Zombie Cliché Lookout: You’re Sort of on Your Own
This is the part of the speech where the person in charge pumps everyone up, telling them how tough they are and how well they’ll be able to handle the incredible challenges to come. He tends to speak in the first-person plural: we, us. He’s telling you that “We’re in this together everyone”, and that “This is your fight as much as it is mine”.
Of course, at the end of the day the President and his incredible resources aren’t going to be there to help you and your group as the hordes of the walking dead slowly close in around your stronghold. The leader, in a situation like this, can only lead by inspiration and example until the infrastructure can be restored to a point where he can take more direct measures. Long story short: you’re on your own for now.
About this Episode:
That third panel there? Ripped that right off from FDR again. The original line: “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” I’m not a big FDR fan, but that’s just a hell of a speech right there.
Discussion Question: Practical Skills
The zombie apocalypse is coming, what sort of practical skills do you have that will help you not only survive, but be able to lend a hand when it’s time to rebuild a new civilization from the ashes of the old? If you’re anything like me, you probably have some cushy, white collar job where you spend the majority of your work day sitting in front of a computer or in a conference room. Or maybe you spend your time in a classroom, or working on a production line. None of these things is going to be terrible helpful in the zombie apocalypse.
But what can you take from your
Well Dave I’m planning on learning how to reload bullets and make gunpowder which will remake bullets which you can shoot zombies with.
Reloading seems like a darn good skill. What sort of raw materials do you needs? Lead, gunpowder, casings, and primers?
Yea I’m still learning the ropes. If you reload shotgun shells then a wad and metal bb.
Cool. I know a few people who reload shells. The only people I’ve known to reload regular ammo are gunsmiths, so I always just sort of assumed it was kind of complicated.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear its self.” That’s about the only thing I know FDR said.
Yeah, that’s a pretty good line too.
If he turns into a zombie next episode, I’m not going to say I saw that coming, but I’m not going to be at all surprised, either! 😀
Hah. Duly noted, BrickVoid.
Q: “What’s the difference between a politician and a zombie?”
A: One makes voters bite at their policies, the other only has the policy of biting voters! 😉
Sounds about right to me.
Time was, I was really into politics. Just passionate as hell about it for years. Now I can’t stand even thinking about it.
Spend my time in a class room? Well yeah, but hey.. I’ll tell you my skills AFTER.. I come home from my survivalist class.. Mmmmkay?
You’re taking a survivalist class?
Yessir, and it’s the only class I have ever had a shit-ton of fun in.. Besides perhaps my Geometry class which does sound odd, but there’s a-lot of truth to it none the less.
Sounds pretty awesome. What sort of stuff are you learning?
Hell I made a bug out box just yesterday out of stuff around my house… It’s super effective.
Bug out box?
It’s stuff that I could use to survive for at least a week or more in the wilderness in a small Glad container… I couldn’t buy anything to put it in except for what was in my house.
Basic, to Moderate wilderness survival know how. That includes all the things that go with the survival out in the wilderness.
Creating survival items from every day things with in the house hold. The skill doesn’t take long if you just take a day to look around the internet; I recommend Instructables.com.
I can fish, scavenge around nature for food, and I have a good bit of knowledge on how to help remake society (Farming/Society/Politics/Trading) though the politics and society may be mainly opinion, it seems to be the most plausible (knowing politics/government comes in handy even after the end).
I know a shit ton of natural remedies, as well as, natural herbs that can be used to help the taste of food. Better tasting food = better morale.
I can entertain people.. That’s always nice
I know a lot of regulated medicine practices.. So I know not only natural/remedy styles, but as well as binding wounds and medicine practices… Of course this is only novice as I learned from books and being told.
I have unregulated fire arms training. I can fire a hand gun, and a rifle. My experiences with shot guns is next to none.
I’ve um.. Read books and looked into books on how to keep from making an explosive with chemicals on accident, and will be getting a book that will teach me to further stay away from such chemicals soon.
I have VERY basic cooking skills that prime on the ridge of “Well it’s edible”
I’m intelligent, rational, and have basic human morals.
I can fix your computer..
I can walk for very long distances.. If that’s a skill.
I know the basics of picking a house lock, because I’ve had that issue before at my own house/as well with some dead locks.
I can make lists that seem to be dragged along to make me look good.
I don’t know how to operate a cell phone, so you know I’m literate. Trololol.
There’s plenty of sub-category, but it might be less lengthy to not go into that.
Oh, and I have an open mind that allows me to learn.
Pretty impressive list, Calicade.
I’ll be the first to admit that I still have so very much to learn before I ever will consider myself a true survivalist. I’m just an apprentice at best right now.
What’s Unregulated Fire Arms Training?
Regarding the discussion question: Are we talking about just the practical skills, or survival skills as well? Because if we’re talking survival skills as well I could probably cook and carve up food but don’t know about the hunting aspect. I hope you like damper though, that might be all you’d get at my campfire! 😉
Either, really. What can you adapt from your current skillset to work in a post-apocalyptic world?
That Veep is quite the mealy-mouthed turd, eh: sacrifice is something the other guy does, while the politicians hide in their concrete bunkers. My hope is that the aftermath of a WCS would be like Alas, Babylon or Patriots:Surviving the Coming Collapse. The politicians come rolling into town, and the townspeople say “Keep on truckin’. We don’t need you or want you here.”
I can dream, right?
Question for consideration: I am about a month from sitting for my RN. I have completed the course of study except my last finals. Nurses use technology a lot today, like other professions; but much of nursing is neither technology-based, nor even skill-based. Nurses use critical thinking and clinical judgement to guide assessments and education. Nursing school rewires the way its students think and interact with people. The Nursing Process is a framework of assessing, planning, intervening effectively, and evaluating that plan for success or failure.
I could still pass pills until the pills run out; but I can always educate and assess, regardless of the technological situation.
1 – Alas Babylon is one of my favorite PAW books. Is Patriots comparable? I’ve heard a lot of bad things about that one, so I’ve avoided it.
2 – I’ve got a lot of respect for nurses. Not only do you use a shitload of critical thinking, you’re able to do so while insanely stressed and fatigued.
Patriots has its moments. Some of it is absurd. It’s typical anti-New World Order/UN fair.The set up was really plausible. The aftermath was great, too. Then when the “the blue helmets” came, it kind of fell apart. I lent my copy away years ago and never got it back. It was out of print for a long time; so it’s not worth tracking down a copy for more than about fifteen bucks. If you find a copy used or at the library, that’s your best bet.
For nursing, the schooling has been the hardest three years of my life, and the hardest on my family. To see it ending next week stirs a lot of sentiment. My classmates and I feel like different people. The professors call that “acculturation”. It has focused how I feel about preparedness. If folks tend to put up “beans, bullets, and bandages”, my “bandages” are a lot more involved.
Yeah, anytime I see the phrase “New World Order” I’m pretty much done. That just screams whackadoo to me.
A huge congratulations on your upcoming graduation. Hell of an accomplishment.
Congrats Bo!! My niece is a registered nurse and she says the same about her time in school.
Thanks to all.
Dave, you’ve convinced me: I want to see that Veep as a zombie; but not in the next comic, or even in the next. I want to see him six months from now, when the protagonists are holed-up in some abandoned mall, and he’s one of the nameless zombies we recognize milling around below.
What? You like revisiting old zombie cliches, right?
As for skills, learn to garden. Learn to sew. Learn to can and cook. There are a lot of old Depression-era recipes on the web on how to cook more with less. Those are my goals for surviving the coming EOTWAWKI.
Ok so I read the second panel as such:
“We shall struggle.
We shall fight.
We shall starve?”
I think Dave took a page from the G.W. book of public speaking. lol
He only said.
“We shall starve” because he hadn’t had lunch yet… Silly.
Make that read “You shall starve. I have a bunker full of beans, rice, and wheat.”
So you were expecting the third thing to be “triumph” or something like that? I wanted three downers, and then, in the next panel, the big “we’re going to kick ass” part.
i figured that was what you were going for but it made go “huh?” lol
And Bo – too true stupid politicians! lol
I think a good job might be a hunter/gatherer looking for food or other valuable plants and herbs and possibly fishing and farming, so basically anything involving food . . . .XD
Food is good. Being able to recognizable edible plants and fungi would be a very useful skill.
Okay, first off: if the will to survive, fight, and win is coded into American DNA (and I’m a little surprised there’d be any such thing, given our country’s multi-ethnic forebears), then wouldn’t the zombies still have the American DNA, thus setting up a stalemate situation…?
Anyway, as far as getting ready for the apocalypse, I do indeed have a cushy white-collar job. But I also know the following things, and have good documentation (in hard copy, in case the Internet goes down, as it would in the event of a massive apocalyptic event) for how to do them:
-General survival, including edible plants, how to kill and prepare wild game, how to build fires, make shelters, etc. (source material: US Army Field Survival Manual).
-Jimmy automobile locks and hot-wire cars (I’ve actually gotten into one locked car without the keys, when one of my friends locked her keys inside).
-Do firearm safety, maintenance, and operation.
-Cook. This is important.
-Resolve interpersonal conflicts with dispassion and lack of hard feelings (essential in a survival situation).
PS: I loved “Alas, Babylon” also. Great book.
To your first point: that’s classic speechifying right there. It harkens back to telling soldiers that God/The Gods are on their side of the conflict. If God be with us, who can stand against us.
Cthulhu
Yeah, never discount Cthulu.
-Resolve interpersonal conflicts with dispassion and lack of hard feelings (essential in a survival situation).
Totally took my answer! I’m good at finding common ground and bringing compromise to groups at work and in scouts. I wish I could say that cub scouts has taught me a ton about survival but alas it didn’t.
I’m quite a good cook, is that practical? I could make food for the survivors when we’re trying to rebuild society!
other than that… no, no practical skills 🙁
Remember that scene from Defiance, when they’re standing in line for stew? Cooking is great; but I’d learn to shoot, too, so folks won’t take advantage of you.
Cooking would be one of my skills as well, but – Like Bo says – being able to procure food and defend yourself would be excellent complimentary skills.
“None of these things is going to be terrible helpful in the zombie apocalypse.”
Dave, you sell yourself short!
Your site speaks of creativity, innovation, resourcefulness, flexibility AND innate leadership qualities. All skills required to survive. Yes, we need brute force and certain basic skills to survive the initial onslaught of the zee-poc; but we will also need all manner of skills to ensure ongoing survival, future development, community development and so forth. Shane may have been great at zee zapping, but this and his womanizing could only take the group so far. Long term group (and humanity survival) requires much, much more than that!
As for your Leadership (since you’re about to “yes, but . . .”), in this ocean of raw sewage called The Internet, where people freely expectorate without much thought or concerns for others, you’ve developed a site (of zombie doom no less!) where people are actually cordial to each other, listen to each other, and listen to you when you gently remind them that even End of the World speculation can be addressed without going overboard.
I compare this to the Comment Threads of the “big” news e-zines and marvel as how well run this is and how you keep the zee-poc, well, civilized.
Heh! Just remembered The Flight of The Phoenix (I prefer the Jimmy Stewart version). The “toy maker” is the one who managed to create the object of the group’s salvation. So yeah, there are obvious skills needed, and subtle skills awaiting their time to shine.
The original Flight of the Phoenix is a cool movie, and Jimmy Stewart was a badass.
Another supporting story I picked up from Russian Studies in college (my useless skillset knows no bounds!). My professor told us that storytellers tended to get a lot of support and protection from other prisoners in the gulag system, simply because they could entertain and educate. Not a terribly practical skill to have in a forced labor camp in Siberia, it would seem, but you never can tell when something is going to come in handy.
Remember in Farnham’s Freehold, at the end, they traded supplies for books? Apply that to, what was it, Fahrenheit 451, where the characters memorized whole books?
If you can teach, or tell a really good story, or bring news of other places, you likely won’t starve.
well the skills i have are:
cooking, fishing, survival skills, rope and knot skills, outdoor skills, picking some locks ( if i have the right tools), some construction knowledge, fire making, farming, first aid ( cpr certified), the ability and mindset to wing it, a knack for making things, and leadership. ( most of these come from being a boy scout, and earning the eagle, the rest come from living in the country)
that’s all i can think of.
Solid looking skillset, Daniel.
thanks. It took most of my (admittedly short) life to acquire them. mostly do to having a really good scout master.
I have memorized a ton of verses from the bible and i have a good memory so i think i would be a really good storyteller or entertainer. Not to mention my sister is a excellent survivalist, so we would make a good adition to any zombie survival group.
I like these “entertainment/storyteller” skills. This isn’t something I had anticipated when I thought up the question.
Sir Cheese, you could be our Shaman!
Story-telling has been the backbone of humanity since we started dwelling in caves and around campfires. It’s what elevates us from the dismal dispair of the crazy scary stuff waiting for us out there, just beyond the firelight.
This theme reminds of the scene where Christian Bale & Gerard Buttler were recounting the Star Wars plot to the kids in the “Reigh of Fire” movie. The kids reactions were priceless! 😀
I have been away for a week and I missed some great discussions, always busy on BotD! I’m a bit late for the party on the speech but I want to take a guess on the next frames…. 3, 2, 1… and Bam! zombie jumps the president! (pleeease?)
That seems to be a popular theory, Yatkuu.
Welcome back!
I’m unnaturally good at breaking things, but that doesn’t really come in handy when it’s time to rebuild.
Well you have to tear down before you can build up, right?
Lol Samson, the reference you are making is so damn sneaky that I almost didn’t recognize it.
I missed it completely. What’s the reference?
Or it it the Biblical Samson?
The comic character Samson would just about destroy everything to solve his problem. He was the good guy, but no matter what it was, if it was in his way it was going to be destroyed.
Umm… Isn’t “we” 1st person plural? I think 3rd person plural is “they.”
Yeah, you’re right. I’ll fix that.