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[Urist_McUristson]

Im planning on starting a fort in a reanimating biome to see if I can. Im planning to dig down to the first cavern layer as soon as I can so I have safe(r) wood and water. Plus I can catch GCS and cave crocodiles. Before I embark I want to know one thing though, does the reanimating effect reach all the way down into the caves?

[Orky_Boss]

By reanimating you mean terrifying biomes that make zombies, right? If that's the case, I don't think so.

And if that isn't the case, I have no idea whatsoever.

[FalseDead]

Depends I had several dorfs that were under ground rise, but only after another zombie managed to enter the fort

[Hyndis]

Yes, things even underground will reanimate.

I inadvertently caused a zombie apocalypse in the caverns on my map.

[Loud Whispers]

By reanimating you mean terrifying biomes that make zombies, right?

They don't need to be terrifying, they only need to be evil and have the interaction that causes zombies to spawn.

Everything in an evil biome with said interaction will resurrect. Even in coffins, caverns and carved rooms.

[Dwarfler]

I just dealt with this problem myself in typically hilarious DF fashion.  I dug down to the first soil layer, disassembled my wagon, designated everything for dumping to a garbage zone just under the surface and let my boys haul everything in until the putrid sludge rain and stoat jack zombies forced us underground (lost a carpenter, whatever).  We walled ourselves in and dug down into the cavern to begin setting up shop.  The water buffalo that came with us was getting hungry, and I wasn't prepared to pasture anyone just yet so I butchered him.  A couple of days later, his hair came to life and began attacking my dwarves.  HIS HAIR.  I freaked out a little at first, but apparently zombies made of hair aren't really all that tough (go figure).  One dog was enough to dispatch him.  I immediately set up several farmers' workshops and set my dwarves to spinning all that hair into thread before it reanimated again (which it did anyway, twice, before I managed to get rid of it all).  I stopped the rampaging water buffalo hair zombies by spinning them into thread.  File that under "THIS is why Dwarf Fortress is the best game ever."

So long story short, yes, everything that dies in a reanimating biome will reanimate, regardless of where or how it happens.

[Orky_Boss]

By reanimating you mean terrifying biomes that make zombies, right?

They don't need to be terrifying, they only need to be evil and have the interaction that causes zombies to spawn.

Everything in an evil biome with said interaction will resurrect. Even in coffins, caverns and carved rooms.

So it is idiotic to bother making a graveyard? You might as well make a stockpile for corpses?

[Vanaheimer]

Destroy the bodies and make slabs. Magma works

[i2amroy]

By reanimating you mean terrifying biomes that make zombies, right?

They don't need to be terrifying, they only need to be evil and have the interaction that causes zombies to spawn.
Everything in an evil biome with said interaction will resurrect. Even in coffins, caverns and carved rooms.

So it is idiotic to bother making a graveyard? You might as well make a stockpile for corpses?

Slabs and bridges are what you want to go for in evil biomes. Also I'm not positive about this, but I'm fairly certain that if you manage to manhandle meat or other body parts into a barrel then they won't reanimate. Not that that is useful for corpses, but it does mean that your traders won't suddenly be swarmed by reanimated meat out of the trade depot if they bring it with them.

[Hyndis]

In an evil biome just set the refuse order and have all corpses be dumped. Then have atom smashing pits around the map, all linked to the same central repeater. I'm fond of my wave motion repeater. Its a slow but perfectly reliable and uninterpretable repeater once turned on. Not useful for spikes, but good for atom smashing garbage.

Or you can dump the corpses into some sort of horrific catacombs, filled with thousands of zombies.

Or simply abandon the surface. Dig down, and then seal up the surface behind you. Forsake the surface world entirely and play your fortress like a fallout Vault. What could possibly go wrong with a Vault-Tec vault built and inhabited by dorfs?

[uber pye]

i once dumped a few cats down in to the caves when i was in a evil biome

by the end of the fort there were forgotten beasts slowly dieing from fighting with the assorted cat zombies

[Hyndis]

i once dumped a few cats down in to the caves when i was in a evil biome

by the end of the fort there were forgotten beasts slowly dieing from fighting with the assorted cat zombies

I have the same problem with my current fort. I wanted to explore the caverns safely, so I trained up a lot of war dogs and tossed them into the cavern.

Turns out there was a single zombie troll in the cavern.

Now there is a single zombie troll in the cavern, plus about 50 zombie war dogs. The number of zombies continues to grow over time. Zombie crundles, zombie elk birds, zombie blind cave ogres, zombie cave blobs, zombie giant toads.... 

[ZzarkLinux]

i once dumped a few cats down in to the caves when i was in a evil biome

by the end of the fort there were forgotten beasts slowly dieing from fighting with the assorted cat zombies

I have the same problem with my current fort. I wanted to explore the caverns safely, so I trained up a lot of war dogs and tossed them into the cavern.

Turns out there was a single zombie troll in the cavern.

Now there is a single zombie troll in the cavern, plus about 50 zombie war dogs. The number of zombies continues to grow over time. Zombie crundles, zombie elk birds, zombie blind cave ogres, zombie cave blobs, zombie giant toads.... 

Build smashers and give them paths to the smashers. Or cage traps.

I'm thinking you could build a door linked to a switch, then stick smashers/cages, then place a cat.
Zombies that see the cat will flee into your deathhall traps, and when you're ready just pull the switch to close the door and reset everything.

Or give them a ramped path to the surface and create a zombie moat that spans dozens of Z levels.
I think they will spread out over time.
Edit:
Then you could go "fishing in your zombie moat by tossing gobbos in there. Use this to control moat migration patterns.

[Hyndis]

I've just sealed off that layer of the caverns. It is now forsaken. Only the dead go there.

[Sadrice]

I've lost several forts to cavern zombification.  I sealed off the entrance and breached the caverns, and was making nearly finished securing a large chamber when my mason ran into a small band of live serpent people.  They quickly killed him with their venom, but he reanimated, and killed most of them, they reanimated and killed the rest.  The zombie mason and his new friends headed straight back to the fortress, but I thought I was fine, as I had placed a series of cage traps on the stairway access passage.  But, of course, my pasture full of goats was right in front of the stairwell as well, and the immediate flood of zombified livestock overwhelmed the traps, causing a dwarf to come down and reset the trap, leading the now rather large zombie horde straight back into the heart of the fort.