- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I wonder how this interacts with Brooks claiming that artillery doesn't affect zombies because they're immune to overpressure.
Lets Read: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
- Thread starter veteranMortal
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SemiSaneAuthor
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- Location
- Sol-3, Memetic Quarantined World - For English
- Pronouns
- They/Them
IC:
Well, unless someone has [Redacted] it to the ninth level of hell and it's classified so much [Joke] we'll find out in the year 3000 when Philip J. Fry is unfrozen. [/Joke]
I do though think, "Denial of The Supernatural," caused some blowback right back at us is also a decent hypothesis. Which, if so, means the Junta may also be in for some interesting times to say the least.
OOC: Thank you for this, always nice to see this in the alerts.
Facist Millitary Dictatorship, going and denying possible supernatural theories. Yes, the US Junta is going for the classic playbook. As an Agnostic ... I have to go with, An Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence. And the Damn Ghouls are evidence of something fucky is going on, but we have hypothesises and a lack of actual proof for anything approaching an actual theory.
Well, unless someone has [Redacted] it to the ninth level of hell and it's classified so much [Joke] we'll find out in the year 3000 when Philip J. Fry is unfrozen. [/Joke]
A decent hypothesis, but finding evidence for Hate-Sustatined-Ghouls is one of those annoying things.
I do though think, "Denial of The Supernatural," caused some blowback right back at us is also a decent hypothesis. Which, if so, means the Junta may also be in for some interesting times to say the least.
OOC: Thank you for this, always nice to see this in the alerts.
- Pronouns
- They/Their
OoC:
Zombies are only immune to Overpressure in the sense that it denies the capabilities to remove the Zombie Threat via Industrial Warfare, because the entire scenario is set up to ensure that you have to *personally* deal with the Zombies, as they have nothing beyond that Personal Threat.
King Washington
Semi-Depressed Lurker
- Location
- Indiana
I feel the most obvious problem with the literal demonic possession hypothesis is that the Zed's behavior aren't exactly indicative of something truly intelligent directing them.
- Location
- Somewhere within the static
Demons of all sorts have room for some curses as mindless as this but just stuff like this? That's the key issue unless you want make the theory have the same issues as the aliens.
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- Location
- Earth
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- He/Him
Demons don't exist, so you can attribute whatever qualities you want to them.
Which is, in my opinion, the biggest problem with thought-terminating theories like "demonic possession". You can't disprove the "theory," because demons have no inherent qualities; any conceivable observation could be compatible with some kind of demonic possession. By the same token, even if we did have proof of demonic possession, that would tell us nothing, because the demons could cause any effect and be completely compatible with the nothing we know about demons.
"The infected are possessed by demons" isn't just fundie BS, it's completely meaningless fundie BS.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
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- He/Him
I mean, it's as good an explanation as any. Zombies violate thermodynamics in some exceptionally obvious ways - the fact they don't expend mass for energy being one of the most notable. A zombie can, so far as we can tell - and we're tracking them, we know this for a fact - survive for at least years underwater without rotting or exposure to the sun or eating anything, and not change in appearance from the first time they're spotted to the most recent.
'but maybe the virus is an autotroph', you might say, to which I would point out that it's a virus, not a bacteria.
Sure, there might be some explanation that we discover eventually, but it seems... pretty unlikely, at the moment. People are absolutely looking into it (the Yanks for one are certainly trying to weaponise it already/again) but there's no indication we're going to get an answer in our lifetimes.
Like, we've done a lot of science to the virus and to zombies. We know a bunch of stuff about them from observation and experimentation. Some parts of it are just beyond our understanding, though. Evil demons or alien space weapons or whatever are all the same thing - saying 'we have no idea how the fuck'.
'but maybe the virus is an autotroph', you might say, to which I would point out that it's a virus, not a bacteria.
Sure, there might be some explanation that we discover eventually, but it seems... pretty unlikely, at the moment. People are absolutely looking into it (the Yanks for one are certainly trying to weaponise it already/again) but there's no indication we're going to get an answer in our lifetimes.
Like, we've done a lot of science to the virus and to zombies. We know a bunch of stuff about them from observation and experimentation. Some parts of it are just beyond our understanding, though. Evil demons or alien space weapons or whatever are all the same thing - saying 'we have no idea how the fuck'.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Always OOC, as always:
And if that were a consequence of zombies going down to extreme oceanic depths with pressures of several hundred atmospheres, there's a good chance that most such crushed flesh-masses would stay down there. They wouldn't be very good at moving around afterwards, after all.
It's entirely possible, as more than a campfire story, that there are dozens or even thousands of spots on the deep ocean floor where currents or gravity carried a bunch of zombies to gather up against some obstacle like it was a snowdrift and they got squashed together into a functionally immobile mass of wrecked undead bodies. The only thing that's required is for zombie 'meat' to have a pressure tolerance a few dozen atmospheres lower than zombie 'brains.'
Of course, if this could happen, we'd notice it, because you wouldn't find functional zombies below that depth and zombie populations in the open oceans would gradually decline on their own as they random-walk into that kind of situation. So maybe this can't happen, or can only happen through some strange quirk.
A more plausible origin for "crushed commingled mass of zombies" would be something like an avalanche.
In fairness, the specific possibility of a bunch of zombies getting crushed into a flesh-mass that remains animate is a lot closer to the precedent of known zombie behavior than having them spawn into demons or something like that. Badly crushed or physically disrupted zombies continue to function until "enough" has been done to their brains; this much is known. If pressure could collapse zombie bodies without destroying their brains, something like this might happen.
And if that were a consequence of zombies going down to extreme oceanic depths with pressures of several hundred atmospheres, there's a good chance that most such crushed flesh-masses would stay down there. They wouldn't be very good at moving around afterwards, after all.
It's entirely possible, as more than a campfire story, that there are dozens or even thousands of spots on the deep ocean floor where currents or gravity carried a bunch of zombies to gather up against some obstacle like it was a snowdrift and they got squashed together into a functionally immobile mass of wrecked undead bodies. The only thing that's required is for zombie 'meat' to have a pressure tolerance a few dozen atmospheres lower than zombie 'brains.'
Of course, if this could happen, we'd notice it, because you wouldn't find functional zombies below that depth and zombie populations in the open oceans would gradually decline on their own as they random-walk into that kind of situation. So maybe this can't happen, or can only happen through some strange quirk.
A more plausible origin for "crushed commingled mass of zombies" would be something like an avalanche.
Thaaaat is plausible.
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I don't think "demonic possession" is necessarily entirely crazy, but it is mostly crazy. Because, obviously demons don't or didn't exist and we can't agree on anything. But most stories of demonic possession, whether in fiction or religious contexts, speak of them as single incidents and also imply capabilities that don't really exist among the zombies.
Zombies are DUMB. They don't seem guided by some higher intelligence, or even the intelligence of a particularly smart animal, and they're not an individual phenomenon. They certainly don't fit any Christian conception of "demonic possession."
That say, yeah, of course this shit is obviously completely supernatural in the sense of not following the laws and rules of physics.
Zombies are DUMB. They don't seem guided by some higher intelligence, or even the intelligence of a particularly smart animal, and they're not an individual phenomenon. They certainly don't fit any Christian conception of "demonic possession."
That say, yeah, of course this shit is obviously completely supernatural in the sense of not following the laws and rules of physics.
Opaline Dreams
Virenina's handler
- Location
- Tei Ura
- Pronouns
- Any
Hey now – maybe it's one demon trying to control every single zombie. How fine a level of control do you think you'd be able to manage if you had to control billions of moving parts at once? That demon's probably doing the best it can while being stretched so thin.
Just kidding, my pet theory is the one about the membrane between worlds growing thinner.
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- He/They
IC:
I've always been partial to the "hell was full" theory. Don't have a rational reason for it, half of the thought process probably comes from the constant CSA propaganda radio that was the only thing to listen to in the base outside of groans and even they started broadcasting 19 different preachers with 20 different opinions during that whole schism and downfall thing at the end of the war. Of course, I only caught the start of that before the army came to town and I joined up.
Did help clear Savannah, though never fought in the harbor. I'd say you're discounting what those boys went through too much. Saw their faces, the way a bunch of them never trusted close spaces as much again, and how they got "honorably discharged" when the PTSD hit and the army decided it could afford to send the mentally wounded away from the front. We did joke that the fastest way home was a good swim, but the was just gallows humor. Good men were broken to get the boats back in the water, too many.
Of course, I'm busted in the head too, but mine's the productive-for-Z-war kind, not the kind that sends you home permanently.
I've always been partial to the "hell was full" theory. Don't have a rational reason for it, half of the thought process probably comes from the constant CSA propaganda radio that was the only thing to listen to in the base outside of groans and even they started broadcasting 19 different preachers with 20 different opinions during that whole schism and downfall thing at the end of the war. Of course, I only caught the start of that before the army came to town and I joined up.
Did help clear Savannah, though never fought in the harbor. I'd say you're discounting what those boys went through too much. Saw their faces, the way a bunch of them never trusted close spaces as much again, and how they got "honorably discharged" when the PTSD hit and the army decided it could afford to send the mentally wounded away from the front. We did joke that the fastest way home was a good swim, but the was just gallows humor. Good men were broken to get the boats back in the water, too many.
Of course, I'm busted in the head too, but mine's the productive-for-Z-war kind, not the kind that sends you home permanently.
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- Earth
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- He/Him
It's not an explanation at all! That's, like, half of my point! It's not, as you put it, saying 'we have no idea how the fuck'. It's pretending you know how the fuck ("It's demons!"), but in a way that explains nothing and provides no usable insights.
If you want to say "We have no idea how the fuck," don't say "demons" or "aliens" or whatever.
This is better. In principle, it's falsifiable and investigating it could reveal something about how solanum functions.
In practice it relies on a lot of assumptions designed to be untestable, but it's leagues better than Satandidit or Aliensdidit.
Eh...
First off, I question the assumption that pressure which crushes flesh would leave brains alone.
Second, I question the assertion that breaking a zombie's body doesn't stop it from working; it's plausible in settings where all parts of a dismembered zombie continue to move, but cutting off these zombies' heads disables the bodies and breaking their leg bones forces them to crawl and so on.
Third, what force is making the pulverized flesh congeal into one coherent organism? Necrorganism, whatever.
- Location
- A Pit Of My Own Making
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sorry? What happened at Troll?
I enjoy that one as well. Less so the preachy folks that keep spouting it and other crap.
Some other reasons I've heard:
- Mummy's curse
- Bath salts
- Ancient parasite that escaped from melting permafrost
- Parasite that came up from the ocean depths.
- One guy called Darren didn't complete to go kiss someone, and this is the result
- A computer virus that jumped species
- Location
- Somewhere within the static
I feel this is more a failure of the absence of any falsification or successful hypothesizing to be found with the undead. We clearly know nothing about whatever hidden evolutionary and biochemical mechanisms that would provide a so-called "scientifically grounded" reason. As irrational and meaningless a step demonology is people just want any crumb they can find.
For me i join the broad "hell is full" line of thought. Though i personally lean towards African Or Asian loose meanings of "hell". It's clear the current hypothesized evidence points to at least.
"Book sadako did it" is a deep enough cut to earn merit on its own.
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- Mid-Atlantic
It's questionable, but it's at least superficially plausible- we would not be totally flabbergasted if it were true- that waterlogged zombie brain might have a higher crush tolerance than certain other tissues. Maybe only by 5-10 atmospheres, relevant only in a band of a 50-100 meters or so of water depth, but I could imagine it being a thing. In principle. Maybe.
Well, in this scenario you'd have a lot of partly-crushed but still-mobile zombies entangled with one another. The arms and legs and whatnot aren't independently mobile, they're just still attached to still-functioning brains, but in bad enough condition that they start to lose form and cohesion.
The collective mass wouldn't really be a threat to anything and probably wouldn't be independently mobile except under really unlikely circumstances, of course. It just wouldn't necessarily stop moving, any more than a zombie that has a truck run over its foot will stop trying to move that foot in a floppy ineffectual fashion.
I wonder if anyone ever tried the experiment of sticking pieces of one zombie onto another zombie to see if, say, a zombie with no feet could use grafted feet from a different zombie? Whatever process zombies use to control their bodies seems only loosely correlated with the nervous system, so under weird conditions I could imagine that a bunch of 'extra' flesh might get at least partially connected to a brain it didn't originally belong to. Maybe.
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The roleplaying in this thread is fun because I can just decide that anyone in this thread I disagree with is either a Junta shill or they're stealing zombie war valor.
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- They/Their
OoC:
It could also literally just be that they had completely different experiences from other people.
My Guy spent the War a Nomad running from the Junta, Vet spent it as a Communist Militia Trooper, and several others have completely unconnected experiences.
That's... quite a leap between options.
It could also literally just be that they had completely different experiences from other people.
My Guy spent the War a Nomad running from the Junta, Vet spent it as a Communist Militia Trooper, and several others have completely unconnected experiences.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
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- It/She/They
No, there's only two options
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Reprisals against oil rig workers for organising.
Article: The civilian oil workers, they wouldn't go back to work, even under threat of reprisals, until we, their escorts, were better armed. They'd lost enough of their people already, ambushed out of the darkness.
Mazeka
You must be joking
- Location
- United States
OOC: Group-based rpg or character-driven?
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
I think the american Junta once tried one of those.
The tube was too short and heavy to serve as an effective pole arm, and the metal spike they put on the warhead ruined the aeridynamics, range and had a tendency to deflect the shrapnel back at the operator.
Which is a mercy really, given that the blast will attract every zombie in a wide area
- Location
- The Underdark
I would be inclined towards trying for a hybrid, but if all else fails, I would go character driven over group based.
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- They/Their
OoC:
That way we're not filling the thread with a Derail.
Mind if I ask ya a few questions over DMs?
That way we're not filling the thread with a Derail.
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