Well, if they look like they’re turning green, they could be mildly photosynthesizing. Stand still in the sun for a few days, shuffle for a few hours.
(Bolding mine) That last part involves a large blender, doesn’t it?
Their gender would have to be classified as LGBTQIAZ.
There’s a joke here involving in Cincinnati Bengals, but I’m too tired to construct it.
Getting out of coffins is inherent to being a zombie, I assumed it as a given.
I’m surprised the first few answers were to burn them all, surely there is some way to exploit the zombies for the good or mankind? I should clarify though, I am talking about Romero style zombies which will probably disintegrate within a few months and that may limit the power generating capabilities. On the other hand, people are always dying, so there will always be fresh zombies for the turntables!
I could imagine huge processing centres being set up. Out front is a hospital/funeral parlour where the dead and dying are brought for all the proper rituals. In the middle a scrap yard where surgeons scout for useful limbs and organs, while out back grapes are squashed in huge numbers.
Really I am interested in the social implications. Just think, your recently departed family member is out there right now, wandering around a graveyard. How many people can really dismiss him/her as nothing more than a meatbag zombie? How many people would rather go and bring them home, especially if it was a kid? How many people will object to see these harmless “people” being herded up and burnt, how many protests by people who say zombies have feelings and equating zombies to cute little puppies?
Also, how much room will all these dead people take up?
So, you and I have been to the same restaurants?
I’m NOT eating at a joint where zombies are waitstaff. It’s not like those hands are clean. Ewwwwww!
All that dead skin sloughing off. Nope.
Now if they want to employ them at the Sewer plant, that’s fine.
“After a general panic of indeterminate length things normalize and the pitchforks are put aside”
Has the deceased issue actually been repaired in some way to allow locomotion? Because that has very big ramifications, incalculable really. If instead its rotting romero zombies all the way down with no apparent logic or structural integrity (but walking around nonetheless) then I would basically assume the rapture is upon us and its just our luck that God has a sense of humor and is into genre subversion.
Check out Fido, my kind of zombie movies
Tape a smartphone to their hands, nobody will take any notice of them.
If they were passive, I don’t think people would be that okay with killing them.
Look at The Walking Dead, where they’re definitely not passive. Recall the character who refused to kill them because he held out hope that they could be “cured.”
I think that a lot of people would be doing this even with regular, scary, zombies.
The difference is that, unlike every single zombie narrative universe, we have pop culture knowledge about zombies and would use that to our advantage.
The Rising Infected Walking Zombie Dying land of 1000 Corpses: 14 days after Event Alpha
[ul]
[li]Suburbanite Wife: Enters home Hi, honey. Back from the store![/li][li]Zombie who slowly shuffling towards her: Uuuuuh.[/li][li]SW: Strange thing happened to me, old man Peters tried to bite my neck. Odd eh? Guess he back off his meds…[/li][li]Zombie: Uuuuuuuu…[/li][li]SW: Oh and the store was strangely empty I dunno wha… Zombie chomps her Ahhhhhhhhhh!!![/li][/ul]
In our universe, the dead would never get to the point of critical mass to take down society. The military, police, private militia, lone armed randos would easily cure the walking dead back to their regular status of dead.
Society would probably not kill them because they’re our former loved ones. That’s one of the ways things got out of control in the original Dead movies. People hid and protected dead loved ones, and that helps the infection build and spread. There would be a lot of resistance to that, but the ‘don’t kill them’ front would be there.
I would kill them immediately.
My mind goes back to The Day of the Triffids book. The triffids are already on earth, having come from a meteorite. They’re dangerous, but are laregely managed and even available for purchase. Then the event happens, and there’s no one to manage the triffids anymore. They take over the earth.
Looking at zombies walking around, all I would be thinking about is the same damn scenario happening. The dead aren’t supposed to be walking about. They can easily become a huge problem should they go bitey.
Yes, perhaps there’s an extended latency phase, and then they go full Romero after everybody’s let their guard down.
True, but those would be YouTube videos.
Passive zombies? Walk! Walk for your lives!!!
Now I’m trying to remember which webcomic had adventurers running across a huge dire snail.
Heinlein’s time traveler from 1960 to 2000 in THE DOOR INTO SUMMER reads news of “zombie” drugs creating mindless slave laborers. IIRC a crew boss is quoted: “Them boys h’ain’t drugged - they just STUPID!”
Late-phase capitalism will love zombie drugs and passive, uncomplaining workers. Fill the Amazon fulfillment centers with them! No complaints or strikes! Business is great!
Is zombie meat tasty?