Writing Apocalypse and Survival
Page 5
CYBORGS EXIST NOW
Cyborgs do not belong solely to the realm of science fiction. People with electronic artificial limbs are the most noticeable, but technically, any wearable or implanted electronic or prosthetic device is cybernetic; this includes pacemakers, hearing aids, and contact lenses. What would happen if a mad scientist or enterprising criminal could hijack these devices?
For example, sending subliminal suggestions through a hearing aid to brainwash a victim? Or blackmailing a man to commit a crime for him or else his pacemaker will be turned off? Or remote controlling a man’s cybernetic arm to strangle someone to death? The possibilities are endless!
CYBORG VULNERABILTY
Cyborgs are vulnerable to EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) effects that can cause unshielded implants to go dead. Depending on what these implants control, this can be a mere nuisance or absolutely crippling.
SAMPLE CYBORGS
There are plenty of cyborgs to be inspired by, from Darth Vader to the Borg to the Daleks and Cybermen of Dr. Who:
Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965)
Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)
Star Wars (1977)
The Six Million Dollar Man (TV, 1974-78)
The Bionic Woman (TV, 1976-78)
Robocop (1987)
Cyborg (1989)
Tetsuo, the Iron Man (1989)
Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993)
Ghost in the Shell (1995 anime and 2017 live-action remake)
Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Teen Titans (TV, 2003-06)
Iron Man (2008)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Upgrade (2018)
ROBOTS
Robots are autonomous or semi-autonomous machines programmed to carry out complex actions. They may or may not have a human- or animal-like appearance, and may be any size, mobile or stationary. Robots can be used in hazardous situations and hostile environments without endangering human life. They can also maximize production efficiency in factories.
Replacing humans, while having obvious benefits, breeds anger and anti-robot sentiment in the humans who were replaced. Many humans fear not only job loss to robots, but what happens if robots become sentient and decide to exterminate humanity.
The ethical use of robots and what governs their behavior is also in question. Can robots achieve self-awareness through artificial intelligence, and if they can, are they entitled to the same rights exercised by humans? If not, aren’t they our slaves? And what if the robots refuse to accept our decision? What if they choose to enslave or destroy us?
There are many examples of military, industrial, and commercial robots in use or being developed today, from drones to vacuum cleaners to self-driving vehicles and space probes.
NANOBOTS
Nanobots are a new type of robot to watch out for. They are bacteria-sized robots that can be injected into people to perform surgery or into machines to repair them, but they can also be used as weapons. They could assassinate enemies, cripple computer systems, and wreak all kinds of havoc. Some speculate nanobots could cover the earth, devouring everything and turning the planet into “gray goo.”
SAMPLE ROBOTS
Need more inspiration? Check out these famous robots:
The Phantom Creeps (1939)
Gog (1954)
Forbidden Planet (1956)
Kronos (1957)
Lost in Space (TV, 1965-1968)
Demon Seed (1977)
Star Wars (1977)
Battlestar Galactica (TV, 1978-79)
The Black Hole (1979)
The Shape of Things to Come (1979)
Saturn 3 (1980)
The Transformers (TV, 1984-1987)
Voltron, Defender of the Universe (TV, 1984-85)
Robotech (TV, 1985)
Chopping Mall (1986)
Short Circuit (1986)
Robocop (1987)
Robot Jox (1989)
Hardware (1990)
The Iron Giant (1999)
Pacific Rim (2013)
Robot Overlords (2014)
Rogue One (2016)
Solo (2018)
5
MUTANTS AND ANIMALS
MUTANTS ARE NATURALLY OCCURRING or the product of scientific experimentation or exposure to radiation, chemicals, or other unusual substances. Depending on the mutation, mutants represent an evolutionary leap forward or backward.
Think about the environment of your post-apocalyptic story world. Has there been a dramatic change that demands species adapt or die? Have mutagenic chemicals or radiation been released? What effect are they having? Is it a slow change, or sudden? In Damnation Alley (1977), within a few years of nuclear war, scorpions grow as large as dogs and cockroaches scour cities in swarms, feeding on human flesh.
MUTANTS MAKING MUTANTS
Another idea is mutant parasites that enter a host organism, changing it from within. The David Cronenberg “body horror” film, Shivers (1975) features a parasite that stimulates its host’s sexual impulses. Unfortunately, the parasite overstimulates the host, turning them into violent, sex-crazed zombies.
It doesn’t have to be parasites that transform people or wildlife, it could be a virus or toxic waste. In Mutants (2009), the virus acts like it does in a zombie movie, and those it infects mutate into subhuman cannibals. In C.H.U.D. and Mutant (both 1984), exposure to toxic waste turns people into cannibalistic monsters.
SUPERHEROES AND SUPERVILLAINS
Mutants have long been popular as heroes and villains in comic books. People long for extraordinary powers, and depending on what kind of person they are, they could use those powers for good, evil, or selfish reasons.
The most realistic depiction of what would happen when people gain super powers can be seen in Chronicle (2012). An example of an entire post-apocalyptic world reformed into a feudal superhero dystopia is the bestselling Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard.
The source of your story’s superpowers could be aliens, government experiments, radiation, whatever you can imagine.
ANIMALS
Animals could be affected by radiation, gene splicing, or any number of strange phenomena, turning on man and bringing their own kind of apocalypse. This can be seen in films like Alfred Hitchock’s The Birds (1963), Chosen Survivors (1974), and Kingdom of the Spiders (1977).
To make things even more apocalyptic, you could give the animals diseases like rabies or bubonic plague, or maybe the virus affects humans differently, turning them into zombies or devolving them into a primitive state, perhaps as subhuman caveman cannibals!
HOW TO WRITE MUTANTS AND ANIMALS
When your villain is not human or human-like, you have your work cut out for you. But all is not lost! Many successful books feature non-human point of view chapters, such as the mutant, man-eating rats in the opening to James Herbert’s post-apocalyptic novel, Domain:
They scurried through the darkness, shadowy creatures living in permanent night.
They had learned to become still, to be the darkness, when the huge monsters roared above and filled the tunnels with thunder, assaulting the black refuge—their cold, damp sanctuary—with rushing lights and deadly crushing weight. They would cower as the ground beneath them shook, the walls around them trembled; and they would wait until the rushing thing had passed, not afraid but necessarily wary, for it was an inveterate invader but one which killed the careless.
They had learned to keep within the confines of their underworld, to venture out only when their own comforting darkness was sistered with the darkness above. For they had a distant race-memory of an enemy, a being whose purpose was to destroy them.
— JAMES HERBERT, DOMAIN
There’s more, of course. This is the third book in Herbert’s immensely popular Rats Trilogy, and the author has to finish setting up that these are mutant rats, that the bombs have dropped, and the world is now a very different place. A place where the table
s have turned, and man, the rats’ most hated enemy, is now easy prey in the ruins of post-apocalyptic London.
SAMPLE MUTANTS AND ANIMALS
Freaks (1932)
The Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Godzilla (1954)
Them! (1954)
This Island Earth (1955)
Tarantula! (1955)
The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
The Fly (1958 and 1986 remake)
The Alligator People (1959)
The Flesh Eaters (1964)
The Deadly Bees (1966)
Octaman (1971)
Frogs (1972)
The Twilight People (1972)
Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973)
Ssssssss (1973)
Chosen Survivors (1974)
The Mutations (1974)
Bug (1975)
Shivers (1975, aka They Came from Within)
The Food of the Gods (1976)
Squirm (1976)
Ants (1977)
Damnation Alley (1977)
Day of the Animals (1977)
Empire of the Ants (1977)
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977 and 1996 remake)
Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)
The Man from Atlantis (TV, 1977-78)
The Incredible Hulk (TV, 1978-82)
Piranha (1978)
Spawn of the Slithis (1978)
The Swarm (1978)
Terror Out of the Sky (TV, 1978)
The Brood (1979)
Nightwing (1979)
Alligator (1980)
Humanoids from the Deep (1980)
The Funhouse (1981)
Piranha Part 2: The Spawning (1981)
Basket Case (1982)
Deadly Eyes (1982)
C.H.U.D. (1984)
Mutant (1984)
The Toxic Avenger (1985)
Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)
The Fly 2 (1989)
Total Recall (1990)
Outbreak (1995)
Mimic (1997)
Bats (1999)
Deep Blue Sea (1999)
X-Men (2000)
Spider-Man (2002)
The Cave (2005)
The Hills Have Eyes series (2006-07)
Wrong Turn series (2006-14)
Splinter (2008)
Mutants (2009)
Splice (2009)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Chronicle (2012)
Deadpool (2016)
Logan (2017)
Deadpool 2 (2018)
If you’re looking for help writing or describing aliens, pick up my Science Fiction Writers’ Phrase Book and Writing Monsters and Maniacs.
6
ZOMBIE ANIMALS
IN MOST ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE SCENARIOS, animals are immune to the virus. In this case, you must decide if zombies do not see animals as food or if they will still target and eat them. Regardless, zombies will respond to animal noise, movement, and attacks.
The zombies in the George A. Romero universe (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, etc.) do not feed on animals, although in NotLD, we do see a zombie eat a bug.
In Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead, zombies eagerly eat animals and are apparently unable to distinguish between them and people; that is, they do not seem to prefer one over the other. However, the zombie virus cannot jump species; there are no zombie animals in Romero's or Kirkman's world.
This is not the case in the Resident Evil franchise, which famously features zombie dogs and other animals. In the SyFy Channel film, Zombie Apocalypse (2012), we even see a zombie tiger!
Whether you want to complicate your apocalypse with zombie animals is up to you. However, you should know most purists hate the idea. Not only can it be laughable (imagine being chased by Paris Hilton and her army of little yappy zombie purse dogs), but it ruins two important elements of the zombie apocalypse fantasy:
The ability to survive by hunting or domesticating animals becomes much more difficult; and
It disproves the classic theory that the virus is nature's way of restoring the planet to its pre-human condition. If the animal population fails to survive, then undoing man's environmental damage won't matter.
ZOMBIES BEFRIENDING ANIMALS
On a related note, if zombies can learn or remember skills in your story, then it may be possible, if not probable, for them to use animals—not necessarily as food, but as partners.
In Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972), zombified Knights Templar ride undead horses, and in Survival of the Dead (2009), we see a modern zombie riding a horse. In both films, the zombies had a strong pre-existing bond with their animals before death.
Another idea could be for a zombie veterinarian, pet shop owner, pet lover, or zookeeper to continue to care for her animals after she reanimates. Most likely, she would continue to “feed” dead animals with the flesh of her victims.
7
INFECTED CHARACTERS
WHEN A CHARACTER IS EXPOSED to the zombie virus (or any similar plague-like virus), you have to decide whether they become infected or not. There are no hard and fast “rules” for how the infection spreads. It's up to you to choose how people turn into zombies, mutants, or whatever. Here are the most popular options for zombies:
Everyone is infected. The virus lies dormant until the host dies from any cause. Being bitten injects enough new virus cells to activate the dormant ones, telling them to accelerate and kill the host. This is the original way popularized in Night of the Living Dead (1968). It's also the most popular method.
Only people who are bitten or scratched can turn; Dawn of the Dead (2004 remake) used this method. Be aware that choosing this will slow the spread of the virus unless you make your zombies fast instead of the classic slow variety.
In addition to bites, zombies have a breath weapon (projectile vomiting infected blood) which they use to infect people at a short distance―about five to ten feet, max (counting particulates in the air), depending on how “extreme” you want to be. Note that zombies, like people, have a limited amount of blood in their system, so they can't vomit more than a few times, and each time they do, their range will decrease. Only people bitten, scratched (or blasted in the face with vomit) become zombies. This method was used in 28 Days Later (2002) and Dead Men Walking (2005).
If you want something besides a virus to create your zombies, then you'll have to put some thought into what that is and how it works. Such changes don't need to be drastic and can more or less conform to one of the above methods.
For example, in The Girl with All the Gifts (Novel, 2014, and film, 2016), the “hungries” are humans controlled by a mutant fungus similar to Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis, the species that creates “zombie ants” in the real world. Only people who get bitten turn into hungries. So it's pretty much “the same, but different.” That's what Hollywood and your readers want: a twist. There's no need to reinvent the wheel, just slap a new rim on it and hit the gas.
✓ TRANSMISSION BY BITE
Bites are the primary way the zombie virus spreads. To transmit the virus, the bite must puncture the skin, mixing the zombie's saliva with the blood of its victim.
✓ TRANSMISSION BY SCRATCH
Scratches from zombie fingernails may or may not cause infection; it depends on how recently the zombie has touched infected material (including its own saliva during feeding). Scratches are more likely to transmit any secondary diseases the zombie is carrying, rather than the zombie virus itself (see below).
✓ TRANSMISSION BY BODILY FLUIDS
Unless the zombie's fluids get into a character's eyes, nose, mouth, ears (or other orifices), infection from anything other than a bite is not automatic. Obviously, having unprotected sexual intercourse with a zombie is a bad idea for this and many other reasons. Fortunately, zombies don't breathe or sneeze, so they can't transm
it airborne pathogens the way humans do.
✓ TRANSMISSION BY CONTAMINATED WATER
Zombies floating in or moving through water will contaminate it with both the zombie virus and any other diseases they carry, so boiling or purifying water before drinking is a must. Contaminated wells or water pumps were used as plot devices in both The Walking Dead and Z Nation.
HOW THE VIRUS WORKS
Without getting too technical, the zombie virus attacks the central nervous system, shutting down the host's organs and brain. You can make this as fast or slow as you like. It can be subtle or disgusting, such as the host bleeding out every orifice like they would from a hemorrhagic fever. For examples, look to Ebola and Marburg in the real world; these and other filoviruses were chronicled in Richard Preston's nonfiction shocker, The Hot Zone (1995). A fictional example is the Motaba virus in Outbreak (1995).
Once the host is dead, the virus works on completing its takeover of the host's body and brain functions. Again, this can be as fast or slow as you like. Once the process is complete, the virus reanimates the corpse as a zombie. Zombies exist for one purpose: to spread the virus. They do this by biting victims. Eating them is unnecessary (and even counterproductive), but my theory is the consumption of human flesh is caused by one of the following:
The virus isn't sure it's successfully passed itself on through a single bite, so it keeps attacking until it's absolutely sure of infecting the new host, perhaps by receiving a return signal of some kind from its transplanted cells; and/or
The zombie may insist on eating or taking multiple bites because it is a half-remembered, pleasurable activity. The virus either does not notice or does care, or else it is powerless to interfere with the zombie taking this action.
Newly reanimated zombies will typically be slower and more awkward than normal as they adjust to their undead state. They may also be less aggressive and even recognize people, objects, and places from their life. This “recognition” is partial and confused, but may be enough to temporarily redirect them from attacking a loved one if another target is present. It may motivate the new zombie to remain in some place that had great meaning to them. Or they might leave, but take a beloved object with them.