World War Z/WMG

the SIR is an AR-180 with wooden furniture rather than polymer furniture.
Little bearing on the story, but resolves the in-story qestions of the rifle's exact make. the 180 is a reliable, accurate, semi-auto, 5.56 rifle that can be made cheaply and in high quality and quantity. It has a bayonet lug and a quick-detatch scope mount, and accepts M16 magazines.

The virus is alien in origin, a nanotech plague designed to affect only humans and sent by an unmanned probe.
The originating planet is a water world, explaining why aliens would want our planet (70% water) and why zombies under the sea don't decay as quickly.
 * Brooks' earlier Zombie Survival Guide (and other WWZ universe materials) show that the zombie virus has been around for a while on Earth, dating back thousands of years. Its just that this is the first time it spread in the modern world, where modern international travel allowed it to easily turn into a pandemic. There are "recorded outbreaks" going back to Roman Britain and earlier; these were the basis for legends about "zombies" or similar undead revenants throughout history. What was the *ultimate* origin of the zombie virus, thousands of years ago? Who knows. The outbreak that caused World War Z started in China, and is vaguely implied to be the result of the People's Republic of China continuing bio-warfare experiments with the zombie-virus that Imperial Japan was conducting in World War II, as part of Japan's real-life "Unit 731" bio-warfare division.

Max Brooks is a time lord.

 * And he came back to stop the zombie apocalypse. He succeeded and decided to publish his zombie survival guide to get a lot of money because his TARDIS got destroyed.

WWZ is the future of a world in which The Zombie Survival Guide is a real reference book.
Alluded to in WWZ itself, which makes several mentions of a popular survival guide.
 * The Narrator of WWZ is the same Max Brooks who wrote the Guide used in that universe.

What happened to Australia?
As mentioned in the Just Bugs Me section, what happens to Australia is never covered in World War Z. Thusly, here's my take on how it would go down:
 * Firstly, Australia has the benefit of being a large island nation with lots of resources and small population. However, not only is being an island no protection against sea-travelling zombies, there's one other major problem; Australia is a mere short boat-ride away from Indonesia, which has a population of over 200 million. Just as desperate people poured into Europe trying to find a cure for the infection, so will thousands of people pour into northern Australia. Our navy would probably try their best to create a blockade, but would probably be completely overwhelmed even if they did resort to sinking all refugee ships. Ergo, I propose that northern Australia would be overrun with zombies very quickly. As for the rest of the country, it's unlikely the infected refugees would get down to the southern part of the country very quickly because of the sheer distance, and so the southern population would get some sort of warning as the situation up north deteriorated.
 * Secondly, the major cities would become infected first thanks to international travel. How bad this would be would vary from state-to-state; Western Australia, for example, has a state city that is very isolated and would therefore slow infection to other towns (however, miners flying between Perth and mining towns/sites would spread infection to remote areas). The eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria would have major problems though - a large chunk of Australia's population lives between all these cities and travel up and down the coast is frequent. As the eastern coast becomes a major hotbed of infection, people will desperately try to run inland to smaller towns, swamping them with infected refugees.
 * Thirdly, Australians have a large amount of cultural cynicism towards authority, with the particular belief that all politicians are lying weasels. So when the government tries to cover-up the incoming zombies and tell a spin story, Australians are far more likely to dismiss it and suspect something's going on. This doesn't necessarily means that any Australian would grasp the situation quicker than people in other countries, but overall Australians wouldn't believe that the government has it under control, that the army will fix everything, and other placating denials.
 * Finally, Australia has a small (but highly trained) army and very little gun ownership. Since it would be impossible for the army to cover such a huge country, the army will focus on protecting the government and important resources, leaving most Australians to fend for themselves. Rural areas would have an advantage over urban areas, as they would have more access to firearms, trained civilian teams (volunteer firefighters, etc), farms, and remote locations. However, water usually has to be pumped over many kilometers to these remote areas, and drought and fire will be even bigger problems than zombies.
 * Overall? I'd say that some parts of Australia would be heavily infested, and the majority of survivors would be living within remote towns that didn't succumb to drought, fire, sickness, etc. Hell, considering how utterly isolated you could be, many of these towns would justifiably think they were the last people on earth. Clearing out Australia would also be difficult, considering its vast size and that everyone would have fled inland to the wilderness. But overall, Australia has it 50-50; some people are screwed, but some people will be fine if they're smart.
 * One can only wonder then, with EVERYTHING in Australia trying to kill you, whether the zombies or humans will die out first should be debatable. On a serious note, most of Australia's landmass is desert; zombies decompose faster due to heat. As put in one of the pages on Aussies: It's like Russia. In Russia if you invade you can keep marching until you freeze to (un)death. Invade Northwest Australia and you can keep marching until you decompose from heatstroke.
 * It's 2850km (as the crow flies) between Brisbane and Darwin, and most of that is desert. Given a rate of movement of 5km/h (the average LIVING human walking speed, so that's probably generous for a corpse), it would take 23 days for a zombie to reach Brisbane. Even supposing reinfection at rural townships along the way, that's more than long enough for a corpse to dessicate in the heat, or be eaten by our wonderful insect residents.
 * Also, bush-fires.
 * I checked the Zombie Survival Guide and it says nothing specific about how dry deserts affect zombies. After all, mummies last longer in deserts, especially since there is such a huge lack of moisture. They'd rot faster in the northern tropics, true, but then you have the sheer mass of projected zombies. But even if they did rot faster, don't forget that Australia is the harshest continent to life apart from Antarctica. You can't live in the Australian wilderness unless you have the knowledge, which most people don't.
 * It stands to reason that the zombies would die in the outback. Zombie flesh is poisoned to prevent decay, but they'd still dessicate. Sure mummies can be preserved for thousands of years, but have you ever tried to move one's limb? It would snap in half. In a desert, a zombie should dry out like a raisin before keeling over, immobile. Still, though, I can't see a lot of people taking advantage of this to survive--even ignoring the fact that the few people would actually know how to survive there, the number of people who can live off the land is limited by the calories that can be harvested from it, and isn't Australia so notoriously poor in natural resources that it's actually cheaper to import their food from overseas?
 * Exactly. You can escape to the outback and be safe from zombies, but then you'd have to suffer some of the harshest environments on earth. In this situation, both the zombies and the country itself are your biggest enemies, and you have to decide which one you'd rather take on.
 * Also, depends on the resource. Australia has big grain, rice, sheep, cattle and fruit industries, but all of that hinges on how lucky you are with the rains. If you're in a good weather cycle you can have a farm in a pretty remote area and survive fine. But the moment the drought or flooding shows up - and it will - then you're in a damn big pickle.
 * It's mentioned in the section about the ISS astronauts that the government evacuated to Tasmania. But I can't help thinking this is the usual "oh, we'd be fine" that also seems to pop up whenever nuclear war is discussed. (I am Australian, before you start throwing rocks at me.)
 * I actually doubt how well that would actually go - Tasmania is remote and has lots of lush greenery, but it's also a short ride away from the mainlaid. Could they really protect all of Tasmania from 20 million desperate refugees trying to escape on any water vessel they can?
 * Not the point. It's to get away from the zombies, full stop. Refugees can get there by boat, but they have to be screened first. The is exactly the same as the British evacuating north of the Antonine Wall, the Germans north of the Kiel Canal, the Americans west of the Rockies... it's mentioned several times the number of refugees that made it there. That's the whole point -- get to a defendable position, and get as many people there as you can.
 * No, it is the point. The Survival Guide has mentioned several times that your base in a full-on zombie apocolypse not only has to be isolated from zombies but from people. Refugees will certainly bring the virus with them, and how the hell is Australia's small military going to screen each and every single boat pegging their way to Tasmania? The only things you'd get is Tasmania swarming with zombies. If you want to save your government for the long term, you get to a defendable position and make sure no one else can get there.
 * The cornerstone of the Redeker Plan is not just withdrawing your government to a smaller area, but concentrating every available ounce of military firepower in said area. The refugees who are able to make it to the boats and get to Tasmania (assuming they know that's the rally point; see the German narrative where they switch from civilian designations to grid codes before ordering the final bugout, and the American "Go North" debacle) will find themselves facing down every able-bodied Australian infantryman available, and can be contained on their boats by the military until quarantine procedures can be run, either by sweeping them with dogs or just confining them to their craft for 28+ hours. If the refugees get out of control, or are too numerous, there are options for those willing to Shoot the Dog (for example, the nerve gas bombings in the Ukrainian narrative) or just be murderously indifferent (the American "Go North" strategy).
 * Australia's military is indeed small; but then, so is the island of Tasmania. Australia's military is 'small' relative to the size of the nation; if the 'size of the nation' is technically reduced to the island of Tasmania, it's much more manageable.
 * For what it's worth, post-war Sydney appears to be inhabited and functioning reasonably well, as the hospital housing the dying astronaut is there.
 * In favour of Australia doing well, we have already considered a plan analogous of the Redeker plan in the past. Specifically in World War 2, the Brisbane Line (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brisbane_Line) was considered a potential defense in the event that the Japanese ever established a firm footing on Australian soil.
 * A direct implementation of this plan would be unlikely to work, given Brisbane is a capital city and would receive infected via other means (planes, cruise ships, etc.) however it wouldn't be difficult to adapt the plan.

The North Koreans eventually evolved into Morlocks
It works

The North Korean underground superstructure eventually forms the nucleus of The City of Zion
Having abandoned the surface, the North Koreans keep digging, advancing their technology for underground living, eventually culminating in a true underground city, powered by geothermal energy and allowing generations to thrive within the Earth. Meanwhile, on the surface, the drone technology designed to fight the underwater zombie hordes gives rise to true Artificial Intelligence. When machine nation 01 begins it's war against the humans, the North Korean city is the last human structure to fall. Through the cycles of birth and extinction, the free humans are set loose into the city, redubbed Zion, and explore into the original tunnel structures (which look little better than sewer pipes compared to the Korean magnum opus that is the main city) to make their broadcasts into The Matrix.

Kondo Tatsumi killed Tomonaga Ijiro's older brother, and stole his sword

 * 1) Inside the apartment of the unnamed old man where Kondo found the sword, he finds a picture of the man in his youth, wearing an Army uniform. This picture includes a younger brother.
 * 2) Towards the beginning of Tomonaga's narative, he explicitly states that his older brother was in the army during the Second World War, and survived to establish a life for himself.
 * 3) The old man's sword is described as posessing a leather wrapped grip. This was a custom replacement, as standard issue for Gunto-pattern military swords was either wood wrapped with rayskin and cloth, or solid aluminum.
 * 4) At the end of Tomonaga's first narrative, upon picking up the sword that Kondo found, he states that the "weight and balance felt familiar to the touch". As military pattern swords were declared illegal weapons in the aftermath of World War 2, his older brother's sword was likely the only one he ever handled, with even less chance of coming across one with a similar custom grip.
 * Well its explicitly stated that Kondo killed the guy, as he was a zombie when he broke into his apartment

Breckinridge "Breck" Scott is a Take That to one Breckinridge Long

 * The gentleman in question was an obstructive bureaucrat during FDR's tenure. He was a noted Anti-Semite and as an Assistant Secretary of State withheld visas at a time when they could have saved many desperate people. His actions (or inactions) led to his demotion once 1944 came around and the true scope of the horrors the Nazis had done were revealed to the world. He could have saved thousands and been greater than Oskar Schindler. Instead he doomed them by his own prejudices. Something to think about...
 * Likewise, the book's Breck Scott acts selfishly and thinks only of himself and his own gain. Had he helped spread the truth instead of acting like the prevailing mindset of the day, he might have been celebrated in the post-war world instead of reviled.

Max never got his version of the report published

 * Considering the amount of shocking Bombs that was dropped in his version there's no way in hell the government will let him publish it (at least without redacting some things).