What Role Could Animals Play?

Amirani

National Wildlife Federation naturalist David Mizejewski explains how nature would deal with a zombie outbreak: brutally, and without quarter: http://boingboing.net/2013/10/14/zombiesvsanimals.html

I'd never really considered the animal factor before, and they never seem to get used in movies. What animals would you have on call to survive the early waves? I'm getting myself some jaguars.

the_syco

Considering how rats carried the black death, they may make eradicating zombies harder.

It also depends on if the zombie plague happened naturally, and thus could possibly adapt to new species, or if it were designed specifically for the human population, for either a general population segment (an episode of Sliders looks into the repercussions of a plague meant for such a segment, but without the zombies). If designed specifically for the human race, so that animals do not become susceptible to the zombie plague, there is a possibility of mutation of the plague to animals, and we'd soon be fighting the zombies on a massive scale.

One final thought would be how's they'd affect the insects. Zombie bees, anyone? One nick of a bee, and you start to become a zombie... :eek:

degrassinoel

it's a great and logical argument he provides, but it doesn't stand up to Max Brooks' Solanum Zombies.

Brooks' version of this states that animals fear the presence of Solanum, can sense it and will actively run from it. It's also 100% lethal to animals. See here under Cross-Species Infection.

All animals besides humans can instinctively detect traces of the Solanum virus, and nearly all have the same reaction to it: terror. From ants to whales, nearly all living creatures will flee in terror from the zombie virus. Solanum is fatal to all living creatures, regardless of size, species, or ecosystem. Reanimation, however, takes place only in humans. Studies have shown that Solanum infecting a non-human brain will die within hours of the death of its host, making the carcass safe to handle. Infected animals expire before the virus can replicate throughout their bodies. Infection from insect bites such as from mosquitoes can also be discounted. Testing has consistently shown that all parasitic insects can sense and will reject an infected host 100 percent of the time. It would seem that Solanum is custom made for the human race, since reanimation only happens in humans, human zombies are the only medium through which the virus can spread to new hosts. This could explain why zombies seek to eat living animals, with a preference towards human flesh over other animals.

ScumLord

Humans have been the top predator on this planet for at least 70,000 years, just about every animal on this planet has developed an instinctive fear of us at this stage and will avoid any group of humans.

There's the toxicity of zombies. If zombies are toxic to everything including bacteria (which is the only way they can avoid immediate decomposition) then any animal that takes to eating zombies will be dead within a day.

Animals won't eat anything that's toxic to them, even we can tell instantly if something is beyond edible.

Then of course there's animals like corvids and rats which not only accept their place in the human ecosystem (scavenging our waste) but are dependant on it. Their numbers depend on being close to human settlements and would drastically drop once they lose our waste as a food source. They scatter at the first sign of movement so if a zombies moving birds won't go near it.

endacl

Looks like the only preparation needed for ZDay will be to keep the right wildlife about the place.

For your perusal: http://boingboing.net/2013/10/14/zombiesvsanimals.html?utm_campaign=moreatbbmetadata&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=boingboing.net

Anybody know where I might procure a grizzly bear? And a condor? What native Irish wildlife might take over from those species described?

Just in case, like...

MOD: Threads merged, great minds think alike and so on...

cerastes

wild/feral pigs? crows/magpies?




Bluebottles

Kess73

degrassinoel wrote: »

it's a great and logical argument he provides, but it doesn't stand up to Max Brooks' Solanum Zombies.

Brooks' version of this states that animals fear the presence of Solanum, can sense it and will actively run from it. It's also 100% lethal to animals. See here under Cross-Species Infection.

Which is fine if one takes Brooks and his Solanum theory as Zed gospel. Romero's zeds could be eaten by animals ( and also ate animals when they could catch them) and in at least one of his films a moving zed was being pecked at by a corvid.


Whilst Brooks' zeds are indeed heavily influenced by those of Romero, there are quite a few big differences between his zeds and those of the master.


Guess it boils down to whether one wants to take Brooks' ideas over those of Romero's. But if a person goes with the latter, then a whole lot of nasty possibilities float to the surface, and things like the inter species jumps ( some animals getting infected and becoming slow, compared to their living version, moving animal zeds) as seen in the books of authors like Brian Keene becomes a maybe.

degrassinoel

Since i've read it, it's made total sense that Brooks gave a logical argument to the how and why of it. It's the same with any horror genre monster, vampires for instance in some films are afraid of sunlight while in others are killed by it, and in others still, they just lack power in sunlight..

Overall as far as zombeis go, the most logical lore to me at least, is the one that Max Brook's presents in WWZ and TZSG. At the very least it's the more believable of all. Romero is class, but his zombies were meant to signify a political message (specifically in 1968) rather than have a good reason or background for existing, they just did. Brooks' gives a background with some solid reasoning behind the holes in Romero's lore.

comparing the two isn't really fair though. I love Romero's films, and i love Brook's books. But the only thing they really have in common is the genre and possibly Brooks' being a fan of Romero.

ScumLord

Kess73 wrote: »

Which is fine if one takes Brooks and his Solanum theory as Zed gospel. Romero's zeds could be eaten by animals ( and also ate animals when they could catch them) and in at least one of his films a moving zed was being pecked at by a corvid.

Which makes a lovely image but that's at the heart of the problem with most zombies portrayed in film and TV. They just want them to look cool on screen, they avoid the practicalities whereas Brooks embraced the practicalities to create a zombie simulation.

The only way a zombie could avoid immediate and catastrophic decomposition is if it can prevent the bacteria in it's gut from doing what it naturally does when it's host dies. Eat the host. People don't realise just how much bacteria is in their gut, it's said you have more foreign DNA from bacteria and viruses in your body at any given time than human DNA. These are all individual living entities that have to be dealt with for a zombie to work.

This is why the toxicity of Brookes zombies makes sense, everything foreign in the body has to die too which requires something pretty hostile to other life forms. Even if it wasn't toxic to the animals itself, if it could get inside an animal's gut and destroy the bacterial fauna the animal would die regardless.

Kess73

degrassinoel wrote: »

Since i've read it, it's made total sense that Brooks gave a logical argument to the how and why of it. It's the same with any horror genre monster, vampires for instance in some films are afraid of sunlight while in others are killed by it, and in others still, they just lack power in sunlight..

Overall as far as zombeis go, the most logical lore to me at least, is the one that Max Brook's presents in WWZ and TZSG. At the very least it's the more believable of all. Romero is class, but his zombies were meant to signify a political message (specifically in 1968) rather than have a good reason or background for existing, they just did. Brooks' gives a background with some solid reasoning behind the holes in Romero's lore.

comparing the two isn't really fair though. I love Romero's films, and i love Brook's books. But the only thing they really have in common is the genre and possibly Brooks' being a fan of Romero.

Romero's zeds "evolved" over time and he expanded on what they could or could not do with each film.

As for it not being fair to compare them, of course it is. I love the books of Brooks, but at the end of the day his ideas of what is what with regards to zeds are no more or no less valid than any other author/film maker who has put the time and effort in to make his/her take on zeds a plausible one (plausible within a loose use of modern science)

Brian Keene's use of the "virus" allowed for some jumping of species, but the virus could not simply jump from any species to any species, it had to evolve first and then jump to a species that was plausible based on how certain things can mutate and jump species in real life science.


Keene's virus did not create fast runners, it created slow zeds (human and animal) with some of the animal zeds being hampered by their new shambling modes. We got scenarios where healthy animals would try to avoid the infected (human or beast) but also scenarios where the healthy would fight back when cornered and where non mamallian animals would try to grab what they thought was a potential meal.

Brooks' Solanum does make sense on many levels, and it does work well as a way to eradicate problems that would be caused by natural decomposition etc., as well as being a McMuffin that neatly takes animals out of the mix in a complete manner, but it is also a very limiting McMuffin (which is the reason behind it one can only assume) in that it allows no real scope for things that could potentially happen with a real life Contagion/Virus/mutation under real world conditions.

I also think some of what Brooks wrote regarding animals and Solanum is overly simplistic. He describes it as being a terror inducing element when sensed by any living creature save for man. He claims that even insects will flee in terror and when one is trying to pass off one virus as being able to be terror inducing for every single living organism on the planet save for one species, well that is a little difficult to buy into whilst discounting any other possibility.

He also claims in his books that Solanum appears to be tailor made for humans and is a perfect match for only one species in the entire planet whilst being a deterrent for every other species. That pretty much badly damages the possibility of it being a natural virus as that kind of exclusivity without any chance of mutation or interspecial jumps pretty much would not happen with a natural virus. And even it it was a man made virus, the level of scientific and biological comprehension required to make such a specific virus would be greater than that needed to make a pill that wiped out cancer or aids.


Brooks for me is a great touchstone for all concepts relating to zeds, but his version is only as confining or free ranging as one wishes it to be. There are flaws in his ideas, and those flaws, for me, allow for expansions of his ideas and also for the possibility that any virus (especially one of the complexity of that in Brooks' universe) has the potential to mutate or adapt.

degrassinoel

I agree with most of what ye said, just on your last point about it having flaws, it does yeah, but it's probably the logical and cannon lore that has been produced regarding zombies. I'm not saying it's scripture but until another rational explanation is produced of that calibre and believability, for me it's the only lore that actually works in a terrifyingly realistic yet fictional sense.

I think, in fairness that topics like these need a specific zombie ruleset, which kind of zombies are we talking about? Romero/Brooks etc..

Given that there is a general guideline for each different author/director it does need to be established which one we're talking about early on in the topic.

Basically everyone is right in their own thoughts of how and why whatever it is, is going to occur until those lines are drawn, which they should be at the start

ScumLord

Kess73 wrote: »

As for it not being fair to compare them, of course it is. I love the books of Brooks, but at the end of the day his ideas of what is what with regards to zeds are no more or no less valid than any other author/film maker who has put the time and effort in to make his/her take on zeds a plausible one (plausible within a loose use of modern science)

I just haven't seen anyone put in the same level of effort but I suppose they're restricted by the narrative of their story, they can't spend pages explaining what the characters simply wouldn't know. Brooks wrote a book explaining a way zombies could work without a narrative.

Brian Keene's use of the "virus" allowed for some jumping of species, but the virus could not simply jump from any species to any species, it had to evolve first and then jump to a species that was plausible based on how certain things can mutate and jump species in real life science.

It's plausible but then species jumping isn't an everyday occurrence and when disease do jump species there's no guarantee it will have the same affect on the next animal. Given the time scale in zombie outbreaks there isn't a whole lot of time for the disease to spend enough time with the infected and evolve so that it could jump species.

I also think some of what Brooks wrote regarding animals and Solanum is overly simplistic. He describes it as being a terror inducing element when sensed by any living creature save for man.

That is over simplistic but a lot of other animals depend on their sense of smell and they would be able to pick up toxicity from a distance.

He also claims in his books that Solanum appears to be tailor made for humans and is a perfect match for only one species in the entire planet whilst being a deterrent for every other species.

That can be an apt description of relationships in the wild even though it's not true. THC in cannabis seems to be perfectly suited to human consumption because we have receptors for it but that's just a coincidence because of something that happened before fish first moved onto land.

And even it it was a man made virus, the level of scientific and biological comprehension required to make such a specific virus would be greater than that needed to make a pill that wiped out cancer or aids.

There's people that reckon it could be done, the only thing really saving us is there's no financial incentive to create such an organism.

allow for expansions of his ideas and also for the possibility that any virus (especially one of the complexity of that in Brooks' universe) has the potential to mutate or adapt.

Any virus could jump species but how likely is it to happen? The animals would have to have prolonged contact with the infected and I just don't see animals sticking around zombies. The example of the crow wouldn't work because they can be scared off by the silhouette of a human (scarecrow).

Kess73

degrassinoel wrote: »

I agree with most of what ye said, just on your last point about it having flaws, it does yeah, but it's probably the logical and cannon lore that has been produced regarding zombies. I'm not saying it's scripture but until another rational explanation is produced of that calibre and believability, for me it's the only lore that actually works in a terrifyingly realistic yet fictional sense.

I think, in fairness that topics like these need a specific zombie ruleset, which kind of zombies are we talking about? Romero/Brooks etc..

Given that there is a general guideline for each different author/director it does need to be established which one we're talking about early on in the topic.

Basically everyone is right in their own thoughts of how and why whatever it is, is going to occur until those lines are drawn, which they should be at the start

I think that in order for there to be a bit of conversation on the topic (longish term chat rather than quick chater) then a bit of flexibilty/variance has to be expected and given for any ruleset, otherwise each conversation could be ended fairly with a quote from The Zombie Survival Guide

Kess73

ScumLord wrote: »

I just haven't seen anyone put in the same level of effort but I suppose they're restricted by the narrative of their story, they can't spend pages explaining what the characters simply wouldn't know. Brooks wrote a book explaining a way zombies could work without a narrative.

It's plausible but then species jumping isn't an everyday occurrence and when disease do jump species there's no guarantee it will have the same affect on the next animal. Given the time scale in zombie outbreaks there isn't a whole lot of time for the disease to spend enough time with the infected and evolve so that it could jump species.




That is over simplistic but a lot of other animals depend on their sense of smell and they would be able to pick up toxicity from a distance.

That can be an apt description of relationships in the wild even though it's not true. THC in cannabis seems to be perfectly suited to human consumption because we have receptors for it but that's just a coincidence because of something that happened before fish first moved onto land.


There's people that reckon it could be done, the only thing really saving us is there's no financial incentive to create such an organism.


Any virus could jump species but how likely is it to happen? The animals would have to have prolonged contact with the infected and I just don't see animals sticking around zombies. The example of the crow wouldn't work because they can be scared off by the silhouette of a human (scarecrow).

Species jumping is not an every day thing, but when it does happen it tends to be in the midst of a large outbreak, and the larger the outbreak then the greater the chance of inter species jumping or at the very least a good chance of there being more than one species capable of acting as a carrier of the virus.

If we are to imagine a large scale outbreak, one that devastates mankind on a global level then we are certainly on the right scale for the possibility of some inter species jumping to occur. Now if we are talking smaller outbreaks then the chances of the virus getting enough of a foothold to have the time (and enough subjects) to aid it's potential to mutate are far smaller and probably closer to zero.

degrassinoel

Kess73 wrote: »

I think that in order for there to be a bit of conversation on the topic (longish term chat rather than quick chater) then a bit of flexibilty/variance has to be expected and given for any ruleset, otherwise each conversation could be ended fairly with a quote from The Zombie Survival Guide

Yeah, not exactly forum friendly when you put it like that, even if it was for clarity it'd dull the tone of discussion to nothing

Kess73

degrassinoel wrote: »

Yeah, not exactly forum friendly when you put it like that, even if it was for clarity it'd dull the tone of discussion to nothing

Well when there is an appearance of what looks like zed badgers, I will be chucking you and scumlord to them to find out if a zed virus can jump species.

ScumLord

Kess73 wrote: »

Well when there is an appearance of what looks like zed badgers, I will be chucking you and scumlord to them to find out if a zed virus can jump species.

Make sure it's a zed one, you don't want to go trying to pick up a healthy one, vicious little TB spreading bastards.

Kess73

ScumLord wrote: »

Make sure it's a zed one, you don't want to go trying to pick up a healthy one, vicious little TB spreading bastards.

I'm picking nothing up, it will be you and degrassinoel taking on the badgers


I might even get mixed up a bit and put you in with a honey badger. :pac:

ScumLord

Kess73 wrote: »

I might even get mixed up a bit and put you in with a honey badger. :pac:

That's just cruel, what have we become...