As it stands, the central government has more than bunkers and bottled water in the event of war. From defense, backup communication/power to food supplies, there's no reason to think walkers are going to shut down everything, or that those in command and subordinates are all going to scatter to the winds. Containment would be the first objective--for as long as it could last. ...unless you have a disciplined group beating down dissidents (think Shane). Even Woodbury was free of true internal conflict until the arrival of Andrea and Michone.
Communications are no good if there's nobody on the other end to pick-up. We saw in the flashbacks that containment is exactly what they tried. It didn't work. For obvious reasons, modern militaries are neither trained nor equipped to deal with a global pandemic in which corpses rise from the dead and eat people. They're equipped to deal with people with guns, tanks, aircraft, bombs and missiles. Indeed, I think a fairly good indicator that the system totally collapsed is that (as far as we know) the infected zones didn't get nuked. Had someone still been in charge, you can bet that would have been the next logical step after the napalm failed to contain the hordes. Also, how is the town's leader having trouble makers murdered and keeping their undead severed heads in his fish tank not "internal conflict"? Shane's not a good example either since he lost it and tried to murder his best friend so he could sleep with his wife again. Do you think all the Presidents, Prime Ministers, Generals and Admirals of the world are immune to just loosing their shit at the sheer scale of the horror? And I'm sorry, but brutal oppression does not equate to governance and it's not sustainable. Just look at that town from the Telltale game. They were disciplined, organised, had strong leadership and were willing to stop at *nothing* to survive. Didn't do them any good.
I think it's pretty clear all of society has collapsed and the walker-to-human ratio is pretty damn high. I'd say no meaningful governments stand aside from maybe places that were already brutal dictatorships (like North Korea, for example.) If anything of government survived there'd be *some* attempt to communicate and/or bring relief to the survivors. So from that we can say, at the very least, America's government has not survived and with that as a benchmark it's probably not too far to speculate that other governments fell as well especially in countries that are much close-quartered. Places like Japan are probably complete nightmares with very, very few survivors.
The walker-to-human ratio must be very high, but population is not evenly distributed. The least populated parts of the world may be much, much safer than rural Georgia. Maybe the President and the government relocated to North Dakota? Consider the far northern and southern latitudes, too. In World War Z (the book), survivors were much safer in the far north during the winters, when the zombies would freeze solid. Only during spring would they start moving again. During the winters, survivors could do a lot to build themselves a safe zone and work to pick off walkers while they're frozen. Of course, they'd have to survive the winters, and that's not trivial, but still....
Well, the show skipped the winter and all we got on it was some speculation from Rick in a S2 episode saying to Shane that the cold "must effect them somehow." I don't think we've ever been told (in the show) how the cold/winter effected the Walkers. And I can't think of anything in "zombie lore" that says definitive one way or another, particularly in Romero zombies (which TWD tries to stick with.) But if it does effect them then, yeah, the northern latitudes likely would have faired better in all of this. Sparsely populated areas likely faired decently, as you say, rural Georgia seems to be doing.. fair. But we've also seen how the "herd mentality" has caused things to snowball bringing the Walkers together and into the more sparsely populated areas. Places that are even more sparsely populated probably have faired even better, places like the South West are probably doing okay, especially if we maybe wonder if extreme heat and dry conditions impacts them in some way.
TWD seems to be trying to stick to physics more than most TV shows do. They've had characters discern that walkers need to consume something to keep going, else they'll starve to death. So walkers aren't perpetual motion machines. They must be susceptible to heat and cold, too. Hannah, the bicycle zombie from the first episode, looked rather dried out, so evaporation of fluids must still effect the walkers. And "rural" Georgia isn't that rural. There's still millions of people in Georgia, but there's only 600,000 people in all of North Dakota. If the government could secure one city in the middle of nowhere, they'd have a base to operate from and way to secure more territory over time. Maybe someday Rick's group will run into a remnant of the government.
There is one problem with containing the walkers. Since all people who die turn, there is really no way you can ever be safe. A government would have to keep track on everyone, all the time. It only takes one accident to turn a safe town into a disaster. It can be managed, most likely, but it will be tricky.
^ Exactly, a secure bunker would only be secure until someone on the inside died. Then, as we saw last week', all it takes is one dead body to turn and start biting others.
^As I have said before, in a society where zombies rise with every death, locked bedroom doors would be the norm. Everyone would sleep alone.
How, exactly, do they lock the cell doors? I imagine there's not enough keys for everyone and they're not exactly designed to be opened by those inside. Though, if everyone had their own key, it would make sense for everyone to be locked in.
I'm talking about communications between emergency locations, not to the random person. TWD never established how it all started, and the show's convenient avoidance of early media response (including that of government officials worldwide) protected the creators from providing necessary explanations, but opened the door to apply real world based speculation about government response. Starting with the napalm flashback to the helicopter in "Beside the Dying Fire," to the National Guard outfit attacked by the Governor, it is clear a government structure exists to some degree, as missions were carried out, and resources exist, which suggests there is some effort to restore order and/or contain the walker threat. Regarding the nuke option, we do not know if it was explored in another part of the country, or how effective napalm was/extent of its use on cities. We can assume such a high level order means one sort of structure remains in operation. Because the townspeople did not know about the heads. It seems clear that his inner circle partifipated in the beheading of victims, but the townspeople were content with (as the Governor chided) picnics, etc., thinking they were under the protection of some glorious leader in a world of chaos. The first rule of power is that those with it intend to keep it as long as possible. The average person might panic and run into the streets (and into the arms of danger), but you can bet that people with the most to lose will fight to keep it. This is not saying some in government will not fall apart, but the visual evidence of military presence means it s more than a couple of employees in a bunker or metal shed in downtown Washington.
Other than the Napalm flashback (which could have been the last attempt by the government before it collapsed, given it was a flashback after all), there's been no indication that the military units we've seen weren't just a few stragglers left with their equipment, trying to survive on their own after the government collapsed. It's a little like Rick and Shane in season one. Just because we had two cops with guns, one of whom still had his badge and gun, didn't mean the police forces were still operable.
There have been no signs of a coordinated government since the early part of the first season, at least not in the United States. The closest we've seen is one, single group of GIs who managed to keep a helicopter and some other gear, but clearly had no contact with any sort of governing body (else it would have come up after the Governor stole all their shit, which logically would have included their radio and other communication gear, including the stuff in the helicopter). Hell, they're probably the same helicopter we saw in the first season, too, though there's no confirmation of that as far as I know. Other than that, though, there have been no signs of any noteworthy government still in operation. No scouting missions. No radio transmissions (which they would be using since there's no reason not to; it's not like zombies can hone in on radio signals). Nada. If there are still fragments left, they've completely isolated themselves, and many if not most of them have likely suffered the same issues the show's groups have suffered since then. It just takes one person dying, whether the rest of the group is aware of it or not, to start up the apocalypse again. And, honestly, if a fucking fortress built by the CDC only managed to have one guy left, with them clearly having known about the virus before it was even unleashed, I doubt very many other government agencies did a much better job of holding off the hordes.
I was wondering about that as well. It would be a simple explanation for why we saw that helicopter and why it happened be heading from Atlanta to the area around the farm, Woodbury, the prison, etc. As for your other point, yeah, if they were part of a larger military operation and didn't check in it would have made sense that the government/military would have headed out to the area to investigate why no one came back, especially after there was a distress call. Presactly. And didn't the CDC guy say the French government was the last to fall? That would imply that all the other governments are gone.
No one can assume any of the observed military were not on recon, or anything else. What we do know is that they were active. The guards attacked by the Governor were not sitting around lost, and after a year+ of the outbreak, they appeared quite healthy and well-armed. How did they maintain this after more than a year of a situation where food and weapons would (in theory) be exausted to the point the guards should not be in that healthy (physical & mechanical) health? The CDC's staff bailed, committed suicide, etc. (not exactly the first line of defense), and they are not the heart of the government--particularly since they were clueless regarding the reanimation of flesh-eating corpses. They were not an example of the security hub of the state, or nation. Do you think the main body of government would not act with contingency plans if the CDC failed to uncover the problem or address it? Do you believe they would just sit around waiting to become dinner?
Your point is well taken but it's not conclusive proof they're tied to a working government. We've seen groups with less resources at the old folks home, the farm, Woodbury and the prison (rick's crew until recently) survive and in a manner thrive. No reason to assume the guard unit, trained to survive in a hostile situation couldn't do at least as well as a bunch of civilians.
I think there was a line somewhere in the CDC about this having been going on for a while, it had just recently gone pandemic. Whatever happened happened pretty quickly. Our guide to this is the flower vase Shane brings Rick in the hospital while Rick is in a coma. They're new and fresh when Shane delivers them and they're dry and severely wilted when Rick wakes up from his coma in the vacant hospital. We're shown a flashback at one point of Shane trying to get Rick out of the hospital with no luck, the flowers look fairly intact here. Giving the show all of the leeway we possibly can we'll say a month passes between Shane bringing the flowers to the hospital and Rick waking up in the abandoned hospital after the ZA has taken hold. When Shane tries to get Rick we can see that society is quickly crumbling and we later see in a flashback Shane, Lori and Carl stuck on a highway outside Atlanta when there's still "some" military action. They're stuck on the highway next to Carol, her husband and Sophia. We can assume after we see Atlanta bombed they nix the idea to go there and start to form a camp relatively nearby. (I can't recall if we see on the highway Dale's RV or T-Dog's church bus.) Here's the big thing... Being as "fair" as possible it's unlikely more than a week passed between the hospital losing power and Rick waking up. The IV drip couldn't have lasted for more than a day after which his body would run on its own stored fat and water. In very extreme circumstances people have gone as long as a week without water and we do see that Rick is very parched when he wakes up. Inside that week Shane formed the camp outside Atlanta, society crumbled even more, and Shane and Lori formed more of a bond and a slight romance. (We'll assume that when they had sex in the second episode this is the first, and only, time they ever did it.) In short it seems things went downhill fast considering everything that happened likely happened within a month. We know it was a fairly short times as certain things are still working, like the backup water heaters at the police station, and going back those flowers on Rick's nightstand. Some stores and such don't seem too badly looted. (Although that's still mostly the case over a year later.) And the camp outside Atlanta has only been established for maybe a week. (Or however long you want to believe Rick was in the hospital between Shane leaving and him waking up. Again, laying on a bed exerting no energy dehydration wouldn't take hold too quickly and people have gone a week or more without drinking water in more extreme survival situations.) As for the military, I believe the squadron The Governor ambushes were just reservists probably just doing their 2-week stint when things crashed, they didn't seem too organized all things considered nor too well trained considering how "easily" they were ambushed by The Governor and his men. I still doubt unless we see clearer evidence otherwise any meaningful form of government still exists. If it did you'd think the Emergency Broadcast Service would be being used as well as many other means of communicating with and helping the public. Hell we've not seen so much as a banner-plane flying over them even Carol mentions that she'd "give anything" for a plane to fly overhead just to have a sense that things are still somewhat normal. Society and government are gone. It would be nice to see the show explore this issue more, or the spin off if it happens, and I think if what I heard about the plans for this season are true that "might" happen.