How prepared are you for a zombie infestation?

Once things settle down and the initial billions of zombies are killed off or starve to death, our colonies will need entertainment.

How about a zombie rodeo/zombie-related olympic games?

Zombie roping (followed by subsequent decapitation), zombie scrambles, zombie target practice, zombie racing (with wagering allowed, and a model brain on a remote control car as the "rabbit"), zombie sniping, etc.
 
Just kidding guys. Partially to respond to the chap above who asked for a timeframe. As they say in every closing, time is of the essence.
 
It would be even better if we could find a way to make fuel out of zombie carcasses.

Get ratings like "How many zombies to the mile?"

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I'm thinking wrapping my head in foil.
If they can't smell my fresh brain, they probably will go after someone else before they come after me.
I'll then use tactical evasive maneuvres as they attack others, while I zig zag my way out of danger wearing my foil helmet.
 
I'm about halfway through World War Z. This book is pure Fantasy. Unlike the documentaries, which are undeniably authentic, this is a work of fiction. Still, it has some ideas which may prove to have utility.

More later.
 
I think we need to give the zombies a suitable hornfans name. Reanimated Corpse Aggie or Walking Undead Aggie doesn't exactly roll of the tongue of the living. What about Corpse Turd Aggie? Any ideas?
 
One useful thing from the book is the Resource/Kill Ratio or RKR. It is an analytical tool Mel's boy came up with to help evaluate weapons. Tanks and Stealth bombers have very high RKR's which is not good. Fuel, crews, excess explosives, etc. Zombie fighting should have very low RKR's. Like an infantryman with a rifle.

I think this is something this thread figured out instinctively (after the bizarre helicopter blade business). Still, it is comforting to have acronyms for things.

The chapter I'm reading now discusses the utility of old European castles, and mention is made of the coastal forts in the Carribbean fortresses. Our thoughts on Northern climates being a deterrent is mirrored in the book. The author describes those in castles leaving their citadels at the first snowfall to forage in the surrounding countryside to replenish their supplies. This might work, but my impression is that most food crops do not grow without cultivation during the Spring and Summer and even permanent crops (orchards) are not always useful after the first snow.

More later.
 
The infrared would be most useful at night. Z's don't have a metabolism, but they would heat up in the daytime sun and be warmer than the surrounding area as they cool off at night. Should be able to see them and the ground separate from everything else.
 
Weaponry: For guns, you'll want to have something quiet more than anything, not necessarily powerful. A shotgun for close range, a pistol or two; preferably with lasers, an accurate rifle for long range combat and something with a high rate of fire. As for melee combat, you'll want something along the lines of a large hatchet, hunting knives, and possibly a combat knife if available.

Fortifications: Im thinking underground bunkers or large bomb shelters for temporary occupation; but for longer periods of time, isolate yourself in the mountains or even a dense, remote jungle or forest; but any fortifications there would probably not be very suitable. Otherwise, you should opt for something already established and made for defense, like an old military base or bunker. Furthermore, any place with actual military presence would be favorable for survival. Most anything off shore is a safe bet.

Transportation: Like your firearms, youll want something quiet and subtle. Youll want a nimble, quick car more than anything else. You could opt for a bike for even more subtlety, but if your bike breaks, your screwed. Oh yeah, and make sure the car is a dark color and avoid daytime driving; you'll be that much more subtle.

Other items: The zombies will more than likely be vulnerable to light, so carry anything with UV light. If at all possible, use floodlights or heavy-duty spotlights for your fortifications. Of course, youll need a radio-preferably hand-powered, lots of batteries, canned food, matches or any sort of lighter to make fire, water purifying tablets if you expect to run out of drinking water quickly, soap (if they cant smell your b.o, it's that much harder for them to find you), a multi purpose pocket knife, gas, maps, and anything to fortify your location. Oh yeah, and it couldnt hurt to carry a Bible.

I scored 52% on that survival quiz. We need guns now.

By the way, I am Worsterman's son; not him.
 
There has been some analysis of the ghouls' capabilities; some variants are slow, but others are fast, some operate only at night, etc.

I think we need to take a look at their vulnerabilities as organisms. What can they do? They can see, they can smell, they can move, and they can moan.

Since they can see, their eyes must be transmitting information to their brains through the optic nerve. Because they can smell, this information must be passed to the brain where it is processed by means of some other nerve--is there a nasal nerve? Once they have seen or smelled a human, something causes both the movement toward the human and the moaning. I assume their partially functioning brains direct the muscles and the vocal chords to do things. These directions, we can assume, are passed through nerve channels to get to the muscles and chords.

From this I would conclude, preliminarily at least, that they have a rudimentary Central Nervous System.

Well now, somewhere in the inventory there are nerve agents stockpiled. At least there are formulas for the production of such chemicals. If we could apply such agents, on an experimental basis at first, we might have an answer for these critters. Let us see if we can't melt their nerves, maybe these agents will also degrade brain tissue. Aren't brain cells somewhat similar to nerve cells?

Now I know some of us might have some compunction about using such WMD, and they are likely banned by various Geneva protocols, but we have no treaties with the zombies. Nor are we likely to enter into negotiations with them. While not an expert in International Law, I doubt the treaties really even apply to the undead. Anyone really interested should look for he definition sections of the various treaties. I expect they only apply to "peoples." I'd bet we could find some judges who could reach the conclusion of law that these creatures are not people. The ACLU would probably put up some arguments, but then they always do. It is at least possible that the undead would be less of a protected class than Islamofascist terrorists in the eyes of the ACLU.

Mac mentioned MOPP suits earlier, a few of these would be needed for those who disperse the nerve agents. I assume their are supplies of the injectible antidote (I can't remember what it is called) and these should be issued to as many people as possible.

In any event, we need some expertise in this area; I would assume this is not the sort of info one can find on the interwebs. I'd bet Mac's better half would have some insight into chemical warfare?
 
Has anyone discussed the raw mathematics of a Z war? I seems to me, that like any war, it boils down to numbers. You have X number of friendlies, and Z number of zombies. Whoever has the greatest numbers has the first advantage. Whoever can kill the enemy fastest has the other advantage. I'd assume that in the worst case, zombies would outnumber humans drastically. But I'd assume that humans would have the kill ratio advantage after the initial breakout, when the mass infections ended and humans dig in.

At that point humans could overwhelm the opponent with force or force multipliers like weapons, maneuverability, and advantageous terrain. It seems that if you survive the initial brunt of the zombie swarms, then an organized force of humans could repel and eventually destroy all zombies. But how long would that take?

Let's assume the world population at the advent of the Z war is 7 billion souls. Let's also assume that zombies cannot procreate. They can only convert living humans into zombies, therefore they have a maximum possible population of 7 billion, correct?

Next question, what is the infection rate of zombification? How fast the infection spreads will be a prime factor. Let's assume that the infection rate increases exponentially at the outset, but that it drops almost as fast when surviving humans decrease in population and organize survival and defense mechanisms. As this happens, you would approach an equilibrium point where the ratio of humans to zombies would stabilize for a time.

Next question, what is the critical mass point for human survival? You would have to assume that at some point in the numbers game, the war could be un-winnable. How bad would the ratio have to get before it was only a matter of time and zombie apocolypse engulfed all of humanity? If you hit the equilibrium point south of the critical mass number, then eventually humans die out, like rats in holes. But, if you stabilize on the high end of that number, then it would be possible to turn the tide and exterminate a mass infestation of zombies from the earth.

I would guess that a few hundred million humans could actually destroy billions of zombies eventually, provided they were organized, motivated, and unified in purpose. That would have to be a freaking all-star team of humans with mastermind leadership though. In a more likely distribution, I'd assume that 1.5 billion humans could eventually hold out and overwhelm the infected mass of 5.5 billion. If every human could kill 5 zombies, then it's all over except for the re-population.

This sounds like a word problem where you write an algebraic expression that describes a situation. I guess you would also have to account for some intermediate human procreation and infighting as well. Although I'd presume that if human vs. human death was equal to human procreation during the war, then it doesn't affect the balance of the rest of the equation much.
 
I can shed some light on what nerves are active in the zombies. There are 12 cranial nerves that trace directly back to the brain and 32 spinal nerves which to the spinal column and then to the brain.

Cranial Nerves
1) Olfactory Nerve – This governs smell. If the zombies can in fact smell, this nerve is active. The scent would pass into the nose and the impulses would pass up olfactory nerves, through the cribriform plate and into the olfactory bulbs, which are outgrowths of the brain.
2) Optic Nerve – We know zombies can see so this nerve is clearly active. These come from the eyes and feed back into optic tracts, which again are outgrowths of the brain. There are portions of it that can be effected by things that are messed up in the brain such as swollen pituitary glands pressing up on the portion of the optic tracts that cross over one another. Perhaps a pituitary issue is what causes the erratic behavior of the zombie?,
3) Occulomotor Nerve – This nerve is primarily responsible for the movements of the eye. All muscles of the eye, except the superior rectus and lateral rectus, are innervated by this muscle. It also has parasympathetics in it, but I will discuss those later. Testing the eye movements that a zombie can do will tell us whether this nerve is active. I suspect it is.
4) Trochlear Nerve – This is a relatively simple cranial nerve. This nerve innervates the superior rectus muscle, which is responsible for causing the eye to look down and rotate in towards the nose. We can test whether this is active by forcing the zombie to look down. If it’s eyeball rotates away from the nose, we know that it did this with the inferior oblique muscle and the superior rectus is not active, indicating that the trochlear nerve is not active. Since rotation of the eye induces nausea and vertigo, I suspect that this nerve is active to prevent the rotation from occurring. Can zombies vomit?
5) Trigeminal Nerve – This one is more complicated. There are 3 divisions. All but the last one are sensory only.
Opthalmic Division – This provides sensory innervation to the skin of the forehead and upper portion of the nose.
Maxillary Division – This provides sensory innervation to the skin of the upper jaw, sides of the nose and a strip of skin that goes up to the temples.
Mandibular Division – This provides sensory innervation to the skin of the lower jaw and a strip of skin that goes up to the temples, but behind the skin down by the maxillary division. This division also provides innervation to the muscles used for chewing. Zombies have to be able to use these muscles, at least to rip flesh of victims, even if they don’t actually chew it.
Because they use their muscles of mastication (chewing), I am confident that at least the motor impulse of the mandibular portion is active. We can test whether the sensory is also active by using a pin and pricking the skin of the different regions. If the zombie reacts, the sensory innervation to that region is intact.
6) Abducens Nerve – Also spelled Abduscents, this nerve is very simple. It innervates the lateral rectus muscle, which not surprisingly, causes the eye to move laterally. We can test if this is active by restraining the zombies head, holding a hand in front of it and moving it to the sides of the face. Since the zombie would want to bite that hand, thank VY it is restrained, it will track the hand with it’s eyes if this nerve is active.
7) Facial Nerve – This nerve innervates the muscles of facial expression and a couple of small muscles near the ear. The data on whether zombies can actually change their expressions is inconclusive in the documentaries. There is anecdotal evidence that they can, but further study would be required. Perhaps placing a dead body in front of the zombie would cause it to change expressions? This nerve is also responsible for taste to the anterior 2/3 of the tongue. Zombies have an incredible drive to consume human flesh. This could be instinctual or they could just really hate the way vegetables taste. This could be a subject of future study. Do zombies prefer fresh meat? Will they eat meat that has gone rancid? Are they also fans of other sources of protein such as eggs and soybeans? The facial nerve also has parasympathetics, which will be discussed later.
8) Vestibulocochlear Nerve – This nerve is responsible for hearing and balance. Zombies appear to possess both of these things so this nerve is almost certainly active.
9) Glossopharyngeal Nerve - This nerve does taste to the posterior 1/3 of the tongue. It also does some sensation for the posterior part of the throat and is responsible for the gag reflex. Since zombies are able to swallow large pieces of meat, it is possible that the gag reflex is not active. This nerve may not be active, but the high frequency of activity in other cranial nerves suggests that it probably is. We could test this by testing taste to the anterior 1/3 of the tongue. This will require some really long forceps since no one would want to put their fingers into a zombie’s mouth even in the interest of science. This nerve also has parasympathetics, which will be discussed later.

This posting will be continued after I get back from 7-11 where I will purchase a Big Gulp of Dr. Pepper and also look for signs of zombie activity. Convenience stores are convenient for zombies too.
 
Before I continue to prepare my review of known zombie nervous system activity, I had some other zombie related information.

1) An attack is not occurring right now. I live on the east coast near NYC and this is a likely place for an initial outbreak. While out for a Dr. Pepper, I also stopped at Dunkin Donuts for some sugar fuel to keep me writing. There was a cop in the parking lot and I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask him about any possible zombie activity. He said he wasn't aware of any reports of the "dead rising and consuming the flesh of the living." I would naturally expect him to lie to me so I watched his body language. It indicated sheer confusion. I think the info was legit.

2) We need to be concerned actively with survival once in our stronghold. I can handle zombie research and could do surgery in a pinch, but it would be best if we had an actual surgeon with us. We could then cross-train everyone in the compound to do emergency surgery. I can teach the anatomy and he can handle the actual details of sutures etc. A possibility we need to explore is that a zombie bite can be treated successfully by an immediate tourniquet followed by excising the bite or amputation of the effected body part. People would have to be quarantined for a while after a bite to make sure, but we can't afford to lose experienced people if we can help it.

3) We have overlooked a fantastic gathering and extraction point for those close to Austin. DKR would be heavily defended in the early days by Adzillatron. We pretty much all agree that it is the ultimate destroyer and weapon, but DKR is not a permanent solution. Adzillatron will be able to keep it defended for a few days while people rendevous and are extracted, but eventually the power source will fail. Adzillatron is powered almost exclusively by the combined advertising revenue of Taco Bell and Academy. Following a zombie attack, those sources of power are likely to dry up leaving Adzillatron a tremendous, but powerless, killing machine.

4) Perhaps most importantly we need to look to the future. In the short term there isn't going to be any collegiate football or basketball etc., but once the war is over, we want Texas to have the upper hand. We need to devise a way to track surviving recruits and communicate with them so that they "feel the love" even in the most difficult of times. We can follow their speeds and abilities in avoiding zombie attacks and only the fastest, strongest and smartest will be able to survive. This will enable them to immediately compete and learn complex schemes. Since we are likely the only school that will be planning something like this, we should be able to win at least the next 5 national championships in all sports following the resumption of collegiate sports.
 
Here is a continuation of my treatise on zombie nerve function:

10) Vagus Nerve – Now we come to a very important one. Portions of the vagus are definitely active since the muscles of the larynx are used to produce the trademark moan of the zombie. These are done by the external laryngeal nerve, the internal laryngeal nerve and the recurrent laryngeleal nerve, all of which are branches of the vagus nerve. The vagus also does the pharyngeal constrictors used for swallowing. This is almost certainly active in zombies. Other areas could use more study. The vagus is responsible for taste in the palate and throat. Are these areas active? It is also responsible for motor function of many of the internal organs. It is unclear whether zombies hearts beat, but the evidence is unequivocal that they do not breathe. Countless reports indicate that zombies can attack from underwater years after they have entered it. The vagus is also responsible for parasympathetic innervation from the larynx down to the descending colon as discussed later.
11) Spinal Accessory Nerve
This nerve predominately innervates the sternocleidomastoid muscle, which is responsible for turning the head as well as the trapezius muscle. If zombies are unable to turn their heads, this could be an advantage. Evidence however, is inconclusive. It some of the documentaries on the subject they seem to, but in others there is no report. It is likely that they have this function and it is unreported in some documentaries due to the pressing concern of the reporter avoiding being eaten.
12) Hypoglossal Nerve
This nerve innervates the muscles of the tongue and infrahyoid strap muscles. There are no reports that I am aware of that document tongue movement, but the infrahyoid strap muscles are almost certainly used in swallowing and elevation and depression of the hyoid for both swallowing and moan production.
 
The Tower could be a could temporary stronghold and an excellent permanent lookout post for the 40 acres. The stadium lights would also be a good area for being a crows nest for the campus.
 
Alright good. With me teaching the anatomy and Mrs. Mac teaching the surgical techniques, we should be able to cross-train members of our compound to do surgery in a pinch. This could drastically reduce casualties on foraging expeditions. Especially if we find that zombie bites can be survived if the area is surgically removed fast enough.
 
I think those are good short term options, but manning the tower full-time won't be feasible. Given that large student population and high numbers of office buildings within normal adult walking distance, let alone zombies, the campus will be swarming with zombies very soon after the bug strikes again. We won't have more than a few days tops to defend positions before we would have to be extracted to a more secure location.
 
Plus there is no way you could shoot zombie targets milling around the six pack from the top of the tower!

But seriously guys, the Tower? The key is low population areas. Get out of dodge. Remember the first post, I am envisioning a scenario like the beginning of Dawn of the Dead remake. You wake up, and overnight, the shtf. What do you do? Maybe you have your pickup backed into your garage, you load up, open the garage door and hit the gas. You better be armed. You better have enough gas and then some (plan on having to take alternate routes). And you better know where you are going. I like the coastal bases, its just not happening for me. If its not within 200 miles or so, I don't see how I'm getting there. The Zombie Apocalypse will be spreading. And probably not from just one place at the speed, spreading at 3 mph. I'm talking the undead, everywhere, right now. Can you fell me brother?
 
The bases might be filled with armored zombies. The bases will surely have been at the ready and had any able bodied man decked out for defense. Once those defenses are over run, you will have zombies in kevlar and helmets.

Besides, I would stay clear of any bases that did stand their ground. Haven't you seen "28 days later?"
 
i am hosting my book club meeting for World War Z tonight. I thought about making (well, ordering) something zombie-related. But I just settled on beer and pizza. That's what i would eat as my last meal if a zombie apocalypse ever went down. all refugees taking part in the meeting will have to be OK with that.
 
Been thinkin' about a no-nonsense weapon for dealing with the ghouls--up close. Edged weapons are OK, but not as effective against these devils as they are against live humans. Pistols and rifles are certainly good bets; maybe we need more.

If it is best to stop them by smashing their skulls and brains, let us work up a weapon that will do just that.

A geologist's rock hammer or an ice axe might work (just ask Trotsky's ghost), but, once you have the pick end into the brain, you have to get it out again. I have no experience here, but I expect it might be awkward. the Zombie Survival Guide recommends normal carpenter-type hammers. OK, I suppose, but they have that extraneous nail puller and the same retraction problem.

My idea is a solid steel ball, about the size of a cue ball, on the end of a aluminum or stainless steel shaft (16"). The tube should have a good no-slip grip on the end and a loop or something so it can hang from a carabiner.

The steel ball should have enough mass to put a good dent in a Zombie skull. We could capture a few with big nets and experiment with prototypes to see which combination of ball and shaft length, etc., works best to inflict a (genuinely) fatal wound. The aluminum or stainless tube would keep the overall weight down and allow the most mass in the ball.

The spherical shape may have a number of advantages. On impact with the skull. there is a lot of force behind a single point. This should cause immediate cracking. As the skull absorbs the blow, the ball is imbedded in the head. It should not, however, be difficult to extract.

I suppose we could experiment with other shaft materials: wood, fiberglass, graphite,, etc., but I'd bet stainless steel would be the best for the money. German cops used to carry batons that had a lot of spring in them, but I'm not sure that would be a benefit.

Some of the larger trailer hitch balls could perhaps work until we can fabricate our own. We will, however, have to find someone to get the chrome off these.
 
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