Spoilers The Walking Dead: the 11th and final season

[theenglish]

I agree. While I am glad we got to see the Nuclear issue explored in Fear I am thinking the Nukes alone would even be a much bigger issue in real life.

Yep, nuclear reactors would go into meltdown. Hundreds of Chernobyl's around the world.

 

[Jayson1]

It's easier to keep the tech up when that one city is being supported by stockpiles and you only need a few spares at a time.

It isn't any easier ten years later when the spares have run out and you've got no way to make any more. Doesn't matter that it's only one city.

It's true that it'd make a huge difference to maintain records of old-world technology and educate the next generation with it. But recreating that technology is another story. Look at what it'd take to manufacture microchips.

So, first you have to recreate the means to create silicon crystals that are 99.9999999% pure. You'd have to recreate the means to dope the crystals with boron or phosphorus ... except first you'd have to recreate the process to extract those elements in the first place. You'd have to have the tools to build a wafer saw to the appropriate degree of fineness ... except first you need to find out what a wafer saw's made of and refine those alloys and materials. And of course you need the chemical knowledge to mix up the acids and other materials for cleaning, texturing and etching. Get ready to build a chemistry lab first.

Oh, and this work has to be performed in a sterile environment. Get ready to manufacture bunny suits with gloves and clear faceplates, respirators, and a work facility maintaining constant positive air pressure.

Oh, and all these steps require a microscope to see what you're doing. To build one of those, you need appropriate knowledge of glassmaking, grinding, and polishing, with an appropriate background in optics. Get ready to build a glassmaking facility first.

And that doesn't count the steps to build the microscope's controls and adjustment mechanisms, which require a high degree of precision. Get ready to build a machine shop first.

This is the absolute minimum required to make exactly one thing: a microchip. Can you really envision making it, knowing that first you have to reconstruct the entire infrastructure of the civilization that invented it? Now imagine trying to figure out all this stuff from a book — because all the experts in all these fields have either been eaten, or they're walking around with their faces hanging off. Theoretically possible? Yes. Likelihood of success? Questionable.

How much manpower and brainpower do you throw at it? How much do you really have to spare, compared to the needs of survival? At what point do you give up when you realize that you simply can't support the infrastructure you want? Or, if you succeed in manufacturing a microchip: Do you know what to do with it once you've made it?

Of course, if that's too hard, maybe you could go back to the 1950s and recreate the infrastructure to manufacture transistors.

Or, if you can't support 1950s infrastructure, you could go back to the 1910s and recreate the infrastructure to manufacture vacuum tubes.

See the regression?

It's certain that in the long term, your post-ZA civilization will only settle out at the tech level they can provably maintain (once the stockpiles run out). No more than that, regardless of how many books they have.

Alexandria settled out at the 19th century.

Could the Commonwealth achieve higher? Probably. But not the 21st.

I do see the regression but I imagine they could still do better than going back to the stone age. Like maybe still having cars but less advanced cars. One thing I do notice is even though they had functioning trucks it's not like today where everyone has a personal car. People seemed to walk when they had to go places. So in theory would it come down to basically having vehicles for police and military purposes. Plus for transporting supplies across the country. Maybe even ambulances. Of course bicycles should be easy to make I would think.

 

[theenglish]

You forgot paper manufacturing. Anything beyond the industrial revolution would require the need for substantial infrastructure, manufacturing and agriculture beyond anything we've seen in the series. The comics show a decent compromise in the final issue, but that would be spoilers.

 

[Jayson1]

All of it would maybe seem possible to me if they could just get ride of the zombies. I'm surprise these advanced communities, especially while they still have the tech to do it right, don't send out zombie hunts so to speak. Troops out their to do one thing and that is kill every zombie you see. I mean if you keep killing them faster than people can die to replace them you would think that would also decrease the number of zombies out their.

Hell you could even use zombie bait by using loud sounds to have them come into some kind of kill zone. Also break out the missile launchers and hand grenades. You might not kill a zombie with these things but if you blow them up to a point were they no longer have legs or arms then they at least stop being a threat to anymore.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

It's easier to keep the tech up when that one city is being supported by stockpiles and you only need a few spares at a time.

It isn't any easier ten years later when the spares have run out and you've got no way to make any more. Doesn't matter that it's only one city.

It's true that it'd make a huge difference to maintain records of old-world technology and educate the next generation with it. But recreating that technology is another story. Look at what it'd take to manufacture microchips.

I understand your point, but the difficulty in manufacturing existing tech in the ZA goes back to just how devastated the world is by the time of TWD's finale. Early on, viewers knew mini-cities or collectives existed (as small as Grady Memorial to as large as Woodbury), but then we eventually discovered Commonwealth-sized cities with partner cities (implied in scenes where Pamela met with "donors" and other leaders). Can we say that surviving company leaders of key industries did not survive to be on the ground floor of the developing Commonwealths of the world? How long would well-maintained tech (e.g. microscopes, solar panels, refrigerators & other appliances) last? I do know some of the oldest microscopes and TVs in on display in museums still function after decades, and in some cases, their components did not need be replaced.

Then again, perhaps the belief that "things were built better in the past" is applicable here, while late 20th/21st century industry has lived up to the accusation that products are made with planned / built-in obsolescence in order to continue to hook customers into buying new products, which would make the idea of their durability in a ZA world a questionable notion at best.

 

[Silvercrest]

Agreed to all. I did write that it's theoretically possible to do all this, but the likelihood goes down if a lot of those knowledgeable people get butchered — and we've see a lot of that, particularly medical professionals.

If you can

1. Save a large number of professionals with the appropriate knowledge
2. Retain a library of knowledge of all these disciplines and begin actively training the next generation in them
3. Create new stockpiles of tools, parts and materials and the facilities to make them
4. Do so BEFORE the old stockpiles and lab/building facilities are used up
5. Depend on the support of a community (or other allied communities) that can provide consistent food, shelter, basic living essentials, and especially large amounts of electric power, so that you've got the time to work on all this stuff without scrabbling to survive

then you've got a reasonable chance to maintain your current tech level and standard of living. Lose any one of these, and the chances go way down. You'll probably regress to an earlier level and settle there. Not the Stone Age. Just earlier. But it'll be a long time before you have the chance to advance again, because now you'll have to reinvent one or more of the above from scratch.

 

[Jayson1]

Do we know if maybe their isn't factory work and thing like oil refineries still in operation away from the main cities. People basically living their and doing the work and then what they make is sent back to their city. You would need to do things like provide security and build walls around them to protect the workers inside but even if the zombies break in kill people you could in theory just replace those people with new workers and start back up once you removed the zombies.

It would be dangerous work and those who do it would maybe get paid a lot or get access to extra resources for doing that kind of dangerous work. I wouldn't be surprised if they also didn't have permanent exploration teams going around gathering every thing of value they can find.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

The Walking Dead just updated their Facebook page. Fear . . . returns for its eighth and final season May 14. AMC has canceled the series.

 

[Morpheus 02]

The Walking Dead just updated their Facebook page. Fear . . . returns for its eighth and final season May 14. AMC has canceled the series.

Wow!!! When did they make news of cancelation???

I mean they DID ruin Victor Strand with this last season, and not sure where they ate going with it. It would have been nice to have them catch up with TWD. It would be nice if in the 2nd Rick movie that he and Morgan reunite

Scott Gimple's tenure as head of all things Walking Dead seems to have imploded

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Wow!!! When did they make news of cancelation???

I mean they DID ruin Victor Strand with this last season, and not sure where they ate going with it. It would have been nice to have them catch up with TWD. It would be nice if in the 2nd Rick movie that he and Morgan reunite

Scott Gimple's tenure as head of all things Walking Dead seems to have imploded

I don't know when AMC decided to cancel Fear. The decision must be quite recent. According to the link on the Facebook page, it looks like the Maggie/Negan and Daryl shows will be limited series and they're positioning the Rick series as the center of a new Walking Dead universe.

The synopsis for the Daryl series doesn’t sound too encouraging - Daryl washes up on the shores of France unaware of how or why he's there and he must find answers to this mystery.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

AMC has been trying to catch up with HBO MAX in the cancellation game lately, some in mid-production. That said, eight seasons is a pretty good run for any show these days.

 

[Mister Spock]

Do we know if maybe their isn't factory work and thing like oil refineries still in operation away from the main cities. People basically living their and doing the work and then what they make is sent back to their city.

We see a bit of that in the episode Rogue Element. Carol takes a trip to a farm outside of the Commonwealth, who they work with in an unofficial capacity. The farm produces opium from poppies which the Commonwealth then uses to make painkillers for their hospital.

I assume the Commonwealth has other satellite outposts, official or otherwise, who provide raw materials for fuel or production. The Commonwealth is in Ohio, which Google tells me has the sixth-largest capacity for crude oil refinery in the US. So it's not outside the realms of possibility that the Commonwealth has a few refineries still manned and in operation.

 

[FPAlpha]

So i basically dropped out when the war against Negan heated up and they had him in the crosshairsb at a standoff and didn't pull the trigger. I knew then that the show had run its course and was only in it for the money.

How did it end? I've seen bits and pieces on Youtube including Maggy apparently being able to work/live alongside Negan ( ) but was too lazy to check on the details. Does the show end in a status quo, i.e. Zombies still around and people still bunkering up in secure places fighting each other and the Zombies?

 

[Starkers]

My opinion of course, but I think the way they've handled Maggie and Negan has been exemplary. Managed to rehabilitate him (up to a point) without ever letting him off the hook.

 

[theenglish]

My opinion of course, but I think the way they've handled Maggie and Negan has been exemplary. Managed to rehabilitate him (up to a point) without ever letting him off the hook.

I agree--there were some really powerful scenes in the last season between them.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I don't know when AMC decided to cancel Fear. The decision must be quite recent.

As I suspected over the past two seasons, the series was moving toward one of two lanes: a big conclusion with the group hunting Althea, or the gang--trying to escape the land ravaged by Teddy's nuclear strike--move across the country and that brings the series to a close. It did not happen that way--not yet, in any case, but the fact Madison--a foundational character on the series--is tied to the next Big Bad arc, read as a way of bookending the series. I only hope that of all characters, Morgan (with the most character growth since TWD / S1) is not killed off, or triggered back to his insanity phase.

According to the link on the Facebook page, it looks like the Maggie/Negan and Daryl shows will be limited series and they're positioning the Rick series as the center of a new Walking Dead universe.

I'd prefer the Rick series to tie up the plots of the Maggie/Negan & Daryl series, to be the addendum to TWD's final scene of Judith and R.J. looking over a rebuilt land, as she said, "We get to start over. We’re the ones who live.”

My opinion of course, but I think the way they've handled Maggie and Negan has been exemplary. Managed to rehabilitate him (up to a point) without ever letting him off the hook.

Agreed. Many hero/villain relationships in TV and film are predictable and lacking in the emotional reason the hero is troubled by the villain and/or is motivated to fight him (SEE: most superhero films produced in the 21st century), but Maggie's arc--post Glenn's murder--had undeniable weight, built from her as a character since season 2, and all she shared with Glenn lost in a few moments from a then-soulless creature. The next phase of the arc was written with patience--no easy pay-offs, but the "will she? / won't she?" tension. For Maggie to finally confront Negan with her years of palpable anger, regret and loss, yet find some way to thank him (for saving Hershel), work with him (which only happened after Negan became a changed person), was one of the great scenes in the series.

 

[theenglish]

A huge part of Negan and Maggie's resolution at the end was the acknowledgement that Maggie will never forgive him; but, she understands that in the way the world is Negan is an ally. It is a great resolution to their arc that doesn't compromise or try to redeem Negan's previous actions. The bottom line is that in the ZA, justice is not the same as in our world and Maggie has to work with Negan and trust him to do the right thing.

It was a powerful scene.

 

[Saul]

I'm all caught up on the past season and finale now. It's an OK finale. It's a shame it had to happen at the end of the worst season ever of the show. If this wasn't the final season I would have dropped this show. The villains/storm troopers were boring, parts of the show started to feel like a CW show with people sitting around talking about their feelings. The finale is kinda meh. Is it even really a finale when a lot of characters will be coming back in their own spin off shows? Hard to be emotionally invested and feel the show is ending when it's not really.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

parts of the show started to feel like a CW show with people sitting around talking about their feelings.

TWD had its share of big battles throughout its run, so as it as winding down to the end, characters letting it all out on the emotional level was the way the series needed to end.

 

[Ethros]

Figured I’d just ask this here rather than starting a whole new thread.

So I’m rewatching some Walking Dead, currently on s8. I’ve seen up to s10, but couldn’t remember much of 7-10 hence the rewatch. I’ve not seen s11 but don’t worry about spoilers as I’ve read what happens (and read all the comics)

Just watched s8 e12 “The Key”

What was that Georgie woman scene all about? Looking on IMDB she never even reappears. Is she related to the Commonwealth?

Was it just an excuse to eventually have some way to get Lauren Cohan/Maggie off the show? Seems kinda clunky if so, especially introducing an interesting concept and the doing nothing with it.. Which is what I’m asking, as I can’t remember what they *do* do with it

IIRC as well are they not related to the helicopter Rick saw in the sky a few episodes earlier?