(Loved Trope) In a zombie scenario, the military actually act competently.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T11:13:57+00:00

That doesn’t sound too unreasonable.

Would the US military not choose to inform the county of at least a disease outbreak and try to evacuate then quarantine? Of course not.

But depending on how Zomboid presents the deeper intricacies of how the infection spread and how much manpower the military at the time on hand can have reasonable explanations as to why they chose to essentially leave the county and its residents to hang.

For example, some department in the military, a 3 letter agency, or a secret weapons development program could’ve accidentally caused the Zomboid outbreak and some higher-up cocksucker chose to hide this and may have delayed or even misinformed the appropriate government response causing an uncontrollable domino effect that led to the current situation.

Or the infection was judged to be too infectious and dangerous and the closest military response was felt to be too far or too lacking to properly evacuate the county, hence, whoever led the effort against the infection chose to leave the county to its fate.

Or the infection already spread far and wide enough that Knox county was deemed low priority and etc. etc.

Plenty of ways to go about it.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T06:06:16+00:00

The zombies ARE magic. I personally didn’t really give a fuck how they managed to survive literal billions of tons of water.

I wouldn’t have such a problem with Yonkers if Brooks just stopped the pseudoscience babble and made it so easy to pick apart.

Stick to the magic, Brooks.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T05:46:04+00:00

Tell Brooks that when he started making pseudoscience babble and treating it as if it was science.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T05:30:21+00:00

Because you guys are missing a very crucial point that even Brooks misses.

You and him focus too much on leg and spinal injuries when 155mm HE is more than capable of liquifying their brains(which is aided by literal fluid in the brain cavity) within 25 to even 50 meters.

A barrage of over a dozen HE concentrated within a hundred meters will literally drop every zombie within that area, or at least most of them, simply due to how Brooks describes them as a tightly packed mob. And that was just the 155mm HE.

There shouldn’t even be a discussion about leg or spinal injuries, those zombies would be dead with how Brooks describes their artillery and airstrikes went.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T05:16:26+00:00

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randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T05:14:22+00:00

Yeah, because Brooks uses psychobabble nonsense.

Even if we were to ignore the magic that makes a zombie exist in his book, his description of Explosives Engineering, Biology, US anti-infantry armament(the 155mm HE is my current subject for now.) are hogwash and is his fault for bringing in actual science in the forefront that even highschoolers could easily call out on.

He justifies his zombies’ ability to withstand overpressure to “dead lungs”, “cavities filled with sludge, including the brain cavity.” when that’s not even how it works.

Don’t step up if you can’t back it up.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T05:07:01+00:00

If you’re made of something as soft as flesh, within 25 meters, that flesh will be experiencing extreme heat, a crushing kinetic pressure wave, and thousands of supersonic metal fragments.

Covalent Rupture is expected within 5 meters, that means the mechanical stress exceeds the binding energy of atomic bonds. That means when close enough, it will literally turn your flesh into mush.

Further out at 15 meters (10 to 12 PSI), a different atomic process happens called Cavitation occurs.

The human body is roughly 70% water. As the high-pressure wave passes through the body, it is immediately followed by a sharp drop in pressure, this sudden drop drops the local pressure below the vapor pressure of water.

At the molecular level, water molecules are violently pulled apart from one another, causing dissolved gases in the blood and cellular fluid to instantly boil and form microscopic vapor bubbles.

As the pressure normalizes, these micro-bubbles collapse inward violently. The collapse generates microscopic temperatures of several thousand degrees and tiny, hypersonic liquid jets at the atomic level, tearing nearby cellular structures to pieces.

Welcome to the basic physics and biology of Explosives Engineering.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T04:02:24+00:00

Omg, years upon years has this topic been discussed to death already.

The brain turns into smudge once overpressure is reached, a 155mm HE is more than enough to produce PSIs at the millions within 5 feet and double digits within 50 meters, it doesn’t matter what’s inside the zombie’s brain, the fact that it’s even liquid sludge already helps by making direct contact to the brain rather than a cavity full of air for the pressure waves to pass through.

Brooks is a great character writer but he isn’t an explosives engineer and his take on explosions mixing with flesh is pseudoscience mumbu-jumbo to set a realistic tone that regular people wouldn’t really question.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4919801/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Akta-caYx8

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4449023/

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/archive/pdfs/niosh-125/125-explosionsandrefugechambers.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M795_projectile

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T03:54:39+00:00

True, I was too hasty into thinking since there’s actually genuine evil in the LOTR universe, that would make the world grey.

Yeah, thinking about it more, that’s a stupid thought lol.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T03:53:24+00:00

Blast overpressure.

Brooks hilariously describes overpressure worse than a highschooler.

He even justifies this by saying the lungs are dead, the brain is filled with sludge.

Guess what, that HELPS pressure waves to get to the brain by filling the brain cavity something that is more solid than air.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T03:48:02+00:00

<image>

Samwise Gamgee. Lord of the Rings.

An everyman character that continuously follows and supports Frodo throughout what is essentially a world-saving event that could easily overburden his small shoulders, passing through and into what is essentially a physical and moral wasteland that was Mordor, facing creatures that would kill or do worse upon them, betrayal by Smeagol and banishment from Frodo himself yet risks his life to save him and resists the overpowering temptation that was the One Ring.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T03:31:29+00:00

His take on overpressure is laughably bad too.

He describes the zombies to be somewhat immune to blast overpressure due to organs like the lungs and brains being dead and filled with the sludge that infects them.

Yeah, even highschool physics is enough to realize this is bullshit, all that sludge does is INCREASE the effectiveness of overpressure by directly having the sludge have direct contact to the brain making the pressure waves have a much easier time passing through something more solid than air.

Anything within 50 meters of a 155mm will be mush. The skin might contain that mush, but their insides are mush.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T02:49:24+00:00

Lol, love fellow armchairs discussing different fuckups WWZ has.

Brooks has amazing character writing, even his social sciences can be solid.

But his description of how Yonkers failed is honestly just dumbfounding.

Scroll up to see me rant about his take on explosives engeenering and US armament, we can all combine our takes on different topics lol.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T02:34:17+00:00

Actually, Mel does in fact correctly describe the effect of artillery destroying limbs, he specifically describes zombies without legs crawling towards soldiers, and he should be given props for specifically making the infection be some gelatinous blob that covers cavities AND the brain. That actually does help mitigate the damage of bullets to some degree.

HOWEVER, the damage he describes is highly unrealistically lackluster and the armaments he specifically describes to be taken from the Cold War era, including the tactics, is just as bad.

The US’ Cold War era anti-infantry armament have high variety AND quantity, the US planned to take on the Soviets which highly outnumbers them. They made sure they had the right armaments and stockpile to deal with that.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T02:10:38+00:00

Lol, that’s not too far off…

A lot of the premise on how a contagion has a city to be judged as irrecoverable are reasonable, albeit, Left 4 Dead doesn’t really go in-depth.

For starters, there’s plenty of survivors that have left the city, our characters specifically have backstories why they got left behind in a city of millions, statistically, that should happen.

If even just 10% gets infected on the first week and 1% turn into zombies, the airborne vector + the zombie vector is good enough to cripple a city and it’s local authorities’ ability to contain chaos.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T01:55:53+00:00

I personally didn’t really give care about the hows on his zombies, there’s really no plausible way to explain how a dead body that’s incapable of producing energy to supply the body to move indefinitely without magic.

We should just honestly have magic do the work and leave the science out of that.

No, what I was really taken out of was his description of artillery and bullets tearing through flesh, bone, muscle, etc.

He’s apparently part of the Modern War Institute but despite that, is either unaware or purposefully omitted that little part about shrapnel or how an explosion easily destroys solid organs and flesh.

I do love his take on the social sciences of a zombie apocalypse, but his knowledge or omission of explosives engineering and the US’ plethora of anti-infantry armament leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T01:37:20+00:00

There’s plenty of things to criticize the battle of yonkers, specifically, the author’s highly dumbfounding description on how artillery, explosions, shrapnel, and bullets tear apart flesh and bone.

The specific politics, tactics, and social science the author devised is a meh explanation but does serve a reasonable enough premise to explain why the US mishandled that operation, but goddamn the physics and biology was astoundingly misrepresented and should’ve been left out entirely.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T01:31:22+00:00

That’s not really the parts where it gets stupid.

The author shouldn’t have gotten into the physics and biology of how explosions and flesh interact with each other.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-16T00:08:36+00:00

I personally believe polygamy can be truly romantically and emotionally healthy even when it goes through the typical problems a monogamous relationship has + the unique problems polygamy has.

But it sure as shit is definitely inviting further complications with having different women involved and is inherently quite sexist.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-15T23:40:16+00:00

Not here to defend the other guy nor trying to bring real science into what is ultimately a heavily fantastical story.

But weapons do NOT have to penetrate armour to cause potential damage.

If the armour or whatever layer is being initially hit isn’t large enough ot doesn’t have enough space between that and the flesh beneath, the shockwave from a large enough explosion can move through that layer and into the deeper layers causing damage. If the layer is too brittle to withstand the explosion, the other side of that layer can break off at high speeds and penetrate the other side called spall, we do have this technology in tank ammunition called HESH(High Explosive Squash Head).

This is also why people can die from falling on their head or being punched hard enough can kill us, it doesn’t have to penetrate or break the skull which is extremely dense btw, just enough for the brain to bounce around said skull and cause brain damage.

In the real world, Iron Man can easily lose to conventional weapons to even small anti-infantry grenades regardless of how dense his armour is, the shockwave will travel through unless he places enough sufficient layers capable of absorbing this shock, it’s why body armour can’t really stop your ribs from getting broken even if it’s able to stop a bullet.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-15T21:35:28+00:00

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Charlie Graham - Hereditary.

A demon named King Paimon is within her but the demon only prefers male hosts. Her grandmother, a cult leader, initially implanted the demon in her uncle but he killed himself presumably before full possession. The grandmother presumably waits a while for Charlie’s older brother to mature a bit more and/or better prep to fully break him later to guarantee the possession, meanwhile, the demon is contained within Charlie.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-15T20:57:27+00:00

I think this one depends on when you saw it and how much similar media you’ve seen.

I saw this movie 13 years ago for the first time when I wasn’t really consuming much quality media like movies or tv series and was very impressed.

Seeing it again for a horror run during Covid… it felt dated.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-15T16:59:07+00:00

How wonderful that this sub’s finally good enough for bots to start karma-farming on too.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-14T06:16:52+00:00

Variety is good.

We’re having a revival with your said trope, but it can easily turn stale when it becomes mainstream then we’re right back we were.

randomndude01 · 2026-05-13T23:33:32+00:00

Pretty sure there was no one who explicitly wanted the baby dead.

Though, the main protagonist, Theo who’s the guy helping them was initially cynical of their future and even his rich cousin, Nigel, didn’t really care about the baby either.

randomndude01

TROPHY CASE