nomad
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Posts: 193
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Post by nomad on May 20, 2011 12:38:47 GMT -5
And this is all if the zombies are not sentient. If they can plan, it becomes less an issue of survival and more of a war.
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Post by Art Vandelay on May 21, 2011 8:27:14 GMT -5
If they're sentient, then they're not zombies.
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Post by verasthebrujah on May 22, 2011 1:42:27 GMT -5
Wasn't this thread about blasphemy?
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Post by Art Vandelay on May 22, 2011 3:33:43 GMT -5
Threads rarely, if ever, stay on topic for longer than a page or so around here.
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Post by Sleepy on May 22, 2011 17:48:20 GMT -5
Art, your new avatar creeps me the fuck out, despite how long I end up staring at it every time.
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Post by arrowdeath on May 22, 2011 18:16:57 GMT -5
If they're sentient, then they're not zombies. Resident Evil. And the Left 4 Dead 2 zombies are heavily implied to be sentient. Yet I'd still call them zombies (L4D2, not Resident Evil. RE abandoned zombies a long time ago).
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Post by Art Vandelay on May 22, 2011 19:51:06 GMT -5
Art, your new avatar creeps me the fuck out, despite how long I end up staring at it every time. Well lucky for you I stumbled upon one that amuses me more. Enjoy! Resident Evil. And the Left 4 Dead 2 zombies are heavily implied to be sentient. Yet I'd still call them zombies (L4D2, not Resident Evil. RE abandoned zombies a long time ago). I always thought the whole idea behind zombies is that they're, ya know, dead.
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nomad
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Post by nomad on May 23, 2011 12:43:22 GMT -5
Dead =! unthinking. Good examples are lichs and vampires. The thinking zombies tend to be the hive-mind type zombies with the brain just issuing the orders and the hordes obeying and the zombies like in I Am Legend, which can not only think but actually communicate and set traps. There's also the possibility of the virus thinking for itself, and just controlling the body like a puppet.
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Post by Art Vandelay on May 23, 2011 17:20:43 GMT -5
All viruses are are microscopic injectors of RNA. They can't think, simply because they don't have any sort of neural network now do they have anywhere near the room for one big enough to allow for the ability to plan in such a way. Not to mention, how would they control the zombie? They don't control cells, just force them to produce more viruses until it explodes. It has no way of controlling the muscles even if it did have that much brain power.
I'll grant you that it's possible for zombies to think though (and I'll try to avoid the question of what exactly constitutes "dead").
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nomad
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Posts: 193
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Post by nomad on May 23, 2011 18:01:44 GMT -5
My bad about the virus thinking; I read about the Toxoplasma Gondii parasite and forgot that it was, in fact, a parasite. I guess the virus wouldn't really be able to do much more than turn the host into a walking hive of infection; but maybe if the zombie host and virus had a symbiotic relationship, the zombie would be able to transmit the virus. This is already assuming it can think, though. I also think that instead of alive or dead, we should use animate or inanimate to describe the hosts.
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Post by Art Vandelay on May 23, 2011 22:06:10 GMT -5
I'm not sure a symbiotic relationship with a virus is really possible. What exactly is in it for the host?
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nomad
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Post by nomad on May 23, 2011 23:09:31 GMT -5
I'm not actually sure IRL, but in this case maybe something like increased pain resistance or the use of more of the host's brain, giving greater reflexes or better thought processes. I don't know if that could happen for real, but possibly in fiction.
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Post by Art Vandelay on May 23, 2011 23:26:28 GMT -5
The only way I can see it is if majority of the viruses don't inject their own reproductive RNA but rather RNA that produces a highly useful protein that the host can't otherwise produce, with only something like one in every 10 000 viruses being a reproductive virus that destroys the host cell. That way the virus should stay alive without killing the host and as long as the virus is around, they get useful RNA. Or better yet, the non-reproductive RNA doesn't benefit the host, but rather destroys higher brain functions and giving them a strong desire to bite or sneeze on other people, effectively turning them into a virus-spreading machine.
That of course raises the question of whether or not viruses are complex enough for such dimorphism to be physically possible in the first place (most likely not).
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nomad
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Posts: 193
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Post by nomad on May 24, 2011 0:13:30 GMT -5
They could have hives (the 1/10000) and soldiers (the others), maybe with the combined goal of, for the virus, producing more hives and absorbing RNA, and for the host, enhanced capabilities and feeding on human flesh. That would satisfy the virus and the zombie, giving them the motivation to not kill the host and infect more people, respectively. Then again, like you said, it's not likely IRL.
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Post by Art Vandelay on May 24, 2011 2:41:00 GMT -5
I'm not sure it would work if the zombies themselves are separated into hives and soldiers, both variations of virus would have to be present in a single human. Otherwise you'd either have a flesh-eating zombie that can't pass on the virus or a regular live human with a pretty standard infection and no desire to eat anyone.
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