About This Episode:
The shot where Paulo is being dragged away is one of my favorite of any MOC I have ever shot. It didn’t turn out like I wanted but I still like it. I don’t have a good camera. I have a cheap NIKON coolpix but most of these images are shot on an iPhone. Any good shot you see if the result of me obsessing over lighting. So, no, you don’t need an expensive camera to do all of this. Patience wins out if you take the time to figure lighting out.
With that said, I feel like that shot shows the absolute limitations of what I am capable of with the camera’s I have. There is a shot that Dave did with Sam in Hockey gear that is jaw dropping. It’s a shot I was trying to replicate and no matter how much I tried, this is as good as I could get it. I am in the market for a new camera.
Discussion Question: From Bo
How do you think the world’s governments would react to a zombie pandemic? Assume that itt’s fast enough moving that authorities can’t contain it before the WHO and CDC identify it and react (as in the world’s dead rising at once or a fast moving plague. The scenario fits either mythos). Would they use isolated military units, deployed naval fleets, for instance, to bomb infected population centers? Would they use nuclear weapons to prevent the spread? Recall General Patton’s suggestion that the US drop a line of nuclear bombs across the Korean peninsula to dissuade the invading Chinese. Would desperate governments attempt similar desperate measures?
How would this affect your survival plans? Would it change your mode of transportation, automobile verses walking? Do you think you could get an early enough warning to leave the blast zone? Do you know much about the prevailing winds and usual weather patterns in your current location to make a difference?
Absolutely love this question from Bo.
This one is going to be a fun one! To some sort of writing program!
Throw a grenade at the floor and keep shooting until it blows up. Less zeds the A-bomb will take KIA.
There is a lot of good literature on prevailing winds in a nuclear blast. All I remember off the top of my head is that the jet stream blows from west to east.
The best bet is to avoid urban centers like the Plague before, during, and after a zombie apocalypse, regardless of what government “officials” advise. If zombie movies have taught us anything, it’s that getting herded into any type of unsecured government facility just makes a zombie buffet.
And secured government facilities are always full of bad guys that may or may not end up infected themselves, eventually. Remember The Crazies?
“Remember The Crazies?”
Great movie. I wonder how much of that plot would hold true in a real zombie event. Government more concerned about containment than protection?
If I ended up having to fight off the undead AND deal with stupid government decisions, I’d probably just say “F- this,” and off myself in a (hopefully) heroic way.
Just an FYI, the “Mi Dios” should be “Dios Mio.” Spanish adds the possessive pronoun after the object. We’re weird like that.
sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiit
You know…I should have asked you. But I didn’t want to be the dumb white guy and ask “hey do you speak Mexican?”
That’s ok… dumb white guys are tan dulce tambien. lol
No one? Nobody? I am dissapoint!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70eU840lc38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ehWPCI3E_s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKeobbfy79M&feature=fvwrel
(language sheeeeeeit)
Never saw it (don’t spend money on television, either).
just checked those out… bwahahahahahahahahaha
Angelina, ¿tu eres latina? ¿De dónde eres? Yo soy Puertorriqueño.
¿Has visto esto?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mj-VoWMYTA&feature=fvsr
Bórica también! Mi papa es de Caguas pero nací aquí en los Estados Unidos. Vivo en la Florida ahorra. ¿Y usted?
iQué pequeño es el mundo! Yo también soy de Caguas. De hecho voy en septiembre con my esposa e hijos adultos. Estoy aquí en la area de Seattle desde 1975; mis hijos también nacieron aquí. Regreso a Puerto Rico para comer pasteles y arroz con habichuelas antes de la resurrección de los zombiricans. iWeepaa! 😀
” antes de la resurrección de los zombiricans.”
van a ser gorda con toda la comida rica que va a comer. bwahahahahahahahaha!
y que poca vergüenza que no cocines arroz y habichuelas en casa. lol
En actualidad, you cocino bien; pero tu sabes, nunca es tan bueno como lo de abuelita.
what did u say?
After I got done writing this I remembered it was the main plot point of 28 Weeks Later, I think. There’s really nothing new under the sun.
Consider that the military units with the nuclear weapons are in near complete isolation. I don’t see a zombie outbreak getting into and ICBM silo or deployed boomers. Even strategic bombers in flight would be safe from a fast-moving zombie outbreak, although not for as long as the submarines and silos.
I don’t think it wold take long for the US Navy to start lobbing ordnance at the epicenters of outbreak, if there is one, and it’s not just the dead rising simultaneously. Additionally, bases would get locked down in a hurry.
Also, I think that intelligence agencies would be quick to catch internet chatter and react accordingly.
I so hope the wolves are taking Paulo to safety. Thinking Marie is gonna really try to kick ass in defence.
I haven’t read this book; but typically werewolves in their lycanthrope form have no human emotions. Obviously this is an atypical werewolf.
I think that’s what I like about it already.
One thing I have read is nuclear is not an option, it slows the decay of zombies and makes them lethal to be around even after you shoot their head off. They’d probably use those giant gas bombs instead. Maybe incendiary ordinance too. The interesting thing is that there are about 270M guns in private hands. 20% of the population owns 65% of these guns compared to 4 million guns in the military/police. That’s about 89 guns per 100 people. If we don’t lose our heads (pun intended) we should be able to easily stamp out a zombie uprising.
Those seem to be good average statistics. However, some people such as myself, live in areas that have a lot of people that have a LOT of guns, seriously, there is a 2-1 gun to people ratio (if you include handguns).
Yeah, I throw that average way off, just by myself.
And before anyone asks, no I’m not sharing. 😉
I decided against what I was typing.. Not only would it possibly offend some peoples political standing. IT would also make me look crazy to people who do neither care about politics, or search into any information they see.
Ha, ha, ha! Calicade, as a frequent reader & responder on this site, by now you must realize that there are no such thing as crazy questions, just crazy people. Respond away, or wait till Dave The Man returns; he’s pretty tactful in how he censors people. 🙂
Tactfulness is the name of the game. I like to let people be as open as possible within reason. No one wants to be moderated.
Yeah, let it all hang out. 😉
Couldn’t take it any more. Just bought this book. Good job Evan!!
Thank you, thank you. And thank you. I hope you enjoy it, and don’t laugh too hard at the Spanish. I’m rusty, and Snell was no help, HAH!
I’m never any help.
Angeline, thank you!
Angelina* sorry 🙂
As to the question(s), limiting it to the U.S.
1. I’m guessing that interventions will go from micro to macro
a) Mobilizing all law enforcement agencies and emergency response teams
b) Mobilizing the National Guard from state to state; Governors calling for curfew and activating the Emergency Broadcast System
c) Federal Government calling for Quarantine Measures in a state by state “need”
d) Executive Orders given for “Ambulatory Biological Agent Containment,” that is, Shoot to Kill. And there has to be some euphemistic phrase or acronym. No president wants to be remembered as the guy who said: Shoot to kill. The Coast Guard & Navy will be mobilized to prevent maritime evacuation; subs & aircraft carrier groups will be on standby to prevent “hasty” responses from other nations.
e) Responses will be slow and ineffectual; ask FEMA who it works out for them, and they prepare for their disasters for a living, and for decades.
f) Chain of Command and Line of Communications will collapse rather swiftly. Panic ensues and all that.
g) Ground troops will be slow, ineffective and lethal; compounding the problem. At some point, mobilization of aerial assaults will be authorized. Expect the use of Mark 84 bombs delivered in major infected zones. “The needs of the Many outweighs the needs of the Few.” Expect the use on Incendiary Bombs, like what we used in the first Iraq war.
2. Meanwhile . . .
a) Expect Canada to close it’s borders, but with little effect. Consider how large the border line is. The irony will not be lost to survivors of either side as Americans rush to cross into Mexico asking for refugee status and asylum. They’ve done a handful of movies on this latter point.
Speaking of nuclear weapons and civilian populations, August 6th is when we dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima, and August 9th is when we dropped Fat Man on Nagasaki.
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”
A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 – by Isao Hashimoto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY&feature=related
Nuclear Explosions Since 1945
http://www.armscontrol.org/print/2566
Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance
http://www.armscontrol.org/print/2566
50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons
http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/archive/nucweapons/50
Luis, I love that line! Very funny movie.
Luis has hit on anything with greater depth than what I would have or bothered to take the time to post.
But I kind of think it would be the worse case scenarios as seen in 28 Weeks Later, The Walking Dead and a few others where the Governments might possibly respond with a “scorched earth” policy and just burn everything/nuke/kill anything coming out of a “contaminated area.”
I keep thinking of the nuke option and I keep coming back to this thought: Other opportunistic nuclear-powered nations would force our hand. I keep thinking of the “Either you (U.S.) deal with this, or we will take care of it ourselves.” The obvious question, under these crazy, dire circumstances, once in the air, would we leave it at that, or would we lob back our nukes in retaliation? “They may be enraged, cannibalistic, unliving ghouls, but they are OUR enraged, cannibalistic, unliving ghouls!”
I am a big fan of zombie genre but I hate it when authors use WMD to kill them. It is stupid! Wasteful! When a new enemy rises which can convert irreversibly your people to them (as in zombies, werewolves, vampires) and it is fast spreading easiest way to stop them is:
1. Identify safe and easily defensible places (military bases aircraft carriers so on) where you have weapons and good specialists establish permanent communication between them and a clear chain of command
2. Make them almost impossible to be taken over by the enemy: detection of conversion in place, barricades multiple points to retreat and defend. Isolation procedures fallback places so on and so forth.
3. Gather supplies and people (choose it wisely always choose the combat ready, women, children and the rest in that order) if somebody wants to show its worth than show how he can kill the enemy , produce food, or repair build equipment anybody else is cannon fodder.
4. Establish food producing regions fence them make them defensible (towers, bunkers )
5. After the spreading of the enemy has slowed down ( non infected people are few and defend themselves) start to retake regions by the best method which can be used against the enemy. I will use the zombie example but it can be extended to anything else. So if we deal with slow, stupid undead we use following approaches ranked from best to worst:
Build airships ideally filled with helium if not hydrogen even hot air balloons there you put your best marksmen (or markspersons to be PC 🙂 ) with the best weapons and plenty of supplies and ammunition. They will work in shifts. If possible no killing is during the night if not silent sleeping conditions should be provided ( ear-plugs).
On the ground the support team should be as inconspicuous as possible no unnecessary shooting should be done. Heavy use of armored vehicles is advisable.
Use some bait in case of zombies loud music far from support group and use some choke point to not let too many zombies to close to the bait. You can even draw some lines on the ground to separate each shooters territory. Then start remotely the music and wait the undead to gather and shoot them one at a time. If you kill a zombie at each 3 second a 10 shooter team will kill over 10k in one hour 100k in ten hours. If you have 10 teams you can kill 1M zombies a day. In a month 30M zombies dead in two months you can start to clean small towns and cities and make law and order there. And you can gather more teams you can teach more people how to organize hunts so the cleanup will be faster with 100 teams you will kill around 5M a day (you wont have so big gatherings of zombies so the rate of kill will decline) and in half a year the problem is contained will be laws to deal with zombies like what to do if you see one will be safety features built in every home like zombie detection systems which isolate the zombie in a part of the house if detected so on and so forth.
Next approach if you don’t have the resources/skills/environment for airships:
Fortify a position which zombies cannot surround (can be a highway overpass) and put the bait far and start killing them from far away and from safe positions. Always have a fallback plan! Only the support team should have heavy weapons as the firing team to not have the incentive to put on full auto and use up the ammunition.
If the survivors cannot fortify a suitable position than choose a choke point put there the bait and from an inaccessible or hardly accessible position (like a cliff, a steep hill ) kill them with silenced weapons (silenced guns or crossbows) kill rate is smaller but you can have many more teams so you can have easily 100 teams to start with and slowly go to 10k teams which can swipe the entire country.
Unfortunately, we don’t get to decide how the powers that be will deal with any worst case scenario, unless any of the readers here are high-level officials within the executive branch of the federal government (any undersecretaries here? flag level military officers? No?). We don’t get to decide how the government will react, but only how we react to their reaction. The government is ill-prepared to cordon off productive areas from nonproductive establishing retreats, gathering survivors, allocating supplies, educating people. The military’s job is to break things and kill people and supporting they that do, in the case of logistics and medical services.
All of this depends upon the speed and severity of the event, and whether it is localized or generalized. Is there a patient zero; or are all of the dead rising at once all over the world, Romero-style?
I can’t paint a scenario in which there won’t be isolated military units. Their security is too good to allow a frothing madman (fresh zombie) or shambling corpse into a high security area; and if things got desperate, they’ll consider any option, including low yield nuclear weapons at infected population centers.
The best solution then is to not be there. When it hits the fan, be at your sparsely populated retreat. Folks that live in Manhattan and Chicago and Los Angeles would be self-propelled zombie snack packs. At least in the country you could see them coming.
As for fallout, there are a couple of good books on the subject, lots of civil defense era materials on surviving nuclear fallout, including for free in the web. Just print it out before you lose electricity.
haha! poor paulo
Oh no, poor Paulo – I wonder when he’ll turn… 😉
right !
Question:
A disease that is transmitted by fluid transfer and has prompt, obvious symptoms is simply not going to spread very fast at a national level, so we pretty much have to be talking about an “everyone rises” scenario here. These are obviously the worse because there’s no single point of origin that it will be concentrated at; over seven thousand people die every day in the US, so you’re looking at tens of thousands of outbreaks across the whole country.
Now, the military isn’t going to have any trouble killing zombies that have risen, and it shouldn’t take too long to figure out what’s going on, either. Zombies aren’t exactly subtle. Once it’s discovered that anyone who dies rises, the priority must be to prevent more outbreaks.
Deploying police or soldiers to hospitals and ambulance crews should prevent most I would think, but you’re still going to want troops patrolling all major population centres for the deaths that go initially unnoticed. They’d be stretched rather thin covering every town in the country, so you’d probably get a curfew, and your standard warning not to congregate in large groups, and to report any zombie sightings.
At this point, the most likely source of more zombies would probably be guys who had accidents out in the country, and I’d hate to be the one responsible for trying to patrol the entire wilderness… more realistic would be lookouts to spot them if they wandered close to a town, maybe?
Honestly, I think the biggest challenge would be logistical, in organising all this mess.