Zombies!

Zombies!


Perhaps representing the single most important entity in the entire game, zombies are the primary antagonist in the game, and where most of the strife and struggle come from. With most utilities shutting down as a result of the lack of human involvement, and the widespread destruction that occurred as a result of the infections, zombies are essentially humans infected by "the disease", which has turned them into a barely living, barely thinking husk of their former selves.

Everyone in the game universe, in the designated areas, are infected. While not everyone is a full blown zombie, virtually everyone in the game is essentially infected. You either have a resistance, or enough of a resistance, to not be turned in to a full blown zombie. When you die or go in to a coma, the disease reactivates your brain, by taking it over, and sends you in to a nearly braindead state. The worms essentially take over your brain, like they do in certain other species, such as ants or snails, and encourage you to engage in risky behavior that is likely to cause the spread. Due to the inherent damage caused by their take over, the individuals effected have almost no social or intellectual skills, but are capable of physical skills. They are mostly mindless, thoughtless husks, running on instinct, directed by the worms to help spread their activities. While the worms are not exactly intelligent creatures, in concert with human abilities, they know how to perform basic duties, or do any skill that the human was exceptionally good at, before. Dogs, birds, and a host of other animals can become infected as well, but the impact is radically different. For some they resemble humans, slow, dumb, weak moving people. For others, it simply increases their strength, making them more dangerous and hostile than they were before the change. There's more than one type of zombie, other than the most common. These zombies have been radically transformed by the virus, for better or for worse.


The Worms
The worms are essentially the "disease" which has been spreading in the area. Worms, relatives of the Leucochloridium paradoxum (known to infect snails), possess a fungus, relative to the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis (known to infect ants), which are themselves infected with a virus and carry bacteria. All of these different mechanisms works in concert in a symbiotic relationship, with the initial bacteria and virus weakening the individual's immune system, and then the worms overtaking the body. Both of these work to take over the brain, the worms and the fungus operating in symbiotic relation, allowing it to take over the human body. While the disease cannot be spread solely through the blood, saliva, and the like, and one must have direct physical contact from worms, it is unlike other diseases in that it can travel long distances on it's own, and thus can spread more easily. Worms eggs travel through the air like fungal spores, capable of laying dormant in food or in water for many years, allowing themselves to saturate public drinking supplies. Ingested via water, poorly cooked food, or by other means, it doesn't automatically transform the host in to a zombie, instead lying dormant inside the host's organs. Eventually, the worms grow from a microscopic size to that of a several feet long, like tapeworms, and can take over the host in a plethora of ways. They worms can communicate via pheromones to other worms, signalling other worms of basic ideas, and seem to have limited control over the fungus in this respect. While far from intelligent, their complicated nervous systems allows for a far more complex action than most bacteria, which allows them to do things a virus or bacteria never could on it's own. While the worm and fungus do most of the work, the bacteria and virus enhance the effects of the worms and fungus. It is a combination of effects, rather than any single disease, that results in the infection. In particular, the virus is has a fairly high lethality rate, similiar to ebola, which has lead to so many zombies appearing all at once.

While an immune system confers a benefit to people, after enough exposure almost anyone can become infected. Although everyone is technically infected, the worms lie dormant in "immune" individuals, approximately 10% of the population (or 1%, after the 9% were killed off by the zombies), remaining microscopic. When nearly dead or in a coma, the worms activate, taking over the host, and grow in size. This allows nearly every person to become infected, even if they are percievably immune to the disease.


Types of Zombie
-Zombie
-Horrors
-Hunters
-Spitters
-Charger
-Tanks
-Zombie Dogs
-Zombie Birds and rats