Elizabethan zombies

[beccaelizabeth]

Had bath
had plot bunny
more details for the zombie James Bond AU of cracktastic temptations

where Queen Elizabeth I might have died but she never went away
and the service she started to protect her country from the similarly persistent has been recruiting ever since


today's problem is: What would it be called?

I think 'zombie' isn't correct for the era.
I could have the name update, of course, but it's not like they'd be into rebranding exercises. There would be new casual ways to refer to them - Z branch, for instance - but there would be an old school proper title sort of thing as well.

What are suitably Shakespeare ways of referring to the persistent dead?

And which ones would be funny?




... the thing is, the more I think on it, the less I want to write this as fanfic, but the more it looks like it'll be terribly easy to file the serial numbers off and have something that looks mildly original.

... gay zombie security service not being a plot I've read much yet ...

Comments

[damalan.livejournal.com]

I love you: you have the strangest plot bunnies! :)

I would think a reasonable mediaeval-like term might be Revenant. Of course, by now Her Majesty's Revenance Service would consist of a lot of people. Still as they don't consume anything, and probably don't mind hanging around, that might not be a problem. So long as they remain loyal to R (short for both revenant and regina) they can be relied upon to serve the nation's needs.

As to what they'd be called now - well it's hard to avoid being called a Zombie. Must be very annoying though: no eating brains and a loyalty to the nation ignored because of a few films! ;) And some might call them Frankensteins.

Well, all we need now is a few stories... Good luck!

And long may your plot bunnies keep breeding!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

'Revenant' was the first thing I thought of, too, but some quick google seemed to tell me that it didn't come into English in that sense until the late 18th century, around the same time as 'Vampyre'. However, it came in from Old French, and means something like "coming home", so it sounds like a reasonable name for an Elizabethan foreign service - maybe even as the source of the English usage.

The late 16th and early 17th century English stuff I've seen about the living dead all seems to focus on shroud-eating corpses, which even showed up in the Malleus Maleficarum.

The medieval walking dead sources (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_revenant) usually just call them walking dead...

Also I think this would be an awesome original story, and you probably wouldn't even have to file off the serial numbers very hard, because they'd want to market it as 'inspired by James Bond' anyway...

[beccaelizabeth]

I had a feeling revenant was a bit off. I was checking GURPS books for history of the undead.

walking dead works, but isn't exactly snappy, you know?


I think James Bond is such a big deal by now that 'inspired by' covers practically a whole genre. Being a deliberate postmodern reinvention should hopefully avoid copyright problems... probably...

[beccaelizabeth]

:)

Revenant is a good word.
Eternal Revenant Service... would unfortunately be ripping quite the wrong kind of place.

and yeah, all that anti-zombie prejudice is just soooo unfair



you think the plot bunnies are weird, you should try the dreams :eyeroll:

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Hey, I have the right icon!

[beccaelizabeth]

:)