What exactly IS the disease?
As we all know, the outbreak that led to the apocalypse Clementine now survives in was caused by some form of disease that mutilated everyone but a few and turned normal human beings into rabid, ravaging monsters whose only function seems to be to kill and eat. But what exactly IS the disease? I'm pretty sure a number of people must have theories about it, and I'd like to share a theory of my own. (QUICK WARNING: I go on for ages so you might as well skip to the bottom were I do a summary)
I think the first thing that needs to be discussed is how the disease turns a normal person into a Walker: in my opinion, the disease is a highly developed member of it's species that, rather than kill its host, must somehow infect the hosts brain (that's why only hitting the brain will kill a zombie) and then from there manipulates the hosts nervous system. By doing this it controls the actions of the host, and its primary order is for the now turned Walker to attack those who are not infected. The reason the virus goes to all this trouble to turn a person rather than killing them must be because the virus is using the Walker to spread the virus- it instructs the host to attack the living and spread the virus, creating more Walkers. Why they then eat there prey is a bit confusing to me- perhaps the virus is somehow still keeping most of the bodily functions intact, and therefore the host needs energy to survive. But this would suggest that the Walkers can starve, which isn't true at all. I don't understand why they eat they're prey, but the reasoning behind manipulating the host is quite logical and an effective way of spreading the disease- whatever the virus is, it is certainly hundreds of years of evolution ahead of its own kind!
The biting would suggest that the disease is not air born and can only be transmitted through blood- but then how is everyone infected? How did everyone else fall ill without getting bitten, and some need to get bitten to get turned? Well, the only way of explaining the turning no matter how you die thing is through two different theories: by suggesting that the disease is air born, and that it hangs around in the air, infecting those that are already dead (so they aren't actually already infected, they just get quickly infected once they die); or by suggesting that the survivors have some sort of genetic advantage over those that turned straight away- they are infected, but something stops them getting infected (unlike those who turn straight away).
In the TWD series (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) that doctor guy tells Rick and the rest of them that the disease temporarily kills the person then reanimates the brain- this is how people turn. However, I believe that during this process of taking over the brain the brain cells are neurones are damaged badly, making the Walker kind of mentally disabled- this would explain why they lurch around slowly and stumble over objects.
But what is this genetic advantage? It might be simply that they're immune systems are incredibly strong and have quickly adapted to combat the mutagens. But this poses major problems- for a start, how can a baby like AJ with a weak immune system survive? And, if they have a genetic advantage (a strong immune system which has learnt/already knows how to deal with the disease) shouldn't it be hereditary? That might explain why family like Carlos and Sarah (despite the fact Sarah is a kid) are still alive. The genetic advantage could also be a natural immunity to the effects of the virus, and this would explain why they only turn after being killed- once the immune system is shut down, only then can the virus take hold. Also, I wanted to try and address the question of why some people need to be bitten- assuming that they have stronger immune systems than those that got infected straight away, it is possible that the shock caused by the bite and the overload of pathogens into the blood overcomes the immune system.
I'd also like to try and add possible cures to the pathogen: if it was possible to get weakened strands of the virus then Vaccines could work, though this is actually quite useless- with a vaccine your immune system learns to combat a weakened version of a virus, but won't be ready if you ever get the actual thing. And it'd be risky as well- even if the virus is weakened, it could still overcome the body if it is as enhanced as it appears to be.
In our bodies we have two types of white blood cells, the important ones being called Lymphocytes. Lymphocytes identify a disease and then produce Antibodies that can destroy the pathogens (the Antibodies act as a "marker", which indicates to the other type of white blood cells, Phagocytes, to destroy that cell). The Lymphocytes remember what type of Antibody to produce for each disease, and these Lymphocytes "remember" this for years and years- this is what gives you immunity to diseases (and this is why we use Vaccines- so are white cells can recognise and produce antibodies for different diseases). So, if you could transfer some of these Lymphocytes that can combat the disease into other survivors then they would also be immune (this process does happen and has a name, but I can't remember for the life of me what it is and how it is done. All you need to know is that its complicated and very difficult).
I've droned on too long now, so I'll just quickly conclude my theory:
-the virus attacks the brain and takes over the nervous system, using the host's body to spread the disease; this creates a walker
-why they feed is a mystery
-the nervous system (brain and spine) need to be destroyed to stop the walker, and with the nervous system destroyed the virus can no longer control the host
-whilst taking over the brain, the virus damages brain cells and neurones, which causes a lack of co-ordination and control in the walkers- it might also explain why they don't register any pain
-the virus was mass spread into everyone, and lurks inside everyone
-some people are immune simply because they're immune systems are stronger than most and have somehow adapted to combat the disease
-a bite causes a flooding of pathogens into the blood and shock, both of which defeat the immune system; this is why survivors need to be BITTEN, and don't just succumb to the virus like the majority of people early on
-if a survivor dies naturally and the brain is intact, then there is no immune system to stop the virus from reanimating the brain and taking control of the nervous system
-Vaccines could be used to combat the disease but this is unlikely
-you could transfer memory Lymphocytes that provide immunity to the disease into other survivors, but this is difficult to do
Do you agree or disagree? What are your own theories?
Comments
It probably started from Clams
I've thought about this before, too. What I personally like to believe, is that the 'reanimation' virus/disease is an air-borne strain that pretty much infected everything. Think ash clouds from a volcano. All it takes, from that point forward, is for people to start dying from a variety of everyday causes; car accidents, suicides, murder, natural causes, sickness and disease. 10 people die and get taken to hospitals. They reanimate and bite 10 more people, and before long you have 20 walkers. That number would keep multiplying quickly over the course of a couple days, before anyone figures out what the hell is going on, leading to a full-blown state of emergency. When looting and panic all start, more people continue to die, and walkers run rampant in the ensuing chaos. At least hundreds of people across the globe die every day. Over the course of one day, you have the potential of an upwards of a thousand walkers, spread all over the entire world. Imagine the chaos that could theoretically cause, and how quickly it could cause it.
When it comes to the bites, specifically the lethality of them, I theorize that the virus causes the host to secrete a cocktail of lethal chemicals, causing a 100% fatality rate to anyone bitten. It acts as both a defense mechanism for the virus to fight off potential attackers, while allowing further spread of the virus, as the bite will eventually kill. This also explains why fresh walkers are able to deliver fatal bites. From here, though, the amount of time it takes for the bite to kill you depends on the immune system and overall strength of the person bitten. Some people are more durable than others, able to hold on for an extended period of time while others are practically immobilized within hours. The secretion theory also explains why, in accordance to the comic series, 'infected' weapons work: the whole of the walker and bodily fluids still inside it are seeping with what is essentially an extremely potent poison, therefore any direct contact of walker gunk with the bloodstream will eventually kill a person.
The desire to feed could be more or less a by-product of the virus' hijacking of the nervous system. Or alternatively, it's the virus' desperate attempt to survive, despite the fact that since it infects a dead body, it's practically doomed to die as it can't collect any kind of sustenance from its prey. Think something akin to an insect that doesn't have a mouth. It tries to eat/find sustenance, but ultimately, it's doomed to die regardless.
To go back to the reanimation part of it all, the hijacking of the brain/nervous system would be very basic, not capable of any cognitive feats outside of the basic functions; walking, eating, etc. Since it's working at pure basics, its not overly capable of any advanced or finer movements, resulting in the slow, lumbering gait of walkers, as well as their propensity to trip and stumble and bump into objects in their way. Not registering pain could come as a result of only the bare essentials of the host body being re-activated. Not to mention that since it's infecting a dead body, that comes with its own set of benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, the range of motion would most likely be limited since it's a corpse. On the other hand, none of the basic limitations when it comes to pain would exist within a walker. That can explain why walkers are capable of ripping people open, or why they're capable of biting through just about anything. Since the general pain and stress we put on our muscles would eventually make us stop, walkers don't have to worry about that. They'll rip their own legs and arms off to get at their target, and they could exert enough force on their arms to the point where they could straight up break them in half.
Going off that line of thought, let's bring up a hypothetical. If a walker is stuck or otherwise restrained, and acquires a target, it enters something of a rage mode as it thrashes around and tries to get at it's target. Now since it's stuck, it obviously can't reach it, which results in the walker essentially getting more and more pissed off, causing it to exert even more force as it tries to get at whatever has its attention. This explains two things: why walkers eventually break free of restraints, and why they eventually manage to overpower people that are struggling with them. The harder it is to reach a target, the harder it will try in order to reach it. Examples being the security guard at the end of No Time Left, eventually breaking out of the display case it got trapped in, or breaking off its arm if you choose to handcuff it.
It's a disease that kills everything but the brain...because they are decaying...the show kinda goes over how it may have happened. Dr. Jenner tells the crew how it may be viral, but he's not sure, but he does know that it reactivate the brain stem...and like the Red Queen says about the T-Virus...subjects(walkers) have the simplest of motor functions, perhaps a little memory, virtually no intelligence and are only driven my the most basic need...the need to feed.
Finding any kind of medicinal treatment for it is unlikely right now since there is no means to discover what caused it.
whatever it was, it was most likely some kind of airborne toxin
A good bullet in the head does the trick.
funny, but i mean medicinal as in medications, as in pills and such
I know. I had too. XD
A Saltlick also does the trick.......
:-0 I SEE IT ALL NOW!!!
Why are some people immune? Do you think that's something to do with the immune system's strength? The whole some people being immune and others turning right away, for me, is one of the arguments against the virus being air born.
On your final point, it might be plausible that the virus also stimulates muscle growth of sorts when it takes over the host, otherwise it'd make no sense how a Walker can overpower a grown man. It's either the utter determination of trying to spread the disease or the virus actually enhancing muscle development that makes Walkers more powerful.
I'd also like to talk about the origins of the disease. Were do you think it came from? Personally, I'd say it was scientists bio-engineering a virus to be used in Chemical warfare, but then somehow the virus got leaked (if you've ever seen the film Twelve Monkeys, it could be that someone purposely leaked it)
Yeah, chemical warfare would make the most sense for why people aren't affected until after death
What about the origins of the disease? Anyone got thoughts on that?
Ebola patients in Hospital mixed with Bath Salt.
SALT!? AS IN SALTLICKKKKK!!?!?!?!?!?
Sg190th I don't find that especially funny and I doubt the thousands of victims or their family members would either. God forbid you getting anything like Ebola, Cancer or HIV as I doubt you would be making jokes about it then.
As for the OPs original points regarding Walkers and the disease itself. I agree with many of your observations and theory's, and tried to come up with how the virus works myself.
I applaud your imagination, intelligence and reasoning capability. Sadly I don't see many posts of that quality on here and so I look forward to reading some more of your thoughts.
I don't think anyone's immune to anything. I think the virus simply doesn't activate until the clinical death of it's host. So no one is at risk of suddenly turning because they're a baby or otherwise have a weakened immune system.
Everyone's basically asymptomatic until they actually die.
The time it takes for people to turn after death is another big mystery. One theory I had is that the time to reanimate is based conversely on how long it takes you to die. As in, if you slowly die from an infection, you'll take longer to turn, but if you die quickly from something like a gunshot, you'll turn much quicker. But even that doesn't always seem to be the case, so who knows?
I had a theory that it's actually not a virus, but a little parasitic one-celled organism that injects its own DNA into other cells, but keeping the cells alive the whole time. Instead, they destroy the nucleus and insert their own nucleus. So basically, it's a parasite that does the same stuff a virus does. That way, since viruses can't infect dead cells, a parasite could do that instead.
I always thought that maybe (this is a big maybe) that the original virus was something that everyone had inside their bodies the entire time (think like chickenpox) but "activates" with the help of an outside stimuli (carried in the walkers' bites). Patient zero's virus activated through either a natural mutation or medication or pollutant or whatever.
What made me think of this was hearing a discussion about cancer and a talk I had with my mom about the nature of viruses. I heard somewhere that we all have cancer cells inside of us, but its only a problem when they multiply greatly and our bodies can't fight back. Some viruses infect their hosts, symptoms appear and disappear, but the body never really rids itself of the virus-- so sometimes there are flair ups or complications.
Well isn't cancer like an over production on cells? Or something like that
I believe it's an over production of mutated and/or broken cells. These cells take over an organ or whatever, break off to infect other systems in the body, and its organ failure that kills the person or animal. It also puts stress on the body.
I thought about it before though I haven't come to any conclusion so far. Hoenstly, I don't know what it could be because for example viruses and bacteries needs living host, not a dead one. If we're talking about the known strains because there can always be something entirely new. I don't know.
Though, I always wanted to ask - we know for sure that everyone are infected and will turn no matter what if the brain isn't destroyed but what I'm curious is, what happened with the people that by the time when outbreak occur they were in space (I mean, cosmonauts). I was always curious about it because if we're dealing with some kind of virus that is in the air that maybe, just maybe, people that were (or still are) trapped in the space aren't infected?
What do you guys think about that?
Considering that the guys at the CDC couldn't find out what it was while examining brain tissue.
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal"
"Or the wrath of God?"
"There's that"
So it's just the omnipotent infection like in Romero's films
Sadly this will never be explored because Kirkman likes to rehash plots instead of adding new interesting things into the TWD universe.
Hmm, interesting theory on the turning time. I can only guess that some people are more exposed to the virus than others and therefore turn quicker than others. But otherwise it's still sort of confusing how it works
Good point on the immune point, though when I said "immune" I used the wrong term. I sort of meant how some people turned and others survived.
Thank you
Interesting theory. I never really considered it. I suppose it's possible, though the organism would have to be very small- just a few cells big, in fact. That would make it some sort of Protocist, a usually single celled organism (eg; Malaria, believe it or not, is not a virus but a protocist). Or it could be a bacteria.
But as for the injecting it's own DNA part, there are actually a lot of viruses that can do that. Scientists use these virus in altering the DNA in bacteria in bio-farming of bacteria.
Maybe. Flipping the whole argument on his head is a good thought. Good suggestion
it doesn't matter its not important.
Well yes, but after the victim dies, the viruses would die too. If it was a parasite, the cells could stay alive.
It started from Global Warming, Ask Obama. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT DOODERS
First and foremost, it's not a disease because it doesn't make any biological sense. Even if you think whatever the infection is keeps the brain alive, the brain also depends on circulation of blood, a functioning digestive system, breathing lungs, etc. in order to send signals throughout the nervous system just to move the body. When one of those systems is shut down for long enough, you die because your brain dies.
So with that aside, you have to assume Kirkman is never going to try and explain something like that as being based in reality, and instead will probably go for a supernatural cause which can be open to interpretation and malleable for another writer's skill, if at all. I think it'll never be explained and will probably just be a symbol for our own primitive nature.
Right.. There are general scientific flaw's with the whole zombie idea so it's nearly impossible to define it.
Maybe it's not important to the story, but it's definitely interesting to think about.
true
Good point. I like the idea of it being more a more complicated organism rather than a virus- viruses are very, very simple organisms (the only life function they carry out is reproduction) so it's questionable how a virus could create the Walkers.
Are you talking about people living in Space Stations? They'd run out of power and food pretty quick, but otherwise it's plausible that they wouldn't be turned as they weren't on earth at the time.
True. Then again though, some people might argue that perhaps this virus/organism manages to keep the brain alive by providing it with what it needs- oxygen, etc; this means that the brain doesn't need the rest of the body to survive. Personally I think that's quite a far fetched argument, though it would make sense.
If it's down to supernatural sources, then that'd explain a lot. Like God repeating the flood, except using another method. But, though I am religious, I'd call that a pretty poor explanation as the series and genre itself has very little to do with spirituality and just throwing spirituality in there at the end to explain the disease would be pretty poor writing.
I have a feeling its going to be a pathogen/fungal like infection from a pathogen control lab that turns its alien host (human) Circulation/blood system into a sun absorbing system making the body move slower but more efficient at getting energy from the sun to move. If flesh kept them alive then most of them would be dead.
The walker body mummifies its self to stay persevered.
To spread the pathogen takes control of the human brain and crosses the wires for eating and reproduction(sex) to help pass the pathogen only its a clumsy connection so the walkers eat excessively because it feels like sex.
Yeah, I know they would probably sooner or later run out of supplies but I'm just curious if they're infected like the rest of the humanity. If it's airborne then it's possible. If it's something with human DNA then perhaps they turned anyway.
Actually its quite interesting. If they were in space, would there DNA be effected? If they did turn, then that would suggest that whatever turned people into Walkers had been inside us for years and years (decades possibly) and then it turned us all at one set period of time. I'm definitely going to think about that issue a bit more, raises some big questions. Thanks for bringing it up
Hmm, interesting idea. One issue I'd have with that theory though is that you need Chloroplasts to carry out Photosynthesis (which is how energy from the sun is obtained) which would make the Walkers green, but they're not. Interesting suggestion though, and your explanation of the whole eating thing actually does make sense.
No problem. I'm thinking about this option and possibilities for like 2 years now.
And you're right - it's very interesting because as far as we know that the whole world went to hell, we actually can't be sure what happened to the people in space stations. They might have lived there for at least a year (maybe even more) in time when outbreak has started but I think that a few months would be enough.