Space Zombies part 7

In another universe there is a setting in which we find humanity stretched out among the stars, the culture has changed but the people haven't. It's become the wild west all over again but with Chinese influences and spaceships. This is the world of Firefly. A world ravaged by a civil war which now settled leaves humanity under the rule of a harsh, controlling government.

Here we find no aliens but the biggest threat to humanity (besides smugglers, pockets of resistance and former brown coats) is the Reavers. Humans who have lost their humanity. They are savage beasts who rape, eat and torture for a living.

These creatures were caused by a government experiment to create a drug which causes people to be passive and unaggressive, which worked , on 99.9% of people. The other 0.01% it turned into crazed killing machines who feel no fear and live only to cause pain in others it seems.

Reavers only hunt. They pack together (simply for numbers, no social implications) and search out prey. They try to capture their prey alive they then rape it to death, eat it, and sew it's skin into their clothing -not always in that order.- The prey of course is other humans. The reavers bolster their numbers by brainwashing a few of their prisoners and torturing the humanity out of them.

The reavers feel no pain or emotion and thus are not slowed by anything but a killing blow. Otherwise they are roughly the same as other humans, although they tend to have bits of metal and fresh wounds gapping from their bodies.



Cause: Chemical
Undead: No
Body: Human
Freewill: No
Infectious: No
Fear: No

While the reavers are an enemy to by dealt with brutally and with caution it is safe to say they are not zombies. They are closer to the Crazies but more brutal, think of Rage zombies with intelligence; truely frightening. Reavers may behave similar to zombies and are found in space but they aren't undead and while crazed they add torture, rape and other actions instead of blind destruction.

Stay vigilant, may Pax never infect you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Space Zombies part 6

In the future mankind has finally come to peace with itself, now being called the Alliance. Many other alien races have been found and they all have a sort of co-existence that is led by a counsel of representatives from the most influential races. However all cannot remain peaceful forever. A robot race known as Geth wage war on all bio-organic life, led by God-machines known as Reavers. This is the world of Mass Effect.

The Geth use a particularly nasty weapon against the organic species: their own dead. The Geth capture creatures and impale them on large alien spikes dubbed "Dragon's Teeth" due to the Dragon's Teeth Jason sows in the ground to produce skeletons. These Dragon's Teeth are Reaver technology which converts all the organic material in the body to cybernetic material. The body is then reanimated with an electric charge and set loose to kill all organic life.

The husks have no intelligence, no fear, no emotion of any kind unless counting the look of frozen pain and horror on the face of the person they once were. They cannot use weapons that are not built into their bodies, husks created from different races have different abilities but all have the same simple minded, single goal, destruction of the nearest living creature.

Any attempts to domesticate or revive husks has ended in horrific failure and lose of life.
Cause: Alien Technology
Undead: Yes
Body: Humanoid (augmented)
Freewill: No
Infectious: No
Fear: No

Well survivor I present to you another true space zombie. The husks are mindless killers with no intelligence or motives. As a bonus they are even undead, although a futuristic version of such. They only thing that could make these sad creatures more zombie-like is if they were infectious. And as Mass Effect shows zombies in the future pose a similar threat as they do now. Little to none if encountered in small numbers but potentially the biggest threat of all if faced in overwhelming numbers.

Stay vigilant, may the indoctrination never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Space Zombies part 5

In the not too distant future the United Federation of Planets faces a threat to which resistance is futile. In this future of peace, politics and exploration many alien races exsist but only the Borg cannot be reasoned with. They have a single goal of assimilating everything and everyone in our galaxy worth assimilating.

The Borg are part cybernetic, having enhancements including an energy shield, an eye which can see beyond human capacity, an arm which has many tools built in and nano-enhanced strength and healing.

The Borg relentlessly pursue other races and infect them with nanobots which being assimilation immidiately. Assimilation can be rejected or reversed but is very unlikely. Everyone assimilated becomes a drone with the sole purpose of obeying the Hive Mind and creating more drones.

Because of the shielding and nanobots the drones are almost invincible and capture, death or assimilation is all but inevitable. A drone will infect a living subject by injecting him with nanobots through the use of it's tool arm. Borg have also been proven to be capible of reproducing on their own but this does not furture the goal of assimilation so is not common.

Cause: Nanobots
Undead: No
Body: Humanoid (augmented)
Freewill: No
Infectious: Yes
Fear: No

Now I know this is pretty short but I had to call it here. Borg are not zombies. They are take the invincible aspect zombies can sometimes feel they have and the inevitable death motive but they are not zombies. While they do infect victims, those victims are not killed but rather enhanced and turned into a living robot. And while they have no freewill, they are also not completely blood thirsty killing machines. The similarities are there, parallels can be drawn but the fundamentals are missing.
Stay resistant, may you never be assimilated, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Space Zombies part 4

Now this space creature is a little closer to home. In the setting of one of the most iconic enemies in video games. Half-life, in the near future mankind of experimenting with alien technology and well, all goes wrong. Enter the aliens and the aliens food, the headcrabs.

The headcrabs are a small parasite, roughly the size of a pumpkin which is all mouth and legs. It latches onto a host and starts to mutate it. Causing the host to grow a large mouth and claws itself. And then to search out food. Oddly enough for such an iconic character in such an important game to the industry there isn't a lot on the way headcrabs work. What is known is that they do not kill the infected host and thus must feed so both the host and headcrab can continue to survive in this strange relationship. A rather inefficent process compared to many other parasites. The headcrabs take control of the body while leaving the host's mind conscious and in control of unimportant functions such as speach. This may be a strategy of the headcrab to induce fear in further victims but sinse the headcrabs show no other signs of higher intelligence (even in their methods of attacking, using claws to beat instead of stab or tear) I feel safe in assuming this is not the case.

Cause: Parasite
Undead: No
Body: Humanoid (mutated)
Freewill: Somewhat
Infecious: No
Fear: No

While Half-Life was called by many people one of the scariest games ever I am glad and slightly disturbed to say headcrabs are infact nothing like a zombie besides being a parasite. Infact the biggest difference and the part that would make them scary were they real is the fact the human infected is still alive. Which also thus makes Gordon a murderer of countless innocents in addition to unleaching the alien hordes on humanity.
Stay vigilant, may the necrotics never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Space Zombies part 3

Now here is a setting that needs no introduction but for the people who haven't been around for the last ten years and at risk of upsetting the elitists I will offer one. Humanity has expanded, colonies stretching across the galaxy, nothing stands in our way. Except for the Covenant, an alliance of alien species unhappy with humans continued growth and virus-like expansion. Also the fact humanity itself grows too large and hates being controlled so the colonies verge on civil war. Thus a new kind of soldier is made, a race of super soldiers called Spartans is engineered from young children to face the threats against humanity both from without and from within. Wars have come and gone, eventually mankind has been reduced to much less then it once was and only a single Spartan remains. And if things weren't bad enough suddenly a new menace resurfaces. A parasite that once wiped the galaxy of all life, was contained and has now found new hosts a plenty in the wake of the human/Covenant war.

This is the setting of the Halo universe. Very science fictiony and super-hero, standard first-person shooter fair really. Until suddenly The Flood arrive; a race of parasites from another galaxy which were treated as a virus instead of as an enemy in a war and thus they grew to destroy most of our galaxy. The parasite attaches to the body of a dead, sentient creature and reanimates and mutates the body into a killing machine. With the sole purpose of killing more to create more corpses for other Flood to infect. Called Inferi redivivus (the dead incarnate in Latin, a name also given to vampires in other lore) the Flood works by reanimating dead hosts.

The Flood take the memories and intelligence of the creature they infected and assimilate it into itself and eventually the Gravemind, a powerful being which simultaneously controls all of the Flood in the area it has access to. The Flood use combat tactics, weapons and stratiges, becoming ever more dangerous as they infect more intelligent beings.

The Flood can infect a living being by connecting directly into the nervous system via tentacles all of the combat forms develop. It is possible to be immune to the Flood or to cure someone who has been infected but not yet killed. ORION genetically altered soldiers are immune as well as it is possible to kill the infection with electric charges without harming the host.

The Flood are an extremely complex race from another galaxy which has evolved at incredible speeds and continues to evolve to survive in whatever circumstances it is in or to assimilate whatever species it can find. The Flood can also reproduce among themselves but this is viewed as a last ditch effort if all other avenues of infecting fresh hosts are gone.

Cause: Parasite
Undead: Yes
Body: Humanoid (mutated)
Freewill: Yes
Infectious: Yes (tentacles)
Fear: No

Flood while at first glance appear to be standard zombie fair are in fact very far from being zombies it would seem. While a parasite they are extremely intelligent, causing the first major reason they are not zombies. Add in the way infection works and the fact it can be cured are nothing like a zombie virus. Not to mention being able to reproduce without new hosts to infect. All in all a terrifying enemy but not a zombie horde as much as it may feel like one running through dark tunnels gunning them down in scores.

Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Space Zombies part 2

In another section of space we find humanity has once again conquered everything in its path. Now we have tools capable of "cracking" open entire planets and harvesting the resources within. Except on one planet we find something much older then humanity. And discover that while humans knew they weren't completely alone, whatever is out there, does want us all dead.

The video game which has spawned an plethora of content for it's expanding universe is Dead Space. And in Dead Space we find something that has been missing in video games sinse the old Resident Evil and Silent Hill games, true horror. A game that you play at 3 A.M. with the lights turned off knowing that it will make the maniliest of men jump and have nightmares. The reason for this scare factor? A large part of it lies with the unknown. The enemies are complete unknowns, Necromorphs they are called, mutated bodies of dead humans. But the Necromorphs mutate in many unpredicted ways.

While the humans gone crazies are one thing to generate fear in and of itself (also crazy humans never equals zombies) the Necromorphs are the true terror of space. Once the alien parasite has latched onto a corpse it takes ten seconds for the body to mutate and rise. The Necromorphs have no real need for any of the host body's functions so they are virtually impervious to damage and the most useful way of fighting them is to simply disable them by removing all limbs. Once a Necromorph has been created it's sole goal can vary depending on the type of Necromorph created but in general, is to kill more creatures so other parasites can find hosts.

The Necromorphs have proven to be predators who hunt in packs and set ambushes, often waiting in vents or playing dead, until a victim is close enough to kill in a single strike. Beyond this they also have a sort of Hive Mind and will listen to "leaders," more advanced Necromorphs, which sometimes are composed of multiple host bodies merged together. This base intelligence makes the Necromorphs a threat humans in todays culture often refer to as the end of mankind, that is to say, intellegent undead.

So to break it down:

Cause: Parasite
Undead: Yes
Body: Humanoid (mutated)
Freewill: Yes
Infectious: No
Fear: No

In the end I have to say Necromorphs, while more dangerous then any zombie are not infact zombies. They are intelligent predators, which zombies are not, and they are not directly infectious. While they are a parasite which infects and reanimates the dead this alone does not a zombie make.

Stay vigilant, may Marker never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Space Zombies part 1

Every mythology seems to have a version of zombies. Often causes this is simply zombies, nothing hidden or changed about it but what has always interested me is how futuristic settings always seem to have zombies of one sort or another. I would like to talk about two types of zombie.

The first is set in a dark universe 38,000 years in our future. Mankind has conquered the galaxy, more or less. Other races still wage war on man and the hellish alternate universe exists, constantly trying to destroy our own. Also a strange new race has appeared, a race that travels from galaxy to galaxy consuming all there is to consume, adding everything to it's own massive army and moving on. This is the world of Warhammer 40,000.

The last race I mentioned is the one I want to talk about. Already it sounds a little zombish; a race that literally takes every bio-organic life and substance on a planet and converts it into goo which it uses to create it's own mindless (or rather, Hive-minded) army. There is one particular type of creature in this strange army that works slightly differently, Genestealers. There are two myths about where the name comes from, the first is that these dangerous monsters have ended many family lines and possibly entire races own their own, thus steal the genes from the universe. But while they have done these things the name comes from something else entirely.

Genestealers are humanoids, barely. With two legs, a torso, a head and six arms. Each arms ends in three twelve inch long claws that can rip through the most powerful in the galaxy. The body of the genestealer is covered in a hard carapace that requires significant force to penetrate and has mutated to have 0% body fat. The legs in particular have enhanced muscles to make these creatures move at incredible speeds, faster then most vehicles in fact. The head has also mutated to allow for a massive tongue and dozens of teeth just as sharp as the claws. The head has also formed a massive shell as it grows larger and in this shell is the brain but also a virus, the virus is transferred by the tongue to the claws and teeth making even the slightest scratch a dead sentence and worse.

I mentioned a couple times that these attributes of the genestealers are mutations. This is because the virus which kills a genestealers victim, also mutates and reanimates the body. As soon as the victim dies the virus starts changing the DNA of the human. Literally stealing genes and replacing them to create an entirely new creature. Once the transformation is almost complete the body is brought back to live and the muscles finish growing and forming while the genestealer starts looking for it's first victim. Genestealers have also been suggested to not be part of the Hive-mind, they are supposedly just killing machines with the sole purpose of the continued spread of the virus inside them.

All of this really sounds like a creature we already have here on earth. So are genestealers in fact space zombies? Well we can take a look at the things that make a zombie and compare.

Cause: Virus
Undead: Yes
Body: Humanoid (mutated)
Freewill: No
Infectious: Yes, via bite and scratch.
Fear: No

Well fellow survivors I have to say I am glad to be alive today and not in the year 40,000AD, because these creatures are in fact futuristic space zombies. They match up to being a zombie better then zombies from most zombie films or books do.

Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach space, and the Space Marines have the firepower to do what is needed should we all be so unfortunate, Mike D.