Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 6:00 pm

I haven't read WWZ, can someone give me a beatdown of the military tactics on display?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 7:05 pm

All I can remember is that he has a huge hard on for how you can't shock and awe zombies.

Like, all the tactics are designed to cause devastating losses simultaneously so that the enemy no longer has the heart for battle, but then the zombies keep coming.

Which is stupid because the other thing that devastating losses does is cause devastating losses, so if you just keep blowing up the fucking zombies, you win. Except not in World War Z.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 7:10 pm

They also used antitank weaponry, but it didn't work on zombies because no headshots, even though I'm pretty sure a 120mm round that's intended to punch through tank armor will pretty thoroughly fuck up someone who gets hit in the chest.

Not that people would be stupid enough to load those to fight massed infantry anyway.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 7:16 pm

I'd expect the military to use walls and trenches to create choke points, and simply burn the zombies down with napalm and similar methods. Once you get that going the burning zombies should provide enough of an obstacle for the rest to be stalled long enough to burn down themselves.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 7:33 pm

I still haven't exactly figured out what zombies are supposed to do about some good ol' boys with an F-550 and a couple 870s.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 9:03 pm

There is one plausible reason for an actual zombie apocalypse that I can think of: The zombie virus actually spreads through the air, not through a bite, and the infection rate is catastrophic. Militaries are annihilated through raw numerical losses from the virus itself, and a huge chunk of the survivors will also go down in the first half-hour when the zombies attack unarmed and unaware soldiers in the barracks. The surviving military would be scattered and left with some serious holes punched in their logistics and leadership. They'd probably be able to cleanse the world of infected eventually, but only after there'd been some serious apocalypsing going on.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 9:26 pm

Brooks has the military in his novel set up tank bunkers. They have a single line of defense (or fail to fallback/recover when the first line is lost, can't remember which, both are stupid), and they are seriously attacked on their flanks from nearby houses they never bothered to secure because reasons. They use anti-tank weaponry, anti-tank artillery (and don't even begin bombarding with artillery until the infantry are about to engage), and completely forego the use of the airforce until a last resort when everything's gone to hell. They do not actually set up any sort of means for gathering intel, and are genuinely surprised to see more zombies at at least one point. They manage to run out of ammo, somehow, not even that far into the battle. Lots of things that would in fact completely destroy a zombie's body, head included, fail to do so because reasons.

It's bullshit from top to bottom. Really, really bad. The real Battle of Yonkers involves bombing runs covering the zombie horde with some sort of shrapnel-based airburst explosive that reliably puts slivers of metal in all zombie heads for a very large radius, and zombie deathtolls hit the 75-90% mark in the first half hour. The majority of infantry casualties occur during cleanup, and are friendly fire accidents along the lines of "he looked at me like he was hungry and I panicked" and "he looked like he was limping at me and I panicked."

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 10:31 pm

So what zombie cheats did Brooks use to grease his story?

I mean, I know of the typical zombie cheats of no flies and no eating each other -- I just want to know what other kind of cheats he used. Because I have the feeling that he cheated like a motherfucker.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 11:48 pm

Whipstitch wrote:I still haven't exactly figured out what zombies are supposed to do about some good ol' boys with an F-550 and a couple 870s.

Well, that depends on whether those good ol' boys are being advised by "Zombie Expert" Max Brooks.

Mind you, that in Sons of Guns, they made two guns and one had, if I recall, a flamethrower. Because.... their zombie expert never pointed out that if you're on the ground, and set your implacable melee-oriented on fire, you're going to have a bad time. I tried to find the full episode, but it's only on Youtube for pay.

Max Brooks is a big industry name who gets the honor of being a "zombie expert" because his dad was a big industry guy, and he wrote a few books about zombies. He has a few moments of clarity in "zombie survival" like "no, guns in an apocalypse are bad because limited supplies" but I've seen him act in this Expert capacity twice, and it came out to shit. That may be because the shows themselves are dumb, but still.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:00 am

Crapping on guns is overrated though, for reals. Like, one of the first rules of any zompocalypse scenario worth talking about is the notion that other survivors can be just as dangerous as the zombies and in that case gun>halligan bar. Also, I've taken the butt of a rifle to the forehead before and I was seeing stars even though it was just a three stooges style accident. 7 pounds and a pinch of leverage will do that to you.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:16 am

While it's true that firearms are important for killing hostile survivors, it's still worth debunking the prevalent image of mowing down a zombie horde with a machine gun. Those bullets are a precious and limited resource and there are a lot of much less resource-intensive ways to kill zombies.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:29 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So what zombie cheats did Brooks use to grease his story?

I mean, I know of the typical zombie cheats of no flies and no eating each other -- I just want to know what other kind of cheats he used. Because I have the feeling that he cheated like a motherfucker.

Because reasons.
As in, no good reason given.

No real cheats, he just handwaves it into plausibility. People universally lose their cool, there's mass confusion and are generally incompetent reactions. Now me, I'd have a lot harder time (both capably and morally) killing sentient people who can run, talk and use technology versus shambling, mindless cannibals.

The disease is only passed by being bitten or otherwise getting zombie fluids (containing zombie virus) in your fluids. So no airborne virus.

And zombies are slow uncoordinated shamblers who cannot even climb a 45 degree angle. Really there's no reason why a highschool softball team couldn't bash a few hundred zombies and walk away if they needed a break. We just ignore all this because we're being fed first-hand accounts in interview format.

Now, a zombie virus that changed people into intelligent ghouls could be kinda interesting, but still there's no reason why a ghoul menace would be any scarier than gang-bangers, or 3rd world warlords, or 2nd world despots.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:10 am

erik wrote:No real cheats, he just handwaves it into plausibility.

Oh, really?

So what do the zombies do about:

[*] Putrefaction?
[*] Non-putrefaction-related diseases?
[*] Drying out?
[*] Predation?
[*] Freezing?
[*] Recovering from the constant wear and tear of muscles?
[*] Basic nourishment between the offering of human bloodbags?
[*] Traveling outside of urban centers?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:28 am

The virus that infects them kills most other microorganisms because reasons. They don't need to eat or drink because reasons. Nothing eats them because genuinely nothing eats them - the number of places in the world where you, as a living human being, run the serious risk of being eaten is very small, and also the virus makes them unappealling because reasons. They freeze, and then they thaw out and keep doing things totally undamaged because reasons, and springs in certain regions are, during the recovery phase of the book, known for this exact problem.

"Human corpse that walks around indefinitely (or for months or years between meals) and never falls apart" is totally a biological implausibility, but it's a biological implausibility in every zombie story ever and there's no reason to call Brooks out for any of that. Zombies are practically defined by their magic monster metabolism.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:30 am

You people are idiots for talking about how he cheats in constructing his zombies.

Zombies are literally nothing but cheat. The entire concept of "undead" necessitates cheating.

Talking about how he did or didn't specify a specific reason that muscles rebuild themselves or don't is fucking retarded.

EDIT: Except DSM who ninjaed me with the same thing I was saying. In case that wasn't clear.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:59 am

While we're talking about guns, though - the world produces enough ammo yearly to murder the entire population of the planet at least once with spares. And while that ammo does not end up distributed evenly and not everyone can drop a zombie with each and every bullet, the idea that ammo will be scarce does not match the reality. And no, bullets really aren't that heavy. 10lbs of ammo sufficient for headpopping is 500+ bullets. There are two ways to attack the feasibility of firearms in the zombie apocalypse: 1) they're noisy, and the number of zombies you will attract are less than the number of zombies you will kill, or 2) resources aren't getting allocated well, i.e. some dudes make it to the gun store and take all the bullets and then fuck off to an impenetrable well-armed fortress/die pathetically somewhere hidden or inaccessible.

In WWZ, I'm pretty sure the zombies did some kind of convergence thing and attract one another by default (especially when they'd found munchables), so if you are found by a zombie stealth stops being a possibility and you can just go ahead and start shooting. Point two is totally plausible at the level of individual survivors who may or may not have found bullets, but not at all plausible at the level of competent, funded organizations attempting to combat the zombie hordes (especially if they begin doing so while the infrastructure is up) for whom ammo is in abundance.

The only thing your enemy being zombie hordes changes about firearms is that you stop using automatic fire. Though, even then spraying some automatic fire is likely to disable/stagger/knockback the frontmost of the horde (aim low! break those legs!), at which point you've created an obstacle course of squirming meat for all the shambling zombies behind that - not the worst delaying tactic ever, if for some reason slow shamblers aren't already slow enough for you.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:07 am

DSM wrote:"Human corpse that walks around indefinitely (or for months or years between meals) and never falls apart" is totally a biological implausibility, but it's a biological implausibility in every zombie story ever and there's no reason to call Brooks out for any of that

Kaelik wrote:Talking about how he did or didn't specify a specific reason that muscles rebuild themselves or don't is fucking retarded.

If you're not even going to have a fingernail's purchase on reality then there's absolutely no point in using the zombie meme. Seriously, why can't you just have a realistic portrayal of a ghost apocalypse or a werewolf apocalypse or a dinosaur apocalypse then? You'd need just as many fudges to make those things work out.

A couple of fudges, sure, I'll allow that. But seriously, if you need more than that then you should maybe consider that the plot of your story fucking sucks the flesh off of wildebeest dongs and you should get a new one.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:47 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:A couple of fudges, sure, I'll allow that. But seriously, if you need more than that then you should maybe consider that the plot of your story fucking sucks the flesh off of wildebeest dongs and you should get a new one.

So you are basically saying pretty much all zombie movies should be chucked for exactly that reason then.

I'm on board with that. I've been on board with that since the very beginning.

The problem is the most plausible zombie in the real world is the zombie movie, the fucking things just won't die they just rot, and multiply.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:58 am

Lago, what in the fuck are you on about? Honestly, this is an incredibly stupid rant. At no point ever in the history of zombie flicks was "realistic zombies" ever a standard, and the idea that refusing to be realistic about problems with zombie metabolism is somehow a dishonor to the genre tells us you aren't even fucking talking about the genre and are completely in the realm of bitching about shit you want to bitch about because you want to bitch about that shit and you won't let petty things like reason or history or making sense get in your way.

This is the paragraph where I make fun of you for attacking fiction based on an appeal to realism, possibly in the form of a sarcastic rant where I pretend to agree with you and start rambling about how wizards make no sense and need to be removed from D&D and if you can't tell your fantasy story without wizards then wildebeest dongs.

The reason there aren't ghost apocalypses or werewolf apocalypses or dinosaur apocalypses is that no one cares and no one thinks those are cool.

Nothing in that post made sense. Top to bottom, left to right, inside out to outside in - it's all very, very bad.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 2:35 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:If you're not even going to have a fingernail's purchase on reality then there's absolutely no point in using the zombie meme.

28 days later is not the standard for zombie movies that created the meme.

The standard that created the genre is George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. You know why zombies exist? Because no one fucking knows. You know why they don't putrefy? Because no one fucking knows. You know why their muscles don't decay? Because no one fucking knows.

Zombies are not supposed to and have never been realistic. The entire point of using the zombie meme is to use fucking magic to create an arbitrary impossible situation so you can tell a story with a metaphor.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 5:43 pm

Kaelik wrote: Talking about how he did or didn't specify a specific reason that muscles rebuild themselves or don't is fucking retarded.

Yes. The bigger issue is the fact that artillery doesn't work against them for some reason. Or how the USAF for some reason can't just bomb the fuck out of a giant mass of millions of slow-moving infantry.

I mean, sure, several million zombies all moving towards one target is going to produce a human crush capable of knocking down buildings, potentially. But fuck, it;'s also one big target.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jul 07, 2013 11:25 pm

For what it's worth, in esponding, I thought Lago was speaking in these kind of terms, where 'proper' zombies are slow moving, mindless, blah blah blah, and was responding in that context- where violating those precepts is considered "a cheat". In that parlance, Brooks' zombies do not cheat. That Lago believes zombies have to be realistic... I sure wasn't expectin that. I got nuthin better than what folks already said.

For WWZ, I reckon I'm more willing to accept the impossible (i.e. Zombies) more than the totally implausible (that said zombies are an existential threat of greater concern than the flu). Still the required suspension of disbelief of the impossible and the implausible didn't detract from my enjoyment of the books.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 1:34 am

I just got back from the Lone Ranger.

I will not say it's a -bad- movie.

But it does change tone.

The beginning is fucking -grim-. The villain kills a man by cutting out his heart and eating it. And they make it clear that this isn't the first time he's done that.

Tonto is out to kill the villain, who he calls a wendigo. There's a fairly creepy bit with rabbits where Tonto explains that when a wendigo's around, nature goes wrong.

It works. Tonto does some spiritualism stuff. Sure, it's sorta played for laughs, at times--him arguing with the horse is a good example there--but it made for a coherent plot and wendigos need more screentime.

Then about halfway through the movie, stuff got sillier and sillier, and the magic subplot disappears until the long-ass 'climax' on board a moving train with fucktons of physical comedy and it was honestly damn goofy and even though it featured the same characters, it didn't seem like it was the same movie.

It was a bit of a buzzkill.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 1:41 am

PhoneLobster wrote: The problem is the most plausible zombie in the real world is the zombie movie, the fucking things just won't die they just rot, and multiply.

I look forward to a Lich, Ghost, Dinosaur, Pixie, Djinn or Elemental Apocalypse: people will be so fucking at a loss of what to do. The plague of zombie movies and games has prepared people for zombies, but a wraith?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 1:57 am

Koumei wrote:
PhoneLobster wrote: The problem is the most plausible zombie in the real world is the zombie movie, the fucking things just won't die they just rot, and multiply.
I look forward to a Lich, Ghost, Dinosaur, Pixie, Djinn or Elemental Apocalypse: people will be so fucking at a loss of what to do. The plague of zombie movies and games has prepared people for zombies, but a wraith?

The interesting thing about a (D&D) wraith or shadow invasion is that they would actually work like the typical contrived zombie apocalypse scenario.

They can ignore conventional weaponry, ignore physics, kill people in about 10 seconds, anyone they kill turns into one of them, they are relatively unintelligent but able to communicate with each other on a basic level and organize to attack, their only goal is to consume the living, etc.

A Dinosaur Apocalypse has already been done in trading card format.

Pixie Apocalypse would be the best though, because of the basic absurdity of hordes of tiny winged people (if it's D&D pixies, they're also invisible) zipping around and killing the world population, with the world unable to figure out how to stop them.

And I actually think that the glut of bad zombie apocalypse media has ruined zombies more for me than Twilight has for vampires.