Stairs and zombies

[MeiaDúzia]

Everyone knows that zombies climb stairs in Zomboid and that's fine so far.

But I want to know if you believe that in real life zombies would have the motor skills to climb stairs.

It may seem a little silly, but I believe they would stumble A LOT until they got there. And I won't even talk about going down, I believe they would just roll down and that would be it.

And what would it be like on ramps? At my house, there is a gate and a steep slope. Would they fall on top of the gate and knock it down, try to go down the slope and end up slipping and rolling all the way down? Every climb requires a bit of stability so you don't just fall over, and these guys are wobbly walking around.

[jomigaru]

Yeah, they should not be able to use stairs. In my opinion they should fall when going down and rely on crawling to go upstairs. BUT, for game purposes it is better if they can go up and down, so us players dont feel too safe.

For ramps who knows. It would depend on the kind of zombie you have in mind (is it the zombie retaining some motor skills from its human life like those in some tv shows -looking at you Waliking Dead and George A. Romero- or is it not?)
If zombies can walk and stand up...why cant walk up or down?

[Shady Allie]

All the real life zombies in my town never look up once.
Most navigate just fine.

Some however are totally oblivious to their surroundings, walking into telephone poles, parked cars, closed doors, open man holes.
Man holes. With no cover. Right in. Plop.

[Fuffel]

Moin.

The zombies here in the city don't have any problems with stairs. They seem to be able to see them just about on the edge of their smartphones. But they regularly run into signposts, bridge pillars, closed doors and walls. And they usually look quite shocked because the wall is in a completely different place than where they actually wanted to go... :)

[MeiaDúzia]

Originally posted by jomigaru:

Yeah, they should not be able to use stairs. In my opinion they should fall when going down and rely on crawling to go upstairs. BUT, for game purposes it is better if they can go up and down, so us players dont feel too safe.

For ramps who knows. It would depend on the kind of zombie you have in mind (is it the zombie retaining some motor skills from its human life like those in some tv shows -looking at you Waliking Dead and George A. Romero- or is it not?)
If zombies can walk and stand up...why cant walk up or down?

I don't know, I just wanted to know your opinion

My grandmother no longer has the motor coordination to climb stairs easily, I believe that zombies would be almost like that

[Fuffel]

Moin.

Originally posted by MeiaDúzia:

I don't know, I just wanted to know your opinion

My grandmother no longer has the motor coordination to climb stairs easily, I believe that zombies would be almost like that

The term zombie is usually defined as a soulless, wandering creature that has emerged from an apparently dead human. One could argue at this point that the zombie emerged from a human who was deprived of his higher brain functions, for example due to a long-term lack of oxygen, or whose higher brain functions were switched off by a pathogen. The rest of the organism functions perfectly well. Zombies have a pulse and they bleed when you hit them (at least if you base it on common depictions of zombies in books, games and films).

The cognitive abilities of a zombie would then be limited to the functions most deeply rooted in the brain, instinct. And the instinctive abilities are certainly sufficient to move independently, navigate complex environments and search for and eat food. The young animals of many species are able to walk, swim or hide when threatened by imminent danger purely instinctively immediately after birth. Accordingly, a person's pure instinct should be sufficient to move upright and navigate their surroundings in search of food, as well as to respond to acoustic and visual stimuli.

Zombies are not, at least according to the fictional definition in literature and film, people who have become frail due to old age and can only crawl or need a wheelchair.

PS Don't let your grandma know that you used her as a reference for a zombie... :)

[Jessian Kaanneo]

If a zombie has no motor skills to climb.

How can it walk
How can it still stand up.

What gets me in every book, movie and game. Not one person has went to the decay aspect of a zombie.

How can a dead body still be able to move around, attack, bite, eat something without some form of motorbility.

It my stories, zombies skin, tissue with slough off their bones after 2-3 months. exposing the internal decaying organs. Hearts, lungs, lives would not be working. Would the heart really be pumping blood? This is essentially where zombies per say cant exist. They would literately fall apart well before they survive 1 or even 5 years since infection.

On the other hand, A Parasite controlling a real LIVE person could be more realistic zombie.
https://news.stv.tv/west-central/last-of-us-fungus-that-turns-spiders-into-zombies-found-in-scottish-rainforest#:~:text=A%20fungus%20that%20turns%20its,Bella%20Ramsey%20and%20Pedro%20Pascal.

A fungus that turns its spider victims into “zombies” – the inspiration for the hit TV show The Last of Us – has been found in Scotland. The Gibellula fungus, a type of Cordycipitaceae,

This is the major threat to mankind. IF and really IF Cordycipitaceae ever was weaponised it could do massive damage.

[Fuffel]

Moin.

Originally posted by Jessian Kaanneo:

If a zombie has no motor skills to climb.

How can it walk
How can it still stand up.

Climbing is far more complex than walking. In addition to maintaining balance and moving the legs, it requires coordination of the arms, hands, fingers, and ultimately the entire body - because even the very few non-zombified people can climb over a fence using only their hands and arms, while even people with bilateral amputations are perfectly capable of standing upright and walking normally without using their missing arms.

You're comparing apples and oranges here.

Originally posted by Jessian Kaanneo:

On the other hand, A Parasite controlling a real LIVE person could be more realistic zombie.

A fungus that turns its spider victims into “zombies” – the inspiration for the hit TV show The Last of Us – has been found in Scotland. The Gibellula fungus, a type of Cordycipitaceae,

This is the major threat to mankind. IF and really IF Cordycipitaceae ever was weaponised it could do massive damage.

There is not only this fungus, there are also parasitic organisms in insects and even viruses that take complete control of their host. This is nothing new. But these only attack very low life forms whose brains are milligrams rather than kilograms and which do not have protective mechanisms such as the blood-brain barrier.

Apart from that, weapons technology applications are only worthwhile if the developer and user have the ability to protect their own people, because CoVid-19 has shown how quickly even a pathogen with a short incubation period can spread worldwide, thanks to globalization. Nobody would release a zombie virus without being able to protect themselves from it, because they would have to fear that the first international flight would turn it into a boomerang.

[LIMP BISQUICK]

Not going to argue about realism or get all technical with it. When I think of zombies I always picture them with hordes as that is often what makes them so threatening. If I was to imagine, many might stumble on stairs or ramps but since there are so many they will push through one way or another. Some would simply continue to crawl. I think it's often portrayed that zombies can get back on their feet.

[MeiaDúzia]

Originally posted by LIMP BISQUICK:

Not going to argue about realism or get all technical with it. When I think of zombies I always picture them with hordes as that is often what makes them so threatening. If I was to imagine, many might stumble on stairs or ramps but since there are so many they will push through one way or another. Some would simply continue to crawl. I think it's often portrayed that zombies can get back on their feet.

Zombies (non-immortal) are the weakest monsters in fiction, their threat is that they only need one bite, are harder to kill and never walk alone

The fact that they walk in hordes is certainly their most dangerous point, after all, sometimes quantity wins over quality.

[jomigaru]

Originally posted by MeiaDúzia:

Originally posted by jomigaru:

Yeah, they should not be able to use stairs. In my opinion they should fall when going down and rely on crawling to go upstairs. BUT, for game purposes it is better if they can go up and down, so us players dont feel too safe.

For ramps who knows. It would depend on the kind of zombie you have in mind (is it the zombie retaining some motor skills from its human life like those in some tv shows -looking at you Waliking Dead and George A. Romero- or is it not?)
If zombies can walk and stand up...why cant walk up or down?

I don't know, I just wanted to know your opinion

My grandmother no longer has the motor coordination to climb stairs easily, I believe that zombies would be almost like that

Yeah, but...

If we buy that something is reanimating a corpse and that reanimated corpse aka zombie is able to walk then...
If the zeds can go up stairs because they can spot the difference between flat floor and and steps, then why they stumble on walls and fall into pits and fall from windows in high buildings?
It should be all or nothing. I guess.

[Beltneck]

If you think of zombies as a decayed corpse, you should question why they can even move at all. Because the first thing to rot on the human body is the brain and nervous system.

So they shouldn't be capable of processing any sensory input, or doing coordinated motions like walking. Best case they'd be on the ground, blind and deaf, twitching like they're having a seizure; and most would just be totally paralyzed.

Muscles can't even work without some oxygen and electrolytes going to them, so the digestive and cardiovascular systems would need to be doing something too. Which is another set of things the brain and nerves need to control.

But that wouldn't make for a very fun game or exciting movie. So by some science fiction or magic, whatever infected them is keeping the body in good enough shape to move around and sense things.

[Scorch215]

Originally posted by Beltneck:

If you think of zombies as a decayed corpse, you should question why they can even move at all. Because the first thing to rot on the human body is the brain and nervous system.

So they shouldn't be capable of processing any sensory input, or doing coordinated motions like walking. Best case they'd be on the ground, blind and deaf, twitching like they're having a seizure; and most would just be totally paralyzed.

Muscles can't even work without some oxygen and electrolytes going to them, so the digestive and cardiovascular systems would need to be doing something too. Which is another set of things the brain and nerves need to control.

But that wouldn't make for a very fun game or exciting movie. So by some science fiction or magic, whatever infected them is keeping the body in good enough shape to move around and sense things.

slight off topic but related via undead, played a game where you fight skeletons as a first real dungeon and there is a cutscene of two of them talking and questioning how they function which leads to them question how they even stay together. this results in them instantly falling apart and dying again.

somewhat related because its one of those "don't question it or else it all falls apart." sort of deals.

its pretty much the same for this game, there is no real science behind them because dead things shouldn't be moving unless they are like puppets for something.

the most realistic zombie movie is honestly 28 days later since those are just people filled with homicidal rage but are just normal people charging you with the rage blinding them from using some upper brain functions such as weapons though most likely a sort of balance idea of how anyone could survive a zombie coming at your with a gun or other weapon.

But with PZ zombies? there is no real reasonable explanation for any of it.