Book of Hook

[brianhook]

So I'm obsessed with the whole zombie mythos thing lately, and I was thinking about using that as a basis for a nanowrimo entry or something, and I realized there's a bunch of details that every zombie apocalypse backstory has to decide in order to be self-consistent (realism pretty much goes out the door with the zombie motif).

1. Is the zombie state magical or scientific? Some stories skirt the issue entirely. Others, e.g. Brooks's stuff, goes decidedly for the biological (virus) direction. Wellington goes for the magical. I think magical is the easiest direction, because the minute you start spouting pseudo-scientific bullshit handwaving, knowledgeable readers are turned off.

2. Why do the zombies crave flesh? It's a given that they DO crave flesh, but WHY do they crave flesh? Is there a rational impetus or is it "just because"?

3. What is the half-life of a zombie? Simply put, are they always zombies or will they eventually become skeletons? If they're skeletons, do they function or is decomposition their enemy? If decomp works to the survivors' advantage, then that alters strategies considerably. If it doesn't, then you have skeletal armies after some period of time and it's no longer zombie mythos.

4. Are they organized? Most zombie stories have them as mindless shambling hordes, but in some cases they may be organized or directed.

5. Are they intelligent? See #4 above, but "smart" zombies are a rarity, but if they are smart, is it all of them or just a subset?

6. Are there "good" zombies? In Monster Island/Nation, there were zombies that were good, mostly because they avoided brain death and thus kept their live consciousness. This is an intriguing angle due to the obvious (if cliched) angst derived from the need to devour vs. intrinsic humanity (cue White Wolf Vampire analogies). This relates to #5.

7. Can it be cured? Typically the hold out for a cure is a story motivation for some survivors to avoid killing the zombies. Most zombie stories do not have a cure since it's often magical, not biological, and in the science based ones it's hard to reverse, well, rot.

8. How do zombies sense? Given that their sensory organs are destroyed, do zombies have the ability to see/hear/smell, or do they just sense "life energy"?

9. How do zombies function? It's assumed that they're dead and thus their muscles don't really function, but if that's the case, how do they move? If it's magical, then why would cutting off their legs prevent them from 'walking'? Insert contrived rationalization here.

10. How do you kill them? The most common themes: destruction of head and immolation. Decomposition could do it as well.

11. Do they feed on all living things, or just humans? If the former, then it's not just end of humanity, but basically all wildlife would eventually go extinct unless it was completely inaccessible to zombies (arboreal, mountain, etc.). The effect on the ecosystem would be massive. If they feed on all living things, does this include plants? Do they need warm blooded prey?

12. What if they don't eat? At some point the zombies eat everyone, so what do they now? And if they don't have prey, is there any negative effect?

13. How is the contagion spread? Some require death from another zombie, other stories treat it like a bacteria and thus you could "Catch" zombieness indirectly (spatter into mucus membranes).

14. Can the already dead "Catch" zombieness? This is a sore point of contention between the different zombie camps. Most fiction assumes that you must be a "Fresh kill" to become a zombie, but some movies have them crawling out of graves, etc.

15. What type of motor skills do the zombies have? The standard is they're shambling, slow, and deliberate, with little or no ability to manipulate door handles, climb ladders, etc. Some zombies are "Fast" zombies, a la 28 Days Later (which most argue are NOT zombies but it otherwise has the feel of a zombie apocalypse movie), but most are not.

[kensan]

I was zombie obsessed too for a short while.

My question has always been: how do they decide who to completely devour and who to just bite to allow them to become a zombie?