279
votes
Accepted
What vehicle would be the best one to start a >1000 km travel in a post apocalyptic zombie situation?
Railway Maintenance Vehicle
Ride on the tracks. They go everywhere and will be mostly clear.
Obstruction on the tracks? Hop off and drive around it.
Build a living space and storage space in the ...
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232
votes
How can you weaponize a thermos?
Fill it with ice cream. That will make it heavier. Also when you are done fighting you can eat the ice cream, and you will probably feel like ice cream about then.
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192
votes
How can I build a door to repel a horde of zombies?
Human engineering can, 100%, keep out a horde of zombies. In The Walking Dead things fail because if they didn't the show would be boring. In real life, there exist castle gates hundreds of years old ...
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165
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Why would people bury their dead in tombs when they might become zombies?
The alternatives are worse
Burning the corpse brings back the dead as a incorporeal wraith (that is also pissed that you desecrated the body.) Dismemberment causes something similar, except the ...
- 3,611
115
votes
Accepted
How can I build a door to repel a horde of zombies?
We humans are pretty good at building gates to keep people out. We've been doing it for a long time for military purposes and to stop thieves.
Why Do We Have Gates?
Because there has to be some way ...
- 30.2k
114
votes
What vehicle would be the best one to start a >1000 km travel in a post apocalyptic zombie situation?
What about a boat? (zombies can't swim right?)
Europe has a pretty good river system and will get you to pretty much every big city.
The two mechanics will have to deal with operating locks along the ...
- 1,111
93
votes
What vehicle would be the best one to start a >1000 km travel in a post apocalyptic zombie situation?
What about bicycles? They're quiet, they don't require finding fuel, they're maneuverable, they're easy to repair even for laymen, they can be used in multiple different types of terrain, and they're ...
- 1,671
89
votes
How can you weaponize a thermos?
A real life story.
Back in a high school, my friends and I were very much into science, experimenting with a lot of different things. Once on a winter morning, my friend and I procured about one ...
- 42.3k
86
votes
Accepted
Would a trench filled with mercury stop zombies in their tracks?
You would need roughly 62500 cubic metres of mercury.
One cubic metre of mercury is 13,534 kilograms. So you would need to mine 845,875 tons of mercury. In cinnabar there is 12% percent of mercury. So ...
- 21.9k
83
votes
Politics and Zombies: Designing a balanced zombie plague that could realistically destroy civilization due to poor decision-making
Zombification as a Cure for Death:
Scientists make a breakthrough, a biological treatment for aging. It is so effective, that government agencies can't resist the pressure to approve it, OR the ...
- 64.4k
77
votes
If all zombies followed the loudest sound around, could they all end up in the same place?
Only if this is a comedic story. Imagine a zombie trapped between Japanese bamboo water fountain and a signboard of a shop moved by wind.
Also in India between tiger and elephant. And walking toward ...
- 21.9k
73
votes
What measures might an early-medieval society take to deal with draugr?
Fight draugr with dogr.
If you have weird dudes sneaking around the village looking for trouble, there is nothing better than a watchdog. They will be even better for draugr. Dogs will smell these ...
- 306k
70
votes
Defending Castle from Zombies
Nothing
You don't need nothing special. As the late Tywin Lannister put it, "a man above the walls counts as ten men below". That's why throughthout history, castles and fortifications were rarely ...
- 8,842
70
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Why would people bury their dead in tombs when they might become zombies?
Why bury and entomb their dead at all, when they know there's a chance they might dig themselves back up?
You already gave the answer in your premise:
if you leave a corpse to stew long enough, ...
- 8,133
69
votes
What's the angle of repose for dead zombie bodies?
They will not pile up like you think
The best examples of what you are looking for will be from photographs of mass graves or pictures taken by over zealous hunters and fishermen (I don't recommend ...
- 105k
66
votes
Accepted
Wasp hives in a walking corpse. Why would wasps do this?
Because it's a viable ecological niche, of course. The wasps are an evolutionary development of the Ichneumonoid wasps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumonoidea which lay their eggs in living ...
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66
votes
Why would the military use tanks in a zombie apocalypse?
It's the mounting platform for your flail.
If you pull the tank battalion's mine flail (video) out of the back of the motor pool and put it onto the tank, you can shred your way through lots and lots (...
- 28.9k
60
votes
Accepted
Zombie killing structure that's easy to construct, durable and low maintenance?
A super low tech alternative approach.
Stairway to heaven.
Build a nice tall stair case going from ground level up a good 5 or 6 floors then hang a birdcage a good 6 or 7 feet off the edge of the ...
- 10.6k
59
votes
How practical would a zombie horde actually be in medieval setting
Watch out for fatigue
The other answers, especially of Erin Thursby, covered pretty much the subject : forget the archers, have pike formations and shieldwalls, aim for the limbs and consider how ...
- 5,270
55
votes
Would it be more or less disastrous if a zombie is curable?
Part of the answer depends on what you call 'disastrous'. Economically, a zombie outbreak (curable or not) would result in complete collapse of the global economy as production would essentially grind ...
- 54.2k
52
votes
What vehicle would be the best one to start a >1000 km travel in a post apocalyptic zombie situation?
I suggest a heavy rescue vehicle. (a type of specialty firefighting or emergency medical services apparatus, primarily designed to provide the specialized equipment necessary for technical rescue ...
- 1,667
51
votes
What would allow gasoline to last for years?
The real-world answer is fuel stabilizers.
The more entertaining answer is that your colony has enlisted a pyromaniac who is slowly building a gasoline re-refinery near the edge of town. He collects ...
- 23.7k
50
votes
Accepted
What is the ideal location to hide the President in the case of a zombie apocalypse?
Why would you want to hide the President? That concept makes sense if there is an attack by an intelligent adversary who wants to target the chain of command. In this case, it sounds as if you want to ...
- 120k
49
votes
Accepted
Would an ultra-heavy tank be a resource-efficient zombie-extermination unit for an CBRN-contaminated environment?
Blimps
A large blimp costs a few million, similar to a tank, and surely less than your super-tank.
The zombies won't be shooting it down. They can't swarm it or gum up its wheels.
Blimps are ...
- 8,725
47
votes
What vehicle would be the best one to start a >1000 km travel in a post apocalyptic zombie situation?
Go big: find a Haul truck from a quarry or mine.
(Image source)
Even just the size will make it hard for the zombies to climb. You'd probably want to weld on some additional stoppers. The height ...
- 3,304
44
votes
What is the ideal location to hide the President in the case of a zombie apocalypse?
Fort Knox
Contrary to popular belief, Fort Knox is not just the location where the
gold is stored. That title goes to the United States Bullion
Depository. Fort Knox is actually a 109,000 ...
- 56.3k
44
votes
Zombies and how they would stack up against an army
In practice the army could wipe out any number of zombies like the ones in 'The Walking Dead'
You can basically enclose any killing field and entice them in with a loud speaker. In fact any ...
- 28.4k
44
votes
Politics and Zombies: Designing a balanced zombie plague that could realistically destroy civilization due to poor decision-making
Tertiary COVID
When a person gets syphilis, there are multiple stages. First there is a local sore at the site (primary syphilis), then a rash all over the body (secondary syphilis), and much later, ...
- 23.7k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible