The state of Hawaii, given to you as a gift by a certain super-villain who wants some havok wreaked done but is too busy watching the 1st-6th season box set of **Firefly **to do it himself. (He just got back from Earth-2, you see, where Joss Whedon is beloved by everyone at Fox and always has been.) Your headquarters will be at Pearl Harbor, and you are already the legitimate ruler of Hawaii in the eyes of the United Nations.
The First Marine Expeditionary Force and the United States Third Fleet, both of whose personnel are compelled to obey you by a mind-control device that works only on them. You get both the troops and the gear. You do not have another mind-control device, and the one you have is maxed out; any new slave you acquire means releasing one of the ones you have, and you can neither control nor predict who will be released. If you want to recruit help you’ll have to rely on charm, coecion, bribery, or blackmail.
$500 billion stolen from Iraq over the past few years.
Most importantly, the GEM OF ZUVEMBIFICATION, which allows you to animate all the dead bodies in a 5-square-mile radius as Romero-type zombies; you can also use it to turn the zombie effect off at will. The latter act is irrevocable; once you deactivate a given zombie, you cannot raise it again. You cannot control the zombies beyond pointing them in a given direction, as they are too stupid. Any zombie created by being bitten (rather than the GoZ) will be turned off when you deactivate the zombie who bit it (or the zombie who bit that one, and so forth). You can use the Gem long-range, but only once a day. That’s for EITHER purpose; once you start a given rampage, you can’t do diddly about it (with the GoZ, anyway) for 24 hours.
Gonna have to be absolutely nothing overt, or even traceable to Hawaii, otherwise you’ll see a really bright flash right before your eyeballs melt, and the islands will glow in the dark for the next few centuries.
Checked your link, and looks like the Third Fleet has 5 carriers, plus assorted supporting ships. That means airplanes. Lots of airplanes.
OK. So I immediately declare love and peace and brotherhood towards all men. What military forces I have will be purely for self defense. As a show of good will, I’ll send some of my carriers on port visits and such…and book my airplanes to appear at regional air shows. Part of the “ground crew” sent with the show airplanes will actually be either me, or my special operatives. Their mission will be to function as ground crew for the planes, or course, but also to quietly sneak away from the crowds at the air show…say at least a good hour’s drive away, preferably further and zombiefy some random people. Campers deep in the woods, drunks/homeless in dimly lit alleys…no gunfire, no attention drawing of any kind…not even so much as a speeding ticket on the way to or from the zombiefying location. Just go, make some zombies, and return in time to move on with the team.
Random zombies will raise some hell, maybe make more zombies, maybe not. Patience and operational security top all other goals. Never ever forget that if you get identified as the “Zombie Lord” somebody will nuke your ass.
Edit: hope i make the edit window. Just caught the “all dead bodies in five mile radius” range. This is getting easier. No murdering live people needed. Drive by graveyards and/or county morgues, pop the gem, keep driving, obeying all traffic laws, back to the air show crew.
Best have a decapitated head you claim belonged to FC too, no? I mean, how many times has that guy tried to destroy Finland because he was upset over something Weyland the Smith did?
Hmmm, so the goal is world domination eh? I don’t think zombies are a big enough threat really. Maybe if the spawning radius was larger. In any case, I think money is the way to go here, but how to make money with this zombie ability… I’ll have to think on this.
Ahhh. Think I get it now. FC would be Fabulous Creature. I show my good faith by claiming to have killed him.
Hmmm…not sure I have to do that if the UN already recognizes me as the legit ruler of Oakieland Islands. I’m thinking they wouldn’t do that if the U.S. objected to losing one of their states and a nice chunk of military stuff.
Then again, I got no particular problem with claiming to have killed the guy that thinks I’m working for him. Obviously, I’m going to betray him eventually anyway. Only room for one evil dictator, and I’m not gonna be happy playing second string any longer than I have to…
First, we’ll be needing a fake Gem, though it really doesn’t matter what it is. Whatever artifact needs to be large enough that it can fit a few doohickeys, all as durable and long-lasting as possible; a GPS transmitter, a microphone (or video camera if possible) also with a transmitter, and a bomb. This fake artifact is then gifted in appropriately mysterious circumstances to Nasty Bad Man du jour, along with helpful instructions suggesting that the artifact may be used once per day. Via the link, we can safely use the gem when he thinks he is using it through the once-a-day long distance trick. Presto, big problems wherever that is.
Sooner or later, the larger nations are going to start dealing with the problem with large-scale, indiscriminate bombing. Thereupon we pipe up; it appears that we’ve discovered ancient texts describing said item, that shows the zombies have a weakness to something harmful to them but not to humans in general; let’s say a certain radio frequency stops them working, or some such nonsense. Said nations will probably try this out, since it costs them very little, pronounce that it does not work (which it doesn’t) and continue the bombing. Meanwhile we’ve got some paid agitators around the world, stirring up discontent and claiming the radio frequency does work, but the nations in question aren’t really trying it. They’ll have to be killed at some point to further throw suspicion.
Alright, so back on Hawii we’ll raise up some corpses and ship them over to America, China, and so forth. Oh no! Whatever shall we do? The countries in question will, of course, bomb the hell out of the airports/docks/wherever they “oddly” appeared from, further incurring the wrath of the people. And that’s when we waltz in with our planes, launch of the frequency, and turn off all of the zombies. And blow up the fake artifact. Having made an enemy out of most governments, created a fear which we have handily shown to be the beaters of, and mucho intelligent and caring, we now are in the ripe position to take over pretty much everywhere. Possible in some cases via religious-based lies, since if zombies came to the Earth I imagine there’d be a hell of a load of people looking for answers.
But eh, i’m not a fan of killing off so many people in order to take over the world. The people are the fun part!
Well, Fab being Fab, he’s doubtlessly plotting to kill YOU after you do the donkey work, so it’s an assassination race. Clearly the Firefly box set is an excuse.
(Or possibly he’s having sex with alt-Jewel Staite.)
Okay, that explains how you get rid of Dick Cheney.
I like most of your plan, but how do you get the zombies on the boat? No, scratch that, that’s obvious–you just crate dead bodies into the hold and revivify them at their destination. But since that ship’s crew is screwed, and the next load of future zombies can’t be wakened for a minimum of 24 hours, how do you get them off the SECOND boat?
Depends. If the gem allows you to select only some corpses within the 5 mile limit, then you can revivify them just as they’re crossing that point away from Hawaii. If not, they’ll have to be 5 miles offshore and i’ll have to do some fancy fliying in a helicopter or something so I don’t accidentally raise the Hawaiian dead. Have some of the mind-controlled personnel piloting the vessel so they won’t go nuts from terror and make sure the bridge is well-fortified and it should be fine. Once they get to their destination, command them to get themselves bitten, or if you’d have to be there in person to do that rig up a remote bomb. Essentially the same thing with planes, since there’s people around who can fly them.
It’d be a good idea not to time it that well, really, since zombies arriving at various countries entirely simultaneously is going to raise more suspicion than is healthy.
First, what are the limits on the GoZ’s ability to revive corpses? I mean, I’m assuming you can’t use it on a bag of cremains to create an Ash Golem-bie, but what about mummies, or partial corpses…or composite corpses, made from pieces of more than one creature? Does it work on skeletons—could I just set it off over Paris, and raise an army of six million skeleton warriors from the catacombs beneath the streets?
Second…if I get the Third Fleet, do I get any nukes?
Oh, hey, and while I’m thinking of it…I get the USS Missouri, too, right? She’s docked in Pearl Harbor.
Let’s say the corpses and flesh must be reasonably whole. There must be at least the semblance of flesh & sinews around the bones, so no skeletons. Composite corpses would work, but why bother? They’re romero vampires; some of their victims will get bitten and escape long enough to be turned anyway.
I’m assuming that Fabulous Creature earlier waged war on the US, conquered Hawaii with the monkeys, and then ran low on monkeys. President Palin didn’t realize she was on the verge of winning and thus foolishly agreed to surrender Hawaii and the aforementioned fleet. FC got the Marines through trickery, being an evil sumbitch with access to supertech, alchemical devices, and video of Natalie Portman and Kristen Bell making out.
Being in Hawaii is a huge problem. I really don’t think you can use the third fleet in an offensive manner as long as the U.S. has a functioning command structure.
You get hostile, and actually send that fleet towards somewhere with ill intent, the US can make it cease to exist with nukes. For that matter, they can make Hawaii cease to exist with nukes. It’s got to be very sneaky…
Oh, I figure you’re mostly using the fleet defensively. Besides, Vice President Obama’s grandmother and many other former American citizens lives there; the Us isn’t anxious to nuke.
Just to clarify on this point…do the composite zombies work even if I stitch them into some some hideous abomination (like…four arms, or something), or if I use animal parts? (What about whole dead animals? Like gorillas, insects, or rats?)
Well, yes. But frankly, is that a wise use of your time? People die every day, and as Oakminster observed upthread, you probably should be planning Fabulous Creature’s assassination, as he’s clearly using you as a cat’s-paw.
What, you’re telling me you can’t think of something you could do with swarms of infectious zombie rats? :dubious:
Same thing with freakish composite monstrosities…hey, there’s more to leading a horrific legion of the damned then simple sending waves of ghouls shambling head-on into your foes until the soil is muddy from ichor. There’s also style to consider—artistic flair, creativity, and voice…and psychological warfare techniques in the deployment of ambulatory revenants. Terrorizing people in the right way in the right places opens up whole new potential avenues of stategy, and might even be used as a force multiplier.
Anyway, catspaw, shmatspaw. As long as I’m doing a job I love, it’s all worthwhile.
Clearly the Firefly box set is an excuse.