Allow me to put on my Pontification  Hat (it’s comfy!) and ponder a question no doubt upon all our minds. Were a zombie infection to break out tomorrow, how would we fare? Contrary to popular media, we’d probably do pretty well.

Whether shambling, gray moaning horrors or rage-driven frothing maniacs, our undead friends have been busy lately. Zombieland, Left 4 Dead, Shaun of the Dead, World War Z… they’ve even infiltrated the classics of Jane Austen with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!

Relatively sane, reasonable people now idly plan doomsday scenarios predicated upon the horrific possibility of zombie apocalypse. Will you be taking the crowbar? The rifle? Do you go north and hope the zombies “freeze like corpsicles,” as Griff of Red Vs Blue proclaims? Or do you head for the nearest abandoned jail, military outpost, or, God forbid, a mall, fort up, and wait for rescue? Can you bring yourself to shoot your zombie mate?

Thing is, zombies have their work cut out for them. A common mistake among the youth of today is to believe global zombie apocalypse just happens. Au contrair! The war effort of classic zombies depends upon a series of favorable conditions.

While things obviously could be made still easier for our rotting friends, here are five prerequisites probably critical in their move to displace us as apex predator of the planet. This applies, mostly, to “classic” zombies on their own, whether running or walking; when the undead have magic or titanic bio-monstrosities capable of punching holes in tanks on their side, then we’ve got bigger problems than a few shambling corpses.

1: Zombie literature is unknown

Suppose you see some literally gray-faced, unsteady fellow advancing slowly on you with clawing fingers and unhealthy groans. Most of us, taught by popular culture or even basic superstition, would be wary of getting too close. Sure, he might be drunk, but most drunks can at least slur some basic words. Even if you were charitable, how likely are you to willingly get in close contact with a suspicious, unfamiliar drunk and risk him throwing up on you? I don’t think I even need to ask what you’ll do if he were to hurl himself at you shrieking like a damned thing.

Characters in stories where zombies take over the world usually lack these basic instincts of self-preservation. Raised in a sheltering, comfortable world devoid of the superstitious fear of the walking dead, they are enormously more charitable than ourselves when it comes to offering aid to suspiciously undead-looking folk. Personally, I blame a boom in the popularity of Twilight. In any case, their credulity and lack of knowledge spells their doom. In a world informed by these oracles of disaster, the first reaction most people would have to a clear zombie is to stay clear- and find something hefty to protect themselves. Everyone knows killing zombies doesn’t count as murder- it’s a public service!

2: Modern urban sprawl is rampant

This one is pretty obvious: zombies are at their most dangerous in tight quarters, where they can come at the living from unexpected directions and score a bite. Were they just to come at prepared survivors from the  open they probably wouldn’t get very far. It’s arguably necessary for the victim to get away for an infection, which usually produces another zombie instead of a miscellaneous pile of mangled body parts. What environment is an excellent combination of tight quarters, nooks and crannies, and lots and lots of walking happy meals/future zombies? Why, cities of course.

Traditionally, cities were distinct from the landscape around them- often, in preindustrial times, with at least a basic palisade around them toprotect them from invaders. These walls would be easily turned inward as quarantine aids. But modern urban sprawl is another matter entirely. With the demarcation between cities steadily vanishing, any quarantine effort would be faced with a maze of streets, strip malls, homes, and other buildings- and zombies could be in any of them. Quarantining even one urban sprawl would be a tremendous task.

3: Modern transportation systems allow for easy spread of the infection over large distances.

The Earth is a very, very big place, filled with mountains and difficult terrain and oceans and other natural obstacles. Zombies can only travel as fast as a living person- usually slower- and in most zombie stories they’re what create other zombies, not infected rats or bugs or water sources like real-life diseases. And zombies, our most attention-deficit of creatures, usually go for any prey, as opposed to purposefully moving in any direction. This obviously presents a serious problem for the worldwide spread of a viral zombie apocalypse. (Of course, if wizards are involved, we’ll be in a bit more trouble.)

Zombie infections traditionally spread beyond the initial region through bitten refugees. Much like real diseases, if our hypothetical zombie virus has too rapid a progression, it’ll kill its own spread. Before they become zombies proper, an infected refugee has access to human modes of transportation, allowing them to create a new outbreak somewhere else. In preindustrial eras this would have been by horseback, wagon, or a fragile ship. But in an era of cars, planes, and huge ships that can survive fierce storms with small crews, the potential ground an infectee can cover makes containing an outbreak much more difficult, and nation- or continent-wide infection far more likely

4: Institutions and authorities that doesn’t take the infection seriously.

Sure, the idea of the walking dead is a bit hard to swallow, but after the first few cases you’d expect people to generally get the message that shambling undead horrors need to be contained. Not so; the denizens of zombie apocalypse stories are sentimentalists at heart, and either incapable of letting go of their deceased relatives (understandable), or not particularly worried about a horde of flesh-eating ghouls bashing down their doorsteps (somewhat less so).

A government’s reasons to keep any zombie infection quiet are theoretically logical; they want to avoid a widespread panic. Media outlets and doctors might be pressured in various ways to avoid publicity. But this cover-up approach only helps zombies, and coupled, as it often is, with a low-key government response it is a recipe for disaster. The last thing the living need is to have an infection boiling in their midst, essentially unfought, and not even known how to recognize it.

5: Lack of access to modern military hardware

The simple fact is that zombies are simply human beings- unusually tough, utterly single-minded human beings- without access to any of the tools or innovations humans have perfected over the millennia. What’s a zombie going to do against a tank, or heavy artillery bombardment? Even if they can only be destroyed by destroying the brain, modern military ordinance is very good at wholesale destruction. Tanks can simply run over zombies and be armed with appropriately lethal ordinance, the crew destroying far more than their share of zombies with only an expenditure of fuel as the cost.

With classic zombies, the power of military ordinance is the proverbial elephant in the living room- the clever use of tanks and artillery would logically turn the tables on even a huge zombie horde. So, before we can usher in the moaning collapse of civilization, that arsenal somehow has to be put out of reach. Considering that a zombie apocalypse scenario is a constant scrabble for resources, it’s not entirely unbelievable that armies might have trouble finding fuel and equipment to keep a modern military apparatus going.

Of course, now we’ve got the excellent question of why poorly-trained survivors who were presumably working office jobs before the ghouls hit the fan can somehow outperform trained soldiers…