Hi all,
warning: spoilers below!
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My main thing which is probably intended as part of the "WOW" factor in movies like these, is that I always become obsessed trying to plot out the next few decades to hundreds of years.
For instance, do you imagine the movie saying there was going to be a "happy ending" after all, and that the doctors in the New Hampshire Fort would eventually take the vial of blood and make an airborne viral vaccine from it? That's a kind of "quick fix" scenario which in itself raises all sorts of questions.
Like...
Imagine all the "zombies" wake up human after the viral-cure is seeded around the world.... or even just in the USA.
1. How many people are left?
How many of these "zombies" simply died of starvation or thirst? There's only so much meat out there to hunt. Once most of the 1% of immune humans were finished off, did the Zombies sometimes cannibalize on rival Zombie gangs? The only thing that feeds 300 million Americans today is our high-tech use of fossil fuels to suck Nitrogen fertilizer out of the air and force our plants to grow repeatedly in the same soil. It used to be that we left the soil to lie fallow, but no more. We have to use it each year to feed everyone... it's the same pretty much around the world.
So I'm assuming that even with their feral "eat any meat" approach, that a large majority of these Zombies actually starved to death. Organized fossil fuel society grows our food, pumps our water, and transports our food and water from where they are harvested to where they are needed. Without all that functioning, over 3 years I'm conservatively guesstimating that over 90% of Zombies simply starved or ate each other.
2. So with maybe 10% of America "waking up" after the viral cure is deployed...
...what do 30 million people eat if they're not cannibalistic dog-eating savages running around at night eating anything that moves?
I'm really starting to think that a 10% survival rate is too high.
3. Another scenario: the cure can't go viral.
This one's even more interesting imagine that the cure is always as painstakingly administered as in the Doctor's basement. The Zombie must be caught, drugged, trapped in ice water to lower core body temperature as the cure is administered. That's a lot more work.
Implications: More zombies out in the "wild" continue to eat each other and everything in their midst and starve to death because there simply is not enough food and no farming.
The FORT villagers might form "Zombie squads" that went and caught a few Zombies each night, and gradually added to their number and power. Eventually pressure on the local permaculture farming system would be too great, and the Fort would have to plant a second "Fort"... although how to do that without a functioning military and engineering core to build those huge walls of the first fort? This in itself could make a good season of TV viewing. Anyone agree?
warning: spoilers below!
!
!
!
!
!
My main thing which is probably intended as part of the "WOW" factor in movies like these, is that I always become obsessed trying to plot out the next few decades to hundreds of years.
For instance, do you imagine the movie saying there was going to be a "happy ending" after all, and that the doctors in the New Hampshire Fort would eventually take the vial of blood and make an airborne viral vaccine from it? That's a kind of "quick fix" scenario which in itself raises all sorts of questions.
Like...
Imagine all the "zombies" wake up human after the viral-cure is seeded around the world.... or even just in the USA.
1. How many people are left?
How many of these "zombies" simply died of starvation or thirst? There's only so much meat out there to hunt. Once most of the 1% of immune humans were finished off, did the Zombies sometimes cannibalize on rival Zombie gangs? The only thing that feeds 300 million Americans today is our high-tech use of fossil fuels to suck Nitrogen fertilizer out of the air and force our plants to grow repeatedly in the same soil. It used to be that we left the soil to lie fallow, but no more. We have to use it each year to feed everyone... it's the same pretty much around the world.
So I'm assuming that even with their feral "eat any meat" approach, that a large majority of these Zombies actually starved to death. Organized fossil fuel society grows our food, pumps our water, and transports our food and water from where they are harvested to where they are needed. Without all that functioning, over 3 years I'm conservatively guesstimating that over 90% of Zombies simply starved or ate each other.
2. So with maybe 10% of America "waking up" after the viral cure is deployed...
...what do 30 million people eat if they're not cannibalistic dog-eating savages running around at night eating anything that moves?
I'm really starting to think that a 10% survival rate is too high.
3. Another scenario: the cure can't go viral.
This one's even more interesting imagine that the cure is always as painstakingly administered as in the Doctor's basement. The Zombie must be caught, drugged, trapped in ice water to lower core body temperature as the cure is administered. That's a lot more work.
Implications: More zombies out in the "wild" continue to eat each other and everything in their midst and starve to death because there simply is not enough food and no farming.
The FORT villagers might form "Zombie squads" that went and caught a few Zombies each night, and gradually added to their number and power. Eventually pressure on the local permaculture farming system would be too great, and the Fort would have to plant a second "Fort"... although how to do that without a functioning military and engineering core to build those huge walls of the first fort? This in itself could make a good season of TV viewing. Anyone agree?
I'm a parent.
