NEW Infection Theory

[Drogon Malice]

OK I've tried to make this as easy to read as possible, all i ask is that you forgive my spelling and grammar and actually read it

alright basically i have a new theory, that the sickness is a neurological infection of some kind, i stick to what i said in previous posts about it using body fats (the difference between trans fats and saturated fat) but i will admit maybe it needs to be revisited.

i also stand by the point that the "illness" or "virus" for a lack of a better word in my mind is effected by Iron in the body.

now i don't know how much thought KC put into the sickness but i guess we'll find out when its all said and done. i digress though.

in short what if the virus lives off trans fats and saturated fats (i need to check my old posts about that, like i said before)

what if iron in the body impedes it oppresses it completely. so seriously a massive fist full of iron supplement tablets might be a cure.

the thing that got my chain of thought on this is the chapter "separate dying embers" Tommy got covered in "crud" from the zombie or whatever and he was reluctant to get washed off by Kelly, now we know those two don't have a great relationship but maybe that was just masking the effects of a slow turner.

"Tommy only had a small cut on him" but we don't actually know for sure if it went into the wound it could of got into his nose or mouth or eyes, etc anyways! due to his seliac condition, and his intolerance to gluten he probably has a lot of vitamins and iron in his diet having a lot of meat as part of his natural diet, meaning he has a stronger immune system to some extent but its too fast for the immune system to respond, it strikes me more as a micro organism to an extent but Tommy is making a fuss with Lizzy saying he doesn't want to be cleaned, Tommy may of already known he's going to turned. Riley was saying that it happened a lot faster with people in the streets and then again everyone has said "it would of happened by now" on several occasions, i guess this means iron impedes the virus, slows it down, stops it from maxing out through the nervous system.

this brings me to Ink, who is covered in tattoos from head to toe, so what is his infection is progressing at a MUCH slower rate, causing any mutation to be maximized in a constant rate, for example, the normal ones after 5 months or however long Saul and Lizzy had been separated for, to an extent the virus would be quickly progressing and be using the bodies natural fats and such to mutate, this would explain how the infected get stronger and faster yet ever so skinner to almost super human levels. and the fat ones get tougher as even though everything is mutating it would still have to mutate the body fat as it slowly breaks it down. to use it, this i guess explains why the Behemoths just get tougher and tougher, in theory according to this, those will last the longest, maybe with the exception of INK. which also means if IRON slows down the turning process, it explains why Saul was an AMAZINGLY slow turner, even though the bullet is made of led, the fact metal is in the area, could of impeded it, but i don't know the difference between iron and lead and the relationship between them atomically, i suppose a little research should be done there. but i digress, led in the body, probably not enough for led poisoning but enough to drown out the virus something fierce. which means its not just iron its heavy metals.

so in short:

what is Tommy was the slow turner and what if Saul was an INCREDIBLY slow turner, now if Saul did get some kind of poisoning or perhaps a shard was left inside it would explain why he's still getting pain in his shoulder 5 months later in December after the tower fell, although we would be expected to have that chalked up to the wound being cortaoised. so what if a small shard is in there, he's treated any infection due to heavy medication and its just sitting there slowly slowly slowly giving off low levels of led which is running through his immune system giving him some kind of heavy metal poisoning, in fact a lot of us in our day to day lives get some kind of heavy metal poisoning and don't even know it. so when Saul and Victor went to the crack in the ground and found nothing, it didn't explain anything, maybe because we're just simply looking in the wrong place now, THEN to top it off there's a problem with the line's and Saul is fine, and we're drawing attention to the IV drip bag, and over looking the fact something small like a slither of a fragment might be all it takes to set him off. so its not just iron its all sorts of metal poisoning. Victor hasn't been sick with anything like that.

for example something triggered a thought in my mind.

when they did the experiment to track The infected. on a hot sunny day, they zip lined across to another building they dropped the bottles and it took a while to take effect, what if we're just focusing on the salt water / sweat and whats in that. what if there's something else, how about HEAT!.

a quick explination

during "seperate dying embers" there was a pile on fire on the outside of the building,

Angel threw a bottle out there it didn't break, Burt then shot it, now as far as i know Bullets which have been fired are HOT! and even if there not ITS RIGHT BY " a burning pile of trash" maybe this explains why winter, the infected are hunting them and knocking on the doors of the colony, because the cold weather is repressing it some how, i honestly don't know, its a guess / speculation, but its food for thought. we're ALWAYS looking different things, i think this has merit too it.

i believe there's a few biologists of some kind roaming the forums, i would like you guys to take a look at what I've got here and have a crack at it tear it apart, i would geek out on a mental level if i actually had it right on this post.

Iron doesn't enhance it, body fat does.
Iron Slows it down, making INK the smartest due to the number of tattoo's he has and thus the level of heavy metal poisoning he's got. heavy metal poisoning i don't think is fatal, i guess it is depending on the level and what type of metal. mercury for example will kill anyone but i digress.

i submit this and effectively throw this steak to the wolves.


you guys have fun, please discuss, i hope i actually have got something here!


Drogon

[Witch_Doctor]

Most clever speculation I've read to date.
I like the points tying Tommy's celiac decease to his slower rate of turning. However, from the number of first-hand turnings on the show, only Fernando turns within seconds. The soldiers in Red Winter and the convoy survivor in The End is Near turn minutes after exposure. (I'm assuming the convoy survivor at the 2nd Medical Checkpoint was infected prior to entering the checkpoint facility while the nearest Z was still some distance away.)

Someone more knowledgeable might comment on the bullet metals.

Lots of fine details that might not pan out but you've raised a lot of points that might be relevant.
Good starting point though.

[Drogon Malice]

maybe its a case of simply as the virus mutates and develops, it takes longer to actually infect / turn you. a virus's main ability to infect someone right away is key, but after constant mutation of 5 + months it might not be so quick as its focus hasn't been on spreading and just rapid growth, so as time goes on maybe and i stress maybe it takes longer to turn, Tommy got off some big chunks like he said but didn't get cleaned off, and the idea of heat and body sweat was actually inspired from an episode of stargate atlantis i saw a long time ago. its the one where they first find the Aratis bug and its latched onto Sheppard (if you've seen the show, you know what I'm talking about, if not i suggest you check it out)

but metal poisoning makes sense, when a bullet impacts something it fragments, i believe even 9mm rounds fragment inside the human body, now despite being a good shot with a gun that doesn't make me any sort of expert.

the rate of infection to a new person vs how long someone has been infected for to me makes some sort of sense, besides i think its only instant turning if basically you have a low iron count in your blood, for example.... right at the very start, Riley and Pegs either it was both of them or just one of them (in that case i think it's Riley) recall them..... now I've not exactly listened to it but they were "throwing up blood on people" and they would turn right away, when Pegs got scratched by zombie kitty it was something like less then 40 seconds approximately that they were talking before they were like "no it would of happened by now" (again not listened to it, I'm not exactly gonna sit there and watch the seconds tick over in my Itunes and time the conversation)

but to go and compare everyone who's been infected and how they turn and all that is one hell of a thing, and you know what I'll honestly do it, if someone can tell me when people turn, aka what chapters and what part of those chapters, i'll give it a listen. Witch_Doctor you've given some examples if you tell me what parts (I'm going away for the weekend) I'll listen more closely when i get back and come up with some kind of analysis.

but i do think the longer one of "them" has been infected for causes a great mutation, initially it happened in seconds, but i don't remember what the chapter is called, the soldier from the helicopter who got turned, didn't turn till they were close to the military base, and again, not entirely sure, according to Micheal the flight was a few hours.

given how strong that was, mutation is high so the need to reproduce is low. so it means such a powerful mutation would need to re-adapt to the new host effectively reverting sort of like a jelly fish to a previous point and then infecting the host and then mutating all over again.


OH and thinking about it, Tommy must of had some if not on his cut but in his eyes or nose or somewhere else on his body, I'll admit its easier to say it got in through his cut, but he didn't get washed off, he was clothed and the sickness isn't passable through skin as we found out early on, so its really sort of blood contact only. or injury based of some kind.


Witch_Doctor given you've responded, what do you think of that?

[Drogon Malice]

Someone more knowledgeable might comment on the bullet metals.

incidentally bullet materials the actual bullet is made of led however the casing which stores the gun powder and such is made of copper i know that much, i did some research a few months ago out of bordem about armor piercing bullets, (FUN FACT) effectively the bullets are molded in a special bullet making tool via melted down led, maybe not on an industrial level but at least by hand. using this tool and this method you can replace led with steel and effectively then have armor piercing bullets, the case will be ejected but instead of a led bullet its a steel bullet.


BUT another small point now I'll admit I'm not too sure about this but I've heard in passing KC has said "these aren't zombies"

and to be honest I've always seen them more as mutants anyway, something about them seems like a mutant zombie hybrid which is friggin' awesome in my opinion, and at least to some extent, this makes some level of sense to me, this whole theory

(sorry for the double post folks)

[scbubba]

Good food for thought, Drogon Malice. I'll need to think it over a bit and go back and listen to a few specific places to see if I can line it all up.

Off the cuff, I think we have several anecdotal "instant turnings" in the story and a couple of listener witnessed "quick turnings" (meaning within, say, tens of seconds). I will say that some of the differences in things like turning time might be chalked up to dramatic effect more than science due to the audio medium. Since we have to hear the descriptions of the environment, it may take longer in listener time to get the story details about a quickly unfolding event. So, there might not be significance in the time it took Tommy to turn compared to Fernando solely based on the fact that Tommy's turn had a more dramatic impact on the story.

Anyway, there is obviously something up with Saul and we've been lead down the path that it has to do with medications after his GSW. Then, of course, we find that Tanya has something going on as well and since she and Saul are closely blood related, we are also lead down the path of a genetic factor.

Whatever the science behind it is, Tanya knows more than we do at this point, IMO, and will be key (I know, "thank you, Capt. Obvious").

Thanks for putting this theory out here!

[Bakkie-Pleur]

Wow Drogon Malice you did your homework! Very well put together! Still I sometimes do wonder if KC had the background story already in his head when We're Alive started, and maybe left it in the open for when he had a good theory... Or maybe he just could not think of a good theory and waited for the people on the forum for what they would come up with.

[Osiris]

Bookmarked to read this week sometime . . . I promise!

[Bakkie-Pleur]

I recently again started with we're alive, yesterday i began at chapter 18(part 2)when they first enter the colony, i noticed that when Michael showed tanya the pictures of Saul's injury she mentions that if he has blood poisoning he is as good as dead... Still i think you might be on the right track with your theory.

[Drogon Malice]

I recently again started with we're alive, yesterday i began at chapter 18(part 2)when they first enter the colony, i noticed that when Michael showed tanya the pictures of Saul's injury she mentions that if he has blood poisoning he is as good as dead... Still i think you might be on the right track with your theory.

wow thanks man, I've stopped listening for a day or two, just getting other things done in life. but that is very significant, something else that's come along suggesting it could support my theory, even then, we all know this thing transfers via blood, Tommy's Blood and Riley's account of seeing the infected vomit blood on people, we're made to look at things like genetics but i think its all just misdirection at this point. to some extent at least anyway, i mean doesn't it sound just a bit convienient if saul and Tanya BOTH we're "SOMEHOW" geneticly superior and thus Immune?

[PhysicsLB]

Scientifically, it would make a lot of sense if both saul and tanya were immune. Passing on immunities/physical advantages to your offspring is how adaptation works. If momma is immune, it stands to reason that her son would as well.

Also, look at how the zombies change: increased bone density, additional arteries on the heart, improved senses (particularly smell), greater stength, bulletproof skin? Doesnt sound like this is neurological. Whatever this infection is, it definitely has mutanagenic properties.

I think its still a bit too early to tell exactly what the zombie plague is.