Talk:World War Z/Archive 2

message: Does anyone else think that the "Howard Dean" character suggests (p. 147) that Barack Obama was the Democrats' first choice to serve as VP under Colin Powell?  Worth a mention?
I believe the President was Colin Powell.  The key clue is saying that the President has relatives in Jamaica, where Powell's family emigrated from.  Also, the VP (probably Howard Dean) mentions that the President was in the military.
Not my question.  I agree with both of those.  The VP says (p. 147):
I knew I wasn't the first choice.  I know who my party secretly wanted.  But America wasn't ready to go that far, as stupid, ignorant, and infuriatingly Neolithic as it sounds.  They'd rather have a screamind radical for a VP than another one of "those people."
So the Democratic party's "secret" choice was also black.  Is it bad that I assumed Obama?
165.123.184.181 14:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Really, all the speculation about who the unnamed characters are is original research, including the Colin Powell, Rudy Giulani, and Howard Dean characters. Unless someone provides a citation those statements should be removed from the article. Rray 15:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  Although the Obama stuff is a stretch and original research, as he said, the book said the president was in the military and had family from Jamaica.  Obviously a Colin Powell ref, as well as the Howard Dean stuff.  They can't come out and say this because of legal stuff, but don't hide behind the anti-original research stuff; I have fun seeing what the book is saying, not in enforcing wiki-rules for the sake of wiki-rules.  --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici 16:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While I agree that trying to figure out the real-world identities of some of the characters is speculation, I would keep it in so long as it makes reasonable, non-extravagant connections. The fact that Powell has relatives in Jamaica is hardly a secret or an unverified fact, and is therefore (in my opinion, at least), an reasonable connection to make. Jpouliot 21:03, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Barack Obama as first choice for VP? 

message: Just wanted to say that during the interview with the imprisoned "random government official" (his false name escapes me), he mentions a famous old leader hugging Paul Redeker.  This leader was named "Rolihlahla" in the book.  I don't think it's terribly common knowledge, but "Rolihlahla" is Nelson Mandela's middle name.
Shouldn't this get a mention in the "real life personalities" section? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.99.137.233 (talk) 22:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Rolihlahla" 

message: It mentions in this article that convential air forces are next to useless. Thats a bit misleading, if anything air forces in this type of situation would be extremely valueble in the ground support role. They would blow hordes of zombies into peices. Goldfishsoldier 01:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, in the book, the air force was pretty useless. Not only do the planes and helicopters consume a lot of fuel, but their ordinance wasn't particularly effective against the zombies (a bomb may blow a zombie apart, but unless it destroys the brain, the zombie is still a threat). EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

text: It is stated in both the article and the book that the Air Force was next to useless, as it guzzled up too many resources and, for reasons stated in the book, worthless for any direct military action. However, it should be noted that while the Air Force is deemed useless in a direct military role, it was extremely effective and almost crucial to air drop supplies into the numerous civilian Safe Zones.Hatedthirdborn 04:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

text: It mentions in this article that convential air forces are next to useless. Thats a bit misleading...
No, it's not the least bit misleading.  That's how it is in the book.  This article is not an article on the real-life physics of killing zombies, it is a synopsis of the book's key plot points. As 140.232.201.66 said, feel free to write your own book if you don't like the way this one portrays air force weaponry. — ceejayoz talk 00:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The world's air forces are next to useless against the zombies.  By "next to useless", that's "towards winning the war and stopping the zombie hoardes".  An individual zombie won't do well against a Commanche helicopter, but that's what we learned the hard way at the Battle of Yonkers:  in terms of tank-rounds and artillery, depleted uranium armor piercing rounds and such, they either 1-went right through the zombies, or 2-zombies don't have the internal body fluids which are supposed to get boiled alive by the heat and pressure like a living human.  Zombies are tough.  Explosions rely on mortally wounding a human; zombies can survive anything except a headshot.  -->Well, that was the armor and artillery.  What Yonkers taught us about air power was obvious:  when the ground infantry (who were never expected to do more than "mopping up" fighting) ended up fighting for their lives and the zombies were starting to over-run them, a full-scale air-drop by joint strike fighters on the zombie hoarde was ordered.  What did this do?  It *did* destroy literally tens of thousands of zombies.  Then the planes ran out of bombs.  And there was a hoarde of millions of zombies, the entire zombified population of the New York City infestation, closing in.  They destroyed maybe the first 100,000 or something.  And more just kept on coming, sheer weight of numbers.  ---->The book explicitly makes the point that yes, zombies can get vaporized, literally vaporized by plane-dropped bombs (not just tank artillery, I mean the heavy bomb stuff).  Problem is, they worked it out and statistically, the amount of time and resources spent on creating those bombs and maintaining and refueling the planes...an equal amount of resources could have been used to outfit an entire platoon of grunt infantryment, and statistically they would actually end up killing more zombies.  One bomb kills a few dozen zombies?  Versus the resources to supply a squad of soldiers who could ultimately destroy several hundred in the long run?  It asn't worth it..........of course, that's what part of Max Brook's satire was.  We go into the Iraq War thinking "we have the technological edge, we have total air superiority and higher technology, we've already won"...the Zombie War is the story of how we nearly get overwhelmed by an enemy that doesn't even know how to use clubs and rocks.  We "overthought" everything.  That was the mentality that caused the disaster at Yonkers; everything thought "wow, our planes can blow up the zombies really good".  Our cruise missiles can blow up stuff better than anything the Iraqi insurgency has, but we're still losing there.  It was a waste of resources......a better analogy that springs to mind is how we dropped many more times the amount of bombs we dropped in World War II onto Vietnam, but still ended up losing.  Think "Apocalypse Now" when Kilgore and his team end the day with fresh steak barbecues and cold beer; they're just not using the resources effectively, and worse, have grown overconfident.  --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici 23:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Effectiveness of air forces 

message: Is there any mention of what happen's in Oceania in the book? Goldfishsoldier 23:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They do say that the Australian government relocates to Tasmania.  It's not that Australia is a low-population island-continent....that's what the poor souls in Iceland thought.  You've got to think of the refugee problems.  Iceland seemed like the perfect hideout, so tons of refugees, many infected, ended up going there and many were infected, and now it's the world's biggest White Zone.  This is speculation, but I would guess that massive numbers of boat people from Indonesia tried to escape to Australia and only ended up adding to the zombie count on the island.  Yes, they do point out that the Maori managed to successfully fight off half of the Auckland infestation in a massive battle at One Tree Hill.  --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici 23:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oceania? 

message: I noticed that in the "Total War" Section of the article, it says:
"Further, advanced technology such as 21st century air combat forces proved incredibly ineffective, with the ratio of resources expended per zombies killed being woefully low."
Wouldn't it make more since if it said "woefully high"? Since the supplies are being divided by zombies killed in this ratio: 1 gallon of fuel/100 zombies is lower than 100 gallons of fuel/10 zombies. I've gone and changed it to "Further, advanced technology such as 21st century air combat forces proved incredibly ineffective, with the ratio of zombies killed per resources expended being woefully low." --Foe666 08:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ratio of resources expended to zombies "killed" 

message: We`need to mention quislings and laMOEs. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.253.237.151 (talk) 18:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, this section needs info about quislings, ferals, feral animals, and laMOEs (and possibly Robinson Curusoes).  There is also no mention of the K corp in the military. Cokomon 02:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Need more information

message: One interviewee from India criticizes the guide as having been too tailored towards Western society, seemingly to the slight indignation of the interviewer, the guide's author. 
I'm rewriting this sentence.  Though in the real world both books were in fact authored by Max Brooks, it never implicitly states in World War Z that the interviewer character authored the civilian survival guide.  If anything this was probably just an in joke for those who had read the Zombie Survival Guide.  If anyone can find a specific passage that directly links the interviewer and the guide then feel free to put it back in.  Levid37 11:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, in the "Radio Free Earth" section, when a man from India is being interviewed and says that the Zombie Survival Guide was very inadequate, "the interviewer" (Brooks) gets a little offended.  The Indian man explains that, logically, the book was obviously written by an American for an American audience, and contained advise on things like how to use your SUV (not as many cars per capita in other countries) or just casually advises what kind of guns to use when in other countries it is sometimes difficult to even get any guns at all; he made a good point.  --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici 23:37, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewriting a section

message: Why was the picture removed from the wepons section? 75.0.59.61 18:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I imagine because it was a poor-quality photo of someone holding some sort of gardening tool, which didn't match the description of the lobotomizer in the text, and added nothing to the article. --McGeddon 18:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  pic removeal 

message: this article is lacking sections on critical response and other such entries you'd expect on a work of fiction. In Britain for example it was positive recieved though their was criticism of the historical innaccurate description of Clement Attlee and the portrayal of Britain part in the pacific theatre of WW2.
I did think that was an odd comment-Atlee , as much as he is a relatively low profile politician-being the immediate successor to Chruchil, is considered  something of an understated hero as well-voted consistently as the best PM Britain had in the 20th century-due to his efforts to get Britains economy working again after the war, as well as establishing the jewell in the crown of the Britiah state-the NHS, hospitals free at the point of need, free from the cradle to the grave..........clearly the comments regarrding Attlee were written by an American lolGashmak 19:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clean up