Zombie Apocolypse

Originally posted by S_W_LeGenD
My friend, TWD indicates a pandemic outbreak.

so, the virus, according to you:

- 100% infection rate (infects all people it contacts)
- 100% symptomatic (all people infected develop the zombie symptoms)
- Present in 100% of the population
- Transmits through fluid exchange
- Transmits by air (?)
- Contaminates water or other resources
- Undetectable, or at least, goes undetected
- Dormant for years, but activates across the population at a single moment
- Can not only be carried by other species, but infects them

... think about it. With those qualities, zombification is the least scary outcome. That virus alone, zombies or not, would end human civilization, if not all life on the planet. The fact it has to wait until you are dead to activate is actually a detriment. If it just killed you outright or at the time of population wide activation, that would be the end. Making it a zombie virus actually needlessly extends the process

I've watched TWD. It is not a show about people dealing with a pandemic, it is a show about zombies (sometimes).

Not only the above, but you have suggested in the case of zombies that:

- The virus acts as their immune system
- The virus maintains their body heat, other biological processes
- The virus etc etc etc...

This is what I mean by the midi-chlorian thing. Someone tried to "scienceify" zombies, but in doing so, has to come up with such absurd notions that it is actually detrimental to the whole process. Its like a literary "get out of illogical plots free" card, as you can continuously just say, "well, no, actually the virus can prevent that".

Its like, if I pointed out that zombies would very quickly lose the ability to move given the myelin covering the axons in their central nervous system would degrade, essentially giving zombies a terminal case of multiple sclerosis, and you replied "well, in the movies zombies don't degrade, therefore the virus performs the role of the oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells".

Like, if my argument is that, in reality stuff doesn't work the way it would in the movies, it isn't a convincing reply to say, "well, look how it worked in the movies". Sure, we are dealing with something of an entirely fictional nature in the first place, so it makes everything sort of speculative anyways, but it does seem sort of futile if every point can be countered with "well, the virus fixes it".

IDK, you are right, the virus you described would be the apocalypse... though, from the very examples you provided in this thread, it looks nothing like what an actual form of a zombie virus might be. For instance:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=24276

here is something that sort of makes people kind of behave in a way that you might describe as a zombie if you were trying to make an interesting article. Notice how it has none of the "God Mode" hacks that poor writers have had to develop to make their outbreak seem more realistic?

[by hack writers: I mean the people trying to scienceify zombies, not the people who write zombie fiction well without being bogged down in such things. Sometimes not knowing the cause is way more interesting and a good writer can get their audience to suspend disbelief]

Why the '28 Days Later' scenario is far more plausible. Uber rabies.

I've only seen a bit of the first, but it tends to deal with cities that are overrun and their survivors, while elsewhere NATO and such are able to fight and kill the infected (or, they die off from lack of food)?

also, fast zombies

Originally posted by inimalist
I've only seen a bit of the first, but it tends to deal with cities that are overrun and their survivors, while elsewhere NATO and such are able to fight and kill the infected (or, they die off from lack of food)?

also, fast zombies

IIRC, massive parts of England where overrun.

The infected are not dead, they're just raging crazy and seem to have increased endurance due to this.

Infection is by bodily contact/fluid exchange and it takes less than a minute for a newly infected human to "transform" into a rager and go on to attack and infect others.

They do eventually succumb to dehydration/starvation.

hmmm, maybe it is the "they are still alive" part then, but ya, I agree, it seems much more realistic.

Originally posted by inimalist
hmmm, maybe it is the "they are still alive" part then, but ya, I agree, it seems much more realistic.

The infected being alive and the speed of transfer/infection make it more plausible than zombies.

Though, could a virus infect a body (or at least the mind here) in under a minute? Where you go from a 'normal' person to a raging lunatic whose only goal is to attack others who are not infected?

Originally posted by Robtard
The infected being alive and the speed of transfer/infection make it more plausible than zombies.

Though, could a virus infect a body (or at least the mind here) in under a minute? Where you go from a 'normal' person to a raging lunatic whose only goal is to attack others who are not infected?

the brain has no immune system, so it wouldn't have much to contend with once the virus got through the blood-brain barrier. However, neurons often don't have the same reproductive behaviours as normal cells, so the virus would have to have some other way of "infecting" the necessary cells. Like, iirc, a normal virus hijacks a host cell and uses its DNA to start reproducing the virus. Actually, I suppose that would work with neurons... and since the rabies virus can already spread from one neuron to another (there is a technique for following the flow of information through the brain by using a rabies virus as a marker) it isn't absolutely impossible. I mean, smoked or injected drugs can have effects within seconds... I'm really not sure...

I think the more unrealistic part would be that the infected person is able to spread the virus so quickly. Maybe the virus can infect the mind in under a minute, I don't see the virus as having reproduced so many times that it is now literally dripping in the saliva.

The Rage Virus would be spread more by mosquitoes than human carriers wouldn't it?

Not to mention more traditional forms of zombie virus.

Originally posted by the ninjak
The Rage Virus would be spread more by mosquitoes than human carriers wouldn't it?

Yes and no, depends if the virus can survive in a mosquito.

eg HIV can't, iirc.

Originally posted by Robtard
Yes and no, depends if the virus can survive in a mosquito.

eg HIV can't, iirc.

Good point. The bird in 28 days later was eating a freshly killed infected. And a drop fell into the man's eye.

Originally posted by Robtard
Though, could a virus infect a body (or at least the mind here) in under a minute? Where you go from a 'normal' person to a raging lunatic whose only goal is to attack others who are not infected?

That's a really complex effect if you think about it. The infected only really differ from the uninfected through behavior and subtle visual cues. Arbitrary violence would be easy but that's the kind of thing that seriously altering the brain no matter how you do it.

Actually this brings up another of my problems with zombies. If they eat anyone uninfected then a swarm should never be able to make new zombies since they'll tear their target apart before they can reanimate.

Originally posted by the ninjak
The Rage Virus would be spread more by mosquitoes than human carriers wouldn't it?

Not to mention more traditional forms of zombie virus.

Originally posted by the ninjak
Good point. The bird in 28 days later was eating a freshly killed infected. And a drop fell into the man's eye.

http://www-rci.rutgers.edu/~insects/aids.htm

Like Rob said, it will depend on the ability of the virus to survive in the mosquito more than anything else (though there are plausible other ways for a mosquito or insect to carry it).

However, if we are talking about a virus that is able to infect many species across many kingdoms of animals (mammals, insects, etc), the mosquito itself might become a carrier, however such diseases are incredibly rare (and iirc ones that jump kingdoms like this are unheard of)

EDIT: additionally, it appears stuff like malaria, which is almost exclusively spread by mosquitoes, has evolved specifically for this mode of transmission. The malaria parasite undergoes changes within the mosquito to prepare it for transmission to the next human host.

http://www.gsk.com/community/malaria/transmission.htm

"realistically", unless it was a government program that designed a zombie causing parasite that could specifically be carried by mosquitoes (the way evolution would have designed malaria), this is highly unlikely. For instance, transmission of dengue fever requires an incubation of the virus within the mosquito to prepare it to be transferred to a human, and is so evolutionarily rarefied that only one species of mosquito, aedes aegypti, is able to transfer it.

http://www.medpedia.com/questions/1638-how-do-mosquitoes-transfer-the-dengue-fever-virus-to-people

Outside of a specific design characteristic that allows the zombie virus to be transferred by mosquitoes, it is highly unlikely.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
That's a really complex effect if you think about it. The infected only really differ from the uninfected through behavior and subtle visual cues. Arbitrary violence would be easy but that's the kind of thing that seriously altering the brain no matter how you do it.

Actually this brings up another of my problems with zombies. If they eat anyone uninfected then a swarm should never be able to make new zombies since they'll tear their target apart before they can reanimate.

Because zombies are fickle and they only eat just enough of a person, duh.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
That's a really complex effect if you think about it. The infected only really differ from the uninfected through behavior and subtle visual cues. Arbitrary violence would be easy but that's the kind of thing that seriously altering the brain no matter how you do it.

Actually this brings up another of my problems with zombies. If they eat anyone uninfected then a swarm should never be able to make new zombies since they'll tear their target apart before they can reanimate.

Edit: I actually encountered this problem years ago when I tried writing a zombie story and couldn't think of a valid reason beyond people managing to escape after being bitten before the zombies can dismember/eat them.

This reminds me of scene from the latest episode of TWD. Zombies are munching on flesh, and then a helicopter distracts them and leads them towards the farm???

What is that more important to a zombie then munching on flesh? Apparently some random noises are able to distract them from their sole instinct to feed. That totally makes sense.

Originally posted by Placidity
This reminds me of scene from the latest episode of TWD. Zombies are munching on flesh, and then a helicopter distracts them and leads them towards the farm???

What is that more important to a zombie then munching on flesh? Apparently some random noises are able to distract them from their sole instinct to feed. That totally makes sense.

Also zombies dont eat an entire person, just a few bites.

Originally posted by Placidity
This reminds me of scene from the latest episode of TWD. Zombies are munching on flesh, and then a helicopter distracts them and leads them towards the farm???

What is that more important to a zombie then munching on flesh? Apparently some random noises are able to distract them from their sole instinct to feed. That totally makes sense.

Originally posted by inimalist
so, the virus, according to you:

- 100% infection rate (infects all people it contacts)

Originally posted by inimalist
- 100% symptomatic (all people infected develop the zombie symptoms)

Originally posted by inimalist
- Present in 100% of the population

Originally posted by inimalist
- Transmits through fluid exchange
- Transmits by air (?)
- Contaminates water or other resources

TWD virus certainly can infect water (depicted in the show).

Originally posted by inimalist
- Undetectable, or at least, goes undetected

Originally posted by inimalist
- Dormant for years, but activates across the population at a single moment

Originally posted by inimalist
- Can not only be carried by other species, but infects them

Originally posted by inimalist
I never said that the virus is not detectable. It was in the show too. Dr. Edwin Jenner, CDC employee, revealed this to Rick Grimes.

[QUOTE=13773278]Originally posted by inimalist
... think about it. With those qualities, zombification is the least scary outcome. That virus alone, zombies or not, would end human civilization, if not all life on the planet. The fact it has to wait until you are dead to activate is actually a detriment. If it just killed you outright or at the time of population wide activation, that would be the end. Making it a zombie virus actually needlessly extends the process

Originally posted by inimalist
I've watched TWD. It is not a show about people dealing with a pandemic, it is a show about zombies (sometimes).

Originally posted by inimalist
Not only the above, but you have suggested in the case of zombies that:

- The virus acts as their immune system
- The virus maintains their body heat, other biological processes
- The virus etc etc etc...

This is what I mean by the midi-chlorian thing. Someone tried to "scienceify" zombies, but in doing so, has to come up with such absurd notions that it is actually detrimental to the whole process. Its like a literary "get out of illogical plots free" card, as you can continuously just say, "well, no, actually the virus can prevent that".

Every virus has come capabilities and properties in real life; some can reprogram the hosts; some can kill bacteria; some can resist fungal infections and so on....

The immune system shuts down in death. Once this happens, the bacteria inside the body begins the decomposition process. Brain cells are the first to die. Other cells can last much longer.

In TWD, the virus can reanimate only those corpses which have intact brain; not those which have damaged brain. As soon as the host dies, the virus begins its work on the brain to preserve it. It also resists bacteria inside the body to significantly slow down the decomposition processes. It might also be fighting off external threats like maggot infections and others.

If the brain is destroyed, the virus will not be able to control the body.

Originally posted by inimalist
Its like, if I pointed out that zombies would very quickly lose the ability to move given the myelin covering the axons in their central nervous system would degrade, essentially giving zombies a terminal case of multiple sclerosis, and you replied "well, in the movies zombies don't degrade, therefore the virus performs the role of the oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells".

Originally posted by inimalist
Like, if my argument is that, in reality stuff doesn't work the way it would in the movies, it isn't a convincing reply to say, "well, look how it worked in the movies". Sure, we are dealing with something of an entirely fictional nature in the first place, so it makes everything sort of speculative anyways, but it does seem sort of futile if every point can be countered with "well, the virus fixes it".

Originally posted by inimalist
IDK, you are right, the virus you described would be the apocalypse... though, from the very examples you provided in this thread, it looks nothing like what an actual form of a zombie virus might be. For instance:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=24276

here is something that sort of makes people kind of behave in a way that you might describe as a zombie if you were trying to make an interesting article. Notice how it has none of the "God Mode" hacks that poor writers have had to develop to make their outbreak seem more realistic?

[by hack writers: I mean the people trying to scienceify zombies, not the people who write zombie fiction well without being bogged down in such things. Sometimes not knowing the cause is way more interesting and a good writer can get their audience to suspend disbelief]

It brings us one-step closer to TWD like hypothetical supervirus.

Originally posted by Colossus-Big C
To them, noise=more food

Also zombies dont eat an entire person, just a few bites.

Assuming a zombie can't digest...wouldn't a bloated zombie be turned off from eating more?

Even if it's instinctual, a full gut of undigested meat would surely have an adverse affect to their need to kill/eat.