Of course, if you really want to avoid the problem of having to fend of vampires from the unreliable safety of a vampire-proof bunker that's bound to fail eventually, you could just jump the cue and become a vampire earlier in the piece. No messy, being-pulled-to-pieces-by-vampiric-hoards scenes, that way.
Ever since I read Matheson's I Am Legend, I've found the movie adaptations a bit, well, wimpy. They completely chicken out on the ending. Both The Omega Man with Charlton Heston and I am Legend with Will Smith insist on bringing in a real live human girl (forgive the spoilers, but I can assure you there ain't no human girl in the book) and a promise of an enclave of human survivors. Neville's great contribution to the world is helping humanity.
Pfft!
In the book, it turns out that he's pretty much the last man standing - and he had the situation all wrong. He wasn't a lone human holding out against mindless monsters that were trying to eat him (although they kind of were trying to eat him); he was a scary serial killer murdering innocent vampires in their sleep.
In the book, everyone who survived the plague became a vampire. Everyone. Neville was really the only exception (that we know of). What was left of society went a little crazy for a short time (well, wouldn't you if you had died and suddenly everyone was a vampire - including you?), and then they got over it.
It's such a brilliantly simple idea. If everyone is a vampire, then vampires are the normal people. You get over it and get on with it. You form yourself a nice little vampiric society where you don't have to worry about being attacked by the vampires. The only thing you have to worry about is the occasional human serial killer who goes around staking vampires in their sleep.
But those Hollywood types do like to hold out hope for humanity...
Showing posts with label vampires. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vampires. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Things to keep you awake at night
You know, it's no wonder I have difficulty getting to sleep most nights. I have so many deeply important things to think about and worry over.
Why, take last night, for example. I was lying in bed for a good hour, wondering how one could convince Australian primary schools to teach Esperanto in years 4, 5 and 6 (I now have a plan - but I'm not sure why), and then I spent some time thinking about the perfect vampire-proof bunker.
These things are important, and it's a good idea to think about them ahead of time. You don't want to be stuck in a vampire or zombie infested dystopian town without a good plan for how to hunker down and survive the inevitable attacking hoards.
Granted, the odds that I'll actually find myself as the protagonist of an I Am Legend type situation are slim, but you can never be too careful.
Obviously, you want to avoid any of the horror movie cliches that would be involved in using a traditional bunker or storm cellar. Eventually, if you have a bolt-hole that's naturally dark, you will come home at the wrong time to find something lurking in the dark. Vampires like dark places, and therefore have the natural advantage.
No, you want it to be full of natural light - so, above ground, away from trees and things that can cast shadows, and plenty of windows. At the same time, you don't want the windows to be the weak point of the design. Strong (thick steel) walls and roof with a lot of thin windows and skylights consisting of thick glass bricks should do the trick. It probably wouldn't hurt to have a couple of spots where you could pull back a small section of steel wall and use it as a gun sight for a rifle or a flame thrower. It just needs to be too small to fit a hand through.
There would need to be plenty of ventilation that could be quickly sealed off - both electronically and by hand. Redundant methods of everything. That's always the weakest point in any plan - relying on only one way to do anything. If the ventilation can only be closed electronically, and the vampires think of trying something when the generator is off-line...
It's probably an idea if you don't rely too much on a generator, anyway. There's got to be a way you can keep a stock of batteries charged, and have enough firewood and tinder to keep things lit even without power. Using fire would create smoke, though, which could blacken the windows. Better make sure everything is easy to clean.
Still on the concept of ventilation, it would probably help to have some stores of oxygen in the bunker - as long as you understood that they would, of course, eventually explode, and made sure they were positioned so that any explosion would cause more harm to the vampires than to you.
I think a few bolt-holes within the bolt-holes wouldn't be bad for business, either. A number of holes in the ground with skylights (and mirrors to amplify whatever natural light can get in) - each equipped with water, sugar and battery-powered sunlamps. If the vampires manage to get into the bunker you can jump down the nearest hole and seal the trap-door. Then, it would be handy if you had a number of methods for torching everything above ground. Mind you, if you have designed the bunker well enough in terms of picking up natural light, you really only have to wait until morning (as long as you are definitely fighting vampires, rather than zombies)...
Still, redundancies are always the way to go.
So, it would be useful if you had more than one door into the bunker (and perhaps a tunnel) as long as you understood that each door (and definitely the tunnel) could be the weak point that dooms you to vampire lunch, and prepared accordingly with redundant methods of killing anything that gets through any entrance (understanding, of course, that they could be used against you - or result in a terribly unfortunate accident).
It would also be handy if you had a way to tell if anyone was already in the bunker before you opened any of the doors. A lack of interior walls would be good, but at the same time it might not be a bad idea to have a series of heavy-duty tables that could be overturned to make "emergency walls" when necessary for shooting things from behind a low wall.
The point is to always assume everything will fail, and have a number of alternatives available.
Then your biggest concern will always be making sure you get back before dark...
Why, take last night, for example. I was lying in bed for a good hour, wondering how one could convince Australian primary schools to teach Esperanto in years 4, 5 and 6 (I now have a plan - but I'm not sure why), and then I spent some time thinking about the perfect vampire-proof bunker.
These things are important, and it's a good idea to think about them ahead of time. You don't want to be stuck in a vampire or zombie infested dystopian town without a good plan for how to hunker down and survive the inevitable attacking hoards.
Granted, the odds that I'll actually find myself as the protagonist of an I Am Legend type situation are slim, but you can never be too careful.
Obviously, you want to avoid any of the horror movie cliches that would be involved in using a traditional bunker or storm cellar. Eventually, if you have a bolt-hole that's naturally dark, you will come home at the wrong time to find something lurking in the dark. Vampires like dark places, and therefore have the natural advantage.
No, you want it to be full of natural light - so, above ground, away from trees and things that can cast shadows, and plenty of windows. At the same time, you don't want the windows to be the weak point of the design. Strong (thick steel) walls and roof with a lot of thin windows and skylights consisting of thick glass bricks should do the trick. It probably wouldn't hurt to have a couple of spots where you could pull back a small section of steel wall and use it as a gun sight for a rifle or a flame thrower. It just needs to be too small to fit a hand through.
There would need to be plenty of ventilation that could be quickly sealed off - both electronically and by hand. Redundant methods of everything. That's always the weakest point in any plan - relying on only one way to do anything. If the ventilation can only be closed electronically, and the vampires think of trying something when the generator is off-line...
It's probably an idea if you don't rely too much on a generator, anyway. There's got to be a way you can keep a stock of batteries charged, and have enough firewood and tinder to keep things lit even without power. Using fire would create smoke, though, which could blacken the windows. Better make sure everything is easy to clean.
Still on the concept of ventilation, it would probably help to have some stores of oxygen in the bunker - as long as you understood that they would, of course, eventually explode, and made sure they were positioned so that any explosion would cause more harm to the vampires than to you.
I think a few bolt-holes within the bolt-holes wouldn't be bad for business, either. A number of holes in the ground with skylights (and mirrors to amplify whatever natural light can get in) - each equipped with water, sugar and battery-powered sunlamps. If the vampires manage to get into the bunker you can jump down the nearest hole and seal the trap-door. Then, it would be handy if you had a number of methods for torching everything above ground. Mind you, if you have designed the bunker well enough in terms of picking up natural light, you really only have to wait until morning (as long as you are definitely fighting vampires, rather than zombies)...
Still, redundancies are always the way to go.
So, it would be useful if you had more than one door into the bunker (and perhaps a tunnel) as long as you understood that each door (and definitely the tunnel) could be the weak point that dooms you to vampire lunch, and prepared accordingly with redundant methods of killing anything that gets through any entrance (understanding, of course, that they could be used against you - or result in a terribly unfortunate accident).
It would also be handy if you had a way to tell if anyone was already in the bunker before you opened any of the doors. A lack of interior walls would be good, but at the same time it might not be a bad idea to have a series of heavy-duty tables that could be overturned to make "emergency walls" when necessary for shooting things from behind a low wall.
The point is to always assume everything will fail, and have a number of alternatives available.
Then your biggest concern will always be making sure you get back before dark...
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