Somewhat. It's an interesting topic. I would suck as a group member however, I injured my knee at 17 (run over by a car, tibial plateau fractured, ACL and PCL almost fully torn (the bone came apart and that's what spared the ligaments)) so I can't walk that far without being in a fair bit of pain.
I guess if I got one of those sword canes....

@GrungeMan
That sounds pretty brutal. The spoiler that is. However if I had a settlement I would dig tunnels in N,S,E,W directions for an alternate exit.
Edit As for a simple way of stopping enemy entrance through each exit all you need to do is get a guide (some hooks, etc) and run some fishing line about half way through each tunnel then terminate the line in a cobweb like pattern, turn the other end of the line to four bells in the leader's quarters, so if someone walks into the (unavoidable) line the bell rings and if they cut the line the bell falls to the floor, then all you need to do upon activation of the bell is scramble your best men and women to guard the tunnel with a set of long spears and pike anyone who comes through. A (Morse style) code for the "bell line" could be given to away party members and changed each time in case they needed to get back in through the tunnels so the group leader knows friendlies will (probably) be exiting the tunnel at re other end and change from "kill on sight" to "guard until sure".
/edit
It would also allow for "hot pursuit" tactics in the event of something like in the posted spoiler would just mean that your best and bravest would need to catch up to stragglers, tie one or two to a tree and make a blood eagle out of them.
Or (following on from your spoiler rather specifically here; I hope I get the forum code right the first time around)

 

It's been a while since I read that part of the comic, but in response to your proposed plan:

 

That's awful. I'm sorry that happened to you, and at such a young age. In my mind, we find a bionic knee brace for you and then you are fine, because you are seriously too valuable to lose to a walker. That plus the sword cane should do it.

https://venturebeat.com/2016/02/10/the-worlds-first-bionic-knee-brace-launches-for-consumers-today/

 

Well that is interesting, especially since I've not read the comics. (Spoiler gives away name of a character that helps out in a big way in the comics and talks about said character)

Edit:

@Lindigo
I've always thought of a bionic brace. It would be pretty cool to have. I've always liked about getting the whole damn thing cut off at the top of the knee and replaced with some sort of electric powered leg with compressed air pistons so I can kick people through drywall. Sadly Newtonian physics would suggest I would suffer as bad as the other guy, but Hollywood physics on the other hand.....
I should hopefully be getting a replacement knee in a few years, at around 30 years old (at 22 I was told; the knee is already arthritic with bone spines growing into my cartilage from my tibial plateau and the meniscus membrane had severely thinned towards the back of the knee) I still maintained a healthy amount of mobility until I hit 24 so I got a good 7 years out of what could have been much worse, it would lock up after that or just refuse to do what I "asked it to do", causing me to descend stairs face first once or twice as it locked in the middle of a step.
The doctors seem to be putting the replacement back as long as possible which is wise (unless the walkers come, who knows; I might wake up in a hospital bed post surgery ) as a replacement knee only has a.limited lifespan, though I might ask for them to speed things up a little as we're developing better and better tech these days compared to 50-60 years ago, where I would probably be confined to a Forest Gump style knee brace.

 

I get that they had to blablabla with regards to suggestions to fess up to Alpha, I would disagree. I think someone was saying/remarking on the validity of her just claiming "that's my terrirory" kind of thing. (I can't remember who) But I think going up to her and essentially giving her the respect of telling her what happened is something I don't know about. Then again, when they find al lthe dead walkers, or evidence not covered by snow that people have gone from Kingdom to Hilltop...who knows what will happen.

 

Bad knee? No problem
.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I bet Alpha will find out about the border crossing and will use this as an excuse to attack. I say this will be her excuse rather than her actual reason because I think Alpha has decided to attack even before she knows about the crossing. Her asking Beta to whip her in order to make her strong suggests, IMHO, that she has already made up her mind at that time. All she needs is an excuse.

 

It wasn't all that exciting as a narrative, because who would expect these whisperers to stand around on guard in the middle of that storm? If they were to survive, the group would have seen their fires somewhere. I was expecting them to be all in a cave somewhere, watching ftwd while whipping each other.

 

I don't think Alpha wants to attack Hilltop or the other communities with her herd if she can avoid it. Doing so would put Lydia in danger, and as we saw Alpha still cares about her daughter's well-being. The herd is primarily an intimidation tactic and a last resort plan if the communities begin posing a bigger threat to the Whisperers later.

 

But I think Alpha is planning to kill Lydia. I'm thinking that is the mistake she says she made--that she let Lydia and her new group live. I think she wants to be strong for "what comes next," which is killing Lydia, et al. (Just my guess. I don't read the comics and I try to avoid the comic spoilers.)

 

A knee replacement! Of course! That would be fantastic! I don't see why you have wait when you are suffering the level of pain that makes cutting it off acceptable. My Dad had two knee replacements (tennis player) and then had one of those knees re-replaced eventually. So waiting for the first replacement doesn't seem necessary to me, especially as you say with the new advances.

When I have watched the aftermaths of bombings, I figured I would be like the people who say, No, No, No, Give it time, See what happens, rather than go directly to an amputation. But I was going through such a severe case of plantar fasciitis (on and off crutches for a couple of moths) that I spent a day or two just moping and saying to my cats, Cut it off, cut it off, cut it off, over and over. Somehow the mantra soothed me.

Anyway, I can walk through it already--don't even need a cane at this point--plus I've always known my pain goes away eventually. So I realized what a big baby I am. If I had been one of the bombing victims, I feel positive I would have said, yes, cut it off. I couldn't go through what you experience.

AND your comments are hilarious!

 

Agreed. She seemed to be looking for "forgiveness", as she knows she will lose people and possibly Lydia, who she now seems to want to kill, as Lydia is her one and only weakness. A cute looking Kryptonite. To do this she will have to attack hilltop (hence the losing of people) however since most communities are based inside walls and they seem to know that alpha and her gang is a looming threat I don't see why they've not tried a pre-emptive strike to kill alpha. The whisperers wear masks almost all the time and seem to communicate by messenger rather than radio. This means grabbing and "interrogating" one or two of their scouts to learn the location of their secret terrorist base camp and when Alpha will be most vulnerable. If you capture two you can simply play them off against each other as they don't seem to understand loyalty; just hivemind groupthink. Interrogate them together and let them know that the one to give the best information will be the one to live.
Given info can be verified by somebody wearing a ghillie suit (honestly they're easy (but extremely time consuming) to make. I made one when I was 15 and off school sick for a week because they "looked fun" and I was bored. I wore it in the rough of the local golf course (near a hole) whilst equipped with an air horn, fun times. Sadly it doesn't fit anymore. I also made a great night vision scope (built from a gen 1+ cascade tube out of a cold war era tank) when I was 16; it's amazing for star gazing) and using a pair of binoculars. If what they say checks out they get to live (in a cell, at least until the operation is finished) and the other gets the rope. Then all you need to do is send someone in wearing their clothes and Ed Gein style ski mask and stab alpha to death in her sleep, or when she's alone.
If they had a backpack you could always bring along something extremely nasty inside it; TATP and a timer to blow the rest of them up for insance, though TATP is a highly unstable explosive and a bad idea to try to make if you value your hands/life, you could make lots of hydrogen sulfide fairly easy from household items and it's extremely toxic, the same goes for chlorine, though chlorine (unlike hydrogen sulfide) is very invisible at high concentrations, whereas hydrogen sulfide has a sting "rotten egg smell" at low concentrations, at high concentrations it paralyzes your olfactory nerve, making it odourless and cloudless as well as extremely fast acting.
However if you want to send a message just by killing alpha (which would probably be the best way forward; plenty of her flock think she is weak and this would come out in an interrogation you could always pack police issue tear gas grenades (which would probably not have been used as they would be ineffective against walkers and only screw you over) in case you needed to make a quick exit. A pair of swimming goggles and an industrial respirator (containing activated charcoal) would mean you would be unaffected by tear gas and could walk out whilst everyone running after you is gasping for air; a gas mask would be even better; though they would be in shorter supply than factory respirators.

@Lindigo
Just realized I wrote a whole essay.
The TL;DR is "I'm on NHS healthcare, a new knee costs money and why spend money on healthcare when politicians need weekly trips to their personal spa in Fiji."

Honestly I'm probably being told to wait by doctors because it's the NHS (which isn't faring too well right now, as well as being 15 years behind the rest of the world) I doubt they would want to replace it so soon in case I needed a second one as it would be "unnecessary cost". When I first did physio(therapy) (only ever heard it called "physical therapy" in the states in case you're wondering wtf physio is) they sent me home with resistance banding (basically a big rubber band I would hook around a chair leg or something then use it to strengthen the muscles in my knee.
A year and a half ago, when I went back to physio I was told they didn't do resistance banding any more but "tie a plastic bag around your ankle and put a bag of sugar in it, then excersise with that instead of resistance banding.
I got a (used; 'repairs needed') rowing machine for next to nothing fixed it fairly quickly and used that instead of talking to a guy for 20 mins, getting printouts of exercises and then told to cycle on an (old) exercise bike for 15 mins. I would rather just do the exercises at home rather than doing 20 minutes of what felt like intentionally wasted time.


A knee replacement would be great however though the recovery time makes me uncomfortable (about 4-7 days in hospital bed and up to 6 weeks until I fully recover then physio for a few months (at least), breaking my knee hurt like hell, having it sawn out and a new one screwed into place makes me uncomfortable simply thinking about it. That said, I would love to get it done. I could live life again, walk a mile (or more) again without being in pain. It would be good, though I think my GP and other doctors want it to happen as late as possible. [Edit] removed some essay material[/edit]

 

A cute looking Kryptonite. BWAHAHAHAHA

"interrogating" one or two of their scouts to learn the location of their secret terrorist base camp BWAHAHAHA

I made one when I was 15 and off school sick for a week because they "looked fun" and I was bored. I wore it in the rough of the local golf course (near a hole) whilst equipped with an air horn, fun times. BWAHAHAHAHAHA

I just love your posts. They can never be too long for me. It's official: If I can't get you in my group, the apocalypse won't be worth surviving. HAHAHAHA And I already have an industrial respirator because I had drug manufacturers living next to me. They moved, but I still have what PepperAnn affectionately calls my gas mask. It was a godsend during California's last terrible fire season. I swear, everybody should have one. Good to know it will keep me breathing comfortably through tear gas. Hey, you never know.

Well, I guess that's a big difference between your health care and my family's Kaiser health care. It's a real shame.

A couple of us who love Top Gear (I don't watch it anymore. booooo) were talking once about why on earth James May wasn't on a CPAP, given his snoring woes. I should think he would buy one from the U.S. if British health care won't provide it. It's life or death. People do stop breathing and die in their sleep. Or stroke out, etc. It's crazy that CPAPs aren't a given. If I ever win the lottery (I am a very lucky person), you can have as many knee replacements as you want abroad. I know that's a weird gift. lol EVERY surgery freaks me out, but I'm glad they are an option.

 

I said pretty much the same thing about the Saviors. With just a little bit of prep and some Guerrilla warfare 101 they could have easily ended the Savior menace the first time Negan showed up to Alexandra.

 

@Lindigo
I'll hold you to that. I'm contemplating leaving fleeing the UK zombie state anyway. They just banned a bunch of things recently, including "zombie knives" also known as "zombie killer knives", I would tell my local MP that zombies aren't actually real. What is a zombie knife you ask.
A knife with a straight edge or a knife with a serrated edge or a knife with words on it indicating it should be used for violence.
"Stealth knives" got the banhammer too; the definition of which seems to cover ceramic chef's knives.
Oh and home deliveries of knives are now illegal; because apparently there are "no age checks" even though when I got my crossbow (A real beauty 160lb draw weight, recurve too so no bother if the string snaps; you just use a special string to compress the limbs and slip a new string on, through the large loops of the stringing aid. Much easier than using a bow press to replace the cables and string on a compound bow) they wanted a photo of my passport/driver's licence/national ID card to prove I was over 18 and refused to ship until they verified the photo, which had to be taken top down and then at 45 degrees offset (presumably to deter people photoshopping in a new birth date) so online suppliers have always been really strict here with age verification.
Thing is, knife attacks (mainly) happen using kitchen knives stolen from shops or mom's kitchen; most attackers don't bother spending money on expensive bushcraft or collector's knives (and lots of UK knife smiths who hand make blades to specification are probably going out of business because they relied on online deliveries to make their money, for knives that would have sold for way more than £100.
It's been getting worse and worse here (even though where I live you can still own a pistol, unlike the rest of the UK; though licensing is strict as all hell, I've heard of farmers having their shotguns confiscated because they told their doctor that they were a bit depressed) and one politician even suggested putting GPS trackers in all the knives in the UK, as if criminals are going to bother charging their smart knives lol.

Maybe the world actually did end in 2012 and I'm stuck in some weird alternate reality.

But anyways, if you win the lottery can I get an exoskeleton brace like the one from Batman for my gimpy knee too? I know I would break all the bones in my leg, but kicking through concrete is almost as cool as Chris Redfield punching boulders out of his way.

@HungryZombie
You're right, the survivors really should raid a library or a war Museum for once. FTWD kind of had the right idea at the start (is FTWD still running?) with the whole yacht and wanting to go to a deserted island.
My ideal zombie apocalypse would be me on a tropical island sipping cocktails on the beach while having walkers tied to a plough doing farming for me. I'll get a remote controlled robot arm and a chicken in a cage and use that as a high tech carrot on a stick that I can turn to the side to keep the walkers ploughing perfect furrows into the ground and lead them around the field.
Giant walker hamster wheels could be used for power generation, they don't seem to need to eat so I could work them until they fell apart and keep walkers in cold storage to rotate in when one breaks.

I could even turn part of my island into a westworld style resort. NecroWorld filled with toothless, zombies with no finger nails. I'm sure that would attract some really 'interesting' guests.

 

@Lindigo is right, your super long posts don't bother me because they are hilarious as hell. LOL

 

LOL. Of course you could have an exoskeleton brace! I don't know if the real-life ones would keep you safe, though. The movie ones I haven't seen.

You are so smart about the zombie-plough technology! Michonne already showed us how to make them docile.

I'm kind of impressed someone came up with the idea of putting a tracker on knives. Having to charge them though -- . My little FasTrak square beeps and lets me pass through toll roads without stopping to pay in cash, and I never have to recharge that. It knows exactly which toll point I've gone through, too. If they could make those small enough to track guns, I'm sure California would adopt the technology. I'd vote for it, too.

I've always thought they should test fire every gun before selling it and put the rifling markings into a data base. If anyone got murdered, they'd know right off which gun the bullet came from (if they had the bullet). The current system of trying to find a gun that matches a bullet from a murder scene seems entirely backwards to me.

Yes, I know a criminal would file the barrel to change the markings, but my plan for that is you'd have to take the gun in and fire a bullet once a year to keep the markings updated, and people would have to pay an annual fee for whatever it cost to maintain that program. That still wouldn't completely solve the gun murder rate, but it might put a dent in it. If your gun was "stolen" you'd be on probation. Lose two guns and you'd lose the right to have another. (Not the police. We had a spate of news stories about police having their guns stolen out of their cars because they weren't in a secured safe. )

I had a recurve bow that I gave away just last year. I don't have the strength for it anymore. There was a nice park-like place when I was in my twenties where you walked a beautiful path and every once in a while there would be a target and you'd stop and shoot. Once I had a blind date with a guy who had a crossbow and when he asked if I'd like to go out again I said, Let's go target shooting! He thought that was hilarious, not what girls usually want to do.

 

No other way to watch it. Stay around and join the fun all Summer long.

 

@Lindigo
Oh if the Hollywood knee brace doesn't work like in Hollywood it can always go back to my childhood fight conditioning "if you can' beat em - eat em!l Just get a case of Loclock somewhere particularly painful.
As for GPS knives; I know toll booths use RFID tech (which is exactly why I don't.want a debit card that had "contactless techbology" as all you need to do is have a laptop, the correct software and a directional (Yagi) antenna and you can grab CC details from a parked car) though GPS kind of means constant tracking, rather than "proximity tracking" which would mean that all knives (which would include butter knives, which the (Humberside?) police have said "are just as dangerous as a bayonet" (I assume they have never seen a WWI rifle fitted with their "I swear I'm not compensating for anything" 4 foot long bayonets).
When things move to firearms, I feel that anyone who has been physically violent, or has wanted to be violent towards others should get special review when it comes to obtaining a firearm (in the US)' however the "doctor I feel a bit down and depressed, sometimes I feel that life isn't worth living" is a feeling that every adult to go through hardship gets and thus they shouldn't have doctors "rat them out" to the police (here in the UK and (Northern) Ireland) as with correct treatment they will probably bounce back, though if they get their guns (which they need for killing vermin on their farm) taken they may go down the road of "everyone is against me!" road, which only leads to more harm.

It would be much easier to track those with criminal intent (who already get house arrest sentences because prisons can't accommodate their numbers) than the knives of the 60+ million of people in the UK, especially in the.middle of a policing crisis.
The problem resides with kids being taught that knives are for "adults only" and are "really dangerous" yet I remember collecting lumps of flint as a kid (after reading books on the stone age) and wanting to make flint knives, learned good-looking at 3-4 years of age, (albeit poorly) but I.remember running back to my dad with a cut finger shouting "look, I made a sharp knife!" He got me a (small) Swiss army knife when I was 5 and after closing it on a finger (I've still got the scar) I learned that quick folding knives could hurt. I got a lock knife (known as a safety knife in days of olde) shortly after. I don't see a knife as a weapon any more as I see a maglite as one, or a rock as one. It's all to do with the person using it.

When it comes to "I want to to target shooting" if I was ever lucky enough to meet someone here with that attitude they would be an instant keeper. Sadly very few ladies are like that here. The last I remember like that (was, until work separated them) my friends fiancé. I remember dropping off a rabbit's head to him for his girlfriend as she wanted to taxidermy it. I took the head out of my backpack when I got off the bus to the curiosity "it's fake, see! Oh god what have I done!" of the students living in the area.

As for mechanical limbs, they look really cool though they are basically just being developed. Myoelectric limbs have been around for a while but they aren't all that precise. However brain implants and ultraspund-myoelectric limbs seem to be much better (though replacing a knee joint with titanium is best, I still have a foot and ankle as well as toes, all of which I would lose with a current high tech replacement.
Still, I want the ability to kick someone 40 feet without newtonian physics interfering!!


@8307c4
Definitely. They never even made an attempt to cover their tracks (and Michonne's sword seems to be magic; ever tried cutting through ice frozen walkers) hopefully this and the first half of series 10 ends the whip-er-ers/the hit me with my walker rhythm stick crowd and the other half isn't too whisperery
They were forcefully inserted and not too well received, comic or TV. Hopefully they all lemming walk off a cliff and then we can be done with em.


Edit to correct autocorrect.