Lexicon:Horde Behavior
This page is a part of the Infection Lexicon. The information here is fan-created and should not be considered in-game canon. Please do not edit this page unless you are certain that the Lexicon has been completed.
After everything I gave the government people for the first inquiry, I got a bit of a reputation around here for being someone who could get information to the outside world. This is something one of the new NT people wrote--not someone who worked for them before the outbreak, just one of those scientifically-inclined types who found a white coat and a lab machinery manual and started doing research--wrote based on their findings. She'd like this to be submitted to some appropriate scientific journal after the Crown is done with it.
- The diseased subjects--hereafter referred to as zombies, in the interests of brevity and clarity, though the term does have many less than scientific connotations--at first displayed little intelligence, less than that of many animals, essentially acting upon instinct to move toward and attack any source of sound or movement not resembling themselves. Even these traits were enough to make them frighteningly powerful, and led to natural grouping as zombies created more zombies and they responded in concert to shared stimuli. However, as time progressed the subjects, while still appearing mindless when viewed alone, grew more organized and frightening in their attacks. The original chaotic behavior resulted in tremendous loss of life, but only in certain concentrated areas, and survival was possible with forethought; more importantly, the infrastructure of society was preserved. The problem could essentially be treated as a natural disaster. Once zombies began aiding each other, planning ahead, and giving up instant gratification of their feeding instinct in order to more effectively feed the horde (as a group of zombies has come to be termed) the problem ceased to be localized, survivable, or manageable, less a natural disaster and more a war. Soon normal civilization began to collapse as it had not during the first phase of the event. It was this development that moved the government to its more extreme measures, including the quarantine fortifications and the government's declaring a red BIKINI state.
The NT tech was part of a group, and when one of her companions--a short, tough, wiry man in military clothes--heard her talking to me about getting something outside he volunteered some more information on the subject.
- Yeah, I know exactly what she means. When my unit first got inserted, there were rumors flying around everywhere about zombies, and some people were pretty freaked out, including the officers. But once you got over the smell, and the groaning, and how little they seem to care when they get shot, and...well...yeah, once you got used to it, they really weren't that hard to kill at first. We had guns, they didn't. They just charged at us. There was a road map to undead extermination and shit, we were making progress, top brass had maps and simulations, all very organized. Then they started flanking us, and calling more of their kind, and ambushing us from the shadows, and it all started to fall apart. If there's anyone left within Malton city limits with a rank higher than lieutenant, then they've got shoulder patches and not much else. I lost contact with my unit four months ago now. Last I had heard, some new unit had been brought in, some spec-ops shit trained specifically to keep cool and together in a Zack-infested environment. They called it Unit SPARROWHAWK. The bigwigs had one of those oh-so-intellectual poetic names for the plan, what was it...something about a center that can hold when things fall apart.
Submitted to the second Royal Commission for the Investigation of the Malton Quarantine by Mortimer Albright
- 'STER-Talk-ModP! 04:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
- References: BIKINI state Critical, Operation Widening Gyre, Quarantine fortifications, Unit SPARROWHAWK
