The convention is under attack by zombies!

[Glitch]

Question:  Wold weapons have to be "Peace Bonded"?  ::)

Unfortunately yes. Even though flesh eating corpses are coming at us and ready to eat everybody in the convention center alive, we still have to follow con rules.

[Barnes]

I think we might be fine as long as within the convention there's a cosplayer wearing a red jacket with black stripes and knows how to dance.

That's what I was trying to say. Good job, dude.

[Glitch]

I think we might be fine as long as within the convention there's a cosplayer wearing a red jacket with black stripes and knows how to dance.

That's what I was trying to say. Good job, dude.

Oh crap. I forgot you wrote that. ^_^;

[Alyxiane]

Question:  Wold weapons have to be "Peace Bonded"?  ::)

Unfortunately yes. Even though flesh eating corpses are coming at us and ready to eat everybody in the convention center alive, we still have to follow con rules.

Which pretty much means that we still have to abide our lovely weapons policy. There goes my fantasy on using an actual weapon when defending myself and others. Shall we improvise the "weapons" then?

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

Thats why I went to Costco.

[Glitch]

Question:  Wold weapons have to be "Peace Bonded"?  ::)

Unfortunately yes. Even though flesh eating corpses are coming at us and ready to eat everybody in the convention center alive, we still have to follow con rules.

Which pretty much means that we still have to abide our lovely weapons policy. There goes my fantasy on using an actual weapon when defending myself and others. Shall we improvise the "weapons" then?

It also depends if your willing to follow con rules when the dead try to eat you. I would risk a con banning if it meant not being mauled from every direction.
In a more serious tone, the dealers who sell swords would be a good resource for melee weapons. The swords and axes aren't as effective as the real thing but they're still good enough to slice through and bash heads. And of course the airsoft guns that are sold(not sure if they still sell them) would be just minor annoyances for the zombies.

[Dragon Ninja]

We'll need to get people who have experience dealing with zombies like Ash from Evil Dead or Hellboy or anyone from Resident Evil.

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

By playing Resident Evil does that mean I have experience with Zombies?
And I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me that any media involving zombies most people are stupid past the main characters, which just use common sense. In theory, Zombies should be easy to deal with if you keep stupids away and use common sense.

[G.I.R]

Question:  Wold weapons have to be "Peace Bonded"?  ::)

Unfortunately yes. Even though flesh eating corpses are coming at us and ready to eat everybody in the convention center alive, we still have to follow con rules.

Which pretty much means that we still have to abide our lovely weapons policy. There goes my fantasy on using an actual weapon when defending myself and others. Shall we improvise the "weapons" then?

I guess I could throw a CHAIR!

[Menchi]

The Big 5 to Costco plan is sound in theory alone.  You're going to run into the human factor, which in all honesty can be more dangerous than the zombies.  You know how zombies are going to act, you only think you know how humans will.  You are not the only one that's going to think to go to a Big 5 for some weapons.  Will you be the first one there?  Will other people be there when you get there?  Will those people be willing to share?  Unless you happen to be outside a closed Big 5/weapons store/etc when the zombie outbreak happens, that part of the plan probably won't work out the way you'd want it to.  I say closed because you're probably going to have a hard time robbing them if there are employees there.  Though I suppose Big 5 is really just retail, so they probably wouldn't put up too much of a fight.  

Costco is a little better of a plan.  Most fools when pressed with the thought of the zombie apocalypse think they're gonna go load up on guns at the local "free guns to you and only you because no one else is thinking to try and get guns now, depot."  Costco is a little more subtle.  Plenty of supplies, big steel roll-up doors.  Once you can get it locked down zombies will be hard pressed to get in.  It's a great place to be if you can manage it.  Key word if.  San Jose has a million people in it.  Never mind if any of them are thinking of going to Costco, that's still a lot of people panicking and trying to get somewhere.  You think traffic is bad during rush hour?  Navigation through the city is going to be a nightmare.  Also there's no guarantee that you'll be the first one there.  It might already be locked down once you get there.  Whether the people inside are willing to let you in or not is a crap shoot.

Then again, there's also the variable of the outbreak itself.  How quickly do people find out about it?  How fast are they identified as "zombies?"  At what point does mass panic spread through the city?  How quickly are the zombies themselves spreading the infection.  Any of these factors can make Big 5 or Costco viable or impossible.  


As to the con itself, we're all dead.  Fifteen thousand plus otakus (2009 attendance) and some convention staff?  Good luck trying to coordinate anything and making it happen.  Once the zombie threat becomes real (banging at the doors, first person bit, etc) there's going to be mass chaos.  The asshole intelligent ones will probably have abandoned the group long before it ever got to that point.  Best of luck to the noble ones in trying to organize the masses.  

Of course, the scenario presented allows for time to fortify.  So let's play with it a bit.  First and foremost a chain of command has to be established.  Someone(s) has to be able to step up into a leadership position and start handing out orders.  People are stupid, they will fsck "it" up without direction.  For the amount of people involved, you're going to need a large group to manage everyone.  The best way to handle this would be to just have Fanime Staff take over.  In no way am I saying they would be the best suited for handling the oncoming zombie apocalypse, but they already have an established hierarchy of sorts.  Imagine fifteen thousand people trying to decide on a few hundred people they want to lead them.  It just isn't viable.  For better or worse we rely on Fanime Staff to run this, because it's the only way anything could get done.  Different departments would be assigned to handling different groups of con goers.  Not sure how many departments there are so for the sake of easy numbers we're going to say that there are fifteen.  This means each department would be in charge of a thousand people each.  Even with a pre-established set of leaders, it's still not going to be easy.  Naturally each department head would have to recruit more into their ranks to manage that many people.  Good luck.  Oh, and this is all conveniently ignoring the fact that there are going to be a few thousand people who think they know how to handle the zombies better than the people put in charge.  Never mind that the convention center staff probably won't want to be forced into listening to the people that make Fanime happen.

The idea of destroying the stairs and escalators and giving up on the first floor is almost a good idea.  Unfortunately those stairs aren't the only way to the second floor.  Behind the Exhibit Halls are loading docks with ramps on the outside of the building leading up (assuming this pdf I'm looking at is accurate)  But if we're assuming that we can break down the stairs and escalators to be unusable, then I see no reason why we can't blast the concrete and steel ramp out from the back of the con.  Cutting off elevators is easy, just summon them all to the second floor and pull the emergency stop levers.  I would recommend breaking them.  You don't want the option available for zombies to get up.  This is unfortunate, since without stairs or elevators, it's going to be very difficult to get in and out of our area.  Though on the meta, scenario is for the most part won at that point.  The survivors can live for the four days presented without food and drink until the military arrives and cleans house.  In reality, you're going to run into all kinds of problems.  Even if we know the time line, giving up food and drink for four days is not going to be easy.  You run into that pesky human thing again.  People are going to get restless.  They're trapped on a floor with thousands and thousands of people.  Below them they have countless zombies hungering for the flesh of the living.  They're also hungry, thirsty, and probably exhausted.  Factor in that even though we all enjoy anime, we don't all get along.  Something is likely going to break at some point.  

Having access to the hotels attached to the convention center would help in at least spreading people out to avoid inner conflict.  We're going to assume that we somehow obtained access to all the rooms.  Perhaps the electronic locks are all turned off and people will have to rely on dead bolts.  The safest way to deal with the hotels would be to destroy the stairs leading to the first floor and disable the elevators (again, we don't want to give any remote chance for zombies to get to our level).  Anyone who wants to go to a higher floor will have to leg it.  This also, assuming the plumbing still works, makes it a lot easier to ration water to everyone.  I imagine most everyone will want to be on the lower floors so they don't have to walk up as many flights of stairs (personally, I'm heading to the top floor.  If zombies manage to get to us, they're going to have a long way before they can even think about chewing on me).  This group will have to facilitate the distribution of people.  

Even with all that there's likely a thousand and a half factors that I've missed.  And that's why I don't think we'd survive.  There's just too much room for shit to hit our fan.  

Personally I'm just gonna get three of my friends together.  Three of us will grab uzis, one of us will take a shotgun for witches, then we'll run out into the city in search of the next saferoom. 

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

Well the Human Factor Fs everything away anyways.

While there will certainly be people who will see Costco as a defensible position, many people won't, simply do to not having any idea what to do in a situation with the living dead. Most people don't know what to do when the Undead rise, and certainly won't have enough time to work a plan very well, unlike most of us who likely understand how zombies function and may already have a plan laid out. Then there are the crazys like me who may have one or two survival kits made for this purpose (one to keep in the house, the other in the car, of course).

Personally, the basis of my plans are based on the most ideal circumstances for the situation. Navigating out of Downtown would be difficult (though after that as long as you stay off of main roads, travel carefully, and are lucky you should be able to make it around), and attempting to going anywhere in San Jose would be suicidal. The smarter thing to do is to get to smaller towns, if not stay away from them all together. Supplies are a must however, so your best chance would be a backwater gas station or liquor store at first. Besides that a average how could actually fortify against zombies quite easily with a little work, which you have time to do being outside of any major population centers.

My main image of Costco/Big5 would be the one in the town over which is very small however. The infection would take time to get to these areas from major cities, so there would be time to get to said Costco/Big5 before it would risk trapping yourself and getting infected. This assumes however that it does not hit the country/world equally at once.

[DentyneIce408]

The best plan for Big 5/Costco is not Big 5 to Costco. It's Big 5 to Walmart! San Jose is a bloody death trap for any experienced survivalist but in Morgan Hill the survival rate it 10x more then San Jose.

1. Small town = Less people to deal with.
2. Open fields = Better, safer routes
3. RV's Galore = Morgan Hill is filled with RVs, which makes it a great backup plan.
4. Big 5 to Walmart = They're both running distance from each other.

What more can I say?

>_< Sorry, if this topic went from survivng in FanimeCon to just straight out surviving. Good Luck to all trying to survive in FanimeCon. By the looks of it Escape is close to impossible and think about the food supplies?

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

As a Native to Morgan Hill I can say one thing:
Are Walmart sucks. No, I mean it is literly the worst Walmart I've ever been to, ever. And I F-in love Walmart. Plus I don't believe it has any shutters for the store so all we got is glass, carts, and merchandise for barricading. There is not as much food that will last very long either.
I'd rather go to Gilroy and it's Costco. Costco is known to have Hunting Crossbows, Bats and the like last time I checked anyways so it is just as good. Or at least it's Super Walmart.

This is the first I here of Morgan Hill having Open Fields. Inside town I can only think of 3, which are in not very savory positions either. We do got a okay amount of RV lots, though mainly on the edge of town as far as I can remember.

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

A leader you say?



Oh wait...

[DentyneIce408]

This is the first I here of Morgan Hill having Open Fields. Inside town I can only think of 3, which are in not very savory positions either. We do got a okay amount of RV lots, though mainly on the edge of town as far as I can remember.

The outskirts of Morgan Hill towards San Jose. I know Walmart isn't as well barricaded as Costco but still better then nothing. Or I'll do what they did in Dawn of the Dead and block it with an RV.

[Runewitt]

if it breaks out early enough.. say day zero, i can stay at work and barricade everything there. movie theatres are more secure than you think.

[kookiekween99]

I love the intense thought being put into this.

I actually wouldn't try to be heroic or anything like that. I figure everybody else is going to try to be the hero, so I'll just try to stay calm and not be the idiot who gets everyone killed. I can survive on just ramen and water rations. If I start getting irritated, I just go up to my hotel room and chill for a bit.

[Sunara Ishi]

Too many entrances and exits. Probably good for supply runs but not for holding out...

And some of the conference rooms would be death traps... I say the anime ones would be better; some of those have "secret" exits. But I don't know how they'd hold up against a horde.

Nevermind that there are too many people at con; more people=more chance someone will get infected or do something stupid that'll kill us all.

I agree with Menchi, we'd be doomed.

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

While Zombies are strong, I don't think they would have the coordination to apply that strength to breaking a door down very easily. A decent door, perhaps reinforced with a barricade would easily hold against a swarm.

My 2cp.

[Runewitt]

While Zombies are strong, I don't think they would have the coordination to apply that strength to breaking a door down very easily. A decent door, perhaps reinforced with a barricade would easily hold against a swarm.

My 2cp.

"Beware the power of stupid people in large groups."