Skip to main content

How can there be so many zombies in The Walking Dead if they consume live people?


In The Walking Dead, I've noticed that often when a person is attacked by the walking dead, the victim is totally consumed. For example,



Rick's wife was eaten whole by one zombie.



So if they usually consume an entire person (or leave not much left of the original person) how can there be so many walkers? Shouldn't their numbers be smaller because they eat people whole?



Answer



The number of zombies currently has little to do with the fact the zombies consume the living whenever they get the chance.





  • Not knowing the source of the original event, we are never privy to how many zombies there were initially or how the infection was spread. Since everyone is infected, unless their brains are destroyed, everyone who dies will eventually become a zombie.




  • Since people don't have to be bitten for them to become zombies, nor do we know for certain how long a zombie lasts, we could be seeing zombies from the absolute beginning of the event. If they are decaying, it is at a rate far slower than the normal degradation of bodies that are "dead" so we can't estimate how many should be left after a given amount of time.




  • Accidental deaths, suicides, from the horror of it all, starvation (likely to be one of the most likely cause of new zombie creation) are all likely sources of new zombie creation. People who may be bitten but not killed (but die later, anyway) are also good candidates to end up zombies without being eaten.




  • I suspect eventually, the roaming herds of zombies will diminish as free-range humans get harder to find (either through the experience of fighting the walkers, or being exterminated by them) and their populations will slowly diminish. This means humanity will likely never truly be zombie free and will develop new ways of dealing with the dead should free-range humans get their act together against the zombie threat.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more