Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, insert_name said:

Zombies would not be a significant threat militarily speaking. An unarmed,  uncordinated, and uninteligent army would get blown away by modern combined arms.

Walking Dead zombies are a bit more troublesome because the problem is not containable. Everyone is infected; everyone is reanimated postmortem whether bitten or no. 

[Delay]

1 minute ago, sevenperforce said:

Everyone is infected; everyone is reanimated postmortem whether bitten or no. 

In that case: Why even bother putting up a fight? If it truly is an inevitable result that cannot be changed, that's a waste of resources.

Not that you'd care about resources as a zombie, though...

[sevenperforce]

5 minutes ago, Delay said:

In that case: Why even bother putting up a fight? If it truly is an inevitable result that cannot be changed, that's a waste of resources.

Not that you'd care about resources as a zombie, though...

By "everyone is infected", I mean that everyone is carrying the zombie virus, but it is dormant. It won't hurt you and only activates after death.

The reason it makes things dicey for the military is that you can't cordon off the zombies and slaughter them. The zombies can appear anywhere. There's no containing them because any time anyone in the world dies, for any reason, they will come back.

But you can still survive and rebuild civilization. You just have to make sure that everyone knows to stab dead people in the head right after they die. And don't walk around outside in the open, except in groups, well-armed, because you never know when a straggler might shamble by.

[kerbiloid]

The same in Cruz's books.
Virus itself doesn't harm in low concentrations, but undies everybody dead.
So, any unexpected death (say, from heart attack or so) causes another flash of contamination.

9 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

You just have to make sure that everyone knows to stab dead people in the head right after they die.

Or gather them and keep in a wheel to make electricity.

_{Imagine the wars between communities to steal another one's captured zombies.}

P.S.
Also better sleep in one room per person or at least attach everybody to the bed with handcuffs

Edited April 27, 2018 by kerbiloid

[KerikBalm]

13 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

By "everyone is infected", I mean that everyone is carrying the zombie virus, but it is dormant. It won't hurt you and only activates after death.

The reason it makes things dicey for the military is that you can't cordon off the zombies and slaughter them. The zombies can appear anywhere. There's no containing them because any time anyone in the world dies, for any reason, they will come back.

But you can still survive and rebuild civilization. You just have to make sure that everyone knows to stab dead people in the head right after they die. And don't walk around outside in the open, except in groups, well-armed, because you never know when a straggler might shamble by.

Did you ever see the movie Fido...

Its set in some pseudo 1950's-esque post-war American society... replace WW-2 with WW-Z (I seem to recall them showing B-17s dropping bombs as part of this war)... anyway, basically, nobody trusts old people. I seem to recall (maybe its just me assuming its how it should work in such a scenario) that when you get old, you get sent to a nursing home that is also somewhat like a prison... anybody that could die at any time could become a zombie at any time.

The movie also has these zombie collars that are apparently reliable enough (except for shenanigans in the movie, obviously) that can control zombies and enable them to be used as low IQ servants.

Anyway, people turning into zombies after death wouldn't be a problem that society couldn't adapt to, methinks.

@insert_name

Quote

Zombies would not be a significant threat militarily speaking. An unarmed,  uncordinated, and uninteligent army would get blown away by modern combined arms.

Yea... I'd like to know what a zombie is going to do during an artillery barrage, or against a tank/APC, or even a tall concrete wall (and no, don't show me the zombie-ant towers of world war Z, a human pyramid could not be made that tall), especially by poorly coordinated rotting bodies.

But another problem with zombie films... the spread is unrealistic. 

First, if they tear apart their victims, they won't have a new vector for the "infection". For this thing to expand exponentially, they'd have to take a few bites, and then leave the victim alone to turn. This is rarely shown. Its often shown that a victim may get bitten and escape (to turn later), but mostly when one doesn't get away, the zombie basically tear them apart -no new zombie to spread the infection like this. Zombies can't behave like this or the number of zombies actively spreading the infection won't increase - no exponential growth to overwhelm society.

They often also seem to show the infection popping up all over the world at once... nope, not going to happen. Maybe if there's a few/several hour incubation time, you could have it pop up at transit hub all over the world in a short order... but not in suburbs and such... and even that is dubious. Often its protrayed as possible because people don't recognize the infection for what it is... but still, how are you going to have mindless cannibals attacking everyone in sight not go noticed for long enough for their to be bitten people on planes going all over the world? (sure you could kick start it with some airborne pathogen, if you want to get around that).

Next, in order for it to spread, a zombie must bite, on average more than one person before being killed. If the average person is able to put down 1 zombie before being bitten, the number of infected will not increase. I can accept that in the initial shock of the outbreak, unprepared people would not manage such a kill ratio.... but people won't stay unprepared for long.

Lets say there are 7 billion people, and 1 billion become infected before they know what is going on: 6 billion people, 1 billion zombies.

Supposed after 1 billion have been infected, people have started preparing themselves, and using simple melee weapons can manage ot bash in 1 zombie brain on average before being bitten, and it proceeds like this for another 1 billion infections at the cost of 1 billion zombie deaths: 5 billion people, 1 billion zombies.

By now, people learn to put down the infected after being bitten, but are only able to do so about 50% of the cases (other cases, must retreat/ or the bitten person hides it or whatever). and it proceeds like this for the next 1 billion infections (again at a 1:1 kill ratio): 4 billion people, 500 million zombies (1 billion infections, but half killed before turning).

Now, militaries have been mobilized, militias have been organized, better weapons/firearms are employed, along with at least crude body armor that is bite resistant (like motorcycle leathers, or even kink BDSM gear, whatever, people would improvise). Also given the numerical superiority of humans vs zombies at this point, I'm going to assume at least a 5:1 kill ratio, and nearly 100% rate of newly infected being either put down or restrained so that they aren't a factor (I think you would want to restrain infected if it doesn't pose a risk, in case some people turn out to be immune, or they can be cured later if its looking like society won't collapse). Those 500 million zombies manage to get another 100 million people, with negligible new zombies, the Z threat is nearly over, and the world population is still around 3.9 billion

Of course, I think the initial outbreaks and armed responses would be addressed long before there are 1 billion infected, and the kill ratios would get much higher much faster.

I really can't see any realistic infection scenario where zombies outnumber the humans globally. (you could still have a city over run and a military quarantine around the outside, where the military will kill anyone to maintain quarantine, and thus there is a local numerical advantage for the zombies)

[YNM]

11 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

I really can't see any realistic infection scenario where zombies outnumber the humans globally.

What about this :

Spoiler

I know the film isn't really about the science fiction (since when Will Smith plays any strict science fiction ??!?), but I have to admit, that sounds somehow more plausible.

[kerbiloid]

21 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

you could still have a city over run and a military quarantine around the outside, where the military will kill anyone to maintain quarantine, and thus there is a local numerical advantage for the zombies

While the military are under the same commandment. If they form several fractions, things change, gray zones appear.

Edited April 28, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Gargamel]

14 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

You just have to make sure that everyone knows to stab dead people in the head right after they die

What a weird custom to still have around 2500 years later, long after the virus is gone, but people still do it because they always have. 

Would have made my job as a medic a lot different.  "Forget CPR! Stab em!"

Reminds me of a short story I read years ago when Aliens archeologists had arrived on Earth long after Humans have died off.  They find the remnants of our civilization and are awed by the dedication to religion we had.  Just about every building ruins they find have these little shrines in them for worship.  Some public buildings have multiples of them lined up next to each other, with multiple rooms of them, each shrine divided by a wall.  The shrines have a bowl of holy water in them, connected to a central water supply, and a small alter on the back containing a reserve supply of water,  so worship can be done anytime a human wanted too. 

[ARS]

Unless the zombie outbreak is supernatural, there's no way those dead bodies stayed as mindless cannibal for long. With no way to generate adequate energy for movement, let alone chasing the victim aggressively, and no heart to pump the blood for nourishing the body, those zombies WILL decompose. A zombie outbreak, even if it happened, it's extremely unlikely to survive for a few months, before human bodies decomposed. It's just like how black death plague ended, once the biohazard area has been isolated and contained by authorities, the surviving humans could just wait a couple of months before the bodies decomposed. Also, once the news about zombie outbreak made global, surviving countries all over the world would start close their borders, slowing the spread even further. This is why the global zombie outbreak scenario is rather unrealistic

[YNM]

2 hours ago, Gargamel said:

... so worship can be done anytime a human wanted too. 

You're describing something there.

58 minutes ago, ARS said:

... there's no way those dead bodies stayed as mindless cannibal for long. ...

What if the zombies starts as something alive ?

[Gargamel]

4 minutes ago, YNM said:

You're describing something there.

Nope, more like this.

[YNM]

@Gargamel Well, hello from a place where people do believe something

[Gargamel]

2 minutes ago, YNM said:

@Gargamel Well, hello from a place where people do believe something

I hope you have not inferred that I am insulting any religion here.   I am implying that archeologists of the future my misinterpret a common item as something more special to the populace. 

[YNM]

4 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

I hope you have not inferred that I am insulting any religion here. 

No, I'm not. I know you have a valid neutral view, just not aligned with what I immediately had in mind. We do have prayer rooms in most if not all buildings.

Moving on...

What do you think of this then ?

[ARS]

29 minutes ago, YNM said:

What if the zombies starts as something alive ?

That's an exception, especially for living zombies like the one in 28 days later, but still, zombies made from dead bodies shouldn't be able to survive for a long time before those bodies decomposed. If they get sustenance by eating the victim, then the number of zombies won't increase, and if they simply just bite and leave the victim to become zombies, they don't get sustenance to keep shambling for the next victim. On the other hand, zombies made from living humans (should) still need sustenance. A living body means an active blood circulatory system necessary to deliver oxygen and nutrients to cells throughout the body. I can think that living zombies only care about feeding themselves (a logical explanation about the virus on living zombies is that, the virus didn't cause mutation, it simply degrade their higher brain function and/or increasing their aggressiveness to make them behaves with animalistic behavior), and only create new zombie "accidentally" when the victim has been bitten, but managed to break free and escapes

[Gargamel]

13 minutes ago, YNM said:

What do you think of this then ? 

Seen the movie (enjoyed it), but haven't read the book.  I've heard the original ending in the book was much better, and they should have gone that route.

But think about this.   It's not a story about Zombies, it's a Vampire story.

The creatures  1) Only come out at night; 2) Are are at least semi-intelligent; 3) Are Organized; 4) Cooperate. 

A previous comment I can't find about zombies becoming "healed", and a bunch standing in a group made me think of that story. 

[YNM]

36 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

It's not a story about Zombies, it's a Vampire story.

Yeah, call it Transylvannia and put it back a millenia ago. "Vampire : The Origin".

EDIT : Although, the "human refugee" was said to be placed on higher altitude (colder places)... maybe the reverse ?!?

37 minutes ago, ARS said:

On the other hand, zombies made from living humans (should) still need sustenance. 

Which they do, eating game animals.

But Gargamel had a pretty interesting conclusion there...

Edited April 28, 2018 by YNM

[KerikBalm]

4 hours ago, YNM said:

I know the film isn't really about the science fiction (since when Will Smith plays any strict science fiction ??!?), but I have to admit, that sounds somehow more plausible.

Well, yea, I think I mentioned a scenario like that... IIRC it starts with a pathogen spreading but no zombies yet, no? if it starts in a way that you don't need to be bitten to get it, it changes things...

yea, this was my mention: "sure you could kick start it with some airborne pathogen, if you want to get around that"

If people can become infected just from breathing, then the zombie hoard is just sort of a side effect of a much scarier and harder to contain pandemic scenario... it might as well be "Outbreak" but with zombies to make you extra dead... or... undead... however you want to look at it.

[YNM]

12 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

IIRC it starts with a pathogen spreading but no zombies yet, no?

The pathogen was heralded as "cancer cure". Which goes wrong.

12 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

If people can become infected just from breathing

Everyone would just be zombies quickly. Who don't have a common cold virus here ?

Edited April 28, 2018 by YNM

[ARS]

Anytime there's a "matter replicator/ fabricator"-thingy on sci-fi movie which creates stuff by disassembling existing matter into atoms and assembling it again into new stuff, atom by atom or even more blatantly, out of nothing is a bad science on itself. There's a law of equivalent exchange. In Einstein's theories (the famous E=mc^2), it is possible to replicate energy into matter and vice versa while still following that pesky law of equivalent exchange, just like alchemy and Star Trek's replicators, but in order to assemble 1 kilogram of matter, you need to consume as much energy as the detonation of 21.5 megatons of TNT. As a result of other conservation laws, you won't be able to get a kilo of ordinary matter - instead, you'll get half a kilo of matter and half a kilo of antimatter (which, unless contained, will annihilate with ordinary matter yielding back the energy you started with a bang and making the whole thing an exercise in futility).

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, ARS said:

there's a "matter replicator/ fabricator"-thingy on sci-fi movie which creates stuff by disassembling existing matter into atoms and assembling it again into new stuff, atom by atom

Yes, this is how it works IRL.

Spoiler

Sometimes there are glitches on subatomic level (read the label).

[Gargamel]

7 hours ago, ARS said:

Anytime there's a "matter replicator/ fabricator"-thingy on sci-fi movie which creates stuff by disassembling existing matter into atoms and assembling it again into new stuff, atom by atom or even more blatantly, out of nothing is a bad science on itself. There's a law of equivalent exchange. In Einstein's theories (the famous E=mc^2), it is possible to replicate energy into matter and vice versa while still following that pesky law of equivalent exchange, just like alchemy and Star Trek's replicators, but in order to assemble 1 kilogram of matter, you need to consume as much energy as the detonation of 21.5 megatons of TNT. As a result of other conservation laws, you won't be able to get a kilo of ordinary matter - instead, you'll get half a kilo of matter and half a kilo of antimatter (which, unless contained, will annihilate with ordinary matter yielding back the energy you started with a bang and making the whole thing an exercise in futility).

Unless they are not converting to energy, but just taking a matter source, manipulating the elements to what they want, and sticking them together.   Even that would require a buttload of energy, but given in the StarTrek world, it's found on a vessel which has a power supply capable of folding space time, so.... 

[kerbiloid]

Btw, those replicators are one more evidence of aetherial nature of sci-fi worlds.

Spaceships fly through the space throwing flows of something invisible but burning, without any visible fuel tanks. Like aethereal turbojets.

Space fighters maneuver in vacuum exactly like air fighters in air. They just use aether instead of air.

Replicators make things out of pure aether, without any visible source materials.

Blasters make an enemy disappear without crashing everything around. 70 kg of overheated water steam in a volume of a human body, btw. Target just dissolves in aether.

Artificial gravity inside space ships without any visible reason: rotation, acceleration, or something else. Probably, flows of aether from aethereal fancoils press the humans to the floor.

Look, how wonderful and amazing would be life in Aether.

Edited April 29, 2018 by kerbiloid

[ARS]

9 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Btw, those replicators are one more evidence of aetherial nature of sci-fi worlds.

Spaceships fly through the space throwing flows of something invisible but burning, without any visible fuel tanks. Like aethereal turbojets.

Space fighters maneuver in vacuum exactly like air fighters in air. They just use aether instead of air.

Replicators make things out of pure aether, without any visible source materials.

Blasters make an enemy disappear without crashing everything around. 70 kg of overheated water steam in a volume of a human body, btw. Target just dissolves in aether.

Artificial gravity inside space ships without any visible reason: rotation, acceleration, or something else. Probably, flows of aether from aethereal fancoils press the humans to the floor.

Look, how wonderful and amazing would be life in Aether.

Don't forget, drag

Makes designing spaceship easier for when the cool factor is priority and physics be damned. Engines can be mounted only on rear section

Maybe that's why spaceships in sci-fi always seen with their engines burning, since they had to overcome the drag

[Nikolai]

23 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Spaceships fly through the space throwing flows of something invisible but burning, without any visible fuel tanks. Like aethereal turbojets.

The tabletop RPG Space: 1889 pushed manned interplanetary travel back into the late nineteenth century by positing that Newtonian physics was correct after all -- most saliently, that the luminiferous aether actually existed -- and that Thomas Edison developed an "aether propeller" to react against it.  (It was steampunk a quarter-century before the term was even coined.)  The colonial skirmishes that took place on Earth were extended to the inner Solar System.  (The outer Solar System was relatively unexplored because gathering enough sunlight to power the boilers was difficult.)

I love the setting to death.  Mercury is tidally locked to the Sun, with one face boiling hot and the other freezing cold with a "twilight zone" in between that is marginally habitable.  Venus is a primitive Earth the way the Victorians thought of it, with swamps, volcanoes, dinosaurs -- and lizard-people thrown in for good measure (that are at the Stone Age in their technological development).  Mars is home to no less than three intelligent species, even though large amounts of that planet's water dried up about 50,000 years ago: The Canal Martians, which live at the cities that can be found at the junctures of enormous canals that draw water from the melting poles during each hemisphere's summer; the Hill Martians, which exist as nomadic tribes that wander the desert wastes covering the globe; and the High Martians, which live in caverns that they've dug into the mountains.  Most of the action takes place on Mars, because (a) it's the most well-developed world besides Earth, and (b) because "liftwood" grows there, a plant with wood that, when treated properly, has anti-gravitic properties.

Unfortunately, the original game was rather clunky, with four different sets of rules for playing: One for character role-playing and advancement; one for vehicular combat; one for man-to-man combat; and one for scientific advancement (so your mad scientist players could make their lightning guns and what-not).  The four systems didn't intersect in any meaningful way.  It seems to me that this was a major barrier to players adapting and playing the game.  A few modern publishers have adapted the setting to more modern (read: more streamlined) systems, like Ubiquity and Savage Worlds.

Exactly how the aether propeller works is left vague, and aside from notions of things like "aether wakes" that make the area around planets a bit more tricky to navigate, not much else is done with the concept.  A shame, IMHO.  Even so, it seems to me that the game deserves more attention than it gets.