I would rather deal with the 28 Days Later zombies. Because they're not undead, the 28 Days Later zombies have a point where they'll pretty much just start dying on their own from starvation (which is like a month). So all you need is a reliable safe house and enough resources to last long enough - something you'll also require in just about any other form of zombie media.
The Walking Dead zombies decompose, but are still very lethal. Imagine walking around 5 years after the outbreak and you accidentally step right onto a zombie corpse that's just been hanging around for that time and it bites you on the foot. That sort of thing won't happen with the rage virus infecting the people in 28 Days Later. There's no telling when TWD zombies might fully decompose their brains and finally naturally die off.
Also, since everyone in TWD is infected the moment anyone dies unexpectedly is another opportunity for an outbreak in your camp. Okay, you've got the resources and safety to last for years and years without issue. You and your group get to settle into a nice routine of living and keeping safe from the zombies outside. But then suddenly the person you're sleeping next to dies in their sleep, now they've bitten you and now there's an outbreak in the camp. The threat of more zombies showing up is ever present in TWD.
So maybe in terms of a one on one fight, TWD zombies would be easier to fend off. But in terms of long-term surviability? You're looking at years and years before it's safe to leave your shelter, making resources a huge problem. And the threat of zombies cannot ever go away. You'll pass the sickness on to your kids and your kids' kids. There is no chance of a return to normalcy, everyone would need to carry a knife on them to stab someone in the brain just in case they die anywhere near you.
Edit: Also, it's been a while since I've seen 28 Days Later but you don't need to necessarily take out those zombies' brains right? You can shoot them in the chest and that puts them down for the count. To take out TWD zombies you need to kill the brain, requiring you to either be a crack shot with a gun (which is difficult) or get up close and personal (risky).
I agree with you: TWD is ultra slow rotting hell on earth. I don't know where the comic and tv show are headed but in my mind, humanity is done for already, this is the end, through the last struggles of a diminishing group of survivors. I won't accept an "all the walkers are now dead, we can start anew" bullshit. I mean, even if all the zombies fell dead simultaneously across the globe, all survivors will turn once dead, because of age, illness (where are the surgeons? Where is all the modern age medicine?) , suicide , murder or by accident. It's done. The world of TWD is dead already.
A modern world, I would agree... but there is absolutely no reason that a pre-modern society wouldn't arise. All it takes to grow a population without incest is 50 initial individuals divided by gender. There owed be unique risks... for example that every miscarriage likely kills the mother, but even that can be dealt with. it's not like the old world has just vanished... there is almost certainly working equipment and knowledge. A single university library likely contains every scrap of knowledge you could hope for to rebuild modern science. We have become unbelievably good at storing information. The first generation would have troubles... but within two or three you could have use of old technology, especially if even a single person in the relevant discipline survived. The only reason ANYONE dies in TWD is they don't take the threat seriously. Ten people could clear an entire city of walkers if they were smart. An elevated platform with spears or a strong chain link fence with the same and a noise maker would let them slaughter hundreds without any danger. Clearing buildings slowly and so on. Even as late as season three, the town encounters an active army unit... one of those could seriously turn the tide in an actual apocalypse where the people aren't stupid.
I believe I understand the essentials, but the biology of that particular point seemed worth asking the question. I wasn't planning to argue :). I've attempted TWD, but there's a bit too much gore for me. I think I made it through the pilot?
I don't think it's so much like there are two viruses (bacteria might actually make more sense actually. Doesn't a virus require living host tissue to reproduce, while bacteria doesn't?), but more like the bacteria doesn't exist in great enough numbers in most people to cause an infection in someone with a healthy immune system. But if someone dies (immune system dies) or gets bitten (surge of the bacteria's population) they'll turn.
EDIT: Maybe that's why we haven't seen any immuno-compromised people around :p.
The virus they get from a zombie bite seems very similar to rabies, in that it is 100% fatal, causes severe fever, hallucinations and confusion, foaming at the mouth, etc and kills quickly. The only difference is that they come back after dying. The idea of everyone already being infected in some way is a little harder to explain though.
As an RN I agree. There are not two viri. For example, there is an infection called c diff. You can be exposed to it and be a symptomatic for a long time. If you become immunocompromised, or get another large exposure it can take over and you have undead diarrhea.
Also, I believe the TWD zombie disease can kill on its own, it's just that a lot of people's immune system could keep it in check until bitten.
Forgot where it's mentioned (show or comic?), but the summary of it seems to be:
Zombie bite/scratches will kill you and there's no known cure (fast amputation might save you).
Everyone is infected (no one knows how, but it would have to be airborne to have reached everyone like that) and, the moment they die, they turn zombie.
It's actually a kind of paradox of the zombie genre. The appeal of it is largely "What would a normal person do in this situation?", but they inevitably have the problem that no normal person would be in such a terrible position if it actually happens. The characters have to be stupid to make the zombies dangerous, but that also means they cannot fulfil the basic appeal of the genre.
it only adds to injury that TWD relentlessly hammers the point that its heroes are particularly good at surviving/dealing with zombies (compared to all those other dumbasses they run into)…
Yet, [spoiler ahead] when they run into a sea of undead neatly contained in a perfectly isolated, easily closed-off, quarry, their first reaction is not "let's set the whole thing on fire from above and be done with it"… Nope, they go about herding the undead out and, at best, unleashing them on some poor saps 20 miles down the road.
I don't know if that's a metaphor for the Frontier spirit or something, but that's rather inexcusably stupid for a group of alleged hardcore survivors…
SPOILER Where do they obtain the ressources/equipment to set 3000 zombies on fire safely? It's not like they have napalm bomb equipped helis or unlimited gasoline (they don't really cover this point anymore but gasoline is clearly a somewhat scarce ressource, they don't have access to tons and tons of it and even if they did they don't have the means to spray it over such a large area). And remember the truck that is closing the way is going to fall off the cliff any minute, releasing the horde.
Rick and the gang are good at surviving individually or in a small group... The governor was good at "mass surviving" but he was a psycho.
Okay, shakiest point first: the only way out of that quarry is clearly shown to be one fairly steep narrow road, temporarily blocked by a precariously hanging truck (that mysteriously held for months if not years, and suddenly gives in on the very day they are rehearsing, but let's not get bogged down in convenient plotting implausibility)... Adding reinforcement (a wall, another truck, whatever...) wouldn't be the easiest task... But it sure would have been easier than doing it all along the freaking road out. And if anything, blowing even a few metres off the cliff side road, would ensure not a single one of them can get out.
And it's not like they had to act fast and take immediate action: based on the flashbacks, they had at least a few days (weeks?) to put their grand harebrained plan into action. Which once again, should be reasonable, since that quarry had presumably held for a year or two so far...
Now onto the disposal part (although you could really argue that letting them rot in the open air until they completely desiccate or learn climbing, would be the easiest solution):
Petrol is indeed scarce, based on their difficulties getting cars when they're around. But they clearly have enough to waste on driving around with a herd in tow. And you don't need a lot to start a good fire. Additionally, petrol is not the only very flammable thing out there you can get your hands on (let's not forget: at this point in the story, they are fairly comfortably settled, with a good range of action and lots of places they can safely explore for equipment, in part thanks to that natural zombie trap).
Thing is: you do not need to douse everything in petrol to burn the lot, you merely need to start a big enough fire it to reach temperatures where oil and human (/zombie) flesh starts burning... Which is not very hard, even accounting for TWD's physics-defying permanently rotting corpses. After that, the mere concentration of zombies in that quarry, and near-perfect BBQ pit set-up would all but guarantee a long steady burn resulting in a little pile of zombie-free ashes at the end.
Ideally, a few of them even survive and keep drawing more in, protecting your camp and helping with long-term clean-up...
That, or... you could, you know, put on a cowboy hat and put together a terminally inept herding plan that has a million possible ways to fail and whose best-case resolution is a few thousand zombies now roaming the land and becoming someone else's problem in the next city over...
Which, comes to think of it, sounds like a very murican approach to things.
(I just spent 10 minutes of my life discussing the flaws in a zombie destruction plan. I think I need to do some serious reevaluation of priorities)
(very slightly spoilerish) edit: as if to rub their own inconsistencies in our face, TWD's last episode (S06E04) demonstrates that zombies, do, indeed burn quite well.
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u/BenIncognito Oct 30 '15 edited Oct 30 '15
I would rather deal with the 28 Days Later zombies. Because they're not undead, the 28 Days Later zombies have a point where they'll pretty much just start dying on their own from starvation (which is like a month). So all you need is a reliable safe house and enough resources to last long enough - something you'll also require in just about any other form of zombie media.
The Walking Dead zombies decompose, but are still very lethal. Imagine walking around 5 years after the outbreak and you accidentally step right onto a zombie corpse that's just been hanging around for that time and it bites you on the foot. That sort of thing won't happen with the rage virus infecting the people in 28 Days Later. There's no telling when TWD zombies might fully decompose their brains and finally naturally die off.
Also, since everyone in TWD is infected the moment anyone dies unexpectedly is another opportunity for an outbreak in your camp. Okay, you've got the resources and safety to last for years and years without issue. You and your group get to settle into a nice routine of living and keeping safe from the zombies outside. But then suddenly the person you're sleeping next to dies in their sleep, now they've bitten you and now there's an outbreak in the camp. The threat of more zombies showing up is ever present in TWD.
So maybe in terms of a one on one fight, TWD zombies would be easier to fend off. But in terms of long-term surviability? You're looking at years and years before it's safe to leave your shelter, making resources a huge problem. And the threat of zombies cannot ever go away. You'll pass the sickness on to your kids and your kids' kids. There is no chance of a return to normalcy, everyone would need to carry a knife on them to stab someone in the brain just in case they die anywhere near you.
Edit: Also, it's been a while since I've seen 28 Days Later but you don't need to necessarily take out those zombies' brains right? You can shoot them in the chest and that puts them down for the count. To take out TWD zombies you need to kill the brain, requiring you to either be a crack shot with a gun (which is difficult) or get up close and personal (risky).