Author Topic: What to do with Zombies?  (Read 29353 times)

Offline Drasnighta

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #15 on: November 14, 2016, 02:34:51 am »
I don't want Zombies that Feel.  Zombies that Think.  Zombies that elicit sympathy.

Wanton Destruction, Overt Annihilation, Cruel levels of hate and malice directed and focused upon them...  Ground to dust, without a shred of remorse....


Really, when it boils down to it - there's so few things you can basically do that to, in real life OR, in video games...

1) Zombies.
2) Nazis.

And even these days, 2) is a point that's starting to change (for the weirder, really...  But still...)

Even Aliens, well, aliens are sentient beings and all, and we're supposed to respect that concept - even if we do mow them down all the same - there's an implication there...  That is what makes the ALIEN HORROR trope work - because they are *no different to us*, and they started it... 


If we're supposed to feel sympathy for them, don't call them Zombies.  Call them Infects, or Rotters, or Drippys, or something other than Zombies.

Zombies exist in trope to be a tireless, endless horde, whose capability is only proportional to its hordesqueness...  Otherwise, they are something to be trampled under boots.




Besides,

In the immortal Words of Munchkin:

"LEVEL UP:  Kill some Nazis!  Because every game is better when you can kill some Nazis!"


It should apply to Zombies, too.





Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #16 on: November 14, 2016, 04:26:01 pm »
...I find this hard to argue with.

That's why I put them in, dammit!

EDIT:

I meant animal cages which look like this:


Torchwood

(Not really a Zombie, but pretty close.)

Offline Arthanor

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #17 on: November 14, 2016, 05:16:21 pm »
So I'm replying to a bunch of things, because I didn't have time in the past few days.
About cure of zombiizm - it is a great idea indeed. Dont know about make them soldiers, though. Modern soldiers are more training results, than physical conditions.
Consider it a field experiment: You have someone with great physical capabilities that need high adrenalin/excitement to perform. Where do you get more of that than in the field? And over time they might become skilled like a soldier (they might well never make as good of a sniper through lower acc caps, but could make better breachers from better reactions/str/HP for example)

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About return to family - definitly no. I even say NOPE. Read something about quarantine, anti-epidemical measures, so on. Burn them to cinder is more realistic idea. Better burn twice.
Well, Solarius seemed to imply he thought there could be a cure. If you can make the person their former self, then why wouldn't you return them? I'm more than happy for there to not be a cure though.

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About selling live aliens - dont be so soft. There is over 7000000 scientists in world (according to unesco). Lets say that 1000000 of them are biologist. Ok, 500 000. How many of them want to look at xenobiological species? I think more than half. And do you know how many military scientists exist? They definetly not in unesco list.  8)
Well, it takes a LOT to go through and believe me, universities (where a good chunk of "free" researchers who could just jump onto the next interesting thing are, don't have the facilities to handle alien species and the risk they represent. Let alone during the XComFiles time where the alien invasion isn't well known. Government scientists usually have a specific mandate and they don't have the freedom to deviate from it. Sure, some governments will dedicate resources to investigating aliens if they can, which I always believed to be what happened when XCom sells aliens: You get money from one of the founding nations as a reward for providing them with a research subject. But it kinda sucks too as an explanation: if the funding nations are researching aliens, why don't they ever come up with something useful? So in the end we're left with my cousin's explanation: They're sold to fancy sushi restaurants. That's why I asked Solarius about it, I wanted to know his view.

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By Lore, x-com strongly connected to secret services. These guys not bother about morale and feelings at all.
So, my opinion: if our world encountered an alien invasion, we must cut out antigrav implants from live floaters, recycle zombies for elerium-infused biomass and grow tamed chryssalids, trained to eat only their previous masters. As we, humans, do. And maybe create reaper chivalry. ;D
There we need to find out which vision of XCom we want to portray:
- The utopian XCom where the countries work together to dashingly defend the Earth from the evil space invaders/mind enslavers?
- The dystopian XCom where alien terrors have come to get you and you need to do everything possible to save humanity?

Generally, XCom is more of an utopian game, as can be seen by the choice of colors, the fast progress of scientific understanding and generally the growth of XCom. It's not a losing battle and you go to Cydonia more to kick the aliens in the nuts than as a last ditch effort even though it is presented as such. You go from getting vaporised by plasma pistols to slaughtering aliens with heavy plasmas while walking in power suits and controlling them like puppets. Now is XComFiles different? It could be, but so far it isn't really. Agents investigate, save poor civilians in monster attacks, scientists research stuff and eventually start cracking alien tech and then it's humanity's rise in power so it can topple the martians.

I don't want Zombies that Feel.  Zombies that Think.  Zombies that elicit sympathy.

Wanton Destruction, Overt Annihilation, Cruel levels of hate and malice directed and focused upon them...  Ground to dust, without a shred of remorse....

Really, when it boils down to it - there's so few things you can basically do that to, in real life OR, in video games...

1) Zombies.
2) Nazis.

And even these days, 2) is a point that's starting to change (for the weirder, really...  But still...)

Even Aliens, well, aliens are sentient beings and all, and we're supposed to respect that concept - even if we do mow them down all the same - there's an implication there...  That is what makes the ALIEN HORROR trope work - because they are *no different to us*, and they started it... 

If we're supposed to feel sympathy for them, don't call them Zombies.  Call them Infects, or Rotters, or Drippys, or something other than Zombies.

Zombies exist in trope to be a tireless, endless horde, whose capability is only proportional to its hordesqueness...  Otherwise, they are something to be trampled under boots.

Besides,

In the immortal Words of Munchkin:

"LEVEL UP:  Kill some Nazis!  Because every game is better when you can kill some Nazis!"

It should apply to Zombies, too.
Well, I certainly agree with #2 needing to change.. As for zombies, they should fall in a similar category as orcs/orks and other fantasy monsters which are totally fine to kill because they're totally evil.

So either you can cure them and they're not really zombies, or they're really nonredeemable and there should be no problem finishing off those that were stunned and getting their fancy blood from them. I would prefer the 2nd, but Solarius has an issue with draining formerly human monsters.

...I find this hard to argue with.

That's why I put them in, dammit!
Indeed, so let's just drain them and be done with this! :P

Quote
EDIT:

I meant animal cages which look like this:


Torchwood

(Not really a Zombie, but pretty close.)
Fair enough, and they do keep alien affected humans in those too. It's easy to make your own vision of something in this game, which is why I was asking/challenging yours. No I know! :D

But yeah, really you have a choice:
1 - Zombies are redeemable and we shouldn't drain them but we should do something with them more than just keeping them around in prisons/selling them (especially selling them while rabid).
2 - Zombies are monsters and should be treated like any other ones.

In fact, I'd argue for zombies to recover really quickly from stun damage (but not being immune to it), so that it's very unusual to bring them back and they need to be really put down or they'll rise behind you and get you. Then the game is set for killing zombies being the right thing and draining them is fine. It's by far the easiest and simplest, most elegant solution, especially since it's what players have been asking for multiple times.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2016, 06:51:13 pm by Arthanor »

The_Funktasm

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #18 on: November 14, 2016, 06:03:20 pm »
While I think selling aliens and alien derived states of mankind as ethical at least as far as research purposes and less weaponization... I think that it's perfectly logical to sell high-priority research subjects to various third-party research institutions. XCOM can't be expected to be a defense force up to public standards (where it's known about) and be completely stand-alone, and able to keep research materials independent of the global science community's reach, and to with all those previous standards intact, gather and deliver sufficient knowledge of the invading force and how to deal with it. A compromise has to exist in some area of XCOM's involvement...

Zombies are likely processed to a point, guaranteeing an individual a chance to regain a true civilian status if they respond within a set of parameters. If not, being used as psionic decoys by a practical XCOM faction, or being disposed of/put out of their misery by a separate XCOM squad/division/group. But those are my two Lincolns. Cents, to those who find that relevant.

Offline Slaughter

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #19 on: November 15, 2016, 05:31:16 am »
 Cook 'em and eat 'em. They do the same to us. Return the favour!

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Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #20 on: November 16, 2016, 10:29:59 pm »
After all this deliberation i've deicded to withhold any final decisions regarding Zombies until more of the Zombie arc is ready. It will shed more light on the Zombies phenomena and give us all a better ground for discussion. I hope to resume this arc soon, at least a little bit. For now, feel free to discuss it further!

As for what happens to the sold specimen... I'm deliberately keeping it vague, so everyone can have their own headcannon. But I agree X-Com is more utopian than dystopian; there's a lot of bad stuff in the X-Com setting, like all the shadow war and conspiracy, but I think it doesn't make the game more grimdark, only provides more background as to why you need to blow up Cydonia so badly (because otherwise your earthly enemies will eat you).

Offline Dioxine

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #21 on: November 27, 2016, 01:34:11 pm »
Don't zombies provide you with more Blood Plasma when taken alive? That should be reason enough to try to keep them alive :)

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #22 on: November 27, 2016, 04:22:22 pm »
Don't zombies provide you with more Blood Plasma when taken alive? That should be reason enough to try to keep them alive :)


...for as while, yes :)

Offline Slaughter

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #23 on: November 28, 2016, 02:25:03 am »
Use zombies to research cybernetics and genetic engineering on humans. Hey, they're dead and don't care anymore!

Put some cybernetics on them and turn them into controllable meat-drones to use as cannonfodder!

Ethics are for the weak!

Offline Nord

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #24 on: November 28, 2016, 09:32:20 am »
Ahahahah ;D ;D ;D
Sorry, i could not resist.

Also, about live zombies as source of blood plasma: as i understand, blood plasma is elerium-infused mixture? So, zombies can not produce it, only ... store.
And yes, NOW alive zobies can not be used for anything, except selling.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2016, 09:35:53 am by Nord »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #25 on: December 28, 2016, 06:26:19 am »
I just realized: since we have Zombie troopers now (thanks to Nord), then maybe we can actually use the Zombies for ourselves? Zombie defence squad, anyone?

Offline Drasnighta

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #26 on: December 28, 2016, 09:15:31 pm »
I just realized: since we have Zombie troopers now (thanks to Nord), then maybe we can actually use the Zombies for ourselves? Zombie defence squad, anyone?


Still more Questions to ask.

Do you have to pay them in advance in Brains, or do they get to eat what they kill, mercenary style?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #27 on: December 29, 2016, 12:13:01 am »
Do you have to pay them in advance in Brains, or do they get to eat what they kill, mercenary style?

Zombies (here) don't have to eat people, and especially not their brains. They need Elerium, which is generally found in other Zombies.

Offline Nord

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #28 on: December 29, 2016, 07:55:28 am »
If they can use advanced weapons, you need to make some large debuff. E.g. large hp, but very low tu.

Offline Drasnighta

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Re: What to do with Zombies?
« Reply #29 on: December 30, 2016, 06:44:26 am »
Zombies (here) don't have to eat people, and especially not their brains. They need Elerium, which is generally found in other Zombies.

I shall endeavour to refer to them from this point on as NotZombies :D