1. Avoid where the masses are going, those camps at the best will be cramped and if its a disease then it will spread like wildfire. People who are bitten in the beginning may make a break for these "safe" spots thanks to some sort of self-preservation instinct despite only accelerating the problem. I won't be changing up too much from my other plan I posted in the stickied thread.

2. This position is a little bit more complicated as if your prepared you lack access to your supplies. I would probably talk to the police officers and try to get a more detailed report of the situation but failing that I think I would probably make it my first priority to get out of the immediate area. If I am within the direct area of the zombie outbreak (ie I am at a mall McDonalds and the guy at the counter starts ripping the clerk's throat out) then I would probably focus on suppression. Sorry but zombie or not, you start munching on someone I am going to destroy you. That is what the mentality has to be.

Probably opting to go alone when travelling in a group does have its benefits. You who are alone in the beginning are the only one looking out for you and I am confident we will see robbers and such very quickly in such a situation. If your prepared to the max, but you get strongarmed by 6 punks with rusty pistols that might not fire but might actually fire your still as fucked as the guy who did shit all and booked it.

Now I heard about this idea awhile back and I am not sure if I used the right terminology for it but many different sources say that modern weapons lack the accuracy of semi-automatic weaponry. The Scythe Principle essentially is mounting a machine gun or automatic weapon at a level that is at about neck level for zeds. From there you just have to pivot horizontally and you essentially "cut" off the heads of approaching zeds in large horizontal swathes. Now I am not saying this is a fullproof tactic but I could see somebody sitting in the cab of a truck with the door up and the barrel of a machine gun braced against it (perhaps a bipod would be attached on the bottom and you can then brace it against the front of the door while pulling back against the weapon for increased accuracy) unloading and doing quite a bit of damage.

Even if the zeds don't die outright I think its a more efficient use of automatics in a zombie scenario. Again assuming you somehow have access to this kind of hardware.

[species]

Soldiers are human indeed, and add to that that they aren't - and shouldn't be - encouraged to skip the chain of command and start shoting civilians without it being absolutely necessary on a gut feeling. If they each decided of their own individual criteria to shoot zombies, it'd be chaos, and all that army discipline stuff exists mostly to avoid it.
If the chain of command becomes disrupted by the zombies eating the commanders, the soldiers will lose a great part of their efficiency, because it's their organisation that makes the army efficient.

The real commands for any military operation are never done in the combat zone. If your in the combat zone it doesn't matter what rank you are they are deeming you not valuable enough for them to keep away from the situation. Also even if we are using a hypothetical forward operations base theory, if soldiers do anything well its retreating. If zombies reach ground commanders then chances are there are very little soldiers at all left.

This is also ignoring the fact that soldiers are now suddenly the most valuable individuals in the world, armed to the teeth and with plenty of munitions stored on their bases. What is stopping entire detachments from going rogue and merely turning into survivalist strongarms? Humans are fallible in that respect also. When it comes to the continuity of the species I could see people doing things, making decisions and acting in ways they would never have otherwise.

Despite the deadness of this thread I will revive it for its sticky status only.

My survival plan is very simple. Be out before everyone else. I do not intend to be taking any massive amount of supplies with me as my uncle is living up about a hour's drive from some of the thickest areas of the Canadian Shield. He has about 12 solar panels running more electricity to his house then he can use so he charges car batteries for people. It wouldn't be too hard to stockpile some of those batteries for when the panels eventually bleach out but that far north and in that kind of terrain I'm relatively confident that we will see little if any zombie activity. Its 85%-90% sufficient living they have up there and I would get "first dibs" so to speak once other family members start to show up and it becomes necessary to turn people away. It will. The mean age of my extended family is 52 and I'm 18, the oldest of the children. It just isn't possible as there are too many dependants, basic social structure actually.

As for armaments, my Restricted licensing is going through which will enable me to purchase an AR-15. Essentially the only and best option if your looking for a decent rifle in Canada that actually can be modified to a burst fire option. My uncle however is an Ex-Canadian servicemen who has a grandfathered Prohibited level license. Supposedly the collection is "substantial" and I can't wait to see it. Also the only benefit to a Harper government here in Canada is that Harper is scrapping the long gun registry which will really loosen a lot of the needless red tape involved in gun control here.

I'm sorry but zombies don't ever seem really hard to spot unless they are among other zombies and soldiers have a way of boiling things down to basics real easy. If the person does not react or otherwise move in a direction except to bite you then unload. I never understand why soldiers are always giving commands repeatedly to these zombies, they disobey and he never pops even a single shot off. Wtf?

As much as I support your zeal Outlander what about the logistics around that? Ammo is heavy and ultimately if your barricade yourself in a building your relatively forced to cut your way back out unless humans can develop the ability to fly. What about blocking those lower floors? That would require to be a long standing barricade at least welded metal which is hardly the quietest activity nor is it easy on the workers. 4 seems to be rather unrealistic here, especially with barricading yourself in the upper floors of the building. How many liters of water do people need every day just to drink? Its these living challenges that we don't have to deal with in everyday that will prove a challenge to anyone who hasn't actually had to live off the land or limited resources in which if they overused they went without. Not saying I have just saying the perspective would be necessary.

As for government competency it all really matters on how quickly the governments are willing to respond to the threat. It becomes obvious in any kind of zombie outbreak that they are not there just to hug people. Zombies will be violent, they will eat you. Cops when they start seeing people biting and ripping flesh off of uninfected they need to be able to pull the trigger even if they think that person is just insane. I could see why military deployment is typically useless as in most media by the time the military can actually mobilise the damage is done and the society is broken. After that infantry and other personnel in the hot zone just become more footsoldiers for the infection. If the military has the intelligence that it should at that point then it should concern itself with evacuation instead of suppression. Zombies need humans to make more zombies, take out the humans and your zombies are capped. From there the infection becomes stagnant and if necessary the perimeter can be maintained until the zombies just die on their own or at that point controlled scientific observations could be conducted to determine everything about them that we only speculate on now.

The main thing is to take out the human factor or the breeding material for the virus. All viruses multiply shamelessly while absorbing all resources in that direction. Humans themselves while not directly sustaining zombies do sustain the zombie infection. Remove the resources(humans) and the virus will die.

To be honest I think many of us are so enamoured with the zombie apocalypse because it represents a massive and sudden destruction of the current system and essentially gives everyone true freedom of action. I.E Survival = Taking whatever you need to survive, killing those who would try to halt that.

Personally I think I would leave and rarely look back. In the end I might regret it a bit but I've always been sort of the black sheep even in my own family. Just different interests and priorities. Plus neither of my parents are what I would consider physically capable of surviving in such a world. My dad takes half a dozen pills every morning and my mom isn't much better off.

*Takes Dub's Pancreas*
*Creates filthy bassline with said pancreas*
*drops it in a sewer*
AWWWWWW
YEEEEEEEEAH

If its for Dubstep then this Disciple will gladly give up his temple... [bow]

P.S. - That was the idea Gray

Well I have always been a fan of organ donation but maybe not exactly the Chinese style of gaining consent for such. As for throat slashing being an erotic activity.... I think someone needs to smoke a little pot.

Breath came out in ragged huffs from Dub's sore throat as he hunched down in the cover of three sparse trees. This kind of activity was something that he just wasn't used to as was obviously by his slightly pale screen-washed skin that spoke of far too many hours in front of a computer screen. Besides that Dub was a rather unremarkable individual with average height and a build that spoke of maybe a part-time job hauling boxes. Either way both worked against him in this insane heat. Taking a deep gulp of air Dub leaned out slightly from the trees and looked out over a vast row of recreational fields spread out in a space between different housing areas. This route gave Dub a dominating field of view as he slowly made his way home while also keeping him away from streets but the disadvantage was that cover was extremely limited. "Alright, one more sprint to the houses and then I'm home free." Taking up an almost comical version of an Olympic running start he quickly ran off, legs being driven more by adrenaline and fear then energy. People still walked here and there by following the paths cut into the field but none of them had seen what had set this young man's feet running. They would soon enough.

It was then that Dub took a chance to look back as he approached a residential street and he saw the figures across the field from where his school was located. The slow wandering motion of those human shaped figures gave him all the convincing he needed. Movies had come to real life and for some reason it had to be zombies.

Dub did not know how or why only that during a trip to the bathroom he had turned to corner to spot three of his classmates fighting over the principal's eye jelly. The rest was just a whirl of colour and fear. In fact Dub noticed as he tentatively checked to see if he had wet himself he had never ever known what true fear was. The fear of being chastised or even of being caught smoking a joint from time to never did not compare to this. It was a fear that gripped him in his gut and almost forced him to his knees. Even so he forced his legs forward, limping and short of breath, but somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he couldn't slow down. Running was going to become something he and many others would have to get used to.

[Setting]

Setting

A decently sized suburban town just on the outskirts of a much larger urban metropolis. The outbreak seems to be reaching a local-high concentration level within the suburban town which soon means it will find its way to the city. This is relatively close to the beginning of what could prove to be an isolated outbreak but only time will tell. Time is 3 PM on a Tuesday in late Spring or Early Summer. High humidity and little cloud cover.

Rules

Zombies will be limited to Crawlers as it is very early in the infection even if it threatens the city. I would like guns to remain out for the beginning of the story and until the characters have gotten into whatever groups of factions they intend to. I won't be making a character profile a requirement for this thread as I think it keeps you very limited in what you want to do with that character. Its hard to communicate morality in such a grey area like this one where the hard decisions can sometimes mean sacrificing a lot of people so that some of you can survive. This I hope is something we can expand on later but I'll leave it at that for now.

Hey Everyone,

Old reader, new member to the forums so I hope we can all not slash each other's throat out; more pressing issues to take of yes? As you can probably guess by my name I am a big fan of Dubstep music though in the past I listened to many classical forms of music especially orchestra. Two Steps From Hell is insane. I'm not the greatest at introductions so besides being Canadian I think that's all. Oh and I will probably be starting a Roleplay thread soon so for any people interested stay on the look out.

Thanks,


Dub