Epidemiologists studying what a real zombie apocalypse might look like in the U.S. have
that repeatedly bears two pieces of advice: no matter where the trouble starts: 1) avoid big cities, and 2) head for the hills.
The advice could seemingly also apply to other scenarios, such as war, or terrorist attacks like the one promised in an ISIS video for New York City:
When the zombie apocalypse comes, those in big cities are in trouble. Starting in a big city like New York would mean you are basically screwed from the start, according to Alex Alemi, a graduate student at Cornell University and part of the research team. You are much better off starting further away from people
"Modeling zombies takes you through a lot of the techniques used to model real diseases, albeit in a fun context," Alemi
said in a February statement.
"At their heart, the simulations are akin to modeling chemical reactions taking place between different elements and, in this case, we have four states a person can be in — human, infected, zombie, or dead zombie — with approximately 300 million people."
Specifically, the statistical mechanics developed for the simulation model were based on the book "World War Z," which also inspired a film of the same name. Sorry, "Walking Dead" fans.
According to Tech Insider, Alemi and his team modeled the possible interactions between the four groups with an element of randomness.
"A zombie might bite and infect a human or the person might escape or kill the creature," Tech Insider explained. The interactive model "allows you to simulate an outbreak, picking a starting point, a zombie-bite to zombie-kill ratio, and whether the zombies are fast or slow."
The interactive model does make some assumptions, such as the total collapse of transportation infrastructure.
"Given the time, we could attempt to add more complicated social dynamics to the simulation, such as allowing people to make a run for it, include plane flights, or have an awareness of the zombie outbreak, etc.," Alemi said.
In any case, no matter where the outbreak starts, the model repeatedly shows that, in the long run, mountainous, sparsely-populated areas provide the least chance of infection — especially the Rocky Mountains.
"Given the dynamics of the disease, once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down — there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate," Alemi explained. "I'd love to see a fictional account where most of New York City falls in a day, but upstate New York has a month or so to prepare."
In the book-turned-TV-show "The Man in the High Castle," an alternative world history is offered in which the Allies lost World War II in which the Japanese take the West, the Germans take the East, and the Rocky Mountains are left as a "Neutral Zone."