I was thinking about the zombies in George Romero's movies. And his movies all seem to have a sense of hopelessness in them. No matter what the characters do, when they die they reanimate into the undead.

Then I thought of a story where I was on a space colony with the last 20k people of the Human Race. The entire Earth is overrun with zombies, but thanks to the sun's radiation the other radiation that caused our zombifications was purged from us, so when we died we didn't transform.

However, among the survivors is a cult who believes that zombification is the next step in human evolution and they've been secretly bringing zombies up into the station only to have them revert back into corpses. They've also been kidnapping people and experimenting on how to counter the Sun's radiation so the survivors aboard the space colony can ascend up the ladder of evolution...

This wouldn't be too common a story, right?

you know...i think it depends alot on how you handle the zombies. i suggest you dont just take em as by the book Romero zombies, becuase that's what's common. people took his formula and beat it to undeath. if you want it to be a bit different, i suggest you look at the "next step in evolution" aspect you have, and build on that. find out why this is the next step in evolution, why is being dead the next best thing? turn these undead fruitcakes into yer own thing and i think that'll help you with originality.

I Am Legend was based around the idea that the undead were the next step.

Some of what you're describing is pretty similar to what the Dead Space series is about, although it's not zombies, it's necromorphs (who kill you then animate your body). And it's not that earth is overrun, it's that these things are happening in outlying colonies and the cult is trying to make the thing happen in more populated areas. So some of the story is different but the core concept is the same. Sorry. :I

I'm basing my zombies on the humor that Marvel did for their zombie series. You could always try something like that, to kinda make it not completely depressing. Seeing something like Spider-Man become immensely remorseful over someone he ate or Deadpool's zombie still carry on the wisecracking is what brought me into it; they did a typical zombie story, but they had a lot of fun doing it.

It'll be awhile, but I'll be getting to that point.

I guess what makes my idea unique so far is that the entirety of Earth's population has been zombified, and the last few remnants of Humanity have enough numbers to recover and thanks to the life giving Sun there's no chance of them becoming zombies. Except that the cult involved wants to have these humans turn into zombies as well even if it means Humanity as we know it will become irevocably extinct. I could probably build on that premise.

Its all about DELIVERY.

If you know how to deliver it properly, you can make a really boring and cliche plot very effective.

Personally, I think it sounds like a potentially amazing idea! I say go for it! :)

That does sound pretty interesting. The zombie concept since Romero's take on it has kinda run itself into the ground, with minor variations igniting the concept with some decent success.

Good luck with it, though. :) This might be interesting.

How about this? For most of the story the protagonist (who somehow found out what the cultists were up to and thus is being chased) is fighting/outwitting the cultists, who all this time are trying to figure out how to turn the remaining humans on the station into zombies. Near the end he starts encountering the undead (made from the corpses of the cultists he manages to kill while escaping).

I'm thinking this could be a story about a group of people who want to force their ideals on the majority who doesn't want to do so... kinda like how certain groups (such as the so called "moral watchdogs") are doing today, and what could happen if such a group had the power to actually force the majority to do what the group wants...

Sounds to me almost kinda like Doc Savage meets Mass Effect meets Last Man on Earth. But you can almost bet I'm interested in seeing you pull it off. :)

Get rid of the zombie menace and the story would become original/fresh.

As PitFace had said, "Why is being dead the next best thing?" It makes no sense. Zombies are rotting, i.e. finite shelf life. They're mindless, i.e. not better mentally. They're slow and clumsy, or fast and clumsy, i.e. not better physically. The only thing they have over live humans are (1) indifference to pain and damage, and (2) no need for nutrition or air to survive (their hunger for brains/meat is psychological).

Maybe this cult isn't religious. Maybe it's a faction which believes that they can harness aspects of the zombies (through SCIENCE!) to allow humans to survive in space, because maybe their supplies (of air, water, food, fuel, radiation shielding) are running out?

Maybe they actually do develop "evolved undead" who still have a mind but have undead properties? But that would just make them vampires...

Nope. They're a religious cult alright. A very CRAZY religious cult. To them, being undead is the road to immortality. After all, you can't die if you're already dead. Of course they're working on the rotting part...

I could probably hide the crazy bit behind a facade of science. The cult leaders saying all these neat things about being a zombie and that their mission is to make sure every human being experiences the gift of zombification. Later they will turn out to be irrational and insane...