At 1/7/08 08:56 PM, LazyPint wrote:
I understand your requirements to join are fairly rigorous by BBS standards, so I hope I can make a decent first impression.
From what I can tell without reading, it looks good.
Just I begin, I have no idea who Heavy Metal Harlow is and by no means does his opinion matter at all.
My Plan
Currently I live in a University Hall of Residence in Scotland. On the plus side, my room is secured with a bolt lock and a pretty thick door, so I keep quiet I should fare better than others. My room is on the second floor of the building, which is also secured by a locked door. The main door is glass plated however, so zombie students may well break through it, especially as the door is essentially made of wood (or that wood-look architects go for). Either way, it's not the most secure of barricades.
Okay, sounds good.
As far as supplies are concerned, the kitchen I share with four other students is just across the hall and is also equipped with a bolt lock which is accessible only with our keys. Of course the food in it compromises of whatever I/ the other students happen to have at the time, which should (generally) be enough for a couple of days shelter (dependant on power supply and other students not panicking).
What kind of food do you keep in the kitchen? Frozen? Tinned? Dry (such as noodles)? I think the chances of the other students not panicking is pretty low.
So even assuming I am able to use these supplies for a couple of days, I will then still have to escape from the campus. On the plus side, the student's car park is very close to my building. On the negative side, many of those cars may already have gone and not one of them is mine. I also have no idea how to hot-wire one to start it, so that form of transport may also be out. I do have a window overlooking said car park, so I can at least keep an eye on the situation.
So you would have to resort to looking around everyone else's room in hopes there is some keys somewhere? Can you recognise different people's cars and know where the person is staying? If there is a person that just happened to get attacked in his own room or leaves his keys in the room, you may be able to just grab the keys and go.
Before venturing out however, I would need some sort of weapon. Firearms are out. It would be hard enough to find one in Britain in general, so the odds of locating one on a small university campus are low. Incredibly low. Alas, my small room/bathroom does not hold any items which could be used as a weapon in desperate circumstances. Frankly my best bet may well be the shared kitchen for a knife of some sort, since other student's rooms would be inaccessible without the correct key.
Would you be unable to rip a pipe from a wall like a metallic towel "holder" or a water pipe (try to leave the gas pipes alone since it'll be very risky least to say)? It's a little basic and may break fast, but it can do until you find something better. A knife may be a little too-close-for-comfort.
So, hopefully (I know a lot is down to chance) I can find another student who has a car. The problem then becomes where to go. Of course, my first thought is of my family, but they are fifty odd miles away. Nothing I can do could save them if they are being attacked/have already been overrun. Therefore, my best chance would be to get to a secure location. There is a prison within a minute's drive, however it is within Edinburgh's city area, so may already be crowded with survivors, which can only attract zombies.
Heading into Edinburgh would then be risky due to the large amount of people there and not to mention, it's unlikely the prison will be free of prisoners. Which may lead to you being killed by people rather than zombies if you attempt to break-in. But if you do get in, it seems likely they'll have a nice amount of canned and dry goods and possibly have their own power supply and/or guns (who knows?).
Disregarding the city as a survival option, I would have to move out north or south. Moving north would of course place me further away from any potential rescue party (considering the population difference of Scotland and England), so I believe south into England would be the safest option.
But moving north into the mountains (correct me if I am wrong, I'm not to good on my geography in general) would mean you're a lot less likely to meet the zombies at all since they can't climb if we're assuming these are Dawn Of The Dead zombies.
Of course, a car cannot run on air and having worked in a petrol station, I know that fuel is inaccessible without power,
That is something that I was actually previously unaware of and will keep it in mind in the future.
so inevitably we would have to abandon the car and continue on foot, hopefully hitching a ride with any other survivors encountered. If at any point we the people I met seemed intent on taking any unnecessary risks, i would not hesitate to part company from them. Hopefully I could, in time, arrive at a well defended stronghold of survivors and integrate into the community. I would not seek to be the leader and would happily provide any information I had regarding the zombies (assuming they are those described in the ZSG).
In ZSC, we use two different references for our general zombie:
A. We just use film knowledge. The most well known film to feature the slow stupid common zombie is Dawn Of The Dead (at least personally), so I like to refer to them as Dawn Of The Dead zombies when I need to compare to other kinds of zombie. Otherwise, when people just say zombies, we mostly mean the traditional slow, stupid, common one.
B. There's the zombie survival guide (Link to Amazon.co.uk) which uses "historical data, laboratory experiments, field research, and eyewitness accounts" but due to the common belief that zombies have yet to come around, I wouldn't believe it straight off. I'd take it in consideration and I think "Dawn Of The Dead zombies" are the most likely to come around, but I wouldn't conclude that they are the zombies that may come around.
Nothing is more worse than planning to be hit by slow stupid zombies and end up being attacked by either intelligent or fast zombies.
I am aware that this plan leaves rather a lot to chance and hope. However, the lack of weapons in my country compared to America makes my situation rather more difficult than your own may be.
I actually live in England so I'm pretty much hopeless myself when it comes to decent weaponry. Near the coast though so worse happens, I could gather up some tin goods and go floating around the sea on one of the boats that happen to be there. Returning to grab more tinned goods. I'd have to some how start growing some vegetables at some point though.
My own (relative) isolation in my student halls does not help matters. I hope you would take account of these rather unfortunate (in a zombie crisis) circumstances when reading my plan.
It's a good plan, I'll give you that. You've thought in depth about it (at least with more depth than most people who try to sign up who give it simply a few minutes wonder about it). You've considered the different ideas. While not necessary, it would be nice to say what you'd do if you managed to go into Edinburgh to stay, what would you do if you decided to go into the mountains, what would you do if you got into the prison, and so on. It doesn't think about the different kind of zombies (28 Days Later ones for instance) but to be honest, no one manages to keep it in mind. While I wouldn't ask you to tell me what you'd do all over again if say, 28 Days Later zombies came around; but keep it in mind that they may not be wondering mindlessly towards you but instead sprinting at you at full speed.
Like TwinSabre's plan, you did not mention long term. If you got into England, Moutains, etc, what then? What if you had to stay in a place by yourself and you know you'll be there for a good few months? (I've run out of characters).