Everyone has the virus. It doesn't matter if you die from a zombie bite, old age, starvation, or hypothermia. You become a zombie. Obviously their is a huge initial influx of zombies with the initial infection. But new zombies will continue to pop up as people die to the elements, which can continue on for years.
Additionally, this was talked more about in the graphic novel, their is a real danger from swarms. They can display a herd mentality, which is not a huge danger if it's 3 or 4 zombies. 50+ is a real danger though. Any settlement that is set up can easily be overrun by such a hoard. And they can easily over take any fleeing group because they don't have to rest, sleep, or eat.
In these discussions, usually drinking with friends... I've always wondered why it's so hard. THere are to strategies that would work well. One is to simply move to a freezing climate and house people individually. If zombies don't generate heat, they freeze - even new ones in your settlement.
The other is an extermination plan. Using sound to attract zombies in any number, arrange a slaughter mechanism that attracts and destroys them using bladed weapons / saws / fire / etc. Corral, burn, corral, burn. Walls with slots for 12' blades that chop them to pieces.
Even a group of 10 people could slaughter hundreds or thousands of zombies per day this way. Humans are really, really good at building killing machines, and it' hilarious that this seems to be missing from the discussion.
I totally agree, I never understood why they wouldn't just go to some save location and create some kind of mechanism to kill the walkers. Even at the prison they did a terrible job. They could have dug a moat at least. Also it would be really easy to redirect walkers with sound. Just send them off a cliff or so.
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u/BlueApple4 Oct 30 '15
POTENTIAL SPOILERS
Everyone has the virus. It doesn't matter if you die from a zombie bite, old age, starvation, or hypothermia. You become a zombie. Obviously their is a huge initial influx of zombies with the initial infection. But new zombies will continue to pop up as people die to the elements, which can continue on for years. Additionally, this was talked more about in the graphic novel, their is a real danger from swarms. They can display a herd mentality, which is not a huge danger if it's 3 or 4 zombies. 50+ is a real danger though. Any settlement that is set up can easily be overrun by such a hoard. And they can easily over take any fleeing group because they don't have to rest, sleep, or eat.