ZOMBIES! Curse or Infection?

[dehro]

Wait, MacGyver was a scientist? I thought he was a government agent with some scientific knowledge. That's not really the same thing.

if I remember correctly he was educated in physics and chemistry.

[Mixt]

How about this?

Earlier in the story the protagonists had to fight of an invasion from hell, they won by sealing hell up tight so no more demons could get out and continue attacking...unfortunately it turns out nothing could get in either.

So the souls of the dead run right into a solid wall when trying to pass on.
Worse, there's some sort of Cosmic Abomination (ALA Lovecraft) in the empty space between dimensions that these souls traverse to get to hell.

Normally this would not be a problem since they travel through so quickly, but now, when their progress is blocked the Abomination has time to do...stuff to them.

Then after corrupting the souls, the Abomination sends them right back into their bodies on the living plane.

ZOMBIES!!!

And so the zombie apocalypse is a result of the heroes own actions.
Save the world from a demonic invasion, end up with Eldritch Horror empowered zombies instead.
You just went from bad to worse.

These zombies, as it turns out, are super-powered as a result of the corruption.

These powers include, among others:

-Teleportation (The walking corpse just teleported right up in your face and bit your nose off!)

-Perpetual motion (But then, most types of zombies has this already)

-Phasing through solid objects (Your silly barricades do nothing, they just walk right through the damn wall before turning solid again and ripping you apart)

-Regeneration (As in, pulling themselves back together if blown to pieces, the rest of the body will continue to attack even if the head is destroyed, heck, reduce it to nothing more than a arm and that arm will continue trying to strangle you to death even if the rest of it has been totally vaporized)

-Flight (...Oh frig)

-Psychically driving weak-willed individuals who look at them totally bonkers (And now you are gunning down your comrades while laughing like a maniac)

-Minor reality warping (Very minor, but still...AGH WALL OF FIRE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ESCAPE ROUTE)

EVERYONE who dies becomes one of those within 10 minutes or so after death.

How about those zombies?
Think the world can handle that?

The "Heroes" really screwed up this time didn't they?
Geez, you stop one apocalypse, only to cause another, even worse one as a direct result.

Just as the Abomination planned.

[Traab]

How about this?

Earlier in the story the protagonists had to fight of an invasion from hell, they won by sealing hell up tight so no more demons could get out and continue attacking...unfortunately it turns out nothing could get in either.

So the souls of the dead run right into a solid wall when trying to pass on.
Worse, there's some sort of Cosmic Abomination (ALA Lovecraft) in the empty space between dimensions that these souls traverse to get to hell.

Normally this would not be a problem since they travel through so quickly, but now, when their progress is blocked the Abomination has time to do...stuff to them.

Then after corrupting the souls, the Abomination sends them right back into their bodies on the living plane.

ZOMBIES!!!

And so the zombie apocalypse is a result of the heroes own actions.
Save the world from a demonic invasion, end up with Eldritch Horror empowered zombies instead.
You just went from bad to worse.

These zombies, as it turns out, are super-powered as a result of the corruption.

These powers include, among others:

-Teleportation (The walking corpse just teleported right up in your face and bit your nose off!)

-Perpetual motion (But then, most types of zombies has this already)

-Phasing through solid objects (Your silly barricades do nothing, they just walk right through the damn wall before turning solid again and ripping you apart)

-Regeneration (As in, pulling themselves back together if blown to pieces, the rest of the body will continue to attack even if the head is destroyed, heck, reduce it to nothing more than a arm and that arm will continue trying to strangle you to death even if the rest of it has been totally vaporized)

-Flight (...Oh frig)

-Psychically driving weak-willed individuals who look at them totally bonkers (And now you are gunning down your comrades while laughing like a maniac)

-Minor reality warping (Very minor, but still...AGH WALL OF FIRE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ESCAPE ROUTE)

EVERYONE who dies becomes one of those within 10 minutes or so after death.

How about those zombies?
Think the world can handle that?

The "Heroes" really screwed up this time didn't they?

Lure them all to antartica, THEN NUKE IT FROM ORBIT! Phase through THAT you damn dirty zombies!

[Brumski]

How about this?

Earlier in the story the protagonists had to fight of an invasion from hell, they won by sealing hell up tight so no more demons could get out and continue attacking...unfortunately it turns out nothing could get in either.

So the souls of the dead run right into a solid wall when trying to pass on.
Worse, there's some sort of Cosmic Abomination (ALA Lovecraft) in the empty space between dimensions that these souls traverse to get to hell.

Normally this would not be a problem since they travel through so quickly, but now, when their progress is blocked the Abomination has time to do...stuff to them.

Then after corrupting the souls, the Abomination sends them right back into their bodies on the living plane.

ZOMBIES!!!

I really liked this until you started giving the zombies super-powers. I thought you were going to say the Abomination drives the souls crazy just from experiencing it (ALA Lovecraft), then they get sent back to their bodies and become zombies.

For the OP, I was kinda confused cause I didn't see why a Curse couldn't be transferable by bites. Zack Snyder said about his zombies in his Dawn of the Dead movie that their bite was supernatural, like a vampire. So those zombies are basically both.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is also both, I guess. People that have been dead for years previously are still coming back, and if you get bit you slowly die and become one. So whatever it is is re-animating already dead bodies, and is infectious.

The scariest theoretical zombies are ones with an infectious bite, and if all people that die become zombies, period (Diary of the Dead). Any random person that dies from a heart attack or stroke or whatever would cause a mini-outbreak. Civilization would have to become much more regimented.

All that said, The Return of the Living Dead is the scariest zombie movie for me, maybe cause I first saw it as a kid, but those zombies are smart, fast, infectious and unkillable, caused by a chemical that re-animates any dead organism, slowly kills then re-animates any living ones, and RAINS FROM THE SKY.

At this point its pretty difficult to break down zombie lore into just two categories, you more or less have to identify them by each movie/book/comic. "We talkin Romero zombies?"

[H Birchgrove]

Wait, MacGyver was a scientist? I thought he was a government agent with some scientific knowledge. That's not really the same thing.

if I remember correctly he was educated in physics and chemistry.

He was also an engineer, and worked with bomb disposal during the Vietnam War. The Wikipedia entry even states that the TV-series made (young) viewers interested in engineering.

[Mixt]

A little elaboration on that last post.

The Abomination's influence in the material universe is extremely limited.
So the plan is to get more of itself into the material universe.
It does this by using those souls of the dead.

The corruption is actually due to the creature attaching small parts of itself to the soul, essentially hitchhiking to get past the barrier that exists for the sole purpose of keeping IT the hell out.

Having a fragment of that thing attached also has the side-effect of giving the soul a tiny fraction of the creatures reality-warping power, which manifests as the things i listed.

This leads to the zombies becoming better at killing, thus killing more people, leading to more souls being "Corrupted", leading to the abomination gaining a stronger foothold within the material universe and creates more zombies, leading to more people dying...and so on.

And once it has smuggled enough pieces of itself into the material universe...let's just try not to think about it.

Ultimately, the "Super-Zombies" are just a byproduct off the resident Cosmic Horror's attemps to destroy the universe (Which requires being able to interact with it)

Still, a Zombie Apocalypse is still a Zombie Apocalypse, regardless of the nature of the zombies or what is responsible for them.

[Brother Oni]

Still, a Zombie Apocalypse is still a Zombie Apocalypse, regardless of the nature of the zombies or what is responsible for them.

There's only so far you can push zombies until they stop being zombies. THe main essence of them is that they're an unstoppable mindless horde (satirisation of the consumer culture drone aside), turn them into intelligent beings with super powers and all you have is a reflavoured superhero movie.

An example of how things can be pushed too far - the Twilight series' interpretation of vampires.

[Coidzor]

Cursed are BY FAR less scary. You just hole up of 2 months with a stockpile of food and water, and whatever the maggots, coyotes, at such haven't gotten, the rot will have.

Infected, though, are braindead, so I'm not too worried, same thing. Coyotes, dogs, pumas, and such will devour/destroy them, they'll starve once a ll the humans hide, and they very well might dehydrate to death. Just kick back for two months or so, then stick your head outside from a roof, so no zombies, see how it looks, then, yeah.

Would you please clarify your reasoning here, as you seem to be saying that supernaturally physics (and between usually and potentially rot) defying zombies are less scary than infected zombies because they'll rot away in the same manner.

Highlighting their similarities doesn't really help us understand why you find curse zombies less frightening.

also, in my experience, the definition of scientist does not exclude "raging lunatic with a gun"... whilst I agree that your average trained soldier is going to be a better fighter, there are plenty of scientists in various field who are extremely fit and capable of holding their ground in a fight.

Apparently the Siren from Borderlands even has a Ph.D, after all. And, well, the majority of characters in that game qualify for both and the plurality qualify for the first bit.

[Traab]

There's only so far you can push zombies until they stop being zombies. THe main essence of them is that they're an unstoppable mindless horde (satirisation of the consumer culture drone aside), turn them into intelligent beings with super powers and all you have is a reflavoured superhero movie.

An example of how things can be pushed too far - the Twilight series' interpretation of vampires.

emphasis on the mindless part. But yeah, if you want undead hordes with abilities, choose something else from the vast pantheon of undead. Wights, ghouls, vampires, mummies, specters, ghosts, ghasts, abominations, skeletons, the list is huge. Dont take something with big name recognition and slap on all sorts of extra abilities. If you do you wind up with final fantasy, the spirits within!

[Mixt]

Let's see here, they are corporeal most of the time, so the incorporeal undead such as ghosts are out.

They certainly aren't mummies.

Not vampires either, not only are they unaffected by sunlight, but they look every bit as dead as they are, whereas vampires tend to be able to appear mostly human.

Not skeletons, they still have flesh on them, unless they get stripped to the bone that is, that would turn them into skeletons.

Ghouls could work...

Abominations...yeah, the name certainly fits alright, being infused with pieces of a Cosmic Horror and all that.

There's also the whole part with being driven by the homicidal need to kill everything to make more of themselves.

Okay, so they are easily mistaken for zombies at first glance since they pretty much look exactly like a zombie would (Unless, as mentioned, they have all the flesh torn from their bones without actually destroying the bones themselves), but then the supernatural abilities makes it clear that "Wait a damn second..."
And then you die and become one of them.

Ah what the hell, i just call them Abominations and be done with it.
Abomination apocalypse, brought to you by the horror beyond the edge of the universe.
The dead wants you to join them.

[Knight9910]

Zombies are the mainstream undead. If you're going to have undead creatures in a fictional work it's going to be zombies or ghosts, or skeletons at the weirdest. Anything else and people are just gonna be like "what kind of nerd s**t is a wight?"

EDIT: Er, to make it clear, I'm not saying this like it's a good thing or like it's what you need to do with your own zombie setting. I'm just saying that's the way society tends to work.

[Yora]

That bit's always confused me (I haven't seen the film). If they're infected with super-rabies and have reached the later stages of the disease with hyper-aggression, then they'd have trouble swallowing and hence drinking.

If they can't drink then they should be dead in a matter of days from dehydration, not weeks from starvation.

Also, they would attack each other. There is no good reason why they would only attack healthy people.

[Killer Angel]

I really liked this until you started giving the zombies super-powers.

Did someone said Marvel Zombies?

[Traab]

Zombies are the mainstream undead. If you're going to have undead creatures in a fictional work it's going to be zombies or ghosts, or skeletons at the weirdest. Anything else and people are just gonna be like "what kind of nerd s**t is a wight?"

EDIT: Er, to make it clear, I'm not saying this like it's a good thing or like it's what you need to do with your own zombie setting. I'm just saying that's the way society tends to work.

You have a point, but those same people are going to look at reality warping zombies who can become incorporeal and say, "WTF IS THIS?!"

As far as abominations go, it would likely work well if you go with a similar look to the warcraft 3 abominations. They are basically several corpses sewed together, really strong, and nasty as hell. Change sewn together to melded together and you have some nice horrors to work with and can give them whatever abilities you want in addition, since unlike zombies/vampires, abominations arent really something with a long standing ability list that defines them.

[turkishproverb]

Zombies are the mainstream undead. If you're going to have undead creatures in a fictional work it's going to be zombies or ghosts, or skeletons at the weirdest. Anything else and people are just gonna be like "what kind of nerd s**t is a wight?"

EDIT: Er, to make it clear, I'm not saying this like it's a good thing or like it's what you need to do with your own zombie setting. I'm just saying that's the way society tends to work.

Vampires would like a word.

[Yora]

Zombies are not defined by their abilities, but by their role.

When the dead rise to attack the living and form an uncontrolled horde, they are zombies.

[Dr.Epic]

Um, you left out Radioactive. What? You think Plague and Voodoo zombies are the best? And what about Patchwork, or do you not have Munchkin Zombies 2 - Armed and Dangerous?

[Coidzor]

Okay, so they are easily mistaken for zombies at first glance since they pretty much look exactly like a zombie would (Unless, as mentioned, they have all the flesh torn from their bones without actually destroying the bones themselves), but then the supernatural abilities makes it clear that "Wait a damn second..."
And then you die and become one of them.

Indeed, hardly a compelling story. For one, it's too brief.

[Scarlet Knight]

What's more fun? Having a scientist work night in day in a lab to find a cure; or your plucky band of misfits looking for the way to break the curse?

Go team curse!

[Mixt]

For the normal population sure, but for the heroes...we are talking about a bunch of people who fought against the forces of hell and killed several major devils prior to the rise of the undead.

As i mentioned, it was the act of stopping the war against hell by sealing the place up tight that caused the whole situation with the undead in the first place, since it also had the unfortunate effect of preventing souls from passing on. Turns out the seal doesn't just keep the demons and devils in, it also keeps everything else out...oops (Nice Job Breaking It Heroes)

And then the Cosmic Horror took advantage of that and sent the trapped souls right back along with fragments of itself, resulting in walking corpses powered by fragments of a Elder Horror.

So yeah, the normal population goes down pretty dang fast, but the heroes actually manage to fend for themselves despite what their foes are capable off.
Great lot of good it does them in the long term though...since you know, the rest of the human population has been utterly decimated.

It should be noted that the story at it's core is not about the undead, it's about that Cosmic Horror manipulating events in an attempt to let itself into the universe, the zombies/Whatever you wanna call them are just a side-effect of those efforts.
Just like the war against Hell was also caused by the Cosmic Horror...and the threat before that was also caused by it...and the one before that...

Actually, the Undead don't show up until part 4 of the story, as in, the undead apocalypse is the fourth threat caused by that creature, they have already dealt with three other issues by the time the dead start walking.

Solving the first problem turns out to have been a distraction while number two sets up, defeating the second threat directly causes the third one (Hell invades) and fixing that directly leads to the zombie apocalypse.
For the record, the first and second problems involved a madman with ambitions for world domination and a scientist who was driven mad by "The voice" in his head respectively.

And The Eldritch Horror masterminded the entire thing, using it's limited influence on the universe to cause the chain of events that would allow it to use the souls of the dead to sneak under the radar and get more of itself into the material universe...

And then the resulting super zombies causes more death's, which leads to more souls trying to move on, only to crash into the seal and then be captured by the creature, which attaches pieces of itself to the souls and then sends them back, thus allowing those pieces to get past the universal barrier meant to prevent it from getting in.
Which gives the Abomination a stronger foothold and also creates more walking corpses bent on killing everything.

The reason the Abomination needs to resort to that kind of subtle manipulation and sneaking?
Because the universe is actively trying to keep it out, and strong as it is, brute-forcing it's way in is beyond it's capabilities, so it has to sneak past the universes defenses using the method described and then re-assemble itself on the inside.
Once inside everything becomes a lot easier, think of it like this, you are trying to invade a fort, problem is the walls are impenetrable, so what do you do?
Sneak past the walls of course, in this case by smuggling yourself inside one troop at a time.
Kinda like that on a universal scale, with a single creature instead of an army.

Ultimately, the whole story is actually about that Abomination's attempts to gain a stronger presence in the universe that happens to feature zombies during the fourth arc.

So really, it's only the fourth part that can be considered a "Zombie Apocalypse"
And yes, it get's worse. It always does when you are dealing with creatures like that *Points at the indescribable thing beyond the borders of the universe*

And yes, the heroes lose in the end, not for lack of trying though.
It's just that you can't really effectively fight against that kind of creature, not once it decides to stop the zombie shenanigans and pull it's pieces back together.
But really, points for lasting as long as they did.

[Coidzor]

And yes, the heroes lose in the end, not for lack of trying though.
It's just that you can't really effectively fight against that kind of creature, not once it decides to stop the zombie shenanigans and pull it's pieces back together.
But really, points for lasting as long as they did.

What is this, the Cthulhu Mythos with the creepiness replaced with blood and gore?

[Mixt]

In some ways.

Though it also has a lot of action and blowing those shambling corpses to pieces with giant fireballs...and disintegration rays...you can thank the magician for those.

It starts off as a relatively normal fantasy setting with advanced technology for the first three arcs, occasionally hinting that there is some sort of madness-inducing higher being pulling the strings, and gradually starts shifting towards Cthulhu Mythos like as the Abomination's presence grows during the fourth (AKA the "Zombie arc) arc.

And then it plunges right into Lovecraft territory towards the end.

The heroes did try to punch the thing out, but the Abomination shut those attempts down rather brutally.

...And then there's the alternate timeline, where things played out a bit differently...only for it to end just as badly there, even worse because in that continuity it actually seemed like the heroes had a chance for a while.

And then there's the third timeline where they manage to survive by fleeing into another universe.
Only for things to get worse...again...
They just can't catch a break.

It's got the hopelessness and "You just can't win" attitude of Lovecraft's stories, it just happens to be a bit more action-oriented, giving the protagonists the opportunity to try to fight back and maybe even cause a little damage, only to ultimately lose horribly in the end no matter what they do.

[Starwulf]

In some ways.

Though it also has a lot of action and blowing those shambling corpses to pieces with giant fireballs...and disintegration rays...you can thank the magician for those.

It starts off as a relatively normal fantasy setting with advanced technology for the first three arcs, occasionally hinting that there is some sort of madness-inducing higher being pulling the strings, and gradually starts shifting towards Cthulhu Mythos like as the Abomination's presence grows during the fourth (AKA the "Zombie arc) arc.

And then it plunges right into Lovecraft territory towards the end.

The heroes did try to punch the thing out, but the Abomination shut those attempts down rather brutally.

...And then there's the alternate timeline, where things played out a bit differently...only for it to end just as badly there, even worse because in that continuity it actually seemed like the heroes had a chance for a while.

And then there's the third timeline where they manage to survive by fleeing into another universe.
Only for things to get worse...again...
They just can't catch a break.

It's got the hopelessness and "You just can't win" attitude of Lovecraft's stories, it just happens to be a bit more action-oriented, giving the protagonists the opportunity to try to fight back and maybe even cause a little damage, only to ultimately lose horribly in the end no matter what they do.

Is this...is this an actual book series? Or just something you are imagining off the top of your head? If so, do you have plans on putting it down on paper? It sounds like it would be a good read ^^

[Mixt]

It's something that i have in my head, it's been brewing for months now.

Though putting it to paper has proven difficult, it turns out that while i am pretty good at building a skeleton plot and coming up with the basic things, i start failing horribly once it comes down to details and fleshing things out.
I'm also pretty bad at writing convincing characters, heck, i go as far as to say that character personalites and behaviour is what i'm worst at.

Probably has something to do with my own lack of social skills and non-existent insight into how people think
The only characters whose personalities and behaviour i have fleshed out are the antagonists, and most of those are either insane, not human, or both.

As it is i'm sitting on a setting, the rules of the setting, basic history and geography, a general outline of the plot, the villains...and nothing else.

Simply put, i'm good at coming up with concepts and ideas, bad at actually pulling them off.

Which is why i don't think i be trying to write anything anytime soon.
Not without a lot of practice first.

[Coidzor]

NaNoWriMo, mate.

[missmvicious]

Damn, that was some serious derailing. I believe that over 2 pages of this thread had nothing to do with my question

[Killer Angel]

If you're going to have undead creatures in a fictional work it's going to be zombies or ghosts, or skeletons at the weirdest.

Vampires would like a word.

Also Mummies.

[kpenguin]

Zombies are not defined by their abilities, but by their role.

When the dead rise to attack the living and form an uncontrolled horde, they are zombies.

This definition seems to exclude the zombies of voodoo/vodou/vodu/etc., the mythological figures from which modern zombies draw their names from. The zombies reanimated by West African bokors or Haitian witch doctors are hardly an uncontrolled horde raised to attack the living.

It also excludes the zombies in the sense of a people without agency or volition. The faceless, mindless groups of people that run solely at the directions of others or mob mentality. These are the zombies that movie zombies are metaphors for.

Ultimately, what unites the zombies of myth, the zombies of film, the zombies of metaphor are a lack of will and agency. A lack of mind and spirit. I would, therefore, define zombies based on that commonality in attempt to be inclusive of them rather than exclusive.

[Morph Bark]

By the "cursed" zombie type, do you mean "you die, you come back as a zombie, without needing to be bitten" or just "the dead have come back due to a curse" kinda thing? In the first manner they are worse than infection type zombies, since you don't know how to stop it (infection zombies = just kill them all, maybe quarantine stuff). In the latter manner they aren't that bad at all, since the amount of zombies is limited to a hard cap that can only go lower (due to killing zombies).

Curse type zombies in fiction also tend to be slower and far less intelligent, though they may be harder to kill.

[Brumski]

Ultimately, the whole story is actually about that Abomination's attempts to gain a stronger presence in the universe that happens to feature zombies during the fourth arc.

So really, it's only the fourth part that can be considered a "Zombie Apocalypse"
And yes, it get's worse. It always does when you are dealing with creatures like that *Points at the indescribable thing beyond the borders of the universe*

Fifth arc. OK you defeated all the zombies on Earth, things should be good. But wait, you cut off Hell from the whole universe, so some alien race has been totally infected and taken over by the Cosmic Horror, now they're coming to invade. ALIEN super-zombies, kinda the reverse of the end of the first Marvel Zombies book.

Takes your story from fantasy, to horror, and now sci-fi. Get some pr0n in there and you're a millionaire.