I do not always think highly of the US government. Granted, I do think that however messed up the US is, on the whole it’s probably better than most other places in the world. But there are things about the US government that infuriates me. Like Congress. Which probably infuriates a whole lot of other people too. But sometimes…sometimes…branches of the US government try and make up for it. Like the CDC. And now (or actually before, since the plan predates the CDC blog post) the US military.
Aside: for the most part I don’t have issues with the defense and health departments, it’s really just the governing branches.
So apparently, the military has outlined a plan for zombie apocalypse survival and the plan goes down to specify the strategy for the type of zombie encountered. The document is referred to as CONPLAN-8888 and was apparently “not actually designed as a joke.”
What types of zombies is the government prepared for? Well, you have pathogenic zombies, radiation zombies, evil magic zombies, space zombies, weaponized zombies, symbiant-induced zombies, vegetarian zombies, and chicken zombies. You can probably figure out the origins of most of the zombies from their names but…chicken zombies?
Yes. Chicken zombies. The “only proven class of zombie that actually exists.” Proven. To. Exist.
I’ve known about this practice in which farmers (or whoever) euthanize their hens that are too old to keep on for egg production. I’ve also known that sometimes a few of those chickens survive the process. But I didn’t really give much thought to it after that, other than the standard “this is probably unethical” and “alas, the evils of industrialized farming” and possibly “waygd?”
But these animated chickens, who may or may not be dead, claw their way out of piles of dead chickens…much like how you would believe a zombie would claw out of its grave. Well, if it were one of those evil magic zombies. Or possibly pathogenic zombies. But I never considered them to be zombies before this, for some reason. And this is coming from the person who has decided that a root canal equals zombie tooth. Can’t believe I never considered zombie chickens before.
Miscellaneous:
- The plan mentions my beloved PvZ but gets it slightly wrong when relating them to the vegetarian zombies. The zombies in PvZ are probably omnivorous over being described as anything else. They’ll eat the plants you have planted around your house for defense, but their goal isn’t just to eat your plants. They want your brains. That’s why you had to plant things around your house to begin with.
- I like how they list a reason as to why zombies may be more active at night, especially the pathogenic zombies. It’s because UV light is damaging to RNA (and DNA) and thus, it probably disrupts virus reproduction in zombies. So obvious. I can’t believe I hadn’t considered that.
- I am also really amused by how they reference marketing materials for hand sanitizer products, i.e. that hand sanitizer will kill 99% of all germs. “Although none of these products has ever indicated any efficacy against biohazard level 4 pathogens like ebola, it is entirely possible that such products could limit or delay the spread of pathogen based zombieism if properly employed.”
- Whoever wrote the document couldn’t decide how they wanted to spell “zombieism.”
- Of course, this is a plan for national safety. I think I will continue with the plan I had developed for myself. The only change is that now Choco isn’t along for the ride, but Horse is. And well…I don’t have that much hope for Horse. He’s not that smart and he isn’t terribly stealthy. Or fast. I think if it really came down to it, I’d have to cut my losses and leave Horse. That would be bad. So in the meantime, I’ll probably have to rethink my plan to account for Horse. But on the plus side, Yaris has gotten stealthier. Maybe that will make up for it.
Random moosages as I see fit. 