The Big Idea

I remember as a kid watching the Black Sheep Squadron television series, about Marine Corps fighter pilots in World War II somewhere in the South Pacific. While I saw other shows set in war like MASH and Hogan’s Heroes, Black Sheep Squadron was the first series I watched that featured combat prominently (mostly from stock footage of airplanes zooming and sounds of machine gun fire).  By the way, let me apologize for the length of this post up front—it’s not a quick read, which I don’t say to scare anyone away. But be aware. I’d had other ideas about fighting before that, largely from Disney movies like Sleeping Beauty , in which Prince Phillip battles Maleficent-turned-dragon. That scene made a deep impression on me and as a kid I often imagined myself as the dragon-slaying knight, the warrior for goodness and truth. But with Black Sheep Squadron , I imagined myself a fighter pilot, the personality of the knight riding in an aircraft cockpit. I also saw some classic ...

 (The action figures of Michonne and her pack-bearing zombies--kinda strange if not disturbing these action figures really  exist...) I will apologize up front to the readers who might find this topic gruesome. If you find descriptions of zombies inherently disturbing, please don't keep reading. But this post is just an exploration of story ideas, of the sort, "If this is true then that should also be true." I hope it inspires some original takes on what have become standard zombie tropes. As per Michonne in The Walking Dead using zombies as pack-bearers, in a world with real walking dead, why wouldn't you use them to power all kinds of things? (Note that somebody else may have already thought of the ideas in this post, but if so, I haven't heard of it.) Zombies with their teeth removed (or lower jaw, as Michonne did) and hands either removed or fingers shortened (cutting off their arms altogether seems rather excessive), would be generally unable to harm any...