Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Zombie Mob   [Jonah Goldberg]

Okay, so I've now gotten at least a couple hundred e-mails on the most vital issue of the day: Zombie preparedness. A few random notes, asides, observations, and a bunch of e-mail:

1. My zombie-movie filter makes it very difficult not to imagine that the people sending me critical e-mail won't be eaten by zombies almost instantaneously. In virtually every horror movie, the person who says "There's no such thing a X . . ." invariably gets scooped-up and devoured/mutilated/impregnated/decapitated by X. So when a reader sends me the following:

Um......there's no such things as zombies.

Enjoy the rest of your life!

I can only assume a zombie came up from behind him seconds after the reader hit "send" on that e-mail and had his Adam's Apple chewed off.

2. I haven't read WWZ but I find this whole idea that zombies can "survive" at the bottom of the ocean to be ludicrous. Water pressure down there would crush them.

3. The issue of what happens when sharks eat zombies, however, strikes me as a very serious one.

4. So far, no one has talked me out of the boat thing. Even if zombies could walk the ocean floors (again, preposterous!), how are they supposed to reach my boat? Even if I have the anchor down and they can climb up the chain, that seems to be a pretty defensible weak spot in the perimeter.

5. My  favorite e-mail so far might be this one:

Jonah,

My friends and I game (RPGs typically) every couple of weeks, and there are a number of us who have “gamed” various zombie scenarios (as gamers are wont to do) over the years.

The large commercial boat idea is good, but as a practical matter you may be fighting people like us to get one of those things for yourself.  There are more gamers out there than you know, and preparation is what we do and who we are.

But if we like you, we’ll probably make an accommodation.  Only one of us (maybe two) is a liberal, so I have a good chance to plead your case successfully.  I will tell them you wrote Liberal Fascism.  That’ll probably get you in.

Sincerely,

[Name withheld]

PS - When I was in high school (I’ve been gaming a long time) it used to be nuclear war survival scenarios, with the assumption that Detroit would be targeted using a 20 megaton weapon.  We actually got hold of Dept. of Defense materials showing estimated blast radius damage and radiation estimates for ground strike (the Soviets did not focus on air burst munitions, this in order to increase the spread of radioactive dust) high megaton bursts, to see if Grosse Pointe was in an instant kill zone.

There's much I like about this. But my favorite part is that should — or rather when — the zombies come, my biggest concern viz-a-viz human competition for resources will be how to deal with role-playing game community and not say, some dudes from Delta Force or a Marine platoon or the Hell's Angels. Must watch out for those gamers! They've rolled many a 20-sided die to figure out what to do!

I don't mean to overly mock; these are my people. But, I think there's a certain hubris that comes with thinking about these sorts of things too much. Even if you've gamed this a million times, when the zombies come, I'd still rather be embedded with with a bunch of Navy SEALS caught completely by surprise.

6. For those of you who think the "fast-zombie" is an affront to traditional zombie values, Simon Pegg agrees.

7. For those of you who think I've put too much thought into this, you should check Zombie Squad  or consider a few of the following e-mails:

Dear Jonah,
 
I like your idea of the boat, but then, I am a known ship-freak.  Which leads me to some thoughts that I have yet to see included as modifiers to your idea.  First point: sails.  A true, old-fashioned sailing ship might be a boon to the zombie avoidance thing.  While many such ships have had engines over the years, while under sail, you needn’t be using that much fuel.  And just so you know that ships are not out of date, there is the Maltese Falcon.
 
An action video of the Maltese Falcon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvG8LhInqsY
 
Here’s a more complete video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZoS93qkZHw
 
Now, the Maltese Falcon is a sweet, sweet piece of transportation, but may not do as well for zombie avoidance and anti-zombie warfare as an old-fashioned sail frigate.  The USS Constitution is a fine example.  Ever seen the cannon on that baby?  Yes!  Grape shot is a sovereign cure for zombies!  Man the swivel guns.  There have been many more modern sailing ships built than the old sail frigates, but they often have higher technological requirements.  It would become a trade off as to exactly what technologies you think you can live with or without.  For instance, the USCGC Eagle (which was originally the Nazi training ship Horst Wessel) has a steel hull and diesel engines to supplement the sails.
 
Points:
 
Frigates from the age of sail could carry enough supplies for the crew to last six months.  So, you’d only need to go ashore every six months, at most.  Depending on the type of zombie infestation, it might have burned out after six months.
Depending on the size of ship, the crew of a British post-ship or frigate might have ranged from 140 to 300 men.  (The USS Constitution was a heavy frigate or low end ship-of-the-line, so her complement was 450.)  This gives you a decent crew size for fighting off zombies and having breeding stock, provided your crew is co-ed. The USS Pennsylvania, a 120-gun ship-of-the-line of battle, had a crew of 1,100, so you really could have a decent population for restarting after the zombies are defeated.
Many large yachts and cruise ships have gardens, usually decorative.  No reason you couldn’t have a garden installed on the main deck of your frigate, since you have time to prepare.  This could extend your sailing time before it becomes necessary to set foot ashore or even approach shore.
A true sail frigate would remove the need for fuel, or if necessary, you could process types of fuel from the sea, such as whale oil.  Remember, when all the fascists become zombies, there’s nobody around to cry foul if you kill a whale or two to survive.
The requirements for casting cannonballs and shot and milling old-fashioned black powder are less than having a newer style of gun with cartridges.  When you run out of cartridges, it takes a lot to create more.  Technology for black powder and cannon was around hundreds of years ago.  With a little knowledge and a good-sized crew, you can create the necessary manufacturing capability aboard ship.
You don’t have to anchor off the coast, just keep sailing.  Why let down the anchor cables for zombies to crawl up?
If you have time to really prepare, you can get several large investors in the DC area as your crew.  You can start building a long-range anti-zombie ship right now to specifications you choose.  Were I doing it, I would build a monster trimaran to allow more upper surface area for the gardens.
 
Just a few fast thoughts for you.  I live in Michigan, so I don’t need to worry.  The population will be below zombie-support density levels before the zombie infestation hits.
 
Good luck with the preparations,

And:

Jonah,
 
Seeking refuge is not the appropriate answer in response to a Zombie outbreak.  It would simply postpone the inevitable.  A scientific (and readily understandable) study of a Zombie infection can be found at  Zombies.pdf, which will direct you to a paper from Carleton University /Ottawa University authors and published in the Infectious Disease Modeling Research Progress.
 
The conclusion is: the only way to overcome a zombie infestation is by constantly attacking the zombies themselves.  Forget the boats, fuel, etc.  What is required is high-powered weaponry, plenty of ammo and a bad-ass attitude.  And my wife asks me why I need to purchase another 500 rounds of .556 mm NATO.

And:

Jonah,

having not read World War Z I probably should not comment on its predictions.  However, having read a plot synopsis, I cannot help but attack the obnoxious assumption made in the book that conventional tactics which are effective against massed infantry cannot be deployed against zombies.  The book makes the argument that melee weapons and rifles would be most effective against zombies; in the story the United States forms ranks of riflemen to combat zombies because other technology is ineffective.  The very idea is ridiculous.  In close quarters and without cover, masses of zombies should be felled easily by carpet bombing, mortars, and the like.  Furthermore, the assertion that fully automatic weapons, particularly machine guns, would be wasteful is also ludicrous.  When fighting masses of zombies, a single round would penetrate several of them, while the large wounds resulting would be almost guaranteed to cripple said zombies by breaking bones, severing nerves (why is the brain important if the nerves aren't?), and tearing muscle.  I think the readers of NRO need to reconsider the vulnerabilities of zombies, given the fact that they (the zombies) cannot stand on broken bones, cannot pull with torn muscles, and cannot...brain...with significant nerve damage. 

I think that urban skyscrapers and warehouses could be easily modified to be zombie proof by damaging the stairs in the former and removing some of the shelving in the latter, perching only on the top about forty feet up (and using a stock picker as an elevator).  Unless our zombies can clamber up a sheer surface, my suggestion allows for the easiest means to procure supplies, particularly if the given warehouse stocks imperishable food. 

I should say for the record that a lot of readers think that Brooks's WWZ has some terrible misinformation when it comes to firearms generally. Perhaps that's a subject for another time.

Anyway, that's it for now. I have a deadline. Fortunately, this thread appears to be, well, undead. So there should be more as the need arises.

10/15 10:09 AMShare