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So, today's hypothetical scenario:
At this point you've survived the initial outbreak and the zombies' numbers have thinned a little bit. You don't have to worry as much about attracting numbers of zombies of over thirty to fifty, *as most of the zombies have become disperesed into the countryside at this point. You have a solid number of people with you in a fortified community, a population of about forty. However, there is a lot of work still needed to be done to make your village fully-functional, and you do not have the work force to do it. You only have about 15 healthy men that can work for about two-thirds of the day. You need more people in your village to get things going. You know there are survivors in the surrounding area, surprisingly many within a good five mile radius. However, nobody in your village is willing to search for these people, as their exact whereabouts are unknown and nobody is willing to venture outside unless they absolutely have to. Your goals are to attract their attention to bring them to your small village, and then non-violently persuade them to join your cause. How do you go about acheiving these goals?
For the purpose of the agruement, please do not argue points against the goals as to why or why not they ae good ideas. The goals are just that: goals, and rather then thinking about the plausability of them focus on thinking about how you could attain them.
You lose. |
send out 3 strong fighters to go and get people to join.
Extremely vague... I would appreciate a nice solid response with some details, anything could happen to your fighters. They could not really care what you say, come back with some cigars and candy bars they mugged off a wandering teenager and tell you: We couldn't find anybody to come join us. Or they could have gotten pinned down by some assholes looting a barricaded retirement home looking for old-people medicine and crystal meth. If you were really anxious to get these people into your village, you would make a plan so that the above outcomes were to be avoided.
You lose.
Okay, but it's a really weird situation, I mean you'd need a decent amount of people to defend the site, and you said you ahd 15 decent people spare to build the site, so taking three and sending them on known routes to hideouts.
I personally don't plan to be in this situation, I'm the closest to the swan river and freo harbour than anybody else in my resistance and I'm right along the freeway, my first job would be to warn my friends, load up a car or two with enough room to carry 6-7 people, then drive one of the car down to mortimer road to block off the acces to kwinana and the freeway, the road is really narrow there and a van will stop the area from being absolutely swarmed for a couple of minutes.
In which time I run back to the house and jump in the car drive up to anketell road and pick up my friend madi, then down the back roads to settlers to pick up certain people, going by serpentine to pick up one person and 3 rifles then driving down to port kennedy rocko area to raid the shops for food and supplies then into the bike shop with barred windows and doors.
That's plan A
It may seem to be a strange question, but I left room to not worry as much about defense as much as getting more numbers. Rather than spitting out your plan, give the goals some real thought and try and come up with a solution. You gave me a solution that required basically no thought and then told me what you planned on doing. For this excersize, pretend that events unfolded in spite of how you planned things to go, everything just woked out so you ended up making decisions for a village you ended up in. Your current delimna is finding more people to maintain your village. How do you go about doing so. This has nothing to do with what you plan on doing as soon as the zombies start attacking.
You lose.
It may seem to be a strange question, but I left room to not worry as much about defense as much as getting more numbers. Rather than spitting out your plan, give the goals some real thought and try and come up with a solution. You gave me a solution that required basically no thought and then told me what you planned on doing immediately after the initial outbreak. For this excersize, pretend that events unfolded in spite of how you planned things to go, everything just woked out so you ended up making decisions for a village you ended up in. Your current delimna is finding more people to maintain your village. How do you go about doing so? This has nothing to do with what you plan on doing as soon as the zombies start attacking.
You lose.
Sorry, disreguard the first response. I tried to edit it and somehow it came out in a completely different post.
You lose.
Seeing as this isn't getting a lot of replies so far, I'll post my idea. Gather a large handful of tires, burn them every other day. Anybody that notices the pattern will eventually figure out that somebody's looking for attention. I'd do that for about a month if I had the supplies, then proceed to venture into the world in about a mile radius, calling out survivors on a megaphone every third day. As we collected people, we'd move out to 2 miles, then three, and stop there. When we reached three miles we'd shoot up flares and leave a large sign indicating relative location so as to avoid confusion. We'd then go back down to one so that we might pick up anybody we may have missed, then goback to burning tires for a few more weeks.
You lose.
At this point you've survived the initial outbreak and the zombies' numbers have thinned a little bit. You don't have to worry as much about attracting numbers of zombies of over thirty to fifty, as most of the zombies have become loners at this point. You have a solid number of people with you in a fortified community, a population of about forty.
I know you don't want us arguing plausibility, but I just want to weigh in here. I did see the word, "hypothetical" but solutions are irrelevant if the prompt is too thin to be applicable in our context.
I'm not trying to invalidate anyone's answers. I'm just saying at this point it could be about any dispersed population regardless of whether the undead walk the earth seeking living victims. That said, I have a couple of issues with the logic of the initial question.
1) In a viral outbreak scenario where the infected die, reanimate, and move on to spread the infection, the number of zombies can only really increase considering the total lack of countermeasures in place today to stop them and the normal reluctance of citizen X to destroy citizen Y's brain on a prophylactic hunch. Without immediate, organized countermeasures the struggle against zombies would be exponentially more difficult with each passing day. Only when the number of living people ceases to fall in anti-zombie actions can there be any depletion of their numbers. Unless they're the kind that rot at a normal rate, then you have to make sure there are no new zombies for about a decade so they'll thin out organically.
2) Assuming that all zombies are after the same thing (living flesh/brains/whatever to consume) they would all naturally be attracted to the living. The likelihood of individual zombies splitting off and becoming "loners" is highly unlikely. If anything, the mobs/swarms would increase in size. If zombies are aware of or are drawn to noise, sounds of the living or of other hungry or feeding zombies, these sounds/smells are only going to attract more zombies. They would seemingly behave like sharks (not hammerheads, which are schooling sharks for migratory reasons) which are attracted by the sounds, smells, and sensations of prey/feeding behavior in other fish. If they are not social monsters gathering in the absence of "food", their collective goal will still automatically cause them to gather in groups. The only hope against this is that they are each individually oblivious to the actions of other zombies.
Now, that aside, the clearest course of action for me (assuming I'm the leader of this here town) would be to lead the search parties myself to encourage voluntary participation among my men, leaving a competent but less charismatic person in my place to ensure my continuing leadership when I return.
Even if I can't gain support or am not in the central position to give orders, I would still plan to go out myself and probe the area for neighboring camps. Five miles in anything but steep, hilly terrain or swamp is an afternoon stroll, so if there are few zombies the risk should be low. If I survive it can only serve to drum up support.
To those I find I would offer the benefits of communal living on the grounds of safety and decreased daily stress on the individual in the cooperative village environment. I.E. the more people working together, tasks can be done more efficiently without the worry of everything ELSE you need to survive. To those unwilling to join outright I would offer safe haven in the event of contact but no outside support. I want them to come to me in for help, not be their cavalry when a couple of zombies comes wandering into their camp. In that event, I'd hope to provide minimal assistance to those intending to leave once the trouble had passed, encouraging them to move in on a permanent basis to gain the benefits of the town's resources. If they begin to depend on you but refuse to help once the zombies are put down, then I would refuse them access to my town's shelter. In a situation where resources are limited, there's no room for moochers.
This might actually be a good scenario to bring back the model of medieval societies where the folks who work the fields, shops, etc. are offered safety in the castle walls in exchange for paying tribute, which in this case would mean sharing goods/services, working to maintain the town, etc. If you ask me this model is basically built around this scenario. Assuming terrain is mild, five miles is easily less than a day's walk. And provided your town is fortified in a central area, you could gain quick control of or establish familiar contact with the people of this 5 mi. radius in no time. So even if they don't want to pull up stakes and join immediately they can't help but know you're there. As long as your village is functional and defensible I think your average Fugee Joe is bound to be attracted to it.
God damn, this post got long.
"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"
I like the idea about leaving directional markers for folks to find, assuming none of these people in the surrounding area are planning to swoop in and take my stuff/life.
Once you'd established your settlement though rules would have to be strict. No room for random theft, laziness, flagrant wastefulness, sedition, or any action that may attract zombies in my town. Work, provide, cooperate, and defend, or get the fuck off my land. If you don't like it leave or kill me.
That may just be me though.
"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"
I just read the posts that popped up while I was typing, and I know you'd discouraged offensive action, but if there's some pack of loonies in your area looting up ruins and taking shots at your people, they've got to be dealt with. At that point where zombies are as rare as you say, those people are your settlement's biggest threat. They need to be noted, assessed, and acted against accordingly.
If you're outnumbered, you're screwed though in my mind. The best thing to do is lay low, keep hidden and avoid contact while searching for cooperative locals without revealing your proper location to those who are unable or unwilling to join AND support you. The last thing you need is outsiders blabbing your location to the roving gangs of mohawked men in assless chaps and hockey masks. Otherwise, troublemakers need to be run off or made to understand that there's no room for unruly bastards when the rest of the world's survivors try to keep it together. If there are dead bodies roaming the countryside, ripping people to little screaming pieces, looters, anarchists and violent thugs should probably be shot.
"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"