So, I'm sitting here watching the Walking Dead, and I got to thinking about all the different community "locations" on the show.
I'd say the first one we saw was Morgans house.
Then there was the first little camp by the gravel pit.
Herschels farm.
The Prison.
The hospital in Atlanta.
Woodbury.
Hilltop.
Negan's compound.
Bayside.
Terminus.
Alexandria.
The rest home.
...I probably missed some others too, but it got me thinking...
If the zombie-poc happened, and I made it past the rough beginning, what would be a good setup to start a new community?
Assuming that the cops, military, and most of humanity is gone, so we'd be in a WROL situation and we wouldnt have to worry about those pesky things called law, morals, ethics, etc...
I had a couple of ideas and thought it might be fun to start a "purely fantasy" thread to see if we could come up with the perfect situation!
My first idea was shipping containers. Lots and lots of shipping containers.
Find a field just out of town maybe by a river and haul in a bunch of shipping containers in the form of a rectangle, tight together so nobody could squeeze through, but with two of them spaced far enough for some sort of door to drive through. (Havent figured what type of door yet...) Cut open man sized doors on the side of each one and use them for living spaces, one per family (or small group) and use the empty ones for storage, kitchens, showers, etc...
In the center, build a big watch tower to be manned by rotating guards who could see everything inside the compound. Also have towers at each of the 4 corners with rotating guard shifts. All towers should have some sort of bulletproof barricades to protect from small arms fire, and a "fast rope" system to get down quickly. Each guard on every tower would have to hold a simple portable "deadman switch" powered by a battery, hooked to a loud siren. As a security system tech, I know this would be incredibly fast and simple to build, just a few ounces in weight, and should be in every home that has an ADT sign out front. This way if the guard was shot by a sniper, the switch would be dropped, and the alarm would be triggered.
Also, I think everyone should be locked up at night. A simple system like the door chained shut but with a carabiner instead of a padlock, in case you "zombie up" in the middle of the night. The only infected would be in that room. Maybe even tin can string alarms on the doors in case some sneaky Alexandrians come in while you're sleeping with the old "knife through your eyeball" trick.
The center of the container compound could be used for gatherings, recreation, farming, etc. There'd need to be a couple very secure back doors too, in case the community was taken over, and you needed to bug out to a back up meeting location that everyone knew about, with a hidden cache of supplies and weapons there.
I realize that moving that many shipping containers would take some heavy equipment, but bulldozers should be easy to find and isn't diesel fuel somewhat easy to make with cooking oil?
I think that they'd be pretty hard to ram through with most vehicles. Not much cover from small arms fire, but lots of concealment, and could be fortified with sheets of steel, sanbags, etc... The top of the containers would be a nice, flat, walkway all around the perimeter to deal with groups of zombies wanting to come in and say hi, pretty safely by poking down on them with a sharp spike from a distance. Maybe even make a simple railing to make it OSHA approved.
My second option I was thinking of is Menards.
One big brick building with multiple exits, an already built, high, privacy fenced in courtyard, with enough lumber and materials to build pretty much anything you could want! Build the same watchtowers as above, build a bunch of small insulated sleeping rooms inside the store near the back, good shelter from storms, a nice big brick edged roof that you can step back 10 feet or so and only expose your head, setup pallets and plywood up there spaced a few feet apart for cover, supplies already onsite for re-surfacing the roof so Rick and Michonne won't fall though and make sweet sweet love all night, reinforce the courtyard gates somehow (plenty of supplies for that) maybe even modify those forklifts with snowplows already there, for dealing with hordes!
I dont like that the entire courtyard is paved, but again... find a bulldozer and rip up some asphalt for crops.
More ideas:
What about a trench or moat around whatever compound to trap zombies, and help deter marauders to only one entry point?
You could fill the moat with gators to get rid of the walkers?
Maybe even have the bridge, or non dug out portion of the moat, on the opposite side of the main entry into the compound to give you more time to react to them?
Scatter junk cars or boulders around to slow down ramming speed...?
Yes... I have too much time on my hands...
What are some ideas, small ones or large ones, you have?
