It's possible. I mean you are talking about something that as of right now is fictional. However in theory if it were a virus type disease then yes some people could be immune. In the initial impact and for some time in the aftermath the only way to know would be to not turn under the circumstances that one would normaly turn.

 

I've thought about that too. How weird would that be if zombie world is popping off HARD, full on dawn of the dead style. And you wake up and go outside to your mailbox unaware and a x5 Z's sprint past you and eats a neighbor or someone. That'd be the craziest thing/feeling ever. Just parading around a zombie infestation without a care in the world. Probably end up getting killed in some human caused crossfire/crash/fire. Id look pretty ridiculous. I'd be x3 gold breitling deep on my wrist, with a Humvee, gucci suit, and big guns haha just acing golf balls off the roof of a building in downtown Dallas.

 

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to be immune, but would you risk finding out? Without a medical establishment the only way to do so would to get bitten, and that's probably not something you want to do. Also, many people who get infected would be killed by infection/being torn open even if they didn't turn. The number of people meeting just the right criteria of getting bitten but not attacked so severely they would die, and not having their own group kill them off is probably pretty small. If 1 in 10,000 of those has immunity... you'd likely never meet one.

 

Since it's not zombie bites that turn you into a zombie, I like to think of whatever kills you from bites as being nothing more than an extreme septic shock that quickly travels to the brain. I don't think one can be immune to such a thing.

Personally I can't stand the idea that the cause of the zompocalypse is anything biological. In the words of Romero "somehow the rules have changed". I like the idea of a dead body RE-ANIMATING is beyond human comprehension. Saying that a virus (which can't even survive in dead tissue) is responsible for raising the dead is like saying that somehow a strain of bacteria has shown the ability to turn lead into gold.

The cause should be beyond understanding...which would give everyone (viewers and characters) the ability to ONLY guess at the cause.

Jenner: It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal…

Jacqui: Or the wrath of God?

Jenner: There is that…

Even Jenner was guessing. If we KNEW it was a virus then it wouldn't be as scary. We could HOPE for a cure or immunity. We would KNOW that our greatest weapon against infection would be hand sanitizer. Everything would get less scary. It would be like a big scary dog with no teeth or claws.

 

I understand what you're saying, BUT Jenner did have verifiable findings on the SPECT (or whatever scan it was) showing new but changed activity in the brain, so there was some real reason for this happening other than "magic". That being the case, there's no reason to assume there *couldn't* be someone who was immune to whatever "it" is.

 

In a world where 99.9+ percent of people have succumbed to the infection, you actually almost certainly would meet one. Immune people would be a proportionately large fraction of survivors. This is why, in the universe they have created, immunity is extremely unlikely. Or if it exists, its one in millions, or less.

 

Why would it be beyond human comprehension? You like the idea that it has no explanation? . Microbes evolve. A bacteria or virus which can't survive in dead tissue today, might be able to 6 years from Tuesday. I agree with you that they should never reveal a specific cause to viewers, because the mystery is more powerful. But that doesn't mean sure shouldn't actually be a specific cause. This isn't fantasia.

 

Moreover, what if they run across one person who dies and doesn't comeback as a zombie in the Walking Dead universe...that could be cool just to see it. They could think a solution is possible, or something, but it could just be a remote bizarre thing. They would have to determine that...Actually, I think that could be a cool story arc in both the comics and the show...maybe something post AOW...

 

Possibly, but I don't think it would make much sense for them to assume much from that. It would be more natural to think that they just suffered brain damage from a non-obvious cause. Maybe a cerebral hemorrhage from when they fell, or related to whatever was the cause of death, or even spontaneously, and this damage just prevented them from reanimating.

 

I think Rick would have a lot of interest, because in both the show and comics he wanted to be sure that all reanimate, and if one didn't and had no clear damage to the brain, I think it could spark interest, and hope, confusion...maybe more interest in trying to understand, only to find no other support for it, and back to despair over there being no way out still....It's atleast as interesting as the sickness that over took the prison arc...

 

I disagree. How many people have Rick's group met since the ZA? 200 total? Considering that most people that had an immunity would either have been bitten and torn apart by walkers, bitten and dying of infection that was untreatable without antibiotics, or killed by other people or *were never bitten at all*, the chance of one of the 200 people or so you've meet having been bitten but living to tell the tale AND having a 1 in 10000 immunity is vanishingly small.

 

That would mean there was an immune person in their acquaintance, which isn't likely. OTOH, they've found plenty of corpses, who's to say that one of them didn't fit that category?

 

No, with a survival rate as small as 0.1% or less, even rare immunity would be apparent, even in small populations. Many people would get bit, but not devoured, and survive initially. In fact, the survival rate in this universe is so low, that those who were never bitten at all might be rivalled or outnumbered by people who did get bitten but survived it, even with a small immunity rate. Because people who never got bit are also extremely rare [one in thousands]. Statistics get funny when you are talking about very small survival rates. Immunity would be apparent, even in small groups.

As as aside, the fact that we are even discussing immunity to a bite solidifies the idea that it is not just everyday ubiquitous bacteria that is being transferred in a bite. Its something special.

 

We've got to disagree here. I don't think in an antibioticless era a human corpse biting you and ripping a big chunk of your flesh out is going to be survived by that many people, especially as disinfecting things never occurs to anyone, so even if some people had immunity (it would have to be a lot more rare than your 0.1% above, or I agree they'd be everywhere) it would likely not be known to a small group.

Or maybe it has been seen and not recognized. Herschel for example had his leg cut off, did that save him? Or was he immune to the zombie agent? We'll never know. Or like sickle cell anemia can protect against malaria, perhaps the zombie agent is protected against by something that's otherwise considered detrimental, like down's syndrome. That would make it very hard to track down if society fell apart within the first month or two, especially if the immune person tends to get killed by the walker that bit them.

 

Well, not all would be 'big chunks'. Yes, most wouldn't survive. But most wouldn't have to. Its a comparison game. Only about 1 in 5000 people managed to not get bit in the first place. So if you also had only one in thousands who got bit and survived, they'd be apparent, just like those who didn't get bit are apparent.

And its not an antibiotic-less era, especially not in the early days when most people would have gotten bit. Its just an antibiotic-harder-to-come-by era. Or maybe not depending on your health insurance.

 

Only 1 in 5000 *survived* the initial ZA, that's a lot different than 1 in 5000 didn't get bitten. We don't know what percentage of people were killed by other causes instead of walker bites per se.

 

It doesn't matter, it only matters that 1/5000 are alive and never bitten. It still means they are very rare, so the immune folks would be apparent, unless they were much more rare, like one in a million.

 

My pet theory is there's a reanimating frequency being blasted towards our planet from a dying black hole and it won't stop until the black hole eats itself in 2.7 billion years. Then it'll just... stop happening.

 

It would likely be more like 100 trillion years....but could be....