It’s not a virus!

I believe calling the Wildfire pathogen- and all other reanimating zombie pathogens- a virus is wrong. Viruses are the most basic, primitive gene bearing bodies in nature. In essence, they are either a DNA or RNA strand in a protein shell. They do not have organelles, metabolisms, etc. They cannot even replicate on their own- they need to parasitize a host cell to duplicate.

And this is it: a virus cannot activate in a dead cell.

Therefore, I believe (at least in the case of Wildfire) that it is caused by a fungus or fungus-like organism. It logically makes much more sense then any other type of pathogen. As stated above, a virus needs a living host to activate. A fungus, however, does not. In fact, it would be beneficial for the host to die, as most fungi are decomposers. In the natural world, there are fungi that alter the neurology of animals to further propagate infections, most famously the cordyceps of The Last of Us fame. These real world zombifiers attack a whole range of insects and other small arthropods. There are also slime molds, which have been tested “memory” and “problem solving,” being documented finding the shortest route to food, and remembering intervals of time and patterns of temprature.

Put both of these concepts together, and you have Wildfire: a fungus that can hijack the neurology of a host to find more food and (especially in S1) use basic problem solving skills to get that food.

A then unknown-to-science fungus begins to infect people from an unknown source. For the most part, the public remains unaware of this new disease, as in it’s dormant state, there are no symptoms, and no discernible signs of infection. Sooner or later, something changes within a person’s being, either an outside factor causes the fungus to come out of dormancy, leading to the symptoms that we have seen (look to Jim from S1 to see them first hand), and/or the person has died, allowing the fungus to begin its hostile takeover of the brain.

Furthermore, a fungus can explain how the dead can rise again. At the point of reanimation, fungal mycelia have spread throughout the body, thus feeding the fungal growth. It explains why walkers are: they don’t breathe, they don’t need to eat (yet they do), they don’t feel pain or become incapacitated by severe wounds such as decapitation. The mycelia feeds on the content of the walkers stomach first, and if it hasn’t eaten in x time, will begin to digest the flesh and bone of the host (explaining why some long isolated walkers are decomposed, and others appear still fleshy).

TLDR: it’s not a virus, it’s a fungus. Viruses can’t activate dead cells. Fungus are decomposers, and some real world fungi are known to “zombify” and “hunt” for food.

Submitted December 03, 2020 at 11:40PM by Droid_Pilot https://ift.tt/36Ek3gR