THE DEAD TIMES
DEAD ARE COMING...
The Future is Dead
First of all, an apology:
I have been totally absent on The Dead Times for a good few weeks now, doing nothing in regard to my lifelong passion for the living dead. I was hoping for more Zombie game news to come from E3 for one; updates on State of Decay 3 or, as I had hoped, a new entry in the Dead Rising franchise - sadly, however, E3 brought us no rotting horrors what-so-ever. There were other reasons for my departure too but, frankly, they are just excuses. Well, fear not; I am back, returned to plague the land with my fetid knowledge and fully prepared to once again, plunge myself into a world of undeath - a task I do with untold relish. Witness my resurrection!
Now, onto the article,
Unless you are no longer living, you will have noticed that there is a worldwide pandemic on at the moment; a viral agent, having spread rapidly around the entire globe, causing billions of damage to the world economy, costing hundreds of thousands of lives, forcing countries to take extreme lockdown measures and generally ruining everything for everyone. Originally it seemed almost certain that this vile contagion had emanated from bats found in the wild in China, somehow jumping species into man when the two came into close proximity. Now though, that accepted theory has been thrown into confusion as evidence increases to support a new hypothesis, once immediately dismissed as sheer lunacy, the theory that, Covid (the coronavirus) may have escaped from a lab.
Yes, there is a theory out there that Covid is man-made, developed by the Chinese for... who knows what purpose, nefarious or otherwise. The WHO (World Health Organization) do say that Covid being engineered in a lab is "extremely unlikely" but British spies in China (and why exactly do we have spies in China during peacetime?) have reported that there is a strong case for Covid being a lab-escapee, prompting the US to form an independent investigation. Whatever the end result, it’s clear there is at least some possibility that Covid was engineered and, you know what's coming next folks, that's right, a crazy conspiratorial theory that this disturbing news makes the chance of a Zombie apocalypse in the next few years - possibly even our lifetimes - all the more likely.
A virus to deliberately turn people into Zombies? That is insane.
Okay, the idea of anyone purposefully making a virus to turn people into ravenous Zombies is a little bonkers on the face of it but we are delving into mad scientist territory here so bear with me. Thinking about the topic rationally (err, mad scientist rationally, not rational rationally), it is quite clearly, the smart play. The main thinking is that governments have wars; disagreements, fallings out and, when all other possibilities are exhausted, hostile action is inevitable. These aggressive disputes cost money and they cost lives; the bigger the war, the bigger the dispute, the bigger the cost. One partial solution that is being tossed around is having remote controlled vehicles doing all the actual shooty, dangerous bits, the soldiers who operate them remaining out of harm's way, far away from any actual combat - somewhere defensible and defended. This approach is on the rise with Drones and things, piloted by guys in shipping containers, miles away from any frontline, hurling devastating missiles at targets from thousands of feet in the air while in complete safety. Still though, this sort of advanced tech costs money, BIG money, and technology has not nearly advanced fast enough to replace troops on the ground completely. People still die.
But what if some professional-looking Herbert West type character burst into your office and said all that could change with a single injection of glowing green goo. Troops, infected with a certain virus could go into battle and fight for their God given rights just the same as any other man and, if they died, losing their lives to the enemy, they would come back, ready to fight again - a truly inexhaustible supply of soldiers that can, almost, guarantee victory. Okay, there would be a fairly large one-time cost of developing such a 'reanimation' virus and effectively those who do die in battle do die, being able to fight on but never regaining their full humanity, dooming them to a 'life' outside of civilisation. There are drawbacks, as with anything but, to the bigwigs behind a desk, it's a net win. There is an added bonus too to sweeten the deal. Such a virus is bound to have complications; it may bring the dead back to life but they may be ravenous ghouls, incapable of distinguishing friend from foe, killing without hesitation but killing the wrong people. If you can get this deadly toxin into the enemy, problem solved; they'll kill each other and you don't have to risk the lives of any of your soldiers - saving thousands of pounds, dollars, whatever to boot.
Okay, I can buy that but why is a Zombie apocalypse more probable now?
There are a number of reasons why the inevitable plague of undeath just became that little bit closer, that dire situation travelling to the doors of reality with renewed ferocity.
- Lab-escape - This one is a straight shot; if Covid escaped from a lab there is no reason to think a Zombie virus would be any different.
- Reaction - I mentioned above that the US have formed an inquiry into the lab-escape theory behind the coronavirus. Suppose for a moment that the US find evidence that it is true, that Covid did indeed escape from a Chinese laboratory? Just how 'pissed' do you think they are going to get if they found the Chinese were studying this virus for unknown reasons, possibly even manufactured it and were careless enough to do so without appropriate security or at least warning the other nations of potential risk? And if they have got one virus, one that the world only found out about because it escaped quarantine, how many other deadly bio-threats could they be hiding? Would these other viruses be held for scientific reasons or something more sinister? There would need to be a reaction, a strong reaction, a military reaction. Nothing could be more poetic than attacking those who let a hostile virus escape with another hostile virus. Let them suffer as the rest of the world suffered after they, very suspiciously, seemed to escape the wrath of the coronavirus alarmingly early.
- Deliberate release - This one is kind of the same as point 2 but proposes the situation where the coronavirus did not escape from a Chinese lab, it was released deliberately. The most believable scenario of this concept is that it was ‘broken out’ of its holding state by terrorists hoping to spread misery and suffering around the globe for a never disclosed reason. Of course, if that is the case, the other countries in the world will have to react, a reaction that could well, because of the financial and risk-reducing benefits I’ve already mentioned, be the distribution of a Zombie virus. Also, what if the Chinese themselves released it, or intended to, the release coming sooner than planned or the virus simply being more transmissible than they expected catching those who released it off-guard but not totally unprepared? There are going to be movies based on this scenario - I guarantee it.
- Handling - The governments of the world really did, for the most part, do a dismal job of handling the rampant spread of the coronavirus when they first learned about its discovery. Delays in fighting back were used with implausible excuses of "herd-immunity" and "lockdown fatigue". Such, 'it'll all blow over' thoughts cannot be allowed to happen if a Zombie outbreak occurs - stopping the spread early is the only practical way to stop a full-blown apocalypse.
- Lack of understanding - The problem with using a Zombie virus as a weapon is that you have to know what you are doing (something that should be true for all weapon use in my opinion). It cannot be rushed into. You cannot simply assume a Zombie virus weapon will act the same as any other viral weaponry nor can a virus that reanimates the dead be assumed to spread like any other virus. Assuming the virus is transmissible in the expected ways for a Zombie virus - through bites and saliva -, an undead ghoul could walk for miles before encountering a living human to monch on. There is also the fact that Zombies are unpredictable; alright, they will always go after meat but they may get turned around, distracted, stuck on objects and so on. Zombies are forever as well, or at least a very long time; they will not simply die following a few months without food or water and during that time, they’ll wander on, infecting more people who will, in turn, infect more people, and more, and more - it's a snowball effect ending with everyone on the planet being a walking dead person. To release a transmissible Zombie virus into an area safely you would need, at the very least, a pre-determined, fully defensible quarantine perimeter. It would need to be well-armed enough to withstand large hordes of undead attacking from multiple directions at once as well as having the means to both diagnose friendlies who have been infected and, remorselessly, 'deal' with them. It is important, when trying to control a deliberately created Zombie outbreak, that the military and governments behind it realise that Zombies are not your average enemy; they do not use guns, they do not respond to intimidation, they do not shy away from danger or employ any sort of strategy. Standard 'hotzone' protocols will not be of much use when a horde of undead are gathering.
- Arms race - Have I left the best, most compelling and downright coolest reason to last? You bet I have. It is simple really; if other countries learn that China has been developing viral-weaponry, those other countries are, themselves, going to start developing viral-weaponry, especially seeing the widespread damage even a fairly 'weak' virus can do; it is the classic 'if you attack us, we'll attack you even harder' mentality. What if China is not the main threat though? What if it never intends to use the viral-weaponry it creates but to sell them on to other nations with bigger grudges to settle; China quickly becoming the major economic super-power it has already shown signs that it wants to be. It is all sounding like the plot of the Resident Evil series of movies. But even then, consider the situation that China did not develop the Covid virus as a weapon, it just held it in a lab for research purposes after it was found in the wild. How would any country know that the reason for it being in a laboratory is not malicious? Or even if they did know, there are going to be other countries that do not believe and so start their own viral-weapons programs in defence against an enemy that isn't there. On the smaller scale, there are going to be groups within countries that do not believe that the Chinese were peaceful - not holding the virus with deadly intent. Those people - spreading their nefarious word around the country (ironically, like a virus) to more people, growing in number - pressuring the ones in power into setting up a viral-weaponry program 'just in-case'. We have gone from Resident Evil territory to the, very real, Cold War era stupidity of The Men Who Stare at Goats.
I'm scared now.
Good - you should be scared; viruses and viral-weaponry are going to be the next big thing, dominating the headlines for years to come. I really believe that the worldwide pandemic we are currently in has, if not started the ball rolling towards a Zombie apocalypse in the next few decades, made the arrival of that ghoulish nightmare a whole lot sooner. The future is terrifying, the future is Dead.
DESCRIPTION:
This article describes why, I think, the coronavirus pandemic has made a Zombie apocalypse more likely - it could even happen in our lifetimes.
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DATE UPLOADED:
11/07/2021