About this ZN1 virus
Rewatching Z Nation has brought back to mind the issues I have with the pathogen. It just doesn’t make any sense. It is canonically a virus, rather than a fungus or microbe or something which might make more sense biologically. First, there’s a vaccine, and the one which they test on Murphy “works”. The thing is, vaccines only work if you get the vaccine before you’re exposed to the pathogen. In the first episode, not a problem. Then it is revealed that the whole world is infected - everybody already has the virus and it is “activated” when they die. Narratively speaking I get the point; even if you die a natural death you become a zombie, with all the horror that entails. Biologically, however, it’s all crazy. A virus needs a living host to reproduce, dead cells won’t do it. Do zombies have a heartbeat in Z Nation? I can’t remember, I’m sure it’ll come up. If they don’t (and hearts are pretty hard to get going again once they stop) there’s no way to get oxygen to cells and they’ll start dying pretty quickly. My point is, for a virus to create a zombie the host must continue to be biologically alive, so having people turn into a zombie upon death is nonsensical. More than that, if the virus is only “activated” when people die, how did they catch it? If a virus isn’t activated, it’s not infectious. Then, you have people becoming zombies once they’re bitten, because they’ve been infected with the virus. But they’re already infected with the virus, so it shouldn’t make any difference. This complaint is the same for The Walking Dead, and to be honest it just shits me. Ash vs The Evil Dead gets around this by having Deadites be the result of black magic, and I’m totally cool with that. It makes a lot more sense, in terms of a consistent world view.
