AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I was talking about actual zombies from traditional lore: able to endure any injury, doesn't stop until it kills,...
Humans enraged by some sort of source, are as I admitted to above, more likely than we'd like. The threat they'd pose is debatable though. If it's something that doesn't spread, stupid humans are hardly a thread for an armed force. Now here's the problem with something that does spread. We'll take a virus as example, but the same logic can be applied to all parasites (the haywire nanobots described in the article can be classified as parasites as well).

There is logic behind viruses. Very simple logic even. They want to reproduce. To achieve this, they need to infect new hosts. How better than to sacrifice your current host that's already been weakened by you for a new one? That's why viruses infect the brain to let the host suicide (there's quite a couple of instances of this besides the one mentioned in the article). For most parasites (if not all) it's a necessary step in the development, because they need a new kind of host to enter the next phase in their reproduction cycle.

Now, why would a virus drive it's host to attack and kill other hosts? It wouldn't give the virus more hosts. It would risk the current host. It can't be to feed the host, as the host is much more capable of that without the virus's influence. Rage as a side-effect of the virus is likely, but there's a difference between rage and hunting down other people for food.

Also, I'm aware of quite a few errors in the above, but I'm trying to keep things simple, so please don't nitpick this apart unless it's relevant.

How would the infected differentiate between other hosts and uninfected? If they can't, they're just as likely or even more likely to kill each other instead of attacking uninfected.

Very good point. There are ways to prevent that from happening, but they're quite unlikely to occur on their own.

I think the most likely and scary scenario is this: a rage-inducing vector of some kind is engineered as a weapon and set loose in civil areas to cause social unrest, disruption and potentially riots. Shit, this kind of sounds like the London thing.

Well, if we look at the 28 days later zombies, in a comic it was shown they identify uninfected by smell.

A survivor was using perfume as means to 'control' the infected. For example, he doused another survivor attacking him with perfume, which led to the infected swarming him.

A quick explanation on why such a mechanism will rarely occur on its' own, because I'm superbored:

Traits like that develop through evolution. I'm hoping everyone has got the basics on that down. The pheromone recognition trait can't develop before the "attack other humans" trait, because the former would be useless without the latter. This means that "the attack other humans" trait has to develop first. At first this won't matter, since the number of hosts<<<number of uninfected. However, at some point 2 infected are going to run into each other, at which point they'll try and eat each other. If one of them has the pheromone recognition trait, he won't attack the other and he'll be eaten. If both of them have it, they both live, if none of them have it they both die (simplified, one will probably just be mortally wounded). Since the number of zombies with the pheromone recognition trait is going to be very low at first, they'll constantly be eaten by other zombies. This means the most likely outcome is all the zombies eat each other, especially since one zombie without the recognition trait could kill all other zombies with it.

Long story short, zombies will have to be created in a high-tech lab.

Isn't that always how it starts? One scientist completely disregarding all safety and containment procedures?

Developing a virus like that exceeds current capabilities imo. Also, noone in their right mind would develop something like this, the odds of developing it accidentaly are astronomical and you need immense funding and a team of professionals to pull it off.

Shouldn't be too hard to get the funding and team. I mean two guys got grant cheddar for researching herring farts, so there's precedent in stupid ideas.

Though I have to wonder, like you said, who exactly would purposely make a virus for no other reason than to annihilate humanity.

There's a difference between stupid and life-threatening though.

A virus like that could be used to great effect in warfare, so that seems like the most likely source to me, shady goverment research. But I think it would be easier and more effective to develop a simple rage inducing virus and spread it unknowingly under the target populace. Until they discover the virus, it's just going to look like normal rioting.

I don't think it would be particularly useful in warfare. If used against your enemies, there's the chance that your own soldiers get infected. If used on your own cannonfodder, they won't listen to you and your own soldiers can get infected. Something you can't control usually is not suited for warfare, which lives from strategy and fulfillment of orders.

No no, it would be used against civilian targets, destabilizing the entire nation's backline.

That's different. But still unpredictable = usually bad.

As in, innocent people having nothing to do with the war other than happening to live in that country?

Haha, dude, I'm not in any way condoning using biochemical weapons man. We're discussing likely scenarios for a real life zombie outbreak to occur.

So um, here's an idea:

Pick one of these two spreadsheets: 1 and 2, fill them out by pasting pictures in them (except for the battle plan in the second) and post the result.

Idk, I'm bored.

EDIT: woops, forgot the link