[Canadian-Walker]

For everyone who is talking about the military quickly taking control and putting down walkers.  Think about what would happen if you were at a refugee point and the military/police started shooting newly turned people where you couldn't see a a bite or other mark.  In society today there would be a massive outrage if the police/military just went in and opened fire.  The government would be extremely slow to react with dealy force to such a scenario in fears that the next round of elections the other party would jump all over them for the action that they took.  It would have to be discussed and went over for possibly days before armed forces would be allowed to activly engage in deadly force.  Just look at how the police in most countries react to a riot.  They aren't just running in guns blazing and all going for headshots.  They are trying to control a riot and subdue and arrest people.  How do you think a horde of walkers is going to look to the police they are going to look like a riot gotten out of control and as such probably would use the same tactics they would for dealing with a riot.   As for the military going in and dropping hordes of zombies The military is taught to shoot at center of mass as that is the easiest place to hit.  A head shot on a moving target is not an easy shot from 200 or even 300 yards.  It seems like the majority of people think that the military constantly keeps a base fully manned, but you have to realize that people are home on leave or out doing a training exercise and not acticvly partrolling fully armed.  By the time a military force was organzied, authorized use of deadly force geared up and on route to the point of the initial outbreak 4-5 maybe even 6 hours or even days would have passed thus rendering a quarantine zone useless.  And yes tanks are awesome and great in a conventional war.  Realize that we are not dealing with a conventional war we are dealing with an enemy that can have it's torso blow apart and will still keep coming towards you.  Automatic weapons may be effective in a large group of LIVING people but in a horde of zombies all you are doing with an automatic weapon is wasting ammuniton.

As for the comments on the amount of weapons in the US yes there maybe be 300,000 weapons in the states but how many of the people behind those weapons can actually shot a ballon sized moving target under extreme stress?  If your a gun owner and think that you can do this easily try doing 25 pushups 25 situps and 25 squats in a row then taking up your pistol, or rifle and try getting head shot at a target 100 or even 50 yards out and see how many shot you actually make and how long it take you.  Now to the comment about the amount of ammunition produced each year by in the US, yes the US may produce that much ammution in a given year but again how much of that ammo is at your local gun store(s) vs how much the average gun owner has in his/her house?

[Chinghis]

I by no means want to belittle the two dozen people or so who've died so far, but consider this - the United States is at this very moment experiencing a meningitis outbreak. 271 people affected, 21 dead. (CDC site!) Of course, this one is not contagious, they've localized the source of the outbreak (bad medicine used for epidurals, apparently), but ... how many of us have actually paid attention to this? Ya know, the news comes through and we may take small notice, but then generally move on to other things. And this is how it would start. I think the question of whether or not a world-wide ZA could happen depends on how you think the government will react, which in turn depends on their motivation. Will they spend two months denying it or covering it up, so as not to create panic? Or because it was something weaponized that got out of control? Or a terrorist attack that points up vulnerabilities that we'd rather not have discussed?

Fortunately for my peace of mind, I'm kind of optimist, and think that they'd be very forthcoming with important information about a potential outbreak - like, yes, you DO have to dispose of any dead bodies properly, with a shot or trauma to the head. And, then enforce that.

Edited by Chinghis, 20 October 2012 - 03:41 AM.

[scarylala]

so everyone agrees that it could happen but the level of damage done and survival rate would depend on media coverage, military action & the speed of reaction time?

[BigEd]

In reality, Nope, Dead = Dead.

If there is a "zed zero" and transmitted by bites, it can be stopped.

Even if a large mass of people are infected that are spread out across the country and turn, and then they transmit it by bites. It could still be stopped. In our society people know what a zombie is and how to stop one. Local news crews, TV, radio shows, cell phones, texting, twitter, facebook, youtube, and internet forums.

If it is airborne or in the water, it is the end of days for the human race.

[Canadian-Walker]

I agree that alot of people in today's society know what Z's are and how to stop them but you have to think about how many people could actually do what is needed to take out a Z.  We've become a society that abhors violence that I have a hard time believing that the large majority of people could actually take the step of "killing" a Z.  I personally don't believe a WD type zombies are possible at all.  Now a 28 Days later type that is a virulent rabies type virus is possible.  One thing that I have seen continuously popping up in this topic is people talking about how no one would ever develope something like this because they  are to educated and moral, but people are forgetting that no every country on the planet has the same moral values that the west does.  I don't have any problem thinking that North Korea would develope a biological weapon of this type to use against the West.

[Commissar]

Going by the show, here is how I think the outbreak occurred and how it spread before anyone could react.

We know the virus is airborn and all carry it. Where it came from is unknown, but once patient zero/s died and reanimated a set of events began.

Lets say our patient zeros live in major transport hubs such as New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, ectera. Because they died and reanimated in transportation hubs they attacked people there. The first bite victims would have access to heavy antibiotics to combat infections and after their wounds were treated and dressed would have been sent home...

Since many people live in the suburbs of a city, the infection would have followed the highways, railways, airways, and waterways spreading quickly before Medical Authorities realize the scope of the problem.

By then it is near too late to contain. In major cities the police would be largely overrun, and the National Guard whose members are often residents of those cities would themselves be infected if not deployed abroad.

U.S. Military wise:

1,456,862 are active members. Most are rear service personnel and not trained infantry. One out of every five on average is an officer who commands noone and simply pushes administrative paperwork, which should be done by enlisted but that is another debate entirely.

1,458,500 are in the reserves and need to be called up, formed into their units, armed, breifed on the mission, and then transported in a chaotic situation. Many would have been bitten when they report to their units.

196,248 military personnel are abroad which includes a large proportion of trained infantry.

688,628 people on military bases are civilians and the DOD employs an additional 108,833 civilians which further complicates the military's response.

At this point only very ruthless commanders doing what needs to be done can keep their formations in fighting shape and prevent desertions by executing those bitten and executing those who try to leave the unit for whatever reason and then hunkers the unit down till the epidemic burns itself out.

At the national level, only a resolute president not afraid to face the consequences, ala Truman, would have the courage to resort to nuking American Cities to destroy major infection zones and allow the spread out military a reasonable chance to clear the countrysides with kill teams and restore order. As the virus would start in transport hubs, much of the distribution system needed to fuel the military would break down and it would take very good logistical planning for the military just to conduct operations with truck mounted infantry over the distances they need to travel. We'll leave strategic economic planning and infrastructure out of the equation for now as that will be an entire thread with pages and pages of words spilt.

When looked at this way, a national breakdown is quite likely under the circumstances given an airborn virus such as this.

[Not_Undead]

Trippy, on 31 March 2012 - 04:16 PM, said:

My question is to you all is, do you believe that the scenario The Walking Dead portrays is actually possible?

No.

The only way a zombie apocalypse could happen in modern times is if 'zombie-itis' was airborne. THAT would be a serious threat. Even so, small isolated groups would likely survive.

Quote

Another thought: If the infection started elsewhere, how could it come in contact with America? Our country wouldn't let that in, correct?

Modern air travel means that any contagious disease can spread to any industrialized country in a few days. I don't think the zombies would make it through airport security, though.

There is a reason people in zombie fiction do so many stupid things - the zombies need the help to be a serious threat.

Edited by Not_Undead, 03 November 2012 - 06:42 PM.

[Rick's Hat]

I'll never believe zombies could happen.

But what could most definitely happen is a worldwide plague, where if you come into close contact with an infected person, you catch it from them. I am also sure it will be something manufactured by humans, an experiment gone bad or even intentional. Something like a super Aids virus, you only have to touch the person and you get it.

So in a sense, they are the walking dead, because once infected, you die, no other outcome, nobody ever gets over it,
This would force groups of uninfected people to gather together and try to survive and stay away from the walking dead. The walking dead sickness also infects the mind and makes people psychotic. And also hungry! For your food or even you.
I haven't worked out how long it takes them to die, they have to die sometime. Eventually over the years, they might just die out and the survivors can rebuild society.

[backwoodsroamer]

I'll be the wet blanket. There will never be a zombie apocalypse. I've seen lots of dead people. Some of them made me sad. A few made me glad. The majority I was indifferent to. None of them ever scared me. They were dead and dead is forever, no ups no extras.

[Narc]

I admit I didn't read every post here, but I think a 28 Days Later virus (that affects the living) would be much more plausible than one that reanimates the dead.

I've thought about this question too, but from a different perspective:
Zombie fiction within zombie fiction generally does not exist. In other words, the very idea of the dead coming to life is completely unprecedented, as if the protagonists in TWD, Romero's films, etc have never even fathomed the ZA until it's actually happening. But in real life we've all seen zombie fiction - given this knowledge and zombie fascination, is the real world inherently more prepared to deal with such a threat than our fictional counterparts?

[ZombieHarvester]

Here's my theory, Some freak accident got us all infected through the air we breathe, we do not know that our body are infected, Suddenly dead people and hasn't suffered anything to the brain suddenly came back to life all over the world and became zombie, Since the statistics show that daily, average of 150k + people die, let's just say 100K of those died of something that doesn't affect their brain and came back to life, Suddenly we have 100K+ of zombies everyday or more if those zombies bit the population, the military would start thinning out the number but the zombies would prove to much to handle and will be overrun, smaller military bases or outpost are gone with only bigs ones left, so they decided to ignore the thread and fortified themselves within their bases broadcasting distress call to survivors to come to them, and like I said since The population outnumbered the military, and most of population are turned, Military have no choice but to fall back waiting for survivors to contact them.

Just my 2 cents

[keith2772]

Commissar, on 03 November 2012 - 06:23 PM, said:

Going by the show, here is how I think the outbreak occurred and how it spread before anyone could react.

We know the virus is airborn and all carry it. Where it came from is unknown, but once patient zero/s died and reanimated a set of events began.

Lets say our patient zeros live in major transport hubs such as New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, ectera. Because they died and reanimated in transportation hubs they attacked people there. The first bite victims would have access to heavy antibiotics to combat infections and after their wounds were treated and dressed would have been sent home...

Since many people live in the suburbs of a city, the infection would have followed the highways, railways, airways, and waterways spreading quickly before Medical Authorities realize the scope of the problem.

By then it is near too late to contain. In major cities the police would be largely overrun, and the National Guard whose members are often residents of those cities would themselves be infected if not deployed abroad.

U.S. Military wise:

1,456,862 are active members. Most are rear service personnel and not trained infantry. One out of every five on average is an officer who commands noone and simply pushes administrative paperwork, which should be done by enlisted but that is another debate entirely.

1,458,500 are in the reserves and need to be called up, formed into their units, armed, breifed on the mission, and then transported in a chaotic situation. Many would have been bitten when they report to their units.

196,248 military personnel are abroad which includes a large proportion of trained infantry.

688,628 people on military bases are civilians and the DOD employs an additional 108,833 civilians which further complicates the military's response.

At this point only very ruthless commanders doing what needs to be done can keep their formations in fighting shape and prevent desertions by executing those bitten and executing those who try to leave the unit for whatever reason and then hunkers the unit down till the epidemic burns itself out.

At the national level, only a resolute president not afraid to face the consequences, ala Truman, would have the courage to resort to nuking American Cities to destroy major infection zones and allow the spread out military a reasonable chance to clear the countrysides with kill teams and restore order. As the virus would start in transport hubs, much of the distribution system needed to fuel the military would break down and it would take very good logistical planning for the military just to conduct operations with truck mounted infantry over the distances they need to travel. We'll leave strategic economic planning and infrastructure out of the equation for now as that will be an entire thread with pages and pages of words spilt.

When looked at this way, a national breakdown is quite likely under the circumstances given an airborn virus such as this.

This. Only thing military wise that you forgot to mention, in regards to National Guard and Reserves, is travelling to their units. Almost any major road would likely be congested to the point of stand still by all the people trying to get home from work, rendezvous with loved ones, etc., not to mention the first responders who are conducting checkpoints and limiting movemet to certain areas, because that would have to be done to prevent looting and enable any possible quarantines. Most of them would be too caught up in what's going on to even report to their units.
The active duty army has rapid deployment forces that are supposed to be able to deploy anywhere in the world within 72 hours. I don't know if it has ever been tested or is just theory based, nor do i care to divulge the number of these forces (OPSEC), but even deploying stateside would likely take around the same amount of time. Sure, some units stateside would be ready to roll on a moments notice, depending on their posture at the time, but to think the whole military would be ready to go as a cohesive force at the same time is absurd.
On a non-military note, alot of people don't seem to realize that a large percentage of the citizens (at least initially) are going to be a hell of alot like Herschel, and hold off killing their friends, neighbors, and loved ones for as long as posssible, hoping there is a cure.Lots of people have stood by and watched horrific things done to loved ones, without being able to muster up the wherewithal to react. And these horrors were perpetrated by humans, not by monsters.

[Grandmaster Flush]

Let's first assume that some kind of infection exists which can turn people into zombies.  Whether this is actually possible is debatable, but let's take it as a first principle.

Next, the question is how this infection spreads.  If it can only be transmitted by biting or some other kind of direct contact with a zombie, it would be almost impossible for it to reach epidemic proportions.  The incubation period for zombies is too short (less than 24 hours) and the consequences of infection too severe for it to exist long enough undetected to spread to very many carriers.

You don't need 100% effectiveness for quarantine and travel restrictions to work in the containment of infectious disease.  You just need to keep the rate of new infection slow enough that the rate can't accelerate beyond the capability to control it.

When you have something on the order of 10,000 documented or suspected cases within the United States, I believe this would be sufficient to provoke action on the part of the federal government.  At 100,000 cases, I believe this would motivate quarintine areas, and possibly martial law if the infections were concentrated in one or a small number of cities.

If, somehow, the infection were to go undetected long enough to spread to tens of millions of people, government and civil order would be in danger of breaking down.  In this scenario, military and quasi-military organizations would be capable of defending their own positions, but probably not of imposing order or helping the majority of civilizans.

However, in this case, two other factors become important.  First, how long does a zombie remain alive, or "animated", after infection?  One would conjecture that the process of decay, and the absence of food, would cause zombies to become less and less ambulatory over time.
Second, how smart are the zombies?  Again, we can conjecture that they possess very basic instincts as far as gravitating toward living food sources, and that they have rudimentary hearing and sight, but little more than this.  In essence, the typical zombie moves should move according to a random walk at a decelerating rate of speed.

Over time, we would expect zombies to become randomly distributed across the terrain as they follow random stimuli, with concentrations near impassable physical borders like rivers or cliffs.  At this point, they should pose very little risk to any human survivors.  The probability of encountering more than 1 zombie per acre, in a large country like the US, should approach zero after a sufficient amount of time.

[BeauL83]

Just going off the disease spreading thing.
I live in Australia, and when the swine flu was going around the world, it did reach here and quite close to where I live (about 45 mins away).
So I think if a disease like that was created, it would easily plausible.

[xaviersaint]

Bottom line, yes. They're called international flights. Give business travelers a disease that takes maybe a month or so to spread and activate, the world is screwed.

[Survivor]

TWD2012, on 12 April 2012 - 08:33 PM, said:

Believe it or not, this could be a real scenario in not too long at all.  I was just reading today about a virus called Necro-Mortosis.  Its essentially a zombie virus.  It kills the host while keeping the brain alive and then reanimates the body to carry out basic bodily functions.  The virus can be spread through bodily fluids, including saliva. It also controls the body to attack living flesh to spread.  This is not a fake virus like the solanum virus in The Zombie Survival Guide, this is real, its being weaponized by North Korea.

Ok. Zombies are fun, but stop being silly here. Muscles is needed to simply stand upright. Muscles requires blood flow to work. A dead body equals no blood flow. A "zombie" would therefor not be able to move. Don't be silly.

If we talk possiblity here, the 28 days zombie is the only possiblity. It has to be a rage virus that does not decompose the body. Nothing else is possible. You may say that the scientist/doctors/experts might be wrong, but this is simple machanics. Without blood/mucles and tissue, a body would just collapse to a pile. It requires a tremendous amount of mental work for the brain just to keep us on two feet. This is why babies must learn to walk.

[World War Z]

I believe, a ZA could be possible (in theoretical terms).  Depending where the infection started, ie out in the countryside (regardless of country), spreading from village to village and growing in number.  Upon entering a larger town, surely many would be over ran due to the large numbers of Z's, knock on effect to cities.  I think it would become 'live' around the world because of the internet, ie Youtube or Facebook.
If there was simaltaneous viral outbreaks in different countries/continents (and in many, many different places at the same time). Also, the time taken to getting infected to becoming a fully fledged Zombie, no way.
So I find it hard to believe that it would spread worldwide because of the Internet, people/government/military becoming aware in such a short time.
Still i'd love to stick a sharp crow bar/ sword/razor sharp spear through a Zombie's head - bring it on ! !

[DeadCave]

Well it's simple...

[kat3281]

I think one false presumption is that newly turned zombies will look like the zombies we see in movies and television. I have seen plenty of dead people as a nurse (and to the poster who says nurses and doctors all ask if a human bite was from a zombie, um, no) and aside from being pale, really don't look much different. If a zombie virus could exist, they would not instantly be maggot ridden with flesh falling off. Even the instant changes on TWD (like the makeup on Shane when he first turned) is not realistic. They would just be pale, normal looking people. Our first instinct might be that the person is sick or on drugs (assuming we didn't see them reanimate or know them personally) and we would attempt to help them, not instantly kill them. Anyone who has worked with psych or dementia patients knows that people do bite. And while we do attempt to protect ourselves, we don't go straight to deadly force. The goal is to restrain and calm them. And LEO would respond the same way. As for the media, when the bath salts thing was out, the US simple did not panic and think it was a real zombie attack, despite headlines (which did take hours to days for the "zombie" details to come out, which in the case of a real outbreak would be much too late). So even though our society does know about zombies, we don't actually believe in them or that such an outbreak could occur. Just read the posts here. We all agree dead is dead. Yes, a 28 days later type infection is more likely, but the intital response would still be restraint and treatment. Even if the the couple of days worth of "zombies" proved to be deadly and were killed, that would be the last resort. By that time, days later, the infection would have spread dramatically. I also agree that people are overestimating how quickly the military would be ready to move and be mobilized. I was never in the military myself, but was an army wife for years and my son is in the national guard. Even when 9/11 happened and everyone was prepared to be deployed, it takes hours and that was with active duty army already living on base (It was 3am where we were stationed in Hawaii when the attack occured). So I see both sides of the argument, but I think there are just too many factors involved to predict an outcome either way.

[Annika]

If you are going with the show, then anyone who dies will turn, so there will be no localised start of infection. It will happen everywhere at once. Hospitals, accident scenes, etc. will all activate the outbreak at once, everywhere. That is chaos with no "front" to fight on. Rather, it is all around you.

As to the tank in the show, it wasn't overtaken, I think, but rather the fellow inside died from heat or starvation inside after probably running out of fuel.

Of course, the show is fantasy, but theconversation's context is in the fantasy setting where zombies are possible.

[BigEd]

Annika, on 30 December 2012 - 06:48 AM, said:

As to the tank in the show, it wasn't overtaken, I think, but rather the fellow inside died from heat or starvation inside after probably running out of fuel.

The Tank soldier was bitten. It was mentioned when Darabont wanted to do a prequel about the soldier inside the tank. During the production process Darabont was fired.

I have no idea why AMC does not want to have flashbacks...

[S2x210]

Easily, I live in a town that was barely affected by Sandy (to sum up the only danger I faced was running out of herb) however the town completely feel apart in the face of what amounted to heavy rain. Simply because the news said it would be "bad" we had gas shortages and food shortages small scale riots and even a few murders all because people got scared. I remind you that we literally didn't even lose power and these people resorted to looting and robbing within an hour of the "storm" hitting. The military and government are great but don't underestimate the share herd mentality of panicky suburbanites.

[Major Tom]

BigEd, on 30 December 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

The Tank soldier was bitten. It was mentioned when Darabont wanted to do a prequel about the soldier inside the tank. During the production process Darabont was fired.

I have no idea why AMC does not want to have flashbacks...

I'll bet we see a fair number of flashbacks now that Gimple is the showrunner. I don't think AMC minds flashbacks, it was Mazarra that hated them. All of the shows that Gimple has been associated with have used flashbacks as part of the story line.

While I don't have any strong feelings about them one way or another, they can be interesting and they are great for filler when the writers are short of material. I understand shortages like that contributed to Mazarra's demise