Ask a Moron: Zombie Invasion - The Beginning

doubleplusundead asks a fucking awesome question - Okay, here's a question for you. If you're facing a massive zombie outbreak, what do you arm and equip yourself with as you make your way to a secured zone?

What is your overall strategery? Do you take a fast and light approach or heavy and slow approach, or something in between?

Lucky for you, this is a topic I've spent no small amount of time contemplating. It isn't that I think it is likely (although some would have me believe it is possible) but that I find the tactical and strategic considerations to be subtle and interesting as well as just fucking cool. So, let's dig in shall we?

The Enemy


First, it is necessary to define the nature of our zombie plague. In order to keep this interesting, we are going to go with the standard hell-is-full, Dawn of the Dead zombie. Any consideration of fast zombies or zombies with advanced tool use lead us quickly to human extermination while disease-style zombies present too many complicated moral implications (do you try to cure them or kill them, etc...).

So, our zombies are bereft of human intelligence, hunger inexplicably for human flesh and ramble at a slow, shambling pace. They will not be capable of opening doors or firing guns and will be only slightly stronger than an average human being. The only way to kill these zombies will be the standard blow to the head, causing moderate to severe skull trauma. Other damage will be ignored to what extent the body is still functionally intact. Any person bitten or scratched by a zombie becomes, after some dramatically inopportune period, a zombie themself.

You may think I'm attempting to make this easy for humanity but dozens of films reinforce what this simulator predicts. A small number of highly contagious zombies will overwhelm human populations quickly if not confronted immediately with brutal, often callous force.

Location, Location, Location


Our hypothetical survivor will begin his in a suburban location. For reason to be explained later, truly urban environments will produce nearly no survivors and even those may be defeated by other, non-zombie catastrophes. Conversely, surviving in a rural environment, considering awareness of the problem, would present very few interesting tactical or strategic considerations. I'm not saying survival would be easy, but significantly more so.

Our survivor will live on the second floor of a standard multi-unit, controlled access apartment building. His apartment will have a balcony and our survivor (let's call him Ash, for shits and giggles) will have basic survival training. Here, I'll admit some bias toward our hero as first floor occupants can expect a significantly lessened lifespan.

Equipment



Ash has the usual stuff in his apartment: Enough food to last for a few weeks if used sparingly, clothes, basic tools and simple media equipment (not useful in the long term but very useful in the hectic early moments. As far as firearms, Ash is a red-blooded American male who takes his citizenship somewhat seriously so he owns a single, semi-automatic handgun with enough ammunition to not worry about it in the medium term. Outside he has a late-model sports coupe that gets decent mileage but can drop lead if necessary. It is parked roughly 30 feet from the front door of the complex.



The Game Plan

The ultimate goal, if one wishes to survive a zombie apocalypse, is to get yourself as fucking far away as possible from urban centers to establish a walled safe zone. From this location you can eventually collect survivors and expand your sphere of influence as resources become available. In order to achieve that, it is necessary to immediately consolidate whatever survivors you can assemble in your home town and take those people and resource as quickly as possible to the countryside. This strategic plan will focus primarily on this early portion of the story.

(to be continued...)

Other Installments

• They Live
• Know Thine Enemy

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