Thread: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

  1. #3701

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Favorite RE Howard quote: "Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,Civilization is unnatural.It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph..."

    How many preppers look to modern civil conflicts, regions dominated by warlord fiefdoms, refugee debriefings, and other contemporary, real-life scenarios for pertinent info? Methinks the average Syrian knows more about surviving than the typical American prepper. Most seem to prefer discussing crap like different ways to rig a poncho shelter, which survival knife is best, how to make a paracord bracelet...

    Good luck preserving your family with a paracord bracelet.

    I think the majority are affluent conservatives who just ran out of rational stuff to buy, started feeling paranoid from digesting too much cable news, and ran out to gear up for the inevitable 'pocalypse. Not that they're wrong. It's just...they're not really going about it in a very meaningful way. But I do look forward to looting their homes.
    Giving tax breaks to the wealthy, is like giving free dessert coupons to the morbidly obese.

    IDIOT BASTARD SON of MAVERICK

  2. #3702

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Quote Originally Posted by chamaeleo View Post
    Favorite RE Howard quote: "Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,Civilization is unnatural.It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph..."

    How many preppers look to modern civil conflicts, regions dominated by warlord fiefdoms, refugee debriefings, and other contemporary, real-life scenarios for pertinent info? Methinks the average Syrian knows more about surviving than the typical American prepper. Most seem to prefer discussing crap like different ways to rig a poncho shelter, which survival knife is best, how to make a paracord bracelet...

    Good luck preserving your family with a paracord bracelet.

    I think the majority are affluent conservatives who just ran out of rational stuff to buy, started feeling paranoid from digesting too much cable news, and ran out to gear up for the inevitable 'pocalypse. Not that they're wrong. It's just...they're not really going about it in a very meaningful way. But I do look forward to looting their homes.
    I'm not going to disagree with you. Prepping more supplies means only surviving for longer. Unless one actually knows how to raise crops or animals, has the land to do so, plus the proper weather conditions, then it's not very helpful. Anyone prepping in arid regions is not going to make it realistically.

    I don't understand all the fuss about gear versus skills and seed.

    A lot of people bellyached when the actors were on Herschel's farm, though this was really much better than their time in the prison or elsewhere in the wild. I really don't understand what people want from this show unless they're watching for decapitations and faces being bitten off. An all time low in the zombification of the masses for entertainment.

    Yes, maybe you can come raid those prepper's homes. You might try that except they know the terrain, have their own weapons besides that paracord bracelet like semiautomatic rifles, handguns, and are ex-military and law enforcement. If you think they're all conservatives and affluent, then you're flat out wrong and haven't actually talked to any of them. The prepper movement is worldwide and there are preppers of all political beliefs like anarchists, socialists, communists, etc besides the far left or extreme fundamentalists or calm members of the Latter Day Saints.

    There's a large subset of prepper wannabees who own a single bugout bag and think they'll "live off the land" by hunting. Not that any people in history could make it solely by subsistence hunting, but you can't convince an idiot that they are being short sighted.

    Will any society that already has a lot of rural members do better in such an event? Possibly but based upon the weather first, the ability of the land to support folks versus transported goods, and skills and seed and livestock. Hard to plant and rear young critters in a war zone and anarchy, right?

    Without the control of utilities like water, most people due to population density will die, for they do not know how to dig a well safely, pump it out, or rig up a system for raising water, nor purify it. Not every well is pure due to agricultural runoff. Most lakes and streams are polluted in America and few people would have the knowhow to purify it long term even though a Biosand filter is fairly cheap and simple to construct.

    A very high number of migrating folks or criminal types would get dysentery of some kind, which doesn't go away without special medicines, and thus they'd slow down with the squirts and abdominal pain, get eaten by zombies or fall by other things. They couldn't acquire enough food, firewood, more water, erect new shelters, all because of drinking unsanitary water.

    And little of this has been discussed on the show, because it's better for the masses to show Michonne doing unrealistic things to unrealistic monsters with unrealistic tactics and without any planning to speak of for long term survival. So we go from one depraved thing to another because that's better television and writing than the alternative that served television well in the past.
    Last edited by RubiconDecision; April 02, 2014 at 06:25 PM.

  3. #3703

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Quote Originally Posted by Gen. Chris View Post
    My thoughts exactly. I find it highly unlikely that they would allow such a person into their group much less allow them to do that. But god...when Rick got his hands on the guy...Brutal. Absolutely brutal.
    And yet, it's been done before!

    http://www.break.com/video/ugc/jack-...tyle-on-208664

  4. #3704
    TheDarkKnight's Avatar Compliance will be rewarded
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    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Quote Originally Posted by Pontifex Maximus View Post
    I meant the pedophile...When he went up to the guy and stabbed in the the throat over and over. But that too.
    Things I trust more than American conservatives:

    Drinks from Bill Cosby, Flint Michigan tap water, Plane rides from Al Qaeda, Anything on the menu at Chipotle, Medical procedures from Mengele

  5. #3705

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Rubicon: sorry, my prepper message was rather too general.

    I suppose I was referring to the main prepper reality tv show watching demographic, along w gun nuts who believe that bullets will be more valuable than bleach. Certainly, the term 'prepper' is nonpartisan and encompasses all who: 1. lack faith in longterm viability of civilization, and 2. are actually doing something to improve their own chances of survival. You might even extend this to folks living in places like LA, with a high population concentration, significant geographic constrictions (Hwy 1, 5, 10 and 15...pick your mountain pass!), and an extremely high likelyhood of a major seismic event within this century. They're concerned notsomuch by zombies, as simply surviving a disaster and the subsequent week without any external inputs (food, water, power, police, medical facility).

    No, I definitely wouldn't be tackling anybody's ranch or homestead...but if I saw a hummer or pickup with hunting decals parked out in the 'burbs, I'll definitely check out the house.

    To me, 90% of preppers are researching/doing things that would, when SHTF, only make them feel better in the days leading up to the crisis. "Real" preppers are already out there on the fringe of society: securing their food and water resources, breeding general purpose livestock, planning, building, forging ties with neighbors, and generally becoming self sufficient. By the time you need a bug out bag it's already too late.

    Rural communities DEFINITELY have the advantage. More options is always good. More land is good. Fewer competitors, also good. Less looting potential, sure, but they're already used to going several weeks between trips to the city and would be pretty well supplied from the get-go.

    I do go back and forth on whether arid regions like NM would be better or worse than more pastoral regions such as WI, and really it comes down to whether you are: 1. already part of a strong community, or 2. too far out there to even show up on anybody's radar.

    I currently lean towards arid = advantageous. Fewer resources also means a lower base population to compete with. Lower pop density means longer distances to travel between encounters. You can see everything for miles from vantage points. If you look at where the old communities are spatially concentrated, they're typically above the actual desert, in foothills, mountains, and stream valleys...the mountains are like hospitable islands, insulated by a sea of sand and dust. Sun and wind are amply abundant: endless potential energy.

    Rural New Mexicans are tough. They're independent to the core, mistrustful of outsiders, used to going without and improvising, and raised on stories of hardship. They tend to have large extended families, and have worked the same land for generations. SW frontier rewards generalists who, whenever crops fail and livestock disappear, can always forage, hunt, fish, trap and barter their services. I actually think that if an apocalypse ever broke out, despite being a nominally hostile living environment, large stretches of "desert" would hardly be affected at all. As has historically happened dozens of times to the Anasazi, Pueblo, Hopi, Colonial Spanish, and Early Americans, there'd be some contraction around the village communities (while the Apache took to the hills). Their homes are pre-fortified, I might add: "24" thick walls, adobe brick buildings in square compounds, courtyards with loopholes, and solid balconies. Traditional NM construction has always been all about protecting oneself from marauders. The original pueblos didn't even have 1st floor doors or windows!

    Actual zombies would hardly pose any real threat: they'd trickle in piecemeal, confined by fencing, to follow MILES of roadways that pass through plentiful natural choke points. You'd just wanna keep a real close eye on the whereabouts of grandpa, and his buddy the town drunk...

    Hell...we're talking about the same terrain where Cochise and Geronimo led thousands of American and Mexican soldiers on a merry chase for several YEARS. And now, that land is subdivided by barbed wire fences and stocked with cattle. Sounds like a pretty good setup to me!

    I think folks like you and I are poorly positioned to enjoy this show as much as more casual, mainstream viewers...but given the potential, we really WANT to. I've mostly subdued my disgust with the reality and common sense issues...we're talking ZOMBIES, so right away we're in fantasy land! When the group splintered, all because nobody thought to establish a rendezvous point or cache emergency supplies, I was sorely disappointed. BUT. Despite this, the glaring and unrealistic error also set up what I consider the most enjoyable 1/2 season in the show's history. Watching our heroes "rough it" on their own for a spell sure beats sitting behind a fence, dying of the flu and about interpersonal relationships!
    Giving tax breaks to the wealthy, is like giving free dessert coupons to the morbidly obese.

    IDIOT BASTARD SON of MAVERICK

  6. #3706

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    As big as the show is, I could see a CSI style show evolving in that you have multiple Walking Dead shows based upon region.

    They're in Georgia which is heavy clay soil. Soil has three main components: sand, clay, and humus. Georgia clay results in hard plates of soil that is not friable and not ideal for growing things. Other regions like New Mexico has worse problems depending upon area and aquifers, but generally speaking not ideal for agriculture. Arid soil has used up humus (fertile organic matter from decay and bacteria). Nitrogen fixation occurs from bacteria in the soil. When it's dry and routinely so from no rain, then it becomes dust and lifeless. In a zombie apocalypse in arid regions with no incoming water, you'd have even worse Dust Bowl conditions, and then you have a disease called valley fever from broadcast dust which is aspirated into the alveoli.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccidioidomycosis

    The best situation for a zombie apocalypse is Maine. A low population density, fresh and sea water providing various fish and shellfish, dense forests, some control of temperature based upon the location due to microclimates like say Portland, ME which has regular snowfall in winter but a few inches at a time, but doesn't get bitterly cold.

    Each group of survivors would have unique problems due to migration patterns. Mainers would have less problems than most. Since NE is heavily populated along the coast but not including Maine, then most of the migration patterns would lead people to the South. In the Summers, Maine can get as hot as the Ohio Valley, but the growing season begins later, and thus you can't get three seperate garden crops. In say Tennessee you can get a cold weather cabbage/peas/spinach crop, summer produce like beans/tomatoes/squash, then a third cold weather crop, then finally use the cold frame for some things.

    I believe the comics were written with Rick and his family from the Midwest, and truthfully had they stayed put, they might have been far enough off the migration pattern of refugees and ended up being a much better situation than ATLANTA!

    On the show, this could be why Georgia gets innundated with zombie migrations since people died along the way, rose as zombies, as they first headed to Atlanta and the CDC.

    In other areas, you'd expect for people to migrate West, but if it's arid, then deaths from migrating people who then turn into zombies on the Great Plains while traveling. They have less cover then no cover in the grasslands at seasonal times. There is more and more space between population centers too, and so migrating people would encounter less urban centers with scattered survivors helped by this, but then walkers from that group too.

    I'm saying that such things have an effect on the show, or it can just be a stupid shooting gallery or whack-a-mole (walker) instead of a true tv program.

    Yes, in the rural South, people grew up canning and gardening and filling pantries. Their grandparents were preppers by today's standards, but in their day, it was just "normal" and prudent since freezing and dehydrating foods was done less. Those stupid prepper reality shows are aimed at the single bugout bag crowd who literally are like Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction deciding to "roam the Earth like Caine in Kung Fu" and thinking blithely that somehow they'd acquire enough water, wild edibles, and game animals to make it. All very innane actually.\

    Watch a survival reality show sometime where an expert lives off the land with 10% being a good number of daily calories, so instead of 2000 (for fairly sedentary folks) you get 200 calories. One cannot live on that very long without the body going into starvation mode, cannibalizing your own tissues, bone loss, dehydration, deep glycogen deficits, and terrible persistent weakness. All of which would kill most migrating people. Worse, the US military has ensured that their soldiers get 3500-3700 calories in MRE packs due to increased labor under stress, and thus even if one had 2000 calories, then with all of the additional work, you'd be in a deficit as well.

    But as yet, except for Herschel's farm, the group has unrealistically found food on "runs" when nothing like that would happen in reality.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After

    If you read One Second After, in which an EMP weapon or multiple EMP weapons are detonated, then due to the loss of power, and no ability to quickly replace those transformers, and all of the ruined equipment, then the entire country falls into chaos. At first they are not that concerned and expect someone will take care of them, but the grocery stores are emptied along with needed medicines.

    All of the diabetics have issues, as do those on routine life sustaining medicines for heart and lung problems. People with mental illness might have problems coping. Drug addicts have trouble coping. Farm animals are sacrificed to feed people barely, when those are stock animals that must be bred in order to produce more food. Animals like hogs and lambs and rabbits are vital since they can harvested to produce a lot of meat in a fairly short amount of time. Or chickens or goats since both produce more than one food item.

    Instead, with migrations of folks who are stuck on the highway when their cars stop, they end up holing up in these rural communities, have no skills to help the town, but add even more attrition to the town's supplies. Preppers think about these things, not to be paranoid, but to think rationally how they would cope with something like a sustained ice storm that might cut power for two weeks and coping with that. The former might not ever happen as the last Carrington Event happened during the Civil War. One can expect a bad ice storm every 5-10 years in some locales, or a hurricane, or a tornado, etc.

    So preppers also are a subset of the people watching the Walking Dead, but watching in horror, dismay, and then pissed that the show is doing such a lousy job when preparedness for storms is important, and FEMA has been diligently working to get people to have at least two weeks of supplies in American homes for simple prudence.
    Last edited by RubiconDecision; April 03, 2014 at 05:31 PM.

  7. #3707

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Quote Originally Posted by RubiconDecision View Post
    As big as the show is, I could see a CSI style show evolving in that you have multiple Walking Dead shows based upon region.
    I could live with that!
    They're in Georgia which is heavy clay soil. Soil has three main components: sand, clay, and humus. Georgia clay results in hard plates of soil that is not friable and not ideal for growing things. Other regions like New Mexico has worse problems depending upon area and aquifers, but generally speaking not ideal for agriculture. Arid soil has used up humus (fertile organic matter from decay and bacteria). Nitrogen fixation occurs from bacteria in the soil. When it's dry and routinely so from no rain, then it becomes dust and lifeless. In a zombie apocalypse in arid regions with no incoming water, you'd have even worse Dust Bowl conditions, and then you have a disease called valley fever from broadcast dust which is aspirated into the alveoli.
    I lived in Snellville, GA for 5 yrs...red clay SUCKS. I tried my first garden here, and remember dragging in endless bags of peatmoss and mulch, which the land basically ate without surrendering much in the way of food. By contrast I am WAY better situated here along the Rio Grande.

    By assuming that the hostile growing environment that typifies 99% of NM is problematic for the 1% that is actually pretty ideal for agriculture, you exaggerate the problems. When you say Dust Bowl conditions, for NM, you're describing steady state...yet cultures have been successfully dealing with it for millennia! The soil you describe is not the same soil we use along the Rio Grande river valley and other relatively fertile areas, and our land here benefits from the centuries old networks of irrigation acequias. My neighbors all flood their pastures and fields several times a month with river water, which also enhances local aquifer recharge within the basin: 1 mi away from the river my well draws from a water table that's scarcely ~15' down. NM is currently in year 5 or 6 of historically low precip, vast swaths of forest have burned in recent megafires, and entire drainages have been wiped out in catastrophic floods and debris flows...but despite high demand and a growing population there's still enough water for a green valley. If 80% of the population disappeared overnight, water would be even less of a problem.

    People typically think NM geography is all Roadrunner/Coyote wasteland...but the arable parts can actually be quite lush, depending on how it's being managed. This is an acequia where I walk my dog:


    Typical walled/fenced North Valley ABQ dwelling:


    Open this valve in the morning, and your field will be a 6" deep puddle by mid-afternoon:


    I might also add: any walkers falling in there would greatly bolster the crawfish population, and you can already fill a 5 gallon bucket from 2-3 traps in 1-2 hours...
    The best situation for a zombie apocalypse is Maine. A low population density, fresh and sea water providing various fish and shellfish, dense forests, some control of temperature based upon the location due to microclimates like say Portland, ME which has regular snowfall in winter but a few inches at a time, but doesn't get bitterly cold.

    Each group of survivors would have unique problems due to migration patterns. Mainers would have less problems than most. Since NE is heavily populated along the coast but not including Maine, then most of the migration patterns would lead people to the South. In the Summers, Maine can get as hot as the Ohio Valley, but the growing season begins later, and thus you can't get three seperate garden crops. In say Tennessee you can get a cold weather cabbage/peas/spinach crop, summer produce like beans/tomatoes/squash, then a third cold weather crop, then finally use the cold frame for some things.
    As a kid I lived in N Windham, ME, near Sebago lake for a few years. I remember TONS of snow, enough to block my BR window, enough to sled from the roofcrest into the front yard. We went through 3-4 cords of wood every winter. My mother tried a garden but between the short season, the gypsy moth caterpillars and deer we didn't have much success.

    Given a choice, I think I'd stick to NM: easier to stay warm and dry, fewer competitors, VERY long growing season, and though water CAN become a problem when you try to support a HUGE and growing population, irrigate golf courses and feed the Intel production plant...an apocalypse would deflate these demands, leaving in place well developed irrigation infrastructures for small-timers like myself to exploit. I'd be very reluctant to trade that for 6 months of snow.

    I believe the comics were written with Rick and his family from the Midwest, and truthfully had they stayed put, they might have been far enough off the migration pattern of refugees and ended up being a much better situation than ATLANTA!

    On the show, this could be why Georgia gets innundated with zombie migrations since people died along the way, rose as zombies, as they first headed to Atlanta and the CDC.

    In other areas, you'd expect for people to migrate West, but if it's arid, then deaths from migrating people who then turn into zombies on the Great Plains while traveling. They have less cover then no cover in the grasslands at seasonal times. There is more and more space between population centers too, and so migrating people would encounter less urban centers with scattered survivors helped by this, but then walkers from that group too.
    Were the plains to revert to conditions the settlers first encountered, you're talking about 6-8' tall grasses on a oak savanna. I think the Central US might be the most ideal place to colonize, so far as food, water, scarcity of competition and security are concerned. I also think 95% of survivors would be more focused on day-to-day survival, vs choosing a destination and working towards a arriving at, building, and maintaining permanent, sustainable and self sufficient settlement.

    I'm saying that such things have an effect on the show, or it can just be a stupid shooting gallery or whack-a-mole (walker) instead of a true tv program.

    Yes, in the rural South, people grew up canning and gardening and filling pantries. Their grandparents were preppers by today's standards, but in their day, it was just "normal" and prudent since freezing and dehydrating foods was done less. Those stupid prepper reality shows are aimed at the single bugout bag crowd who literally are like Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction deciding to "roam the Earth like Caine in Kung Fu" and thinking blithely that somehow they'd acquire enough water, wild edibles, and game animals to make it. All very innane actually.\

    Watch a survival reality show sometime where an expert lives off the land with 10% being a good number of daily calories, so instead of 2000 (for fairly sedentary folks) you get 200 calories. One cannot live on that very long without the body going into starvation mode, cannibalizing your own tissues, bone loss, dehydration, deep glycogen deficits, and terrible persistent weakness. All of which would kill most migrating people. Worse, the US military has ensured that their soldiers get 3500-3700 calories in MRE packs due to increased labor under stress, and thus even if one had 2000 calories, then with all of the additional work, you'd be in a deficit as well.

    But as yet, except for Herschel's farm, the group has unrealistically found food on "runs" when nothing like that would happen in reality.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After

    If you read One Second After, in which an EMP weapon or multiple EMP weapons are detonated, then due to the loss of power, and no ability to quickly replace those transformers, and all of the ruined equipment, then the entire country falls into chaos. At first they are not that concerned and expect someone will take care of them, but the grocery stores are emptied along with needed medicines.

    All of the diabetics have issues, as do those on routine life sustaining medicines for heart and lung problems. People with mental illness might have problems coping. Drug addicts have trouble coping. Farm animals are sacrificed to feed people barely, when those are stock animals that must be bred in order to produce more food. Animals like hogs and lambs and rabbits are vital since they can harvested to produce a lot of meat in a fairly short amount of time. Or chickens or goats since both produce more than one food item.

    Instead, with migrations of folks who are stuck on the highway when their cars stop, they end up holing up in these rural communities, have no skills to help the town, but add even more attrition to the town's supplies. Preppers think about these things, not to be paranoid, but to think rationally how they would cope with something like a sustained ice storm that might cut power for two weeks and coping with that. The former might not ever happen as the last Carrington Event happened during the Civil War. One can expect a bad ice storm every 5-10 years in some locales, or a hurricane, or a tornado, etc.

    So preppers also are a subset of the people watching the Walking Dead, but watching in horror, dismay, and then pissed that the show is doing such a lousy job when preparedness for storms is important, and FEMA has been diligently working to get people to have at least two weeks of supplies in American homes for simple prudence.
    This show just naturally pisses off ANYBODY who thinks about stuff too much: you don't need to be a prepper to recognize poor writing and near-nonexistent research! "Here, Carl, let me show you how to snare a rabbit. It's been 2 years and I have decided: we have eaten enough Kudzu. I think you're finally ready..."...."Yeah. Sure, dad. Whatever. Shane taught me that waaaay before you woke up in stained underwear with a headache...but why are you using a string instead of wire? And a slip knot? Really? Here, let me show you the Poacher's knot. Old people..."
    Giving tax breaks to the wealthy, is like giving free dessert coupons to the morbidly obese.

    IDIOT BASTARD SON of MAVERICK

  8. #3708

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

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    Last edited by RubiconDecision; August 17, 2014 at 02:31 AM.

  9. #3709
    trance's Avatar Vicarius
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    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    As for all the prepping in here, let's be freaking honest, there's a lot of people who have military training/background. Most of us know how to live off the land for a limited time, even without significant supplies. I ain't contesting that having a farm would be an ideal condition, but saying you're screwed if you don't have a ton of canned food and a freaking DMR lying around is just lol. One thing I seriously don't understand is why in any survival themed media, fishing is never a major thing. Humanity partially sustained itself through fishing for a long time in some areas and think about fish populations after 12-24 months after commercial fishing ends. Open season if you find an appropriate craft and raid a freaking library.

    If you can't survive in low light conditions you are just bad. We had light and sound discipline in the army and we did just fine, despite fooling around a lot in the dark with no moon, you're just if you look into a sudden light source .

    P.S. If you can start a fire, you can purify water. It's pretty easy.

  10. #3710

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Quote Originally Posted by trance View Post
    As for all the prepping in here, let's be freaking honest, there's a lot of people who have military training/background. Most of us know how to live off the land for a limited time, even without significant supplies. I ain't contesting that having a farm would be an ideal condition, but saying you're screwed if you don't have a ton of canned food and a freaking DMR lying around is just lol. One thing I seriously don't understand is why in any survival themed media, fishing is never a major thing. Humanity partially sustained itself through fishing for a long time in some areas and think about fish populations after 12-24 months after commercial fishing ends. Open season if you find an appropriate craft and raid a freaking library.

    If you can't survive in low light conditions you are just bad. We had light and sound discipline in the army and we did just fine, despite fooling around a lot in the dark with no moon, you're just if you look into a sudden light source .

    P.S. If you can start a fire, you can purify water. It's pretty easy.
    Military personnel are taught to use gear to survive long enough to get to a safe zone, not to persistently survive in the wild. As such, while they have an advantage imparted by discipline, education, and experience, it was an artificial one. I think if you'll watch some outdoor survivial shows, you'll see ex-military personnel making terrible errors due to training or not thinking it out long term when surviving 21 days. Other do just fine from the mental discipline.

    What if you don't have a pot to boil water in? Most people would stumble, but a woodsman would simply dig out a wooden trough by scraping it out, and use the rock boil method used by the Vikings in order to purify the water and have a way to drink it too.


    Lots of people know how to purify water, but lots of people end up drinking questionable water under survival situations because they lack chemicals or education or gear and so they "go for it" thinking they'll luck out. Since a biosand filter requires minimal materials, which can be locally sourced anywhere, then it is the water purification method of choice in rural 3rd countries where missionaries and consultants like Peace Corps volunteers go to help engineer them.

    Most military survival involves bugging out to a secure location, and because of this, some wannabee prepper types adopt a bugout bag concept, and then think they could apply that in a harsh situation. But that's not what bugging out was supposed to do at all.

    The very best way to acquire food in an apocalypse is not raiding stores, but raiding food warehouses that act as distribution centers. Because of Just-In-Time inventory practices, then there are trends in which grocery shopping occurs, and noted by you using the supplied grocery discount card. As such, they monitor your shopping and adjust trucking from that distribution center. In turn that distribution center receives supplies by river barges and railroads. All along that transportation network there are distribution centers of many kinds.

    Post JIT, there has been a movement to limit the assembly of raw materials, partially complete components toward the whole, and thus reduce expenditures for warehousing. The longer a material is stored, the more is tied up in capital. Thus these are constantly adjusted to minimize inventories resulting in major savings.

    On the show, smart survivors would know some of this, and would exploit it. Engineering types would result in things like well digging and methods of raising water, an very intensive practice in history. Small scale engineering with things like a Kochanski winch are used to relocate heavy materials like a newly felled tree or to extract a vehicle that went off-road.


    Dave Canturbury demonstrates a Kochanski winch of a vehicle using the technique, a very useful thing that could show up on the Walking Dead, that is if they wanted to have some excellent writing about what survivors would do under those common circumstances with no tow trucks.

    There's lots of people who literally have no knowledge that would be practical in a zombie apocalypse, but others in education, or old farmers who use techniques on the homestead, or construction workers, all would have some knowledge that could be pooled to restart society from urbanization into an agrarian hunter-gatherer society.
    Last edited by RubiconDecision; April 04, 2014 at 04:58 PM. Reason: better Kochanski winch video

  11. #3711

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Quote Originally Posted by trance View Post
    As for all the prepping in here, let's be freaking honest, there's a lot of people who have military training/background. Most of us know how to live off the land for a limited time, even without significant supplies. I ain't contesting that having a farm would be an ideal condition, but saying you're screwed if you don't have a ton of canned food and a freaking DMR lying around is just lol. One thing I seriously don't understand is why in any survival themed media, fishing is never a major thing. Humanity partially sustained itself through fishing for a long time in some areas and think about fish populations after 12-24 months after commercial fishing ends. Open season if you find an appropriate craft and raid a freaking library.

    If you can't survive in low light conditions you are just bad. We had light and sound discipline in the army and we did just fine, despite fooling around a lot in the dark with no moon, you're just if you look into a sudden light source .

    P.S. If you can start a fire, you can purify water. It's pretty easy.
    I've toyed with the notion that one of the finest "safe" bases might be a re-purposed riverboat casino on a major river: major storage/living space, secure water supply, mobility, fishing, and potentially 1000's of miles of riverfront to loot/salvage.

    I was kinda gratified/peeved while watching the Country Club episode, for that's another location I've always considered pretty ideal: wrought-iron fenced/gated/landscaped to funnel traffic and inhibit outside visibility, affluent location (low pop density/upscale local looting), intact irrigation system, tons of 6v golfcart batteries, extensively stocked bar, swimming pools and water traps for backup water, huge netted backdrop on the driving range (fishing, trapping walkers) large expanses for farming, landscaping equipment and machinery...and when you get bored you can let some walkers into the driving range for practicing your swing...
    Giving tax breaks to the wealthy, is like giving free dessert coupons to the morbidly obese.

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  12. #3712

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    With that much meadow, you're always going to have some small game, and some fairly oblivious early in the morning prior to any being on the course, and so lots of trapping opportunities. A very large surplus of fertilizer to keep the lawn green of such a high acreage. Ponds. Sand to add to clay soil to increase friability. Moles and gophers are naturally drawn to meadows due to grubs, and only leave when the lawns are treated, so they'd come back. Rabbits in abundance.

    Lots of batteries, you're right, but no way to recharge them. You'd need solar panels from construction sites to bring back to do this. But you'd have real problems with battery failure from an inability to charge them correctly. Lots of spare parts from carts translates into materials for wind power (belts, gears and gearboxes, motors) and the meadows help this, but not possible everywhere.

  13. #3713

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    I think the best course of action here is to open a thread somewhere about survival, be that for any disaster. Where we can add hints, tips, videos and best locations etc

  14. #3714
    Clagius's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Does anyone else think that killing off the Governor was a bad choice? To me, he started to be more interesting after he lost Woodbury.


  15. #3715

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    The best thing that could happen for The Walking Dead would be an organized leader who actually understands how to rebuild community who then perverts the intention of the community to achieve his personal goals. The Governor was supposed to do this. He was supposed to demonstrate how the characters we are watching are disorganized and hopeless. The brave thing the writers would have to do is create an antihero who saved his group but likely by questionable means, just as say a Dark Age lord would handle his serfs. That person would likely be a military officer, educated, but the main issue is he'd become a caricature of every Hollywood cliche.

    Few Hollywood productions make antiheros likable with viewers. I'd say the Sopranos and Breaking Bad accomplished this by allowing those characters to be human and despicable all at once.

    Or...the family of characters we like have to mature and do more than struggle from place to place killing zombies in random ways, and become planners to rebuild civilization. Since the zombie as a character is nonsensical, and the material not demanding but remaining at the lowest level of comics, then either rise about it, or continue the formulaic that's making it successful. Comics can be extremely complex (like The Sandman) or they can be mindless entertainment.

    In Hollywood, messing with the formulaic can make it pop, like a soap bubble, and few are willing to take risks. Seinfield was charming for years by writing scripts essentially about nothing, and reveling in that, and so stayed precisely the same over that period.
    ...
    Some of you may enjoy World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Made_By_Hand
    It's a dystopian novel in which the world has fallen apart by several different factors. Several communities arise by various kinds of leadership: struggling liberal agrarians, a Biker gang who harvest materials (dismantle homes and take items from stores) that they then sell for profit and trade, a benevolent medieval serfdom, a religious group of not unkind fundamentalists with a weird centering belief, etc.

    In the Walking Dead, survivors would be looking for answers and security. Most people are not leaders. They don't know what to do that is practical. They are however trained in specialized occupations post-Henry Ford, and so its possible for an idea and believers of an idea to create community.

    Most of that book is quite good, save the weirdness of the fundamentalists. It's not only entertaining, but instructive. Kunstler obviously is intelligent and has considered the ramifications of a community having to do almost everything themselves, changes in relationships, and interactions between the groups that survive and thrive. Arguably the medieval serfdom model works because that "Lord" isn't cruel, but his authority is not questioned either. So much for the Republic.

    In a dystopian world, all the "niceties" like political correctness are gone. No one can question the authority of a leader and expect to stay a part of a community. Some individuals would venture out and begin their own communities, much as Europeans left for America and moved to the frontier.

    In the Walking Dead, not every place would be overrun by zombies, and groups would survive, but perpetually have problems, real ones not by zombies, but perhaps because some aspect of contagion, pollution, security, competition of resources like game would be an aspect of zombies.

    The Walking Dead, like all tv shows, allows the viewer to live vicariously on the hero's journey. That's why television exists, that and to sell products. So part of this becomes, "What would I do if in their shoes?" and so it's an opportunity to transport yourself back to the unsecure frontier in America where Native Americans were established and constant and competing for those trying to wrest control over that land. So one could learn how people did that, or simply enjoy watching a zombie's head exploded by being bludgeoned or shot in some unique way. Personally the former is more entertaining and makes us think, while the latter grows boring and loses its novelty.

    The Native Americans are not the zombies. The zombies are the unknown that both the Native Americans and the new pioneers both were competing against, plus resources. Likewise, in a dystopian portrayal, the worst threat are other humans and their communities, for there are not abundant resources, and what few there are would be gathered only by issues of security and threats.

    In a very genuine way, the zombies of The Walking Dead, are those mindless folks who literally are enslaved to capitalism and amble about in search of filling their bellies but unable to actually ever be sated for that hunger cannot be assuaged. This was the original vision of George Romeo for Night of the Living Dead.

    In a survival situation, a zombie is some mindless person without basic skills, who has no idea how to do anything to better their situation. In a long term survival situation of establishing community, then the zombies have died, for they couldn't provide even clean drinkable water for themselves, and then starved since they couldn't trap or hunt. Then longer term as zombies perish because they cannot grow food, since no group in history subsisted purely by hunting and gathering...hence organized civilization.
    Last edited by RubiconDecision; April 12, 2014 at 06:40 PM.

  16. #3716
    Lord of the Drunk Penguin's Avatar Tribunus
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    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Rick is
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    still alive.

    Negan is
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    still alive.


    What the hell is going on with this comicbook?


  17. #3717

    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Quote Originally Posted by snuggans View Post
    i thought it was a pretty good episode (except for the terrible CGI during the scene where they corral them by shooting the ground). it's a rallying episode where everyone finds each other and you have the last bold words coming from the leader before a war begins. you can easily assume that Carroll and Tyrese will play a huge part in the next episode in rescuing the main group since they haven't been captured.

    the flashbacks with Hershel weren't simple fillers (i thought i was watching the wrong episode at first), rather they are important to the story because it demonstrates exactly how Rick attempted to distance himself from weapons and killing in the prison and attempted to have a normal life, how his actions heavily influence Carl's (the gruesome killing of the rapist, the biting of the neck, the defining line between walker and non-walker are blurred during these scenes, basically you become a monster when fighting monsters)
    Yeah, I agree with this. The flashbacks might have felt a little dull and broken up the momentum of the episode as a finale, but I appreciate what they were going for with the whole duality thing and how the group has been forced to such an opposite extreme from what they were hoping to achieve, with the main civilizing element (Herschel) brutally killed half way through the season. Also, the whole "walking dead" thing really is becoming more apparent given how much energy was devoted to showing how tight-knit the group has become, and that without each other they literally have nothing to live for (like Bob before he found them), able to think only about food (as Rick admits) just like the walkers themselves. Particularly well told in having Rick rip flesh from another man's neck...

    Quote Originally Posted by maxi90 View Post
    The episode was ok, but it totally blows as a season finale. They should have cut one fot he pure filler episodes so that this one aired last week, cause as it is, there are just too many loose ends. Hell, this (half) season practicaly had no resolution at all. All we got was Glenn finding Maggie (BLEGH) and the girl litle girl finaly going psycho and Carol having to kill her and confess to Tyresse. That´s some bad writing right there.
    I wouldn't go quite that far, but yeah it had none of the urgency, rhythm and intensity you'd expect of a finale. I don't really need resolution at the end of a season though, just as long as it opens up to what looks like an interesting premise for the next (this one was pretty dubious on that front though).


    I pretty much missed the boat on this season and have only managed to watch it now, but I'm pretty glad tbh. If I had come here after each episode I'm dead-certain my immersion would have been whittled away by reading all of the criticism - because as far as I remember we just love to liberally rip on the series here, much like zombies

    Either way, though it's still pretty uneven in terms of dialogue, drama, believability of events and most moments involving action, I feel like TWD is gradually getting its bite back (har har). The idea of the characters being stuck in the prison for half of the season with flu's would sound awful on its own, but they still succeeded in making it somewhat enjoyable. The Governor portion started out really strong, though it seemed as though he was just after Rick the whole time? Seemed a bit disappointingly bland to me. As for the rest, sure the narratives were split up and it wasn't always interesting, but I found it good to have some real survival and encounters out in the wilderness again and they seem to have improved a bit with their characters.

    I'm agreed with you guys though, that the way they had things go in Michonne's past and how she put it to Carl were pretty darn poor.


    Under the patronage of the formidable and lovely Narf.

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  18. #3718
    Nizam89's Avatar Ducenarius
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    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    It's time to necro this thread... u got the joke AMC just released the first 4 Minutes of Episode 1 Season 5. I can honestly say that something big awaits us... they really enhanched the scare and gore level. Really great TV Show, but i think it should be kept away from kids (even the youngsters) cause it is really not suitable.
    Last edited by Nizam89; October 12, 2014 at 04:08 PM.
    "I warn every animal on this farm to keep his eyes very wide open."
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    NASA's biggest blunder was not having Neil Armstrong say, " That's one small step for man,....hey, that looks like gold!"


  19. #3719
    IronBrig4's Avatar Good Matey
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    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Holy crap that was an intense episode.

    It also seems like the zombies get a little more decomposed with every season.

    Under the patronage of Cpl_Hicks

  20. #3720
    Inhuman One's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: The Walking Dead: TV Series (Comic spoilers in tags with warning)

    Watched a few episodes of the show last week, they where shown in a row so I kept watching a bit. While some of it did catch my interest, people seem to act just too stupid in general for me to really go watch the show though.

    Its just not realistic how much people are whining and complaining about trivial personal issues while their lives are at stake, even when its directly made clear. I can get that there will be opportunists in such situations too, but I really think its underestimated how much people will likely stick together in such events.

    I'm curious though if the show even mentions what goes on in the rest of the world? To me the idea always seemed ludricous that the entire world's society would fall at practicly the same time and get overrun by this problem. Seems to me that some nations would be bound to take extreme measures of quarantine and armies may be send to sweep collapsed nations and have ships laying at the coast as safe havens.
    Heck, they'd even develop weapons, equipment and vehicles designed to deal with the problem and these countries would work on a cure or other solutions to keep people from reanimating.

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