Comment on Media zombies would be largely harmless if they lacked teeth and claws.

TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• falseWhite@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Hmm. If we look at fungi zombies, people don’t really need to die, they just need to be infected. No death = no rigor mortis, also the fungi have antibacterial properties, so no sepsis or any infections. The only issue is that they still need to get energy/food somehow to keep going.

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  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Are those zombies smart enough to stay hydrated? If not, it’s game over in a few days.

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    • entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      The fungal zombies seem to operate at an instinctual level, so I’d argue that yes, they are able to stay hydrated. They also seem to have some sort of hive mind going on to a degree.

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    • falseWhite@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      They could be in another movie. Seeking food and water is kinda hardcoded in our brains. That’s why babies are always putting everything in their mouths.

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• sylver_dragon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  relevant XKCD.

  That aside, I think the book I am Legend handled the initial outbreak in one of the best ways to actually make it stick. There was a worldwide dust storm which infected everyone. A large fraction of the population succumbed to the infection and died or became “zombies” (more vampires really, they retained a lot of intelligence. The Will Smith movie really fucked the plot.). It’s one of the few ways to get past the problem of the various world militaries just curb stomping the initial zombie outbreak. Sure, there would be some confusion and some losses while people figured out the various rules for the zombies, but WWI is kinda instructive here. Massed charges into machine gun fire didn’t go well for the soldiers in the charge. As another historic example, the Banzai Charge employed by Imperial Japanese soldiers during WWII was not only suicidal by nature, it was worthless against a well armed, organized line. Yes, zombies might be more resilient and less prone to morale breaking, but they’d still be mowed down en masse. And that’s before we consider air strikes, artillery and napalm. A combined arms assault against a mass of zombies wouldn’t be pretty. Especially considering that zombies wouldn’t have the strategic thinking to attack supply lines and depots.

  Zombie outbreaks are fun in media. I’m currently playing 7 Days to Die, again. And I’m having lots of fun. I also don’t spend too much time thinking about what the backstory might be. There’s zombies, and it’s my job to survive. That’s all the setup I need to enjoy the catharsis of zombie heads exploding in gore.

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  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Oh you’re absolutely right. These are just monsters that serve a purpose for the plot. Nothing more. You shouldn’t overthink it.

    Although… Overthinking it is kinda fun too, but the people who wrote the script were kinda hoping you wouldn’t do that. The whole plot suddenly falls apart if you think about it more than 5 seconds. Well, at least that’s on brand.

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    • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Makes me wonder if anyone has tried a zombie story line that is preindustrial.

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      • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        I thought that the origin of the whole concept is rooted in Haitian magic and folk lore. These modern iterations deviate from the “evil magic zombie” origins and end up with all sorts of problems. The story has to rely on various silly contrivances because of it.

        Just go with magic, go old-school. May not sound modern enough, but it totally works. There’s no need to worry about the laws of physics when black magic is used to reanimate the corpse. The only way to deal with them is to break the spell. Who cares how dead and decaying the corpses are. They don’t need water, energy or even muscles to move. It’s pure magic. It just works.

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