Zombie question?

[Immolatus]

what do zombies do once they have had there fill of eating? They don't digest the food. there is but so much space in the human stomach. I know it's a silly question but if any body could answer it, it's this forum

[TGTheodore]

Zombies are bulimic. I thought everyone knew that ...

--Ted

[Sephiroth]

Zombies, much like your girlfriend, don't swallow

[Immolatus]

Sephiroth wrote:

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Zombies, much like your girlfriend, don't swallow

at least I have a girlfriend to worry about if she swallows or not. What do you have? free porn and tighty whities

[Mr Nighttime]

The question will never be answered as zombies never have thier fill of eating. They just keep eating as long as there is food available. Once the food is gone, they go back to thier shambling state of undeadness.

However, the food they have comsumed will rot inside of them and decay, causing build up of gas like a bloated cow and will blow thier stomachs open. So, by then, whatever they eat will just fall out and make more room.

But since they never stop eating as long as food is handy, the extra room is irrelevant.

[Sephiroth]

which asks the question, can zombies vomit?

[Davros]

The Zombie Survival Guide, states that Zombies will keep eating even after they have burst open from the internal pressure from what they have consumed.

[Chemahkuu]

^Yeah I was going to say that since a lot have rotted, and the "newer" ones are still corpses nothing works so yeah. It either oozes out of the rotted holes or if they're still relatively intact they burst.

Vampires have a form of digestive transit for the tiny amounts of flesh that become ingested from the biting. But most often attempting to eat a full meal will kill them or small amounts of food will cause protracted discomfort as it slowly works through. Doesn't do them much good to try and eat solids either.

[nx1701g]

Immolatus wrote:

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what do zombies do once they have had there fill of eating? They don't digest the food. there is but so much space in the human stomach. I know it's a silly question but if any body could answer it, it's this forum

Zombies don't crave food for any nutritional purposes, they simply feed because it's one of the basic human imperatives. The digestive system, as said, does not function, but this does not stop them from continuing to feed. They will continue and then keep going even after they have taken torso damage from the overload of material trying to make its way through.

Zombies do have the ability to vomit.

[EyalM]

nx1701g wrote:

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Zombies don't crave food for any nutritional purposes, they simply feed because it's one of the basic human imperatives.

So why don't zombies also follow some other basic human imperatives, like say... mating?

[MarianLH]

I did NOT need that image before breakfast, thank you.


Marian

[Starbreaker]

BRAINS!!!

[Cary L. Brown]

Immolatus wrote:

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what do zombies do once they have had there fill of eating? They don't digest the food. there is but so much space in the human stomach. I know it's a silly question but if any body could answer it, it's this forum

Well, did you ever think about what, "in universe," zombies really are? After seeing a few zombie movies in recent years, the idea popped into my head, and (as anyone who knows me knows ABOUT me) I had no real choice but to try to come up with a rational justification for what "zombies" are.

There are really only two possible explanations... they're either purely supernatural, or there's some scientific basis for what they are.

Well, if they're purely supernatural, then there's no real point in trying to understand them or get away from them, huh? There's not much to be gained by trying to understand "magic," so I'll leave that explanation alone and go on to the "what if they existed in the real world" version.

So, what is a zombie? It's a reanimated human (or other animal) body. Well, "reanimation" implies that there's SOMETHING working there, doesn't it? There may not be life, as we think of it, but there's something happening to cause muscles to operate, to keep joints from drying out and locking up, to keep rigor-mortis from occurring. The delicate internal tissues which allow for vision, hearing, and smell, must still be functional.

And this gets back to "What is a zombie?" A zombie is a human body which has been "reactivated," but only in part. Tissues which are not necessary for continual functioning (skin, etc) decompose, but other tissues remain active and functional (muscles, joint tissues, sense organs, etc).

You'll also note that the tissues that decay, as mentioned above, seem to deteriorate much faster than they would in "real life" dead people. (Eyes, honestly, are almost always the FIRST part to rot out... while the skin is relatively unaltered except in terms of blood-based coloration.) Yet we see massive skin deterioration in "zombies" long before we'd be likely to see that in a real corpse (unless it was in a swamp, I guess!)

Now... look at the BEHAVIOR of zombies. They are driven to eat... but not to eat cows, or dogs, or green beans... or each other. They have a very simple "program" which says "find living humans, and kill them."

That's a remarkably odd behavior... something that makes no sense when looked at as a natural phenomenon. But... as a DESIGNED function... suddenly it makes a LOT of sense.

Suppose an alien species wanted to move in here and take over our planet. And suppose that they were, say, 500 years more advanced than we are. Maybe they've developed nano-technology to the point where they can have "hive" nanobots which function almost in a biological fashion. Suppose that they want our cities intact, and our environment intact as well... but they don't want US around.

Well, they could "invade" in a conventional sense, but that would be pretty inefficient and very risky. They could attempt to infiltrate, but that would be subject to lots of risk as well.

Now, suppose that they developed a nano-technology "microbe" that was able to self-replicate out of biological materials. These devices could network with each other as well... so while a single one would be quite stupid, they'd be able to form a pretty advanced "neural network" when operating in parallel.

Suppose that they were programmed not just to kill people through "disease" but to turn the "killed" persons into a more effective vector for transmission. The nanobots feed the existing tissues, maintaining operation only in the "useful" ones, while feeding off other tissues (explaining the rapid skin deterioration).

The "body" would be a PUPPET, nothing more... controlled by extremely advanced alien technology.

Now, "in-universe," you'd have seen a number of trial runs of this infectant over time. Early ones would have been slow and stupid, but over time, the technology would advance, and the "vectors of infection" would be far more effective (leading to the high-energy-level zombies seen in some more recent flicks).

They'd be programmed to survive only on certain DNA... specifically, human DNA. Once there was no further supply of live human DNA, the "vectors" would be consumed by their nanobots, and once that was gone, the nanobots would themselves shut down and decompose.

So, a year later, the "invaders" would show up, finding a ready-to-populate planet, complete with lots of infrastructure, a thriving ecosystem, no "war damage," and so forth.

An IDEAL solution... when viewed from an "invader's" standpoint... isn't it?

[Chemahkuu]

^You're 'really' over thinking this. And this is from someone who semi-rationalises elements of television Vampires lol.

[Cary L. Brown]

Chemahkuu wrote:

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^You're 'really' over thinking this. And this is from someone who semi-rationalises elements of television Vampires lol.

Nahhhh... I just can't enjoy things that make no sense, so unless I can envision some way to make things "make sense," I'm not going to bother with them at all.

This way, it all fits together. Every single "zombie flick" makes sense, and all the nonsensical "horror for the sake of horror" bits work.

(As for vampires, they've got a new organelle in their cells which converts light energy into stored chemical energy... but direct exposure to sunlight causes that organelle to overload, resulting in tissue combustion. The stored energy is what allows vampires to do what they do (though much of it is psychic rather than physical... they don't "really" turn into vapor or bats or wolves or whatever, they just make you SEE that!)

See, I think everything through. If it doesn't make sense... I can't enjoy it.