un: phoenixevolution

[manufactured]

Through curiosity both morbid and not - what were you in the middle of before bring brought here, and how urgent do you consider returning to it?

Just going by the way things have been around here lately, I won't precisely be surprised if answers trend towards "having a crisis", "dying horribly", or "watching someone else die horribly"; even so, it isn't as though I'm going to judge for such things either way.

Comments

[manufactured]

That depends on a number of things. What they're infected with, who they were before the infection. Genetic makeup is a factor as well, in some cases.

[greatestcool]

Really? Sounds like you've seen a lot of them. Do you study them or something?

[manufactured]

Something like that. I'm a virologist; I've worked for multiple pharmaceutical corporations.

It's my job to know these things.

[greatestcool]

That sounds like it'd be pretty interesting in a world with a zombie outbreak. I'm guessing you're not in the same line of work here, though.

[manufactured]

I was in that line of work before the outbreak. Needless to say, it's taken a bit of a turn.

I'm not, however. Considering doing something in the scientific field, but it's a touch difficult to know where to even start here.

[greatestcool]

That's understandable. Hopefully you can figure it out at some point! Sounds like your work was pretty fascinating back home, though.

[manufactured]

You want to know if I ever studied the undead directly, I assume.

[greatestcool]

Absolutely. Who knows what you could learn from them?

[manufactured]

[...You know, he has an answer for that but unfortunately, ethics are presumed to be a thing by most people that aren't you, you little weirdo.]

It isn't as though we can simply infect whomever we want and study them, you know. That seems a bit unethical. As does sending in people to fight them for data collection.

The viruses are interesting. The infected are of less use than one would think.

[greatestcool]

[ethics don't apply to zombies?????]

I'm not suggesting infecting anyone! I figured you guys probably had a zombie or two captive for study or something.

What do you mean by that, though? That they're of "less use"?

[manufactured]

I'm fairly sure most wouldn't consider that ethical, either, but in that case it's likely more because they insist on continuing to see the undead as people. They focus on who they were and who they might have been, as opposed to the notion that the person themselves is long dead.

[...Usually. That is usually the case and we're not going to get into the subject of the mutated ones, or the fucked up ones like Lisa Trevor screaming for her mom and what have you.]

And I simply mean that objectively, there's not much we can get out of them. We know how to destroy them, and that they can't be cured once infected; we know what they're used for and what mutations are likely to present themselves. All things that can be gained through observation. Keeping them is more likely to just have them break themselves somehow, or to end up with them wandering around infecting people. Or trying very hard to infect people and just walking into walls until someone sets them on fire, I suppose.

[greatestcool]

Oh, that's a good point. I haven't exactly considered the ethics involved in dealing with zombies before, but I can see why people would be opposed to that on that sort of basis. It'd be kind of hard to stop seeing someone familiar as a person even if they've become a zombie.

[He... guesses???? He barely gets how people work to begin with, much less when there are zombies involved.]

Honestly, you make it sound kind of funny... But they're a huge threat, right?

[manufactured]

Individually they can be dealt with. The problem is that it's never just one; they swarm.

[greatestcool]

Makes sense, they're presumably all drawn in by people, right?

Okay, so I've gotta ask: is it brains they're after?

[manufactured]

They just want to feed on whatever living thing is in front of them. So I'm sure they wouldn't mind, but they don't really care enough to be discerning.

[greatestcool]

I guess that makes sense. So they really don't have the capacity to think at all anymore, right?

[manufactured]

They don't. They just operate on instinct, more or less.

[greatestcool]

They sound like they'd be a huge pain to deal with, but it's kind of interesting that they exist in your world. Hearing about other worlds is always so cool!