"Could There Be A Virus Or Chemical Agent That Makes Ragers?" Topic

Ok, guys. Let's talk REAL science (not movie "science").

Is it possible to come up with a virus or chemical agent that would do this to people . . .?

- Increases speed and strength dramatically
- Infection can be spread from a single drop of blood
- Grants the victim ability to sense a non infected nearby
- Pain doesn't seem to be an issue

PS. Come to think of it, crack cocaine already does two out of the four.

Dan
TMP link

PCP certainly covers 1 & 4. They are hurt, but don't feel it or care.

Nanotechnology will do the rest. :)

- Bob

PCP also would have 2 of the traits.

Yep PCP or CRACK MAKES YOU STRONG!

Bob beat me to the punch.

Rabies, although the onset time is vastly slower than most rage virii.

It was suggested in a graphic novel tie-in that the 28 Days Later ragers could smell somebody who was wearing perfume/cologne and had just washed with soap.

I thought the idea that PCP makes a person stronger was an urban legend.

Ummm, you are missing one the most important traits.

The "RAGE" part of rage zombies…

You need a #5 – Enrages victims into a killing frenzy.

Mardaddy,

You are a sharp man. I knew I could count on you for bringing up what I may have forgotten. Thanks.

Dan

Yeah, some form of nasty rabies

Interesting how the Spanish name for rabies is "rabia" (wrath, rage).

Dan
PS. I just did a video search for rabies in humans and watched a short clip of a kid with rabies that I really wish I hadn't seen.

"- Increases speed and strength dramatically
- Infection can be spread from a single drop of blood
- Pain doesn't seem to be an issue"

This lot should be pretty easy. It's just a virus with some extra coding; makes the cells which are infected not only create more viruses but express (say) massive amounts of adrenalin and endorphins. We probably have the tech to do it now – we already have the vectors in use for creating bacteria which create drugs. It's probably not quite "off the shelf" technology yet, but 10 years from now it will be.

I don't imagine adding something to trigger violent psychosis would be too much more work; although a chemical already found in nature (say one of the cannabinoids) will be easier than trying to code for something we don't a gene sequence for.

"- Grants the victim ability to sense a non infected nearby"

Can't think of a trivial way of doing this.

KatieL,

That would make for an awesome weapon! One that would just let the enemy destroy itself, as long as the victims had to pass the virus to someone else in a very short time.

Otherwise, the risk of spreading it beyond enemy territories would be a bit much.

Even if we were not working towards such a virus, the way many discoveries happen (by accident) tells me that a freak discovery at a research facility is not out of the question. And then all it takes is a "visionary" military contractor to sell the concept to a government.

Dan

A TMP post about British Generals?

Gah!
CC mentions he saw a vid of a kid with rabies… so of course I HAD to go look for the vid and now I've seen it and am also wishing I hadn't… reminds me of when I was a kid and one of my friends decided to taste road tar…

Venusboys3,

Why? Why? Why did you look it up?

If I thought you would benefit from it I would have provided a link. All it did was leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Dan

It's like a reflex thing I've got when someone says, 'Dont look!' or 'don't taste this!' or 'don't put that in your eye!' or 'ew, you REALLY don't wanna have sex with that woman!'… I just can't help myself…

CC at this time no.

There are some really terrible viruses, illnesses, and chem weapons but nothing that matches your request.

PCP does not make you stronger. PCP destroys certain parts of the brain in layers with use. The first to go are the delicate receptors for pain register and processing; PCP can take away any feeling of pain and the common sense that comes from the pain…users do not have any way to know when to stop. So while a PCP user seems strong and tough it is actually the lack of pain and any sense of marginal emotion…just extremes.

I believe PCP was created as a pain killer for large livestock like horses and cattle; so the key is in amount used…a dram when a drop would do will cause serious issue.

Back to the subject at hand. While no single virus or chem weapon will do what you want, there is the potential for a cocktail or complex weapon that might.

PCP (rage/no pain) + steroids/antibiotics (healing) + Scopolamine (no thinking/will) etc.

The problem with instant infection is that would also mean mutation due to high reactivity…meaning the instant infection would be the worst of the issue, it would only get worse and may lead to super AIDs or Motaba like virus.

Freeze the blood would be the key to victory to fight this virus…get to where it is too cool for air borne or blood spray to get you.

PS
I went and looked up the kid with rabies…when he starts screaming and rolling his eyes…e'freaken gads that is nasty…like a horror movie. Should have listened to the others here, it is not life changing but it is also certainly not funny or interesting, pass and just take it for granted…bad news.

No NO No…you've all missed it completely. That's what happens to the female partner when ya get married!!!

PCP as noted does not make you stronger, but it does make you crazy and not care much about what happens to you, producing a state termed politely as "excited delerium" – back in the day when I worked in a hospital in down-town Detroit, the cops would not infrequently have to shot someone hepped up on PCP because they just couldn't stop him with a nightstick (well, maybe there were other reasons) – this is one of the reasons Tazers are so popular with the cops (there's all that paperwork when you shot someone) – had the personal experience of watching a guy go crazy in the ER one night – in that case, we didn't want to have the cops shot him, so we used 100 mg of chlorpromazine – which, since it is an alpha blocker, puts you down and keeps you down – when he woke up, he had two questions, "where am I" and "why are my muscles so sore?"

So – you can kind of do it – the thing is, you can't do it for long unless you can find some way to subvert the Krebs cycle – you can only make so much energy, and in a high-energy state as described you would go catabolic very quickly

Eheise- you Southern boys crack me up! Good one

I think in some gene therapies they are using a dead flu or cold virus as a carrier. I did a lot of research on this at one time on how a virus could be introduced into a human.

My scenario I was working on was a research lab working on a way to speed up healing in a human for military use. Of course when you increase the healing rate you need lots of fuel to supply the material for the healing. Which means the human must eat lots of food. They were using a flu virus as a carrier, which means it could spread by inhaling or getting into the mucus layers of the nose, eyes or mouth if it wasnt a dead virus.

So the healing virus mutates with the dead flu virus and actually reactivates the virus. So the victum first has flu like illness. Then due to the normal healing rate being increased, the victim gets an overwhelming desire to eat and eat lots of food. The victim basically loses control over his higher reasoning functions and the desire to eat takes over. When there is no food around, the guy next to him starts to look really good. Sound like a killer zombie?

The one problem with these killers is once one has stuffed themselves, they would probably find a dark closet to sleep off the meal. Both to conserve energy and to give the inferior digestive system time to convert all the meat. So once a pack has made a kill, they would feed and then go digest the meal. So remember you only have to be faster then the slowest person on the team.

The one bright thing about these zombies is that they could still have the ability to think once their hunger has been satisfied. But probably they would be insane after awhile of eating humans. When the hunger takes over they would be running on pure anger, bloodlust, desire to kill.

Hope the cia or fbi or homeland are checking this thread..!!!!! :-)

Or maybe a mad doctor instead ?

Soulman,

LOL. That's why I don't tell my co-workers about TMP! :)

Dan

could smell somebody who was wearing perfume/cologne and had just washed with soap.

That is a lot easier than it sounds. While I don't recommend this experiment to everyone, all it takes to be able to smell even most "scentless" soap on someone is to not use any soap yourself for a couple weeks, preferably by getting out into nature for a good long vacation from civilization.

(This was supposedly re-discovered the hard way in Vietnam, as patrols coming in from the jungle could smell camp quite clearly, and the survival rate on patrols was most brutal in the first 48 hours while soldiers were still "clean".)

As a non smoker, it is really easy to smell a smoker in the room. So maybe Zombies are really going after the smokers in the group.

As for the non soap experiment, I thought we did that every time there is a con. I swear there is a few bodies there not using soap.

Well yes, but the point is to be able to smell the soap users. Too much funk in an enclosed space just shuts the nose down, which ruins the experiment. And appetites.

There's no effective difference between not being able to feel the danger signals telling you to not push so hard and being physically stronger. I've heard of guys on PCP snapping handcuffs (then again, a girl I knew could also break cuffs … in the throes of the moment).

Rabies + flu + a bit of Ebola, with a either some extra adrenaline or some endorphins, worse yet, both. Highly contagious, short onset time, and the victim can't feel any pain while being hysterically strong. Just the nasty kind of thing that a modern Unit 731 would be working on.

Another flick with Rager-like types:

TMP link

Dan

@ Soulman what make you think that this site isn't in some dark basement room in the CIA, FBI, NSA or some company with major defense contracts or foreign government as a think tank, where ideas come from and war strategies are tested, without our knowledge, oops I mean without your knowledge, the wealth of such information could be very very useful. Every battle past present and future played out. Every mind twist thought of and tested. The bizarre thought of and discussed in detail. (evil laugh) hahahahahaaaaa

Oh no!!! We are so screwed!

Dan

A chemical agent would not work because it cannot reproduce itself and would not be able to bring about the many physical changes needed in different areas of the body.

A virus could in theory do it if you were able to determine the genes to be altered and figure out a way of putting all the necessary engineering into the virus DNA. It might make the virus too large to be effective in the body.

You have the problem of how fast the virus would work. A real infection can't cover the whole body system in a few seconds. It simply isn't physically possible.

Dramatically increasing strength takes time to acquire food and process it via exercise into muscle mass.

There can be a short term boost simply from adrenaline but this does not last and relies on damaging the muscles for the boost.

Nervous reflexes have a natural speed which can't be sped up much. Athletes improve their reflexes by practice which turns them into unconscious reflex actions (there is a medical term I can't remember.)

Hi war monkey, think about that, deep down in a gov office, is a 6mm/15mm/28mm table with battles, so they can plan a future outcome in a up and coming war, 100`s of staff painting figures up all day long..!!!

Its a good thread, i guess its about adding the rage part really, so you really want to rip the guys head off with your hands… the spread part would be harder

Soulman I have been involved in Military exercise that involved a massive terrain relief board that had rolling catwalks moving over the map and tons of armor minis both NATO and Warsaw (I sure they were GHQ if my memory is right), it was like some scene for a old WWII move but way cooler, laser pointers for determining line of sight, and a computer system that basically rolled the results. It lasted almost a month. By the way we lost (NATO) and nukes became the finial option,
That's what got me hooked on the 6mm/300 stuff
I don't know if they are still doing it and if not then what did the do with all those minis.

I just know I'd be the guy that tripped off the catwalk into the middle of the Fulda Gap halfway through the game.

- Bob

Or popping up dressed as godzilla..!!!!!!
Or
Silver hubcaps for flying saucers, just incase we get attacked..!!!