

2013-10-17, 02:39 PM

Because if they are the same thing to you, the list no longer matters. Only BRAAAAINS!!!!

You can be a cannibal without being a zombie, silly Traab.

CarpeGuitarrem

2013-10-17, 02:41 PM

You can be a cannibal without being a zombie, silly Traab.
And many of the items on the list are still top priority for any cannibal worth their salt.

Lord Shardok

2013-10-17, 05:42 PM

Brother Oni

2013-10-17, 05:48 PM

And many of the items on the list are still top priority for any cannibal worth their salt.

Salt is also good for preserving the meat of other people for later. :smallbiggrin:

Hiro Protagonest

2013-10-17, 05:59 PM

1) Food/Water
2) Shelter
3) Weapons and ammunition
4) Medical Supplies
5) Other People

Uh...

1, 2, 5, 4, 3.

After all, the best soldiers can kill a zombie by giving them the evil eye. We are basing this off Rebuild rules, right? :smalltongue:

(for those who don't know, Rebuild (and Rebuild 2, which is very similar but has more content, so similar in fact that you might as well skip the first) is a flash game about slowly retaking a city from a zombie apocalypse. Your stats can go up to 10, and since items can't boost numbers past the max of 10, someone with 10 inherent combat skill is just as effective when unarmed as when they have a pistol, assault rifle, or rocket launcher. It's not hard to get them there either, just send them on a few zombie-killing with more experienced folk)

I'd still value it this way in any case. Weapons are nice, but food and water are vital, and if you get enough people on building detail, you can fortify a large enough area to secure good scavenging grounds for everything else. Keeping everyone healthy is more important than trying to expand further.

J-H

2013-10-17, 07:55 PM

I am taking a survey, rank these things from first to last in order of importance. Lets say a massive swarm of fast running zombies are everywhere and you need to survive. What is your first priority? What is your last?

1) Shelter
Otherwise I'll get surrounded by zombies and eaten no matter what gun I have or how much food I have.

2) Food/Water
Otherwise I have to forage, meaning I have to leave my shelter for someplace dangerous, and/or could be tracked back to it.

3) Weapons and ammunition
God made men. Sam Colt made men equal.

4) Other people
I have to sleep.

5) Medical Supplies
I can improvise, and "not getting eaten" is a more lethal peril than all but the most serious wound.

Tebryn

2013-10-17, 07:58 PM

Lord Shardok

2013-10-17, 08:03 PM

Step One: Take the highway to the Valley of the Sun.

Step Two: Stock up on food and water

Step Three: Wait for the zombies to turn into zombie Jerky

Step Four: Secure city for eventual military back up

Step Five: Go back home unharmed.

A good plan, but the last thing I would do in a zombie situation is trust the military. The Last of Us taught me this.

Raimun

2013-10-17, 08:45 PM

1) Remote island/mountain/orbital headquarters
2) Super soldier serum
3) Army of clerics w/Turn Undead enhancing Feats
4) Replicator
5) Video games

I'm golden.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-10-17, 08:54 PM

So in the unlikely event that zombies are spontaneously spawned in sufficient simultaneous numbers to build up actual crowds of zeds to maybe get an "apocalypse" going?

2) Shelter
1) Food/Water
5) Other People
4) Medical Supplies
3) Weapons and ammunition

Since basically the sane way is to just wait it all out. Preferred hide out would probably be a fairly tall building with proper fire doors, lots of office furniture and with elevators I can figure out how to disable. Assuming something like a proper ship is not available. (Or a tank even if I can't drive it)

Even if for some reason the military isn't coming along to wipe out those silly unintelligent unarmored unarmed infantry forces with for great hilarity, zed is too dumb to live. Either they're dead and proceed to fall apart from cumulative damage never mind rotting, or they are alive and thus starve to death.

Metahuman1

2013-10-17, 10:05 PM

Well, my order is a bit different

1: Transportation

2: Shelter

3: Food/Water

then a tie for weapons/ammo and people, with med supply's bringing up the rear.

Cause if I can keep moving/holing up long enough, problem will eventually solve itself. Animals,decay, weather conditions, and other armed top predators on the planet (homo sapiens.), who happen to be the zombies sole means of reproduction, food, and there top predator all at the same time, will fix the problem given the time, all I gotta do is keep one step ahead of them/holed up where they can't get me/fight them off till then.

Forum Explorer

2013-10-18, 02:39 AM

2 > 1 > 5 > 3 > 4

In a pinch all I really need is 2 and 1. Best way for someone like me to survive the zombies is to simply fortify and outlast them. Other people actually help with that as working together we become even more effective at protecting ourselves. Also if the plague (somehow) lasts long enough that we need to go scavenge for food then we'd like safty in numbers. Also the psychological benefit of having some people watching your back.

Weapons would be nifty, but zombies aren't too dangerous. Improvised weapons from common tools would be sufficient on the defense. Medical supplies would only be needed if the plague somehow lasted multiple months. And then only maybe.

Frozen_Feet

2013-10-18, 03:00 AM

It's nearly winter here, so what I'd need is a good basement to hide in first, then food and water to last for a month or two. All those other things? Mainly irrelevant.

Medical supplies? If you are a healthy adult, your chances of catching anything that can't be handled with an aspirin pill are minimal. Unless there is a Diabolus ex Machina zombie virus in the air or water system, in which case you probably are infected already.

Weaponry? Nevermind that I own these already, why on earth would you bother fighting these things. An unintelligent mob would have trouble breaking through front door of an apartment flat. If your foes are smart enough to systematically break into buildings and search them from edible people, you are not dealing with anything that can be called "zombies".

Other people? Staying out of touch with other people is the best way to avoid catching whatever you have. Other people are not a boon in this situation, they are a liability that might compromise your shelter, reveal your location or otherwise cause trouble. Unless you happen to be in a police department or military garrison when the crisis starts, in which case you don your armor, fetch your rifle and get to killing 'em zombies with the rest of legal enforcement.

If these zombies are not flat-out superior to baseline human physiology, they will simply freeze from undead to just dead on their own. The biggest risk from them is possible contamination of soil and water by dangerous microbes from their decomposing bodies. :smalltongue:

MLai

2013-10-18, 06:08 AM

Hey guys. Weapons and ammo aren't necessarily for use against the zombies. Zombies are predictable, they can be avoided and gamed around.
Weapons are for use against other people.

Frozen_Feet

2013-10-18, 06:13 AM

Well, yes. But if "other people" are determined aggressors, you are pretty much screwed and the zombies are the least of your worries. Because most of the weapons you'd want are likely already owned by those other people, and they're already coming for you.:smallamused:

Aotrs Commander

2013-10-18, 06:57 AM

Starbuck_II

2013-10-18, 11:36 AM

tomandtish

2013-10-18, 11:46 AM

It really depends on the type of zombie.

If its a shambling, slow zombie, the order will be 5,1,2,4,3 if the people are ones that I care about. If not the order will be 1,2,4,3,5. I can easily run around the slow zombies and hit them with a bat, so weapons and ammo is low priority. Food, water, and shelter take priority for without them I would starve and freeze.

Rage zombies are a different story. If I know and care about the people, 2,5,3,1,4. If otherwise, 2,3,1,4 and to hell with other people. Shelter from the quick, strong zombies is priority no matter what in my opinion. Go find others when things calm down a bit outside. Weapons and ammo will be required to not die, as you can't easily run around these ones. Then food, water, and medical supplies. :smallcool:

Lord Shardok's comments about the type of zombie affecting priority are important, and I agree. in fact, his list pretty much matches mine with one exception:

Anywhere there's a (5), put a *(Except CarpeGuitarrem based on his apparent dietary preferences). :smallbiggrin:

Why are you distinguishing between "Food" and "Other People"?

:smalltongue:

Tyndmyr

2013-10-18, 12:33 PM

There are several things you need to survive long term in a zombie apocalypse. They are as follows.

1) Food/Water
2) Shelter
3) Weapons and ammunition
4) Medical Supplies
5) Other People

I am taking a survey, rank these things from first to last in order of importance. Lets say a massive swarm of fast running zombies are everywhere and you need to survive. What is your first priority? What is your last?

Fast?

1. Weapons and Ammo.
2. Food/Water.
3. Medical Supplies.
4. Other People
5. Shelter.

My prioritization is based on rarity and how long you'll live without them, as well as applicability to solving the situation overall.

Even against fast zombies, it's fairly easy to find a position where you can fire on them, but they cannot reach you. Therefore, it's fairly easy to transform excess ranged weaponry into dead zombies and a safer environment for all survivors(albeit at the risk of drawing more to you).

Water especially is essential for continued survival, and food is great too. Gonna come up.

Medical supplies are a longer term thing. Accidents, injuries and illness are a concern. One dwarfed by hunger, thirst, or zombie killings, obviously, but still relevant.

Other survivors are risky to contact, but long term...you need to in order to solve the larger problem. So, lower priority, but you'll have to do it if all goes well.

Shelter is basically irrelevant. We live in a world with a ton of buildings, most of which no longer have human claimants. Finding better shelter is nice, of course, but it's still not rare.

I also don't hold to the "wait it out" strategy. That strategy fails if everyone takes it. I prefer engaging them.

CarpeGuitarrem

2013-10-18, 01:45 PM

Anywhere there's a (5), put a *(Except CarpeGuitarrem based on his apparent dietary preferences). :smallbiggrin:
Just pragmatism. :smallwink:

If we get cut off by the Independents' zombie dinosaurs, we'll have to resort to it.

TheThan

2013-10-18, 02:44 PM

I’m assuming you’re already stuck with a group of people and we are not already at our Zday bunker.

1: Weapons and ammunition- allows you and your group (if you have one) to fight off the zombies and hopefully reach your Zday bunker (you do have a Zday bunker riiight?)
2: medical supplies- you’re likely to encounter injury along the way, so this is important. It’s either that or leave the wounded behind. (Those deemed infected are automatically shot in the head).
3: transportation and fuel- get a vehicle and get out of town or to the above mentioned bunker much faster than trying to out run the zombies.
4: shelter- once you reach your bunker, you mostly safe. Hopefully you’ve gotten there without attracting too big of a horde.
5: food/water- because you’re going to be held up for a while, not starving to death is a good thing.

Now for slow movers I’d have these in a slightly different order. I’d go in this order:
1: Weapons & Ammunition- kill what you can't out run
2: Shelter (once again your fortified bunker makes an appearance)-again once your there, you're mostly safe
3: Food & water- don't want to starve in your shelter
4: Other people- need someone to keep watch and talk to
5: Medical supplies-keeps everyone in good health

Forum Explorer

2013-10-18, 10:00 PM

Depends on the type of zombie.

If it's the whole "virus/plague" zombie, then the priority is 2) food/water an6 %) other people - by which I mean, popcorn as I watch all the humans get eaten and the humans to feed to the zombies. And then weapons for when I get bored, all the humans are dead and I want to clean the place up a bit. Though that's only for expediency, since I don't actually need weapons on the basis that I have not seen any zombies that would pose even a remote threat to me. (Even less so now my bones are mithril-alloy.) And with neither flesh nor organic bones, I doubt I'd even register on their scale most of the time...

If it's actual necromantic zombies, of course, I'd be the one running the zombie apocalypse.

(Even if I didn't start it, I'd soon be in charge...) And likely turning it into a skeleton apocalypse, since animated skeletons are generally better than animated zombies for most jobs.

Skeletons make for poor plague bombs. :smalltongue:

I also don't hold to the "wait it out" strategy. That strategy fails if everyone takes it. I prefer engaging them.

No it doesn't. Wait it out works perfectly fine, because being outside and on your feet is 24-7 is very very hard on a body. People don't need to engage the zombies in combat at all, just wait a week or two (and that is being severely optomistic for the zombies) and they'll all be dead from exposure. If you get lucky the outbreak will happen in winter and will end about 12 hours after it begins after they all freeze to death.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-10-18, 10:42 PM

No it doesn't. Wait it out works perfectly fine, because being outside and on your feet is 24-7 is very very hard on a body. People don't need to engage the zombies in combat at all, just wait a week or two (and that is being severely optomistic for the zombies) and they'll all be dead from exposure. If you get lucky the outbreak will happen in winter and will end about 12 hours after it begins after they all freeze to death.

A bit over optimistic but that certainly doesn't change that zombies are really a problem that solves itself soon or later so I agree but...

Well much of the world doesn't nessecarily have winters that are even say below freezing most of the time and even that poses certain (different) questions for undead or living type zeds.

Metahuman1

2013-10-18, 11:08 PM

A bit over optimistic but that certainly doesn't change that zombies are really a problem that solves itself soon or later so I agree but...

Well much of the world doesn't nessecarily have winters that are even say below freezing most of the time and even that poses certain (different) questions for undead or living type zeds.

Even still, Insects, stray/wild animals looking for food and just normal factors of decay will wipe them out in a matter of months at worst. At Worst. So, move away/hunker down and hold out are perfectly viable strategy's.

ABKC

2013-10-18, 11:11 PM

Skeletons make for poor plague bombs. :smalltongue:

No it doesn't. Wait it out works perfectly fine, because being outside and on your feet is 24-7 is very very hard on a body. People don't need to engage the zombies in combat at all, just wait a week or two (and that is being severely optomistic for the zombies) and they'll all be dead from exposure. If you get lucky the outbreak will happen in winter and will end about 12 hours after it begins after they all freeze to death.

That is the easy way through it. Even better, with realistic biomechanics zombies, the body of the zombie is still a suspension of levers, wires, and small motors. If you cut the wires the levers just hang, and even better get pulled by the counter-acting motor. Cut the tricep and the bicep keeps the arm folded. Cut the back muscles and the zombie can't stand up straight.

Anyway:
Weapons and Ammunition
Shelter
Food/Water
Other People
Medical Supplies.

Ideally you can secure one or more at the same time.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-10-19, 01:59 AM

Even still, Insects, stray/wild animals looking for food and just normal factors of decay will wipe them out in a matter of months at worst. At Worst. So, move away/hunker down and hold out are perfectly viable strategy's.

Well one can argue being undead somehow stops decay from somethings... because magic and stuff... but unless your dead zeds heal its really just a matter of time.

Living zombie need fewer wizards, but are probably even more self defeating.

And the hunker down is especially effective when you consider that the military can kill arbitrarily high numbers of them without firing a shot. And firing a shot anything starting with Browning's M2 and up is going to reenact a more one-sided variation of WWI.

Massive hordes won't last. Actually they're even less likely to arise in the first place. Seriously even Romero's is pretty limited when you stop and think about it.

Aotrs Commander

2013-10-19, 03:40 AM

Skeletons make for poor plague bombs. :smalltongue:

I said most jobs.

On the other claw attacks, though skeletons would actually require equipping with gear to function as a bio-weapon (and they have a convenient internal storage cage...!), they are arguably a more effective delivery device, considereing they are much faster than most zombies. (Unless fast zombies are in the picture, in which case you'd need to run experiments on how fast those fast zombies actually are in comparison.)

chainer1216

2013-10-19, 01:12 PM

fast running?

1. weapons/ammunition
2. food/water
3. shelter
4. other people
5. medical supplies

fast running zombies don't tire so you can't outrun them for long, so you'll need to outgun(sword,hammer,axe) them. a defensible shelter is meaningless if you'll die in 3 days, more people means more eyes, more ear and more arms, and medical supplies are only really useful in the long run, anything that requires medical things means you need a safe place to heal over a long period of time too.

Berenger

2013-11-23, 11:22 PM

Karoht

2013-11-29, 05:36 PM

You forgot transportation. Mobility is key. Staying in one place is dangerous, even if you can fortify it reasonably well. There is always a chance the zombies find a way in that you can't cover or didn't think to cover. So I vote mobility gets added to the list in some way. Lets assume it's a working car.
If I'm stuck in the city and unable to leave for reasons which would make zero sense, then the current list applies, mobility is a bit less important. I only need enough mobility to go out, scavenge supplies and scout out fortifyable positions, and return to my base every day.
If I can't leave town, my priority looks like this.
1-Water-Harder to find in a city, much more important.
2-Food-Harder to find in a city.
3-Shelter-Secure place, storage of supplies.
4-Weapon-Gotta defend myself
5-Other People-Support network more important in a city as opposed to outside of one.
6-Medical/Mobility-Medical supplies and the ability to travel and scavenge a wider area are about as important.

If I am able to leave the city, mobility is far more important.
I'm only a half hour away from the wilderness. The wilderness in this case being relatively thick forest. Even the worst traffic isn't going to be able stop me from getting out of the city in less than two hours. If I get out of town, I'm fine. If I get out of town, I have 4 different bug out locations I can make it to, all within half a tank of gas of driving. From there I have contingencies for other safe places I could retreat to. So mobility is incredibly important if I can leave town.
1-Mobility-If I don't have something, I can find it.
2-Weapon-Dangerous on the road
3-Water/Food-Still important, but if I have mobility, easier to find, easier to transport, not so important that I stockpile lots until I have a secure base to work from.
4-Shelter-Place to store stuff and rest.
5-Medical Supplies-Less likely I'm going to get hurt by zombies when the goal is to avoid encountering them.
6-Other people-Support network is harder to manage when you're moving around. Small network is best, or large one spread out over a few locations. In theory, running into strangers is more dangerous than running into zombies at this point, so it isn't too likely that I'm going to try and make friends.

Drakeburn

2013-11-29, 08:57 PM

I have to agree with a couple of folks here when they say that transportation is important. After all, there will be zombies running around (until they decompose to the point where they can us their arms or legs), so a truck or a car can come in handy. Although a mobile home would be even better, since it fits into the category of both transportation and shelter.

For my zombie plan, I'm going to need some transportation to reach a place I know that has shelter, food and water (or at least near a few sources of food and water), and weapons. Although I don't know if I should go straight for that place first, or drive around town to gather supplies and weapons first, and then go to the place. With the camping gear that place has, it seems like an ideal place for a haven/sanctuary (however you want to call it).

Mando Knight

2013-11-29, 09:19 PM

Anyone who thinks they can go it alone in the zombie apocalypse is never heard from again... or at least not until their shambling corpse is put down by people that stick together.

In general, 5-3-1-2-4. You need at least a small group of pals to survive the onslaught, and something to arm them with. Food/water and shelter are more important than medical supplies... having nowhere to hole up while treating an injury can be just as dangerous as not being able to treat the injury at all, and shelter generally will make it more possible to resist attack.

Of course, if medical supplies include zombie cure/vaccination, supplies for the diabetic in your group, or the like, then it will jump to a higher priority.

Traab

2013-11-30, 07:45 PM

Ravens_cry

2013-11-30, 10:51 PM

Bicycles. Scout around without attracting attention or need to fuel up, while still being faster than most zombies. Heck, faster most humans on foot too. They also can go places cars can't, like narrow alleys. If I was at a store, I'd get some garden seeds as well as long shelf life food, focusing on dried goods, though canned good as well. Assuming this is broad based thing, I want to think as long term as possible, as soon as possible.

Ajadea

2013-12-01, 05:03 AM

I'm with the group that says zombies, fast or slow, living or dead, will solve themselves if you leave them long enough. When your only source of food and method of reproduction is the local apex predator, you're not going to be sticking around long.

So in light of that:

Food and water, and lots. Not starving is crucial to survival.
Shelter. Somewhere to sit and hide while the zombies get on with decaying. Most buildings with multiple stories should work. Climbing stairs takes a certain level of coordination.
Medical supplies. I'm on my own, don't want to get hurt. Also makes it easier to deal with having....
Other people. I am fairly self-sufficient, but having other people around brings a sense of security and extra eyes and hands around the place can't hurt. Gotta be careful here though. Other people will use up supplies. As a rule of thumb, if I meet them and they have already been injured, leave them. They are likely to be infected. Harsh, but this is the apocalypse.
Transportation. If I'm relying on this, I'm already deep in trouble - ideally, the shelter and food will hold out until the zombies decay.
Weapons/Ammo. First of all, I don't know how to shoot a gun. Second of all, we're waiting for the zombies to rot, remember?

Eloel

2013-12-01, 05:54 AM

Find food, turtle in, wait out.
Simple, effective.

Killer Angel

2013-12-01, 06:01 AM

If zombies are chasing you, the first thing you look for is a shelter.
After that, you search for food, then weapons (or weapons to survive while searching for food).
Other survivors and medicines, come after those things, in the priorities' list.

Of course, you can face different dilemmas. If you hafe a wife (husband) and children, your first "things to do" could be to find them.

Thunderfist12

2013-12-01, 02:29 PM

Weapons and ammunition
Other People
Shelter
Food/Water
Medical Supplies

Karoht

2013-12-02, 10:25 AM

Mobility is great, for the short term. But you need shelter for the long term.Shelter is short term, for serious. Eventually, zombies are going to swarm it and overrun it because reasons. Ammo and food are only going to hold out for so long, and then you are forced to move at a time when ammo and food are low. Stupid risks start happening, moreso if people are hungry and unsettled and poorly rested.
Unless your shelter is away from populated areas and pretty much 100% person proof (people with weapons, nevermind zombies), the shelter is a poor idea. It is limited use only, for a limited time.
Mobility is valued higher because if I absolutely need to, I can go find another shelter. Or anything else.

Also, there is no way in hell anything bigger than a bike is likely to be able to travel through a city when the zombie end times come.Everyone who says that assumes that roads are the only method of travel. Head through the neighborhoods. Start driving through the wooden fences if you have to. That isn't going to stop a truck, nevermind a proper all-terrain vehicle. Take back alley ways. Is there any adjoining farmland or parkland? Drive through that, skip the roads if you have to. Eventually you end up out of town at some point. It's impossible for every road everywhere to be completely clogged, it is especially less likely for the suburb roads to be clogged.

There will be crashed and stopped vehicles everywhere. Even bikes may have trouble navigating at times. The highways will be hit or miss depending on things like the condition of the bordering off road areas. All it takes is one wounded person at the wheel turning or one of the passengers doing the same to cause a massive pileup that will cause a huge traffic jam filled with zombie infested cars.
The images of cars parked on the road and in massive piles assumes two things. 1-Traffic wasn't moving on a major highway because [reasons]. 2-For further absurd reasons, people chose to abandon their cars, possibly because they were attacked by zombies. Zombies which are supposed to be in higher concentration downtown, suddenly in high enough numbers on the outskirts to bring traffic to a standstill. Huh?

All that being said, I think shelter, with a safe escape plan, is the best of both worlds. You need a place to fort up, to stockpile food and water, to be able to sleep more or less securely. But like you said, you need a way to move if or when the zombies break down your barricades, or otherwise manage to get in.Fortifications aren't going to help you travel. And trying to run once your fortifications fail is probably the worst time to run.
I'd be fortifying for a very very short time. If I can't get out of town on day 1, I fortify for the night, maybe spend a few days, maximum of 3, then I'm leaving town no matter how good things look.

Traab

2013-12-02, 02:13 PM

Shelter is short term, for serious. Eventually, zombies are going to swarm it and overrun it because reasons. Ammo and food are only going to hold out for so long, and then you are forced to move at a time when ammo and food are low. Stupid risks start happening, moreso if people are hungry and unsettled and poorly rested.
Unless your shelter is away from populated areas and pretty much 100% person proof (people with weapons, nevermind zombies), the shelter is a poor idea. It is limited use only, for a limited time.
Mobility is valued higher because if I absolutely need to, I can go find another shelter. Or anything else.

Everyone who says that assumes that roads are the only method of travel. Head through the neighborhoods. Start driving through the wooden fences if you have to. That isn't going to stop a truck, nevermind a proper all-terrain vehicle. Take back alley ways. Is there any adjoining farmland or parkland? Drive through that, skip the roads if you have to. Eventually you end up out of town at some point. It's impossible for every road everywhere to be completely clogged, it is especially less likely for the suburb roads to be clogged.

The images of cars parked on the road and in massive piles assumes two things. 1-Traffic wasn't moving on a major highway because [reasons]. 2-For further absurd reasons, people chose to abandon their cars, possibly because they were attacked by zombies. Zombies which are supposed to be in higher concentration downtown, suddenly in high enough numbers on the outskirts to bring traffic to a standstill. Huh?

Fortifications aren't going to help you travel. And trying to run once your fortifications fail is probably the worst time to run.
I'd be fortifying for a very very short time. If I can't get out of town on day 1, I fortify for the night, maybe spend a few days, maximum of 3, then I'm leaving town no matter how good things look.

1) You are going to have to sleep, to rest, to eat, to pee, somewhere. You cant take the time out of your busy day of being mobile as you dodge random swarms of zombies to do them out in the open. You need a semi safe place to do so. Shelter is also a place where you can store stuff like food water and ammo, because you sure as hell wont be able to store much in your bike. Shelter can be a lot of things, including some non highly populated areas like industrial parks and warehouse districts. Thats just one example among many. Getting out of town isnt a bad idea, its just not the end of it. You wont last long dodging zombies all day every day with your precious mobility.

2) Yeah that sounds nice in theory, but that all revolves around the streets not being packed with whats left of everyone trying to get out. Yes we could try driving on lawns and such, but just from where I am sitting I see three trees and a curb capable of tearing the guts out of a vehicle that doesnt have a lot of ground clearance if you try to ride half in the yard and half on the road to get around most of the traffic and other obstacles. The odds of getting anything bigger than a motorbike from your house to the middle of nowhere is low.

You may think that people will kindly pull over to the shoulder upon dying or abandoning their vehicle for various reasons, but chances are eventually, no matter what direction you head in, there will be a road block that will keep your car or truck from advancing. All it takes is for there to be one wreck per street to shut it down for everyone. Traffic will pile up behind it, and people will give up and run for it rather than be stuck in a traffic jam not moving and waiting for the zombies to show up. The first instinct of just about everyone will be to get out of town. All exits will be blocked most likely.

3) Highways, once again, all it takes is one accident and the highway will be blocked for insane distances. There are car wrecks daily on the highways NOW. How safe do you think a few cities worth of panicky drivers will be on the highway escaping from a zombie horde? You MIGHT be able to do shoulder driving or just off road for awhile, but eventually there is always a bridge, or decorative trees, or a rock formation close to the edge, and once again, your car is blocked. Assuming the thousands of other vehicles with the same idea havent already plugged that option as well.

4) Once you have found a place you can properly fortify. One with access to food and water, you dont need to travel much. I would rather have walls around me, than to rely on moving around to protect me from random zombie/looter attacks.

SiuiS

2013-12-02, 02:34 PM

Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg/450px-Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg.png

0. any way of not being eaten alive by zombies in the next few minutes: protection by soldiers, protection by solid walls or just the ability to leave behind the immediate threat by running (not shown on pyramid)
1. food / water (physiological)
2. medical supplies (physiological, if absolutely vital)
3. shelter against weather (safety)
4. weapons / ammunition (safety)
5. medical supplies (safety, if "only" helpful)
6. other people (love / belonging)

Believe it or not, I think the apex is most necessary. 99% of all problems that arise in a zombie flick or similar scenario is apecifically because everyone abandons being a decent human being and makes things worse. Anything you can do now to propagate decent human beings then is good. "Survival of the fittest" is utter crap, especially coming from a species that has gotten this far through community and specialization.

The reverse of this is that, assuming only half the world is full of morons, instead of all of it, and suddenly mobility and ammunition can get you good, ammo, water, medicine and shelter... At the cost of of other people, but hey, screw them right? You're a survivor.

Karoht

2013-12-02, 03:31 PM

1) You are going to have to sleep, to rest, to eat, to pee, somewhere. You cant take the time out of your busy day of being mobile as you dodge random swarms of zombies to do them out in the open. You need a semi safe place to do so.Except that I only need to for a short amount of time until I reach endgame. A day or two at most to rest up, see my enemies coming, gather some supplies, hide non-perishable supplies by burying them, and then move on. Endgame being "I've reached the main bug out location which is completely fortifiable and remote to the point where non-infected probably aren't going to venture out here. If they do, I'll see them coming for at least a day." Mobility at that point is the 'oh snap I was overrun anyway retreat' sort of tactic.

Shelter is also a place where you can store stuff like food water and ammo, because you sure as hell wont be able to store much in your bike.Who said anything about a bike? Bikes are terrible VS zombies, as pointed out in Walking Dead when Darrel nearly gets pulled off his bike by one. (Don't worry, that isn't a relevant spoiler in the slightest I promise, it was kind of a throw away detail)

Shelter can be a lot of things, including some non highly populated areas like industrial parks and warehouse districts. Thats just one example among many. Getting out of town isnt a bad idea, its just not the end of it. You wont last long dodging zombies all day every day with your precious mobility.I beg to differ. If I'm 2 hours away from the nearest populated area, in a place so remote that most humans don't even know it exists, with fallback positions not more than 30 minutes away on logging roads that are extremely unlikely to have obstacles I can't cross, and my mobility is only used to venture into nearby evacuated towns for purposes of looting and (maybe, extremely iffy) rescuing other survivors, then yeah, it will be quite precious.

2) Yeah that sounds nice in theory, but that all revolves around the streets not being packed with whats left of everyone trying to get out. Yes we could try driving on lawns and such, but just from where I am sitting I see three trees and a curb capable of tearing the guts out of a vehicle that doesnt have a lot of ground clearance if you try to ride half in the yard and half on the road to get around most of the traffic and other obstacles. The odds of getting anything bigger than a motorbike from your house to the middle of nowhere is low.Uh, I already own a vehicle capable of that ground clearance plenty fine. I even have a few backups available if I drive down the block. If I make it to my primary endgame location I have 2 proper 4x4 vehicles waiting for me, possibly a few more, along with the rest of the supplies there.

You may think that people will kindly pull over to the shoulder upon dying or abandoning their vehicle for various reasons, but chances are eventually, no matter what direction you head in, there will be a road block that will keep your car or truck from advancing.This sounds rather arbitrary, and highly unlikely, unless the police set up barricades, which they would be unlikely to do. Unless the scenario has an arbitrary military conspiracy of course.
Moreover, roads are pretty clearable things. 20 car pileups aren't common, they aren't even likely. Not after hitting a zombie or two. And that implies that the zombies got out of town ahead of the people with cars, which they have a slim chance of, at best. If car accidents were as fatal and traffic stopping as you make them out to be, current city traffic systems wouldn't function, and hardly anyone would drive.

All it takes is for there to be one wreck per street to shut it down for everyone.One wreck per street is not going to make it impassable. You would need several cars, you would have to factor in the lawns, the shoulder, etc. There aren't enough cars in a city to do this. There are also things like back alleys, service roads, places where you aren't likely to see anyone driving in the first place, ergo an accident blocking it would be really unlikely unless someone left it there intentionally to be a prick.

The first instinct of just about everyone will be to get out of town. All exits will be blocked most likely.Calgary had a flood recently. Highways were closed due to bridges being washed out. Quite a few roads in town were under 8 feet of water, including the downtown core and many of the arteries headed out of downtown core. Police were literally stopping and potentially even arresting (I doubt anyone was arrested really) anyone who was driving in this weather without express purpose to be doing so.
Guess who's grandparents left Calgary to head back to their place in BC that day? Mine. It normally takes them 6-7 hours to make it back to their cabin. Even with the roads being jammed with people clogging all the detours (afraid they might be hit by a very likely and very real flash flood any minute), they still made it in 8 hours.

Now, add in panicky morons who do panicky moron things like in the movies? Sure, that could slow things down. I'm pretty sure I could still make it there in 10 hours or less, maybe 8 if I wait until the following day when things calm down a bit.

3) Highways, once again, all it takes is one accident and the highway will be blocked for insane distances. There are car wrecks daily on the highways NOW. How safe do you think a few cities worth of panicky drivers will be on the highway escaping from a zombie horde? You MIGHT be able to do shoulder driving or just off road for awhile, but eventually there is always a bridge, or decorative trees, or a rock formation close to the edge, and once again, your car is blocked. Assuming the thousands of other vehicles with the same idea havent already plugged that option as well.If I go out through the suburbs of town, skip the highways? It turns into rural farmland. I can take farmers fields all the way to the mountains if I so choose. Yeah, I might have to dodge some cows, maybe even zombie cows if the situation gets that absurd, and I might have the odd angry farmer, but I assure you that the roads will be the least of my worries if it comes to it. Seriously dude, Canada, open space like this is quite common.

4) Once you have found a place you can properly fortify. One with access to food and water, you dont need to travel much. I would rather have walls around me, than to rely on moving around to protect me from random zombie/looter attacks.When I get to my endgame location, then I fortify, and my mobility pays off by allowing me to go out and scrounge things I need that I don't already have. This reinforce the shelter, but only so long as the shelter does not get overrun. And every shelter can get overrun. Part of why my endgame location relies on being in a place no one would think to look, nevermind there actually being enough zombies in the vacinity to threaten me. Eventually a wild roaming pack might one day make it's way to me, then I'm in trouble, hence why I would be scouting and even fortifying a secondary location long in advance of this contingency. Again, mobility pays off.

I can also head off threats from further afield than just my base of operations. I can leave traps and warning systems across the entire valley. Bait them and leave them for the zombies to tell me where they are and (by factor of distance) tell me exactly how long I have to prepare, or approximately where abouts to intercept. With mobility I can engage at will until they reach the shelter, where they fall upon all of the preparation I can muster.

Sorry, Mobility just pays off far too many dividends.

Traab

2013-12-02, 04:14 PM

Well ok great then, im glad you live in rural kansas, not all of us are so lucky to have flat fields and miles of wide open spaces. I certainly cant think of many places I could get to in under 2 hours of driving now, let alone in a zombie outbreak, that could qualify as 2 hours from the nearest populated area. Sure I could head for upstate new york and fort up with my grandma in the mountains but thats a 3-4 hour drive on a good day.

Come to think of it, I might go for that anyways. If I can make it past the hudson river, the highways are pretty massive and further up are pretty deserted normally. Hmmmm. A large portion of my clan lives up in that vicinity anyways, and pretty much all of them are mountain men types that can hunt fish farm build and repair just about anything. But getting past the hudson river might be a tough one. Thats a mighty long bridge and it would suck to have to find a boat I could use to get across the river if that is blocked off. Even if it took me a few days, if I could get the supplies I need, it would be worth the effort.

Karoht

2013-12-02, 04:35 PM

Well ok great then, im glad you live in rural kansas, not all of us are so lucky to have flat fields and miles of wide open spaces.Thank you for the well wishes. Except it's Canada, and you don't need to be sour about it. Not my fault america built itself very boxed in.

I certainly cant think of many places I could get to in under 2 hours of driving now, let alone in a zombie outbreak, that could qualify as 2 hours from the nearest populated area. Sure I could head for upstate new york and fort up with my grandma in the mountains but thats a 3-4 hour drive on a good day.Bust out google maps and have a look around. Find a location. Find several locations. Plan 3 routes to each one minimum. You'd be amazed at the places you might find, and the ways of getting there you might not have considered.

Most people go for the most direct route. Meandering routes work very well. Need to go due west out of town? Can you take a Northern exit rather than a western exit? How about a southern exit? How about that east exit that no one is going to want to use?
How about industrial yards that no one is going to be monitoring? Can you cut through one of those? Bring bolt cutters for fences.
**NOTE** I am completely speaking about emergency evacuation uses only here, not suggesting that anyone go tresspassing on someone's property unless dire circumstances arise, and even then maybe not.

Come to think of it, I might go for that anyways. If I can make it past the hudson river, the highways are pretty massive and further up are pretty deserted normally. Hmmmm. A large portion of my clan lives up in that vicinity anyways, and pretty much all of them are mountain men types that can hunt fish farm build and repair just about anything. But getting past the hudson river might be a tough one. Thats a mighty long bridge and it would suck to have to find a boat I could use to get across the river if that is blocked off. Even if it took me a few days, if I could get the supplies I need, it would be worth the effort.Now you're thinking!
Most people just assume that if the traffic isn't moving, the terrain is impassable. Typically this isn't the case, just one method is out.
Another thing about mobility, it really helps to be on the move before everyone else. There's talk of zombies or a zombie-like plague? Consider leaving town for a bit. As in, before it's picked up to full fledged catastrophy level bad juju.

FLHerne

2013-12-02, 06:34 PM

Shelter is short term, for serious. Eventually, zombies are going to swarm it and overrun it because reasons.Unless you live somewhere with many wooden and/or single-story buildings, I don't see how this is the case.
Most people can't damage a masonry wall without a lot of effort, if at all, so I doubt your typical shambly zombies can. Chipping away at it without tools isn't going to get anywhere within weeks/months, and a zombie outbreak can't plausibly last that long as people explained upthread.
Doors/windows would be the weak points, but the simple answer to that is to pull the stairs to bits. Handy firewood/building materials, and I haven't seen any climbing zombies yet. If enough zombie corpses pile up around your house to reach a second-floor window then there can't be many left over to eat you.

So in priority order:
1) Food. Enough for a few months of zombies, ideally.
2) Shelter. Solid masonry or ideally steel-framed building, small (less area to secure/maintain), at least 3 floors. Some of those small business units round the corner from here will do fine.
3) People. Someone to watch your back while you sleep is really useful. Another person to watch the back of the person watching people's back is better. 4 people probably ideal.
4a) Utility supplies. Batteries. Radios. Big floodlamps (unless they're light-sensitive). Carpentry tools /supplies, for reinforcing vulnerable areas or as improvised weapons. Some sheet metal and a gas-powered welding torch would be more zombie-proof, but I don't have them to hand.
4b) Medical supplies. I have a couple of first-aid kits anyway, and I don't know anyone trained to use anything much more advanced. We're not going to be doing much (mostly playing Monopoly or reading) so the issue shouldn't arise.
5) Transport. Irrelevant for Plan A, although having a truck parked under the window ready to leave (or search for additional supplies after the zombies thin out, more likely) would be useful. One of those big 4-wheel box trucks would be good, ideally with a hatch in the roof so we don't need to go down on the street.

Legato Endless

2013-12-02, 06:49 PM

The value of transportation depends very significantly on the lifespan of the zombies. Are we dealing with a realistic scenario where they all keel over in a week, or where they're animated by dark magical viruses that turn them into the energizer bunny? A time table is significant because gasoline breaks down after about 3 months. Something 90% of zombie fiction ignores.

And the hunker down is especially effective when you consider that the military can kill arbitrarily high numbers of them without firing a shot. And firing a shot anything starting with Browning's M2 and up is going to reenact a more one-sided variation of WWI.

Are we dealing with the real world military, which no zombie hoard is a match for, or has the plague, or whatever, turned the armed forces into a battle of yonkers simpering idiots?

At some point you need to find out how stereotypical the zombie Apocalypse you found yourself in is.

zlefin

2013-12-02, 07:24 PM

If you're in America, the civilian gun supply should be sufficient for all the zombies to get wiped out, without even needing the military to come in. so I'd just secure an area and hide and wait.

Karoht

2013-12-03, 12:42 PM

Unless you live somewhere with many wooden and/or single-story buildings, I don't see how this is the case.
Most people can't damage a masonry wall without a lot of effort, if at all, so I doubt your typical shambly zombies can. Chipping away at it without tools isn't going to get anywhere within weeks/months, and a zombie outbreak can't plausibly last that long as people explained upthread.
Doors/windows would be the weak points, but the simple answer to that is to pull the stairs to bits. Handy firewood/building materials, and I haven't seen any climbing zombies yet. If enough zombie corpses pile up around your house to reach a second-floor window then there can't be many left over to eat you.At some level, every zombie invasion has to apply at lease some trope or tropes. As far as the 'hunker down' strat, I'm not entirely convinced due to the following tropes:
Trope 1-No matter how many you kill there are always more of them.
Trope 2-If one of them finds you, hordes of them follow shortly.
Trope 3-Enough zombies will push their way through, over, under, or around virtually any barricade.

In the real world, zombies without tropes might be easier to deal with, making the hunker down strat more viable. But would you really want to take the risk?

So in priority order:
1) Food. Enough for a few months of zombies, ideally.
2) Shelter. Solid masonry or ideally steel-framed building, small (less area to secure/maintain), at least 3 floors. Some of those small business units round the corner from here will do fine.
3) People. Someone to watch your back while you sleep is really useful. Another person to watch the back of the person watching people's back is better. 4 people probably ideal.
4a) Utility supplies. Batteries. Radios. Big floodlamps (unless they're light-sensitive). Carpentry tools /supplies, for reinforcing vulnerable areas or as improvised weapons. Some sheet metal and a gas-powered welding torch would be more zombie-proof, but I don't have them to hand.
4b) Medical supplies. I have a couple of first-aid kits anyway, and I don't know anyone trained to use anything much more advanced. We're not going to be doing much (mostly playing Monopoly or reading) so the issue shouldn't arise.
5) Transport. Irrelevant for Plan A, although having a truck parked under the window ready to leave (or search for additional supplies after the zombies thin out, more likely) would be useful. One of those big 4-wheel box trucks would be good, ideally with a hatch in the roof so we don't need to go down on the street.Good prep. Best of luck.

dehro

2013-12-03, 01:22 PM

If an outbreak should occur suddenly (say right now) and I had to literally scramble for resources rather than executing my standing plan, then things would be as follows, in the short term.

-shelter.. it's not actually the first priority, but it's very much likely that at the time I find out about the zombie plague I already will be somewhere with walls, doors and a roof. somewhere fortifiable, so shelter sort of finds itself.
-weapons... because before I leave my shelter to find anything else, I'll want to prepare myself as best I can with what's in the house/office/place that has become my first response shelter.
-food.. because.. food.
-medical supplies. they go this low because I'm reasonably healthy and should I get into a situation where I risk injury because of zombies, my first priority would still be MORE AMMO!!
-other people. they go last because they may be less well prepared than me, i.e. have even less resources... so I'd have to have stuff to cover the basics before I saddled myself up with drains on my resources.. conversely, if I had not sufficient resources for myself, they might see no reason to join with me and/or keep me alive.

that would however be my first response reaction.. once that was put together, I would go back to my original plan, which involves finding transportation towards the nearest coast, stealing a boat and legging it towards an island I know that is comfortably equipped, defendable and within easy reach of supply lines of various kinds.

but the way zombie outbreaks "could" in a way or another function, I'd probably be better off just closing the front door and surviving on pasta for a couple of weeks.

FLHerne

2013-12-03, 02:14 PM

At some level, every zombie invasion has to apply at lease some trope or tropes. As far as the 'hunker down' strat, I'm not entirely convinced due to the following tropes:
[tropes]

In the real world, zombies without tropes might be easier to deal with, making the hunker down strat more viable. But would you really want to take the risk?
Ah, but there are also tropes that cause zombies to inexplicably congregate around your destination and useful resources - or cling onto your vehicle regardless of airflow unless you swerve about like a maniac while dodging large vehicles jammed across roads at dramatic if improbable angles. :smallyuk:

Good prep. Best of luck.And to you too, even if I disagree with your fundamental methodology. :smalltongue:

Karoht

2013-12-03, 03:01 PM

Ah, but there are also tropes that cause zombies to inexplicably congregate around your destination and useful resources - or cling onto your vehicle regardless of airflow unless you swerve about like a maniac while dodging large vehicles jammed across roads at dramatic if improbable angles. :smallyuk:Indeed. The tropes are silly, and it is unlikely that we will encounter many of them, if any. But there are a few that I just don't want to bet against.

And to you too, even if I disagree with your fundamental methodology. :smalltongue:Distance between me and zombies, with a moving vehicle that can crush zombies, is a bad methodology how?
You know what? Don't answer that. We're both wishing each other well, lets just hang out in that space.

rs2excelsior

2013-12-03, 05:15 PM

2, 3, 5, 1, 4.

Shelter is a must. A base of operations is absolutely critical, both as a place to rest and a place to stockpile resources. Weaponry would be next so that you can defend your shelter and protect yourself when you go out to forage. Weapons are a must, and especially firearms earlier in the outbreak when other groups of survivors are a major threat. As time goes on, axes, other edged weapons, and improvised are adequate for dealing with zombies, and some hoarded ammunition can be kept around in case of emergecy.

The next two are interchangeable. Multiple people allow division of labor--some keep the base secure while others go foraging. At the same time, though, food and especially water are absolute necessities, especially if the zombies won't just fall apart after a week or two. Remember the rule of threes: three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. Past that and you're risking it. Combined with other negative effects of hunger and dehydration which aren't directly lethal but will kill you all the same in a situation like this.

Medical supplies are more of a long-term concern, though they will become more and more scarce as the outbreak continues.

FLHerne

2013-12-03, 08:01 PM

Distance between me and zombies, with a moving vehicle that can crush zombies, is a bad methodology how?
You know what? Don't answer that. We're both wishing each other well, lets just hang out in that space.Of course I'm going to answer that. :smalltongue:

You can crush zombies with your moving vehicle, but if for any reason (mud, fuel shortage, zombie bones stuck in the engine, whatever) it becomes a non-moving vehicle you're suddenly in big trouble. A vehicle is small enough that it can be completely surrounded by a reasonable number of zombies, preventing you from leaving the vehicle if you can't get it moving before they show up - you'll need to get through a lot of both ammunition and risk in fighting off zombies just to keep moving. And you need to keep moving because you can't carry enough supplies in a vehicle to sit it out without constantly scavenging, plus the added - and less straightforward - requirements of ammunition and fuel on top of food.

Killer Angel

2013-12-04, 06:50 AM

Are we dealing with the real world military, which no zombie hoard is a match for, or has the plague, or whatever, turned the armed forces into a battle of yonkers simpering idiots?

I don't know. I woke up, and the world was already gone mad. :smalltongue:

factotum

2013-12-04, 07:37 AM

FLHerne

2013-12-04, 12:18 PM

I would disagree with those who say that shelter is the first priority. You can survive without sleep longer than you can survive without water, so water has to be your A-number-one priority no matter what else is happening.Pretty much any building that you could shelter in will have some water to get you through the first few days - fridges in homes, watercoolers in office spaces, and the water mains would probably keep working for the first few hours anyway. After that, unless you live somewhere very dry, it's quite straightforward to collect rainwater or snow.

Killer Angel

2013-12-04, 04:19 PM

sktarq

2013-12-04, 04:40 PM

3-Weapons/Ammo. Allows to gain control of zombie contested areas with things like food/ammo/shelter. Allows me to defend such areas from both zombies and other survivors to whom I may be in competition with.

2-Shelter. Shelter being a flexible concept. anywhere that one can safely sleep would be called shelter-which would be a high priority but longer term wait them out until they rot to bits type shelter is different and lower priority based on food water factors

1 Food-Water - finding a reliable source of these is the basis from which to choose all other following things (including more permanent shelter-see above)

5 Other people - if food/water levels allow for more than one person to survive off them then this becomes more important. Also group defence, taking watch, food growing teamwork etc.

4 Medical supplies - Minimal contact with new people leads to minimal chance of most infectious disease. Otherwise live first worry about wounds later.

Karoht

2013-12-04, 05:28 PM

Of course I'm going to answer that. :smalltongue:

You can crush zombies with your moving vehicle, but if for any reason (mud, fuel shortage, zombie bones stuck in the engine, whatever) it becomes a non-moving vehicle you're suddenly in big trouble. A vehicle is small enough that it can be completely surrounded by a reasonable number of zombies, preventing you from leaving the vehicle if you can't get it moving before they show up - you'll need to get through a lot of both ammunition and risk in fighting off zombies just to keep moving. And you need to keep moving because you can't carry enough supplies in a vehicle to sit it out without constantly scavenging, plus the added - and less straightforward - requirements of ammunition and fuel on top of food.

Between City and Bug out location, how did zombies get in the way? This implies that they move faster than me with a vehicle and a head start, or they were already there to begin with which makes very little sense.
Between City and Bug out location, I take perfectly normal roads unless there is a catastrophic crash/barricade set up. In which case yes, I am off-roading. If I get stuck, that's what a winch is for. If I make a catastrophic mistake and utterly ruin my vehicle, I'm still out in the middle of no where, a place where zombies are unlikely to be, so I'm not in an incredible rush. I take what I can carry, I come back for the rest when my mobility is restored. On foot, I could probably make it to the Bug out location (or radio range of it) in 5 days, maybe less. I don't need to follow the road too closely either, I can be quite far away from the roads (which for some reason everyone thinks would be infested with zombies and broke down cars anyway). If necessary, I call for help on my radio, assuming I'm within range of anything or anyone I trust. If necessary, I offer whoever picks me up some supplies (of course I bury anything I can while I wait), and consider offering community to the person upon reaching the Bug out location.

If I've already reached the Bug out location and am out scavenging when a problem happens? This is why we always go out with two vehicles (or horses) at minimum, and always in a team of 4 or more. The zombie trope of people scouting alone is absurd, it is highly unlikely we would allow someone to go foraging/scouting/scavenging alone. Oh noez a vehicle broke. Jump back in the other one, leave the broken one, come back tomorrow after scouting the area a bit to make sure things are safe enough to work on the vehicle. Admittedly, this now makes Other People far more valuable than before.

Starbuck_II

2013-12-04, 05:36 PM

Anyone who thinks they can go it alone in the zombie apocalypse is never heard from again... or at least not until their shambling corpse is put down by people that stick together.

No, they aren't heard from again because they made sure they would be left alone. :smallcool:

dehro

2013-12-04, 06:46 PM

The OP does need clarification though.
It starts by talking about long-term, asks us to prioritize resources, and then offers a situation that is exactly the opposite and points rather at first response priorities

It's like asking "what do you take with you when you move abroad?" and then throwing in a curve-ball and adding "quick, your house is on fire, what do you grab first?"
One is a planned for situation, the other an emergency

Or am I interpreting this the wrong way around?

Killer Angel

2013-12-05, 06:50 AM

FLHerne

2013-12-05, 02:04 PM

Between City and Bug out location, how did zombies get in the way? This implies that they move faster than me with a vehicle and a head start, or they were already there to begin with which makes very little sense.
Between City and Bug out location, I take perfectly normal roads unless there is a catastrophic crash/barricade set up.That seems unlikely to work - if where you live is anything like here, there's significant congestion at peak times when maybe 1/4* of the local population are trying to get out/home in a generally calm sort of way. As soon as the whole zombie apocalypse thing becomes obvious, 3/4 or so of locals will try to leave, most of them by car and probably rather panicked, and every road heading out from town will be a standing jam within 20 minutes. And that's without zombies chasing people out of cars or anything. Unless you live right on the edge there won't even be an 'off-road' to revert to**, so it'll take quite some time even to get into the open if you leave as the whole thing starts.

Everything below that seems perfectly sensible, although it seems to rely quite heavily on pre-planning or rapid communication (assembling multiple armed people in off-road vehicles with 2-way radios at a specific location).

*Rough guess at number of people who commute by car here. May be a bit low, or possibly high.
**I saw your (I think) post about cutting through industrial estates &c - there aren't even close to enough of those to make a continuous route out of a fairly small city here. Might work better where you are though.

Murska

2013-12-05, 02:53 PM

I always disagree with the vast number of people who highly prioritize weapons in a zombie survival situation. As noted many times in this thread, the zombie outbreak will solve itself, probably rather soon. And given that I don't know how this spreads, but it seems most likely to be some sort of a virus, therefore I /do not want to be in contact with anything related to zombies/. So, melee weapons? No thanks. I hit someone with an axe, blood and bits of flesh and bone fly around, a tiny splatter of blood hits my eye or something, I'm infected and gone. Plus, if I'm at melee range of zombies it's conceivable that I might mess up and get hit by them, anyway. Not a risk to take if avoidable. Ranged weapons? Ammunition is a concern, loud noises are a concern, blood splatters and such are still possible, hitting someone's head reliably from far enough away that you definitely aren't in danger is not very easy and more importantly if you're so far away, why do you need to kill it?

Avoidance is better, in my opinion. Of course, I wouldn't say no to a gun and I'd take mine with me if the apocalypse occurred, for emergencies and hunting, but if possible I'd avoid any combat.

So, Shelter first because shelter is crucial to being able to rest and think and plan - running away from a horde is not the most conducive environment to long-term strategic thinking. Then food and water, to stay alive. And that's all that I really need. Medical supplies are unnecessary unless I injure myself or get sick, in which case I need other people to take care of me anyway and I'll attempt to avoid injury and illness regardless. It's unlikely I'd get sick in the specific way that it hinders my survival but would be treatable alone. Other people are the main risk - I can't rely on people staying reasonable and sane, the risk of stupid mistakes that are the only thing that could compromize my survival at this point grow exponentially with more people. Of course I'm ignoring the fact that in a real situation I'd want to save my loved ones, but say they're already dead when I wake up.

Somewhere to hide and enough food and water to survive. With these, I can start to plan something more if it becomes necessary, or wait things out if it doesn't. Without these, I can't live.

Karoht

2013-12-05, 05:49 PM

**I saw your (I think) post about cutting through industrial estates &c - there aren't even close to enough of those to make a continuous route out of a fairly small city here. Might work better where you are though.Quite. I was reviewing my escape route a bit more, and found a wonderful option. Our bike routes and city parks are all connected, and we have a pretty flat riverbank, and the river is often less than 2 feet deep most of the year (If I'm forced to cross, which I doubt), and they even connect to some of the Golf Courses for available exit points if needed. If I make it to off-road vehicle A and the roads are clogged, there are a few points I can enter those parks, and then follow them out of town to the south, use the farm roads (likely to still be pretty empty) to connect to the highway quite easily. This would set me up to take the Crows-Nest pass rather than Rogers Pass to get into the Rocky Mountains. Crows-Nest is not often used, outside of truckers most people don't even know it exists unless they've been forced to take it, and it would take me down a secondary highway which will still meet up with routes headed to my primary bug-out.

The detour adds about 3-4 hours to the drive though. Fuel starts to be a concern at that point.

Traab

2013-12-05, 08:35 PM

Indeed. The tropes are silly, and it is unlikely that we will encounter many of them, if any. But there are a few that I just don't want to bet against.

Distance between me and zombies, with a moving vehicle that can crush zombies, is a bad methodology how?
You know what? Don't answer that. We're both wishing each other well, lets just hang out in that space.

Watching Mythbusters, its rather scary how much force a zombie horde can bring to bear on a barricade. They basically got 150 people together, dressed them in zombie makeup, put on some safety gear so they didnt crush themselves, then had jamie try to block shut some barn doors. Holy CRAP did they shatter easily. He finally used something like 30 different points of contact for blocking the doors shut and even then you could tell they would have pushed through eventually. When they gave up, (exactly like zombies wouldnt) he inspected the doors and saw a large number of half removed nails and screws and warped metal. So if I want a relatively safe place, im going with second or 3rd story building with stairs destroyed. I will keep a ladder with me in case I ever need to leave, and that should cover me for zombie attacks. Ground floor or basements are major no nos for shelter.

As for mowing down zombies, I dont know man, I dont think your average car can take a lot of human impacts. I mean, deer can crumple your front end something awful and most humans will weigh that much or far more. Last thing you want to do is ram a zombie only for it to wreck your engine.

I treated it as "what i would do in a sort of emergency situation, keeping an eye at my long-time survival".

This basically.

Karoht

2013-12-05, 10:46 PM

Watching Mythbusters, its rather scary how much force a zombie horde can bring to bear on a barricade. They basically got 150 people together, dressed them in zombie makeup, put on some safety gear so they didnt crush themselves, then had jamie try to block shut some barn doors. Holy CRAP did they shatter easily. He finally used something like 30 different points of contact for blocking the doors shut and even then you could tell they would have pushed through eventually. When they gave up, (exactly like zombies wouldnt) he inspected the doors and saw a large number of half removed nails and screws and warped metal. So if I want a relatively safe place, im going with second or 3rd story building with stairs destroyed. I will keep a ladder with me in case I ever need to leave, and that should cover me for zombie attacks. Ground floor or basements are major no nos for shelter.And this is why I value shelter to be lower than mobility.

As for mowing down zombies, I dont know man, I dont think your average car can take a lot of human impacts. I mean, deer can crumple your front end something awful and most humans will weigh that much or far more. Last thing you want to do is ram a zombie only for it to wreck your engine.K, I get that tropes are tropes and all, but how did that many zombies end up ahead of me on the road (or off road) in the middle of nowhere, when I had a head start and a moving vehicle? I mean, the whole point of mobility is the same strategy that Napoleon and Rommel used to great advantage. Be where your enemy isn't.

Also, I'm not a drooling moron zombie myself. I'm not going to crash a Honda Civic into a dozen zombies and pretend that we're playing 10-pin bowling. It's just a bad idea all around. Even a 4x4 truck with proper off-roading guards in place (around and under the engine mostly) I would still think twice about it. But hey, if the tropes say I'm cornered and I already have momentum, I'm going to gamble that moving truck beats rotting/dessicated flesh and bone more often than it loses to it.
Come at me Tropes, I am Atrayu!

dehro

2013-12-06, 02:31 AM

There's a video out there in which a crowd of... I think Japanese people, basically push against the side of a train wagon so that a woman can untangle herself from underneath, where she'd fallen. That's a couple dozen people.
Immagine what they'd do if they caught you in the open and your car or truck got stuck or out of juice. It only takes a couple of burly blokes to topple a car. Buildings... Not so much. It would take quite something to force open One of the steel reinforced front doors that are standard fare around where I live. Also, shelter should be as much about staying undetected as it is about having a physical barrier allowing you to stay undetected.

SiuiS

2013-12-06, 02:46 AM

I would disagree with those who say that shelter is the first priority. You can survive without sleep longer than you can survive without water, so water has to be your A-number-one priority no matter what else is happening. That being the case, I'd say the order of priorities listed in the OP is exactly the one I'd follow--1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

It's a cyclical thought process. You have water! Where do you keep it?
In a gallon hug strapped to my back.
Okay, but that's not much water! How do you get more?
You end up having a base with a bunch of supplies at the base. The two are NOT separate long term goals. They aren't even really separate short term goals. Any time you've got supplies you're in a shelter, or you're in a position where it is downright bad to be carrying supplies.

Watching Mythbusters, its rather scary how much force a zombie horde can bring to bear on a barricade. They basically got 150 people together, dressed them in zombie makeup, put on some safety gear so they didnt crush themselves, then had jamie try to block shut some barn doors. Holy CRAP did they shatter easily. He finally used something like 30 different points of contact for blocking the doors shut and even then you could tell they would have pushed through eventually. When they gave up, (exactly like zombies wouldnt) he inspected the doors and saw a large number of half removed nails and screws and warped metal. So if I want a relatively safe place, im going with second or 3rd story building with stairs destroyed. I will keep a ladder with me in case I ever need to leave, and that should cover me for zombie attacks. Ground floor or basements are major no nos for shelter.

Exactly. About 400 people could eventually, just through the press of their bodies, knock down a barn. It's like when penguins line up at the edge of the ice until the event horizon is breached and they fall in, only instead of penguins going into the water it's zombies breaking down walls.

On the plus side, this also probably liquifies some zombies...

As for a car; the problem is momentum. Every body reduces your momentum and your movement. If there aren't zombies, there are fleeing, panicked civilians – basically the Black Friday Walmart crowd out on the streets fighting for survival instead of bargains. And if the car gets stopped, you've got the issue of being inside a tin can in a fleshy trash compactor.

That said, no version of a zombie is ever threatening when there's just one. So rephrasing things from emergency zombie outbreak to emergency zombie outbreak that isn't an emergency yet isn't a valid retort. The answer to any emergency question that has "but there is minimal difficulty between you and the endgame" is "I win". No one cares about that. They care about how you get to that end game segment.

Zombie outbreak would presume that the situation is out of control, there are multiple, very widespread instances of contagion (however that happens) and that risk of exposure is a secondary concern to just being destroyed either by the monsters or by humanity as they surge to escape from the monsters, jumping barricades, ruining quarantines and basically being, well, walmart shoppers.

Note: "I am paranoid and so am already set up to achieve end game" is a good answer, though it's not very intellectually stimulating. :smallsmile:

Tvtyrant

2013-12-06, 03:18 AM

Is it wrong that my plan in the zombie apocalypse was to discover if zombies were edible? Because if so... It's feeding time boys.

Legato Endless

2013-12-06, 03:35 AM

*Steps away from TvTyrant*

...How would you safety test that?

Does this involve inviting your neighbor over and reacting a scene from Titus Andronicus?

Killer Angel

2013-12-06, 07:01 AM

As noted many times in this thread, the zombie outbreak will solve itself, probably rather soon.

Ah, would you like it so easy, yes? :smalltongue:

Traab

2013-12-06, 07:28 AM

And this is why I value shelter to be lower than mobility.

K, I get that tropes are tropes and all, but how did that many zombies end up ahead of me on the road (or off road) in the middle of nowhere, when I had a head start and a moving vehicle? I mean, the whole point of mobility is the same strategy that Napoleon and Rommel used to great advantage. Be where your enemy isn't.

Also, I'm not a drooling moron zombie myself. I'm not going to crash a Honda Civic into a dozen zombies and pretend that we're playing 10-pin bowling. It's just a bad idea all around. Even a 4x4 truck with proper off-roading guards in place (around and under the engine mostly) I would still think twice about it. But hey, if the tropes say I'm cornered and I already have momentum, I'm going to gamble that moving truck beats rotting/dessicated flesh and bone more often than it loses to it.
Come at me Tropes, I am Atrayu!

Well they are in front of you because in this scenario, the end times are happening. You arent a security guard that just saw patient zero wake up and start tearing out throats so you decide to book it. This is full scale panic mode. Swarms of sprinters are everywhere beating down doors and slaughtering everything living. Not only that, it didnt just happen in your home town, its going on everywhere. So people are fleeing from all directions TO all directions. The ones still alive at least. If I can give a solid mental image, did you watch the remake of Dawn of the Dead? In it the nurse lady basically sleeps through the patient zero part and wakes up under attack. She gets outside and sees the chaos and has to move on from there. THAT is the scenario we are talking about.

Now, you may ask why its going on everywhere at once? Two reasons actually. The most important one being, thats the only way a zombie outbreak, even a sprinter outbreak, can be considered more than a local moderate tragedy before it gets brought under control, its honestly the only way I can see a zombie apocalypse having the SLIGHTEST chance for working.

Tvtyrant

2013-12-06, 01:53 PM

*Steps away from TvTyrant*

...How would you safety test that?

Does this involve inviting your neighbor over and reacting a scene from Titus Andronicus?

I was actually going to feed one to the neighbor cat to see if it was not immediately fatal, and work up from there. If you cook them well enough nothing should survive to make you sick.

Topus

2013-12-06, 02:24 PM

I think we are underestimating the value of a constant supply of toilet paper.
I will stick around a supermarket and keep on being a civilized man thanks to the comfort of a soft, lifelong supply of toilet paper :D

Legato Endless

2013-12-06, 03:45 PM

I was actually going to feed one to the neighbor cat to see if it was not immediately fatal, and work up from there. If you cook them well enough nothing should survive to make you sick.

The cat?:smallfrown:

A potential problem with that is while you can boil away a virus, the body itself may be carrying various toxins at this point. After all, the Zombie's body isn't filtering anything anymore, for starters. Also, depending on how long this goes it might morph into a non-food substance (canned food when left alone long enough will eventually turn into something your body can't digest or extract anything useful from).

Traab

2013-12-06, 05:40 PM

Karoht

2013-12-06, 06:17 PM

Well they are in front of you because in this scenario ~snip~ Tropes and [Reasons] ~snip~
K, so I've been off-roading, and according to you the roads are jammed with cars and zombies. I'm off-road, and right where I crash, there just happened to be a dozen zombies?

I'm pretty sure you're going to Trope-slap me a Bolivian ending the moment I get to my bug out location, but whatevs.

Keep moving the goal posts, I'll just kick further!
Come at me Tropes!

~~~~~~~~
If we're talking about a situation of my neighborhood is already being ravaged due to zombies before I even wake up, no tells, no telegraphing, no news prior even giving a hint that something is up...
Yeah, going with my parks and river plan, assuming I somehow make it to my vehicle. Staying in my house isn't an option, roads aren't an option, so I'm going where no one else is going to think of going. Go to park, drive down the bike paths where possible (the parks and rec guys do this already, I think I can handle it), when that ceases to be an option I'm off-roading or fording the river. Once I'm south of the city I drive through the farmers fields and unowned property to get to Range Road 221, where I highly doubt anyone else will be. After which I'm taking empty backroads and unused stretches of highway and the occasional logging road to get to my primary bug out location.

Traab

2013-12-06, 07:02 PM

K, so I've been off-roading, and according to you the roads are jammed with cars and zombies. I'm off-road, and right where I crash, there just happened to be a dozen zombies?

I'm pretty sure you're going to Trope-slap me a Bolivian ending the moment I get to my bug out location, but whatevs.

Keep moving the goal posts, I'll just kick further!
Come at me Tropes!

~~~~~~~~
If we're talking about a situation of my neighborhood is already being ravaged due to zombies before I even wake up, no tells, no telegraphing, no news prior even giving a hint that something is up...
Yeah, going with my parks and river plan, assuming I somehow make it to my vehicle. Staying in my house isn't an option, roads aren't an option, so I'm going where no one else is going to think of going. Go to park, drive down the bike paths where possible (the parks and rec guys do this already, I think I can handle it), when that ceases to be an option I'm off-roading or fording the river. Once I'm south of the city I drive through the farmers fields and unowned property to get to Range Road 221, where I highly doubt anyone else will be. After which I'm taking empty backroads and unused stretches of highway and the occasional logging road to get to my primary bug out location.

Look, all I was saying is that ramming a zombie is a bad idea. You are the one imagining goal posts that arent there. Your average vehicle will likely be wrecked by impacting a human at decent speeds, or at least be damaged. This was just in relation to a comment you made earlier about running down zombies with your car. I just responded to say that that is a fast way to lose your vehicle.

And you can talk about tropes and goalposts all you like, but the original topic is what do you do during the apocalypse, not, what do you do when you magically discover the outbreak before it leaves wherever the start point is. So yeah, zombies are everywhere, cops are busy getting eaten or running or trying to maintain order or whatever, same for ambulance crews. Surviving townsfolk are enacting their own plan for survival. Some fort up, some try to drive out of town, some may run for the woods behind their house and climb a damn tree, while others decide to play rambo and start shooting everything, its all likely to be happening. There is likely fire and violence as people freak the hell out or leave stuff on the stove or drop a cigar on the couch just before being devoured. There is no calm orderly evacuation, the military is likely busy dealing with its own problems for the short term, and is trying to clear out an entire nation for the long term, so no instant help there is likely.

Yes its tropey, thats because its the most likely way things will go down in a zombie scenario that actually DOES cause armageddon levels of damage instead of an hour of chaos and 2 days of good old boys doing zombie round ups to find stragglers.

Karoht

2013-12-06, 07:38 PM

Yes its tropey, thats because its the most likely way things will go down in a zombie scenario that actually DOES cause armageddon levels of damage instead of an hour of chaos and 2 days of good old boys doing zombie round ups to find stragglers.It still assumes that there is no information about the outbreak until BAM! Zombies are at your front door. Which is absurd. It had to start somewhere, and in this day and age, you don't get an outbreak of anything without some news of it. Especially an outbreak of "people are eating each other." Case in point, look at how many youtube videos there were when that one guy freaked out on bath salts and ate a dude in public.

It's a moving of the goal posts because it wasn't stated originally. Most of your 'what if you run into this' have come across as poor examples of DM fiat. With now the admittance of 'Because Tropes.' For no better reason than "its the most likely way things will go down in a zombie scenario that actually DOES cause armageddon levels of damage." This smacks of a DM trying to beat a party rather than someone trying to discuss a scenario.

On the other hand, you are 100% correct. Without some absurd stuff occuring, zombie apocalypse isn't going to do much in the way of damage, and is probably going to blow over in a week or 3. Unless people do remarkably stupid things, like shoot each other instead of the zombies. So yeah, to talk about a serious credible threat, I guess we do have to throw some Tropes at it, and maybe assume that the common person isn't genre savvy.

Traab

2013-12-06, 07:52 PM

It still assumes that there is no information about the outbreak until BAM! Zombies are at your front door. Which is absurd. It had to start somewhere, and in this day and age, you don't get an outbreak of anything without some news of it. Especially an outbreak of "people are eating each other." Case in point, look at how many youtube videos there were when that one guy freaked out on bath salts and ate a dude in public.

It's a moving of the goal posts because it wasn't stated originally. Most of your 'what if you run into this' have come across as poor examples of DM fiat. With now the admittance of 'Because Tropes.' For no better reason than "its the most likely way things will go down in a zombie scenario that actually DOES cause armageddon levels of damage." This smacks of a DM trying to beat a party rather than someone trying to discuss a scenario.

On the other hand, you are 100% correct. Without some absurd stuff occuring, zombie apocalypse isn't going to do much in the way of damage, and is probably going to blow over in a week or 3. Unless people do remarkably stupid things, like shoot each other instead of the zombies. So yeah, to talk about a serious credible threat, I guess we do have to throw some Tropes at it, and maybe assume that the common person isn't genre savvy.

Well it helps that I left the original topic fairly bare bones. I mainly only brought in those extra details because you seemed to be working under the assumption that you would basically get out before it even happens. Which is honestly avoiding the whole point. The topic was mainly about, "There are zombies everywhere, what do you do first through 5th with an eye towards long term survival?" I would hope I would have more details setup as a dm than that to work with. At the very least the rough outline I made last post describing the pictured scenario and chaos with details that could be filled in as things happen.

As for the guy who went nuts and ate someones face, I honestly dont know, A)How fast it made it to you tube or the news. or B) How fast it became general knowledge. But I would imagine unless you were looking for the info or luckily stumbled over it, you might not learn of the events for hours (assuming you werent eaten yet, lol) I mean, horrible crimes happen here, and unless its something along the lines of the newtown school shootings or the twin towers, it generally waits for the afternoon news. And once its big enough to warrant a "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" emergency news report, your head start is likely gone anyways.

And for the record, literally the ONLY way I can think of a zombie outbreak really reaching world wide threat, is sprinter types, all recently dead everywhere wake up at once, and a fast change after being bitten. Even then its a bit of a coin toss as to whether its a tragedy that we see on the news for the next month that was quickly reined in at a nasty death toll, or we get the Last of Us storyline.

Karoht

2013-12-06, 08:59 PM

As for the guy who went nuts and ate someones face, I honestly dont know, A)How fast it made it to you tube or the news. or B) How fast it became general knowledge. But I would imagine unless you were looking for the info or luckily stumbled over it, you might not learn of the events for hours (assuming you werent eaten yet, lol) I mean, horrible crimes happen here, and unless its something along the lines of the newtown school shootings or the twin towers, it generally waits for the afternoon news. And once its big enough to warrant a "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" emergency news report, your head start is likely gone anyways.Um, we live in the world of Smartphones, Facebook and Twitter (and countless others). This stuff spreads like wildfire, especially through the conspiracy theorist channels. The Bath Salts guy made the news within hours, I'm pretty sure it was on facebook within minutes-to-hours. I was at home all day on the internet when it happened, my coworkers knew more about it by word of mouth than I did with internet knowledge. It was on Facebook long before it was on the news radio, at least here in Calgary. I'm pretty sure that many many reports of people eating one another would be widespread pretty fast unless it is staunchly repressed by [insert absurd troped conspiracy theory level multinational cover up by organization XYZ]. And if they have time to cover it up, they have time to put it down with machine guns, do scene control site by site, and start instabanning/blocking IP's of anyone posting anything to do with it. And do follow up cover up for the guys walking around doing patrols in combat gear with machine guns. For long enough that it becomes an unrecoverable situation. Yeah, unlikely as heck that.

And for the record, literally the ONLY way I can think of a zombie outbreak really reaching world wide threat, is sprinter types, all recently dead everywhere wake up at once, and a fast change after being bitten. Even then its a bit of a coin toss as to whether its a tragedy that we see on the news for the next month that was quickly reined in at a nasty death toll, or we get the Last of Us storyline.It would have to be pretty fast, it would have to be faster than any disease on the planet ever, it would have to be pretty much everywhere at once with no trace of it prior to that, the zombies would have to kill whole households of people without SOMEONE calling 911, without getting to a gun, etc.
If that kind of surround were to happen, grats, because no one in military history has pulled off something that slick, ever. That a bunch of uncoordinated zombies could do that? Highly unlikely.

It's yet another argument that the entire zombie apocalypse is highly absurd to begin with. It's just a really fun premise that people have been fascinated with for quite some time now.

Traab

2013-12-06, 09:16 PM

Um, we live in the world of Smartphones, Facebook and Twitter (and countless others). This stuff spreads like wildfire, especially through the conspiracy theorist channels. The Bath Salts guy made the news within hours, I'm pretty sure it was on facebook within minutes-to-hours. I was at home all day on the internet when it happened, my coworkers knew more about it by word of mouth than I did with internet knowledge. It was on Facebook long before it was on the news radio, at least here in Calgary. I'm pretty sure that many many reports of people eating one another would be widespread pretty fast unless it is staunchly repressed by [insert absurd troped conspiracy theory level multinational cover up by organization XYZ]. And if they have time to cover it up, they have time to put it down with machine guns, do scene control site by site, and start instabanning/blocking IP's of anyone posting anything to do with it. And do follow up cover up for the guys walking around doing patrols in combat gear with machine guns. For long enough that it becomes an unrecoverable situation. Yeah, unlikely as heck that.

It would have to be pretty fast, it would have to be faster than any disease on the planet ever, it would have to be pretty much everywhere at once with no trace of it prior to that, the zombies would have to kill whole households of people without SOMEONE calling 911, without getting to a gun, etc.
If that kind of surround were to happen, grats, because no one in military history has pulled off something that slick, ever. That a bunch of uncoordinated zombies could do that? Highly unlikely.

It's yet another argument that the entire zombie apocalypse is highly absurd to begin with. It's just a really fun premise that people have been fascinated with for quite some time now.

I noticed it still took hours for the majority of people to know what had happened. Im just saying that in the case of a wide and fast spreading zombie virus, thats enough time to bite lord knows how many people. As for fast transmission, you ever see 28 days later? We are talking a minute or so to turn after being infected. Possibly less. Thats really the only thing that would make it possible. That and the starting everywhere at the same time thing. After all, patient 0 wakes up in hospital and bites a few nurses, that can be contained. If everyone who died in the last week suddenly pops up and starts biting, that spreads out the force of the responders, making it far more possible to spread out of control.

But yeah, it takes way too many advantages given to the zombies to even give them the slightest hope for wiping out humans. Now if we had never heard of zombies before, which appears to be the case in every film, the odds might be better for them.

Karoht

2013-12-06, 10:10 PM

I noticed it still took hours for the majority of people to know what had happened.Had there been something like "OMG it's a Zombie run for your lives!" followed by use of the emergency broadcast system to either tell people to evacuate the city, or that it was being quaranteened, I'm pretty sure it would have spread faster.

I'm just saying that in the case of a wide and fast spreading zombie virus, thats enough time to bite lord knows how many people.And time enough to call the police, someone records it on a smart phone, posts it where ever, news gets ahold of it, voila. Whole planet knows in a matter of minutes or hours.

As for fast transmission, you ever see 28 days later?A movie. Not a credible source. But lets continue.

We are talking a minute or so to turn after being infected. Possibly less. Thats really the only thing that would make it possible. That and the starting everywhere at the same time thing. After all, patient 0 wakes up in hospital and bites a few nurses, that can be contained. If everyone who died in the last week suddenly pops up and starts biting, that spreads out the force of the responders, making it far more possible to spread out of control.Possible does not equal probable. Eventually you come up against the people with guns and unless there are more zombies than a proper firing rate can ever hope to take down, the zombies lose.
You aren't going to get that many zombies out in the suburbs. Also, people do this thing called running. Fast zombies are fine, we have working legs, along with cars. Just because one guy gets bit doesn't mean that all 30 onlookers are going to get turned in any sort of short order. While zombie finishes eating dude, I'm outranging him. So is anyone with a survival instinct. Unless a stray trope hammer hits people in the head, I'd say most are probably going to get away from the scene alive, with the ability to warn people.

But yeah, it takes way too many advantages given to the zombies to even give them the slightest hope for wiping out humans. Now if we had never heard of zombies before, which appears to be the case in every film, the odds might be better for them.Grasping at straws just to give them more advantages. That is literally where this is going.

Tvtyrant

2013-12-07, 02:08 AM

Cats can eat a lot of things that would likely make us very ill. Birds, rodents. All nice and raw.

So when you read "work up from there" you assume I go straight to filling my face with zombie meat? ;o

I suppose it does depend on the month; in summer time it would be a horrendous idea.

Killer Angel

2013-12-07, 03:21 AM

Legato Endless

2013-12-07, 03:31 AM

Let's say that we have a massive volcanic eruption ala Krakatoa. Volcanic ashes spread across the whole world in a matter of a couple of days, and they carry a new type of archaea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea) (they are known to live in very hot enviroment, such as volcanic hot springs).
Those bacteria infects the living and they become zombies: in a matter of one day, you've losed half of the population in Asia.

This is your fictional scenario for such a rapid zombie outbreak on a worldwide scale.

The only issue is your setting is far deadlier in both outbreak and duration than the Zombies ever could be. Actually, Zombies as an afterthought when civilization must deal with far greater issues might work well. It's common in fantasy, but a current urban idea might give it a decent gimmick. Kudos.

Ravens_cry

2013-12-07, 03:54 AM

Killer Angel

2013-12-07, 04:34 AM

The only issue is your setting is far deadlier in both outbreak and duration than the Zombies ever could be. Actually, Zombies as an afterthought when civilization must deal with far greater issues might work well. It's common in fantasy, but a current urban idea might give it a decent gimmick. Kudos.

Well, given that it's "our" fiction, we can decide the opening scenario... :smallbiggrin:

For example, if we pick as a guideline the historical eruption of the Krakatoa, we'll have massive tsunami on the coastline, but the ashes will reach basically the entire earth's surface. In england you'll suffer nothing from the volcanic explosion, but when the dust will arrive, a quarter of the population will become a walking (running?) dead.

Jay R

2013-12-07, 07:20 AM

There are only two things needed:

1. Make sure you're on the winning side, and
2. Have a good supply of brains.

Traab

2013-12-07, 08:22 AM

Had there been something like "OMG it's a Zombie run for your lives!" followed by use of the emergency broadcast system to either tell people to evacuate the city, or that it was being quaranteened, I'm pretty sure it would have spread faster.

And time enough to call the police, someone records it on a smart phone, posts it where ever, news gets ahold of it, voila. Whole planet knows in a matter of minutes or hours.

A movie. Not a credible source. But lets continue.

Possible does not equal probable. Eventually you come up against the people with guns and unless there are more zombies than a proper firing rate can ever hope to take down, the zombies lose.
You aren't going to get that many zombies out in the suburbs. Also, people do this thing called running. Fast zombies are fine, we have working legs, along with cars. Just because one guy gets bit doesn't mean that all 30 onlookers are going to get turned in any sort of short order. While zombie finishes eating dude, I'm outranging him. So is anyone with a survival instinct. Unless a stray trope hammer hits people in the head, I'd say most are probably going to get away from the scene alive, with the ability to warn people.

Grasping at straws just to give them more advantages. That is literally where this is going.

1) The problem with "Omg! Zombies! RUN!" is by the time the announcement is made, the outbreak has already spread past easy containment. Otherwise there wouldnt have been an announcement at all aside from, "Stay away from these areas while police and emergency crews mop up." Once it has escaped from early containment, it is spreading everywhere. And remember this isnt some patient 0 case, this is happening in every town in the world, the recently dead are waking up hungry and fast, so every town is under attack before the broadcast can even happen.

2) Within a matter of minutes or hours, everyone knows because the zombies just broke out of the hospital or funeral home or wherever and have started biting everything that moves on the street. By the time police have been called and responded, the number of zombies has increased almost exponentially and has spread in all directions as the zombies chase after whatever caught their eye first.

3) What? Its a movie? I thought it was a documentary on a real zombie outbreak in england! I was talking about the insane infection rate for what I meant when I said it spreads fast. You get a drop of infected blood in your EYE and you have less than a minute before you turn. Thats the big reason why its even possible for the outbreak to function. If we are talking nonsense like night of the living dead, or dawn of the dead infection rates where a bitten person could last hours or even days before turning (unless they die) then yeah, it would get sewn up fast.

4) Yes, eventually you will come up against people with guns. But unfortunately for humanity, it wont be the police, the army, or even a militia, it will be random people here and there terrified of whats going on, trying to shoot fast moving targets coming right for them. That is not a trope, that is reality, your average person might like to THINK they can be rambo and calmly head shot an army of zombies, but thats not how it would work. EVENTUALLY the military will get involved, but considering every town everywhere is under attack, it might be awhile before they get to you.

5)The point of this topic isnt to justify a zombie apocalypse, not really. It was just a silly little topic about what you think is most important to deal with in a fictional zombie apocalypse. Im just trying to give a semi reasonable scenario for what sort of a situation you have found yourself in.

dehro

2013-12-07, 10:33 AM

hour 0
zombies break out

a little later
"watch out everybody, zombies apocalypse has begun

geeks everywhere on the planet, one second later:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OoaR-vrF01c/T0DX7D17eCI/AAAAAAAABFE/gxDnEKB2NOo/s1600/manicman.jpg

let's face it..we've been ready for this for years.

Thunderfist12

2013-12-07, 08:41 PM

It would have to be pretty fast, it would have to be faster than any disease on the planet ever, it would have to be pretty much everywhere at once with no trace of it prior to that, the zombies would have to kill whole households of people without SOMEONE calling 911, without getting to a gun, etc.

If it was thought to have no harmful effects on the human body until about two or three months after the infected got it, when they just suddenly started dying from various hidden symptoms...

Yeah, it doesn't need to be quick to be undetected.

Creed

2013-12-07, 08:51 PM

Runners, eh? Alright, here's my rundown, along with reasoning:

1) Shelter: "A horde of fast running zombies everywhere" strikes me as a fairly hostile situation. Now, I feel fairly competent in firearm ability and close quarters combat, but a sponge cannot soak up an entire ocean. Step one is the old Zombie Survival Handbook primary operation: destroy the stairs, and keep quiet!
2) Food/Water: Fill up all sinks, tubs, and buckets with water before the water turns off, move any supplies from the first floor to second floor/attic/roof
3) Weapons and ammunition: For obvious reasons
4) Medical Supplies: I don't see the immediate need of medical supplies in the first hours of a sudden death style infection. Long-term, it's something to address, which is why it is prioritized before...
5) Other People: I love my friends. I love my family. I love my girlfriend. However, I associate myself with a group of people that have a doctrine in place for the zombie apocalypse, which is, in it's simplest form, "Worry about yourself first. We all can take care of ourselves. Meet at REDACTED when things quiet down. As for my family, most of them live far enough away that trying to link up is suicide, especially in this scale of an attack. They're out in the country, so they're at lower risk than I am, at the least. As for random people I don't know, they could be infected, or raiders, or escaped criminals, or the freaking Umbrella Corporation! Like fun I'm letting them in!

So that's my own personal layout. I'll admit, many factors are heavily situational, but you asked for my plan. :smalltongue:

Legato Endless

2013-12-08, 05:17 AM

hour 0
zombies break out

a little later
"watch out everybody, zombies apocalypse has begun

let's face it..we've been ready for this for years.

But if the telecommunications collapse, how will I read the oots? Where will I go to discuss it? What if no one who survives in my area has geeky interests?

*falls over in despair*

dehro

2013-12-08, 06:11 AM

But if the telecommunications collapse, how will I read the oots? Where will I go to discuss it? What if no one who survives in my area has geeky interests?

*falls over in despair*

re-boot civilisation. start a Banjhulu cult.

Karoht

2013-12-09, 05:40 PM

1) The problem with "Omg! Zombies! RUN!" is by the time the announcement is made, the outbreak has already spread past easy containment. Otherwise there wouldnt have been an announcement at all aside from, "Stay away from these areas while police and emergency crews mop up." Once it has escaped from early containment, it is spreading everywhere. And remember this isnt some patient 0 case, this is happening in every town in the world, the recently dead are waking up hungry and fast, so every town is under attack before the broadcast can even happen.Right but the point you are missing is that Zombies are not masters of stealth. They don't prioritize targets that are most likely to sound the alarm. They eat the slowest people, not the fastest. And they're noisy. Someone is going to raise the alarm, unless we're also dealing with smart zombies.

2) By the time police have been called and responded, the number of zombies has increased almost exponentially and has spread in all directions as the zombies chase after whatever caught their eye first.Then the cops show up, with training and firepower. And proceede to get at least some idea of what they are up against. They all have radios with a central dispatching system, designed to spread critical information very rapidly if need be. Namely, in real time. The first scene the cops show up to might get overrun, maybe the second or third as well, but by the 4th or 5th team to encounter them, and they get the swing of things, they'll start fighting back effectively, as well as calling out the Tactical Teams (you Americans call them SWAT) along with Riot teams for containment and control. Big cities will be in trouble for a few days, attrition will take a heavy toll as well, but we're talking a week, two weeks at most. Small towns? The local police force are going to mop it up once they know what they're dealing with and maybe get word from other enforcement agencies as to what is going on and what to do.

4) Yes, eventually you will come up against people with guns. But unfortunately for humanity, it wont be the police, the army, or even a militia, it will be random people here and there terrified of whats going on, trying to shoot fast moving targets coming right for them. That is not a trope, that is reality, your average person might like to THINK they can be rambo and calmly head shot an army of zombies, but thats not how it would work. EVENTUALLY the military will get involved, but considering every town everywhere is under attack, it might be awhile before they get to you.But they will get involved, as fast as standard deployment protocols will allow. Which is faster than most people think, even here in Canada where our military isn't very big.

5)The point of this topic isnt to justify a zombie apocalypse, not really. It was just a silly little topic about what you think is most important to deal with in a fictional zombie apocalypse. I'm just trying to give a semi reasonable scenario for what sort of a situation you have found yourself in.I provided my priorities. You then started throwing down conditions (hence the moving of the goalposts remarks) specifically targeted at blocking any suggestion I had. If you want to get back into discussing those priorities we can.