Rise: Thoughts, Part 2

Well, it has taken me about two months, but I’ve finally gotten back to my re-reading of of Rise, and I’ve compiled a new list of items worth discussing. I’m going to go ahead and jump right in, but if you’d like a little background, check out my first post on Rise.

*Warning* Spoilers

[RESCUING OTHERS]

To get started, I have to address the issue of rescuing other survivors. I’m afraid that there isn’t a single, all-cases-considered, answer to dealing with this challenge. The decision lies with an assessment of the dangers of attempting a rescue, and whether they are within an acceptable level of risk. The threshold of acceptability will certainly vary from person to person, but I think everyone should approach the decision with strong bias towards self preservation. I know that may come across as a little selfish, but I believe I am simply being practical about the matter. There is nothing to be gained from needlessly throwing your life away, and it is easy to reason that you may even be hurting the prospects of other survivors you may have been able to help in the future.

I bring this up because Rise’s protagonist is rather ridiculously heroic in his efforts to rescue everyone he comes across. I had an inkling of this impression across the first quarter or so of the story, but when our hero devised a plan to rescue some folks trapped in a shopping center by first venturing deep into an urban center, locating the business where the building schematics to the shopping center were stored, retrieving and escaping with those schematics, planning a route into the shopping center through the sewers, and then sneaking the survivors out from underneath the zombie horde, I couldn’t help but shake my head with rather dubious skepticism. Sure, in the story he manages to pull it off with more people saved than lost, but I doubt that venture would have survived the test of reality. It is certainly a noble approach to life, but your nobility isn’t going to help anyone when you’ve been turned into zombie food.

[PROTECTING CHILDREN]

Despite the illogical risk, I believe it is fair to say that there will likely be certain circumstances in which risking everything to save another could be understood. As you might be thinking, it isn’t hard to imagine people risking everything for loved ones, or parents sacrificing themselves to save their children. If the zombie apocalypse were upon us, we might also see honest-to-goodness heroes rising to the occasion and sacrificing themselves to save others who might better serve the greater good. However, none of these circumstances applied to this story’s event, and I can’t help but deem it a reckless course of action.

[EUTHANASIA]

Another concept that comes up in Rise is the rather painful fact that survivors are going to witness people being viscously devoured alive by the undead, and will also have to deal with people who have escaped immediate death, but are bitten and will soon succumb to the infection. As horrible as it is, survivors will need to come to terms with these realities, and deal with them swiftly. In the case of people being dragged down and eaten alive, if you are in immediate danger of becoming the next victim, PLEASE continue to flee. However, if you can can spare the extra couple of seconds, put a bullet through the head of the suffering victim. It is an act of mercy that no one should be denied.

As for the circumstances of dealing with someone who has been infected but did not immediately bleed out, die of shock, or get simply torn to shreds, well, the smartest thing course of action is to simply kill them immediately. Now, I’m not sure that I’m cold enough to abide by that logic, but it is undeniably the safest course of action. However, a more compassionate approach would be to let people have their last few hours or minutes of humanity, wait for them to reanimate, then finish them off. Hopefully, most people will have the luxury of following this method, but one should always be prepared to put down a threat at a moments notice.

[WEAPONS]

Moving on to another point of interest, I have to return to the concept of fire, and its applications when battling the undead. I broached this topic before with regards to disposal of corpses in one of my Walking Dead posts, but not with regards to combat or even as simply a defensive measure. I bring this up now because our hero used a wall of fire to slow down pursuing undead when making his bold rescue of the folks trapped in the shopping center. I imagine that only time will tell whether the undead have a fear of fire, but I honestly have my doubts. Max Brooks addresses this question in The Zombie Survival Guide, and I tend to agree with his opinion that fire will not deter the undead, and will simply turn a zombie into a “shambling torch”. Igniting the zombie hordes may take them down eventually, but we may end up barbecuing ourselves in the process. I think fire will prove to be an effective means of decontamination, but not defense.

[ZOMBIE SURVIVAL TIPS]

The last tidbit I want to bring up is the use of noise as a tool for distracting and drawing zombies towards a point of your choosing. The characters in Rise employ this technique a number of times when fleeing from buildings that have become surrounded, and I think that it is a solid theory that could prove useful to everyone. As our survivors discovered, they could fire up a boombox, cd player, or just make a lot of noise at one end of a building (the end opposite the exit), draw all of the zombies over, then quickly run to the now zombie-free exit and flee. Time will tell if the undead will actually be drawn to noise, but I think it is basic strategy worth remembering.

There are still many other issues brought to light by this story, but I am going to have to save them for subsequent posts. Despite my occasional criticisms, I have found Rise to be a great story, and encourage you all to give it a read.

You can find a pdf copy of the story here: http://www.angelfire.com/empire/garething/apoc.html

Read other “Rise” posts:

• For all your undead medical questions, consult your friendly neighborhood pharmacist.
  Rise: Thoughts, Part 1
• Eaten alive by zombies… or subsisting solely off of MRE’s? Hold up a second, lets not rush this decision.
  Rise: Thoughts, Part 3
• Zombies, and the thin green, black, and brown line.
  Rise: Thoughts, Part 4