Yeah, there sure is no supernatural element involved. Because zombies are real.
It sounds as though you’re defining “supernatural” as being the same thing as “fantasy” or as meaning ‘any departure from the conditions we know as the Real World’.
But I wasn’t using “supernatural” to mean a departure from 2015 reality. I was using it to mean the existence of entities (a god; a devil; demons; spirits, etc.) that are beyond the natural world as we know it. (The person to whom I’d been posting had advanced the theory that “god” was responsible for the condition that creates ‘walking dead’ in the franchise.)
I know. I apologize.
No need. 
(For all of us, defining one’s terms is always a work in progress.)
To me it’s self-evident. Doesn’t have to be god, could be Loki for all I care, but it’s clearly not a 28 Days Later-style virus that’s spread via infection. There is no spreading because everyone already has it. I see no non-supernatural explanation for everyone getting it at the same time.
The fact that everyone is infected is compelling evidence for the supernatural, at least for me.
That leads me to wonder about what limitations “airborne” might have. Hypothetically, might not one “spill” at one location spread far enough to infect a lot of people, who would then (in their travels) spread it further via respiration—and eventually it could spread throughout the USA? (In the show, at least, I don’t think we know anything about the situation in the rest of the world…)
Plutonium, for example–though not a virus–is both breathable and dangerous in the lowest of concentrations. A spill of plutonium dust could kill many as it was wafted along in air currents. If that dust were living microbes instead of merely an inert element…and those who breathed it in would then create more in their bodies and breathe it out in turn, infecting others…
Well, I’m no expert. But I’m not yet convinced that the supernatural has to be involved.
Welcome to the SDMB, now knock off the snarking and potshots at other people. We allow it only in the BBQ Pit forum.
Let’s try to keep the subject actually on The Walking Dead episode/series, please, everyone.
Except you’re making an assumption that we don’t know to be the case - that everyone got it all at once. The “we’re all infected” line is something that came about months or even years into it, well after they’d all had tons of close contact with the actual zombies. It’s entirely plausible that they all became infected over time, and in fact from what we’re seeing on this series it does not appear that everyone was infected all at once, or there’d be far more risen dead right off the bat due to all the natural deaths that happen daily.
That’s supposed to be exactly the point of this series - to see how it all happened.
Well they do eat, and they certainly have a strong drive to eat (that’s the only thing they do). But it doesn’t seem like they suffer any real consequences if they go for an extended period of time without eating.
The only zombie fiction I’ve seen that touched on this was the zombie romantic comedy (ZomRomCom) Warm Bodies. In that film the zombie plague actually turned out to be curable, except there was a subset of the zombies who they called “Bonies”, that were completely skeletal, more evil, and simply too far gone to be cured. Eventually all zombies who had completely decayed turned into Bonies.
Rick was told by the CDC guy that everyone is infected at the end of season 1, which was a few weeks after he woke up in the hospital.
I find it wholly implausible that “everyone” was infected over time, no matter how long that time is. That’s pretty much the main takeaway from the CDC guy saying everyone is infected: It’s not an infectious agent. If it were, not everyone would have it.
I see the exact opposite. It seems clear to me from the first episode that everyone got it immediately.
I’ll come at this from a different direction, for those who think it’s something that spreads: If anyone on the show dies – main character, bit player, extra in the background, anyone – by non-zombie means, like say a car crash, will you expect them to rise as a zombie? Or do you expect that we’ll see some people die and not rise?
EDIT: We’ve already seen one non-zombie death rise.
So it has never occured to you that junkies have a vested interest in maintaining the myth that detox is dangerous? “Mom, I want to quit but it’s too dangerous and I don’t want to die!” Yeah, give the family the choice of a live junkie or a dead guy.
Fine, ignore sound medical and scientific facts. Have fun playing with the addicts.
Note post #187 by Idle Thoughts. Drop the hijack.
Sorry, since I read posts in sequential order I didn’t see that post until after I had replied and it was too late to edit it away. If you want to eliminate that post of mine feel free to do so.
We don’t eliminate posts as a general rule. Let’s just drop it moving forward.
I remember reading this article on Cracked from years ago about why a zombie epidemic wouldn’t actually take off and thinking it made a lot of sense:
The Walking Dead sidestepped it with the whole “everybody’s infected” rule so it makes a lot more sense how it would sustain. An initial flu that kills off a chunk of the population would really reinforce that too. I feel like the show will explain that there was this initial flu event that wiped out a good deal of the populace and that, compounded with the “everyone’s infected” rule will get us to the point of the story where Rick is waking up.
To address a couple points without multi-quoting:
-
What is causing all this? My current Wild Theory is that someone, somewhere, was experimenting with medical nanobots. All with good intentions - something to help the body heal and repair itself. Something Went Wrong. The result is that the nanos spread everywhere and if you die with nanos in you then you will rise again as a walker. The nanos try to cure you of death, but can’t quite reboot the whole system. This could also account for the slow decay. Nanos somehow provide sufficient energy for walkers to move, and maybe walkers that are able to eat have more energy and don’t decay as fast or maybe at all (we don’t see the Major’s daughter very well, but I got the impression she was better preserved than average, and we know he fed her regularly. Don’t know if the collection in Herschel’s barn, which also were fed, also decayed slower or not). Walkers that can’t eat are sustained by the nano’s cannibalizing the skin, muscles, and other not-so-critical body parts, which accounts for their ability to survive without food for long periods. Eventually they decay, but it takes a long, long time. It occurs via-selfcannibalization and not the usual crew of bacteria and fungi (which maybe the nanos can also consume for energy).
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Rise of the dead. I think the nanos can account for a several things:
— Since you have to be infected to rise not everyone will be infected simultaneously. Eventually everyone will be, but there is a phase during which some are and some aren’t, a time during which some of the dead will rise and some won’t.
— Density of nano infection can account for the difference in how fast the dead rise. Lots of nanos? You rise quickly - in TWD’s later seasons folk reanimate almost immediately at times but earlier it might have taken hours instead of minutes.
— Some people don’t tolerate nanos well, maybe an allergic reaction, flu-like symptoms, some sort of adverse reaction. These people are killed outright by nano infection.
— Why this only affects humans. There are no animal zombies. Assuming nanos, they might have been engineered to affect only humans. -
More wild speculation.
— The nanos “know” enough to prod the walkers to avoid dead/bad meat, which is why walkers don’t eat walkers and covering yourself with walker-goo or having pet walkers like Michionne works as protection, you’re fooling the nanos.
— The nanos do work to some extent, TWD doesn’t seem to have much in the way of diseases among the survivors, and they’re occasionally showing the ability to survive significant trauma that’s a little on the unlikely side.
— If that’s the case, survivors might age slower than before, old age might be less debilitating, and survival (short of being chomped by a walker) might be enhanced.
— On the flip side, maybe at some point the nano infestation will overwhelm the survivors and either kill them outright or convert them to walkers while still alive.
That said, I didn’t see the acting as being terribly weak for anyone. There are some other points about the show people have brought up:
Not calling the police: well, let’s see, the parents thought the junkie kid was crazy and were going to send him to a psych, the doctors literally tied him to a bed… why would the parents saying crazy shit about a bloodbath at a shooting gallery (where bad stuff happens and hey, they’re human trash anyway, right) be any more believable? Stop enabling your kid, lady, and chill out, right? Also, while mom is clearly aware of the kids illegal habit that doesn’t mean she’s eager to have him arrested and sent to jail, which could happen if she calls the cops. When Calvin is killed then doing his post-death staggering around they 1) can’t believe what they’re seeing and 2) a little busy trying to survive the situation.
The authorities not giving information. The dead are walking? Who’s going to believe that shit in real life? Plus, the authorities don’t seem to know what’s causing it, how widespread it is, etc. at the point of this episode. Sure, they’ve issued directives but guessing by what happened to the paramedic in the viral video the message hasn’t gotten out to everyone yet, or aren’t believed by first responders.
How fast civilization breaks down. Initially, especially if there isn’t full penetrance by the nanos, you have only the natural deaths rising. Not all of those will be able to attack others. Not all attacks will be successful. At least initially, as in this episode, hospitals may be able to restrain some of the dead in time to prevent attacks. This will limit the growth of the walker pool. You have the worst situations in places like the church shooting gallery, where someone dies, attacks others with minimal ability to defend themselves, and the survivors aren’t believed.
Epidemics start slowly, with one or two cases, spread slowly at first, then explode. This isn’t really much different.
However, it does beg the question - why did Nick escape? If Gloria rose as a walker next to him why didn’t she attack him? And if she didn’t, she must have stood up, went to a different part of the building, then died. Of course, we don’t have to find out, it can remain a mystery.
Indications we’re looking at a group of survivors. Tobias (I think that’s his name) says there’s safety in numbers… and he’s right, up to a point. Up to the point you find yourself in a crowd of dead people. He is, however, determined to protect himself and he is able to see something is very, very wrong with the world.
Madison and Travis - instead of passively waiting in a traffic jam, when shooting starts they get themselves the hell away from the situation. That’s a good survival impulse anywhere.
Nick - when confront with a very bad scene at the church he manages to get himself out of danger…well, except for the getting him by a car part. He also, despite being high, realizes the threat Calvin and his gun pose to him. He also utilizes Travis’ truck as a weapon to defeat Calvin!Walker.
TWD creator Robert Kirkman (executive producer on FTWD) has said
he doesn’t want to explain how the zombie virus (or whatever it is) originated. The show will focus on how everything collapses, but not the root cause of zombies.
Isn’t that supernatural?
:dubious:
Interesting, but why does inflicting even a relatively minor brain injury (i.e. one that wouldn’t necessarily kill a healthy not-dead human) cause the whole system to instantly collapse? Walkers take relatively mild taps to the skull (assuming the skull doesn’t instantly collapse like an rotting watermelon) and it’s lights out.
Broomstick, that is rather good fanwanking. 
I am impressed.