People pinged me a few weeks ago to ask my opinion on the defences of Jackson Hole in The Last of Us S2E2. But they already know what I think. This town is an island in a hostile world but somehow it is ringed only by a single flimsy palisade! If you get turned into fungus here, that's on you - ThreadSky

roelkonijn.bsky.social • 22 days ago

People pinged me a few weeks ago to ask my opinion on the defences of Jackson Hole in The Last of Us S2E2. But they already know what I think. This town is an island in a hostile world but somehow it is ringed only by a single flimsy palisade! If you get turned into fungus here, that's on you

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thebrett.bsky.social•21 days ago

I do think the show implied they got complacent about a mass swarm attack, because they've only experienced small groups of infected or raiders up to that point. A ditch definitely would have helped, along with ripping out/blocking off the stairs to the roofs of buildings so they're secure up top.

gienieczko.com•21 days ago

On one hand yes, on the other they clearly prepared for an onslaught - flammable barrels, flamethrowers, more ammo than for an infantry company... But their fortifications suck.

Joel was in the army, he should be smarter than that.

seanmac31.bsky.social•21 days ago

Here me out-- what they needed to do was place some catapults in front of their defensive wall.

webkikker.bsky.social•22 days ago

hey Roel, we were thinking of you as this scene happened, so it's amazing to see your actual thoughts on it. <3

indjustice.bsky.social•22 days ago

The fungus has been shown to grow and spread right beneath the surface in the show, too, so a ditch would be even more useful to check daily if any is spreading close to the town!

jtatlife.bsky.social•22 days ago

I think the 'got a big wall, lack of an almost impassable steep-sided 3m × 3m ditch' part of it is modern writers overestimating how much stuff simple post-apocalyptic societies might have and underestimating how much dirt a few hundred people can move in a few weeks

wil9876.bsky.social•22 days ago

📌

neilpostman.bsky.social•22 days ago

Not. Enough. Ramparts.

A good earthen rampart supporting that wall and those zombies never break in.

vir-victus.bsky.social•22 days ago

Speaking of Ramparts, I do recall something resembling ramparts being shown in the film/miniseries ''Julius Caesar'' (2002 - with the late Richard Harris), in particular the Roman fortifications around Alesia as shown in the movie. I might be mistaken though. Ditches are also present!

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

I haven't seen the show, but that would be a good place for it; the double walls of circumvallation and contravallation are famous and Caesar is sometimes wrongly credited with the idea. This is also one of the few historical uses of spike traps

vir-victus.bsky.social•22 days ago

Far be it from me to burden you further with more material to review, but it would be 'right up your alley', so to speak. The movie is about 3 hours long though (freely available) and the Alesia part forms its mid-section. After looking it up again, the Roman outward defenses are: an earth wall...

vir-victus.bsky.social•22 days ago

...reinforced with palisades and wooden battlements, towers, one ditch in front (possibly filled with spikes or sharpened logs, as we see celts/gauls falling into them and immediately dying), some ramparts on the inside. We better not talk about the armour though (imperial helmets and segmentata).

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

Yes, just generally not enough digging! The show partly justifies this in S2E1 suggesting they don't have enough labour to build all they need, but you'd think basic defences are a pretty high priority in a zombie apocalypse

jeffronicus.bsky.social•22 days ago

That part of the worldbuilding was a bit silly. On the one hand, not enough labor; on the other, single-family homes in sprawling neighborhoods for individuals when beefed-up dorms would make better use of space within the walls.

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

Yes, it was a bit jarring to hear how they were arguing over whether to take in refugees because they had no more space, only to find people living alone in suburban mansions. But I guess that is literally the world in which we live now, so fair enough

lovingboth.bsky.social•21 days ago

It's also 'look, it's an Old West-style fort' in terms of the design.

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

Non-invasive set design encourages the belief that defences are just single-layer constructions on flat ground. They don't show how much of a real defence involves digging down, and raising the earth up, as needed

neilpostman.bsky.social•22 days ago

The problem is that once you get dug in, you're virtually unassailable without artillery. So for any show about zombies to have death defying drama, you need weak supports.

neilpostman.bsky.social•22 days ago

A colleague and I discussed this and came to the conclusion that after the initial surgery during a zombie apocalypse, once survivors get to a safe locale and dig in, they are probably safe forever.

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

Probably not forever! All zombie shows (and certainly this one) seem to take for granted that fuel, bullets, batteries and medicine never decay or run out. Plus food - there will be growing tension between defensible area and land allocation. And the zombies can have me if we run out of salt

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

In some ways zombies are the ideal enemy: they always do the same thing with zero sense of self-preservation. The only risk is that they overwhelm you with numbers. You can plan accordingly. But Jackson Hole did nothing to absorb the mass; predictably, the defence failed and many people died

confusedpenguin.bsky.social•22 days ago

Saw somewhere on quora or somewhere... Dealing with masses of zombies is not a military matter, but an abattoir matter. Use the same principle you use when herding cattle.

haredurer.bsky.social•21 days ago

Defense in depth baybee

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

We saw in the same episode how even a wire fence can form a barrier to slow down the horde. This is the job of a prewall: not to be defensible, but to hold the enemy where life is bad for them. Anchor it in concrete in front of your wall and it will hold them in place, in range of your fire.

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

Ditches may be less significant in this scenario since the horde has no engines, doesn't tire, and you don't want to risk losing sight of them over a steep bank. But if you dig traps they will run right in. We saw their use in S1E3. Also, controversially, landmines would be really effective here.

jtatlife.bsky.social•22 days ago

Nasty deep ditch to collect them, hand grenades to dispose of them?

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

The point is to create a deep defensive field, rather than a single wall so weak that a tank zombie can just punch its way through. Make the horde blow its momentum on barrier after barrier. Stakes, traps, barbed wire. You can also shape these obstacles to funnel them into concentrated fire.

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

Even the wall they have at Jackson Hole is really badly designed. The scene reveals the problem perfectly: most zombies are pressed against the foot of the wall, and the defenders struggle to shoot at them because the targets are directly below. They have to lean over the edge to hit them

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

Proper wall design would include bastions projecting OUT from the main line, so that you can fire SIDEWAYS along the wall. In fact I would put no shooters on the main curtain at all; it'd be hard to hit single fast-moving zombies running up, but try to miss that mass stuck along your wall.

scb250.bsky.social•22 days ago

What if you flanked the ditches with caponiers or counterscarp casemates?

wjdickson.bsky.social•22 days ago

So we were yelling “ditches!” at our screen for not much reason (this time)?

roelkonijn.bsky.social•22 days ago

They can still help! A deep ditch at the foot of the wall would certainly make zombie life harder. But there are other things that seemed more obvious in this case, since mindless zombies present a different challenge than ingenious humans

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