Will You Survive REMIX: The Official WYS Zombie pt 1

You can’t build a good zombie apocalypse without rules, so we start by arguing like nerds with standards. A zombie has to die, come back, and lose agency, otherwise it’s just an infection with better marketing. Once we lock that in, everything gets sharper: speed, transmission, decay, and what “reanimation” even means when the body shouldn’t be able to move.

Then we chase the most brutal angle for survival horror: the person is still in there. We talk about the nightmare of consciousness without control and why “trapped inside your body” turns a simple monster into grief you can’t outrun. If you’ve ever wondered what makes a zombie story stick in your chest instead of just splattering on a screen, this is the thread we keep pulling.

From there we workshop our favorite compromise, “fast when fresh,” and use it to design an outbreak timeline that feels both cinematic and weirdly plausible. We compare virus logic from classic zombie science, bring up the blood-brain barrier and fever limits, and end up in the same dark place: parasites. We build a macro parasite zombie that spreads through bites, uses the mouth as an egg factory, can lie dormant, and burns through the body like disposable equipment.

If you’re into zombie worldbuilding, apocalypse strategy, and the kind of biology talk that makes you reconsider swimming in lakes, hit play. Subscribe for more, share the episode with a friend who loves zombies, and leave a review with your vote: fast zombies, slow zombies, or fast when fresh?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Hello, survivors, and welcome back to another episode of Will You Survive?

SPEAKER_02 0:32

The podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

The podcast. My name's TJ, and I am joined by my two co-hosts. We've got Alex.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

That's me.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

And we've got Eric.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

That's me, and this is the Will You Survive Remix. Welcome to Will You Survive Remix.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

W Y S.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Today we are talking about not Resident Evil or Smashing Pokemon. You won't get that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

I didn't know that. And now that seems so random. Anyway, smash. Smash. Smash. I caught a little bunny.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Batman, I caught a little punny. Smash. No joker.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

It's an animal joker.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

There's no laws against Pokemon, Batman. Anyways. Today we are talking about the best episode of Will You Survive that has ever been that I was not in. You think that was our best? Aww. Yeah, ass. Aww. We're gonna make our official Will You Survive Zombie again. Remix! Remix! Will you survive remixed?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Um, so the official, but this is the new official Will You Survive Zombie.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

The last one, ass. This one is probably gonna be the best.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

So I say this time instead of fungal, we go robotic. Uh, I mean, we've been talking about it's a virus, I feel like we should be able to spiral, but not what you think.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Like Westworld.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yes. If you haven't heard the last episode, their ideal zombie was Fungal. There was so much more of this though. They talked about uh how fast a scratch would turn you versus a bite versus uh blood in the eye. I think we have some new perspectives now.

What Counts As A Zombie

SPEAKER_02 2:27

So hold on. We've got uh I've got one thing to go through here. We got to agree on the terms. Can we agree that a zombie is a reanimated corpse and it's like an an automaton? It has no free agency. It's not I I hesitate with things like warm bodies, where they had ability to think, reason, and carry out a plan. Yeah, so that's why I want to say the the word automaton.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

It's it just has no free will, no, no independent agency, whether they it lacks the ability of speech controlled by whether they're being controlled by something else, or they are like completely just like just instincts. Yeah, primal instincts. Um, I I I I think that's the way that you identify a zombie, really. Um, also they have to die and come back.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

They have to die and come back.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

So I will push back. I I do 100% think warm bodies for zombies, but argument for another day, I think for all intents and purposes for this, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

I feel like they're more infected. I feel like they don't go full because they came back until they go high.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Until they were bonies.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

No, so so they made it a point to say that their hearts were stopped, they were dead, their hearts were off, they didn't breathe, they didn't do any of that. The whole point, which is a stupid premise, but I love it. The whole point is that their hearts started beating again. So they were dead, but they came back to life again.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Okay, so we can all agree that a zombie is something that needs to die and come back and is not in control of themselves.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Correct. Full primal instincts, like their brain shut off, or they're being controlled by like something. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Okay. Do you have like specific topic like topics you want to hit, or do you just want us to free them? We're just gonna kinda riff off each other and try to figure this out.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

We have a few ideas.

Trapped Inside Your Own Body

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, I I have one right off the bat that I think is important. What? I think the new official WYS zombie, you should be, in order to maximize on the grief and horror of it, when you're infected, you should be trapped inside your body. You're not dead, you're being controlled. Okay, the body dies.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

That I that can be a thing, I think, because the body dies, like let's go back to like they say in The Last of Us, right? Yeah, last of us, um, the runners are still in there. You can hear them like talking, but it's the you know, it's the fungus causing the big thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

But then I guess the question, like, still well uh, but then I guess that goes against the definition we just agreed on, because then you're not dead. I assume that if you die, like you're dead. It would be the same as if you just got shot in the head or something like that, you know?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

True. So but would a clicker be TikTok's gonna love that one. Would a clicker be a zombie then? Do they go from infected to zombie? Is I feel like we've talked about this before.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah, see that that's an interesting because I feel like are we willing to compromise on that?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Once they go clicker, like, or once they they like lay down and they're dormant, they're gone, that's when it starts to break through their face, and there's no way your brain is living out. Oh, you're gone after that. Let me make an argument with fungus at that point.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

I'll make an argument for why this could be. Okay, you could be trapped inside, right? Because every single recognition of zombie from The Walking Dead, the Knight of the Living Dead, which was the OG. I know you hated it, but fuck off. It was great.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

I don't think it's a bad movie.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

So, in all of them, they all agree that the brainstem is still active, right? Well, let's go over this. When a person is decapitated, the consciousness likely lasts for three to four seconds after, and it's explained that it's likely due to loss of blood flow. Now, the the problem with a zombie is their blood is not flowing like it ordinarily would, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

That's gotta be horrifying. So for three to four seconds, your brain is actively aware of, oh, my head's not on my body anymore. That's horrifying.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Yeah, you know what just happened. So, but I I still think um, well, here's the worst. Most estimates place it at two to seven seconds. So three to four is common.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Question if your head gets cut off, does your neck hurt or does your whole body hurt?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

I think interesting. Uh I think if you are feeling any pain, I think if you are feeling any pain, it's uh phantom pain because you there are no nerves attached anymore. But in reality, I think your brain goes into full nope mode and just shuts off everything.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Well, here's here this gets a shock. This gets even creepier. The residual electrical brain activity, which every single one of us from Resident Evil, uh World War Z, uh The Walking Dead, all of them talk about residual brain activity, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Like stem, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

In residual electrical brain activity can persist in a decapitated person typically 10 to 17 seconds, sometimes up to 30 seconds. And these are people who are still connected. So the argument could hold water that they're dead, but they but they can't go.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

They say that I I'm pretty sure they say like those 10 to 30 seconds that you're talking about uh would be basically like your life flashing before your eyes. Like that's your brain replaying everything. Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

It's it's your your brain is a computer, it's trying to boot itself back up.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

It's inputs, processing, and outputs.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yep. So that would be that would be pretty horrifying. And those those were uh tests on uh rats doing uh EEG studies. Oh, they didn't test on humans, not that I know of. Oh man if they did, they're lying about it.

Fast When Fresh Versus Slow

SPEAKER_01 8:17

How would we know? Fast or slow, and I'll give you my argument on why they should be one way or the other.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

I still think slow. I don't think any virus, any sickness, any decay uh would increase ability.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

So I like the idea of fast when fresh. Fast when fresh.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Who did that? Which is an episode. We talked about this. You talked about that in that episode. I I just listened to it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Um, I think But there's a movie that did this. There's a movie that did it, and I thought they did it well because Doesn't The Walking Dead do that? Uh well yeah, kind of, but there was a movie that that actually emphasized one of the movies we covered that emphasized that they were faster when I think it was outside.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Was it Resort?

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Oh, that's what it was. It was Resort.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Because they were like, hey, how are all these zombies so fast if they're supposed to be when they're for zombies? Yeah. Yep, yeah, it was resort.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

So that's and that's when we found out that they were turning them on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

I agree with your guys' previous statement, fast when they're fresh. Um, because is that what we agreed on?

SPEAKER_02 9:19

I think that was.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

If you're if you die, that means your heart stops. That means blood stops moving. That means blood pools. Where does it pool? Lowest spot, your legs, yeah. Your feet, your legs. So if we're doing I is our zombie immediately zombie, is what I'm saying. Are we are we are we infected first?

SPEAKER_00 9:38

So I think we have to decide what is the infection because I think that determines a lot. Because if it's fungal, you have the argument that the fungus is doing everything and and is keeping you like your organs functioning to keep the body alive, right? Ish. Now, if it's viral, we have a little more freedom of like what it is doing. Because like the T virus mutates completely. There could also be psychological. So I that's what I so I was kind of questioning that. Like, do we want to go fungal or viral? Or do we want to go something weird?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

What if the zombie what about parasite? What if you go crazy, right? And you go like zombie mode and then boom, brain aneurysm. You die. But how do you come back? See, it doesn't make sense. See, you gotta talk it out in your brain first.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Well, I mean, it also doesn't make a sense that a virus would kill you and then bring you back to life, but here we are with zombies.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

I feel like the virus would have some way of oxygenating your brain while it's in there. What if the like because when things decay, usually they decay and turn into like carbon like dioxide and shit, they release that that shit. So what if it releases oxygen?

SPEAKER_02 10:46

You know, you know, that's interesting. That's a thought. Could I throw out parasite? Parasite could could work.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

The parasite duplicates maybe in the mouth, or up to the brain, and then the parasites spread through bites.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

If it's a yeah, so Maddie just came just said a idea. So if it's she said in like mantises and shit, like parasites will keep your body like going. Oh yeah, you've seen that? Yep, crazy.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

So and they're dead, like they they are actually gone. They're deep.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

You don't have to be alive for your body to be oxygenated and blood to be flowing. That's what CPR is. You can be straight up like gone, right? So I think that's I feel like that's how our we could go parasite. I feel like parasite could work.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

I think Parasite's so interesting. I don't know if there's ever been, I'm sure there has been, but I can't think of a zombie movie that is parasitic.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

I I mean there's there's a movie called Parasite. Um it's not quite the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

That's not about a zombie at all.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

That's not the quite yeah, it's not quite the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Well, there's a couple of movies called Parasite. There's one basically.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

You're talking about the like the what was it? Like the Chinese one or Japanese Korean, it's one of them. There's Korean.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

There's something in that. Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah, no, that's just about a wealthy family and a yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

There's the other parasite which is I've seen like a couple episodes of the anime where it's like a I think it's an alien. It goes down and he like it goes into his arm, but he like belts it off before it can like get through the rest of his body. So it kind of mutates his arm.

Parasite Origins And Plague Inc Logic

SPEAKER_00 12:16

So where did this parasite come from? Is it from global warming that melts uh an ice cap that has like a frozen parasite that gets loose and some poor dude in the ocean contracts it?

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Uh I think we go racial with this. I think it was the uh They were fucking the monkeys. Let's pick a really obscure race.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Would it um oh pick a Slavic country? It's always a Slavic country. Those fucking Hondurans I would say Siberia. What about Yugoslavia?

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Yugoslavia?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, the Yugoslavians have been eating a certain type of ice cream for years, but it's made out of a certain thing that's bad.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

And they exported it all around the world because it had wait, so hang on, how does this work? Uh is it like they're exporting this ice cream that only they make that everybody likes, and then the parasite gets in it, or has the parasite always been in it and it just takes a while.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Parasite has always been in it, but it remains dormant until it's time. Straight up Plague Inc style.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

I like that. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. You ever played Plague Inc.?

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Plague Inc. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

It's a phone game, it's basically about being a virus or like you pick a pathogen. So you're either like a virus, a bacteria, fungus, or something like that, and you evolve to kill the whole world. Uh huh. So you infect people, but you don't want to become lethal too quickly, or they'll cure it really fast. So you want to be just infectious enough to be problematic. Everybody starts getting it, but fast enough so that they don't react to it, and then you become lethal real quick. So that once like five billion or so are already infected with like a cough and sneezing, it's over. Then you start going with, hmm, now you have shingles. And it's over. Now you have paralysis. Now you have organ failure.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Iceland, you sons of bitches never want to get infected. They only have one port at the bottom. It's bullshit. And then I guess it just never fucking transmits through that port.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Not to get them, you have to like real quick just be like boat transfer, boat transfer. Random jet. This shit needs to spread through bugs.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Your non like like murderous virus that does not doing anything at the current moment, but they're like, let's cure it.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

You guys tweak on this shit, huh?

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Well, it's so weird because you want to start in a country that's just poor enough that it's not wild that something is breaking out there, but not so important of a country that they're like, Well, we should pay attention to this. Yeah. But it also can't be like, it can't be like a nowhere country that has no airports or anything. Right. Because it's gonna be so hard for it to spread.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

It'll be either hard for it to spread or it'll take fucking forever. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

That was they can't. The airports were perfect transmitters for the virus.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Exactly. So, like in this game, you can evolve certain parts of your virus, like or your bacteria, your pathway. You can make it more you could you can add more symptoms, or you can add more transmission stuff, you can make it more resilient.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

It'll randomly mutate at random points. So it'll randomly give it a symptom when you're trying not to give it any. Yeah. So it'll be like, oh, all of a sudden they're puking blood, and you're like, no, no. You're like, well, now it's on the radar before too many people die from puking blood.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yeah, it's really funny because you'll be like, it's perfect. Like I have I have like 300 million people infected right now. It's just a cough and a sneeze. Like it could be anything, and then it mutates, and it's like, well, now they have skin lesions, and you're like, oh, oh, well, they might pay attention to that if 300 million people suddenly start having skin lesions. Yeah.

A Virus Explanation That Works

SPEAKER_02 15:57

So here's this aspect of it. Let's not throw out virus altogether. So in the case of the solenum virus, that's the uh zombie survival guide. After killing the host, the virus mutates or repurposes dormant or low-function brain cells into new minimal quote zombie brain organ. This altered brain structure sustains very basic primitive functions, movement, basic sensory detection, uh, smell, sight, right? Aggression, and the drive to bite slash consume, right? They don't eat for nutrition. There is no need to feed for nutrition. It's exclusively the virus's desire to spread. Uh the body reanimates, and there's no need for circulation, respiration, metabolism, or any of the normal senses. The corpse walks, hunts, and persists despite decay, rigor mortis, uh oh, rigor mortis reversal, and lack of oxygen or energy. Only minor electrical chemical activity persists in this transformed brainstem, like structure enough for motor control and instinctual behavior, but zero consciousness or higher cognition. So the explanation of how is I think well laid out.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

I yes, but that's their zombie.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Right. I'm just saying the explanation is is well said on how a virus could could do the same thing.

Mouth Worms And Bite Transmission

SPEAKER_00 17:32

So hear me out with parasite, right? I'm imagining that this transmission, I I know we just said that it it remained dormant for a long time, but I'm imagining that this transmission happens fast and that this uh this infection happens real quick, like where you go from human to zombie very quick. What I'm imagining is imagine uh uh content warning uh for those who might be sensitive to imagery because I feel like this is gonna freak some people out. Imagine like a bunch of little mites running around in your mouth. They're in your street. They're in your skin. Like how that would look where it's like they're just all scattering everywhere, like a million ants just like in your mouth, like scattering everywhere. I imagine that's what these zombies look like, and that these parasites, you can see them, but only because there's thousands of them in the mouth, like move running around, like moving. And they go up, they go up your nasal cavity up into your brain, and that's how you get infected. So it gets in your mouth or your blood or however, it ends up in your brain, it controls you, they replicate or they duplicate really fast, um, and they they start to fill the mouth and they go in like all the crevices and whatnot, and that's why when they bite, it infects. And the parasite's whole purpose is to stay alive, so it doesn't really have anything to do with the zombie eating people, but rather like World War Z, where it's just about infection.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Do you know how like how horrifying would that be if every zombie that came at you is like just a bunch of bugs?

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Those like are they bugs or like worms?

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Well, it's like worms, but I'm imagining like hundreds of them moving around in the house.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

To like control you. Ooh, okay. You know, like once it gets the initial infection into your brain and starts, like, you know, fucking with you to make like you do certain things, it starts to gain more control as it spreads.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

So hear me out. Is it fast then, or is it a really slow transmission and it's incredibly painful because it's like it's burrowing into your bones and whatnot? So as you're being turned, it's like incredibly painful. I feel like the thing about like let's say it's an intelligent parasite, right? They can also it doesn't have to take control right away, it can also get itself established. Yeah, yeah. It could. It could be what if there's cases, what if there's cases where some people turn really fast and some don't? And it's all but you're still in like kind of like I a little bit like uh uh Walking Dead, where like anybody could be infected. Well, Walking Dead is like everybody is infected, but this could be like anybody could be infected, but you don't know because maybe they're just dormant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

You think you're sucking that little squiggle in your eye that like normally happens, but it's actually a worm in your eye, you know?

SPEAKER_00 20:32

I like the idea of parasite. I feel like we don't have you on board, Alex.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

I feel like the the f the uh the what what what should let's call it the gray thread. Let's call it the let's call it the bone lace. The bone lace is gross.

Heat Limits Bacteria And Brain Barriers

SPEAKER_02 20:46

So I mean parasite is not bad because the parasites are not generally uh they're not generally I want to say dissuaded by uh our body heat. Uh the only thing that would stop a virus from being a a real possibility, the same thing for opiocortipes, which in some cases they can uh classify as a parasite, uh, but it is a fungus, right? The only thing stopping these things from being able to actually cause the zombie infection is our body heat. Uh opiocortocypes can't live in 98.6 degree heat. Uh viruses can't live in, I mean they can live in 98.6, but our reaction is fever and that kills all viruses. Now, you know the one thing that we've never even talked about, which I don't know how this would exist, but what about bacteria?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

So we talked about bacteria in the first one, I think. But I think I think we said that bacteria is too slow. I think that's ultimately what we came to. Is that what we Was that what we came to?

SPEAKER_01 22:01

I think so. And like what would a bacteria really do? You know? I mean, bacterial infections are way worse.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Bacteria kill far faster than viral. Yeah. Your body tries to kill it with a fever, but it takes temperatures up to 150, 160 degrees, and at 105 we die.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

So I think that's like I think it is a little more realistic that like zombie infections would be bacterial because then the fever thing makes a lot more sense.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

It would be the fever that would kill you.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah, because like that was the walking dead, right? It's the fever that kills you.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Um, so I I I kind of like that. Do we know parasites what their heat resistance is?

SPEAKER_01 22:40

I mean, they can survive anyway.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Some of them can live perfectly fine inside of us.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Um, also, I'm thinking of the fact that if it's a parasite, that means it'll probably be transmitted through our shit in like tainted water.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Worms. Ew. Human worms. Yeah. Well, I I would guess like any fluid could technically be infected in some way. Um but that's why I like the idea of the mouth because it's like this parasite is like, yeah, let me get a bite of that so I can jump over. Let me jump ship.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

There are a few bacteria out there they like latch onto your face. They would gain control via the gut brain axis. Uh remember, a lot of viruses can't control the brain because of the um the gap. The the um blood brain barrier. The blood brain barrier. They can't get in. So I mean there's there's something to say about that.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

What about a cancer? Then we're just going I am legend.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

That's you know that is. That I think that goes straight I am legend.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Unless you're saying it's the cancer itself that kills.

Radiation Zombies And Black Mold

SPEAKER_02 23:45

Ooh, okay. This is a great one. If this is true, let me look this up.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Fungus has been found thriving in nuclear reactors, which I think that that is very possible because I think there's a very specific fungus that feeds off of a very specific radioactive material that I've heard about. Radiation zombies. We haven't talked about radiation zombies.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Yeah, that uh that's another one.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

I have a harder time with radiation zombies because there would have to be like an initial thing, it would have to be an apocalyptic situation already for radiation zombies to use.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah, well, I'm not even thinking that my problem with radiation zombies is transmission. How do you make more radiation zombies? I don't think you do. Well, yeah, but like that's not gonna do it. Like, I don't know. I like I feel like radiation zombies make sense if it's like they were the survivors of this nuclear fallout that mutated them into these zombie-like creatures, but then what? Then they bite someone, they would have to just be out to kill because then they bite someone and and what? I'm infected with your radiation now. I mean, at that point you just get radiation poisoning, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:48

You don't it would decrease.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah, like you weren't in the fallout, and that's what turned them. So unless like this fallout has some special something in it might turn them into a zombie kind of kind of video gamey.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

I have a harder time with radiation zombies. Like I feel like they would emit like an aura when when they're like trying to, you know, like it's fallout. It's ghouls. They'll glow they'll glow blue, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah, like it's like the radioactive uh radioactive ghouls in Fallout 4.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

You want to know the most well documented case of mold and nuclear reactors is what type of mold it is? Black mold.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

So guys, we've got we don't have the rate or like the the type of infection, but we know that they're slow, we know that they need to die. They're they're they're fast with infection. Yeah, fast when they're fresh.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Fast when fresh.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

So how long are they fast? Are we talking? Like three days.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

This starts degrading right away.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

We still need to know what is happening to them. Is it a virus? Is it a big thing? I feel like I feel like that's to be different. We gotta go parasite. I feel like that's the same thing. That's kind of what I'm interested in.

Bone Burrowing Pain And Death By Shock

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Parasite is doable. It's it could survive the body temperature. I feel like the bone.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

I like the bone thing. I like the okay. I like the idea that like in it could be dormant and then it gets it once it activates, it's incredibly painful because I like to imagine that it's it I like to imagine, I don't like to imagine this, but uh it's I think it's creative to imagine that it would be so painful because it's thousands of these little worms burrowing through your bones, like weaving in and out of them, like you said, TJ. And so you're just like your entire body just feels like it's on fire as like these things are are burrowing through your bones. Yeah, lit literally like and that's how they control you.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

I think you go crazy at the start once they're in your head, and then once, like you know, that does it start with like hallucinations. I think it runs off your adrenaline and all that, right? At first, and then you crash, you fall down, you freaking get shredded up for a couple days because they're interweaving through your bones.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Well, I mean, okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

I feel like you so I feel like you would die of shock from that amount of pain. And that's how they die. Yeah, if they all started weaving through your bones at the same time, like your entire body just lights up. I feel like your body, I feel like your brain kills you.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Yeah, I I don't think you'd be able to take that.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

What are you looking at?

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Well, I I I'm having a harder and harder time arguing against parasite because this already happens in nature.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

With the mantises. More. It's more than that.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Parasites are I feel like parasites are not talked about enough. They're slept. Like I thought quicksand was gonna be a problem in real life, but I feel like parasites are something you should be more concerned about.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Okay, the this reminds me. There is a guy who like posted to some forum or something, I don't know if it was Reddit or whatever. But he would just, you know, he he would he told the story about what he would do, and he walks around and sprinkles parasite eggs on things, and he is full of parasites, and he calls them his little babies, and he wants everybody to have some of his little babies.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

And you know, people like that are why I don't fully disagree with the death penalty. Yeah.

Are Viruses Technically Parasites

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Okay, here's the only counter and cross is the sciences keep using the word parasite and pathogen, and viruses are also also a pathogen. Um and they this particular article directly links both of them together in this question of whether a human could be it, could it be argued that a human zombie would be used by a parasite to bite another in order to transfer the parasite's offspring? Yes, it would absolutely or it could absolutely be argued, and it currently is being argued that that would be the case. Then they go directly down into the rabies virus.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Oh, and so like Eric, you were talking about how like the worms are in the mouth. What if that's where they leave their eggs to like incubate and that's how the it spreads? Yeah. You go for a bite. I mean, there still is like worms dangling out because some of them are grown up, but like all around the gums and stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

I I'm down for that.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Wow, okay. We have a problem. A virus is widely considered a type of parasite.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Really?

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

I mean, I I mean, I guess we're talking worms.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Specifically, it is considered an obligate intracellular par intracellular parasite.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

What's a tapeworm classified as? But so that's it's that's parasite by the definition that it's a coexisting kind of coexisting pathogen that needs a host to survive.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Yeah, parasite takes from host, doesn't give anything in return.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Which technically, yeah, a virus does that.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

It needs a only the only argument you have going for you is in common parasitology, viruses are often distinguished from parasites to avoid confusion with worms or protozoa.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Yeah, so like there's a reason. But they're the they're the same. But there's a reason we distinct we distinguish viruses from uh parasites. We don't consider them the same. Like if you say, like, oh, they've got a parasite, you don't mean the flu.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Well, no, in in I mean people do say it's technically in virology and microbiology viruses are all parasites.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

I agree. I'm not disagreeing with that, but I'm saying colloquially, there's a reason we distinguish the two, and it's because we do classify them as something different. Like I don't classify a virus as being the same as having worms in your stomach. Now, scientifically and technically, they might be in the same family. Like we classify them differently for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

I there's hey, there's animals in my house. You don't think I'm talking about fucking spiders or ants.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Yeah, there's a reason you distinguish the two.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

You don't think about fucking raccoons.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

No, but but you gotta say the same thing that you just said to say I've got a bug.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

No, I I do I do like that argument. And I think that's where the technicality comes in, where yes, they are the same, but colloquially we do call them different for a reason. And it's to distinguish those two. I think what we're specifically talking about is like a worm. We're we're talking about why would it have to be a worm?

SPEAKER_01 31:20

We're talking about a macro like parasite, not a micro parasite.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Something you can see. Yeah, like you can visibly see the worm. You can't visibly see a virus, it's too small. But okay, but hear me out. You guys ever heard of those freshwater brain-eating amoebas?

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

That's horrifying. Those are real.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

They go up your nose.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Yeah. You ever heard of those, Alex?

SPEAKER_01 31:41

No.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Really? Yeah, my mom told me about those when I was like 12, and then I never wanted to swim in a lake ever again because that's horrifying. There's legitimately these freshwater brain-eating amoebas that get up your nose and they just start munching away at your brain. That's like the very dumb way of explaining it. But look up uh fresh freshwater brain-eating amoebas. They're kind of fucking creepy because they're real.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

On a side note, I think that our parasite was caused by RFK. I think he wanted all of us to have worms in our brain like he did.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Canonically.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I had a worm in my brain that taught me how to play jazz guitar.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

So does RFK Jr. have a son? I don't know. He does, right? I'm pretty sure he does.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

I don't know. Probably. I mean his motherfuckers old if he never had a kid.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

In our universe, in our universe, he has a son who uh grows up and goes, I hate the way everybody made fun of my dad. Now everybody's gonna have a worm in their brain. And then they can't.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

He starts a corporation.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Exactly. And it's called the um the balcony corporation.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

The balcony corporation? The worm corporate.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Can we also just talk about how can we also talk about how umbrella corporation is the laziest name ever? Oh yeah. Yeah, it's an umbrella corporate. That's literally what they're like referred to as yes, we get it. Over everything. It's the umbrella of a bunch of different comp yeah, we get it.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

It's black rock.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

It it really is, honestly, in the in the Resident Evil universe. I've been transmitting the Black Rock virus. It's a parasite.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

I don't I I I can't argue against it. I mean I think that in my argument, viral falls in the same category. They act the same, they do the same, they react the same. They're not treated the same way.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Yeah, the treatment is different, and I think that's also why they're categorized the way they are. It's because you don't just use um uh what do you use for viruses?

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Uh fucking antiviral.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Antivirals.

unknown 33:54

Huh?

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Antivirals. Antivirals, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

What are they like or a vaccine? You don't do and you don't get vaccines for fucking parasites.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah, and like so like when your dog gets kennel cough, that's a virus, but you don't get them dewormers and heart medicine. Like you don't get them that you you get them worm medicine when it's a parasite. Like when he has when Cozy had giardia, that's a parasite. And so they gave me special dewormers for that.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

He was ground zero.

Can Animals Get Infected Too

SPEAKER_00 34:26

He liked the sinkwater. So break monkey. Do our do our parasite uh zombies transmit to animals?

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yes. Oh my god, I wanted to talk about this. So there's actually uh concept art from The Last of Us showing fucking fungal animals, dude. And I wish they fucking went with that, dude. It would have been so sick.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Don't they show it in the show? Wasn't there like a deer? Um I don't remember. The Last of Us? Yeah, maybe I could have sworn in either one of the games or they haven't no, not in the game. I swear I'm remembering a scene where like the deer looks normal and then the deer turns to you, and it's clearly like quarterceps infected, and they're like, oh I might be mixing it up with a different movie.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Trained a buson. Wasn't there a deer in that?

SPEAKER_02 35:16

That deer at the beginning, that deer in the beginning when it got back up was all jacked up.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

No, no, but there's like no, this is like they're in the forest, they're humans watching this deer. And you know what? I might be thinking of the show The 100.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yeah, no, the beginning of The Last of Us first season was just a bunch of news clips talking about how the world's getting hotter, so the fucking fungus evolved.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

The 100 deer yeah, I I'm pretty sure the largest living organism on earth is the humongous fungus.

Final Form Of The WYS Zombie

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Oh, yeah, this was it. So it was this uh they they're looking and it's just this regular deer, and they're like, oh shit, yeah. And then it has two heads. Yeah, here I'll stream it for you, TJ, really quick. I'm sure our listeners will love this. Um but basically it's the scene from the show The 100 where they first get back down to Earth and they see a deer from the side profile and it looks completely normal. Though the premise of the show is that the everybody nuked each other, the world's uninhabitable, so they go up to space. And then they send a bunch of bad kids down to Earth to see if it's habitable again, and they come across this deer that looks normal, and they're like, Hey, it's habitable, and then the deer turns its head and its face is split into two, and they're like, Ah! Maybe not. So that was what I was thinking of. But um, okay, so we have parasite zombie, uh, worms, lays eggs in the mouth to transmit, can be dormant, animals, can infect animals, they're fast when they're slow, but that starts to or they're fast when they're fresh, and they're fast when they're slow. They're fast when they're fresh, but it decays quickly. So the I guess the parasite can't keep the body alive forever, so that's why its whole goal is to transmit and get to the next body. So how long could I think I'm thinking that the body decays naturally?

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Um at a I feel like it decays at a slightly slower rate because what I'm imagining is the parasite parasite is pumping the blood and moving the lungs.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Okay, so it's doing what the fungus does, where it's like it's keeping the body moving for a while.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Yeah, so that would also fit with fresh is fast. So the fresh initial zombies is when they're like full and it's keeping you alive, like freaking life support.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Yeah, and you're trapped in your brain.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Once you can't control yourself, but you're waiting. And then once the parasite starts to slow down, is when you they start to lower brain dead?

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Yes. Would you be would you be like minimal brain activity? So you have no maybe you have no consciousness, but you can't get out.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Wait, so what if it what if the parasite is smart enough to sever the link between your brain to the rest of your brain stem, like the rest of your nervous system?

SPEAKER_02 38:15

So you just have to sit and watch?

SPEAKER_00 38:17

So your your brain is in full control, but the parasite is controlling your body, and there's nothing you can do about it. You just have to sit there and basically watch everything you're doing that this par that this parasite is making you do. That's horrible. That sucks.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Uh you're eating your eating your loved ones, but you're watching yourself doing it and fills up with little worms.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Okay, but but you wouldn't technically be dead.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

That's see, that's the problem here, is that you wouldn't technically be but what if it's like the initial infection is an infection and then it kills you.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Yeah, that's so that's what we were saying. We're saying that once but then does it bring you back? I think it go you you go sicko mode and you're going off adrenaline and stuff. Once you crash is when it starts to burrow. That's when you die because it's burrowing through your bones and it it controls your body from there on out.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

And then you're just a husk. So the initial infection is like World War Z. You're fast as shit, like it's just pure adrenaline, whatever the human body is capable of. Fast as fuck, boy. So it's that. Um all about just trying to spread, trying to spread the infection. That's the whole goal of being that fast and and just pure adrenaline, but you're trapped in your body because the parasite has severed your connection to the rest of your nervous system. So you're trapped in your body watching yourself do all this horrendous things, and then once the adrenaline wears off, once the initial, like maybe let's say at tops day of the parasite keeping your body moving, it can't do it anymore. Uh your body dies, and then it's able to reanimate you into more.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

It's making that, it's like fucking with your your your brain glands or whatever the fuck. Your adrenal gland. It fucks up with your adrenal gland, and that's it pumps it out.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yep. Oh, that's the first place it goes. The virus knows to seek out the adrenal gland.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Why not?