Another What If Thread: Vampires

[Mister Agenda]

Suppose the traditional blood sucking vampire who can create new vampires exists. It has superhuman strength and is immortal. It can only be killed by beheading, fire, a wooden steak through the heart or sunlight. It is allergic to holy water, crosses, and garlic. It can't enter a home unless invited.

Wooden steak? I know, I'm nitpicking.

1) So how long do you think it would take humans to kill off all vampires, presuming everyone got the memo and believed in them?

Hmm. In the scenario you supply, the only way they can be detected is their allergies and inability to enter homes without invitation. The government could certainly systematically sort out the vamps with the sunlight test during the day and the garlic test at night. If, in addition, they don't reflect in mirrors, it would be easy to devise an optical device that shows who doesn't have a reflection. I'm thinking it would be easy to separate the humans from the vamps with a little due diligence, though there would certainly be failures due to human error or vampire trickiness.

Wooden bullet machine guns, curfews, holy water pump guns, garlic curtains, and flame throwers are all on the table. And anything else you might plausibly invent.

A lot depends on details. If they have to feed every night, they'll have to risk the flamethrowers a lot more often than if they have to feed weekly. Can they survive on bagged blood or do they have to drink from the source? Can they live off of animals? How often can they transform someone into a new vampire?

I think they would be very hard to root out if they can wait a week between feedings yet create a new vampire every night. One vamp could become sixty in a week, while concentrating on avoiding destruction. Half of them could be killed a the end of each week, and there would still be around a thousand after two weeks. It's hard to fight an enemy who can so easily turn your own soldiers and gear against you. If they have powers of mental domination, it would be even worse.

2) Would the effectiveness of holy water and crosses make you rethink the god question? I'm thinking I might really consider it.

[/quote]

The uncanny powers and weaknesses of the vampire would be evidence of the supernatural, particularly if only the icons of a particular religion worked on them, even if the vampire was a different religion before they were turned. I would have to have a good think about the implications of that.

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I saw a shlocky movie once where they snagged vampires with a meat hook attached to a cable and winch, and pulled them outside into the sunlight.


Inventive, but funny too.

Simpler to just burn the house down. Fire plus sunlight.

It was John Carpenter's Vampires; based on the book Vampire$. The protagonists were vampire hunters for pay; and looted their lairs, so there was actually a good reason not to burn their houses down.