7 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail

Whether they spoil in the heat, freeze in the winter, or get taken out by a human-friendly venue of vultures, a zombie outbreak is unlikely to succeed. Here's 7 reasons why we should stop worrying about the shambling dead and start concentrating on a real threat: sparkly vampires.

Comments

Reason #0

[BSAtHome]

There are no zombies?

Re:Reason #0

[lgw]

But there is a huge market for all things zombie, and it doesn't even seem to have peaked yet. Zombies are the new vampires, and to date none of them sparkle in the sun.

Most of the zombie fiction is just a different approach to RPG-style problem solving, and has the same appeal. A zombie outbreak happens near you, and the zombies work this way. What do you do? What do you eat? How do you defend yourself? Do you find others, or avoid others? etc, etc. It's good fun.

Re:Reason #0

[Anonymous Coward]

we're talking about the classic Romero zombie I assumed, the one upon which most zombie fiction is now based.

Is it now? There have been several movies lately with non-Romero zombies. Fast Zombies, Rage-infected humans (close enough), etc. The slow, stumbling, couldn't walk up a flight of stairs zombies are Out, the fast, viscous, could sense you from across town, run over and still kill you zombies are In.

Which, funny enough, makes sense. The 'classic' zombie is untenable, from a biological and physical standpoint. Dead bodies that can't be stopped unless you destroy the brain? Puh-leaze. For a Z to walk, it needs to use its muscles. For the muscles to work, they need energy. Energy they get by (simplifying) taking sugar and oxygen out of the blood. That means the blood must be flowing, the lungs must be working. Shoot a Z in the leg, that wound will bleed. Lose enough blood= Z can't use muscles to move. Sure, the Z might be able to 'push through' the pain and remain active until the loss of blood affects it, but it will eventually 'die' of blood loss.

Most of the points the article made are fine and good, for the 'classic' zombie. But for Rage-infected humans, or similar... not so much.
7. Natural predators? They're fast, can think, even use weapons. They won't be taken down by a rogue dog.
6. and 5.- Hot and cold- they can think enough to seek cool places in the heat, and warm places in the cold. They are alive so their bodies produce heat.
4. Biting- a virus doesn't need to pass through biting. The common cold proves that. A 'rage' virus could be airborne, could get into water supplies, or could even linger on surfaces. Even if it's strictly carried by bodily fluids, there are more fluids than blood. A Z could spit at you. If you stab or slash one, a spurt or spray of blood could wind up being inhaled, or landing in an open wound, your mouth, or eye. As for the CDC getting involved... they would, but if the virus is airborne, it could infect a large enough number of people that it couldn't be contained.
3. Day-to-day damage isn't a real problem for non-classic Zs.
2. Same with rivers, bridges, and cliffs.
1. People. People with guns. Sure, they would be effective, but people would need to get over the "Oh, gosh, is that our neighbor? I can't shoot him" feelings. Could you shoot your wife or husband? Your kids? The number one mistake people make is not accepting that their zombied friend/lover/relative is GONE. Once that happens, we'll be okay.

Re:Reason #0

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention they are forgetting why Zombies ended up winning in the Romero flicks...human stupidity. If you remember the original Dawn of the Dead you had people believing it was part of the judgment and actively hiding dead relatives from the police and by the time they would find a "nest" it would have often spread to an entire building and made the entire building a threat.

The problem with any of these "disaster A can't happen" is they always assume humans will band together and act logically which if anything history has taught us in a widespread panic humans are as dangerous and stupid as any other scared animal. To quote MiB "A person is smart, people are dumb, dangerous, panicky animals and you know it.

Re:Reason #0

[fractoid]

The problem with any of these "disaster A can't happen" is they always assume humans will band together and act logically which if anything history has taught us in a widespread panic humans are as dangerous and stupid as any other scared animal. To quote MiB "A person is smart, people are dumb, dangerous, panicky animals and you know it.

You know, I love that quote as much as anyone but I'm not convinced it's true. Think of the times when people really HAVE been up against the wall in large numbers, with a cause they believe in, and I think you'll find that in general, we're pretty good in a pinch. Take, for example, the British in WW2. They're having the absolute shit bombed out of them but they stayed organized for the most part and put up a hell of a fight.

Re:Reason #0

[fractoid]

Yeah, well our vampire trope was mostly laid down by Bram Stoker, and there was nothing sexy about them back then. They were just a particular kind of mostly-mindless undead with pretty specific rules for how to dispatch them (nothing that doesn't also work on humans, mind you). Later additions by Anne Rice made vampires sexy and mysterious rather than just bloodthirsty and undead. These days they've been romanticised to the point where there are barely any drawbacks to being a vampire (gee thanks Stephanie Meyer).

Likewise, the original Haitian zombies started off the whole "now he's dead, now he's shuffling around" trend. They've slowly been modified by successive media releases since then and the standard zombie trope is now quite removed from its roots.

Re:Reason #0

[hairyfeet]

But you are missing the fact that they had Churchill to lead them by example and to rally the troops, whereas in a zombie or other mass disease attack most likely the leaders would run for it like everyone else. We simply don't create leaders like Patton and Churchill anymore, instead we get politicians who will save their own ass first and foremost. Can you really picture Obama (or Palin or your choice of politician) standing there to rally folks with the risk of contagion like Churchill was willing to walk through bombed areas with the threat of further bombing looming?

Then of course you have the religious aspect, which would REALLY bite us in the ass. If you remember Dawn of the Dead those that believed in the judgment actively helped the zombies believing that the walking monsters were really their dead relatives being risen by their God. In large cities this would create a quickly escalating situation, where just like in the movies believers would attempt to "care" for their dead relatives, getting infected themselves, and by doing so creating "nests" where whole buildings would become infected.

In the end it would come down to whether or not we have any leaders that are willing to risk their own asses and make the hard choices on the spot. Sadly what we have now is a spoilt ruling class used to be coddled and treated like little kings that would probably abandon us at the first sign of danger to themselves. The days of leaders like Churchill that were willing to risk their lives for their people are long past I'm afraid.

Re:Reason #0

[silentcoder]

There are no zombies yet.

FTFY.

#7. They Have Too Many Natural Predators

[Ocyris]

Come on now. Everyone know if you eat zombie flesh you become a zombie. Before you know it we'll be up to our necks in zombie lion, zombie tiger and zombie bears. However, zombie birds will probably be the worst considering the distances they can cover.

This doesn't seem very scientific...

[pedantic bore]

This person is claiming that zombie outbreaks will fail, but where is the evidence? Has there ever been a zombie outbreak that has actually failed for any of these reasons?

It all seems like blind optimism to me.

Re:This doesn't seem very scientific...

[bar-agent]

Has there ever been a zombie outbreak that has actually failed for any of these reasons?

Well, that is a good point, but let me turn that question around for a second. Has there ever been a zombie outbreak that succeeded?

#1 pretty much covers it

[confused one]

We got em, they don't. To quote another fictional character, Neo, "Guns, lots of guns"

max brooks

[Anonymous Coward]

Read World War Z and the Zombie Survival Guide and you will have some sound (although I'd agree that they're hardly perfect) scientific reasons why zombies might make it.

Re:The US

[mhajicek]

I, for one, leave it to the US to deal with zombie outbreaks. You, guys have so many weapons stashed up it would be a joke to deal with a couple of zombies. Just get to Europe, will ya?

Sure, like how "we" handled Katrina? The BP spill? Wonderful. The first official act would be to round up all the survivors and confiscate their weapons, then leave them in a stadium with no supplies. Then just one infected gets mixed in with the others...

Panicky Idiots

[esocid]

History has shown that in most awful situations, people don't always act like the panicky idiots in a horror movie. In cities, people would likely congregate in the upper levels of high-rise buildings, where the invasion can be held at bay with simple security doors.

Ahem. I beg to differ.

Re:This!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're talking about Romero's "Dead world" films. Only a bite will infect a living person, true, but anyone who dies and is not disposed of properly rises again for some reason.

  That's The Night of the Living Dead's whole thing, where the zombies dig their way out of graves, unbitten, to attack the whole world at once. The following chaos and disruption greatly increases their numbers not only through bites, but through any incidental deaths that occur.

  If it's viral, and this is unknown, then living tissue is able to defend against the airborne vector but not the bite vector; or perhaps the bite is some form of poison unrelated to the actual infection, which then proceeds as usual after the person dies from the poisonous bite.

This article's good, but only applies to some zombie scenarios.

Re:Stephenie Meyer is a talentless hack

[Keen Anthony]

It wouldn't be hard to really. Look at the average post-goth teen. They're still in love with death and the macabre. A vampire is just an undead human if you remove the demon aspect. Stephenie Meyer did that *shudder*. I suppose, you could have teen protagonists, one of which dies and comes back, and then they try to make it work. Think about Return of the Living Dead 3 and factor in some of the recent zombie mockumentaries where zombies are vying for civil rights. I think, sadly, a teen zombie romance is a logical eventuality. I'm sorry.

You want scientific?

[juletre]

You want scientific? Ok, here you go: http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf It is a mathematical model of how the zombies will spread.

It is not as optimistic as cracked.com I am afraid.

Re:"Ancient" as in... 19'th century?

[Locke2005]

Even when myths gave them a couple of neurons still working, then they'd be riddled with a crippling OCD, so they'd irresistably stop and count the grains in a pile of rice or whatever.

So Sesame Street's depiction of "The Count" is spot on then.