Zombie Research Society
If a person infected with zombie pathogens shows no sign of illness for an extended period of time
then the issue becomes: What are the rights of the infected? What liberties should be granted to people who have contracted the zombie illness, but are not yet dead or dying?
If society does not collapse under the weight of a zombie pandemic, then the problem of what to do with thousands – or even millions – of friendly, everyday folk who just happen to have contracted a slow-acting, contagious disease that will eventually turn them into undead beasts may well become very real and very persistent.
Do we shoot them on sight? Do we lock them up and throw away the key? What if they can live regular lives, with no sign of illness for years? What if they can’t even pass on the contagion until in the very latest stage of their own progression?
Once a reliable test is developed for zombiism, it could be that a network of isolated communities, closely modeled after leper colonies, might quickly spring up across the planet. Infected would then have no contact with the outside world, and be far enough away from civilization to eliminate any chance of transmission.
For example, a routine annual physical gives John Q some bad news regarding a tick bite he suffered on a recent camping trip. Suddenly he’s separated from his family and friends, as he’s stuffed onto a bus with a handful of strangers heading to Northern Canada to live on hard cots and government rations. Is this a fair way to deal with John?
What if it happens to you?
…put the bomb jacket on them, wait for them to turn, chuck them outside with the other zombies…. and wait till they are in a good spot (away from the baracades, but near a fair few) and BOMB
-why stop a heat, we have explosives to kill them, or a gun to the head
….explain to me why you would need to stop their heart?
It’s hard to say what should be done, On one hand, he may be a potential threat, on the other He’s still alive, and Still human. One point on John Q’s behalf is that leper camps, persecution and the like is a hellish scenerio. Even if deemed necessary, it says much about humanity’s own monsterous potential in the midst of the crisis… However the virtues vs. Sin debate of this can be saved for another time. Another point on his behalf is that lacking knowledge of the infection creates two considerations. One…. if someone contracts the infection, and shows no symptoms for a time extended beyond the typical progression of the infection process, then it may be possible that immunity may be a factor. While of course, it may be a slim chance, say a man gets infected, and doesn’t turn after so long, would it be possible he won’t turn? Also the other consideration is any infected living specimen may be invaluable for the purposes of research, if not to find a cure, to at least get a better medical understanding of the infection. These are just thoughts I have on the subject, and though they mostly favor allowing the poor sap in question to live, for the sake of a purely objective analytical perspective, I will refrain from advocating one side or the other exclusively. both sides have valid points, though I will admit to favoring the practical to the sentimental.
I think you should wait till the last moment, when you can 100% sure that persons trying to eat you: who knows, maybe through mutations they have developed a resitance or immunity to the disease. It happend with the plague and HIV/AIDS , maybe it can with a zombie infection/disease. Luckly for us, we all are different not just physically but genetically, and sometimes these little genetic difference maybe be a bloody lucky as immunty from zombification which could possibly be used to create a solution to it. Then again I doubt anyone would think about that logically in such a time.
If someone could get a salt-water to drinkable-water purifier, ran off solar power. I’d Imagine that being on a really large cruise ship would be considerably thought-out! Just bring a lot of fishing poles and that water converter and you should be good-to-go! Just dump your feces off the side of the ship. It’s not well-thought-out but this puts another thought for salvation at hand, thus living in the middle of the ocean, far-far-away from any type of zombie, whatsoever!
the following is my opinion.
Looks like a scratch: On perma close watch
Looks like a bite: On perma close watch
Seen gotten bite: If no family members shot on spot, if has family members gets a quick goodbye at most.
Scratched by a zombie: On perma close watch
Anything suspicious: Close watch
Otherwise anything else i can think of is a automatic bullet to the head. The evolved will survive and those who are soft will die. (Yes i consider those who can make radical decisions evolved)
Sounds like Social Darwinism…
Not exactly the way a society should be run after the rising to me. Personally, unless someone is going into full conversion in front of me, I’d be unwilling to shoot them on the off chance, and you can’t say you’d definitely be able to pull the trigger either. Quarrentine is best, even if the only good that comes of it is another specimin for the science bods to study to look for/improve a cure/vaccine/weapon against the infected.
its a game of survival of those who are willing to go the extra step for safety. honestly i would probably pull the trigger pretty fast. i am one who crys for the lack of respect and responsibility the average person has. i dont feel soft for anyone other than family and friends i dont care if u have a wife kids or whatever if u get bit im not gunna risk my life nor my familys/friends/the rest of the groups life because u want more time. if i got bite and i knew i had gotten bitten then shoot me on the spot or ill do it myself
Fair enough for definite cases of immediate zombification, as in they are definitely reanimating in front of you. However, if someone is bitten and survives, i.e. doesn’t become a zombie but is a carrier, per sey, shooting them immediatly is a loss to the medical effort to understand the virus and could hinder the development of a cure/vaccine etc.
Quarrentine with observation, but otherwise a normal life.
You can’t just execute someone because you #suspect# infection. It’s a slippery slope to martial law & too much power for those who emerge as the government post rising…
Shooting people in a commune type enviroment is never a good idea. You really get the residents workred up. Do you look for obvious bites? or will an unexplainable scratch do? fever? blood shot eyes? head ache? belly ache? rash? Do you have a doctor on sight with the gear to administer blood tests?…..Probably not. Quarantine! It may seem a bit unconveniant, but you can’t just kill someone at the drop of a hat. It’s easy to think you could just be all cold blooded Rambo and shoot/kill someone you’d think might be infected, but who is this person? I once fell on a bottle and have a scar to this day that looks just like someone bit me. Quarantine! It would also give you the ability to study them. In the end it’s our ability for compassion that makes us human.
Ya gotta shoot ’em in the head. Simple as that. May seem a tad rash t’ regular folks, but t’ those aware of the threat, makes perfect sense. They’re puttin’ everyone in the adjacent area in danger.
Perhaps I am missing something, but if you kill living persons that are infected, they then become dead, and are *CLOSER* to rising up and becoming a threat to mankind. If the zombie pathogen requires a person to die in order for it to have full effect, then we should make every effort to keep the infected alive as long as possible in order to thin their ranks.
The notion I think is that you would kill them in such a way as the ensure they couldn’t come back – burning, destroying the brain/skull/head, etc.
if u shoot a zombie in the brain stem (back of the brain) it cant regrow therefore you have killed them for good. (common sense)
With regards to shipping the zombies (or potential zombies) to Alaska, believe me as one who grew up there that the costs for relocating massive amounts of infected persons would be cost prohibitive. Though I imagine that this type of scenario runs into the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) problem. Nobody really wants a flesh eating hoard stationed behind them. It seems though, that a more central location would make more sense from a shipping aspect. Kansas or Oklahoma maybe?
there should be an island where they could go and live peacefully and with others like them
you cant have an island as we have seen in movies Zombies dont float. they could eventualy walk back to shore and start all over
How could a zombie walk underwater? Just think about it. Do you know how many thousands of pounds of pressure the water would exert on the zombie’s body? I am pretty sure if the water pressure can crush really tough metals, then the water pressure would basically make a zombie implode. This all if the water is deep enough, which around an island, there is probably a good chance it would.
LOL… ok check it let me school on something. you take a sub put it 5 miles under water or farther . pressure will crush it like a tin can. now fill that sub full of water and what happens?????? nothing no pressure.the sub may move slower but dont get crushed. zombies do not breath there for there is no air cavitys to cause pressure.
dumb idea end of story
we can’t take risks
keeping them in society would only lead to disaster.
Personally i would give them suicide pills and give them the option of suicide or a bulet through the brain.
“zombie collonies” would only be an inevitable failure.
Thats exactly how I feel. There already in big enough groups in the wild Why keep them locked up when we may have the resources to kill them and not spread the infection any further. We could keep them quarantined for a set amount of time but not for to long.
unfortunately, people get bit.
deal with them as quickly and as humanely as possible otherwise there is always the danger of a full blown apocalypse.
watch your movies guys: people can never bring themselves to shoot a loved one, but sometimes it has to be done
The hardest part would be not knowing. What if you were infected but you didn’t want anybody to find out because you didn’t want to be separated from your family and you didn’t want to cause a ruckus in the community? If there is no community than the only obligation would be to shoot the infected and keep your self and loved ones safe. Theres different ways people will treat the infected that haven’t turned yet. It probably will depend on your morale values.
Every zombie movie/tv show/etc always has this dilema come up. What if THIS is the guy that gets to live because we find a cure in time? Well, the fact of the matter is, if people had just blown the brains out of the first zombie or two, it wouldn’t have lead to an apocalypse in the first place.
here here
This issue raises important ethical and philosophical questions – notably the notion of ‘personhood’ – at what point does one cease to be a ‘person’ and become ‘undead’?
If one contracts the zombie condition but has yet to develop into a full-gone flesh eating Z are they still considered a ‘person’? (not necessarily a human being, but a ‘person’ – an important philosophical distinction).
I could envisage similar ethical and philosophical debates as are seen in philosophical (not necessarily religious) discussions on the subjects of abortion, euthanasia, the separation of conjoined twins etc etc.
If it is zombie apocalypse, you need to kill the infected (humanely or not). There is no way you can trust people to do the right thing, all it takes is one. The rest of humanity is at stake and must be protected at all costs. Human bombs and suicide attackers just seems silly.
Don’t you dare ship your infected to Canada. We’ll have our own problems
Haha – John Q is Canadian. The infected in America would be shipped to Alaska!
My idea for the rights of the Infected is let them live as normal of a life as possible, when they start to succumb to the illness, kill them.
It’s all well and good to say pack the infected with explosives and send them off to fight for you, but who is going to do it? It would probably be hard to find a doctor willing to preform the surgery. And what about the person who just had four pounds of C-4 stored inside of him? Is he just going to walk away or is he going to sit down in front of the gate and wait to get eaten? Once he is armed, it’s not like you can shoot him. You also have to take into account the family of the infected. I doubt they are going to stand by and allow it to happen without having something to say. The first one of you who is willing to cut open a infected twelve year old girl and wire her into a human bomb, my hat is off to you. That is something that I could not live with doing.
You would probably have to treat the infected as anyone else who was infected with a deadly disease. Typhoid Mary was locked into a mental institution for the rest of her life when she kept getting jobs in the food service industry and killing more people. Depending on how fast your zombies turn when infected, minutes, hours or days, you would have to take appropriate steps, anything from quarantine to permanent marking of the infected. They do a pretty good job of coming up with a system over at the web comic The Zombie Hunters http://www.thezombiehunters.com.
Infected wear a coded id card and are allowed to venture out of safe areas to search for supplies.
I read that webcomic too. I figured if the virus stays dormant until death, that would be the way to treat the infected.
The thing with my idea…only qualified, VOLUNTARY(sp?) people would be asigned the job of kamikaze and infected fighters. And truthfully, the only reason I said to implant the explosives, is so the zombies don’t rip up the cords when mauling the infected person and disabling the C4. If explosive jackets work better or just as well, then I’d go for them instead.
Yeah, there would be some prerequisites for that line of work. Voluntary, must be trained to fight, must be an adult of clear mind (relatively speaking ofcourse).
As for where they would go and how they would be dealt with if they turned…A head shot will kill them without blowing the C4. The remote controls will be used by people inside the wall, trust being the issue ofcourse.
There is, ofcourse, always going to be one or more family members who don’t want to see their loved one choose this. That just can’t be helped. Which is why it is entirely voluntary and much for same set of rules for “assisted suicide” laws….like in Oregon.
I agree 100%, and i feel like there should be a Reasonable and humane solution, even though i can’t think of one. But, regardless, just because a lot of those things are messed up doesn’t mean that the governments of the world wouldn’t do them to serve the greater good, and it probably wouldn’t be the first time either…
It really depends on what the person was like before being infected. If they were a clam and controlled person, then they should be keep under watch with seldom or no contact with other survivors. At least not until you are 100% sure what they behave like. But with a person who was arrogant and selfish, a person who didn’t work well with others should be shot on sight after being bitten. Personally i would want to be shot right away. A different approach could be preforming test on the infected, such as blood test and other test you would think of. It is an inhumane thought but its a way of learning more about the infected and how they change and what kills the people after being bitten.
I’m not following you on why it necessarily matters how they were before they were turned (or infected, semantics). A person can be arrogant as all hell, yet calm and in control of themselves.
And just because somebody is a prick, doesn’t mean they can’t be useful for something or other.
Please go into specifics about what you mean. Thanks.
I believe that it has always be a mistake to keep the infected alive in an apocalypse size zombie outbreak, but if your location is secure and killing them before they have turned would cause to much of a jolt to the population of you stronghold you will have to find a way to deal with the infected in a humane way. I would recommend dawn of the dead style. If it were me just send me out there with a crowbar and a grenade. I will take out enough to make my death worth something. In a combat situation holding a prisoner that can turn your own forces against you is a bad idea.
Got another idea.
Train these infected to fight the undead. You pick out the ones that want this. You implant an explosive in their bodies that either triggers upon the stopping of their heart or by remote. I guess that would depend upon which type of attacker the infected wants to be.
The normal soldiers would be remote denoted. Then there would be the berserkers. The berserkers would blow up once their hearts stopped beating. These guys would be the ones who get sent it when a kamikaze style attack/delaying action is needed.
All the infected would know about the explosives and it’s all voluntary.
Us gung ho types would be all for that, but how many Holly Homemakers and Lawn Lawngrowers are going to use their remaining life to take out as many undead as possible. As devoted as the vikings may have been in battle, only a small percentage took up the bear-shirt. But other than that, sign me up for a suicide commando mission if I get biten. Like CJ in DotD 2004, all the way.
Those people might actually make the best berserkers. From a very cold standpoint, if they feel they are already dead and have nothing to live for, revenge is best served with as much C4 you can pack into/onto a living body. In cases like these, you wouldn’t even need to implant explosives; just makes vests/coats and have the trigger be remote and a second trigger for the heart to stop…in the event the remote trigger doesn’t work or they lose their nerve.
Here is the problem though. How long do infected people live before turning? Going by the ZSG, didn’t Brooks say it took about 24hrs for the virus to run its course to kill you and reanimate you? These would have to be quick suicide ops if this is the case.
Realistically there is no way of saying, because we have no way of knowing how zombies will come to exist. Virus? Something else? Hell if we know.
Just a suggestion, the ZSG (Zombie Survival Guide) has some handy survival information. Not a whole lot. The book is based on a make believe virus discovered by a make believe doctor.
Everything that ZSG outlines about zombies is based on this virus. Brooks’s Zombies are not necessarily how zombies will be! We just got to take what parameters we know qualify an undead, and study how that will scientifically effect it’s body in order to get even an inkling of an idea on how zombies will act. Should check out the article that is linked in the post related to the new advisory board member.
Joseph- you make a couple good points that seem to lead to a really flawed conclusion: “There is no way of saying, because there is no way of knowing.”
I completely agree with you. There is no way of “knowing”, which means that anyone who tells you they know exactly what Zombies are, and how they will come to threaten humanity are destined to be fatally wrong. But that doesn’t mean that the rational study of Zombie is not worth pursuing.
Take care not to throw out reasonable, rational discourse simply because there is currently a lack of solid factual evidence. When Zombies walk the earth and your life is in immediate danger, will it be better that we discounted this scenario as unrealistic?
Discussing the possibilities, and planning for theoretical outcomes is the only way to go. At worst it will leave us over-prepared, rather than prepared at all.
That’s a big part of surviving disasters: The time you spend thinking and planning and preparing now gets you ready for when the situation really happens. Today it’s a few idle minutes reading a board, but the thoughts and conclusions that come out from sharing the discussion with others are priceless beyond belief when the dead actually rise and every second means the difference between life and death.
At the moment, this is all theory and conjecture. And this space is far too limited to go into every single theory there is. I was only focusing on the viral/bacterial theory, as this one makes the most sense to me. And frankly, of all the options, I hope this is the one that’s true.
I’m not at all happy with the idea of fast running zombies. Though, i do not discount a non-zombie zombie like in 28 days/weeks/months later series.
As zombies don’t exist yet, though through some form of gene manipulation by gov’ts looking to make better soldiers or just a quirk in nature that leads to a mutation, it is better to focus on as many aspects as humanly possible. If it turns out zombies are slow and feeble minded, there is nothing to say that a mutation of what caused them could lead to faster moving, slower decaying zombies.
Once society collapses, the Bill of Rights disappears. If I need to kill an infected to keep myself and my family safe I’m okay with that, and I’m equally okay with dying if I get infected. In fact, I’d be offended if some short-sighted but well-meaning person tried to keep me alive.
It’s pleasant to think that we could allow the infected to live in hopes that a cure will be found during the incubation period, but that’s just not a possibility when dealing with an enemy that can so quickly overwhelm all human resistance. Imagine a general trying to win a war but refusing to consider issuing an order that could lead to the death of even a single soldier. It just cannot be done. If the infected become the collateral damage in the war against Zack, I’m good with that.