Break in the Chain?

The Zombie Survival Crew members are awesome. Your responsiveness to building the communication chain has been much appreciated and we, the Fearless Leaders, salute you. *Crossbows raised* *whispers* Don’t worry, we won’t let Juliette get carried away and start shooting you. On January 29th, we announced the start of the Brigade Buddy system, and you, the faithful crew members have been hard at work attempting to establish communications with your assigned buddy and requesting orders when communications have not been established. Here is the plan:

  1. Attempt to establish communication with your assigned brigade buddy. Please give your assigned buddy until 2/5/11 to respond. With the weather conditions, your buddy could be holed up in the midst of an ice storm without any electricity or means to communicate at the present time.
  2. If you have not received a response from your buddy by 2/5/11, then please report back to the command by commenting on this post.
    1. Your report should contain your twitter ID and that you have been unable to establish contact with your buddy and are looking for reassignment.
    2. Do Not mention the current assigned buddy ID as this information needs to be kept secure.
  3. If you have established contact with your buddy, but no one has contacted you, then please report back to the command by commenting on this post.
    1. Your report should contain your twitter ID and that you have not been contacted.

Thank you once again for being Zombie Survival Crew Loyalists – we will establish a strong chain. Remember – report back on 2/5/11if you have not been contacted, or have been unable to contact your Brigade Buddy. Thank YOU!!


Brigade Buddy

As mentioned in previous communication, the Zombie Survival Crew captains are developing means for ensuring communications remain open while maintaining security for all crew members. In order to maintain security, it is essential to develop a chain of communication along the cell theory, where no one individual knows the contact information or whereabouts of their fellow brigade members beyond the buddies they have been assigned. This reduces the possibility for capture of an entire brigade and will allow us to set up recovery plans in the event of a communications breach. Stand by as you will be receiving a message from @TheZSC advising you of your brigade buddy.

Your ZSC command expects you to establish contact with your buddy and develop a code word between the two of you, for use to ensure both parties have not been compromised. You have also been assigned to someone, so expect to be contacted. Once you have established contact with your assigned buddy and the code word has been established, please report your success to @TheZSC: a simple Mission Accomplished message will suffice. Safeguard your Brigade Buddy’s identity and make sure you are not the link that breaks the chain.

Here’s How It Works:

In the event of a global cataclysmic event, the command center will not have the time to communicate the message to mobilize to all crew members directly. Each brigade leader will pass the message to the first person in the chain.

  1. The first person in the chain then contacts their assigned brigade buddy.
  2. Before passing on the message, confirm your buddy is who they say they are and not an imposter through the use of the code word agreed upon between you.
  3. Once identity has been confirmed, pass the message.
  4. Your brigade buddy will then contact his/her brigade buddy and repeat the confirmation steps, pass the message, etc.
  5. Once the message has been passed to all brigade members, confirmation can then be given to @TheZSC
  6. We will cover what to do in the event of a communication breach in a separate post

Once all brigade buddies have been assigned and confirmed, drills will be conducted to test our communication chain. Will you be ready to heed the call?


Rescue Plan Contest Winner!

You’ve had your time to plot and scheme; now we act. Zombie Survival Crew, grab your go bags! It’s time to rescue our missing captains.

The winner of the Escape Plan contest is Wulfie_. Hearty congratulations to you. You will be on point to lead a squad of your picking into the secret government facility. (Oh and you get some neat ZSC gear too. I’m jealous!)

We have included the winning plan below. Crew members, pay attention. This is the important part. We must find Juliette and Anthony!

Scouting:

One of ours could pose as someone trying to get a job in the power plant. Surely someone in our group can pass as someone qualified enough to get work in a power plant, so as to avoid suspicion.

Some of the civilians are wary and suspicious of what’s really going on in the place. We get a few of these to give us some intel. Plant workers tend to hang out at bars after shifts and on weekends. Alcohol loosens tongues, you know. People talk and we’ll pick up some info just hanging around, during a round of drinks or a nice game of darts or pool. People love to bitch about work, right? We may be able to get one to help us during the attack, but that plan isn’t totally reliable. I imagine disgruntled workers are being watched. Best to be suspicious of everyone.

The Attack:

We can’t just bomb the shack or the power plant because that will put the underground on lock down. The place has to have ventilation shafts if it’s that far down. We’ve scoped those out and on the day/night of our rescue attempt we place groups of 3 at these shafts (Team C), armed with weapons and gas grenades to be dropped down the shafts. In the event of a gas or toxic air readout, the plant’s automatic emergency generators should kick off. Beta Team will hit the areas with the most civilians. The civilians have to be evacuated and will be freaking out while soldiers/security try to get them out in an orderly fashion. Lights and power should shift to emergency generator power. There’ll be half light, blinking lights, and alarms going off everywhere.

Alpha Team will target Glasses because he, evidently, can get the furthest into the place with his ID and thumb prints. Scouts revealed that he’s married. His family knows nothing about what he really does for a living. We have a small team kidnap his wife and kids right after he leaves for work in the morning. The second half of Alpha Team waits at the coffee shop. One of ours hides in his car while he’s distracted getting coffee. (This will require someone capable of breaking into his vehicle without setting off the car alarm OR someone to fake illness when he’s returning to his car. After he unlocks it, they use a gun to get him into the car.) At this point, a cell phone call to prove to him that we have his family and he’d better cooperate or we’ll kill them (we won’t, but he doesn’t know that). The scheduling will be tight on this. How long is his coffee break, for instance? Quickly obtain intel from him as he drives to the shack. From that, we place teams around the plant and the spokes. We put the best armed of our crew by the SW spoke (Team C), because there’s ingress and egress available there.

Using Glasses and his ID, Alpha Team will gain access to the facility and Anthony’s holding cell, taking out whoever gets in our way. If Glasses decides not to cooperate, remind him that his ID badge and the fingerprint detector will work whether he’s alive or dead. Just sayin’.

Getting out will be harder than getting in. Go figure. By the time we get to Anthony the entire place will be pretty crazy. Beta Team will have been detected. This will shift the emergency evacuation to lockdown and defense mode. This is when we drop our next surprise on them. Team C will deploy more gas grenades, but this gas knocks people out cold. That’ll drop a lot of them. Lightweight masks will be given to the Alpha Team, Beta Team, Anthony, and Glasses so we can recover Juliette. Glasses, by this time should be pretty freaked out. Anthony will have to be carried out or, if he’s not too hurt, should be pretty ticked off. Set him loose on Glasses to make him lead us to Juliette. Once she’s located, feel free to take Glasses’s mask off or knock him out. Have at him Anthony!

Alpha Team escorts Anthony and Juliette out through the SW spoke. Beta Team will be inside and outside that area to cover them. Team C, at the shafts, will evacuate but not before planting C-4 explosives that can be remotely detonated. Once they’re clear, we give the signal to trigger the explosives.

We must be prepared to lose people. We’ll send in well-trained members who are willing to die for the cause. Beta Team must be our special forces. They will be on their own through much of the rescue, distracting the security forces and keeping them busy while the Alpha Team does the rescue. They should have weapons and plenty of ammo, and at least six or seven grenades of their own. They can cause as much havoc as needed before ordered to retreat. Beta Team will be encouraged to swap clothes with the security forces in order to sneak past opposing forces.

Not everyone will make it. This is a high-risk rescue.

Note:

There may be experiments going on in the Labs. There is a risk of these being released into the air, infecting even to those with breathing masks. If this is true, even the facility’s security forces will be making a B-line to escape. This could be what triggers the Zombie Virus. However, if we can blow the place to smithereens we might avert it. The facility is a mile down and only has that one point of entrance at the SW spoke, which we will blow up to prevent anything from getting loose. But we must be prepared on the off chance that somewhere in the depths of this evil place, there is a zombie or two who escape.

In effect, our rescue attempt may be the very thing that triggers the Zombie Apocalypse.

Nicely done, Wulfie! We will contact you soon for details on your ZSC gear.

We were very impressed with the plans the crew members came up with and it was a tough decision. We look forward to seeing what you can do with future challenges! You all did a great job! Thank you!


Your Challenge (should you choose to accept) . . .

Command Dispatch

31 Dec 2010, 08:01

Ref: Co-captains Rescue Attempt

We have received the following from R.C., who has located the detention facility where Anthony and Juliette are being held.

Command needs help from the Zombie Survival Crew brigades to craft a successful escape plan.

Take your best shot, get creative, get nasty . . . and post your escape strategy in the comment section or email it to Command at zombiesurvivalcrew (at) gmail (dot) com. You have until January 7.

Command will pick the best plan to execute, and its creator will get official ZSC gear (being unveiled publicly mid-January) as a prize!!

***************

Field Report: R.C. Murphy

You want something with a high level of difficulty? Try finding a living soul in the middle of a desert. No, tumbleweeds don’t count. Though by the end of my second day in New Mexico I sure wished they did.

The signal from Juliette’s GPS came from somewhere between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. I traced it to one of two locations. A run-down shack sitting all on its lonesome in the desert, or the hydroelectric power plant two miles away. Neither looked like a secret government agency’s stronghold, but as with most things looks can be deceiving.

I targeted two men to gather info. The first had been in and out of the shack frequently. The second worked at the power plant. On both I planted a small button camera. They should have been more careful with their coats while having a cup of joe.

The first, I’ll call him Glasses, drove to the shack after his caffeine fix. Inside wasn’t much, a typical storage shed. He headed for a red cabinet on the back wall. The doors opened and two armed soldiers greeted him. They stepped aside to expose two sets of elevators doors. Another single door sat to the side of those, marked “stairs.”

Glasses swiped an ID card over a black box on the wall. The elevator doors opened and he began the very long ride down. When the doors opened again, they showed three sets of double doors. Through the small windows I saw more soldiers.

The right door bore a sign reading “Administration”. The left, “Power plant”. Center, “Laboratory”.

He took the center doors. More men in white lab coats milled around. Like camouflage sprinkles in whipped cream were a few armed soldiers, stationed just far enough apart to not look too threatening despite the semi-autos hanging from their shoulders.

Glasses walked past rooms filled with medical equipment. A large steel door slipped by, “Cold Storage” the sign said. He went on to the end of the hall. There the doors were shut. His thumb slid over a fingerprint scanner and the window on the door opened.

Jesus, it was Anthony.

The footage after that was useless. Something blocked the camera’s eye. In desperation I pulled up the footage from the second man’s button cam. I named him Suspenders.

Suspenders approached the large steel door of the power plant and tapped a card against a small black panel identical to the elevator locks inside the shack. The door eased open; he gave a wave to one of the cameras keeping watch over the entrance.

A stairwell door and a pair of elevator doors waited. Suspenders took the elevator, his ride down just as long as Glasses’. When the doors opened I half expected to see the dreary circular room from before, but no. He was let out right smack dab in the midst of a bustling power plant.

Large machinery took up most of the space. What wasn’t filled with machines was taken over by people. Amongst them, some shrewd looking security officers. Their eyes took in everything, I mean everything.

One approached Suspenders, saying something I couldn’t read on his lips. My target followed him down the row of machines, passing more security and a few wary workers. At the end of the hall sat a double set of doors and a black ID scanner like the elevator locks. The guard opened the doors with his ID. Beyond was the circular room.

They took the door reading “Administration”. As soon as Suspenders hit the hallway a shadowy hand covered the button cam. Dangit!

The only other information I managed to find were blueprints for the power plant. It’s made of solid steel and enough concrete to fill in half an ocean. The other wings of the facility? It’s as though they don’t exist.

We have to get Juliette and Anthony out of there. This is where I need your help.

***************

This is the only photo R.C. was able to get to us. They’re locked down tight, folks.

If you’re not up for this challenge, have no fear. A variety of other contests are around the corner!

Happy planning and stay safe out there!


Mascot or Meal?!? You decide …

After some rather amusing Twitter shenanigans and some soul searching inside the ZSC Command Center we have decided to take the following out to the broader Zombie Survival Crew brigades for a vote.

It was suggested by “someone” that we make @Squirrel_TWD an official (not THE official, but AN official) #zombiesurvivalcrew mascot, despite the squirrel’s very public – and often nasty – blood feud with the Dixon brothers from The Walking Dead.

We were assured by a Command Center discussion that the following Tweet had nothing to do with putting our furry little friend up for vote!

Wonder how long it it’ll take to chew through a wire on a crossbow. 2:55 AM Dec 23rd via web

Squirrel_TWD

Squirrel

But, that this Tweet definitely did have something to do with the voting process!

Hey @jterzieff @thezsc Also throwing it out there: I can outrun, jump, and drink everyone else. #justsaying #Zombiesurvivalcrew 2:28 AM Dec 24th via web

Squirrel_TWD

Squirrel

**********************

So Zombie Survival Crew brigades, let us know what you think!

Vote yes, if you support @Squirrel_TWD as an official mascot; vote no, if you don’t! If you have an alternative suggestion for ZSC mascots, put them up in the comments section of this post.

We’ll keep voting open until Friday, December 31, 2010.

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

The Crew – Where to Find the Loyalists

Last map update and assignment of brigades completed 9/29/13

The below map illustrates the ZSC brigades. Each member of the Zombie Survival Crew is assigned to a brigade and each brigade is led by one of the fearless leaders. Each brigade is assigned a color, which you see listed at the bottom: Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Purple, Lt Blue, and the Orange brigade, being the ninja secret-keepers that they are, are sometimes listed as Others to help maintain their stealth.

If you are searching for your specific marker:

  • Click the link underneath the map to open in a full window.
  • Click on the Map Locations tab.
  • Click the drop down menu under Filter (upper left corner of the map on a blue background)
  • Select Screen Name
  • Type your ID in the box and click Find

If you had a cute, funny or non existent location on twitter and were mapped via that location, you may not wind up where you expect to see yourself, as the 7th, 8th, and 9th circles of Hell and Behind You! are not plotable.

To better see where your fellow brigade members are:

  • Click the link underneath the map to open in a full window.
  • Click on the Map Locations tab.
  • Click the drop down menu under Filter (upper left corner of the map on a blue background)
  • Select Brigade
  • Click on the box of the specific Brigade you’d like to isolate.

The map has Google map functionality, so will zoom, and allow you to check out the surrounding terrain to ensure the area can be kept secure.

Please remember to keep the information on this map secure as it provides the location of all crew members. We don’t want … *looks left, then right and whispers* … the information to fall into the wrong hands. We need to be vigilant about security at all times… and for those who slip up? Juliette has been itching to let loose with her crossbow, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

If you do not find yourself on the map, have not received your brigade assignment, and either registered or followed on Twitter PRIOR to the date at the top, then please contact command at command { @} zombiesurvivalcrew (dot ) com. You don’t want to be left without a brigade when the shambling hordes appear.

So take a few moments, browse the map, and if it is too small within the confines of the blog, click the little link thingy under the map and it will open in a new window and give you full screen visibility.

Click to open the Zombie Survival Crew Brigade Map