Zombies fact or fiction?

[fuelair]

We are all familiar with Zombies. It is a real popular genre designed to make the viewer feel powerless and unsafe. Recently there has been an explosion of medical pandemic movies which emphasis the vulnerability of our modern soceity. In the bad drop of many of these medical "terror films" are zombies. Lifeless soulless creatures whose main purpose is to live, eat living things, and terrify the living. But when we look at it, is this possible or is it fantasy?

If they are truly living dead, they could not be active for any major length of time due to what we sciency people like to call decay. Therefore they can only exist through magic and therefore, magic should work against them - i.e. they can be ended by applying salt or meat broth to them. I get bored with people gaming this by giving decaying things superspeed and such. Not rational - just a way to artificially make them scarier. My thought: if if you want them fast make them ghosts or werewolves/weretigers.

 

[Big Les]

Well, yes, but dead things can't move at all, so it's no more or less rational to have them moving quickly. Shambling is just superficially more plausible (though I do prefer my zombies to shamble).

 

[Evolved Wookie]

Could we also please get NO MORE zombie expansion packs for popular video games? *Sigh*

This ^

And zombies are a distraction technique. The Squirrel Empire will deploy them as a distraction - one which will be very effective after the cultural saturation we are experiencing. Once every Tom, Dick and Harriet is out with their 12" Batman soundtracks and cricket bats (translation for the colonies: Uzis and miniguns), the real, furry enemy will be free to attend to their diabolical schemes unmolested.

Mark my words, when the day comes that we defeat the shambling menace, we will turn around, triumphant, only to realise that all our nuts have been stolen!!!

 

[L.Y.S.]

If they are truly living dead, they could not be active for any major length of time due to what we sciency people like to call decay. Therefore they can only exist through magic and therefore, magic should work against them - i.e. they can be ended by applying salt or meat broth to them. I get bored with people gaming this by giving decaying things superspeed and such. Not rational - just a way to artificially make them scarier. My thought: if if you want them fast make them ghosts or werewolves/weretigers.

Don't RUIN MAI DREEEAMMM!!! I already thought of this really cool Likin Park sounding synth beat to go in the background of a post-apocalyptic world over run by zombies.

 

[Stomatopoda]

The appeal of zombie fiction and games is likely due to the catharsis of slaughtering countless human targets without feeling bad about it. Also, the "normal everyman" surviving, government and military being useless, etc.

What really bothers me about the "virus" zombies in fiction is how fast they turn. Rabies can produce some vaguely similar symptoms, but it takes weeks to incubate. Going from exposure to full-blown symptomatic braindead zombie in 15 seconds is probably the most ridiculous aspect.

 

[12AX7]

Lifeless soulless creatures whose main purpose is to live, eat living things, and terrify the living.

Here ya go.

 

[Almo]

But zombie expansions bring back something that's been missing in a lot of games:

Fighting against a horde of enemies. The enemies have to be dumb, or they would overwhelm you. So you get well-equipped intelligent lone human vs a mob of unintelligent unequipped enemies. This naturally lends itself to zombies. Great gameplay to be had there.

 

[Marduk]

The latest Zombie Thriller I've been watching on Netflix is "The Walking Dead". Really good show about a global outbreak and it has a very believable explanation for "re-animated corpses". Basically chemical hormones are released and re-animate the corpse.

where did you get your medical degree ?

 

[mrgrouch]

some scholars believe zombies to be very real or at least plausible.

haitian shamans would prepare a poison which main ingredient is blowfish, the neurotoxins in the blowfish slow the body functions to an imperceptible crawl, the victim is pronounced dead and buried (asap in the caribbean heath) and the shaman would come back over night to dug him or her up and wait for the poison to wear off and the victim would become a slave of the shaman or whoever paid for the services. other drugs will later be used in regular doses to make the victim lose it's will and stay in a docile, conforming state.

some of you may not be fans of wade davis, a canadian anthropologist and ethnobotanist but he has a couple of very interesting books on the subject.

now if you want actual dead walking, brain eating people, that's another story.

cheers

 

[ComsatAngel2017]

I enjoy posing questions about zombies, then trying to answer them.

Why are zombies so hungry?
Do they eat until they burst, or do they get full, digest, and poop it out?
If blood cannot circulate, how are the muscles powered?
How can they tell humans from other zombies?

Okay, zombies manifest only the most basic levels of intellect, usually those patterns of behaviour located in the cerebrum - of which eating is a major one. They aren't actually "hungry" in any real sense of the word, they just continue learned behaviour, until their stomach distends, at which point their instinct is to stop feeding.
Blood not circulating - actually it does, sort of, thanks to (thinks) conduction and convection i.e. from sunlight. Hence in winter and Canada zombies move really really slowly.
Telling humans from other zombies - good point - wait a minute - ah! Yes! Since zombies are dead, they generate no electro-encephalographical activity, but we humans do. So, once within EEG-detecting range, your average zombie can unerringly pick out live zombie-chow.

 

[ComsatAngel2017]

One very simple solution to the Zombie Question is to stay indoors. Seriously, how quickly would tendons lose their tendonicity as they decayed in even average clement North American weather, along with the rest of Zack?


The cast of 'Day of The Dead' could have stayed holed up in their bunker while the hot Florida sun took care of The Horde....

Sorry, nope! The unknown extra-terrestrial micro-organism that infects and permeates the tissues of zombies automatically repels all earthly predators, from animals to insects and, most relevantly, 99% of terrestrial micro-organisms. So they decay at a far slower rate than normal.

Also, a large number of zombies exist indoors. Over a period of months or years their continual bumping into doors and windows results in their release via broken seals or frames or panels, and they've been protected from the elements indoors. Thus, one constantly experiences a flow of "fresh" zombies post-apocalypse.

 

[Normal Dude]

There's a fungus that infects the head cavities of ants, growing into their brains and turning them into zombies. Sans a brain, they just walk and walk aimlessly until they die, then a fruiting body (mushroom) grows out of their head and drops its spores in the new location.

There's also a species of fly that pokes a hole into the heads of ants and lays its eggs in there. Similarly, the ant goes about its business until the eggs hatch. The maggots then eat its brain, rendering it zombie-like (the bodily movements of ants apparently don't require brain power) until eventually its head falls off. The fly pupae gestate inside the head and eventually emerge as adult flies.

Ant zombies aren't quite as scary as human zombies, though plenty disgusting and creepy in their own right.

These biological examples would serve as AWESOME templates for a zombie movie. Quick, someone get me a whole lot of funding and a director!

 

[dafydd]

It's easy to spot zombies. They are the ones who really throw their hands in when playing poker.

 

[Sabrina]

This ^

And zombies are a distraction technique. The Squirrel Empire will deploy them as a distraction - one which will be very effective after the cultural saturation we are experiencing. Once every Tom, Dick and Harriet is out with their 12" Batman soundtracks and cricket bats (translation for the colonies: Uzis and miniguns), the real, furry enemy will be free to attend to their diabolical schemes unmolested.

Mark my words, when the day comes that we defeat the shambling menace, we will turn around, triumphant, only to realise that all our nuts have been stolen!!!

Someone's on to Foamy...