28 Days Later - Death of a Nation
- Thread starter kspence92
- Start date
Would be interesting to see. Imagine the the feeling of refugees from Syria and whatnot that are waiting to grt into the UK when they see British refugees landing in France and sharing tents with them.
And with YouTube and Twitter and Facebook ect the global shock and horror would be even more palpable as people post love updates for the world to see.
chankljp
Donor
The impact of social media on the outbreak will be very 'interesting' (in a very morbid sort of way) to read about, since it will make censorship almost impossible, as alternative media and individual citizen journalist will just keep on reporting what is truly going on via YouTube and other social media platforms even after the government has taken over the mainstream media sources, and with the country falling apart the government will not have enough manpower to censor everything that is posted, forcing them to outright shut down the entire Internet.
To say nothing of the terror on the Continent of it coming over. All it would take is one Infected and one group of people and...
I imagine the Chunnel would be mined, barricaded and guarded 24/7... assuming it isn't blown.
In the world of a lot of 'Infected/Zombie' type media the inhabitants have no mythology about zombies before the outbreak, so have to 'make it up' e.g. Walking Dead - The 28 Days verse also seems to be one of these.
How do you think it would go in a 2016 outbreak with our tech/media + zombie lore?
How do you think it would go in a 2016 outbreak with our tech/media + zombie lore?
James G
Gone Fishin'
One issue that occurred to me with the original basis of the TL: the Americans would know what was up rather quick rather than being surprised and suspecting terrorism. The outbreak starts in Cambridge. Across eastern England there are many US military bases - small and large - that house the American presence in the UK. The Americans would quickly be away when casualties among their own personnel occur, long before London.
Another thing that id find interesting is small towns and villages in the middle of nowhere that cut themselves off during the outbreak and tried to continue life normally even as the collapse of the country was in full swing. There was a scene in Protect and Survive where a small English village survived the nuclear war and tried to go on as normal pretending there was no war and fought against the British army when the tried to settle refugees from the cities in the village. I think similar scenes would happen all over the UK.
I know how Russia was able to seal itself off from Europe and later colonize it Eastern Europe like the Baltic and Ukraine after the outbreak has died out along with most of Europe, but what if Russia had also fallen to the Rage Virus? What if terrorist got they hands on some, and set off outbreaks in major Russian cities? If it had started in Moscow and the whole government been killed or turn?
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John Farson
Banned
If the government didn't immediately get wiped out, I don't think they'd hesitate to nuke any cities that had fallen to the virus.
All right. If the Russian government was immediately wiped out, what then?
Or if the nukes failed to stop the virus?
He did? I must have missed that, I was looking at early pages when I got the idea.
IIRC, he couldn't think of a reasonable way to get the virus into Russia that wasn't forced or idiot ball, and he gave up.
A_H_nikky
Banned
Besides the story of the outbreak itself the most interesting aspect of this is all of the butterflies it causes worldwide up and until 6 months later when 28 Weeks happens and causes even bigger butterflies. The headline from the newspaper that is shown in the first movies says that the mass exodus of British people causes global chaos for instance-Kind of like Brexit times a billion I'm thinking. More on that is always welcome
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I personally ignore 28 Weeks later as it's very silly, but 28 Days later alone will cause Huge issues globally- not least with refugees, ex-pats, etc all wanted to return asap.
There are Corporate interests to consider too- how many had to abandon London without their full data backups? How much bullion or data is 'locked' in places where a decent team form a rival company could get at it?
The infection will spark movies., pop culture, for decades yet, regardless of how long it takes,to resettle. Plus home footage from survivors, found footage from victims, and whatever the news crews who snuck into Britain got...
I can't see post infection Britain being quite the United Kingdom either- Scotland, and Wales are going to want ways to prevent an 'English problem' getting to them again.
There are Corporate interests to consider too- how many had to abandon London without their full data backups? How much bullion or data is 'locked' in places where a decent team form a rival company could get at it?
The infection will spark movies., pop culture, for decades yet, regardless of how long it takes,to resettle. Plus home footage from survivors, found footage from victims, and whatever the news crews who snuck into Britain got...
I can't see post infection Britain being quite the United Kingdom either- Scotland, and Wales are going to want ways to prevent an 'English problem' getting to them again.
Kitiem3000
Donor
In fairness, the whole world will want ways to prevent an 'English problem' getting to them again. Perhaps 'English problem' will become the new euphemism for outbreak of diseases.
"We got an English problem in the Congo. It's Ebola"
There is a common misconception that during the epidemic of 2002 that the British authorities issued a blanket shoot to kill order for all infected on sight. That is certainly how the outbreak is portrayed in most books and films. This is, however, somewhat inaccurate. Perhaps if the authorities had been less cautious in deploying lethal force early on the outbreak may have been contained in East Anglia. Of course we will never know, but nonetheless this volume or "Britain:The Rage Years" will try and refute the common assumption the authorities tried to kill the infected during the first days.
On the first night, as the initial cluster of infected near Cambridge University began to spread out and chase down unsuspecting victims, nobody had any idea what was happening. Most people assumed the infected were junkies or otherwise just nutcases out of cause a spot of bother. Responding police officers often fell victim to this fatal assumption during those crucial first few hours as they attempted to first talk to the infected, and then when that clearly failed, tried to arrest them.
Within hours some 40% of Cambridge's police force had fallen victim to the virus. Many officers were infected whilst restraining suspects, and subsequently would attack their colleagues in a fit of rage.
Faced with not only a growing mob of rampaging civilian but also forced to fight their own colleagues, the police force quickly realised this was not a riot and that something far more sinister was underway.
Likewise the ambulance service in Cambridge found themselves overstretched and under attack . Worried friends and family members who had managed to subdue infected loved ones desperately called 999 looking for an ambulance, crying about their wives or sons or mothers smashing up the house and vomiting blood everywhere.
Dozens of paramedics were killed or infected during the first few hours , eventually forcing all ambulances to travel with a police escort. Tests run on captured infected at Addenbrookes Hospital confirmed the worst fears. There had been an outbreak of...something. Nobody knew what it was .
During the night the joint police and ambulance crews detained hundreds of infected , restraining them on trolleys and wheeling them into the largest hospital, Addenbrookes, where they could hopefully be treated.
The initial problem staff faced was just how volatile their new patients were. They would not cooperate and thrashed around desperately. Sedatives were inefficient and wore off within minutes. The next problem was the vomiting of extensive volumes of blood. Many infected died either choking on their own blood or from massive blood loss. There was little that doctors could do. Different anti viral drugs were administered but seemed to have no effect. The only hope lay in virologists in labs outside Cambridge who would be needed to come up with a vaccine. Samples were sent by helicopter to the nearest lab but it would be too little too late. By the time research began in earnest the next morning Cambridge had been overrun and over 100,000 were dead or infected.
These attempts at trying to save the infected initially, though understandable, would ultimately doom the country. Even after the loss of Cambridge , hospitals in Milton Keynes and Peterborough tried in vain to help any infected patients that were brought in. The Department of Health issued a secret order to all hospitals across the country to "humanely terminate" any infected patients that were brought in. Not all staff were willing to comply with what they saw as a criminal order. How could they kill sick people ?
Four days after the outbreak began , Her Majesty's Government clamped down on hospitals refusing the order. Soldiers were sent in wearing full protective gear and executed the infected patients who were still thrashing about in their beds. Over five hundred infected patients would died during the space of 24 hours. For one hospital in Peterbourgh the army's intervention came too late. Before the soldiers could arrive one nurse, exhausted after having gone for 36 hours without a sleep, had forgot to put her protective goggles on as she administered recently shipped in horse tranquilliser to an infected police officer . He involuntarily projectile vomited into the nurses face and from there the virus burned through the hospital faster than any fire. Hundreds of uninfected patients could only lie in their beds and listen to the commotion coming ever closer until the infected were bursting into their wards. Children, pregnant women, cancer patients and amputees were amongst the brutally assailed victims as the infected lunged at people in their beds, punching and kicking and tearing at them. Some patients were bashed to death with their own IV polls or died as their life support machines were damaged in the chaos. Terrified visiting family members fled for their lives , hating themselves for abandoning their loved ones but also knowing that there was no way they could save them. Quick thinking staff in the maternity ward threw newborns out the windows rather than leave them to the infected.
And it was all avoidable. If only people had not let their emotions get in the way. If the infected had been treated appropriately with a quick merciful death rather than tied to hospital beds perhaps where they would inevitably cause further outbreaks perhaps things may have turned out different. Then again perhaps not. We will never know. But what we do know is sometimes our Humanity is as much a curse as it is a blessing.
On the first night, as the initial cluster of infected near Cambridge University began to spread out and chase down unsuspecting victims, nobody had any idea what was happening. Most people assumed the infected were junkies or otherwise just nutcases out of cause a spot of bother. Responding police officers often fell victim to this fatal assumption during those crucial first few hours as they attempted to first talk to the infected, and then when that clearly failed, tried to arrest them.
Within hours some 40% of Cambridge's police force had fallen victim to the virus. Many officers were infected whilst restraining suspects, and subsequently would attack their colleagues in a fit of rage.
Faced with not only a growing mob of rampaging civilian but also forced to fight their own colleagues, the police force quickly realised this was not a riot and that something far more sinister was underway.
Likewise the ambulance service in Cambridge found themselves overstretched and under attack . Worried friends and family members who had managed to subdue infected loved ones desperately called 999 looking for an ambulance, crying about their wives or sons or mothers smashing up the house and vomiting blood everywhere.
Dozens of paramedics were killed or infected during the first few hours , eventually forcing all ambulances to travel with a police escort. Tests run on captured infected at Addenbrookes Hospital confirmed the worst fears. There had been an outbreak of...something. Nobody knew what it was .
During the night the joint police and ambulance crews detained hundreds of infected , restraining them on trolleys and wheeling them into the largest hospital, Addenbrookes, where they could hopefully be treated.
The initial problem staff faced was just how volatile their new patients were. They would not cooperate and thrashed around desperately. Sedatives were inefficient and wore off within minutes. The next problem was the vomiting of extensive volumes of blood. Many infected died either choking on their own blood or from massive blood loss. There was little that doctors could do. Different anti viral drugs were administered but seemed to have no effect. The only hope lay in virologists in labs outside Cambridge who would be needed to come up with a vaccine. Samples were sent by helicopter to the nearest lab but it would be too little too late. By the time research began in earnest the next morning Cambridge had been overrun and over 100,000 were dead or infected.
These attempts at trying to save the infected initially, though understandable, would ultimately doom the country. Even after the loss of Cambridge , hospitals in Milton Keynes and Peterborough tried in vain to help any infected patients that were brought in. The Department of Health issued a secret order to all hospitals across the country to "humanely terminate" any infected patients that were brought in. Not all staff were willing to comply with what they saw as a criminal order. How could they kill sick people ?
Four days after the outbreak began , Her Majesty's Government clamped down on hospitals refusing the order. Soldiers were sent in wearing full protective gear and executed the infected patients who were still thrashing about in their beds. Over five hundred infected patients would died during the space of 24 hours. For one hospital in Peterbourgh the army's intervention came too late. Before the soldiers could arrive one nurse, exhausted after having gone for 36 hours without a sleep, had forgot to put her protective goggles on as she administered recently shipped in horse tranquilliser to an infected police officer . He involuntarily projectile vomited into the nurses face and from there the virus burned through the hospital faster than any fire. Hundreds of uninfected patients could only lie in their beds and listen to the commotion coming ever closer until the infected were bursting into their wards. Children, pregnant women, cancer patients and amputees were amongst the brutally assailed victims as the infected lunged at people in their beds, punching and kicking and tearing at them. Some patients were bashed to death with their own IV polls or died as their life support machines were damaged in the chaos. Terrified visiting family members fled for their lives , hating themselves for abandoning their loved ones but also knowing that there was no way they could save them. Quick thinking staff in the maternity ward threw newborns out the windows rather than leave them to the infected.
And it was all avoidable. If only people had not let their emotions get in the way. If the infected had been treated appropriately with a quick merciful death rather than tied to hospital beds perhaps where they would inevitably cause further outbreaks perhaps things may have turned out different. Then again perhaps not. We will never know. But what we do know is sometimes our Humanity is as much a curse as it is a blessing.