Now, for the argument, consider the setup as this: a zombie is an animated, though otherwise normal, human corpse. It has limited mental function, and it’s metabolism seems to be shut down. It has no heartbeat, and doesn’t need oxygen to live—although they may breathe, it’s merely to get air into their lungs so they can moan. The only way to “kill” a zombie is to damage or destroy the brain.
Even if existing chemical can’t actually kill a ghoul, could they at least damage one? Could nerve agents permiate the tissues enough to render a zombie immobile (or damage nerve connections leading to sensory organs)? Is there anything that could “burn” exposed tissue even if it’s not alive?
If you’d consider a strong acid to be a chemical weapon, I’d expect it could take out some zombies. Might need some sort of magical never-needs-reloading super-soaker-like dispenser, though…
I suppose it depends on what kind of zombie you’re talking about, how it’s being animated, and how much of its former metabolism and tissue it still needs. I can’t see blister agents being much use, since most zombies don’t need to breath and don’t seem to mind their skin eroding and sloughing off. On the other hand, one consistent thing with nearly all zombie stories is that destroying the brain kills the zombie. That implies the neural tissue is doing something vital to keeping the zombie going, in which case neurotoxins should shut the zombie down.
That was my thinking, too…however, I don’t know how much nerve agents (if at all) require the target to be alive to be effective. I mean, there’s no metabolic processes to disrupt, no blood flow to carry the chemicals throughout the body; heck, I don’t know if blister agents would even work against what’s basically a slab of meat…you see the problem.
Yeah, aside from some kind of acid aerosol, I don’t see any chemical weapons being effective.
From a physiological standpoint, they can move, which means something has to be triggering the exictation-contraction coupling in the skeletal muscle, so in theory, a drug that blocks the muscarinic receptors could paralyze them, however, there’s no effective way to deliver it. They don’t have working lungs, so they won’t be able to breath it in, and no functioning circulatory system, so even if you could inject it somewhere, the effects would be extremely local. The same thing could be said for a nerve agent. Since whatever is still controlling the brain must use part of the nervous system to send the messages to walk around and eat brains, a nerve agent could stop them in their tracks, but again, no way to get it into them. I guess if you put it in a dart gun and aimed for the spinal column that might work.
I’m with you about the acid. Though, I think a better way to kill the zombies with it would be more defensive. That is, when you’re safely barricaded in your shopping mall, dig large pits behind the doors, and fill them with acid. Then, take down the barricades. The zombies come in, fall into the acid, and die.
I (and the members of another board I frequent) have put a lot of thought into this, and the consensus would be that Chemical Agents are going to do absolutely nothing to most zombies.
And even an acidic foam drop from a local Department of Forestry plane isn’t going to do much right away… it takes time for acid to work, after all.
Napalm, on the other hand, may do enough damage to the skull and the brain inside of it (parbroiling it nicely) that it would “kill” the pussbags.
In Max Brooks World War Z, there was an incident reported where nerve gas was used on an immense crowd of fleeing refugees. All the live people died and the zacks got up a few minutes later, were easily spotted and eliminated.
Ruthless but effective. So in Brooks’ world, nerve agents had no effect whatsoever.
