Survival of the Fittest (Sci-Fi Zombie Apocalypse)
My plot takes place in the year 2200, 150 years after the collision. A giant comet had crashed into the east coast of the United States, destroying much of New England. However, the true terror that came from the comet was not the comet at all, but a pathogen carried on it.
The collapse of society was a very slow process. Some cities fell within just a few years of the initial outbreak. Many groups of people living in the earliest of destroyed places now live in small communities similar to old, hunter-gatherer tribes. Even after most of the army was wiped out, and most of the federal and state government leaders went into hiding, some individual cities tried to do their best to hold together. However, even those have now fallen.
As for the world, it would have the look and feel of I am Legend, but would have approximately fallout-level technology. Sentient robotics, genetic engineering, and powered armor are now very real things.
The zombies come in multiple forms (some scarier than others). They have superb regenerative properties, but are slowly weakened by sunlight. Consuming zombified flesh doesn't spread the disease (it is still cannibalism, if the zombie was previously human). There are in fact, animals that have made a habit on preying on the undead...though zombies are not easy prey.
Most zombies can be 'killed' by mostly anything that would kill a human, but the problem is that they can still regenerate. For example, if you smother a zombie to "death", it will collapse on the ground and stop moving for a short time, becoming somewhat indistinguishable from a regular dead body...and then it will reanimate seconds later. Injuries like shooting it in the chest will take longer for it to regenerate. In order to permanently kill a zombie, you have to destroy a certain part of its brain.
Zombies have seemingly no emotions, and do little more than hunt prey. A "normal" zombie kept in a locked room, away from prey, will usually collapse on the ground and 'deanimate' and then reanimate again when prey comes closer. They do seem to be aware of pain, but are not deterred by it. Their response to damage is simply to attack whatever damaged them. Zombies attack anything that moves that isn't another zombie, including machinery and animals. Zombies consume any non-reanimated flesh that they find, including deceased zombies. Zombies, however, usually don't eat human prey other than possibly drinking its blood-they simply bite them a few times and then move on. Zombies do not normally attack each other, though it's not unheard of either. If two zombies bump into each other too hard, for example, they might consider that an attack and proceed to fight. They also occasionally fight over food.
Animals that contract the plague will die, and occasionally reanimate, though reanimation isn't as common as it is in humans. Likewise, young children don't reanimate (however, they die of the disease very rapidly). Reanimation is for ages 13 and up!
The disease: It's (usually) spread by your blood coming into contact with a zombie's bodily fluids (saliva or whatnot). It can also be spread by living infectees. Infected bite wounds do not heal. Also, chopping off a bitten limb does not help a bite victim, so don't try it. Common symptoms are:
1. Lightheadedness
2. Depression
3. Coughing
4. High fever
5. Vomiting
6. Foaming at the mouth
7. Pale skin
8. Dementia
The disease is currently uncurable, however, it is not 100% lethal per say. By pouring extra food, water, and medicine into somebody, they might very well live a full life. In the unlikely even they survive more than a couple weeks, the symptoms start to die down and the disease becomes dormant. However, when they do finally die, they'll become a zombie if their brain isn't destroyed.
Animals have overrun the cities, including clones of extinct animals created for research.
Our story revolves around a single group of survivors inside a recently-fallen city (Salem, OR) who decide to 'team up', using their various skills to try and stay totally safe from the zombies that want to gobble them up. It will focus on things like gathering resources, hunting animals, fighting off bandits, reinforcing our hideout, and of course, fending off the hordes at night. We do not necessarily stay in the city of Salem, however. We can leave if we manage to get our hands on a vehicle capable of driving us away. I for one, think that going to DisneyLand Resort would be awesome.
A thing that I want this RP to emphasize is division of labor, where people have different jobs in maintaining our not-deadness. For example, a hunter might have a bow and try to keep us fed, where as an builder might have a hammer and try to make sure our fortifications are good, or a cop who carries a handgun and tries to keep us protected from bandits and such.
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Victory Conditions: There are a few ways we can 'win' this RP. They are not mutually exclusive, and we can actually get all of them if we try hard enough (though this would put our characters at great risk). However, sometimes we will have to choose which one to devote the most resources to. Our characters wouldn't necessarily be ICly attempting to accomplish these goals, though they would factor into their general philosophy. Also, none of these goals makes your character 'good' or 'evil'. A person trying to cure the disease might be an ethical doctor or something of a Nazi Scientist.
-Escape: Your character wants to get the flip out of Dodge. Maybe we could find a boat or something? Maybe there's a safe haven somewhere? Who knows? Anything is better than here, right?
-Cure: Your character believes that curing the disease is possible (Spoiler: It is). As such, they'll be the one insisting on capturing 'live' zombies and doing experiments on them in order to find a cure. You do not need to be a medic in order to have this goal; though medics are very useful for this goal. Raiding libraries and such will also help us gain the information necessary to cure the plague.
-Conquest: Your character perceives survival as killing zombies and bandits. If we could just find better ways to fight against the zombies and bandits, we could, theoretically, push them back and rebuild.
-Attrition: Your character's goal is to build up resources, until eventually, they don't have to worry about survival anymore. This is the general mentality of a character like say, Lily from Walking Dead.
-Contact: Your character wants to seek out other survivors. Maybe there are other camps they could network with?
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Some ideas for jobs, hobbies, pasts, ect, are written below. We can have a few characters with the same job (maybe they knew each other before the fall?), however, I think the story would work better with "rag-tag bunch of misfits" than "Sports team" or "Bunch of doctors" or "Police squad"
Also, these are just suggestions. If you have any ideas of your own or want to modify them, feel free.
0. Job = Skills = Equipment
1. Athlete = Close Range Combat Speciality (which makes them great for fighting zombies) = Sports Gear, Melee weapons, Fisticuffs
2. Medic/Scientist = Healing People, Doing "Zombie Research" (eventually leads to a cure) = Medical Equipment (Medi-Gun?), Scalpels, tranquilizer guns, Microscopes
3. Burglar = Breaking and Entering (Scavenging?) = Switchblades, Firearms, Crowbars, ect.
4. Construction Worker/Mechanic/Hardware guy = Building, fixing, and deploying nice things = Construction tools, Traps, Combat Drones
5. Police = Security = Firearms, Clubs
6. Hacker = Hacking enemy electronics, = Hack Tools, Combat Drones
7. Child = Getting into small places, are less of a target for raiders (even they have standards), but mostly to add humanity to our group. Having children around will generally improve our reputation as a group (having a child in your group says something about you, you know?) = One handed melee weapons, a bodyguard drone, or a cool pet
8. Farmer = Growing Food = Farming Equipment
9. Hunter = Finding Food = Bow, axe, knife
10. Taxi Driver/Trucker/Race Car driver/whatever = Driving, of course = Cool vehicle
11. Collector = Finding good things = Medieval weapons and such
12. White Collar Worker = Getting great deals on trades = Office supplies, Briefcase
13. Prospector/Miner = Destroying unwanted (read: Enemy owned) barricades and structures = Mining equipment, explosives, molotovs
14. Fire Fighter = Putting out fires, actually being competent at saving people, finding survivors = Fire extinguisher, Water spraying devices, Axes
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Ideas for starting weapons:
1. Low-Caliber Pistols
2. Single Shotguns
3. Bolt-Action rifles
4. Submachine guns
5. Dynamite
6. Knives
7. Sporting Goods, Non-powered tools
8. Molotovs
A note on guns: Guns are powerful weapons, but they come at many disadvantages. For starters, they rely on non-reusable ammunition. Overusing firearms will result in having to scavenge for ammo more. Second is that they create noise and jam. Powerful, but impractical. They are also generally better at killing humans than zombies.
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-Name:
-Age:
-Appearance:
-Convenient previous occupation/hobby:
-Preferred Victory/Victories: (optional)
-Starting equipment: (Only one or two. And don't make them very powerful. Some example ideas are listed below. Doesn't necessarily have to be weapons, either. It can also be armor, tools, medical equipment, that sort of thing)
-Skills: (list 3 or so)
-Bio: (primarily, you should try to justify how they survived when the city fell. Of course, the don't necessarily HAVE to be native to the city. They can, for example, be from a recently wiped-out tribe hoping there's stuff to scavenge in the city or something else entirely)
Also, when writing your character, think about how they might join or otherwise interact with our group. If you have a specific idea in mind, do state it.
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As for my character:
-Name: Lewis Smith
-Age: 21
-Appearance: (I'll get a picture up soon)
-Occupation: Policeman (Detective)
-Preffered Victories: Contact, and Conquest (Simple mentality: Kill bad guys, gather good guys)
-Starting Equipment: Wooden Police Baton, Submachine Gun
-Skills: Marksmanship, Stealth, and Investigation
-Bio: He was a detective investigating an odd string of homicides inside the city walls. Since he was just a detective, he was not on the front lines when the walls fell and the zombies ran in. He survived by hiding in an old church.
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