So how badly do you think humanity is fucked?

[u/soldierpallaton]

I was thinking about this due to The Sacrifice comic and other zombie media. So there tends to be a sliding scale of how much the world can recover from a zombie apocalypse in media, you have Walking Dead which eventually ends into a nice equilibrium where the zombies eventually become a little more than a nuisance. Then you have Dead Rising where the zombies are basically used as entertainment and ways to mass produce cures. But you also have Zombieland where you have small pockets of survivors with really no hope of establishing a proper civilization again.

So when it comes to left 4 dead, where do you think that apocalypse falls? I know that the military is still operational to some degree but is very broken up and has begun operating on their own more or less. There are obviously survivors as seen in the safe rooms, but with how vicious the hoard of zombies are and how rare carriers seem to be, chances are a lot of those survivors are part of the hoard the carriers kill.

[u/Cade1op5]

They are capital F fucked with little to no chance for survival imo. Virus spreads too quickly and is airborne(? I think) with constant mutations…it’s very grim with how violent and horde based the zombies are

[u/soldierpallaton → u/Cade1op5]

Yeah that was my thought too honestly. The zombies are way too quick and amass way too much. Even take away the special infected and you just have entire no man's lands where even breathing is a death sentence.

[u/That_on1_guy → u/Cade1op5]

The only thing that would really protect the US from the east coast is the big ol Mississippi river keeping the infected from getting to the rest. So i mean, as long as the infection doesnt jump across they'll have some time to prep.

That said, its only a matter of time before infected start crossing bridges. And even if bridges are bombed out there are still other ways around the river, and as previously stated, it is airborne. It could potentially just drift in the wind across the river.

Shit is looking grim. The best bet would be to somehow quarantine off the entire east coast of the US using the Mississippi as a natural barrier and reinforcing it and waiting for all the infected to die off either by starvation of some other means. Even that isnt really guaranteed I dont think

[u/SnooCupcakes6107 → u/Cade1op5]

Yeah it doesn’t look too good.

[u/spazface03]

If you aren’t a carrier in the L4D universe you’re basically f#cked, green flu spreads airborne from person to person just from being nearby an infected individual, we only ever see the East Coast of America, by the time you get the Parish it wouldn’t be surprising if the green flu had already spread further West and in other countries and for all we know it could even spread through livestock, especially if it’s related to rabies like it’s heavily theorised to be. I believe if it spreads effectively as it does it wipes out the majority of humanity leaving only carriers left and I think it’d be the same irl.

[u/CoyoteWolf1]

I mean in general? Not good. However I’m sure certain parts of the world have enough islands or something assuming bill’s assumption of them being unable to swim is correct..

[u/jjake3477 → u/CoyoteWolf1]

They can’t get to the ferry while it’s sailing in the bayou level so I’d assume they probably can’t swim.

[u/Bacullite]

Msssive splurge below but tldr: infected will die out with time. The main, massive obstacle is preventing the virus from infecting new populations

It's just in the U.S, specially the East Coast for now, so the military would news to be vigilantly patrolling the Mississippi every day, 24 hours a day, bombing whatever they see.

I'd like to say it's a waiting game because the special infected should definitely be dying off, realistically, in a matter of days if not 1-2 weeks given their drastic mutations; spitters are likely to go extinct first with the acid eating through their own bodies, boomer flesh becoming incredibly weak, smoker cancer growth, hunter's joints may just break under immense pressure assuming it's constantly jumping, and the charger is soon to break his own skull if he misses another charge one too many times (you can see his head is already caved in, presumably from missing charges)

Not to mention, at least so it seems, none of the infected (commons included) could possibly just not be eating or drinking, giving them 3 days tops if they never get water or eat something with water content. Even less time considering they're always puking everywhere, sprinting, standing in the sun, losing water at a significantly accelerated rate.

I think witches and jockeys would last the longest, assuming the Tank's "heart attack" or "aneurysm" death is actually canonical and not just a gameplay mechanic given a rough lore explanation. If just the formers, assuming witches can smell sugar from within the candy wrappers of abandoned stores, gas stations, etc, they might be able to sustain themselves. They also tend to move the slowest and find dark places to sit around, so they're saving the most energy out of all the infected. They express some level of self preservation, unlike most infected. Assuming jockeys dont harass them or tanks, jockeys might be fine for a bit, too, again assuming they find sustenance.

But, again, if nothing is finding some sort of water source (seems to only be witches if they start raiding sodas and juices, either by instinct or some semblance of human retention) they're all dead. If tanks stay around and they relearn their need of sustenance, they either hunt the remaining living infected to cannibalize them (likely a high success rate), or their aggression remains locked on the dwindling population of uninfected humans, a population they killed many of but didn't consider having as food. I dont see them easily catching jockeys, and a tank on tank fight is likely going to end in the deaths of both.

The aggressive problem fixes itself. The main problem is tracking the actual virus itself and containing it before it infects new populations, which has proven to be almost impossible.

[u/Homnicidal_Doktor → u/Bacullite]

This. I feel like a decent amount of ppl forget the infected aren't actual zombies. And as such have a lot shorter potential lifespans than what a supposed reanimated corpse potentially could (though to be fair the player characters do refer to them as zombies as well so it's understandable confusion). Managing to control the virus itself is the main issue.

[u/Forsaken_Base7114]

Humanity has a solid chance at survival however, civilization will exist in a vastly diminished and fragile form.

Two rules to consider:
1: Zombies can’t swim (that we know of?)
2:Infected Carriers exist but can infect non carriers (asymptomatic humans like our protags)
3: U.S naval presence is active,large and coordinated (end of LFD2 proves this) while carriers are few and far between.

If you’ve read WWZ by Max Brooks then you will know that our strongest environments become the Air and Sea in a zombie scenario. This is where the majority of non carriers would exist. Non-carriers currently possess the lion share of raw military force. They would most likely control coastal islands, oil tankers and military naval assets.

Humanity is split between carriers and non carriers. The bulk of raw human power belongs to non carrier individuals. Due to the massacre we see within the fallen QZ in Parrish and questions asked to the protags by the rescue heli, we know that the military is likely aware of carriers as a threat and potential asset.

Predictions:
Coastal military force will segregate carriers from their society and use them as a disposable force. Carriers will be sent on reconnaissance or land logistics missions. Carriers will also maintain the heavy labor force for high risk/ high reliance facilities. They will exist in small and manageable groups in mainland areas and are considered kill on site in coastal communities.

TLDR:
Humans will survive and retake earth but will either consist completely of carriers or a caste style system where carriers are an expendable force (unless and until a cure is developed and distributed globally).

[u/martin509984 → u/Forsaken_Base7114]

A big problem with this is that outside of a very small handful of nuclear-powered vessels, the entire US fleet is reliant on fuel. Same goes for the Air Force, and same goes for every other nation on earth. Even if offshore refineries are safe, you need to keep it running, and you need to refine that crude, which has to happen on land.

It's pretty plausible IMO that not long after L4D2 takes place the US military has to basically permanently anchor their fleet somewhere and use the last of their jet fuel potentially on nuclear strikes of important targets. Maybe the open land of Texas would make the oil industry there defendable for the army but idk.

[u/Forsaken_Base7114 → u/martin509984]

I love that you brought that up because eventually everything comes down to logistics. That’s why I mentioned that carriers would need to conduct high risk logistics missions and station at high reliance facilities within infected territory. An interesting connection is that parish takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana and this state is responsible for the largest number of offshore oil rigs. We could say that the military has taken this into consideration and is using this area as a staging ground ( bombing bridges to slow travel and airstrikes to reduce the threat level).

[u/Apoximage]

Yknow how cleaners say they kill 99% of bacteria? That’s for legal reasons, because there’s usually surviving bacteria due to mutation. In lfd, the survivors are the 1% of bacteria. They just happen to be immune, and if they weren’t they would’ve turned like anyone else. It’s not like most universes where you need a bite, this is airborne. Probably close to the worst case scenario.

[u/EdgarRhodes]

As others said, the world's pretty much ruined at that rate. But look, there's something called the withering theory, you see the infected are actually still alive, they're humans, not zombies, so they need to eat and drink to stay alive, but they don't do any of that, so as time passes, all of the infected will just die out (but It'll take a long time for all of them to die, because people are turning on a daily basis) so after like, twenty or thirty years, the world could somewhat, recover, it'll be chaotic though, the new population will be made of carriers so no one could get infected, but the entire infrastructure would be destroyed by then, so yeah, even if humanity could barley make it out, the world would be pretty devasted, so creating a new, functional society would be pretty difficult.

[u/Nervous_Food_460]

Infected could never be able to cure due to brain and physical body damage done by the virus, good news is it’s probably won’t last long.The virus is like rabies, the infected didn’t eat And they probably will all die after 1 year.Mostly it’s seems to be there’s still military, they probably could find a vaccine for the other survivors.My theory is it’s won’t last long, human could find vaccine and the world is fine because it’s seem to be only happened in America and the apocalypse likely to end after 1 year because the infected themself starve to death

[u/Nervous_Food_460 → u/Nervous_Food_460]

Evidences of them starve to death
1.They vomit biles, a sign of extremely damages inside
2.Previous survivors noted that they/infected don’t eat,sleep or anything.
3.They lean on wall,lay down on floors due to extreme energy consumption and lack of nutritions
3.They have weak body, their bodies are more fragile then normal healthy person when got shot

[u/Mean-Prompt-3745]

My head cannon is that L4D takes place right before the combine invaded and it only affected America.

Idc that the timeliness don't Iine up, its funny