Can you differentiate between zombies and human on thermals?

[Zer0 Kay]

Are the zombies crazed humans?
Are the zombies supernatural ghouls frozen at a point of decomposition at the point of their death?
Are the zombies constantly decaying?

The point of the above questions would be to determine if someone with thermal imagers could differentiate between zombie and human just from the signature. We know that according to canon they are not just crazed humans because they've received additional "abilities". So is their decay frozen at the point of death in which case they'd be fairly invisible to thermals taking on the ambient temperature of the area. If they are constantly decaying however they're temperature will be higher than a humans at least where they had flesh. If they are decaying though at some point the flesh would fall off and I don't think that even zombies can move with out muscles. The decay would also produce rigormortis, which eventually goes away but I forget what that process is called. Damn so I think I've answered my own question... opinions?

[Gamer]

If I was to make the call I would make thermals work very well if the zombie is in the process of or has already regenerated.
But I'm not going to gibble over technical details as with thermals the quality of your picture depends on the system, some systems have a hard time with slight differing of temperature and others having no problems at all and everything stands out to one another.

[Zer0 Kay]

From the way I understand it, the zombies in DR do decay, and when fed enough PPE, they regenerate. This means that their flesh is in a constant state of flux. However, I do not think that would produce thermal heat, or at least not enough to be visible on a thermal imaging unit. They don't have any inherit systems in their bodies to generate heat like Humans do.

A decaying body produces more heat than a live body. I'd imagine that regeneration with the cells hyperactive also produces more heat.

[Zer0 Kay]

A interesting thought I have to admit though in my personal view I would say no for the following reason:

Should a zombie continue to rot after coming back to life then it would only have a matter of days or weeks till it was a mound of quivering flesh on the ground helpless. The muscles would still work but they are repaired constantly by a living human system, in death that system no longer works and the tissues would break down at a higher rate (cut a muscles from a bone and you see what I mean would happen) because it is constantly being used. On top of that the rot would cause extensions to also fall off at a faster rate; 'oooh look Bob I got me a new left arm!'. So in the zombie world I would say they do rot but at a very slow pace because of the infection... well that is my two cents at least.

Hmm... yeah, I understand your viewpoint.

[Zer0 Kay]

If I was to make the call I would make thermals work very well if the zombie is in the process of or has already regenerated.
But I'm not going to gibble over technical details as with thermals the quality of your picture depends on the system, some systems have a hard time with slight differing of temperature and others having no problems at all and everything stands out to one another.

Why only durring or after regen? IIRC death decreases the temperature of a body by -1 degree per hour but once it actually starts to decompose the decomposition releases thermal energy. Hmm... I think it would actually be too long though, the zombie instead of just having wounds would have flesh slipping off of them instead. So looking at the autopsy websites it would appear that at the point that the flesh actually starts producing heat it is already significantly cooler than 98.7 and a zombie would be wholy inneffective without muscles. So no the decay wouldn't make it easier to detect zombies so ok then we're back to the regeneration doing so... I'll go with that. A zombie in stasis is undetectable, for the most part, from its surroundings... on a thermal imager.

[Gamer]

If the players are in a military based game and have access to the latest systems yes they easily could see a zombie.
If not then forget it, they will be stuck with the older systems or the ones on the market for detecting heat loss in your homes and stuff like that, those aren't that sophisticated, even the ones used by the police fire department aren't as sophisticated, these are way too expensive and aren't the most durable things in the world anyway.

Everything has different temperature absorption and dissipation abilities, we used such thermals to detect IEDs, could see the difference in the ground, disturbed ground and the IED itself, can easily see the variance in dead bodies when you find one or more instead of the IEDs your patrol was looking for.
NASA uses them to find many thousands of years old dried up and buried river beds and from orbit no less.

If I was to be kind and let players find thermal imagers and it's outside of a military based game they would be stuck with the earlier models and would be stuck with only being able to get good detection from regenerated or regenerating zombies otherwise I would make it difficult for them to discern zombies from the background.

[Epically]

Personally, having used thermals also, I'd say they'd come up, but not as a heat source. Much like how a tree, plant or inanimate object comes up.

[The Beast]

Zombies would likely show up on thermals the same way that vampires do as described in VK.

[Zer0 Kay]

If the players are in a military based game and have access to the latest systems yes they easily could see a zombie.
If not then forget it, they will be stuck with the older systems or the ones on the market for detecting heat loss in your homes and stuff like that, those aren't that sophisticated, even the ones used by the police fire department aren't as sophisticated, these are way too expensive and aren't the most durable things in the world anyway.

Everything has different temperature absorption and dissipation abilities, we used such thermals to detect IEDs, could see the difference in the ground, disturbed ground and the IED itself, can easily see the variance in dead bodies when you find one or more instead of the IEDs your patrol was looking for.
NASA uses them to find many thousands of years old dried up and buried river beds and from orbit no less.

If I was to be kind and let players find thermal imagers and it's outside of a military based game they would be stuck with the earlier models and would be stuck with only being able to get good detection from regenerated or regenerating zombies otherwise I would make it difficult for them to discern zombies from the background.

military... latest systems your funny. Most of the tech the military has is a decade or older tech. The current radars are 70-80's tech the F-15 is ancient the F-117 is 70's tech and the 22 is late 80 early 90 tech. The military doesn't normally use thermal optics. It is more likely that you will find a high end thermal optic system in a civilian company. You never go to a military base expecting state of the art technology you go there looking for reliable firepower and transportation. The only places that you may get tech within this decade are at the technology test sites (i.e. Aberdeen, Groom Lake, etc...)

[Gamer]

Thats nothing but bullshido on a short stick dude.
You are not finding anything close to LRAS3 in a private company.
Meanwhile the system is in every scout platoon.
Every soldier I know has AN/PAS-13 thermal on thier M4,249, m240, M24, M2, M107 something nobody outside the military is going to have.
Our checkpoint had LRAD, LRAS3 besides the one mounted on the Hummer.
I ve seen these sytems at every military base I was at and know quite a few states national guard does asa well.
You obviously don't know what you are talking about, so I'm done discussing anything military with you.

[Zer0 Kay]

Thats nothing but bullshido on a short stick dude.
You are not finding anything close to LRAS3 in a private company.
Meanwhile the system is in every scout platoon.
Every soldier I know has AN/PAS-13 thermal on thier M4,249, m240, M24, M2, M107 something nobody outside the military is going to have.
Our checkpoint had LRAD, LRAS3 besides the one mounted on the Hummer.
I ve seen these sytems at every military base I was at and know quite a few states national guard does asa well.
You obviously don't know what you are talking about, so I'm done discussing anything military with you.

Funny I could have sworn every soldier is only issued a Red Dot scope as standard issue with the AN/PAS-13 being special issue (dang what do you know it came out in 98 which means they tested it for a few years before it was produced... probably a minimum of 5 but more likely 10 years with our woderful red taped system). Nope, technically newer than that is definately not available to the public. Don't look here either because it isn't real, or here heck just don't look anywhere on this webpage. Gamer the reasons that the civilian world normally has better tech than the military one is because 1) They don't have to get budget appropriations from Congress. 2) They don't have to go through a lengthy proving process to receive further funding 3) They take groundbreaking military tech and modify it and then release it before the military is able to get theirs 4) If it isn't a danger to national security the freaking company making the very product for the military is probably already done developing their civilian model in order to suppliment their income and possible loss of revinue (unlikely since they useually rip the freaking military off I hated shopping GSA and finding out just how inflated the freaking prices were).

[azazel1024]

^
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Tell me about it

As an aside. At least as far as the books are written. In cold weather zombies that aren't in motion tend to stay that way until the temperature gets above freezing. That is Newton's first law of zombies. Basically zombies in a trance/suspended animation can freeze solid. Moving ones can't (though really I'd think if it got cold enough they would no matter how fast they were moving).

Zombies also decay very, very slowly. Even up and moving I think the book states it would take a decade or more before they would rot to the point of 'dying' and in suspended animation I think they last 2+ times longer. Getting PPE/life force regenerates them to a degree starting over that clock.

The rate of decay should be so low that they wouldn't differ appreciably from the outside air temperature with the exception that they will of course stand out some since it takes a little while to lose and gain body temperature compared to the background (core about 1 degree per hour at room temperature from 98.6, or about 1 degree per hour per 30 degree F temp difference). Surface temperature changes faster, but in the morning and evening as the temperatures are raising and lowering the zombie is likely to lag 5-10F in surface temperature until temperature stablize for the day/night. So say from 9-10am until about 4-9pm they'd pretty much blend in with the back ground/air temp and the same from about midnight or so until about 5-7am. Air temp changes faster than surface temperature as the zombie retains heat/cold longer than the air.
-Matt

[azazel1024]

They'd lag some. Just like sun warmed rocks stay warm for a few hours after the sun goes down and they also are cooler than the sorrounding air for a few hours after the sun comes up.

They would deffinitely look very different thermally than a living human, even if the ambient was in the 90-110F range. Look at a thermal picture of a living human and you notice that even in warm rooms humans have a pretty wide range of temperatures across their bodies due to the way we shed heat from our skin. A zombie would be pretty uniform in temperature. From a longer distance of a 'monochrome' type thermal imager (IE shows temperature differences using luminance instead of color) it would be much harder to tell the difference especially if ambient was in the 90-110F range.
-Matt

[azazel1024]

Oh, yup.
-Matt

[G]

On page 118 there are several optics systems listed. All of the infrared optic systems are good. Why? The text says that "zombies have no heat signature and can not be detected by this device". Which makes it simple - if you use the device and see something coming towards you without a heat signature - shoot it. If it has a heat signature you might want to shoot it anyways, as humans are often more dangerous than zombies

...The Thermal imager works as well, but costs a lot more.

[azazel1024]

On page 118 there are several optics systems listed. All of the infrared optic systems are good. Why? The text says that "zombies have no heat signature and can not be detected by this device". Which makes it simple - if you use the device and see something coming towards you without a heat signature - shoot it. If it has a heat signature you might want to shoot it anyways, as humans are often more dangerous than zombies

...The Thermal imager works as well, but costs a lot more.

I think the intent was supposed to be that the imagers won't work to see them. However, as you pointed out, the lack of a heat signiture or one similar to ambient would stand out. I'd wager that the person writting that bit hasn't used IR or thermal optics before. A resonably precise thermal imager should easily be able to differentiate a zombie with a background heat signiture and the wall behind it (heck you can differentiate patterns on a brick wall with a good one).

IR optics don't see heat emminations, they just see in to the near IR range of the spectrum. A zombie would look identical to a human in this spectrum (remember it isn't seeing heat).
-Matt

[azazel1024]

On page 118 there are several optics systems listed. All of the infrared optic systems are good. Why? The text says that "zombies have no heat signature and can not be detected by this device". Which makes it simple - if you use the device and see something coming towards you without a heat signature - shoot it. If it has a heat signature you might want to shoot it anyways, as humans are often more dangerous than zombies

...The Thermal imager works as well, but costs a lot more.

I think the intent was supposed to be that the imagers won't work to see them. However, as you pointed out, the lack of a heat signiture or one similar to ambient would stand out. I'd wager that the person writting that bit hasn't used IR or thermal optics before. A resonably precise thermal imager should easily be able to differentiate a zombie with a background heat signiture and the wall behind it (heck you can differentiate patterns on a brick wall with a good one).

IR optics don't see heat emminations, they just see in to the near IR range of the spectrum. A zombie would look identical to a human in this spectrum (remember it isn't seeing heat).
-Matt

And that person would be KS and not me.

Figured, especially based on somewhat similar things I've seen written as to how 'optics' work in different PB settings. For example the IR optics in pretty much all books are described as sending out pencil thin beams of IR light and then you can see the heat from the target basically.

IR optics, that I believe are being refered to, are active nightvision optics that use an IR illuminator in a fairly broad illumination patern and then use light enhancement of the near infrared light emmitted to 'image' the scene. They'll certainly be noticable by other near infrared type optics. Example, the 'night vision' you see for most video cameras today and most cheaper night vision binocs and monocular systems. No pencil thin beam and no seeing heat (though you are seeing in the near IR band, so heat signitures of things that are really hot, but not quite luminescant in the visbile light range would glow pretty bright. Example a hot exhaust manifold or hotplate/cook top that was hot, but not glowing hot).
-Matt

[asajosh]

Personally, having used thermals also, I'd say they'd come up, but not as a heat source. Much like how a tree, plant or inanimate object comes up.

Thats how I ruled it, for the one character who had thermal goggles.