The Rise of Apocalyptic and Survival Fiction

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Ok, here's one for you guys. Just to give you an idea of just how popular and prevalent this genre is right now, I was watching an episode of Transformers Prime and discovered that the main enemy was....get this....undead robots. hahahaha!

where's that negative karma button when you need it!

[VydorScope]

Undead robots... nice... now I will have to hop on Netflix and see if I can find those episodes to see how they explain that LOL

[QuantumIguana]

RAM... must eat RAM...

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

RAM... must eat RAM...

Hmm... ram is just memory though, the "thinking" is in the processor. Do the zombies need memory or thinking?

[Penforhire]

Undead robots? You will be assimilated.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Hmm... ram is just memory though, the "thinking" is in the processor. Do the zombies need memory or thinking?

Well, by the time you open up someone's head and start eating their brains, they're neither thinking nor remembering much ... so an equivalent meal for an undead robot is probably going down to the beach and eating sand.

[Steven Lake]

Sorry to kick the corpse again, but another little factoid came up recently as I was doing more of my digging that I think is quite interesting. In a normal military situation, especially one with limited resources, it is a well followed and unwritten law that if an enemy goes down, you strip the body of anything valuable including ammo, food, guns, etc. That's been an unwritten rule of warfare for ages. In a disaster survival situation exactly the same rule would apply. Especially if you're short on supplies. If you get attacked and drop the guy, frisk him and take anything valuable. If you find an abandoned house, search it for resources. Even if it's already been ransacked, someone might have left something behind that was of no use to them, but is to you.

Yet the odd thing is, I don't see many (actually, I only know of two books, and a few movies) books or movies where that's covered. They did it a little bit in Battlefield LA when they rallied at the busted up Marine base, and I know of one book off the top of my head where the guys were knocking down baddies and ransacking the corpses for ammo and supplies. In situations like that, the more you can salvage or scavenge, the better off your changes are.

Anywho, that came up recently so I wanted to toss that out there. On a side thought, it would be interesting if a real situation like that came up to see how many people actually did that, and what kinds of things they might find. For example, you run onto a dead person and all they have is a half full lighter. To the average person that looks like junk. To me it looks like an additional way to start a fire for cooking and warmth. (well, assuming it still works. lol.)

Yes, I admit that the thought of what you'd be doing is a bit morbid, and there's almost certainly some moral issues you'd have to deal with, but if it's a choice between ransacking a dead body in order to acquire supplies, or adding yourself to the body count, option one is always the best choice.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Yet the odd thing is, I don't see many (actually, I only know of two books, and a few movies) books or movies where that's covered.

Obviously there were no D&D players involved in creating those movies or books. Everyone knows the first thing you do after you've made sure your allies are still standing, is to loot all corpses within reach.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

Obviously there were no D&D players involved in creating those movies or books. Everyone knows the first thing you do after you've made sure your allies are still standing, is to loot all corpses within reach.

Dunno if it is sad or funny, but I was thinking the same thing... MY LOOT!!!!

Though... waiting to see if allies were standing was very optional depending on the potential for value in the loot.

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Though... waiting to see if allies were standing was very optional depending on the potential for value in the loot.

In my case, the allies were always the cleric and the paladin. It's in your best interest to make sure the healers are alive

[Steven Lake]

lol. Well, we know that games would immediately loot the bodies. That's a standard practice in the industry. Now normal people? Eh, that's a whole other story. Oddly enough, I can just imagine some gaming geeks coming up on a body shouting "LOOT!" or as they say in PC gaming, "WOOT!"

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Oddly enough, I can just imagine some gaming geeks coming up on a body shouting "LOOT!" or as they say in PC gaming, "WOOT!"

Followed by a heated argument about how you just broke the rules for splitting the loot that everyone in the group agreed on before the raid started, but no one remembered to write down. And the raid leader forgot to actually set the rules script-wise, and now we're all fighting each other over that one unique epic item that none of us actually can use...

And now I have MMO-withdrawal...

[Elfwreck]

I never played MMOs. I was limited to the tabletop games where after looting the bodies, you checked for hidden drawers in all the cabinets (have the elf check again, in case the first scout missed something) and then disassembled the tables to look for scrolls documents in a hollow leg.

When the gamers are done looting a room, there's nothing left but the walls... which are a lot thinner if they were covered with anything valuable or potentially useful.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I never played MMOs. I was limited to the tabletop games where after looting the bodies, you checked for hidden drawers in all the cabinets (have the elf check again, in case the first scout missed something) and then disassembled the tables to look for scrolls documents in a hollow leg.

When the gamers are done looting a room, there's nothing left but the walls... which are a lot thinner if they were covered with anything valuable or potentially useful.

Well, the walls usually are not quite as sturdy either. Its usually the dwarf's job to check for hidden wall safes

Ive played a lot of both.. and the old rule of "if you can pick it up, you need it" pretty much applies universally to almost any game I have been in.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Ive played a lot of both.. and the old rule of "if you can pick it up, you need it" pretty much applies universally to almost any game I have been in.

Oddly enough, that rule pretty much applies anywhere survival is involved. :P "If it ain't nailed down, grab it." lol.