How long would you survive a zombie apocalypse?

[Fenris]

So I was thinking how long would I survive in a zombie apocalypse. I'm guessing I'm not the only one who thinks about this while playing 7 Days. I was thinking "Well I can be pretty handy, getting old cars to run again wouldn't be too difficult, I've worked on hundreds (forget it if they are computer controlled though lol). I'm a decent shot with a pistol and a good shot with a rifle. Hopefully the gun stores in my area haven't been looted yet. Silencers are simple to make (yeah, I know they don't work like Hollywood silencers). Bows ... well I'd have to train .... a lot lol. I've had survival training, I can make shelters, catch, skin, and cook food. I suppose the smell of cooking food would be a problem. In a zombie apocalypse were zombies can't chew through stone walls I suppose finding a good defensible place to make home wouldn't be too bad, provided I survived long enough.

 

Then I remembered I snore .... loudly. Combine that with me being able to sleep through a bomb blast, I'd probably be eaten on my first night.

[ElDudorino]

Oh yeah I wouldn't even make it to night. I'd hit all the obvious PoIs because I sure as hell wouldn't be able to make my own and I'd either get shot or eaten somewhere around building #4.

[Maharin]

So much depends on the nature of the infection and zombies, the rate of infection, and your starting location.  Dangerous and/or fast zombies with an infection that spreads fast while living in a city... yeah, you're dead, even with skills and supplies it is just a matter of time.

 

As for my own odds in my own mind?  I'm FAR better off now than I was 5 years ago.  I'm in a lot better shape, in a better location, and know a lot more about survival.  All good things.  But in an apocalypse situation my current skill set will only go so far.  If there are hordes and 100's of zombies of any kind come at my house I'm screwed.  I have thousands of rounds of ammo but that won't matter much against a tidal wave of flesh.  7DTD makes the apocalypse look easy. 

 

 

[ElCabong]

All depends on how the zombie apocalypse works out. If whatever it is works very fast and leaves most of the grocery stores with food on the shelves, you can probably last a long time if there's not very many other survivors. And assuming the zombies don't get you. 

I am not prepared for a zombie apocalypse, I have a few weapons but I don't have much ammo. I don't think a bow and arrow would be much good against them even if I could make one that worked. 

Don't think I'd last very long

[Riamus]

I think how long isn't friends on the zombies. Are they old school zombies and ones like The Walking Dead, where they just slowly shamble along?  It are they more like World War Z and 7D2D that can run as fast or faster than a living person?  If they are slow, then I would be good one I got out of the city.  If the zombies mostly hover around where they died rather than sitting out over the entire countryside, then I would likely last quite a while.  I think most people who could survive in the wild in the world today could survive in a zombie apocalypse if they were able to get out of the city before being overrun.  At least for a time.  Eventually, the zombies would likely overrun you no matter where you went unless you could find an island that is safe or something like that where they can't reach you.

[Darthjake]

I'm in a lot better shape then I was last year, ofc, I'd like a few more years to get better, but now I can actually breathe without depending on portable oxygen, I know guns, archery, and survival, and my dad was the original shade tree mechanic.  I learned more then I deserved to learn from that cantankerous old man.

[Andros]

I currently live in downtown Guangzhou, a population of roughly 19 million.  I don't care what skills i believe i have, I am not getting out of this city alive!

[Ramethzer0]

I'm good with all necessary survival skills, but the moment I'd have to run for my life my mobility issues would be a serious detriment to that.

To compensate (given enough time) I'd make some kind of padded bite resistant armour that I could use while riding some kind of motor vehicle.

 

I live in a pretty large city too.  Luckily, there's a lot of very good bug out zones in my state.   This has led me to believe that I'd prolly spend more time

fighting other survivalists than fighting the undead. 

[ElDudorino]

The armor thing is a good point. Like in The Walking Dead, one character wears full riot armor for part of a day and can just walk through a horde of zombies shrugging off their bites. But then he gives it away and apparently it's the only armor on the planet because it never happens again and everybody goes back to walking around in tank tops and just hoping bites don't happen.

 

In reality, even on a hot day you'd probably cover up at least your most bitable parts.

[Deadfordays]

2 hours ago, ElDudorino said:

The armor thing is a good point. Like in The Walking Dead, one character wears full riot armor for part of a day and can just walk through a horde of zombies shrugging off their bites. But then he gives it away and apparently it's the only armor on the planet because it never happens again and everybody goes back to walking around in tank tops and just hoping bites don't happen.

 

In reality, even on a hot day you'd probably cover up at least your most bitable parts.

Heh, I always thought that was one insane things about TWD, why is everyone in short sleeve shirts and jeans...? Why would you not make some sort of light armor at least to prevent errant bites...? Just some duct tape and thick cloth would do the trick most of the time! 

[Jinx_DG]

It wouldn't be the zombies I'd be worried about, it would be my fellow survivors. People turn wierd during times of stress and cope with it in unpredicable ways. The rush for toilet paper at the begining of the pandamic says it all. 

[Weazelsun]

I guess it depends on how far a zombie apocalyse goes and again the type of zombies. Me personally, I feel like early days I'd be okay. But, once an actual zombie appears... yeah I'm dead meat.

[Pernicious]

I've read many times that people behave very selfishly preparing for disasters, but then when disaster strikes, people are actually much more generous.

 

So like they'll brawl with each other over the last pack of toilet paper when they expect a shortage, but when it's gone will give it to their neighbour if they need it.

 

So, I'm lead to believe the best strategy would be to not trust people in the early days of any cataclysmic disaster, but once the dust is settled, the survivors remaining would actually cooperate better and start a new society. 

 

Edit: which did remind me one prepper book I read, said something similar. It's not practical yo prepare for a disaster that lasts over a month unless you are a billionaire that can build a bunker. You best bet is not to have infinite food and ammo - because you need to sleep some time, and there's always someone bigger or better armed. But to have enough to survive that first month, then have the skills that other people need to survive so it's in their interest to protect you. Anything from first aid, to hunting, to jerry rigging would be valued post apocalypse. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Pernicious (see edit history)

[Melange]

18 hours ago, Andros said:

I currently live in downtown Guangzhou, a population of roughly 19 million.  I don't care what skills i believe i have, I am not getting out of this city alive!

Lol. And I'm in downtown Tianjin city. I share your concern. Folk here are generally not into any type of preparedness. Just go out in the morning, buy what you need for the day. Do it again tomorrow. Have experienced enough with mandated virus lockdowns to know that survivors will be your worst enemy. Chaos will ensue quickly once the few area staples are depleted, water and other utilities cease to function. Only authorities are permitted firearms. See where this is going? One might say our goose is cooked, but they prefer duck here. 🦆

Edited October 13, 2022 by Melange (see edit history)

[Maharin]

I think what most people fail to realize in situations like a zombie apocalypse is that sheer numbers, not zombie intelligence, is what makes them dangerous.  Anyone that has ever spent time in a spooked crowd can tell you a story or two about how impossible it is to be an individual and stand your ground while surrounded by thousands of humans.  When they move, you move, and you don't get a choice.  Now imagine that crowd as savage, blood thirsty cannibals.  You get the idea.

 

Games and movies make it seem like if you have enough firepower you can overcome the numbers.  Eventually even the best guns jam or a breach happens while you're reloading.  Something will happen and you will be overrun if there are enough enemies, even the stupid ones.  Your best bet for survival is to be as far away from the masses as possible in an area that is difficult to reach and, if possible, also be a less than desirable place for other humans to venture.

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, Maharin said:

I think what most people fail to realize in situations like a zombie apocalypse is that sheer numbers, not zombie intelligence, is what makes them dangerous.  Anyone that has ever spent time in a spooked crowd can tell you a story or two about how impossible it is to be an individual and stand your ground while surrounded by thousands of humans.  When they move, you move, and you don't get a choice.  Now imagine that crowd as savage, blood thirsty cannibals.  You get the idea.

 

Games and movies make it seem like if you have enough firepower you can overcome the numbers.  Eventually even the best guns jam or a breach happens while you're reloading.  Something will happen and you will be overrun if there are enough enemies, even the stupid ones.  Your best bet for survival is to be as far away from the masses as possible in an area that is difficult to reach and, if possible, also be a less than desirable place for other humans to venture.

 

But what most people also fail to realize is that the first days of a zombie apocalypse are either not shown in movies or shown as occuring all over the word at the same time with not a second to prepare. But in most conditions (slow zombies, zombies without ability to breach metal barriers, outbreak at a single place in the world) the spread of the zombie apocalypse would probably be too slow for the zombies to reach immediately the masses that make them invincible. And that gives humans the time to prepare.

 

In movies often the army is easily overrun by zombies. Unprotected soldiers are sent into fully infected cities to stand in the open street and shoot at a mass of zombies coming at them. What idiot would do this infighting when the city is already totally converted?

 

How much bullets and tank fuel does a typical army camp have? I don't know but I bet it would be enough to kill millions of zombies if they stay functional and organized and operate from a defensible position.

 

I am not saying you can't construct conditions that make the zombie apocalypse possible, but almost all zombie movies show conditions and results that just don't fit.

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[ElDudorino]

Yeah, most zombie apocalypse media would never be able to show the rollout of the infection because it just wouldn't be believable. At least in The Walking Dead something has happened where anybody who dies for any reason will turn, which means that you don't need to let the zombies in to have a safe place become compromised, but anybody with half a brain would take steps to mitigate that risk and the military should have been able to maintain safe zones long-term if nothing else.

 

I guess for whatever reason most of us are willing to suspend disbelief by just not thinking too much about all the reasons a zombie apocalypse would be improbable even if zombies were real. We all just want to get straight to the part where there are zombies everywhere and measure our success or failure from there.

[Maharin]

35 minutes ago, meganoth said:

How much bullets and tank fuel does a typical army camp have? I don't know but I bet it would be enough to kill millions of zombies if they stay functional and organized and operate from a defensible position.

 

I am not saying you can't construct conditions that make the zombie apocalypse possible, but almost all zombie movies show conditions and results that just don't fit.

 

What follows is from a US perspective.

 

Do they have enough ammo to combat millions in a single camp?  Probably not.  In a full base?  Maybe millions but that would depend on a whole lot of factors (if they were gearing up to deploy then they'd have a lot more ammo and supplies ready, obviously).  Wars these days aren't fought by millions of soldiers, though, it is more like thousands.  Thousands versus millions isn't going to be resolved by just firepower.  But the real issue isn't how much ammo they have it is the timing of the commands to use that ammo on a civilian population that is out of control or headed that way.

 

The soldiers would likely be deployed to cities because that's where the worst action would be and the strongest need.  There wouldn't likely be a whole lot of armored vehicles like tanks making their way into city landscapes because of slower deployment and mobility challenges, but there would be helicopters and fighter jets with a whole lot of less armored land vehicles.  But it would take time to deploy those forces to dozens of cities.  A whole lot of politics would be involved within and across borders to slow everything down at first, possibly for too long to make military action viable outside of bringing lots of destruction once the other options were known to not be working.

 

If they had a large mass of people running toward a checkpoint or a temporary base, and that mass was just ahead of an even larger mass of zombies, what do they do?  Kill them all?  Who makes that call an when?  Dropping bombs on a city isn't going to be popular if any significant part of the population is uninfected.  THOSE are the decisions that get delayed and/or lost in the chaos and those are the reasons most zombie apocalypse scenarios paint a grim future.  It's not the decisions most of the time that make things go to hell, it's the indecision. 

 

That chain of bad decisions is probably the one realistic things zombie movies get right.

[ElDudorino]

There might not be an organized campaign against the zombies early enough to count but safe zones would be established pretty early I think and would be successfully defended against most types of zombies. Exceptions might be Day Z super human ladder zombies or, appropriately, 7DtD zombies who lull you into a false sense of security by being manageable until the blood moon hits and catches everybody off-guard.

[BFT2020]

5 years 4 months 17 days +/- 3 days depending on the day of the week that the zombie apocalypse starts on

[Rotor]

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

5 years 4 months 17 days +/- 3 days depending on the day of the week that the zombie apocalypse starts on

I am sure that is a reference to something I should know, but can't make it out.

[doughphunghus]

22 hours ago, Deadfordays said:

Heh, I always thought that was one insane things about TWD, why is everyone in short sleeve shirts and jeans...? Why would you not make some sort of light armor at least to prevent errant bites...? Just some duct tape and thick cloth would do the trick most of the time! 

I think it serves multiple purposes, all of them theatrical:

- you (the viewer) need to feel that the characters are vulnerable at all times, so tension never lifts. Characters need to be stupid (and do illogical things surely you would not do, like go into the permadark building all alone with only a screwdriver for protection, looking for a hat they lost) for you to openly shout at the TV "no! Don't do that! Don't go in there!". If they were armored it would be less of a concern for their well being.

- actors need to be seen, but also don't want to spend production time armoring up all the time, and acting in it.

- i feel if a character always has armor, it becomes part of the character. With no armor they can easily change up their clothes/etc.

- the plot might need them to "finally realize" they need to make temporary armor. And then have it fail to prove to you that "its not feasible". I think this is why military people have to have "bizarre accidents" or "amazing oversights" in movies as they are supposed to be the moat prepared,armed, and armored so as to show it was all for naught and "survival" is more than lots of ammo/guns and armor/bunker, and so this helps explain why the "ragtag group of misfits" is the main cast in these movies. 

[Fenris]

1 hour ago, Rotor said:

I am sure that is a reference to something I should know, but can't make it out.

Same here, I even googled it and couldn't find anything lol

21 minutes ago, doughphunghus said:

I think it serves multiple purposes, all of them theatrical:

- you (the viewer) need to feel that the characters are vulnerable at all times, so tension never lifts. Characters need to be stupid (and do illogical things surely you would not do, like go into the permadark building all alone with only a screwdriver for protection, looking for a hat they lost) for you to openly shout at the TV "no! Don't do that! Don't go in there!". If they were armored it would be less of a concern for their well being.

- actors need to be seen, but also don't want to spend production time armoring up all the time, and acting in it.

- i feel if a character always has armor, it becomes part of the character. With no armor they can easily change up their clothes/etc.

- the plot might need them to "finally realize" they need to make temporary armor. And then have it fail to prove to you that "its not feasible". I think this is why military people have to have "bizarre accidents" or "amazing oversights" in movies as they are supposed to be the moat prepared,armed, and armored so as to show it was all for naught and "survival" is more than lots of ammo/guns and armor/bunker, and so this helps explain why the "ragtag group of misfits" is the main cast in these movies. 

I think you are right with the actors need to be seen. It is the same reason so many shows that have fire fighters in them, have the fire fighters run into a burning building with no mask or helmet.

 

Also I think lazy writing is often used to move the story along:

"This house is haunted, dozens of people have died here"

Actor: "Ima spend the night here."

Normal Person: "I'm going home."

[Rotor]

58 minutes ago, Fenris said:

Also I think lazy writing is often used to move the story along:

"This house is haunted, dozens of people have died here"

Actor: "Ima spend the night here."

Normal Person: "I'm going home."

 

This ^^^^

 

Exhibit A:

 

 

[doughphunghus]

1 hour ago, Fenris said:

Same here, I even googled it and couldn't find anything lol

I think you are right with the actors need to be seen. It is the same reason so many shows that have fire fighters in them, have the fire fighters run into a burning building with no mask or helmet.

 

Also I think lazy writing is often used to move the story along:

"This house is haunted, dozens of people have died here"

Actor: "Ima spend the night here."

Normal Person: "I'm going home."

Yep. If i go to a creepy abandoned place and hear or see anything out of place, im  going to assume "deranged killer" if nothing else to convince everyone the threat is real, and when asked "should we stay the night for giggles?" They're going to be speaking to my shadow hanging in the air as i left so fast. They'll get a phone call seconds later, and its me in my house and ill say "no, i don't think you should"