Zombie Cliche Lookout: Negotiating with Terrorists
In zombie fiction, the zombies are usually the first problem people need to solve. It’s a major problem, and a hell of a lot of people get killed and turned into more zombies before the survivors finally figure out what to do and forge a sort of equilibrium. The problem is that, once people start figuring out how to deal with the zombie problem, a bigger, more serious problem presents itself. I’m talking, of course, of the issue of tinpot dictators, local thugs, and small time warlords.
People with some minor management skills, a lot of ambition, and no conscience whatsoever will become a major problem for those just trying to survive and rebuild. The ability to make moral compromises, or simply ignore morality altogether, puts the survivors at a major disadvantage. How do they overcome that?
About this Episode:
So I finally went back and fixed the missing word from the comic in episode 804. I honestly don’t know how I missed that one. It was like that in the original scripts, and underlined with red, squiggly lines. Just sloppy on my part.
And, speaking of typos, I’m guessing this write-up will be chock full of them. I say this because I’m doing this write-up while helping my son with his math homework. He’s able to do most of it independently, but I’m jumping in when he needs help, so I’ve taken a lot of little breaks and probably lost my train of thought a little bit.
Discussion Question: Meeting Demands
You find yourself in a small, poorly outfitted group of survivors. It is several months into the zombie apocalypse, but you have managed to find an easily defensible location and have build a stockpile of food that should last you for several months if you’re careful with rationing. A hostile group shows up, and threatens to destroy you if you don’t give up half of your supplies to them, plus a small amount every week as tribute. You don’t have the people or the weaponry to beat them in a standup fight. So what do you do?
“People with a some minor” – remove the letter “a”
“or simple ignore morality” – simple–>simply
“and have build a stockpile” – build–>built
“You don’t have the people of the weaponry” – of–>or
These are the typos I could find for today, others may or may not exist! 😀 And there’s the last episode’s typo to fix, too!
Rather simple and easy to fix, hopefully your son is getting through his math homework properly! 😀
Hah, thanks. This is not too bad, in all honesty.
And yes, math homework went well too.
As for what I’d do, I’d send Dave’s continuity checker over to see if she can help them with anything. After she destroys the group well that’s the end of the problems.
Seriously, though, I’d want to hire spies to try and find out their weak points or weak people and have then dealt with appropriately.
With two groups, if both are equally sound where fighting zombies is concerned, and they’re having at each other, the result will inevitably be a new group that is some mix of the two groups. The simplest way to think of it is as a set of people encircled by group A, a set of people encircled by group B, and a subset encircled by group A and B representing those at conflict with both groups.
I think that hiring spies would be impossible in the Zombie Apocalypse. While spies would have a higher survival rate than that of the average human, the infirsurcture to find them and track them down would be much harder.
Plus money’s no good anymore.
The group is basically facing one group, being suppressed by another, then trying to use their strength suppress another group into helping them out, thereby becoming the first group. None of this is going to end well for anyone.
I think he means he’d be finding someone within his own group, not interviewing outsiders. Still quite difficult, to be sure.
So find a way to splinter and re-connect? That’s a cool idea.
Hmm. Episode 804 still isn’t fixed yet. At least not from what my browser is showing me. Episode 805’s write-up still needs that typo fixed. 😀
Might be cached. I’d do a hard refresh in your browser. I’ll get the typo in 805 now. Thanks for the reminder.
I just tested using Microsoft Edge which I almost never use and the link still has the comic that says “I still don’t know we got here so early”
It should read “I still don’t know WHY we got here so early”
I know how to check cached references, and it’s not that hard to tell if something’s really been updated, so it’s possible you uploaded the wrong image, didn’t get the correction right, or didn’t realize what you had to actually correct.
Gah, I’m rambling, my point is that the correction still needs to be done. 😀
That’s really weird. I fixed this and verified it on Sunday. Now it’s flipped back. Ugh.
Okay, I just replaced it a second time, and I’m seeing it correctly now.
Thanks, that really fixed it this time! 😀
I understand that stories need drama and conflict to work but I wonder why everyone seems to think that when the Zed problem dies down all the survivors are going to be trying to kill each other off as fast as possible. While violence and the threat of violence will certainly be a problem a true dictator will want as many people under her control as possible and killing off and starving off all others won’t help you when the bigger group who used other methods come a calling. What other methods? For one the threat of another possibly non-existent group who are coming to get us so let’s build up and be prepared and bring in more people to help us build up and be prepared once we convince them the maybe threat is real works pretty well. North Korea has been using it for 60 years now.