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[Pnx]

You people haven't seen my secret underground lab where I am developing the zombie virus planning to develop the zombie cure. It has a special topside sniper tower that I can use to pick off zombies and have some fun, the tower is guaranteed to be zombie-proof. Even against those special super-zombies. And the massive amounts of supplies are also a plus. The only downside is I'm somewhat worried about the security of my sewage outlet pipe and that could be a problem when going to the toilet.

[Asheron]

HINT OF THE DAY: Fill your sewage outlet with weapon traps.

[Cthulhu]

And the fact that there's no way you got a permit to build a sniper tower on your property.

[Nilocy]

hmm, i'd go with living in a tank for a while. That'd make me happy.

[Cthulhu]

Assuming you could find one, and if it was in the summer you'd probably dehydrate.

[Nilocy]

then i'd live in a commercially avalible military issue awesome tank that had... a million litres of water condensed into a small box that i could drink safely from. And doesn't weigh anything.

[umiman]

I'd be in space. Drinking beer. Eating chocolate. Shooting at earth with a giant orbital cannon.

The thing I don't understand is that if these zombies were infected by a virus, why would we need to be bitten before the virus transmits? This brings up so many questions:

1. How would the virus spread initially? I don't think zombies are smart enough to stay stealthy and out of people's sights while biting opportunistically until they have significant mass.

2. If the zombie virus can spread without the need of contact transmission, why on earth would you need zombies anyway? I mean, air transmission and water transmission would probably create more zombies than zombies ever could. And unless zombies can travel to places where air and water can't...

3. How can zombies distinguish between something alive and something almost dead anyway? I mean, if the thing spreads as fast as we believe, then most people wouldn't even have begun to decompose yet. Wouldn't they just end up eating each other and thus end their cycle prematurely?

Heh... I don't actually find zombies particularly worrisome. Well... except for zombie dogs and cats and pigs and horses and spiders. Unless they too moved like turtles. What about zombie fleas? Would you turn into a zombie if a zombie flea bit you? Do zombie ants still have hive mentality? What about zombie plants?

[Pnx]

And the fact that there's no way you got a permit to build a sniper tower on your property.

I built it under my property, it's collapsible, and besides, I don't have a permit for the secret lab, but it's all a secret so there's no problem. Rules are meant to be ignored.

[Asheron]

Ay. If I would have to follow rules, I wouldn't be leading this dictatorial land, would I?
Ah... damn. I forgot you Americans invaded it. Curse you!

[Cthulhu]

The thing I don't understand is that if these zombies were infected by a virus, why would we need to be bitten before the virus transmits? This brings up so many questions:

1. How would the virus spread initially? I don't think zombies are smart enough to stay stealthy and out of people's sights while biting opportunistically until they have significant mass.

2. If the zombie virus can spread without the need of contact transmission, why on earth would you need zombies anyway? I mean, air transmission and water transmission would probably create more zombies than zombies ever could. And unless zombies can travel to places where air and water can't...

3. How can zombies distinguish between something alive and something almost dead anyway? I mean, if the thing spreads as fast as we believe, then most people wouldn't even have begun to decompose yet. Wouldn't they just end up eating each other and thus end their cycle prematurely?

1. A carrier animal.  What if a new strain of rabies develops in an animal, and that animal bites a person, giving him this new strain?

2. That's assuming it could travel through air or water, it probably wouldn't be able to, because if it did, it wouldn't be a zombie plague, it'd just be a plague.

3.  Pheromones.

[umiman]

Let's consider all the diseases spread by carrier animals in history. How many of them spread fast enough to be able to turn humanity into a minority without humanity being able to notice (and neutralize) the threat beforehand?

I mean, even with the bubonic plague, at least people knew who was dying and they realized there was a pandemic. Even then, it took what? A year to reach critical plague levels (besides the point that they didn't know how to cure the victims, when in zombie case, we can just blow zombies up) Not to mention the fact that many places in the world were happily enjoying themselves when Europe was dying by the truckload.

And if we assume point 1 to be true, then point 2 is automatically in question. If we've got something that can spread so damn frigging fast that no one notices until it's too late, why on earth would we worry about zombies? As you said, it'd just be a plague and everyone would be dead anyway.

And if point 2 were true, then point 1 is automatically in question. As in, if this virus / thing required zombie-to-human transmission, how would it get to such a mass that it actually becomes a serious threat? Remember that the world does not exist perpetually at night and these zombies have to remain hidden during the day when they aren't at critical mass lest they be wiped out prematurely.

I'm just assuming that whoever unleases this zombie attack thing has plans to actually wipe out humankind instead of just wiping out a small portion of humankind.

[Sir Edmund]

1. A carrier animal.  What if a new strain of rabies develops in an animal, and that animal bites a person, giving him this new strain?

also another point is that if a man gets bit and dies, he gets brought to the hospital first then the morgue, if he wakes up in the hospital he will have alot of easy meat. i always imagine one hospital gets zombies then they spread out from there. If the dude has vital signs he may wake up when doctors are doing surgery because ofc they wont know hes a zombie.

[Kagus]

As for the doubts about humans running safely away from the first zombies, I think you're giving the general populace just a little too much faith.  A slow-moving, bloodied, groaning zombie could easily walk up to and infect several people before finally meeting a sensible person who blows his brains out.

An interesting theory regarding zombie-ism would be parasitic infestation.  There are already parasites that can take over the bodily functions of certain animals, so it's not entirely unthinkable that a specific parasitic worm or such would begin breeding inside human (or at least mammalian) bodies.  Clusters of them would live in the gumline, and thus be transmitted to a new host in the event of a bite.  Since this would allow the parasites increased spreading capabilities, it would be desirable to them.

Furthermore, parasite hosts would (I believe) be able to identify each other, and since they're just in it for the spreading and not the feeding, pre-consumed zombies are not much of an issue.

Heh, I remember watching Land of the Dead...  Man, throughout the series of films, Romero has changed his zombies so many times you're surprised that they're all coming from the same person.  but worse than that, he can't even hold true to his own designs.  There are a couple oddball scenes in Land of the Dead (if you're worried about spoilers, I suggest you turn your attention to a film that actually has them), one where a zombie manages to scare a person because he thinks it's headless.  The zombie's head is attached to the neck only by a small strap of gristle, which somehow has the strength to swing the head up to sink its teeth into the guy's flesh.  That head was connected to the body by only the most technical definition, there is no way it could possibly control its functions.

And then there was a scene with a zombie that was eating himself,  And people call this guy the zombie aficionado?

[Cthulhu]

Did he make the Tar Zombie too?  I hate when zombies say brains.

But yeah, I think that if there was a zombie plague, it would have to be slower-acting than 28 Days Later 5-seconds-and-it's-over infection.  Maybe it starts out looking like something else, maybe flu-like symptoms.  After a few days he starts coughing up small amounts of blood, prompting him to go to the doctor.  The doctor would probably refer him to a major hospital, coughing up blood is generally a bad sign, once he's there, there are probably hundreds of people there.  He's sitting in the crowded waiting room, sick people are everywhere, sick people with hurting immune systems.  The symptoms get worse, maybe he goes into a coughing fit, spraying virus particles safely encased in droplets of water, people inhale them and become infected.  A more interesting case would be if the virus started affecting his brain here, and he attacked someone.  In the more subtle case, many people could be infected without noticing it.  Maybe the disease takes years to reach zombie stage, in that case there could be a huge population of disease carriers once it starts affecting the brain.  Since people travel, it would be all over the world at that point.

EDIT: And Kagus is right, if an obvious zombie shows up, people are going to panic.  They're all going to mass-run away from it, pushing and shoving, knocking people over, the zombie gets to those people and bites them, game over for them.

Also, has anyone played the Zombie Infection Simulation and its modifications?  They're a lot of fun, I found one that lets you drop bombs to see how many people you can save.  I managed to rescue 55 out of 5000.

[umiman]

Kagus: Which then brings upon the guy who blows the brains out of the first zombie blowing the brains out of every other zombie he can see followed by spreading the word, thus informing the world to look out for zombies to blow brains out of. Heck, when mainstream news gets wind of "Mysterious Zombification. Public Warning. Shoot Walking Dead People", we've already won.

Of course the first few will succumb. But 50 or so zombies is hardly a threat once people know there are zombies. In this world of billions, even a million is still a minor statistic and easily dealt with. Just like dengue fever or malaria, the initial casualties are inevitable, but the fact of the matter is that all it takes is the word to get out and victory is inevitable.

Unless you are so ridiculously self-absorbed to assume yourself not part of the general populace (which would make this argument redundant as blind ego would selectively retain facts), I think you have too little faith in our technology.

Zombies are nice entertainment. But as a weapon or contagion, pathetic and inefficient.

p.s: I hope you're not taking that parasite view seriously. This is why I wished there was a big "gullible people don't read this" warning on the Cracked.com article.

Cthulu: And that's a plague. Which again makes zombies pointless as everyone would die faster than zombies can kill them.

Feel free to dismiss this entire thing if you're just talking for the sake of fun. I'm just bored and feel like whacking people who, while I doubt it, actually think zombie outbreaks are possible.