Ammo stockpiles

[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

I'm toying with the GPS Biohazard entry, which is a type of living zombie- Infected, Rager type. Since There are a lot of resistant bugs, I'm going with the lab working to solve this. When the accident occurs, an investor rep is present. The bacteria seem benign in its currant strain and the all clear is given. He has several grants to check across the U.S. getting the bacteria into the international airports, where a mutation gives it its deadly variant

As I sorta stated at the beginning, there are NO ZA books, movies or TV series that bear even the most cursory logical examination. Not a one.

They are all completely, totally, and utterly implausible ... indeed, mostly impossible.

Some I can tolerate because they are fun, and, generally, short ... others, are just too stupid for words. A few start out well and then descend into idiocy ... Ringo's books are like that, first was fine. Second started to become unbelievable. Third (and presumably successive ones) completely jumped the shark.

There are three key issues that ZA scenarios completely ignore because, if they took them into account, they would all be disasters, but not apocalyptic ones with mankind almost wiped out.

1) Zombies use energy (to move around and chase down other humans at the very least). Unless you repeal the laws of thermodynamics, the energy has to come from *somewhere* ... so Zombies need to eat.

As they are, by definition, possessed of at best animal cunning and no intelligence as such, that immediately eliminates all tinned and heavily packaged foods as a food source, and, in any case, they'll all be gone in a few days to a week or so from local stores, anyway.

Ergo, they need to eat something readily available ... since they are probably too stupid to recognise most plant foods (fruits and suchlike excepted) and since there is bugger all of such in cities, they will eat meat. Any meat. Not just humans.

The result? Well, how many herbivores does it take to feed a single Lion? Or how many Deer to feed a single Coyote? Given, of course, that the prey doesn't really want to be a Lion or Coyote's main course?

Answer: A heck of a lot. Which is why Lions are so thin on the ground and Coyotes ditto (compared to humans or human domesticated animals).

So, within a very short time cities might as well be deserts ... not enough food to support more than dozens or scores of zombies in an entire city ... unless the zombies eat each other, which has the same effect, more quickly, in fact.

There would be no massive hordes of zombies keeping people penned up on rooftops or the barricaded upper floors of multi-storey buildings ... not gonna happen.

In the countryside? Not much better for zombies ... they'll have to spread out like any apex predator, so the density per square mile will actually be very very low. So, at best, a dozen or so in a group, maybe a score or so.

Makes for very short post Zombie adventures.

2) Humans are quite fragile. Living in unsanitary conditions kills us off in large numbers, especially if malnourished.

Note what I pointed out in #1 above. Zombies will be thin on the ground because there isn't enough food.

Follow on. Humans are ill suited to relying on instinct and natural weapons to secure food ... the reason why we are the apex predator of apex predators is that we are intelligent. Tool use etc.

Zombies aren't intelligent and don't use tools. They would be relatively useless as hunters. They will routinely be malnourished ... if they remain in an urban setting, garbage and pollution will be breeding grounds for all sorts of nasties that would require modern medical care to allow them to survive ... and a heck of a lot more that will kill people (zombies) who get no medical care at all (it is well known, if widely underappreciated, that basic nursing can reduce the death rate for even high lethality diseases such as Smallpox, the Plague etc. Keeping the patient warm/cool/protected from the elements, toileted and clean, fed and watered).

The mortality rate would be very very high, and ongoing.

Zombies in rural areas, presumably away from urban filth, would be better off ... but, as noted, almost certainly routinely undernourished and, hence, much more susceptible to disease. And, of course, this brings us to ...

3) Climate. Humans are woefully adapted for anything but a warm climate. Our intelligence and tool use enable us to modify our environment and/or makes us resistant to it (housing, climate control, clothing) ... but Zombies simply aren't intelligent.

Ringo Zombies, being completely naked and all, if not thinned by starvation or disease, would increasingly succumb to exposure ... especially as the weather turns cold.

In most of North America and Northern Europe they would, for example, freeze to death in droves over the first (and all succeeding) winters.

I suppose they might instinctively migrate to warmer climates ... but that can bring its own problems. Think about unintelligent instinct driven poorly adapted for hunting or survival zombies trying to work their way south in the US ... into increasingly arid and semi-arid areas (if not outright deserts).

More die backs in large numbers.

Finally, as a clue as to how many Zombies the planet could support - it is estimated that our early stone age ancestors probably numbered no more than 100,000 worldwide ... only increasing to a million or so with the technological developments of the New Stone Age and Chalcolithic period.

Not much of a threat.

YMMV

Phil