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+ Show Spoiler +When I went through the material from a creative writing class I took, I noticed that it was something like 70% sci-fi, 95% dark, 10% mystery, 10% poetry and 98% unread. I decided that I might as well post some of it somewhere, and I did in the creative writing thread, and no one in all likelihood ever read any of it. So I've decided to post the same story here. I guess I'll post more of the stories if anyone is interested at all
The Declaration of Zombiekind
As one of the most well-versed in the languages spoken and written by the humans of lands faraway, it has fallen upon me to compose this declaration.
Since times immemorial, our clan has lived in this valley, hidden away in the the heart of the African continent. Throughout our history, we have limited our interactions with the local tribes due to our fundamental differences. The local tribes have also mostly avoided us, steering clear of our hunting grounds.
There were of course occasional forays from some of the tribes, but we fought back using our natural abilities, and inflicted sufficient losses to convince them to stay away from us. From our side, there were always the few whose hungers overpowered their reason, whose cravings forced them down an unforgivable path, one against all our ethics. Most of those were put down by us, and those who escaped us, by the local tribes. Thus, we cohabited relatively peacefully for many millenia.
Towards the 13th century of your calendar, those known to you as the Mali Empire, decided to “purify” our valley, and started large scale raids against us. At first we only saw it as retaliation for the hurts several wayward members of our kind had recently done to them, but it soon transpired to be more serious than that. Facing extinction, we were forced down a path that we abhorred. Our ruling council decided that for survival's sake, we must fight back, attack their lands, and intentionally infect their own to swell our numbers.
After much bloody campaigning and severe losses from their side, the rulers of Mali proposed a truce which we gladly accepted. We returned to our valley, and enjoyed a peace that would last several centuries.
During that time our numbers slowly grew, and news of our existence started to spread to the many corners of the world. Now holding our kind in great respect, the Mali Empire and those that ruled the area after them, left us alone, apart from the occasional criminal that they sent to us as sacrifice.
Some time later, the inhabitants of neighbouring areas experienced great turmoil. It was due to the arrival of Europeans, and their superior weaponry. Our kind stayed away from the conflict, and lived as we always had. Expeditions entered our territory with greater frequency, more out of ignorance than malice; we avoided them as much as possible, only fighting them when attacked.
Due to our leniency, information about our kind and of our whereabouts spread to unsavoury ears during the 1980s. Ruthless men, who thought of us as high-end game, decided to eliminate us, for no other reason than our existence. Such actions were borne as long as we could, though our policy of non-aggression made us very vulnerable to their attacks. As local authorities condoned or supported the actions of the poachers who'd assaulted us, our position went from bad, to worst, to nearly unbearable. We knew that any wide-scale retaliation would bring the governments of men to eradicate us as harmful pest.
The aggressive factions of our people started gaining more support. They were still saying, as they had said for centuries, that the humans would be happier as one of us, that we would live in greater safety, comfort, and peace. Those ancestral arguments, which had fallen on deaf ears for aeons, started to be listened to. The fact that turning humans into our kind without permission, was firmly against all our laws, customs, and ethics, started to fail as a moral deterrent, in the face of a threat to our existence.
What it all amounted to, was whether or not we should fight humankind for survival. Whether we should put our lives in front of human existence in their current state. Whether the death of our people, culture, belief systems, weighted more than the existence of humans in a permanent state of war among each other, instead of a more benevolent state as one of us.
We deeply apologize, and hope you understand our choice.
Sorry, humans, we are coming.
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United States24756 Posts
What do the zombies eat to stay alive over the centuries? It doesn't seem like a sustainable model to me, unless these zombies are much different than the ones I know about.
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Brain-jerky. Lots of brain-jerky.
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On July 13 2013 02:03 micronesia wrote:
What do the zombies eat to stay alive over the centuries? It doesn't seem like a sustainable model to me, unless these zombies are much different than the ones I know about.
every single contemporary zombie piece uses a model for zombies that assumes their need for human flesh is instinctual, not biological. they attack humans since they feel an urge to, not to live. in general, they never die, regardless of how hungry they are. their existence is supernatural. its questionable whether they actually feel hunger.
this has an interesting premise. I'll look forward to reading more (and question some of your zombie qualities :p).
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United States24756 Posts
On July 13 2013 02:19 Blisse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2013 02:03 micronesia wrote:
What do the zombies eat to stay alive over the centuries? It doesn't seem like a sustainable model to me, unless these zombies are much different than the ones I know about. every single contemporary zombie piece uses a model for zombies that assumes their need for human flesh is instinctual, not biological. Uh, are you sure every single contemporary zombie piece can be described this way? That seems like you are taking huge liberties.
they attack humans since they feel an urge to, not to live. in general, they never die, regardless of how hungry they are. This is definitely not true in all the zombie things I've seen/read, although it's probably true in some, despite making no biological sense.
their existence is supernatural. its questionable whether they actually feel hunger. Once again, it seems like you are describing some zombie stories and claiming all zombie stories are like these few.
Here are some examples: in The Walking Dead, the zombies can and do eat animals. In 28 days later, all the zombies eventually die out due to lack of food. I think we can find examples in favor of and against every point made so far.
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tl;dr
Just came to tell you your sig is wrong; it's Carthago delenda est (carthage must be destroyed). Latin almost always puts the verb at the end (sometimes not in poetry, for meter reasons).
User was warned for this post
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On July 13 2013 02:23 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2013 02:19 Blisse wrote:On July 13 2013 02:03 micronesia wrote:
What do the zombies eat to stay alive over the centuries? It doesn't seem like a sustainable model to me, unless these zombies are much different than the ones I know about. every single contemporary zombie piece uses a model for zombies that assumes their need for human flesh is instinctual, not biological. Uh, are you sure every single contemporary zombie piece can be described this way? That seems like you are taking huge liberties. Show nested quote +they attack humans since they feel an urge to, not to live. in general, they never die, regardless of how hungry they are. This is definitely not true in all the zombie things I've seen/read, although it's probably true in some, despite making no biological sense. Show nested quote +their existence is supernatural. its questionable whether they actually feel hunger. Once again, it seems like you are describing some zombie stories and claiming all zombie stories are like these few. Here are some examples: in The Walking Dead, the zombies can and do eat animals. In 28 days later, all the zombies eventually die out due to lack of food. I think we can find examples in favor of and against every point made so far.
well, contemp. zombie pieces that i don't consider really shitty examples of zombie literature lol. maybe classical zombie/romero would have been a lot more accurate but then we're going into a bit more detail than i would like (and remember).
i'll explain myself.
28 days later/twd/resident evil/world war z really screw over what the perception of the zombie genre was supposed to be like. i know it's up to the producer's interpretation of how zombies should behave, but in the classical sense, zombies are supposed to be slow-lumbering, dumb, supernatural entities that feed for the sake of killing humans, that don't die (but can decay), etc, etc.
i guess we're so exposed to the zombie genre now that we need to add in some flair (like running zombies) to make the zombie apocalypse more believable, but the main premise of zombies is that it's the human element that's dangerous. you only really care about zombies at the initial outbreak, and afterwards, only when you're being swarmed.
the classical zombies described in early romero, world war z, daybyday armageddon, some other pieces that i can't remember, really take this point to heart. the zombie genre is about human survival and interactions rather than zombies chasing people down the street.
yeah, i guess this is my interpretation of what zombies are and not everyone agrees, but for the most part you can see how broken the zombie genre is.
http://www.roamersandlurkers.com/topic/2214-rage-viruszombie-or-not-zombie/
For example, that's a link about whether to consider the "zombies" in 28 days later literature as actual "zombies".
TWD completely broke the premises of the initial comic book so I'm not sure how to respond to that. cite examples: season 1 zombie using a brick to break windows, zombies running after rick on a horse. but then you don't see a consistent spread of running/not running because the producers/directors changed. i can go into more detail but there's a lot of flaws in the tv series. i'm undecided on whether the eating animals is a flaw or if it's an oversight on my part. can't recall literature where zombies ate other animals. it's actually hugely dependent on how you perceive zombies exist (eat to live or eat for fun).
as for resident evil, i find that it's its own interpretation of zombies because of how over-the-top you have bosses, which doesn't fit in with the theme of zombies i described. it's focus is a bit different than what's normal, however effective their zombies are.
Left4Dead also fits in that "re-imagined" genre.
i love the zombie genre so sorry if i went a bit overboard.
it's completely dependent on what the OP wants to define his zombies as, which is cool by me. I appreciate most versions of zombies. this is just a preference i have. :p
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On July 13 2013 02:03 micronesia wrote:
What do the zombies eat to stay alive over the centuries? It doesn't seem like a sustainable model to me, unless these zombies are much different than the ones I know about.
They eat... stuff. Honestly I didn't think too much about this, maybe they are hunter gatherers or something.
On July 13 2013 02:41 HardlyNever wrote:
tl;dr
Just came to tell you your sig is wrong; it's Carthago delenda est (carthage must be destroyed). Latin almost always puts the verb at the end (sometimes not in poetry, for meter reasons).
In Latin, the order of the words does not actually matter, though as a matter of form the verbs are usually put at the end, however in this case, the word order "Delenda est Carthago" is more elegant for oratorical purposes, and can be used as such.
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United States24756 Posts
On July 13 2013 03:05 BrokenMirage wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2013 02:03 micronesia wrote:
What do the zombies eat to stay alive over the centuries? It doesn't seem like a sustainable model to me, unless these zombies are much different than the ones I know about. They eat... stuff. Honestly I didn't think too much about this, maybe they are hunter gatherers or something.
The reason why I brought it up is because in many stories zombies only eat humans... but as I thought about it I thought of examples where they eat animals also... so your story probably requires you to go with the latter idea if zombies in your story need to eat to survive.
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On July 13 2013 03:05 BrokenMirage wrote:
In Latin, the order of the words does not actually matter, though as a matter of form the verbs are usually put at the end, however in this case, the word order "Delenda est Carthago" is more elegant for oratorical purposes, and can be used as such.
Did you just copy that from wikipedia?
The word order "Delenda est Carthago" is more elegant for oratorical purposes That's a "Reference" on the wiki page. How can a plain text without references to anything be a "Reference"?
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are there zombies 'for the sake of being zombies' or do they serve any sort of structural role in the story- thinking of the interesting concept in dawn of the dead with the zombies being attracted to the mall, like 'consumerism' or something
reading it i thought that mostly the 'zombies' were a sort of race of people that 1. 'live forever' and 2. reproduce via 'infecting humans' that lived, presumably, since the beginning of humans in a secluded/isolated area in a place close to the 'birthgrounds' of the human race
i suppose it could be the same sort of thing ie 'infecting' someone with your way of life as a means of reproducing (in a similar vein to dawn of the dead, corporations 'infecting' other countries via plopping down franchises etc.) but i feel generally unsatisfied with this.
when venturing into the absurd like this (mostly assuming that this is intended to be light-hearted, largely fun, etc.) you have to be really careful, i think, with your language - because it is easier when writing a more traditional sort of thing that your inattentiveness to your language wont be glaringly out of place or seem like a mistake- and here i dont really get very much of that. i dont really think that the 'historical rundown' is very effective (as a side note, i forget what book i read a passage from that was similar in its 'historical' kind of tone that described things in a similar way, but was able to be interesting via using specific details , i think examining 'effective' stories like this would lend itself to this tonality) and found the language, even in an absurd sort of thing, unbelievable.
i think a large part of me being unsatisfied is the length of the piece (very short) and the fact that i felt like it didnt say anything, or do anything. as a character i feel like the speaker seemed boring, and not someone that would be effective as a character (at least as a focus) in a longer piece without a major rework of his language/tonality, but could imagine something like 'a world where zombies decide to come out of hiding, and invite humans into their ranks via living in a sort of like hippie commune, or just whatever kind of community in general' where something like this is used as a piece of 'historical background' from which the main story would operate from (in this case the story would be best told from a human being 'recruited'
obviously this is very specific and only an example of how i might approach using this specific piece, i think that without major reworks that the very best this could serve as is this sort of 'historical background' rather than the basis of something longer, and that as a (very) short, stand-alone thing this doesn't offer the reader very much and is largely forgettable
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On July 13 2013 03:52 spinesheath wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2013 03:05 BrokenMirage wrote:
In Latin, the order of the words does not actually matter, though as a matter of form the verbs are usually put at the end, however in this case, the word order "Delenda est Carthago" is more elegant for oratorical purposes, and can be used as such. Did you just copy that from wikipedia? Show nested quote +The word order "Delenda est Carthago" is more elegant for oratorical purposes That's a "Reference" on the wiki page. How can a plain text without references to anything be a "Reference"?
Yes I did in the interest of time. These words are often quoted in such a form in books and the like anyhow, and either way this is wholly irrelevant.
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EPT
