Episode 739: Two Of Three

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Dave

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Zombie Cliche Lookout: And I Thought They Smelled Bad on the Outside

Zombies, as I have pointed out earlier, are pretty gross. It should be noted that this just adds to their horror as monsters, and I would argue that they certainly do that. Seeing horrifically injured, clearly dead, people wandering around is, at best uncanny. It also reinforces the terror of becoming a zombie when you die. Looking at a zombie with ghastly injuries forces many people to picture themselves in the same condition.

On top of that, one has to consider whether those zombies could cause other problems. Spreading disease, for instance. In the past, people feared the many disease outbreaks were caused by unburied bodies, especially things like Cholera and Typhoid Fever. Experts today aren’t so concerned about that as we have a much better understanding of how disease works. That said, things could be very different with zombies rather than regular old dead bodies.

About this Episode:

So, yeah, if you’re really strict in the way you’re interpreting this episode, the zombie that Barb is searching probably doesn’t have pockets. But this is because, using LEGO, you only have a few different ways you can disfigure a character, so to speak. I would have preferred for this zombie to have his legs removed at the knees rather than the bottom of the spine, but what can you do?

On an unrelated note, there will likely be more typos in this episode than necessary, because I am writing this up in a busy room with a lot of people talking. I’m not great at filtering out background noise.

Discussion Question: Zombie as Disease Vectors

Building off the cliche lookout, what sort of indirect problems – such as illness – could potentially be caused by zombies wandering around being all gross?

13 thoughts on “Episode 739: Two Of Three”

  1. Typo alerts: Mouseover text: what–>what’s 😀

    “It should be noted that this just to adds to their horror as monsters” Remove “to” after “just” 😀

    “Seeing horrifically injured, clearly dead, people wandering around is, at best uncanny.” Are you overdoing it on the commas here Dave? 😀

    “But this is because, using LEGO, you only have a few different ways to can disfigure a character, so to speak.” Remove extra space after the comma after “because”; change “to can” to “you can” 😀

    Yes, a few extra background noise typos there ,Dave! 😀 I recommend you change the background noise if you can, next time! 😉

    • Fixed all except the commas. Those look correct to me. What am I missing?

      • I wasn’t sure but it did seem a tad excessive on the comma usage. Usually, commas should be used only when needed. I had also thought you might have missed one somewhere, but if you’re okay with the sentence as is, I’m okay with that. 😀

        • I just now found another typo, in the Discussion question header, change “zombie” to “zombies”. 😀

  2. The zombie genra would be an unfortionate casualty of the zombie apocalypse. After surviving day in and day out from undead swarms I doubt there will be many people wanting to pick up a zombie flick.

    Oh and horrible plauges and stuff from re animated corpses leaving infected matter where ever they walk, touch, or water source they fall into. :p

    • Zombie flick afterward*

      • Hah, that is a very good point.

  3. Contamination of waters/floors/flora are easy guesses IMO.

    But there is one problem I can’t get out of my head when it comes to any apocalyspe : What will happen to nuclear power plants when nobody will be there to run them?

    Good news though : No traffic jam anymore!

    • In regards to nuclear plants, I suppose it depends a bit on what type of plant, where it is, and how well it’s run. I know that modern plants have a lot of passive safeguards that will shut things down safely if there is no one able to regulate things.

      • I wonder how long it take those safeguards to kick in if things are otherwise running smoothly. Also, does refueling happen automatically, or does it need to be initiated manually? (Also, I’m a bit freaked out that this textarea is hyphenating my text as I type.)

  4. I’ve always wondered where all of the ingested parts of the victim goes after the zombie eats it. If it were a real zombie apocalypse, zombies would end up being bloated masses wandering around with no way to pass remains and therefore would be a gaseous expulsion hazard. Unless, of course, Dave’s zombies have some way of getting rid of excess ingested matter. 😀

  5. Z-nation did up the water thing really well.
    I don’t think zombies could be a main vector, (they are already spreading a rising problem, and if anyone watches House. 1 disease per way it is spread) but with any zed media humans are always the main threat. That said; any old diseases we have vaccines for that have changed would come back to haunt us. Feral children will best to be avoided!

  6. I think an overlooked problem will be all the other decaying infrastructure because it’s not being maintained. Roads getting washed out and not repaired or blocked by debris that isn’t being removed, damaged buildings that eventually collapse. Imagine a grocery store full of food that’s just been left without refrigeration for even a few days.