Everyone’s favorite (NOT) series rises from the crypt, plaguing gamers in their basements everywhere.  Today’s topic will be on tactics, specifically the case of LE ZERGFEST.

What the fuck, you may ask, is a zerg? Zerg is technically an insectoid race made famous in real-time strategy game Starcraft, and are often used to swarm the hell out of the opponent. Gamers have co-opted the term ‘zerg’ to mean using shear numbers to overwhelm your opponent. Think 300, the Romans? Total zergfest.

 Figure 1: Lol, zerging is liek an epic tactic bro!

Sparta break!

There are a few ways to respond in the face of an opposing zerg. If you have the numbers, you can hitch up your underpants and counter-zerg, where everyone flails wildly as fast as possible and hopes they make a contribution*. Hopefully, you end up crushing your opponent with your epic bicep and claim pyrrhic victory by standing on a pile of corpses (whose, you’re not quite sure).

If you’re outnumbered, you have no choice but find your inner Spartan and employ some tactics. Do you pull the opponent into a choke point that they can’t pass, but you can? Do you flank them from another direction? Do you perform a series of hit and runs? This is the canonical David v Goliath situation, except your brain is the rock. Hence, the quality of your result may vary (e.g. if you throw your brain at the opponent, you will definitely lose, especially if they are zombies).

The last case I will discuss is if you have equivalent forces and tactics. This is a true war scenario, sacrifices are made, battles are lost and won, and eventually someone comes out on top. If you can keep a cool head in the face of LE ZERGFEST, there’s a good chance you can hold your own, and even if you lose, you have learned something quantitative about the enemy.

I have found my experiences with zergfests to be translatable both to lab culture and field culture. There are labs and areas of study where people throw all their troops at a problem, not caring if one person’s success is built off a labmate or collaborator’s failure. There are fields where the lab juggernaut holds all the gold and smashes anyone who comes too close. In that case, others are forced to sneak attack to get a foothold and make something of themselves. In my humble n00b opinion, the best science happens when well-matched groups engage in battle for supremacy. But the key to surviving any of these situations is understanding that you are indeed in a zergfest situation. And then planning accordingly.