The Optimal Zombification Promptitude

[HardcoreHunter]

1 hour ago, Poof said:

I saw Cargo. I liked it a lot. Martin Freeman is a good actor.

I tend to imagine infected rabid humans rather than actual undead. Still, for fully undead zombies, I don't think we should be applying the normal rules of decay. Since they get up and run around, the corpse's system has obviously changed. There definitely would have to be a mechanism that's keeping the brain from decomposing.

The anti-freeze thing is another variable. Some zombie fictions are based around getting someplace cold so youll be safer from the zombies. I think they'd need an anti-freeze property or some way of surviving the cold like blubbering up like a bear and hibernating in a cave or super metabolisms while they huddle up like penguins. It's just too easy for there to be complete salvation in the cold.

I think that the infection should do something to the body that changes the chemistry enough which will kill us. Though also make it more resistant towards changes in weather and repel things like insects and animals. If the area were hot then flies would have a corpse destroyed in days.  Also in the case of living zombies I hate the idea of getting infected by a mosquito that had infected blood. 

There would probably also have to be something going on with their hearing and vision. Our eyes and ears pretty much rely on easily damaged thin membranes. So unless something changes biologically when they reanimate they'd be blind and deaf within days. Also possibly problems with micro tears over time. Our body is always healing small tears in our muscles daily. In the case of a zombie that wouldn't be happening, so after a while they'd just shamble themselves apart.  Even in the case of a living zombie they still have limitations like getting too hot/cold or dehydrated. Hell in survival mode a normal human can only go 3 days without water. Imagine one that's running around like a mad man trying to find pray. It would be dehydrated within hours.  

[Poof]

18 hours ago, HardcoreHunter said:

In Dawn it was a last minute line added for a walk on character that George felt would be a good add in for the scene. It wasn't even in the script it's just something the guy said. In dawn the message of the film was "wei're them and they're us" but "when there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth" was a better tagline. Though in Night and Dawn the zombies would still eat anything living. In Day of the Dead they introduced a Spiritual Jamaican that would talk about things like a soul, and had the zombies refuse to eat anything other than human flesh. While night and dawn showed that the undead retained some level's of problem solving and habit formed memory. Day and land of the dead showed that the person is still fully in there and hadn't died or moved on. 

Though yeah the space probe radiation always gets forgotten as the cause of everything. Romero changed his mind several times on a lot of the things in the dead universe. Kinda weird that he had the final say so on all of that and nobody ever brings up Russo who also wrote night of the living dead and directed Return of the living dead. Though I guess that was part of the court deal where they went separate ways. 

 

I haven't watched any of the old films except the original Night of the Living Dead in awhile. I get them mixed up. I know about the fork w/romero and russo doing different sequel series. I think that was for the best. I am fond of the talking zombies but they're way less scary. I like that they eat brains to stop the pain of being dead. That's nifty.

  

18 hours ago, HardcoreHunter said:

No it's not outright specified, forgot to mention that. Though after Dawn Romero really started pushing the plague as some retribution for mankind's transgression.  When you think about the times, the space probe cause could also be seen as that in some way, as there were people back then that felt that space travel was sacrilegious. Really I think it was more him just changing his mind a lot over the years. He did that with the character Ben in Night many times. "Ben was really just written as a white guy, but Duane just gave the best line read. I didn't think anything of it at the time". To later saying that it was planned that way, to which others working with him had called bullshit. Especially since the script had Ben originally written as a dumb trucker. 

I don't like the spiritual transgression angle at all really. People would definitely be going on about that in a zombie apocalypse tho. 

  

17 hours ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Wesker's reports talk about vital functions stopping before reanimation I believe. Though I think that's all code veronica, wesker reports, or umbrella Chronicles info. Though RE 3 Remake having the graveyard scene removed with zombies coming out of coffins and graves was removed apparently as part of the retcon of the Zombies not being dead while it was in the original. 

See as much as I prefer the infected humans instead of actual undead, I'm really fond of the zombies busting out of graves too. It's just fun, and makes me think of the 80s.

17 hours ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Unless it were a very small wound it would be difficult to hide for a long period of time. As well zombie wounds tend to either cause necrosis of tissue, or prevent the wound from healing; usually being platelet destruction, anemia, and infection.  As for amputation it more than likely wouldn't work. Your blood circulates through your body too quickly. I looked up how long an injection takes to reach the brain from the arm, and it says under 4 seconds. So even if it were possible to cut the arm of in 2 seconds a lot of the infection would already be spread through your body on its way to the brain. 

It depends on what kind of pathogen it is. Rabies doesn't infect the blood. It travels thru the nervous system to the brain, and it's a very slow way of moving thru the body. That's why 1-3 months is an option in the poll bc that's how long it takes rabies to reach the central nervous system. That's definitely slow enough to amputate or attempt an excision.And even if it was a blood disease, if the viral load was low, the bite wasn't deep, it could possibly take longer than 4 seconds for it to get thru the capillaries and into the main veins/arteries. That would be the only way in that specific situation tho and it would have to be immediate.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Poof

[HardcoreHunter]

1 minute ago, Poof said:

I haven't watched any of the old films except the original Night of the Living Dead in awhile. I get them mixed up. I know about the fork w/romero and russo doing different sequel series. I think that was for the best. I am fond of the talking zombies but they're way less scary. I like that they eat brains to stop the pain of being dead. That's nifty.

A fun trivia bit for Return of the living dead, is that it takes place in the made-up town called Willard that the people from Night of the living Dead were trying to get to. 

I talked to Russo probably 7 years ago and asked him about if things were still rocky or if that stuff was water under the bridge. He said they were fine. Everyone was just heated back in the day because everyone got fucked out of money. Back then you had to have the copyright at the begging and end of the film. The film was going to be called Night of the Flesh Eaters, but last minute they were told that there was already a film named that, and they'd have to change it. Romero changed the tittle card and end credits to Night of the living Dead, but forgot to add the new copyright to the title card, so the film instantly became public domain. So Russo wanted to make a film to try and recoup losses, but Romero had his own films he wanted to to do so they had that court case where Russo was given the right to Living Dead, while Romero got the right to call his films Dead. Either way he said that him and Romero were eating lunch together while their lawyers were fighting it out, and fans just blew things up like they hated each other. 

 

I actually went out fishing by the bridge where the old farm house was a few weeks back. There is a new farm house there now,  but the barn where the gas pump was is still there. 

[Poof]

7 hours ago, HardcoreHunter said:

I think that the infection should do something to the body that changes the chemistry enough which will kill us. Though also make it more resistant towards changes in weather and repel things like insects and animals. If the area were hot then flies would have a corpse destroyed in days.  Also in the case of living zombies I hate the idea of getting infected by a mosquito that had infected blood. 

There would probably also have to be something going on with their hearing and vision. Our eyes and ears pretty much rely on easily damaged thin membranes. So unless something changes biologically when they reanimate they'd be blind and deaf within days. Also possibly problems with micro tears over time. Our body is always healing small tears in our muscles daily. In the case of a zombie that wouldn't be happening, so after a while they'd just shamble themselves apart.  Even in the case of a living zombie they still have limitations like getting too hot/cold or dehydrated. Hell in survival mode a normal human can only go 3 days without water. Imagine one that's running around like a mad man trying to find pray. It would be dehydrated within hours.  

That's why infected humans is typically easier canon. It solves a lot of those issues. And again there's lots of different kinds of pathogens, not all in the blood or in large enough quantities in the blood to infect another from a mosquito or tick bite.

A zombie may behave differently than a panicked human. They might go very slow at times conserving energy, or even go dormant waiting for prey. I don't like them only eating humans either. I think they might even eat each other in dire straits for moisture and calories... 

Edited August 27, 2020 by Poof

[HardcoreHunter]

Where do you stand on Cordyceps? The fungus that turns things into zombies 

 

[Poof]

17 hours ago, new_disease said:

Ooh good point

I think that could be possible. And that thought makes my mind go dark. Like depending on how bleak it is in the world, if some people's immune systems beat it and they're ok; I'd imagine anyone with the resources and means to develop any kind of treatment could be driven to the point of keeping people like that by force if need be in order to do what needs to be done. 

And yeah that's true. I never kept up with it recently but I think in The Walking Dead there was someone like that, who amputated but in the end he still ended up turning. I could be mistaken though, it's been a while. 

Yea I can't remember if that was TWD either but I think so.... I vaguely remember it...

People thinking their immune system will beat it lets the disease spread in ways it wouldn't if it was inevitable or if it happened too quickly... If someone can conceal it, carry it, and believe they'll be fine, they'd be very likely to bring it into safe zones past any security...

[Poof]

17 hours ago, lupin_bebop said:

Fast is just us being screwed. Slow is closer to real.

I always thought it was far fetched for ppl to go thru such a change in a couple minutes or less. Anythings possible tho...

[HardcoreHunter]

25 minutes ago, Poof said:

See as much as I prefer the infected humans instead of actual undead, I'm really fond of the zombies busting out of graves too. It's just fun, and makes me think of the 80s.

 

I think that's more of the horror of it, is that you have something dead coming at you. Resident Evil though is like oh, yeah a human can be cut in half or have their windpipe destroyed and still be alive. Undead that's just silly we're grounded in "real" science after all. Just let us have our undead zombies capcom! 

I feel like I would have had a better reception with "infected" zombies had the cause in 28 days later not been so damn stupid. I couldn't get over "Rage infected chimps". I would have liked not knowing over knowing that the spread was from and infection of Rage. Also that this CDC level stuff in the UK was so low priority that not only was it easy for people to get it, but it was easy for the virus to get out. Return of the living Dead had some incompetence going on for not being able to gather those Trioxin canisters that held the original zombies. Though I don't even think the UK people had a real lock on the door for the apes. It was like a rabbit hutch or something that anyone could have opened. 

[Poof]

16 hours ago, RainyDayJizz#35 said:

Ooh, then I actually like my vote. Cause you have a week, but you could turn at any time after a day. Nerve wracking.

I like a wide range as well. Gives people hope yet uncertainty

[Poof]

10 hours ago, empty said:

You get a day or two before zamby so you can hide your bite from the group and when people ask you what's wrong because you're all pale and sweaty you're like "haha just freaked out man heh" and then you pull up your pants leg when nobody's looking and there's a big chunk of flesh missing out of your ankle with like grey skin and purple veins radiating out.

And then you fall into a coma in the middle of some intense shit and nobody can do anything about it until you've already zombo.com

tear their faces off

rip eat good taste

hmmm

[Poof]

4 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

 

I think that's more of the horror of it, is that you have something dead coming at you. Resident Evil though is like oh, yeah a human can be cut in half or have their windpipe destroyed and still be alive. Undead that's just silly we're grounded in "real" science after all. Just let us have our undead zombies capcom! 

I feel like I would have had a better reception with "infected" zombies had the cause in 28 days later not been so damn stupid. I couldn't get over "Rage infected chimps". I would have liked not knowing over knowing that the spread was from and infection of Rage. Also that this CDC level stuff in the UK was so low priority that not only was it easy for people to get it, but it was easy for the virus to get out. Return of the living Dead had some incompetence going on for not being able to gather those Trioxin canisters that held the original zombies. Though I don't even think the UK people had a real lock on the door for the apes. It was like a rabbit hutch or something that anyone could have opened. 

oof 28 days later is def not one of my favorite zomber franchises... just so much is ehhhh to me including the rage monkeys

[Poof]

  

18 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Where do you stand on Cordyceps? The fungus that turns things into zombies 

 

You can probably tell I prefer viral over fungi or protozoan. Idk if there's ever been a bacterial lore?

[Distortedreasoning]

21 hours ago, Poof said:

plus it could be a painful sickness and you could be a burden on the other survivors.

There's just so many variables when it comes to zombies. It's hard to choose what's best.

exactly my thoughts. we dont know how painful this slow transformation would feel and also the becoming a burden to the family and slowing down the group. imagine that being stuck on your mind all those days? 

[Poof]

2 hours ago, Distortedreasoning said:

exactly my thoughts. we dont know how painful this slow transformation would feel and also the becoming a burden to the family and slowing down the group. imagine that being stuck on your mind all those days? 

Oh it will be painful like covid-20 which is like covid-19 but one more