Can a Zombie freeze?
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Deacon
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Freezing would rupture the body's cells, rendering them useless. Unless these are supernaturally animated zombies like bagheadinc's magical zombies that don't have any working circulatory or respiratory systems.
The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. - Helen Rowland, A Guide to Men, 1922
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bagheadinc
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What's magical about it (other than the fact that they are living dead people)? The virus infects the host and mutates cells with different energy creating organelles, thus eliminating the need for oxygen and the blood stream. This is a reason that zombies can walk under water (ex. Lucio Fulci's Zombie (Zombi 2), zombie vs. shark). And then there are zombies that have been decapitated; the body dies, but the head remains living...does a head have circulatory and respiratory systems, I'm going to go with a no.
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Negative Polarity
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Different energy creating organelles that don't use oxygen...? As in the zombies use anaerobic respiration like yeasts do? There are so many things wrong with that, the least of which is that we'd have a bunch of fermenting zombies running around.
"Hey, Bob! We're outta beer!"
"Time to crack open another zombie!"
"Hey, Bob! We're outta beer!"
"Time to crack open another zombie!"
My slow descent into madness seems to have abruptly become a flaming plunge.
[quote="Arc Orion";p="602569"]Negative Polarity, you're a sick, sick bastard.[/quote]
[quote="Arc Orion";p="602569"]Negative Polarity, you're a sick, sick bastard.[/quote]
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Binks
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It really doesn't matter what kind of zombie it, Negative Polarity has it exactly right. Unless the zombie freezes in some kind of really extremely fast way the cells will rupture, and it doesn't matter if the zombie's biological systems are not useful anymore, slow freezing = destroyed cells = no special mitochondria, brain cells for the s-whatever virus to affect, no muscle cells to move etc.
I'm gonna have to go with Griff on this one, Alaska is the best Zombie Plan.
(RvB Planning to Fail)
I'm gonna have to go with Griff on this one, Alaska is the best Zombie Plan.
(RvB Planning to Fail)
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bagheadinc
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Cryogenic Society of America wrote:Thawing and warming have been studied much less than freezing. However, they can also induce cellular damage. During warming, in a frozen state, ice has a tendency to recrystalize at high subzero temperatures, to minimize the Gibbs free energy. Recrystalization will cause further disruption of the extracellular space and may disrupt the macroscopic structure of the tissue. During thawing, as ice melts, the extracellular solution can be briefly and locally hypotonic, causing water to enter some cells and expand them and rupture the membrane. When the thawing is rapid some cells may remain hypertonic at body temperature, which could induce metabolic disruption and additional damage.
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Binks
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[quote="Deacon";p="691125"]Binks, how does the speed of the freezing process affect whether it freezes?[/quote]
Man this took forever to find, I remember reading about it in a Popular Science some years ago but it seems to be not well known at the present time
Mainly I was throwing in the speed statements to avoid someone pointing out that very fast freezing zombies would likely allow them to continue living (or un-living I guess) because of the lack of ice crystal damage...
Man this took forever to find, I remember reading about it in a Popular Science some years ago but it seems to be not well known at the present time
Wiki link, could find other links but I spent enough time on this...Vitrification can also occur when starting with a liquid such as water, usually through very rapid cooling or the introduction of agents that suppress the formation of ice crystals. This is in contrast to ordinary freezing which results in ice crystal formation.
Mainly I was throwing in the speed statements to avoid someone pointing out that very fast freezing zombies would likely allow them to continue living (or un-living I guess) because of the lack of ice crystal damage...
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Negative Polarity
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I don't think any scientific rationalization applies to magically created zombies (Necromancy, not voodoo). Magically created zombies can do things like move around without a head, or rip off a hand and have it go scuttling across the floor without it's host body. Strip the flesh from a magical zombie and what've you got? A magically animated skeleton capable of moving without muscles at all. In this case, freezing it would probably only stop it's movement until it thaws out... or you do enough hitpoint damage to kill it (again). 
My slow descent into madness seems to have abruptly become a flaming plunge.
[quote="Arc Orion";p="602569"]Negative Polarity, you're a sick, sick bastard.[/quote]
[quote="Arc Orion";p="602569"]Negative Polarity, you're a sick, sick bastard.[/quote]
Neg, not quite, Supernaturally animated zombies are animated flesh, so stripping them to bones would effectively kill them. I think the rational for shooting them in the head is it destroys motor control.
HTRN
HTRN
EGO partum , proinde EGO sum
[quote="Scowdich";p="726085"]Karl Rove's hurricane machine stole my lunch money.[/quote]
[quote="Scowdich";p="726085"]Karl Rove's hurricane machine stole my lunch money.[/quote]
amlthrawn wrote:This was no ordinary rooster. He had a look about him.
Shooting them in the head to kill them (which doesn't work on all zombies) is a means of the creator of that line of fiction giving them a weakness / the ability to be defeated. It gives the heroes a fighting chance. Some poorly devised stories / movies even involve zombies which are magical in nature (rise from the dead due to hell being full) and yet can be destroyed by a shot to the head, which is defined as an action to destroy the brain.
If zombie fiction is done in a "logical" sense, as far as the topic can be considered logical, a magical zombie would be all but unstoppable by anyone without superior magic. Be that magical weapons, spells, a more powerful zombie, etc.
In pen and paper RPG's, for example, you need magical weapons to damage most zombies. That isn't because they don't take a scratch otherwise. It's because you're breaking down the magic that binds the zombie and keeps it animated.
In terms of zombies rising from the grave due to their being no room in hell, that suggests that it's a supernatural (magical) force. One could even assume that a portion of, if not all of, the original inhabitant's spirit is reinhabiting, and therefor reanimating, the corpse into it's zombie form... since it was denied entry to hell and returned to earth and animated a corpse and all that jazz. If that's the case, only destroying the supernatural forces that animate the zombie you're fighting, or destroying the connection between that zombie and said supernatural force, would destroy the zombie. However, many authors avoid this in an effort to not turn zombie movies / books / stories into religious outtings. So they simply include the generally accepted "destroy the brain" method of fighting back and... viola.
In either case the corpse itself is nothing more than a vehicle, of sorts. It's a tool... and one that doesn't need to function properly to be useful. Disabling that tool through physical means can limit its ability to hurt you, but it does nothing to the force(s) behind it.
Chemically created zombies are almost always described as some kind of chemical or radiation that reanimates the nervous system. If that was the case, destroying the brain would incapacitate them. The nervous impulses could arguably continue randomly in limbs, but with no sense of control whatsoever. In some fiction this causes complete loss of "life" to the zombie. In others it's different. And in others even chemically reanimated zombies can lose a limb and have that limb do things on its own, or even in conjunction with / controlled by the source corpse. Leaning yet again on the statement I made above, "because it's in the script".
Arguably the two most popular zombie series of all time are the Night/Dawn/Day/Land/Diary of the Dead series and the Return of the Living Dead series. Both stemmed from the same root movie, Night of the Living Dead. While the Dawn/Etc series takes a more mystical, almost supernatural approach to the zombies the Return of the Living Dead series takes on a more comical, "it was a plague created by the US army" approach.
In the one, it was either strange radiation from Venus or that hell filled up and the dead walked the earth as a result. I can't for the life of me recall whether or not one or the other was eventually found to be the actual cause, but I think it was left open to viewer discretion. In the series, destroying the brain disables / kills the zombie. At least a few times there were zombies who had been shot in the head who lay on the ground moving their eyes thereafter but were unable to move. The zombies in this series don't eat brains, per se, they simply attack the living around them. They are infectious and cause death. Anyone who dies eventually comes back as a zombie as a result (whether they die by zombie attack or not).
In the other, the more comical Return of the Living Dead series, the zombies eat brains. They can be very aware, if not near perfect likenesses of their formerly living selves (in one a guy reanimates his girlfriend after a motorcycle crash and she's normal... for a while... until the hunger sets in). And I seem to recall limbs wandering around on their own in the series. And yet, a shot to the head can end it. But I believe they can be reanimated again even after a shot to the head.
All in all... it's up to the author. Much of the fiction out there doesn't make sense (in regards to zombies) so you just have to take what the author provides with a grain of salt and get on with it. If I were writing a story involving zombies, they'd be pretty fuggin nasty and nearly unstoppable and would be magically / supernaturally created. And as such, freezing them would only postpone the inevitable.
...and yes I know my spelling sucks. Deal with it.
If zombie fiction is done in a "logical" sense, as far as the topic can be considered logical, a magical zombie would be all but unstoppable by anyone without superior magic. Be that magical weapons, spells, a more powerful zombie, etc.
In pen and paper RPG's, for example, you need magical weapons to damage most zombies. That isn't because they don't take a scratch otherwise. It's because you're breaking down the magic that binds the zombie and keeps it animated.
In terms of zombies rising from the grave due to their being no room in hell, that suggests that it's a supernatural (magical) force. One could even assume that a portion of, if not all of, the original inhabitant's spirit is reinhabiting, and therefor reanimating, the corpse into it's zombie form... since it was denied entry to hell and returned to earth and animated a corpse and all that jazz. If that's the case, only destroying the supernatural forces that animate the zombie you're fighting, or destroying the connection between that zombie and said supernatural force, would destroy the zombie. However, many authors avoid this in an effort to not turn zombie movies / books / stories into religious outtings. So they simply include the generally accepted "destroy the brain" method of fighting back and... viola.
In either case the corpse itself is nothing more than a vehicle, of sorts. It's a tool... and one that doesn't need to function properly to be useful. Disabling that tool through physical means can limit its ability to hurt you, but it does nothing to the force(s) behind it.
Chemically created zombies are almost always described as some kind of chemical or radiation that reanimates the nervous system. If that was the case, destroying the brain would incapacitate them. The nervous impulses could arguably continue randomly in limbs, but with no sense of control whatsoever. In some fiction this causes complete loss of "life" to the zombie. In others it's different. And in others even chemically reanimated zombies can lose a limb and have that limb do things on its own, or even in conjunction with / controlled by the source corpse. Leaning yet again on the statement I made above, "because it's in the script".
Arguably the two most popular zombie series of all time are the Night/Dawn/Day/Land/Diary of the Dead series and the Return of the Living Dead series. Both stemmed from the same root movie, Night of the Living Dead. While the Dawn/Etc series takes a more mystical, almost supernatural approach to the zombies the Return of the Living Dead series takes on a more comical, "it was a plague created by the US army" approach.
In the one, it was either strange radiation from Venus or that hell filled up and the dead walked the earth as a result. I can't for the life of me recall whether or not one or the other was eventually found to be the actual cause, but I think it was left open to viewer discretion. In the series, destroying the brain disables / kills the zombie. At least a few times there were zombies who had been shot in the head who lay on the ground moving their eyes thereafter but were unable to move. The zombies in this series don't eat brains, per se, they simply attack the living around them. They are infectious and cause death. Anyone who dies eventually comes back as a zombie as a result (whether they die by zombie attack or not).
In the other, the more comical Return of the Living Dead series, the zombies eat brains. They can be very aware, if not near perfect likenesses of their formerly living selves (in one a guy reanimates his girlfriend after a motorcycle crash and she's normal... for a while... until the hunger sets in). And I seem to recall limbs wandering around on their own in the series. And yet, a shot to the head can end it. But I believe they can be reanimated again even after a shot to the head.
All in all... it's up to the author. Much of the fiction out there doesn't make sense (in regards to zombies) so you just have to take what the author provides with a grain of salt and get on with it. If I were writing a story involving zombies, they'd be pretty fuggin nasty and nearly unstoppable and would be magically / supernaturally created. And as such, freezing them would only postpone the inevitable.
...and yes I know my spelling sucks. Deal with it.
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Deacon
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[quote="LQDMTL";p="691240"]In terms of zombies rising from the grave due to their being no room in hell, that suggests that it's a supernatural (magical) force.[/quote]
Actually it suggests that hell is a physical place with restricted dimensions and that the line to get in makes the DMV seem efficient and quick-moving. It's a really terrible premise.
Actually it suggests that hell is a physical place with restricted dimensions and that the line to get in makes the DMV seem efficient and quick-moving. It's a really terrible premise.
The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. - Helen Rowland, A Guide to Men, 1922
[quote="Deacon";p="691245"][quote="LQDMTL";p="691240"]In terms of zombies rising from the grave due to their being no room in hell, that suggests that it's a supernatural (magical) force.[/quote]
Actually it suggests that hell is a physical place with restricted dimensions and that the line to get in makes the DMV seem efficient and quick-moving. It's a really terrible premise.[/quote]
Well, yes. But I wasn't going to start discussing the validity of a place called Hell itself. If you wanna argue something like that go hunt down the guy who wrote "The Seventh Sign" who claimed that heaven ran out of souls... same shit, and it's not my fiction.
However, it's one of the first reasons given for the zombie epidemic on tv in the movie Night of the Living Dead. Which, while not the first zombie movie / story, grandfathered much of the zombie fiction that's become popular since. Usually, though, it's easily chalked up as the ravings of religious lunatics who are trying to come to terms with a zombie plague... but at least in that series it's kept alive as a possibility.
Actually it suggests that hell is a physical place with restricted dimensions and that the line to get in makes the DMV seem efficient and quick-moving. It's a really terrible premise.[/quote]
Well, yes. But I wasn't going to start discussing the validity of a place called Hell itself. If you wanna argue something like that go hunt down the guy who wrote "The Seventh Sign" who claimed that heaven ran out of souls... same shit, and it's not my fiction.
However, it's one of the first reasons given for the zombie epidemic on tv in the movie Night of the Living Dead. Which, while not the first zombie movie / story, grandfathered much of the zombie fiction that's become popular since. Usually, though, it's easily chalked up as the ravings of religious lunatics who are trying to come to terms with a zombie plague... but at least in that series it's kept alive as a possibility.
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