The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: The best laid plans…
By Liam O'Leary
You can have the best plans in a zombie apocalypse, but, as Rick is learning in The Walking Dead, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”.
If you’ve been following my lessons on surviving the zombie apocalypse long enough, you know by now how important I believe having plans for one is. It is vital. Going into any dangerous situation half-cocked is a recipe for disaster, doubly so if said situation involves zombies.
That said, we don’t live in a perfect world, and, as such, our plans, even our best ones, can completely turn to mud on us if we’re careless, short-sighted, or unable to adapt, and, in this week’s The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week, I intend to show just how.
First and foremost: There are simply some things that you just can’t control, things like the weather. You can’t control the weather, and you can’t (At least, not completely) control what weather does to your
environment as it passes through.
Rainstorms can cause flash floods or mudslides, for example; A long, hot summer can cause droughts; Atmospheric phenomena on the other side of the continent can affect you for months without you even knowing why.
Right alongside this problem is the fact that there will be some things in a zombie apocalypse that you may not be able to predict.
You can’t necessarily predict when a tree falls in the woods, or when a rock slide might happen, and their sounds draw the attention of zombies miles away. How could you? Unless you were to inspect every square mile of forest or hills surrounding you, it would be nearly impossible.
That said, while these things may be out of your control, or otherwise unpredictable, they are possible, and, because of this, you should try to come up with some kind of contingency plans for these sorts of extreme situations so that, should such things occur, you have some idea of how to respond to it.
Even with the best plans, you need to always keep in mind that you are in a zombie apocalypse, and, well…the dead don’t really follow plans.
A plan for dealing with some problems could be excellent, but, as I just said, all it takes is one sound (One you might not even know happened) to set a herd of zombies shambling towards you and turn your plan to total garbage.
Because of this, it becomes crucial to familiarize yourself with your environment as best as possible, so that, should this happen, you know where to try to direct them so that you can lead them away from your group, or, better still, into some kind of pre-made trap for handling large numbers of the dead.
As bad as dealing with zombies that don’t go with the plan can be, dealing with people that don’t go with the plan, can be even worse.
People can be total unpredictable, and even if they’re in on your plan, whether that’s a battle strategy or a long-term civic plan, can decide “Screw it” and completely throw a monkey wrench into your carefully laid out plan. Just because you have a plan, doesn’t mean people will follow that plan.
What this also means is that, no matter what you may think of your plan, no plan is foolproof, i.e., no plan is impervious to some dingus coming around, having plans of their own (That you didn’t know about), and completely screwing up whatever plan you had.
Lastly, if you think you have a “perfect” plan, think twice about it. Once you’re done thinking about it, try to gauge the reactions of all the people around you, be they friend or foe, as best as you can before deciding to execute it.
Why?
Well, you see, how someone reacts can easily make or break your plan. For example: In World War II, the Japanese high command expected the United States to stay out of their way after the attack on Pearl Harbor, instead, the attack galvanized an otherwise isolationist U.S. into jumping into war, a miscalculation that caused the Japanese Empire to eventually collapse.
If someone reacts to your plan in a way counter to what you’d hoped, you could wind up with your whole plan being burnt to the ground as either a friend undermines it, or it galvanizes an enemy to continue fighting when they might otherwise have surrendered.
A plan isn’t perfect if you don’t know how people will react to it.
dark. Next. The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Some things DON'T die
And that’s our survival rule of the week!! Hopefully, it’ll help you give you that mental edge that will prove so crucial once the dead start eating everyone.
If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!