Zapp

[Oge'Xam]

For a contest on a radio show I put together our Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness Plan

It is the short version of the plan we actually have in place.

Do you have a plan?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEoL_...=youtube_gdata

[Brother Oni]

Apparently, a surprising number of military units have zombie apocalypse survival plans simply because they like planning and are completely bored out of their skulls have plenty of down time when not training or drilling.

[Traab]

I dont know anyone who honestly doesnt have a zombie preparedness plan. They may refuse to admit it, but they do. I used to work in a boring job doing something brainless, so I spent alot of time thinking about things like this. I wont be sharing my plan as that would expose it to attempts to counter it, and I dont want the competition. I will admit the first two steps are, win the powerball lotto, and build a castle with a nice wall surrounding plenty of farmland in the middle of nowhere.

[Maxios]

My plan is simple: meet up with other playgrounders in the event of a zombie uprising (I say uprising instead of apocalypse because they're already out there, they're just calling themselves fast food workers instead of zombies) and set up a dictatorship Guildocracy with me in command. I'm joking. Or am I? No wait, I am. But what if that's a joke as well and I'm actually being serious?

[Heliomance]

Yep, I know a biochemist who's working on the T-virus, and have been liaising with other gaming societies around the country for support when it happens. Priority targets have been identified, those that need to die first if our apocalypse is to be successful.

[Hiro Protagonest]

My plan is basically "keep a cool head, board up the windows, and jury-rig stuff". I know a family that has like, three shotguns and a bunch of shotgun slugs, they could probably spare one.

Seriously though, zombie apocalypse is like a war where our side has massive advantages in technology and tactics. I'd much rather plan for something that actually does change the face of the Earth - a power/blackout apocalypse. There are two main versions of this apocalypse.

1 - Explosives, engines, and electricity stop working. Just like that. This is the premise of Emberverse (although the cause of it in Emberverse is... weird, and for some reason burning propane for gas lamps and hot air balloons works). In this setting, the SCA can become the basis for a major power (which is exactly what Stirling wrote. The SCA is broadly divided into two parts in Emberverse. Those working for Norman Arminger, and those who aren't, who generally live alone or with a small amount of people), and knowing how to harvest flax and make bowstring out of it makes you vital to building a sustainable society.

2 - Electricity stops working. All of it. Guns still work. Steam and gas power probably work. Cars don't work, because despite taking gas, they also run off electricity. Having a giant store of modern-day bullets makes you the best. Just because you can make bullets, doesn't mean its easy. That's why most guns in Revolution are muskets, because musketballs are a whole lot easier to make. In general, in this setting, having a bow makes you a hunter, having a musket makes you a warrior, having a modern gun and modern bullets makes you a feared warrior, and having a sniper rifle with the right bullets makes you a one-man army.

[Elemental]

My Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness Plan?

It mainly involves relying on the inability of such a contagion to spread rapidly as it usually seems to require your blood being exposed to it.
Also, spending the week in the middle of nowhere until the whole thing blows over.

[An Enemy Spy]

Pure blind panic, followed soon after by death. Seriously, the people who die in movies like this are the lucky ones. Living in a post apocolypse world be horrible, what with the constant terror and brushes with death, and the knowledge that everything is hopeless anyway. Eventually the zombies will get you, and even if they don't you have the next sixty years to live in a nightmare whose only ending is the extinction of humanity.

[Traab]

Pure blind panic, followed soon after by death. Seriously, the people who die in movies like this are the lucky ones. Living in a post apocolypse world be horrible, what with the constant terror and brushes with death, and the knowledge that everything is hopeless anyway. Eventually the zombies will get you, and even if they don't you have the next sixty years to live in a nightmare whose only ending is the extinction of humanity.

Not if you can find enough females of breeding age to hold captive rescue. Then it might last an extra generation or three before the inbreeding takes too much of a toll.

[Brother Oni]

Not if you can find enough females of breeding age to hold captive rescue. Then it might last an extra generation or three before the inbreeding takes too much of a toll.

I vaguely remember a number of 47 individuals being required to maintain sufficient genetic diversity in a population, so 23 'breeding' pairs and one to... watch, I guess?

[Traab]

I vaguely remember a number of 47 individuals being required to maintain sufficient genetic diversity in a population, so 23 'breeding' pairs and one to... watch, I guess?

Yeah, if I wanted to repopulate the earth, sure. If I wanted some kids to take care of me in my old age and didnt care that my grand kids would have webbed feet and be albinos, a couple would do. /nod

[Eurus]

I don't have much of a plan, so it depends on how much if any warning there is. Hopefully the internet stays up long enough to figure out who's got their act together and join their camp.

EDIT: Also, to be fair, there are a number of far more likely apocalypse scenarios that probably deserve more serious consideration. Zombie apocalypse does do a decent job of simulating a more generic disease epidemic or bioweapon, though, which is one of them.

[dehro]

my team. spoilerized for size:

Spoiler

Show

on a slightly more serious note (can you be serious about this?) my plan involves reaching the coast, stealing a small sailboat, looting my way down the coast of italy to reach a small island where I happen to know that my chances of survival would be pretty good, provided I can still use the boat to make looting trips to the mainland.

the main problem with all of the above would be if any other of my immediate family survived alongside me.
2 of them really need medicine on a daily basis to survive..which means I'd have to first raid a hospital fairly nearby for some of the medicines needed by one of them, and then head to Switzerland where the other bunch of pills are produced or at least more readily available.. nowhere else would I find supplies enough of them to survive long enough for zombies to die out and civilisation to reboot.
provided of course I didn't decide to leave both of my relatives behind...on account of not having a foolproof survival plan for that eventuality... which isn't in my nature..but you never know what one might actually do, if push comes to shove and zombie comes to your porch.

[Haruki-kun]

I am under strict instructions to head down to Tennessee in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse and rendezvous with a few others there. *sagenod*

[SDF]

Using my knowledge of epidemiology I've opted to sit around and wait for whatever area it begins in to be contained by law enforcement and the CDC. Shouldn't be more than a few hours.

[Eldan]

Yeah, if I wanted to repopulate the earth, sure. If I wanted some kids to take care of me in my old age and didnt care that my grand kids would have webbed feet and be albinos, a couple would do. /nod

The number is a bit difficult to estimate, but between 50 and 150 should be a stable society in which drift and random mutation counter any inbreeding. It's also the number at which tribal society tend to form.

[scurv]

http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm
enough said

[THAC0]

My plan is basically "keep a cool head, board up the windows, and jury-rig stuff". I know a family that has like, three shotguns and a bunch of shotgun slugs, they could probably spare one.

Hah. Hahah. Ahahahah.

...We may have established a few loaner firearms for companions during the Zombie Apocalypse, but we started with rather more than three, too.

[SiuiS]

I vaguely remember a number of 47 individuals being required to maintain sufficient genetic diversity in a population, so 23 'breeding' pairs and one to... watch, I guess?

Genetic diversity as a logical equation fails to account for monogamy. You want to repopulate? You don't have that luxury. Each lass has to make 23 kids to keep the formula going. Else you get into icky stuff like the second generation needin to copulate with the unrelated members of the first for viability.

[HairyGuy4]

Genetic diversity as a logical equation fails to account for monogamy. You want to repopulate? You don't have that luxury. Each lass has to make 23 kids to keep the formula going. Else you get into icky stuff like the second generation needin to copulate with the unrelated members of the first for viability.

Ewww....

Brings a whole new meaning to "who's your daddy?"

[Kelb_Panthera]

My plan is simple: meet up with other playgrounders in the event of a zombie uprising (I say uprising instead of apocalypse because they're already out there, they're just calling themselves fast food workers instead of zombies) and set up a dictatorship Guildocracy with me in command. I'm joking. Or am I? No wait, I am. But what if that's a joke as well and I'm actually being serious?

As a former zombie, let me tell you. There's no uprising in the works. They're mostly slackers or non-zombies in disguise, waiting for an opening in their actual field of expertise.

Seriously though. I'm no pathologist, but I honestly don't see the traditional zombiepocolypes even being a viable scenario. Any pathogen with such obvious symptoms will be very quickly isolated and quashed by the CDC-equivalent of virtually all industrialized nations. In other parts of the world people are too isolated or too busy killing each other for a zombie plague to really get rolling.

In anycase I've got a pretty wide skill-set that includes virtually everything needed to rebuild society on a technological level of around the 1920's or so.

Off the top of my head, my ZAPP plan is to find an isolated spot and live out the rest of my life mountain-man style. I've already got the beard. I'll do my best to care for my wife but, honestly, she'd probably be doomed. Aquiring enough of her daily pscyh meds to last a life-time is more than I can confidently assure, and once the crazy sets in it's only a matter of time before she wanders off and gets zombied.

...... Great, now I'm sad. *Hugs the wife*

[Ravens_cry]

Bicycles are the unsung heroes of zombie apocalypse survival. Quiet, so as not to attract the hordes, and faster than any lurcher. I'd grab two pots, my oven grate, a lighter, some rope, a knife and honing stone, a long crowbar, and as much dry food as I could could carry in my backpack.

[dehro]

my distaste for bicycles and the riding thereoff outweights my fear of zombies. also, mine squeaks on account of not using it and it rusting away. also, flat tyres are stupid.
but it's mostly my distaste that would make me go for looted vehicles, horse or feet.
the day that I can't outrun, outsmart or outfight a shambling corpse with a rotting brain I probably don't deserve to survive the encounter anyway.

[zlefin]

my plan is to board up the house and wait for help to arrive.
Existing military protocols for dealing with contagious biohazards will suffice; just hope you're not in a hotzone that needs to be sterilized.
Zombieism really shoudln't spread THAT fast. And there are protocols in place for dealing with things like weaponized smallpox; i don't think zombieism would realistically do more damage than weaponized smallpox; also, i live in america, so there's more than enough guns and ammo around to take out any zombies that do occur.

[Heliomance]

Yep, I know a biochemist who's working on the T-virus, and have been liaising with other gaming societies around the country for support when it happens. Priority targets have been identified, those that need to die first if our apocalypse is to be successful.

No-one commented on this? Well, I guess I should be happy that you won't see it coming.

People with viable plans have been marked for special consideration. And naturally we're going to start with the CDC, anything else would be daft.

[Kelb_Panthera]

As I understand it, the people of Sweden, I think, have more guns per capita than any other nation in the world. If the zombiepocolypse starts there, it'll only be a minor news story that night.

[Ravens_cry]

my distaste for bicycles and the riding thereoff outweights my fear of zombies. also, mine squeaks on account of not using it and it rusting away. also, flat tyres are stupid.
but it's mostly my distaste that would make me go for looted vehicles, horse or feet.
the day that I can't outrun, outsmart or outfight a shambling corpse with a rotting brain I probably don't deserve to survive the encounter anyway.

Well, I like riding a bike, and flat tires can also happen cars, not to mention injuries to horses. Also, *everyone* will be going for the cars, and the gas to run them will also be limited. If it's a true apocalypse, I would rather depend on something less infrastructure intensive. On a bike, you can ride between cars in a traffic jam, while a car would have to go off road, potentially risking damage.

[dehro]

true..then again, you can always loot another one
it always stumped me, all those movies with "sudden death" kind of apocalyptic scenarios.. yet every single car, petrol station, refinery seem to be out of juice despite the claims of sudden/instantaneous death should have left plenty of petrol lying around.

[Ravens_cry]

true..then again, you can always loot another one
it always stumped me, all those movies with "sudden death" kind of apocalyptic scenarios.. yet every single car, petrol station, refinery seem to be out of juice despite the claims of sudden/instantaneous death should have left plenty of petrol lying around.

An abandoned car was probably abandoned because it ran out of fuel. Gas (or Petrol) pumps I believe use electric pumps. If the power is out, they aren't going to be working, and even if they are, other people, some who may be willing to kill for it, literally, will be wanting fuel too.
The biggest danger in a zombie apocalypse (like many disasters) is often not so much the zombies generally, but other people panicking, and looters taking advantage of the breakdown in the social order.

[Eldan]

As I understand it, the people of Sweden, I think, have more guns per capita than any other nation in the world. If the zombiepocolypse starts there, it'll only be a minor news story that night.

Switzerland and our mandatory gun ownership would like a word with you

But I think we are pretty safe here. Sure, our population density is one of the highest in the world, down here, but I'm pretty sure we also have the highest number of bukners per capita, which people are required to keep stocked with food, blankets, etc.