How do zombies work? (logical turbulance possible)

[DrHatsby]

Well, there are two things you can do as a writer when you have zombies in your story.
Either you create them through the commonly known way and expect your audience to go along with it.
Or you find some other way to create what are essentially undead corpses.

If you choose the second option, you'll need a way to explain this to your audience.
And that's where the wonders of 'pseudoscience' come into play.

An often to used gimmick to please the crowd, giving them an easily understood explanation for a question that would otherwise be left unanswered.

We are usually so pleased there is an answer, we don't further question it. (Much like how religion started, in fact. Originated from people trying to think of an answer for what they could not explain.)

I'm sorry to say this, but in my opinion, trying to rationally explain a mythical creature like a zombie is a waste of time. It does usually provide fresh new ways of looking at necromancy and all that, but I don't really see the point.

Nothing wrong with a curious mind, though.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

Normal life functions are not required for reanimation. Even as far back as the 1800s, we've known that electrical signals can cause muscles of both living and dead creatures to move - even if separated from the body!

With this in mind, assuming whatever causes zombies to exist (virus, chemicals, radiation, space parasites, rabid fanboys) operates on the biology of mammals, it would only have to maintain the electrical activity of the nervous system to remain ambulatory. There's a great deal of very specific science at hand that I don't quite understand fully, but without the assumption of some kind of exothermic reaction, we're dealing with a problem of free energy.

At the cellular level, the electrical response of nerves requires a reaction between chemicals generated elsewhere in the body, and transported in the bloodstream. As part of what makes a zombie is a lack (or severe impairment) of a heartbeat, it is fair to assume that this chemical reaction would quickly burn itself out. Thus, whatever makes zombies animate would have to operate on the reaction itself, draw energy from another source (like radiation), or output more energy than it consumes.

Considering the voracious appetite, I'm going to toss out the free energy option (not to mention the physical impossibility). As radioactive zombies have fallen out of fashion since Return of the Living Dead, we'll have to examine the chemical reaction more closely to determine what changes can be made to keep a body ambulatory.

I still think radioactive zombies are the coolest though.

 

[WIUtomato]

I admit that the possibility of Zombies is remote in the extreme... but that doesn't stop from wishing for an outbreak every now and then, you know, liven things up a bit, thin out the herd of twatts and dipshits that populate the planet.

 

[knight of zendikar]

Well in my personal oppinion though the most scientificaly reasonable Zombie would most likely be in the form of a mutated rabies like virus causing the host to become violent and hyperaggressive. Maybe its also possible if this virus also had aids like properties it could weaken the immune system allowing bacterium to easily infect open wounds leading to rotting infected flesh.

So i vote for some Mutated cross of rabies and aids. This combination would create a zombie quite well grounded in science. Hyperaggresive, Minimal inteligence,capable of spreading through biting, the weakend immune sytem than rapidly allows the open bite wounds to become infected causing the flesh to rot.

 

[PasDeChat]

Rabies would be the best option: violence, aggression, compulsive biting and salivation. I wouldn't couple it with HIV though. HIV takes time to manifest symptoms and sometimes years after that to destroy the immune system. Ebola would decrease brain function and cause bleeding. Mumps could case fever and 'dead eye' from corneal scarring.

My favorite (but least likely) hypothesis is hyper virulent syphilis that quickly reaches the final stage if untreated: madness.

 

[randomsix]

Zombies subsist on copious amounts of suspension of disbelief.

 

[Shovel]

Leprechaun magic.

 

[StANDY1338]

Rabies would be the best option: violence, aggression, compulsive biting and salivation. I wouldn't couple it with HIV though. HIV takes time to manifest symptoms and sometimes years after that to destroy the immune system. Ebola would decrease brain function and cause bleeding. Mumps could case fever and 'dead eye' from corneal scarring.

My favorite (but least likely) hypothesis is hyper virulent syphilis that quickly reaches the final stage if untreated: madness.

I think that's everyones least favorite hypothesis. Think I am going to go to the clinic now.

Rabies is the way to go I think.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

The Zombie Survival Guide had an interesting take on it. Sollanum(The z-virus) travels through the blood stream to the brain, where it spreads. Once the virus has ceased control of the nervous system, it shout off the heart, making the person "dead". However, the virus keeps the brain active and uses the frontal lobe to multiply. Then it uses the nervous system to "ressurect" the body, and then attempts to spread itself through bites, creating a zombie.

 

[Joseph Murnan]

The Zombie Survival Guide [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zombie_Survival_Guide] made a brave attempt to explain zombies scientifically, but in the end they're just not possible of course.

My friend has that book! It's awesome, and it taught me a very valuable lesson: In a zombie apocolypse, don't use guns... because swords don't need reloading.

You see my fellow escapists, the sporty jar heads that fill our schools and dimwitted sports people we are told to look up to by the media might be able to throw a ball farther than we can, but when the zombie apocolypse comes, it'll be the internet nerds that know what they're doing.

 

[Andantil]

Biggest problem in my opinion is muscle dystrophy, because if they're dead then their cells don't replace themselves, and muscles are destroyed slowly by intense strain, so just a couple weeks after the zombie apocalypse begins all the zombies are immobile and harmless because their muscles destroyed themselves.

 

[Ganthrinor]

Necromany is the oldest and most reliable method of animating a Zombie Horde. It's also technically impossible in our world.