Zombies in a hard science universe Rex Amundi Human I recently saw Dance of The Mayflies (yep, I'm english) and something bothered me. It was the fact that the zombies, being dead, seemed to be able to move and do things a normal person takes for granted. From what I know of human anatomy (not much I'll grant you) muscles move the body, directed by the CNS, for muscles to work, they need energy, oxygen and blood-sugar mostly. They need a constant stream of this to keep them going, usefully supplied by the blood. A dead person has no heart beat (as Rommie stated) so obviously they have no blood pumping about their bodies and therefore they can get no new energy to move themselves. Seems to me the "zombies" have a active life-span that could be measured in minutes. Hardly anything for the Than to wet themselves about. And the CNS is meaningless if the electrical impulses cannot be produced, that's why people don't walk about when they die they are absolutely and totally incapable of movement in any fashion other that utilizing gravity to fall. And the whole electricity kills them ending was pretty lame, if they somehow do manage to move, being shot with a few thousand volts isn't going to harm them. Does anyone think Dylan and co should've blown there kneecaps off, thereby making it anatomically impossible for them to walk? Delvo2 Nietzschean It gets even worse than that. If they are microscopic, where's the brain? Or if their thought is a cumulative effect, how do they communicate with each other? And in either case, if there are that many of them in a body at once, where did they find the room? How do they know how to move the different bodies that they find themselves in, how do they get information about the world around them, and how do their right hands know what their left hands are doing? This wasn't science fiction; it was superstition fiction. Smudge Pyrian Hi, Rex I'm from the US and we had a couple great discussions of the Bokor, aka zombies, in this thread (and in Christopher's link). http://www.slipstreambbs.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000667.html In it, no one seemed to be able to suspend disbelief very well. Sorry for the "old thread" reply, but I said most of what I wanted to there, and there were excellent posts by others that you might want to look at. Kindest regards, Bec Rex Amundi Human Thanks for the link, Smudge. I had no idea you'd discussed such things before (I usually wait until I've seen the episodes to comment, because I'm this side of the atlantic it takes months). There is something you haven't discussed though, and may prove a somewhat totally implausible answer to their nature. What if the Bokor was someone a other-dimensional being, a single entity that used the microbes as a beachhead force to establish a connection with the bodies it possesses. The individual zombies could be getting some kind of other-dimensional energy force (one that wouldn't show itself to mechanical sensors but perhaps psychic ESP). The entity would probably be just a swirling mass of energy in the other realm, and would therefore have probably unlimited memory, able to telepathically feed info from every body it controls. Individual Bokor would be meaningless, only serving to spread the infection and learn about the other dimensions technology and civilization. Because of the dimensional interstice, there would be no RF or other forms of communication that could be detected by any of Rommie's instruments. As for the suffling effect, maybe the creature has only a low neural capacity in the corpses. There, now that is a really weird explanation, but it's at least one that can be grasped, and not just said that they run on "magic". Anyone else got any interesting possibilities for zombies? I'd like to hear them. Trance has somekind of psychic power, and is apparently dead (uh, yeah, whatever) so perhaps she was the only being the entity from beyond was capable of controlling in the natural state, and not a shuffling zombie state. Although Trance did breathe heavily numerous times which differs with her no longer needing to consume air to exist. BTW, I also have some serious problems with vampires in Buffy and Angel, but since they do use the "magic" explanation, I don't really have a leg to stand on. Smudge Pyrian Yep, we statesiders whizzed in here immediately after the ep aired over here. It's a shame that all can't see the eps at the same time. The discussions would be that much more interesting with the European versions right along with the USicans & Canadians. From reading posts in Eps and GenDisc on this ep, there seems to be a "statistical" difference in how well we liked it. Ah, well, reality intrudes again. As to your theory on the Bokor, without any spoilers for future eps, may I say, "Whooaaa! Are you clairvoyant, or what?" LOL I love vampires as well, and I actively seek out any vampire novels, good, bad or ugly, to see what kind of new spin the authors can put on the tried-and-true. I love Anne Rice for her vampires, but the best "totally different" take I've found are in the Necroscope series by Brian Lumley. The first novel is so strange that trying to fit it in anywhere is hard. It's a spy novel. With UK and Russian ESPer's of all different types. It's got vampires, the "Necroscope" from the title, and a necromancer. If you get a chance to check them out, it might be worth your while. But there ain't no magic. Kindest regards, Bec Tio Artificial Intelligence Yeah, that bothered me, too. Why didn't they just shoot the kneecaps of the zombies or even cut off a limb or two. They would not have been much of a thread without legs. Nox deSilva Artificial Intelligence ^ Methinks the effectors automatically sight the largest kill zone, the torso. It wouldn't work if they aimed for kneecaps. But maybe the Mafia Lancers have such a thing.... EdBlackadder Nietzschean Why don't they use the plasma cutting thingy on them, then? Rex Amundi Human I'd assume a superior weapon like a force lance could be told which areas to target for maximum effect. How do you know a Kalderan's heart is not in where his kidney's should be? When you're talking about aliens, you can never be sure. How can the internal defences of Rommie be so totally inefficient? She's meant to be a state-of-the-art warship equipped to fight every concievable foe, didn't they think zombies could exist of what? If they didn't (a reasonable conclusion) what about androids, they don't need any major parts in their chests, they could have the batteries, CPU and motors all packed into the legs anyway. I think the writers just wanted to make it more scary knowing Rommie's incapable of fighting them, even though a bunch of soldiers with M16's would have little worry when a group of massed, slow-moving zombies with no physical strength and the brain capacity of a squashed apricot came towards them chanting "must eat brains" as their mantra. Though to be fair, they weren't interested in the brains, all they wanted to do was infect another SIX people, does anyone else see a problem here? AI Rommie would never let a zombified Hunt near the bridge, let alone allow them to totally co-opt her systems. I think she'd fry herself before that came about. And anyway, the Maria's would've mopped up any zombies left. Curufea Pyrian I'd always assumed the Bokor consummed the non-essential organs for food and were only a mobile infestation for a short period of time (ie until they finish digesting all the non-muscle organs). I don't think of them as re-animated humanoids - but highly inefficient organic robots. Other than eyes, they wouldn't bother with any other sensory nerves. tennyson Vedran The plasma weapon has an extremely short range that would mean Hunt and company would have to be much closer to the bokor than was comfortible considering thier ability to infect others. Something that seems to be lost in the translation is that while thier host bodies were now without intellect the Bokor themselves were not. They had the technical skill to begin repairing Andromeda's battle damage and maybe the collective intelligence thought that they could erase or otherwise coopt Rommie after all organic resistance had been eleminated. They didn't just stumble through the corridors, mindlessly going after people in swarms. Some repaired Rommie's systems and some tried to remove further resistance. They seemed to be able to coordinate over short-ranges, maybe using phermones or other chemical messenging methods. If what they said can be taken at face value they had access to all the knowledge of thier hosts which definitely puts them at least one rung higher than the mindless zombies of horror lore. Delvo2 Nietzschean Bullet auto-targetting presumably just goes for the center of mass, without regard for what species the mass is. It should be possible to turn that function off and just have fired bullets go straight where you point them; in fact, I think we've seen it done, such as when Tyr nailed the Mandau Pride guy who was only presenting a few inches of target while killing Dylan in Escape Strategies, when Dylan's body, being in front, would have been the target that the automatic system would have zeroed in on. The zombies in DotM would have been another good situation for this. Force lances don't seem to have been built for manual targetting like Tyr's gun (or any gun), but at the ranges involved, it could still surely have been done, unless either Dylan lacked the practice at manual aiming with a force lance, Dylan simply failed to think of the possibility, or force lance ammo couldn't be turned "off" like that... none of which sound reasonable to me. Curufea Pyrian I'm not aware of any biological law stating that an organic being must never use the EM band for communication or energy. So far the Bokor have only been seen on space-borne vessels with electrical systems and internal communications. Being viral in size - they would of course only be able to perceive the microwave or small bands of the spectrum - unless they created their larger antennae. And thus you have radio-controlled corpses ;-P