Post-apocalyptic web series, The Silent City - Episode 02

[Video Link] Watch Episode 1.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Creepy.
Anthony Garcia

Been following this since Kickstarter. I hope they turn it into a TV show or a feature. Concept is great.
Boundegar

Nicely done, but you sure can’t squeeze much plot into 4 minutes.
Preston Sturges

I’ve never understood why the the post-apocalyptic future is short on guns and ammo, unless it’s England or something. On the Walking Dead, even the zombies should be packing heat.
- I_of_Horus
  
  I have a feeling that even in England the survivors have guns. Might take a (not very long) while, but people with guns have a way of coming out on top.
  - CSBD
    
    I concur… especially in the USA. I read somewhere that private gun owners have approximately 25x the number of guns owned by the army (far less tanks, jets and aircraft carriers though) and several hundred times the amount of ammo stockpiled.
    
    If there was an apocalypse, in the USA at least, there would be way more guns and ammo lying around than people… though the guns and ammo would be concentrated away from the inner cities. The people with the guns and ammo would also tend to be away from the Nuke target zones as well.
    
    Now if the apocalypse was a flu… then that would change things quite a bit. Resistance depends on numbers of people (more people, more chance someone is genetically/biologically imune)… so there would be more survivors of the flu in NYC than in some podunk town but the few survivors in the podunk town would be sitting on a mountain of guns and ammo.
    
    … and war, war never changes.
    - jim nualart
      
      All I know is that one would have a fair chance of finding guns and ammo by breaking apart and searching random crates and barrels. Both of which are easily found in anything but wilderness settings.
      - Preston Sturges
        
        probably 1/3 of the abandoned cars would have at least ammo in the trunk
- wizardru
  
  Am I missing something? On the Walking Dead, everybody is packing through most of the show. The only people who don’t have guns are the people who are denied them. The Walking Dead is FULL of guns. I mean, A LOT of guns. http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Walking_Dead,_The_(TV_Series)
  
  If you mean in the comics, well, there are plenty of them there, too. But it’s also made clear that guns are LOUD and zombies are attracted to sounds. Killing ONE zombie is easy…it’s the next ten or so that give you pause.
  - Preston Sturges
    
    The optimal weapon would be a 22 rifle, probably with a rudimentary suppressor. You never see that in a zombie movie, where someone in a window with a 22 clears the street Instead, we see children packing 9 mm pistols but it’s OK because they are able to make headshoots in the dark at 25 yards.
    
    If everyone had a 22 rifle, 8 people would be able to hold a lightly fortified position against a large herd of zombies.
    - CSBD
      
      NoNoNoNo…
      I saw on an episode of American Guns… it takes a really expensive .450 Smith and Wesson converted Lever Action Winchester with a Brass Skull Crusher to defeat “Zombies”.
      You cant spend $200 on a .22 rifle… you have to spend $8,000 on some gaudy phallic pseudo work of art that is nothing more than a boner substitute/proof you have too much money and not much sense.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      The optimal weapon would be a 22 rifle
      
      Yeah, that would be great. For zombie squirrels. Not much stopping power for human-sized enemies.
      - Preston Sturges
        
        If we go with mandatory brain-shot rule, a .22 rifle is just the ticket. the only difference is that if you are shooting a 9 mm or higher, you can shoot a person in the lower half of the face and have a reasonable chance of hitting the brain stem anyway after getting through the upper or lower jaw. The case could also be made for semiautomatic pistol caliber carbines (PCC) like the Baretta Storm in 9 mm or .40, but when you factor in the ability to find and transport 500 round bricks of 22 ammo, you gotto make .22s a mainstay.
        
        Keep in mind that the the Son Of Sam shot people in the head with a 44 magnum and only managed to kill half of them, mostly because he did not realize shooting someone in the temple is a bit of a myth. Not that the folks that lived were ever the same.
        
        American Guns is a horrible show. I’ve been to gun shows where there were hand engraved guns that belonged to Tsars and kings. The crap they do on American Guns is the quality of work I’d expect to on a beer mug engraved at a kiosk in the mall.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        When Reagan was shot, which happened to be during my revolutionary phase, we heard the news on television. One of our leadership group screamed, “A .22! A .22!!!! Why the fuck didn’t he use a .45?!?!?”
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Also, I hate rifles. I am just not built to use one.