AMC's The Walking Dead Season 1 Discussion & Spoilers

[Cutter John]

SicOne wrote:

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I would imagine that whoever was giving the orders at that point, as well as the troops carrying them out, were scared shitless, several of their buddies had already gotten snacked upon, and they started shooting everyone who looked all bloody...including doctors and nurses wearing bloodstained scrubs from treating victims.

Or they just started opening fire when startled by the Zs coming in right behind them and devouring them...

All good points. But I think I'd still be disenclined to go anywhere near the military after seeing that.

[PsychoPere]

SicOne wrote:

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I don't know how to the little "spoiler alert" bar [...]

The code is [ spoiler="description" ] spoiler here [ /spoiler ]. Alternatively, when you're in the Editor, it's the last option on the formatting bar (the face with the "x" for a mouth).

SicOne wrote:

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Yes, I believe Jenner discovered Lori was pregnant. She was pregnant in the comic book series, and it was all up in the air whether or not the baby was Rick's or Shane's

It may never have been explicitly stated by the characters, but the way the situation is handled makes it pretty damn clear that Shane was Judith's father.

Morpheus 02 wrote:

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i am also thinking Andrea as well who was pregnant (my wife is just finishing her morning sickness ) ...but it would be kinda creepy if Dale was the father, as he seems more like a father to the WHOLE group, especially to Andrea & her sister.

If anyone is pregnant, it's Lori because the dramatic storytelling possibilities are far greater with her than with Andrea.

Andrea and Dale do start a relationship in the comics, and the television series has already started laying the foundation for that down the road.

[Zombie]

Jax wrote:

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What I want to hear is the show success will spawn a video game. I am dying for an open ended zombie genre co-op game...L4D doesn't count because its very linear and not ZOMBIES.

GRRR Can't believe I have to wait till October 2011 for season 2

That would be cool. A MMORPG.

[Zombie]

SicOne wrote:

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(4) Logistics...good idea! The HEMTT is awesome. But in addition to all of the above problems, I think you'd see guys taking HEMTTs for themselves, to go looking for their families. I think you'd see desertions; certainly you'd se significant breaks in the logistics chain at various points as areas became overrun and began looking out for themselves. A Cav unit defending Atlanta against several million Zs might be written off.

Not only that but what about the people in the factories and gas stations and warehouses?

What good is a supply line if the first point in the line, the manufacturer, can no longer operate?

You can have all the trucks in the world but if you don't have oil coming into the country to be turned into gas you've got nothing when the oil reserves in the country go out.

Then of course can you get everyone in uniform? How many people for the national guard or the reserves are actually going to show up for duty?

For the record, I wholeheartedly agree with you about wondering of the fate of the military. We see a lot of stopped tanks and vehicles, but not a whole helluva lot of dead soldiers.

We've seen some wandering around as Zombies but I do agree there is a chance they retreated but I think it more likely that things broke down to far and they just took off.

[Zombie]

SicOne wrote:

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but I would imagine people asked Kirkman, "Hey! Why didn't your peeps go to the CDC?" Perhaps they are retconning a missing development from the comic series.

From what I understand Kirkman didn't take them to the CDC in the comics because he didn't know the CDC was in Atlanta. Had he known they would have gone there.

[Cutter John]

Zombie wrote:

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That would be cool. A MMORPG.

I'd stand in line on release day for something like that. A free roaming zombie game along the lines of RDR, where its more important to move stealthily, avoiding zombies, and the ocassional crazed survivor as you gather food, potential weapons and gear and look for a safe place to hold up. Of course throw in optional travelling companions you meet along the way who can either be a huge help, just slow you down, or turn coward or lose it at the wrong moment and nearly get you killed.

[Caliburn24]

Interesting rationalizations, and I agree, having seen only six episodes and being largely sheltered from any larger view of the world we can't dogmatically argue one way or another.

Two nitpicks however. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. the largest in the world, has a 160 day supply of oil on hand. I think it was mentioned at some point that they were at day 60 something since the zombie thing started? There should be plenty of petrol around, assuming distribution(a big assumption) continued.

As to headshots being the only way to stop a walker. Unless the CDC doctor was keeping physical changes to walkers a secret, the only change is in the brain stem. That means over-pressure(which is the the main way bombs kill people) will kill walkers as sure as a headshot. Whether the brain is turned to mush by a bullet or over-pressure, the end result is the same. Also, limb wounds and such might not kill a walker instantly, but they still have blood, they still have internal organs that require certain processes to work. Just because walkers are governed by pure instinct doesn't make their biology any different from ours. They'll bleed out just like any other human.

[Reverend]

Two nitpicks however. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. the largest in the world, has a 160 day supply of oil on hand. I think it was mentioned at some point that they were at day 60 something since the zombie thing started? There should be plenty of petrol around, assuming distribution(a big assumption) continued.

But then what do you do if you get to day 160 and you haven't "won"? You run out of fuel and get eaten is what, so the more logical course of action is to pull back, conserve resources to just a handful of strong points and dig in for a long siege.

As to headshots being the only way to stop a walker. Unless the CDC doctor was keeping physical changes to walkers a secret, the only change is in the brain stem. That means over-pressure(which is the the main way bombs kill people) will kill walkers as sure as a headshot. Whether the brain is turned to mush by a bullet or over-pressure, the end result is the same. Also, limb wounds and such might not kill a walker instantly, but they still have blood, they still have internal organs that require certain processes to work. Just because walkers are governed by pure instinct doesn't make their biology any different from ours. They'll bleed out just like any other human.

In the first episode we saw a "walker" that was basically a half eaten torso, complete with a full exposed rib cage and the thing was still going, so I don't think bleeding out is an issue.

I have WWZ open here and there is a mention of...bugger it, I'll just quote a few paragraphs from the Battle of Yonkers chapter. (I don't usually like to quote this much but I think it all seams pertinent enough.)

"...Zack started entering the first kill zone, the one designated for the MLRS. I didn’t hear the rockets launch, my hood muffled the noise, but I saw them streak toward the target. I saw them arch on their way down, as their casings broke away to reveal all those little bomblets on plastic streamers. They’re about the size of a hand grenade, antipersonnel with a limited antiarmor capacity. They scattered amongst the Gs, detonating once they hit the road or an abandoned car. Their gas tanks went up in like little volcanoes, geysers of fire and debris that added to the “steel rain.” I got to be honest, it was a rush, dudes were cheering in their mikes, me too, watching ghouls start to tumble. I’d say there were maybe thirty, maybe forty or fifty, zombies spread out all across this half mile stretch of freeway. The opening bombardment took out at least three-quarters of them.

Only three-quarters.
[Todd finishes his cigarette in one long, angry drag. Immediately, he reaches for another.]

Yep, and that’s what should have made us worry right then and there. “Steel rain” hit each and every single one of them, shredded their insides; organs and flesh were scattered all over the damn place, dropping from their bodies as they came toward us…but head shots…you’re trying to destroy the brain, not the body, and as long as they got a working thinker and some mobility…some were still walking, others too thrashed to stand were crawling. Yeah, we should have worried, but there wasn’t time.

The trickle was now turning into a stream. More Gs, dozens now, thick among the burning cars. Funny thing about Zack…you always think he’s gonna be dressed in his Sunday best. That’s how the media portrayed them, right, especially in the beginning…Gs in business suits and dresses, like, a cross section of everyday America, only dead. That’s not what they looked like at all. Most infected, the early infected, the ones who went in that first wave, they either died under treatment or at home in their own beds. Most were either in hospital gowns, or pajamas and nightshirts. Some were in sweats or their undies…or just naked, a lot of them completely buck bare. You could see their wounds, the dried marks on their bodies, the gouges that made you shiver even inside that sweltering gear.

The second “steel rain” didn’t have half the impact of the first, no more gas tanks to catch, and now the more tightly packed Gs just happened to be shielding each other from a possible head wound. I wasn’t scared, not yet. Maybe my wood was gone, but I was pretty sure it’d be back when Zack entered the Army’s kill zone.

Again, I couldn’t hear the Paladins, too far back up the hill, but I sure heard, and saw, their shells land. These were standard HE 155s, a high explosive core with a fragmentation case. They did even less damage than the rockets!

Why is that?

No balloon effect for one. When a bomb goes off close to you, it causes the liquid in your body to burst, literally, like a freakin’ balloon. That doesn’t happen with Zack, maybe because he carries less bodily fluid than us or because that fluid’s more like a gel. I don’t know. But it didn’t do shit, neither did the SNT effect.

What is SNT?

Sudden Nerve Trauma, I think that’s what you call it. It’s another effect of close-in high explosives. The trauma is so great sometimes that your organs, your brain, all of it, just shuts down like God flickin’ your life switch. Something to do with electrical impulses or whatnot. I don’t know, I’m not a fuckin’ doctor.

But that didn’t happen.

Not once! I mean…don’t get me wrong…it’s not like Zack just skipped through the barrage unscathed. We saw bodies blown to shit, tossed into the air, ripped to pieces, even complete heads, live heads with eyes and jaws still moving, popping sky high like freakin’ Cristal corks…we were taking them down, no doubt, but not as many or as fast as we needed to! The stream was now like a river, a flood of bodies, slouching, moaning, stepping over their mangled bros as they rolled slowly and steadily toward us like a slow-motion wave. The next kill zone was direct fire from the heavy arms, the tank’s main 120s and Bradleys with their chain guns and FOTT missiles. The Humvees also began to open up, mortars and missiles and the Mark-19s, which are, like, machine guns, but firing grenades. The Comanches came whining in at what felt like inches above our heads with chains and Hellfires and Hydra rocket pods. It was a fuckin’ meat grinder, a wood chipper, organic matter clouding like sawdust above the horde. Nothing can survive this, I was thinking, and for a little while, it looked like I was right…until the fire started to die."

The next bit goes on about them basically running out of ammo because of a lack of foresight then the line breaks when Land Warrior basically allows a handful of soldiers to spread panic when they get a headshot but no kill (as in the bullet goes through the head and misses the brain) and it all goes to shit. Keep in mind though that this part of the book is relatively early in the crisis, the "war" itself doesn't really begin until much later, by which point the military had leant it's lessons and adapted to the new threat.
There's even a later "interview" with this same character as he describes how they retook the country...on foot...armed mostly with just modified entrenchment tools and semi-automatic rifles.

Of course for all I know this could all be BS, but to a layman it seams pretty well researched.

[SicOne]

Caliburn24 wrote:

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Two nitpicks however. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. the largest in the world, has a 160 day supply of oil on hand. I think it was mentioned at some point that they were at day 60 something since the zombie thing started? There should be plenty of petrol around, assuming distribution(a big assumption) continued.

As to headshots being the only way to stop a walker. Unless the CDC doctor was keeping physical changes to walkers a secret, the only change is in the brain stem. That means over-pressure(which is the the main way bombs kill people) will kill walkers as sure as a headshot. Whether the brain is turned to mush by a bullet or over-pressure, the end result is the same. Also, limb wounds and such might not kill a walker instantly, but they still have blood, they still have internal organs that require certain processes to work. Just because walkers are governed by pure instinct doesn't make their biology any different from ours. They'll bleed out just like any other human.

To add to the first nitpick, the Strategic Reserve accomodates ALL U.S. usage (personal consumption AND manufacturing consumption), so if it is all accessible and well rationed out, it might conceivably last even longer than 160 days. Once the powers-that-be saw the extent of the situation, I really don't think more tanker trucks would be heading to the local QuikMart to replenish those tanks. Those resources would be dedicated to military response and civilian evacuation (if any). So our intrepid group might not be able to find gas as gas stations would be emptied out by people trying to get the hell out of Dodge, or burned to the ground by people starting a firefight around the place.

Regarding headshots, if the bullet entered the Z's eye sockets or mouth and blew right through the back of the skull, there might not have been enough energy dumped into the target for hydrostatic shock to pulp the brain stem; in much the same fashion that a 9mm (or even a 5.56 at close velocity that doesn't tumble) will frequently blow through a human target without dropping it immediately, hence the preference for .45 and .40 rounds, which tumble and fragment and deposit more of the round's energy into the target.

Someone else already handled the bleed-out portion.

[SicOne]

^ I am enjoying the conversation and plot holes, though; clearly you've given this some thought!

[Reverend]

To add to the first nitpick, the Strategic Reserve accomodates ALL U.S. usage (personal consumption AND manufacturing consumption), so if it is all accessible and well rationed out, it might conceivably last even longer than 160 days. Once the powers-that-be saw the extent of the situation, I really don't think more tanker trucks would be heading to the local QuikMart to replenish those tanks.

^I'm sure you already realise this, but I just thought I should emphasise some fundamentally questionable assumptions there.
If people everywhere (military and civies) always behaved rationally in a time of crisis then I'm pretty sure wars would have gone out of fashion centuries ago.

I have to say this is a fun discussion. I wonder what it is about these end-of-the-world scenarios that makes them so engaging when logically they should be just terrifying.

[Yukikaze]

If we surmise that it (whatever it is in the end) infected the entire population, killed (and then resurrected) a large portion - say 60-70% - then I'm sure that this would also have taken place within the military - wouldn't it?
It's not like all military instalations are sealed airtight and the air filtered for the cause of what has been killing all the people.
And in this case a large portion of your supporting personnel (logistics, maintenance) as well as a sizable portion of your fighting force would also be sick-gone-resurrected just like that (perhaps even in a matter of hours/days?), removing a large nummber of people with the training to fight the enemy as a cohesive force.

[FluffyUnbound]

Reverend,

The problem with that World War Z excerpt is pretty straightforward:

Slow zombies can't climb. So they have absolutely no way around or over any obstacle the height of a man or taller.

Slow zombies also don't have the brain power to detect traps.

You set up tall barriers, you lure the zombies up against those barriers by waving at them or what have you, and you kill them. All day. Or once they're stacked up against your barrier a kilometer deep, you helicopter out and napalm the site.

An enemy that can't hide, can't retreat, can't stop himself from advancing, and can't overcome simple obstacles isn't really an enemy. He's an annoyance.

Brooks made that battle work by having the military be too dumb to set up a simple stone wall 8 feet high in front of the advancing zombies. Or if there was no time for stone, city busses lined up nose-to-tail.

[Reverend]

You've essentially described what they did later in the book. The point of that chapter was to show hubris at work. The character being interviewed points out a number of things that were done wrong, not least of which was setting up positions at ground level rather than on roof tops or in windows where they'd be protected. As I said, in the narrative of the story the "Battle of Yonkers" is a disaster and a wake up call.

It's easy to sit back and poke holes in any unsuccessful military strategy in history; I mean what idiot tries to invade Russia in winter and what complete moron tries the same thing over a century after the last guy failed? Generals are hardly immune from stupidity.

[Canadave]

^ Yup. I believe they repeat the line "The military is always extremely well-prepared for the last war they fought" (or something to that effect) a number of times.