NationStates: Z-Day 7

[NationStates News]

World Leaders, resistance cells, and diplomats: the secret WASP office of pseudoanimate preparedness has good news and bad news.

First, the good news. There are hours, nay, days before the world as we know it falls apart due to rising demand for and shrinking supply of brains. Also, some of our researchers have survived!

Their consensus recommendation of what you need to be empowered to handle this shambling business is intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. The intern who was the most experienced survivor was quite insistent on this. Without intelligence, even the smartest decision will be brainless! In other words, as the intern put it, "Braaaains!"

As the surviving researchers head home, the administrative staff here are hard at work on solutions to bring you more adequate intelligence.

What is the bad news, you ask? Well, that's a very good question. It will be addressed just as soon as we answer this scrabbling at our doors. Can't keep people waiting!

In the meanwhile, enjoy this helpful clock:

Zombie apocalypse begins in:

We're not sure of much, but we're sure of this countdown!

Our staff expects that once that clock reaches zero, vigilant regions will begin to close their borders and see a daring group of nations attempt to research a cure, while less vigilant regions will be overrun by shambling nightmares. In due course, 75-80% of the world population will die. No biggie.

Our staff are still examining notes from the office of pseudoanimatae preparedness to understand any new mutations or developments you need to know about.

What You Need to Know

• The zombie apocalypse will begin @@JGConfig::time_ago(1540929600, 1)@@ (click for local time)

• It will run for 33 hours, ending @@JGConfig::time_ago(1540929600+ (33 * 3600), 1)@@

• Zombies move between nations in the same region. This makes it important to be aware of what your neighbors are doing, as will be difficult for an individual nation to hold out in a heavily infected region. Each region will report its infection rate so that residents can make an informed choice about which are relatively safe and which are basically pools of pandemic-level z-virus.

• You have three options:

  • Exterminate the zombies with military force. This converts them into dead citizens, who pose no further risk to the living. It is very effective when you have lots of survivors and few zombies, and less effective when your military forces have mostly been eaten.

  • Research a cure, which helps to lower your region's infection rate. Enough nations working together can slow or stop the spread of zombies and even begin to turn infected back into survivors. However, this takes time and is most effective with test subjects and collaboration.

  • Embrace the zombie hordes, becoming part of the problem as you spread zombies all around your region. Eventually, of course, your hordes may run out of food and starve. This option isn't for everyone. But there's always someone.

  Your nation may also unlock superweapons over time. Once built, they can be manually deployed against targets of your choice by visiting their nation page and hitting the appropriate button.

  • Exterminating zombies develops Tactical Zombie Elimination Squads, who can enter other nations and kill zombies there.

  • Researching a cure develops Cure Missiles, which can be launched at other nations in order to convert zombies into survivors.

  • Embracing the undead develops Hordes, which can surge into other nations and infect their survivors.

  Superweapons can be deployed every 20 seconds. If you take a hit from a superweapon, the resulting chaos makes your own superweapon unavailable for a few minutes.

  When looking for targets, the World Censuses helpfully provided by the WA administrative complex may be of use:

  1. The Most Survivors
  2. The Most Zombies
  3. The Most Dead
  4. The Most Zombified (%)
  Note: while the number displayed for each nation should always be accurate, the ordering of nations by each census will be updated periodically, not live.

• During Z-Day, Founders and Delegates can close their region's borders at no Influence cost, sealing themselves off the from the world, and the plaintative cries of nations seeking refuge. It seems pretty harsh. You're just sitting there watching millions of people die. But zombie apocalypses demand tough choices.

The Z-Day Tally Board will track progress during Z-Day. Good luck!

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[Orioni]

Last year we did pretty good as a team. This year, however, I don't think staying up for an all-nighter will be possible.

How about you?

[NationStates News]

This is the secret WASP office of, well, zombie preparedness. The backup one. Here's the latest research from the latest researchers.

First, there's more good news! The lightly-gnawed upon notes of Professor Brooks indicate that with minor adjustments, your anti-zombie superweapons can be re-targeted to remove undead saboteurs from infiltrated command and control structures. This will restore the nation to its previous stance. Your allies and friends will be able to help you. You do have allies and friends, don't you?

Unfortunately, there is also bad news. Don't ask us how we know, but it's clear that strains of undead have developed which handle the absence of survivors better. They just don't die- Err.. They don't "de-animate", at least not as quickly. So if you're looking forward to the zombie problem just going away on its own... Sorry?

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[NationStates News]

We can now say with confidence that the undead menace has arrived. Despite all signs having been to the contrary, we now know there are zombies in every nation.

Whether because zombies are slow moving or because of someone's tardiness, not all nations were aware of zombies at the same time. Nations exploring their options before the appearance of zombies would have been unable to elect to build a zombie empire, and any selection they made before the appearance of the stumbling dead within their borders has been reset.

If you wish to cure or exterminate your zombies, double check that your selection is active!

Further information will be provided as we can.

View the full article

[NationStates News]

We can now say with confidence that the undead menace has arrived. Despite all signs having been to the contrary, we now know there are zombies in every nation.

Whether because zombies are slow moving or because of someone's tardiness, not all nations were aware of zombies at the same time. Nations exploring their options before the appearance of zombies would have been unable to elect to build a zombie empire, and any selection they made before the appearance of the stumbling dead within their borders has been reset.

If you wish to cure or exterminate your zombies, double check that your selection is active!

Further information will be provided as we can.

Update:

The parable of the zombie and the hare comes to mind.

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[NationStates News]

This is the end.

The more robust zombies outlasted their predecessors, and at the end of the day outnumbered the living.

Some regions, however, were safer than others. Kudos to the dozens of regions which completely eliminated the infection while retaining hundreds of billions to trillions of survivors, to the several which sheltered hundreds of billions to trillions without closing their borders, and to the many regions with similar numbers of survivors. The full leaderboard is available for your perusal.

So long, and thanks for all the brains!

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