Wednesday, May 7, 2008

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


In order to keep Ask A Moron a regular feature I need questions from you, my readers. Please put your questions, any question at all, in the comments or e-mail them to me at the address on the sidebar.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

This ought to be good...

Anonymous said...

Kick ass, MP. Looking forward to the next installment.

Anonymous said...

I think I'll post them as a series when you finish them all.

Alice H said...

Is Zombie Reagan valid armament?

Schrodinger said...

Well, get your popcorn. The more I think about it the more material I have.

It may be a 4 or 5 parter.

GREAT fucking question. I've got a couple of great ones coming up after that too.

Anonymous said...

I was over at another website and the conversation string got into actually bottling brains in glass jars (it was a wierd conversation). Could you possibly use glass jars full of brains as a type of distraction tactic if you get swarmed to allow you to get either to safety or a better firing position? I have no idea how you would get the raw material (a morgue, perhaps?) but I thought it could be an idea...

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I am regular visitor of this website[url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips].[/url]moronpundit.blogspot.com is filled with quality info. I am sure due to busy scedules we really do not get time to care about our health. Are you really serious about your weight?. Research points that about 70% of all USA grownups are either chubby or overweight[url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips].[/url] Therefore if you're one of these people, you're not alone. Infact many among us need to lose 10 to 20 lbs once in a while to get sexy and perfect six pack abs. Now the question is how you are planning to have quick weight loss? Quick weight loss can be achived with little effort. You need to improve some of you daily habbits to achive weight loss in short span of time.

About me: I am webmaster of [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/lose-10-pounds-in-2-weeks-quick-weight-loss-tips]Quick weight loss tips[/url]. I am also mentor who can help you lose weight quickly. If you do not want to go under hard training program than you may also try [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/acai-berry-for-quick-weight-loss]Acai Berry[/url] or [url=http://www.weightrapidloss.com/colon-cleanse-for-weight-loss]Colon Cleansing[/url] for quick weight loss.

eco lodge said...

Congratulation amazing article about Ask a Moron: Zombie Invasion - The Beginning. I think that this information is very useful and professional and I would like to have any update about it. I´m going to read another blog, thanks for sharing!!!

viagra said...

Wow, nice post,there are many person searching about that now they will find enough resources by your post

viagra said...

hey buddy,this is one of the best posts that I�ve ever seen; you may include some more ideas in the same theme. I�m still waiting for some interesting thoughts from your side in your next post.

Anonymous said...

Post36, http://www.arlo.net/massacree/ buy viagra online, duoa1, http://www.arlo.net/fccgb/ viagra without prescriptions, aiwa6, http://www.arlo.net/fccgb/notes/ generic viagra, pyvr9, http://www.arlo.net/bytes/ buy cheap viagra online, jzcn8, http://www.arlo.net/live/ viagra sale

Anonymous said...

louis vuitton officielle [url=http://www.cuirlv2013.fr]sac louis vuitton[/url] iuyxzd louis vuitton pas cher homme [url=http://www.lvsacnew.fr]louis vuitton pas cher homme[/url] rdmszd

Anonymous said...

This is my first time go to see at here and i am really
happy to read everthing at single place.

Feel free to surf to my page armitron

Anonymous said...

I have been browsing on-line greater than three hours today, but I never discovered any interesting article like yours.
It's pretty worth enough for me. In my opinion, if all site owners and bloggers made good content as you probably did, the net can be much more useful than ever before.

My web-site - akribos

Anonymous said...

Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the images on this
blog loading? I'm trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it's the blog.
Any responses would be greatly appreciated.

Also visit my website ... victorinox watches for men

Anonymous said...

It's not my first time to pay a quick visit this web page, i am visiting this website dailly and obtain good information from here daily.

Stop by my homepage; affiliate marketing network

Anonymous said...

Generally I don't read article on blogs, but I wish to say that this write-up very forced me to check out and do so! Your writing taste has been surprised me. Thank you, very great post.

Here is my webpage mens vestal watches

Anonymous said...

I don't even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was great. I do not know who you are but definitely you're going
to a famous blogger if you are not already
;) Cheers!

Check out my blog post; stuhrling original watches for women

Anonymous said...

Hi there! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any trouble with hackers?
My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing
many months of hard work due to no backup. Do you have any solutions to stop hackers?


My site http://spec.uz/profile-41753/info

Anonymous said...

I drop a leave a response whenever I appreciate a article on a
website or I have something to valuable to contribute to the conversation.
It is triggered by the fire displayed in the post I looked at.
And after this post "Ask a Moron: Zombie Invasion - The Beginning".
I was moved enough to leave a thought ;)
I actually do have a couple of questions for you if it's allright. Is it just me or do a few of these comments come across like written by brain dead visitors? :-P And, if you are writing on other places, I would like to follow you. Would you list all of your public sites like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?

Also visit my web site; men's armitron watches

Anonymous said...

It's very trouble-free to find out any topic on web as compared to textbooks, as I found this article at this web page.

my homepage - reputation management