Walking dead how do people become zombies

The closest any The Walking Dead format has come to explaining the origins of the outbreak was in the first season finale of the original show, and - not coincidentally - Kirkman calls that episode his biggest regret, vis a vis the TWD franchise.

In the webisodes a terrorist attack was mentioned. At the end of series 2 it was revealed that everyone is infected and they will reanimate after death. There would have been a further explanation to the outbreak in a planned webisode. Remember, in series 1 when Rick jumps in the tank and there is a walker in there? Well this was to be the ending of the planned webisode. The walker was a US Army Ranger in Atlanta trying to evacuate the population during the outbreak but the city was overrun.

This webisode was shelved due to budgeting issues. It is a shame because it would have given us a picture of what happened prior to Rick waking from his coma at the hospital. In the comics, and I am just assuming the show, it is an infection. It is not believed to be air-born but basically everyone has it.

You fall down stairs and break your neck, you're a zombie. If someone shoots you in the head and you die, you're dead. A zombie bite kills you because of infection, or blood loss, not because of the zombie "virus.

He has also said he won't reveal the cause in the comics so we will have to wait to see on the TV show but I wouldn't hold your breath. I guess it is up to the viewers own imagination. It broke out as a common virus and became a global epidemic in the few months that Rick was in coma for. As in the first season The CDC was working on it, this shows maybe that it started as a virus.

It started off like in "Resident Evil" i. The difference being is that with the Solanum Virus or with the Walking Dead, everyone is already infected. But bites cause a lethal infection that kills you, and then you are reanimated. How this started is a little sketchy, I imagine the virus that everyone was already infected with mutated and when someone died they came back..

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. How did the zombie outbreak start in the Walking Dead? Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 9 months ago.

Active 5 years, 6 months ago. Viewed k times. I'm wondering where and why the zombie outbreak began? Improve this question. Wad Cheber 65k 58 58 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. DavRob60 DavRob60 I'm assuming that you are talking about the TV Show, but to be clear, you should probably formally state if you are asking about the TV Show or comics. The show is based on the comics, but has diverged greatly already.

Yup, looks good. Must be a Sumatran Rat Monkey. In the TV series there hasn't been an explanation so far. This is easily found by, you know, actually watching the series ; painful, I know, what with all the soap opera drama — Andres F. Show 5 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. It has been made fairly clear that the initial source of the virus is not currently something that either the comic or the show are planned to address, as this quote from an interview with show producer Glen Mazzara indicates : Will determining the cause of the outbreak be something that the group, now that they know they're all infected, spends time on?

All we really know about the virus is: Everyone has it It remains dormant in the brain Sometime anywhere from a few minutes to several hours after the moment of death, the virus activates, and reanimates the body We can also speculate that humans are likely the only animals that the virus infects. Improve this answer. Community Bot 1. Beofett Beofett 53k 30 30 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. I guess we have to close this question for being off-topic now.

Add a comment. Beta Beta 4, 3 3 gold badges 23 23 silver badges 25 25 bronze badges. Actually, there is no need for a patient zero in the usual sense. Since the virus manifests itself only upon death, If the virus was produced by mutation in a very young person, and that person lived another 90 years spreading the virus, the first zombie could be observed in a person infected long after the original virus developed and started to spread..

WhatRoughBeast: I wrote my Answer before seeing the Reveal that everyone has the condition and is asymptomatic.

So now for all we know it might not even be a contagion at all. What causes the zombie uprising in The Walking Dead? Preston Smith Preston Smith 3 3 silver badges 8 8 bronze badges. TL;DR: We don't know, and according to franchise creator Robert Kirkman, who writes the comics and is an Executive Producer on the show, we never will. It all happened so fast that the scientists trying to find a solution to the problem didn't have time to establish what was causing it, let alone share their findings with the public.

Realism - except for the existence of zombies, obviously - is important to Kirkman: Kirkman wants TWD to feel real. It Wouldn't Matter Anyway: How would knowing how and why the outbreak began help people like Rick's group? People in The Walking Dead aren't obsessed with finding out how the outbreak began, for the same reason people floating around on the ocean after the Titanic went down didn't wonder which glacier the iceberg that sank the ship came from, how big it was, or when it calved.

In both cases, there were much more important things to worry about. So, now that you've imagined all of this, what part of the story makes you think you'd know how, why, and where the outbreak began? What part of the story makes you think you'd even care, when you're so busy worrying about when the next attack will happen, how you're going to get food and water, when a herd too big to fight off is going to show up, how long it will take for the people in your group to turn on each other, and when armed raiders will storm your camp, rape and murder everyone in it, and steal everything in sight?

This was Kirkman's reasoning when he decided that we shouldn't learn anything specific about the origins of the outbreak. From a narrative standpoint, what is the value of withholding the source of the plague? Out-of-Universe: We haven't been told how it all started, and chances are, we never will be. Wad Cheber Wad Cheber 65k 58 58 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. In his classic film Night of the Living Dead , scientists speculated the creation of zombies could have been caused by a space prove to Venus bringing back radiation with unintended effects.

Another tie to the extraterrestrial: when pitching The Walking Dead to Image Comics executives, Kirkman had to lie by claiming the apocalypse was caused by space aliens using zombies to weaken the world's infrastructure before invading.

According to a laser sword-wielding Michonne, an unknown alien civilization caused the dead to come back to life and attack humans, with the survivors being turned into a slave race to harvest water the aliens used as currency. That seems like a very J. It would be completely out of place in the story. An example of this is in the start of the Season 2 finale where a zombie sees a helicopter and follows it to Hershel's farm.

Alice Warren , Dr. Stevens ' assistant in Woodbury, mentioned that her original group of survivors referred to the zombies as "biters", because, while some do lurk or roam, they will all bite, so to classify them into separate groups was considered a silly practice.

Floaters are zombies that became bloated after spending a long period of time in the water. One was first encountered by the survivors at the Greene family farm in the TV series where it was found trapped in a well.

Fearing that shooting the floater might result in polluting the well, the survivors decide to pull it out. This proves to be futile as it gets stuck on the lip and splits in half, the bottom part of its body and most of its innards falling back into the well.

The term "lame-brains" was first used in the TV episode " Nebraska " by Dave and Tony , strangers that walk in the local bar not far from the Hershel's farm.

It seems to be a broad category for all zombies, equivalent to the term "walkers". She says she calls them geeks because, just like carnival geeks, they will eat anything. This name is not used in the Comic Series. More recently however, the term has been abandoned. In the video game, Chet , Clementine , Alvin Jr. John call the zombies, "monsters". Rick also calls the zombies "monsters" once in the comic series. In " When the Dead Come Knocking ", when Milton and Andrea wait for Michael Coleman to turn, she realizes that Milton has never seen a loved one turn into a walker and says: "There is no unconscious mind, Milton.

When they turn, they become monsters, that's all. Whatever they once were is gone. This name is used by a Savior. Since he is part of the Saviors , it is presumed that the nickname is a common one amongst the group. The name most likely originated from the fact that the zombies' intelligence levels are very low, so they are just considered mindless puppets of meat.

When Paul Monroe was saved by Abraham Ford and Michonne as he was sleeping in an abandoned car, he used the name "empties" to refer to the zombies that were trying to get into the car. The name was used by Albert as he panics after eating Dale 's leg, whom was bitten.

The term is also used in the Video Game by Andrew St. John when recalling them getting caught on the electric fence surrounding the St.

John's Dairy Farm. Sam used this term in " Indifference " while in conversation with Rick and Carol Peletier. Also used by Negan in Issue Merle uses this term when he is about to kill multiple walkers.

This name is used when Dale Horvath and T-Dog encounter a bloated zombie trapped in the depths of a well while living at Hershel's farm. The exact quote is "Looks like we've got us a swimmer.

This term is used by Daryl Dixon to describe the zombies during the earlier stages of the outbreak in The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. This term is used by Tyreese in the Comic Series while talking to Rick about how he fears more the living than the "half-rotten ghoul trying to eat my flesh. During Survival Instinct , Kessler says that he locked himself up from the "damn ghouls". This name is used by Daryl in Survival Instinct , during his talk with a cop called Jimmy Blake , who is hiding in a shelter on the roof of a building.

Used by Chuck in the Video Game. The Commonwealth soldiers used this term as well. Used by the U. Military and CDC personnel such as Dr.

Edwin Jenner as a blanket statement for all zombies, as well as all human beings believed to be contaminated by the zombie pathogen. Also used by the survivors in Fear The Walking Dead. Used by Magna's Group as they are traveling through the woods, prior to being swarmed by a massive herd guided by Paul, Eugene, Rosita Espinosa , Aaron, and other herd wranglers by accident. A term, more of a metaphor, used by Jane. When escaping from a crowd of walkers, she disables a walkers jaw and pushes through the herd with this walker, referring to it as a cow-catcher as it works just like a real life cow-catcher.

Used by Martin in " No Sanctuary ". Used by Nicholas during a discussion in " Remember ". Used by Moyers during a discussion in " Cobalt ". His grandmother refers to the zombies as Wendigos, a mythological cannibalistic monster from Algonquian folklore as the Fairbanks family are Native-American themselves. It is also used by members of the Kingdom , starting with Benjamin , in " The Well ". Means "Dead Ones" in Spanish. Term used by Rafael Machado. A term used by Merle Dixon in Survival Instinct, referring to the herd moving towards a bar his gang was holed up in.

A term used by Ryan in one of the Althea 's tape. Pronounced Jang-Sher is a term used in The Walking Dead: Typhoon to descripe a type of reanimated corpse in Chinese legends and folklore. A term used by the Whisperers in the TV Series. A term used by Tony Delmado and Percy. This is a term used by Athena Mukherjee. Speed Wilkins refers to the burned zombies from the prison herd as such much to the annoyance of Lilly Caul.

Lilly Caul makes a list of as many terms for zombies as she can remember that Tommy Dupree had come up with. This is one of many of those terms. A term used by Melvin when describing a herd of walkers. It should be noted, that this term is also used by Dr. Edwin Jenner to describe the spread of the virus. A term used by Sarah Rabinowitz. A term used by Shane Walsh to describe a group of walkers that is smaller than a herd, like the ones that attacked the Camp.

A term often used by the groups members of the Atlanta Camp , especially during the early seasons. A term used by Wendell when referring to a walker. It seems to be a codeword to describe the dead between him and Sarah. A term used by Sarah. Originally used from here time at the military, she now uses it to describe the dead. A term used by Magna's Group. A term used by Eugene Porter after the discovery of The Whisperers.

Used to destinguish members of the dead from members of The Whisperers. Said by Duane Jones in the Morgan Special. A term used by Jeffrey Grimes. A term used to describe the undead during the early onset of the apocalypse given that society had yet been able to definetly define what was going on. A term used by the residents of the Oceanside community, specifically those that came from the ocean.

A term used by Negan Smith to describe the walkers on the fence of The Sancturary. A term Eugene used to descirbe the dead. A term used by Morgan when trying to explain to Rick about the apocalypse. A term used by the researchers at the CDC. A term used by The Prisoners. A term used by Negan Smith to refer to the walkers inside the Subway Tunnel. A term used by Daryl Dixon. A special kind of zombie seen in Overkill's The Walking Dead. A term used by Alpha when she threatens Henry that she'll let Beta break both his arms and legs and leave him for the dead.

A term used by the Civic Republic to describe a large herd. A term used by the residents of The Perimeter. Zombies are relatively weak and unintelligent as individuals, but are dangerous in large numbers and in tight spaces. They are the main antagonists within the post-apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead. The vast majority of the human population 6. This leaves about 1,, survivors left.

As a species, Kirkman's zombies do not evolve and are permanently doomed to just deteriorate until there's nothing left but the skeleton. Everyone in The Walking Dead universe somehow contracted the zombie pathogen that, for reasons and through means unknown, brings the recently deceased back to "life. Scientist Dr. Edwin Jenner did not even rule out the possibility that the disease is of supernatural origin.

The exact taxonomy of the pathogen is also unknown. Curiously, the pathogen itself does not kill its hosts. Instead it remains dormant, likely within neural cells in the brain, leaving its host visibly and physically healthy. Only when the host dies, does the pathogen become active, infecting and reviving neural structures in the brain stem and certain parts of the cerebellum, turning a human into a zombie.

A zombie is thus a condition a recently deceased host enters when the pathogen is in its active stage. In the comic series, getting zombie bodily fluid blood, bile, saliva, etc. It is unclear in the TV-series whether or not the rule of infection above from the comic series is applicable. Sasha accidentally cut Abraham's arm with her zombie-blood soaked knife, yet he survived, indicating that the rules in the television series are different to a degree.

This was referenced earlier in the Season 2 episode "18 Miles Out", where Shane cuts his own hand with a knife that was previously used to kill a walker, and later wipes his cut hand on a place which a walker has licked. However, in Season 8 , due to a shortage of bullets, Negan Smith orders his men to dunk their weapons in walker guts to use to infect any living survivor with one slash very similar to the comics and the Saviors are successfully able to infect numerous residents of the Hilltop colony by injuring them with their coated weapons.

It is possible that more direct injuries to living survivors such as deep penetration wounds and larger quantities of walker tissue entering the bloodstream are able to cause living survivors to die and turn. At one point, Daryl Dixon states that this method of infection isn't the same as being bitten, that some people turn and some don't.

However, this is contradicted by Tara Chambler who points out that everyone but her who got hit by tainted weapons fell ill and turned. In Tara's case, it is believed that Dwight purposefully shot her with a clean arrow to save her life.

In all probability, the injuries to Shane and Abraham mentioned above were not fatal because their wounds were not deep enough to get infected. As seen in " The Big Scary U ," using the walker guts trick has its own downsides as its possible for the person to get sick from the bacteria and contagions carried in the dead blood and guts.

Gabriel Stokes got ill in this manner, though Negan , who used blood from the same walker and put it unprotected on his skin, did not. However, this is simply transmission of already present illnesses and not contagion that turns people into zombies. As seen in Season 10, it appears that spreading walker blood through a water source does not contaminate it with the pathogen. When Mary did this to Alexandria 's water supply, the residents only got cholera. In addition, the community's water filters would've stopped it had Dante not turned them off.

As mentioned previously, during the dormant stage, the pathogen is asymptomatic. The host will thus remain healthy despite being technically 'infected' and will continue to remain so as long they are alive. After the host dies, the dormant pathogen enters the active stage and will begin the process of reanimating the body through the infection and reactivation of neural structures in the brain. No matter how an individual dies, unless their brain was severely damaged or destroyed, they will reanimate into a zombie following death.

The pathogen enters the active stage when an individual dies and is responsible for the host's reanimation as a zombie. When an individual is bitten by a zombie, the active pathogen is transmitted into them as well as a plethora of bacteria and other infectious agents that reside in a zombie's mouth.

In the event that amputation fails or is not possible, it is believed that the active pathogen then induces a fatal and irreversible cytokine storm, causing a high fever, aches, extreme fatigue, and nausea. As the infection progresses, the active pathogen invades and spreads through the brain like meningitis, infecting synapses and other neural structures that are concentrated in the brain stem and parts of the cerebellum.

At the climax of the infection, the adrenal glands hemorrhage and the brain completely shuts down. All brain activity would cease, followed by the major organs and the body would be clinically dead: no measurable brain activity, no reflexes, and no respiration or pulse.

The time between the onset of the symptoms and death, followed by reanimation is very dependent on the severity, location, and quantity of the bite wound s of individuals who cannot be saved. In " The Good Man " of Fear the Walking Dead , Elizabeth Ortiz , after spending time with military doctor Bethany Exner , implies that all the infection itself from the bites does is kill the person. The reanimation comes from the person dying as it would if they died of something like a gunshot or stab wound.

The dead corpse of anyone that dies for any reason will reanimate as a zombie, unless the brain of the individual is badly damaged or destroyed, or the person was dead prior to the outbreak.