S2E92 Movie: World War Z (2019)

S2E92 Movie: World War Z (2019)

We are Science Fiction Remnant, Season Two, a podcast for sci-fi lovers spanning across books, movies, TV shows and games.

Music provided by the Atlas.

The movie World War Z.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Science Fiction Remnant, season two.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We hope that you find this episode as exciting to listen to as it was for us to create for you.

But before we start this episode, I want to take this opportunity to present to you some podcasts we think you might enjoy.

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Tonight we have a really great topic.

Join Ro, Shanti and Brad as they discuss and dive deep on all the geek topics everyone is talking about.

Almost gotten to fight with someone on Twitter today because that never happens.

Thoughtful breakdowns on movie favorites, streaming, geek pop culture.

I’m pretty sure the next episode is gonna be Max Rebo’s backstory.

And all the hidden gems every nerd loves.

I do think it’s a really cool idea.

Download, listen and subscribe to the Scariff Scuttlebutt Podcast.

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Remember of the Red 5 Network.

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And welcome to the FSF Podcast, your home for the all nerdy, no dirty interviews with people in our sci-fi and pop culture world.

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Mother nature is a serial killer.

No one’s better, or more creative.

Like all serial killers, she can’t help the urge to want to get caught.

What good is all these brilliant crimes if no one takes the credit?

So she leaves crumbs.

Now the hard part, why you spend a decade in school, is to see the crumbs.

But the clue’s there.

Sometimes the thing you thought was the most brutal aspect of the virus, turns out to be the chink in its armor.

And she loves disguising her weaknesses as strengths.

She’s a bitch.

Damn, that’s one of the best quotes ever, bro.

It’s a good quote.

Hell yeah.

Not very direct, but.

When that guy said that quote, I was like, wow.

But he was only there to give that quote and then he’s slipping out himself.

It was so shameful, man.

I was like, oh, bro, I don’t want to die that way.

I feel he didn’t represent scientists particularly well, but.

He didn’t, he didn’t.

And the worst thing was just because he did not listen, because he was still, follow these guys’ boots, don’t do anything else.

And what he did was he tried to outrun.

He tried to run up a slippery gangplank and face planted and drove his nose into his brain and killed himself.

And before Robert goes crazy, while he’s actually editing this video, I am cutting chaos.

And I am, I am the mad virologist Ray.

Epidemiologist, epidemiologist, it’s a bit of a word.

It’s the study of epidemics.

There you go.

You got to save the world, Ray.

Probably not.

I think that would be a salvation.

I think it’s too, I think it’s too big a job for one man, unless you’re Brad Pitt.

I think that’s something to be in science now.

You need to have the jawline of Brad Pitt to save the world.

So what have you been watching, Captain Chaos?

Me?

I’ve been watching one of your favorite shows, Certain Scientific Revenant.

Oh yeah.

And also I’ve been playing my usual Cyberpunk 2077.

And also watching videos about, seems like there’s going to be a new Cyberpunk game.

But it’s going to be probably for a new next-gen console.

So we’re not going to see anything about it until probably 2028.

And I’ve been playing Gears of War 1, 2.

What about you, man?

Well, not to copy you almost entirely.

But I have been watching Certain Scientific Railgun, which may suggest if both the hosts are watching it, that we will be covering it soon, which will be awesome.

I’ve been waiting for so long.

Hopefully, Robert is watching it, because we want to get him in on that one.

And I did watch 65, and that again, we will be covering it soon.

A little less known one, 65.

It’s short for 65 million years ago.

There was a visitor to Earth.

So yeah, you should check that one out if you got the time.

He went to the Star Wars movies.

That’s right.

I got some things to say about that.

What, there’s only six Star Wars movies?

I was just going to say, he’s a pretty shitty Sith Lord.

I didn’t see him throw a lightsaber once.

There’s only six Star Wars movies?

Well, actually, there’s six main Star Wars movies, but there’s a few spin-offs, which weren’t bad.

Spin-off, yeah, that’s a good call.

Robotech, I caught up a bit of Robotech, which I haven’t seen since the early 80s, so you know, that’s a ways back.

People dress like robots.

Hey, Robotech is a classic man.

It is, but it’s a total butchering of the original anime, which was Macross.

So if we ever can’t cover that one, I’ll be waxing lyrical about that as well, if we get the opportunity.

That’s what I’ve been watching.

Nice, man.

Nice.

So shall we hit our first segment?

Yes, I think it’s time for it.

Hopefully Rob will edit the little musical interlude in.

Something like that, yeah.

So this is sci-fi.

We are Science Fiction Remnant.

This is the Funny Science Fiction Podcast.

We are the Caribbean Science Fiction Network.

We are Monorats.

We are One Accord Level 2 Podcast.

This is Jesse from Sudden But Inevitable and Open Pike Night.

This is Sci-Fi.

And of course, the This Is Sci-Fi is the hashtag that Robert came up with to try and get a little bit of a Venn diagram going with people from siloed sci-fi IPs to get a bit of crosstalk, get a bit of overlap, not in a my IP is better than your IP sort of way, but just to get people to do a bit of a sample, get across some other IPs and find out all the awesome sci-fi that’s out there.

And of course, it doesn’t just cover sci-fi, but it can also cover a bit of science as well.

So I thought this week we should cover a bit of science.

Now, I picked this one up from a website called sciencenews.org, which apparently has been doing independent journalism since 1921.

Didn’t know the internet had been around since that long, but maybe they did it in paper form up until the internet got big.

But I did notice an article there this week, which I will share, so those who are checking us out on YouTube will be able to see this.

But the article is, the desert planet in June is plausible according to science, but giant sand worms are thankfully improbable.

So good news, bad news.

But for those June fans, and of course, as of recording, June 2 has just started in cinemas, so this particular article is on topic, is trending.

So basically what these fellows did is a bunch of climate scientists got together and they decided to see if they could model the planet Arrakis.

And I just scroll down here to this little gif that’s orbiting around, and there’s an atmospheric model of Arrakis.

So you can check that out on our YouTube channel.

This episode will come out a month after the podcast drops, and you too could see this, or you could go to sciencenews.org and have a read of this article for yourself.

It’s not particularly long, but there’s some cool little bits of science and talking about how Arrakis, the planet, could be orbiting a planet such as, a star such as Canopus, but it would be as far from Canopus as Pluto is from our Sun.

So it would be way out there because Canopus is pretty damn big.

Yeah, so, you know, so I just, when they got a bit of spare time, tend to have long, hard things about sci-fi properties and whether or not the planets in them are possible.

So there you go.

It is actually possible to have a planet like Arrakis, according to…

Or a drug cartel when you can go to Arrakis and just snort the whole planet, right?

Well, the dunes are 250 meters high.

That’s a lot of snorting.

You got some junky giant worms in there.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Isn’t the spy supposed to be worm poop?

Yeah, there you go.

It’s worm poop.

And we’re smelling it.

Oh, so if you think about it, Dune is a story about a farmer trying to sell manure internationally.

Well, apparently, there was a big run on it.

It was very popular, so he must have made out pretty well.

That’s what I think, man.

Nobody wants to, it’s in a popular opinion, but I think that House of Atreides is just an intergalactic cartel.

Yeah, it did seem a little bit.

So if you’d like to send us a message or get in touch with us with your ideas about this sci-fi, you can do it on our hotline.

The number is 305-563-6334.

That’s 305-563-6334.

Drop us a message, leave us a comment.

Tell us what you’re thinking about recent IPs that you’ve seen or leave us a message that you’d like us to play on the show and we will do that and we’ll have a bit of a chat about it.

So there’s lots of options there.

You can drop us a message there or you can join us on our Discord channel and we could have a talk about those topics there if you are keen to do a bit of typing.

And there’s the Join Us Discord link on the screen if you’re watching through YouTube or you’ll find that invite link in the show notes for the podcast.

Yes.

And with that, I think we’re ready for…

Shoutouts.

Shoutouts.

Oh, you’re trying to do what Robert does, huh?

Well, the first shoutout I want to give is from X Twitter.

To the Jacked Up Reviews Podcast.

You can actually find them with the Handle Jacked Up Review.

It also focuses on classics of all times, good contemporary movies and great selection of movies on the whole.

Go and check them out.

You can watch or listen to them in your preferred platform.

You can find all of those links in their bio once you find them on Twitter.

The next two shoutouts that I have are for the score.

For JJ Hunsecker, always keeping the memes on a fun edge.

Keep them coming, bro.

And Angelus from Alita Army.

Thanks for always jumping into the calls when we are in hangouts or video calls.

Or when I go full cyberpunk junkie mode too.

It’s fun to have conversations with him about those things that we both love so much.

I love the conversations and exploring so many fascinating genres of sci-fi science fiction.

If you or anyone wants to be part of those kind of interactions, just join our Discord channel again.

The link is there.

We’ll post it again.

That’s why we are always online, active, streaming, me mostly playing video games.

Go and join.

I definitely suggest it.

It’s always fun over there.

That’s all for today’s shout-outs.

Now, we go up for the next segment.

Thank you.

You forgot news.

You’ve got to put news on the end.

Oh, yeah, that’s true.

I feel much better now.

Good recovery.

Always got to be ready to recover.

So, I’m just going to share my screen again, because I’m getting good at that today.

But there we have a channel there, Creeke Indian, hashtag Alita Army.

So I wanted to bring this one up this week.

So, we’ve got Creeke, as we call me, running a channel which is pretty much all about advertising the Alita Army and Alita, the character from Alita Battle Angel.

They have a live stream on this channel every Friday night Eastern, and covering lots of interesting topics.

The topic was just covered as of recording was Alita in other Science Fiction settings, talking about where she might pop up.

So, that was a really interesting one.

But as you can see there, there’s lots of different topics, lots of different live streams.

He also puts out videos, generally three a week, all about Alita.

And his channel has 131,000 subscribers, which is huge.

So, obviously, he’s doing something right.

Let me ask you.

I have notifications on for Alita Army.

Sometimes I get notifications from his channel at 2 a.m.

in the morning or at night.

But what he does is he plays like a short part of the movie only, like there’s no talking or anything.

Oftentimes, it’s set to music.

So he’ll set various scenes to music and stuff like that.

But he puts up AI art, 3D animation, all sorts of different things, stuff done with figures of Alita, photos taken, glimarshots and things like that.

So there’s all sorts of things going on on his channel.

Well worth a look up if you’re into cyborgs and particularly Alita Van Angelen.

But I thought I would cover him this week because I was very short of any other news as it were.

So there’s all the different live streams.

All right.

So that pretty much brings us to the main show recording.

And with that, I’m sure that it’s getting pretty much time for the plot, as it were.

Do we have a plot?

We have a plot.

Thank you.

Former United Nations investigator Gerald Gerry Lane, his wife Karen and their two daughters, Rachel and Connie, find themselves trapped in heavy traffic in Philadelphia, just as the city gets overrun by zombies.

During this chaotic situation, Gerry observes that it only takes 12 seconds from a bitten person to transform into an infected zombie.

In a desperate attempt to escape, the family manages to reach Newark, where they seek shelter with a kind couple and their young son, Tommy.

They are eventually rescued by a helicopter sent to, sent by, oh God, how am I supposed to pronounce that name?

Well, it is important, while you’re getting that pronunciation, to note that when he counts, he counts in Mississippi.

So he goes, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, two Mississippi.

Well, that’s supposed to, that’s supposed to give you, by the time you say Mississippi, it’s most of the second.

So you don’t over speed up.

It’s a standardization method when you don’t have a stopwatch.

That’s why he does, I think that actually, actuality in the movie, that’s why he says one thousand and one, two thousand, two to that, three thousand.

He says the word thousand kills a second too.

Exactly, that’s another way to do it.

So they are eventually rescued by a helicopter sent by Thierry Umatoni, the UN.

Deputy Secretary General.

Realizing that Tommy’s parents have also been affected, the family brings him along.

The entire group is then taken to a US.

Navy vessel stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, where a team of scientists and military personnel are diligently studying the outbreak.

Among them is Andrew Fassbatch, a virologist who firmly believes that the plague is caused by a virus and finding its origin is crucial for developing a vaccine.

Faced with the threat of eviction from the vessel, Gerry reluctantly agrees to assist Fassbatch, driven by the need to protect his family.

So Fassbatch is the guy who made the quote at the beginning of the show and then immediately turned around, face-planted and died.

It was an ignominious end for that character.

You’re gonna make a good image for the scientists.

No, I really didn’t.

Gerry, Fassbatch and a Navy SEAL escort fly to Camp Humphreys in South Korea, where the first report of zombies is received at this location, leading to an attack on the team upon arrival.

This causes Fassbatch to panic and unintentionally shoot himself with his own gun.

The team is saved by US soldiers stationed at the camp and Gerry discovers that the infection was brought to the base by its doctor.

A CIA officer who was imprisoned there guides Gerry towards Israel, where the Mossad had prior knowledge of the virus and established a secure area.

That CIA agent was something.

He was pulling his own teeth out.

Yeah, and I mean, but he was giving real information.

It was kind of funky how he was giving real information, yet he was being treated like he was cuckoo.

Makes you wonder, right?

I mean, like, why go where the crazy guy points out if he’s a crazy guy?

During their departure from the base, Gerry and the pilot managed to escape despite being attacked by zombies.

In Jerusalem, Gerry encounters Juergen Warmburn, a high-ranking Mossad official who informs him about intercepted communications revealing that Indian troops were fighting zombies.

They called him Raqshasi, I think?

Raqshasi?

I think that was the local word for zombies.

My cat is trying to get in.

I think either the zombies are at my door or it’s my cat.

Do you hear any banging on the door?

Jerusalem has managed to protect itself by constructing a massive wall and allowing refugees to seek shelter within the city.

In fact, Jerrigan says every human we save is a zombie we don’t have to fight, which is true.

However, the loud celebrations of the refugees attract zombies leading to a breach in the wall.

As chaos ensues and the city becomes overrun, Walbrunn instructs Israeli soldiers to accompany Gerry back to his plane.

Amidst the mayhem, Gerry observes zombies ignoring an elderly man and a malnourished boy who remains motionless on the ground.

While one of Gerry’s escorts named Surgeon gets bitten on her hand, he amputates the infected limb and prevents further spread of the infection.

Together, they manage to escape on a commercial airliner.

Gerry calls Theory and requests him to redirect the plane towards Medical Research Facility in Cardiff, owned by the World Health Organization.

During the journey, a hidden zombie is found leading to rapid spread of infection amongst the passengers.

In an attempt to eliminate the zombies, Gerry detonates a grenade to breach the cabin and expel them, but unfortunately the explosion causes the plane to crash land.

It didn’t really land, it just crashed.

Gerry and Sir Sergan manage to survive the crash, although Gerry is trapped…

He could have been worse, we can’t agree on that.

Oh yeah, I could have gone nurse first straight down.

Only just worse.

Gerry and Sergan manage to survive the crash, although Gerry is trapped in his seat and has sustained injuries.

Sergan comes to Gerry’s aid and together they make their way to the Carter facility.

However, Gerry loses consciousness due to his injuries and wakes up three days later after receiving medical treatment from the WHO staff.

He shares his theory with the WHO scientists, suggesting that the zombies ignore people who are already terminally ill or injured as they are not suitable hosts for infection.

Gerry proposes infecting healthy individuals with a curable pathogen as a form of camouflage against the zombies.

Unfortunately, the samples of the pathogen are located in a section of the WHO facility infested with zombies.

Gerry, surgeon and the head doctor have to fight their way through the lab.

Just as Gerry is about to leave, a lone zombie blocks his path, compelling him to test his theory by injecting himself.

As Gerry opens the door, his theory is proven correct as the zombie ignores him, allowing him to safely pass the remaining zombies with the pathogen samples in his possession.

Gerry and surgeon reach a secure area in Freeport, Nova Scotia where he is joyfully reunited with his family.

A vaccine is promptly created, serving as a disguise against the zombies.

This enables civilians to safely evacuate infected regions and empowers the military to combat the zombies with greater efficiency.

The final scenes are the fight back of the remaining humans burning massive piles of dead zombies or piled up zombies.

Well, they were dead, but they weren’t, if you know what I mean.

It was pretty gruesome.

I’m just going to…

The end of it, right?

Yeah.

It was a bit rough.

Anyway, I’m just going to let my cat in.

Give me one second, or she’s going to be pounding on the door like a zombie for the whole show.

I was going to say that surprisingly, for you, Robert, you’re missing out on this one because they fucked up your book.

But I got to say, brother, this one had a happy ending.

No main characters die.

Wholesome family ending.

You should have been here, man.

You would have definitely, definitely enjoyed this episode.

I promise you that.

I was leaving a message for Robert here on air.

This was a happy ending movie.

Well, for the main characters, yes, for most of humanity, no.

Yeah, well, I mean, I would have recorded for the wholesome part.

All right, I see.

So I’m presuming that most people who are listening to this have watched this movie.

If you haven’t, you might want to go off and watch it and come back and listen to our discussion about the show.

But obviously, as compared to a lot of other more classical zombie movies, these are fast zombies.

They would leap through windows, they would leap off buildings, they would do all sorts of shit to get to fresh meat.

These are just how they come straight out of the Olympics, guys.

They would headbutt their way through wind screens.

It’s just crazy.

They even do the dolphin diving.

They jump out of a building, head out like…

That’s why there’s a video game based on the movie and the book.

And I think that that’s one of the most fun and thrilling parts of the game, too.

It’s like, this is one of the few video games that you play in zombies.

And like, they actually are scary because they just pile up on top of each other and everything.

Like, there’s no stopping them.

It’s just sheer numbers and force.

Yeah, it makes me wonder whether human…

But like, most human bodies don’t have nearly that much energy.

I’m just wondering where it’s all coming from.

Well, if you think about it, let’s put it into perspective.

I want to play Robert’s advocate here.

You do that, Chaos.

That’s going to be a new hashtag.

And what it’s going to do is that it’s going to use more than your stamina.

It’s going to consume even your physical capability.

So it will run you till you snap completely.

Like me starting to run uphill, and once my body can’t, I keep continuing, and then I’m going to snap a bone or torn muscles and try to continue going.

Is that possible?

Seems a bit unlikely.

No, I’m not saying that it’s likely.

I’m just looking for plausible excuses to bring it closer to reality.

I mean, how likely it is to make a pile of zombies so big that they can actually climb on top of each other and get on top of a freaking high wall.

Very unlikely.

That was impressive.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, man.

I mean, zombies always seem to be a scary thing, but these things were just like getting hit by a tsunami.

Yeah.

That’s what makes it so scary, actually.

And even when I play the game, World War C Aftermath, that’s one of the most impressive sights of the game, is when you’re in the Jerusalem stage, because you can see them from afar piling up in piles and piles that go higher than 50 meters.

And it’s like there’s no shooting or it’s like there’s no way to stop it.

Yeah.

Although right at the end you saw them, you saw them using sports fields and drawing the zombies in using the microphones of the speaker system.

And then just, you know, fuel air explosive, dropping a fuel air explosive on them and just obliterating them that way.

Yeah, burning to the crisp.

Yeah, that’s true.

But it makes you wonder too, like, if you’re burning them, how long before they actually stop functioning?

Because when they’re burning, they’re not being neutralized.

Well, we did see the zombie corpses in that room where they burned them up.

And there was a little bit of flesh left on one of the hands of one of the zombies and it was moving.

So it wasn’t like they needed it needed a brain there, like shooting them in the head, put them down.

But it was still moving.

It does make you wonder, it does make you wonder too, like what kind of virus can take over a body that even when the body is severe from what makes it function, it still move.

I would think that those are part of the, those are chinks in the armor of the blood.

So did you notice everything started to get better when Dr.

Who showed up?

Dr.

Who?

Peter Capaldi.

No, I didn’t wait up, now I have to search him out.

Dr.

Who?

Yeah, he’s a recent Dr.

Who too.

I was simping over Danielle Katz, she’s beautiful.

Let me see, Peter Capoli.

It’s Google running slow when you are in it.

Oh, shoot, man, I didn’t recognize him.

Seriously?

I didn’t recognize him.

Of course, it’s not I dislike Dr.

Who, but I’m not like a hardcore fan, like Mr.

Cool Wife watching Dr.

Who and Sartre.

I have watched Dr.

Who with him, but I mean, do you know what I didn’t recognize him?

The character he plays in here is completely opposite to how he is in Dr.

Who.

In Dr.

Who, he is like in control, he’s always on lead.

In here, he’s a secondary character that tries to play boss, but he’s so quiet and shy that even to make a gear, spot him right away, and just like he doesn’t even answer him.

That line where the guy, when he says like, why you keep on looking at him?

Like, she’s the one in charge.

So yeah, I did not recognize him or remember him at all.

Hell no.

Yeah.

But yeah, things have started getting better when he actually appeared.

That’s true.

But the young bloke in the in the WHO.

Oh, I think that was Francesco Fabino too, was a Doctor Who?

Yeah, I think so.

I did not know that.

And to be honest with you, I actually like that actor, but one of my favorite docudramas, Marco Polo from Netflix.

He’s actually Marco Polo’s father.

Great actor, actually.

Oh, there’s a bunch of Who’s in here, bro.

Roth Niga.

The Asian lady too.

It’s like all the Doctor Who people were on the research center waiting for him.

Oh, no, that’s actually WHO.

They’re not all Doctor Who’s.

They work for the government.

Oh, my Lord.

I was wondering when you were going to be going like an idiot there, man.

No, Peter Capaldi didn’t play Doctor Who, so he was a Doctor Who.

Oh, my.

I’m here saying like WHO Doctor, WHO Doctor.

Oh, there’s a lot of people from Doctor Who.

No, there isn’t.

You’re in the dream, Capaldi.

So one of the WHO doctors, not to be confused with Doctor Who, stated that something that once was his wife killed his son.

Now, most people have a lot of trouble imagining the world suddenly turning to shit, because it doesn’t generally.

I mean, for most of the 9 billion people on Earth, you get up the next morning, and the sun’s there and in the sky, and there’s food and work and school and things that you’re supposed to go off and do, and your life chugs along.

And having a zombie apocalypse hit and the people who are closest to you turn and you have to either run from them or put them down, it’s pretty cold and hard to suddenly snap into survival mode like that.

And that’s probably why zombie apocalypses take most people out, because before they can come to terms with it, it deals with them quite harshly.

Yep, that’s true.

But I think that zombie apocalypses and post-apocalyptic futures are a representation of the escapism in us.

If you think about it.

I mean, there’s a recent program, Zombie…

I mean, people who are…

Well, my perfect example is the main character from the anime Zom 100, who is a wage slave and is having a terrible time, and the zombie apocalypse actually frees him from his life of misery, and he loves the hell out of it.

It’s just taking a completely different stance on the whole apocalypse, zombie apocalypse kind of situation.

So it really is how you face these things.

It’s funny because if you think about it, even in some 100 list, they show you the harsh reality of people you meet and you make a connection with, and they die right there, but he’s still able to find happiness and to find a reason to wake up the next day and kind of move on from it.

You know?

I mean, you could look at a zombie apocalypse as anything bad happening, be it a world war or a natural disaster or whatever, and you will get turned upside down.

It’s got a bit of lux involved, but it’s got a lot to do with your attitude as to whether or not you’re going to survive and do well in a situation like that.

A lot of people just shut down and get overrun.

But it is the rare few that know how to, in agile speak, know how to pivot and take on the world in a different way at a moment’s notice that the ones that survive.

Adaptability.

Oh, yeah.

You think that you will survive if it happens in Australia?

No.

No?

The moment the power goes out, I won’t have functional insulin, and I’ll be very quickly ceasing to function.

Wow, syringes.

Doesn’t help.

If the insulin goes off, you’re stuffed.

And if the power goes out, there’s no refrigeration.

Well, you just gotta have a glucose in the environment.

I don’t think that’s how it works.

I’ll take an air, I’ll actually hijack an airplane and take it for you.

With a solar power cooler.

Sure you will.

And then we’ll go.

You got it all worked out, man.

I wish I had it worked out like you do.

I can see myself as the guy in Zombie Houndry List for sure.

Yeah, I could see you joining them on that road trip.

I will be the naked guy probably.

Yeah, this is the funniest.

We wouldn’t put it past you.

But coming back to this beautiful blood that we’re here from, it shows a lot of harsh realities too about how society works because once he gets into the boat, he thinks he’s going there.

The guy from the UN tells him, I’m going to need you.

And he kind of like brush it off, like he doesn’t really give importance to that.

But when he gets there and he’s asked to actually put his own, pull his own weight, you know?

It’s not the reality.

He’s like, what are you doing here then?

Now you think that this is charity?

And many things in life really work like that.

Sadly, that’s a reality.

Oh yeah, I mean, you’ve got to be of value or else nobody’s going to value you as it were.

That’s true.

And I mean, the only thing is that he accepted, like he put it on a way, Gerry takes it like he’s not be given an option, but the reality is that he had a privilege that not many had to be actually evacuated on an helicopter.

Yeah, they sent someone in to pick him up, which, you know, for 99% of the population didn’t happen.

In the mouth of the wolf, they got picked up because they got picked up on the rooftop of like one of the overrun areas.

Yes, it was very touch and go too, which, of course, in a good zombie movie, it always is.

Oh, hell, yeah.

It was kind of like…

The edge of your seat stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, when he’s running on that scene and like the Marines are like trying to keep everybody down as they’re chasing him out, that was like a close call.

And as you can see throughout the movie, these things can even take down freaking helicopters.

Now, two or three things hanging off the helicopter to bring it down like that now, right?

Well, from what I saw, one of them got inside it and that was when it went down.

Because they were hanging off the bottom rail and then one leapt inside and started chomping down on the people inside the helicopter and that’s when it went down.

So, you see guys, this is why martial arts is so important.

Yeah, probably one big boots.

I actually really liked the way he was tying thick magazines, like taping thick magazines to his arms, because the natural response to somebody coming and trying to bite you is to throw an arm up to protect yourself.

And if they bite on the magazine, human teeth can’t get through a thick magazine, and get through thin clothing, and they can get through your skin, but they can’t get through a thick magazine.

So, it was actually effective until you got over it.

It was actually, if you think about it, there were several instances where he would have been infected if you wouldn’t have resourced to that.

He gave it great advantage, to be honest.

And I was very impressed with the way he ran up to the edge once he got to the roof, because some of the infected blood had got in his mouth, and he thought he was going to turn, and he’s counting and leaning over the edge, ready to throw himself off if he felt himself turning, but he didn’t turn, and he’s like, oh, thank God.

He was like, oh, 13 Mississippi’s, okay.

Yeah, I’m safe, 13 Mississippi’s.

And then he finds out that, oh, yeah, some people take 10 minutes to turn, and he’s like, oh, shit, I wasn’t safe.

What do you think?

The funny thing is that he didn’t follow that through when he saved Seguin.

Yeah, he was counting.

He counted to 12, still.

And when she asked him, how do you know I wasn’t going to turn, he told her straight up, I didn’t know.

So he’s like, he just took his rigs with her.

But I think that that’s one of the things that I like the most about a Gerry character is that he’s very on point when he needs to be, but he can be very compassionate, too.

If you are in his crew, he will come back and he will carry you on his shoulder if he has to.

Well, I think that’s because he’s been through a lot of war torn areas and the only way people survive in those is if they work together.

If you’re a mercenary and you don’t look after other people, they don’t look after you and you’re screwed.

That’s the reality of life, man.

We’re social creatures, I think, to that extent that if you think that you’ll be able to get through life fully alone, you’re mistaken.

At one point or another, you will need another human being, for better or worse, you always do.

The survival life is now built for solitude.

That’s the reality.

Because that’s how something is going to escape you and fuck up happens.

Yeah, but don’t just accept anybody.

You need the right sort of people.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

That is key.

If the wrong company would just speed up the process.

Totally, totally.

I mean, it’s sort of like, you know, when you find a good mechanic or a good electrician, you know, people who not only do their job well, but are decent human beings, you want to keep hiring them.

You want to, you know, keep taking your car back to them and things like that because you can trust them.

You know that they’re decent people and you have a good chat with them and get to know them a bit better.

I mean, I went and picked my car up this afternoon and spoke to the mechanic for about 45 minutes.

We were chin wagging about all sorts of different topics and stuff that had been going on around the place.

Yeah, he’s a really good bloke and I trust him with my car and I trust that he won’t, you know, bullshit me about such and such as broken when it’s not, which some mechanics do if they work out that you don’t know much about cars.

But yeah, I mean, finding good people is important to, you know, get, you know, make sure that you get somewhere in life.

And I mean, these are the sort of people you can trust when shit hits the fan.

So you want to surround yourself with decent people, not selfish people who are, you know, just out to wreck the world for their own amusement.

This is where, this is where good judgment plays important roles in our lives, too.

Because a lot of people don’t do it, and basically they end up surrounded by people that are no good to their lives.

And then we have the victim culture now, so there’s always someone you can point a finger to.

But in reality, everything that happens is just mere gravity of causality, you know?

It’s cause and effect.

We allow or we choose somebody, that’s going to have an effect and a repercussion, being good or bad.

That’s why I think that ultimately, the more responsible we are with all kinds of choices, more than big in our lives, we’ll be able to create a better reality moving forward, right?

It’s just that those sorts of people are often few or far between.

Yep.

But it’s important, guys.

You guys have to be the right friends, that way you survive the apocalypse.

Know how to recognize good people and be good to them.

And kill the bad.

Ones.

Not at the moment.

The guy who was in the pharmacy in the movie, and he had a pistol, and the guy was like, they’re carrying his daughter, and they’re just looking at each other.

And you can see that this guy shot somebody already.

And then he’s looking at the guy, and the daughter’s there sort of having trouble breathing.

And the guy decides, okay, what are you looking for?

This is I need a ventolin for my daughter.

And this one’s like fucking magic for kids, too.

There you go.

Always worked on my daughter.

He said, this was magic for my kid.

That’s what he says.

So then you realize, shit, he has a kid with the same problem that Gerry’s kid has.

And this guy is just here surviving.

And he looks, you can see the grim face of despair on this guy.

He looks like a young boy.

But that’s when you realize, shit, everybody’s together into this, you like it or not, even though we’re pointing our guns at each other.

I mean, the zombies were bad, but the people, some of the people were bad too.

Yes.

They’re worse.

I mean, the zombies are in business, but people, people are just messed up.

But then there was those two guys trying to rape his wife, who was trying to collect food.

You saw the shopping trolley.

Right there, in the supermarket, on the daily.

Like, let’s have our means, you know.

What the hell?

There are people who are barely kept in control by laws and the concept of going to jail if they break the laws.

But then as soon as social justice breaks down, out comes the monster and they do whatever they like.

And those are the sort of people, you don’t want to be around at a time like this.

Yep.

Well, maybe I might be one of those that are around them and shoot them in the back of the head.

But they needed it.

Justice is served.

Yeah.

The whole thing about Mossad and the 10th man and them basically being prepared.

I find it interesting.

Yeah.

Nine people reckon there’s not a problem.

The 10th one has to see it as a problem and investigate.

And they had a precedent.

They had three precedents.

The way that they put it is not just investigate.

It’s like he has to make his life work to find a reason why.

No.

Even if he’s just called crazy.

Well, he didn’t have a lot of time.

I mean, they got ready real quick.

Well, they did.

But the way that this guy is saying it is like he had 10 years or so before this outbreak happened.

So he surrendered himself to the idea of being thought to be crazy and started just building a wall 10 years before.

Was it 10 years?

I think so.

If I’m not mistaken, it was like it was 10 years before when it happened.

And then he just, he was a 10th man.

But it makes you wonder like, like it’s interesting to think that this will be a way of thinking for problem resolution because it’s done at the expense of one member of the team, if everybody agrees.

So it’s like there’s never a win-win situation.

I think Jerusalem had been a walled city in the past, you know, because of Crusades and shit like that.

And the Muslim Christian wars going on in the region.

So I suspect that there was already some walls there and they just had to link them to make it properly secure.

So I think they might have done it over like a month or two, rather than over 10 years.

But I think that guy was on that committee for 10 years.

And, you know, one of those committee members had to go against what everyone else thought.

It was a necessity of the committee.

It had to be one that disagreed and went and researched it.

In other words, it’s like there has to be a scapegoat.

I don’t think it’s a scapegoat.

I just think it’s covering all your possibilities.

But the thing is that when that one person has to be the 10th man, nobody’s on it with him.

Everybody’s up against him.

So it’s like the responsibility of becoming the 10th man means that you’re going to play against who you were playing with.

But the whole thing is they’re making a decision to protect the people.

And they’ve seen them make the wrong decision multiple times.

And that’s why they put that system in place.

So they weren’t going to pick on the guy who ended up being the 10th man.

They were going to let him do his job.

They were going to let him research it and find out if it truly was a problem or wasn’t a problem.

And he obviously came back to them with enough to sway their minds to say, it’s a problem, put the fucking wall up.

And they did.

And it was just in time.

And then they decided to have an open air concert.

That screwed everything.

See, if I built that wall, I would have built a system of sluice gates across the top of it with boiling oil.

I was surprised that there was no patrolling happening on the edges of the top of the wall.

Yeah, personally, I was pretty surprised.

I couldn’t prevent a lot because it was kind of ridiculous that they had choppers patrolling around on the perimeter.

And they were distracted enough to allow that amount of bodies to pile up on top of each other’s and climb up on the wall.

Even if they’re fast, I don’t think that it would have been as fast as they portrayed in the movie.

It’s probably a few hours’ process, I think.

Yeah, I think you’re right.

So, putting into perspective that those couple of seconds that they just piled up and got on the wall were a few hours, there should have been time, really, for them to spot it and cut it off before you got out of hand.

It doesn’t matter how rallied up the zombies or the Sikhs, how the military is going.

It doesn’t really matter how rallied up they get.

I don’t think that there will be enough of them, close enough, for them to pile up so much so fast in a matter of seconds.

Well, it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting if it hadn’t happened, so.

Exciting.

Gerry was having a zombie throw ride.

You know, I thought of when they were falling from the wall, I want to make a cut of the movie and then I want to put the song, It’s raining man.

That just does not work.

It was interesting that he was searching for the patient zero to get an idea of where the virus came from so he could find a way to fight it.

And it was just such a huge problem that there was no way to get to patient zero.

It was just way too far away, as in following the trail of breadcrumbs, as they were described by the virologist.

Finding a way to get back to patient zero where they just it just got so big that there was no way to find you or her.

Yep.

Not only that, I was kind of surprised at how hung up Gerry was on finding that patient zero.

Well, that’s generally the way you find out where the virus came from and then gives you an idea about how to fight it.

But what would be the difference between taking an infected to study and taking patient zero, which is an infected too?

Well, I think it’s more information where the virus originally came from.

Did it come from another species?

Did it escape from a lab?

Did it, you know, where did it come from?

If it escaped from a lab, there was probably a countermeasure that they had, but they didn’t get a chance to use it.

So you’d want to get a hold of that.

If it came from another species, you might want to see what mutation rates are like and whether or not there might be a way to slow it down, how it works in that other species.

Just any sort of information that might give them an idea of a way to fight it.

They were flailing around in the dark.

So they really didn’t have a handle on what to do.

And he only worked that out from seeing them ignore some people.

And it wasn’t even like a vaccine.

It was just a way to get ignored.

And not a great way to do it either, because infecting yourself with a pathogen that left untreated will kill you, doesn’t do you much good.

So, you know, it’s six and one half a dozen the other really.

But you as a scientist, do you think that there will be a difference when you’re sampling the origin infected and the very next day, which is whoever got infected from the main patient zero?

It’s hard to say.

It would vary depending on the pathogen.

Some pathogen mutate very quickly, and it could be the patient zero wasn’t nearly as virulent as further along.

There may have been a number of mutations to create the different facets that when it all came together, created such a hellish transmission system, i.e.

the zombie.

Basically, when you infect something, you tend to slow it down because the individual who’s infected is fighting off the infection.

But these turned so quickly that there was no way to fight it by the looks of things.

It was just, you know, 12 seconds later, you’re it.

Kind of deal.

Runs so quickly.

Yes.

Rule number 12.

Cardio, cardio, cardio.

Rule number 34.

Enjoy this.

Do you know what that one’s from?

Oh, hell yeah.

How do I know that rule, man?

Only if I know the movie.

What are my favorite zombie movies ever?

You know, there’s another zombie movie that we should cover 28 days later.

Oh, well, I mean, this whole series is 28 hours later, 28 days later, 28 months later.

I have 28 weeks later.

I actually have one comic from that series that I found in a comic store.

Pretty cool, actually.

It looks, the animations, they look like Sin City.

Actually.

I’m not sure these are the double my pile.

All right, yeah, that’s cool.

Very cool.

I love the movie.

I think it was made by an independent filmmaker from the UK.

But I really like the movie because it was very unconventional, and it didn’t lose that touch of ominous the whole time.

But yeah, man.

This movie, the other thing that I like, even though, yeah, Robert, I know you hate it because they screwed up.

It’s not like in the book.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I know that your cool wife watched Star Trek with you.

Great.

But I think that one of the cool things about the movie and the way that it’s played out is that it feels like you as a viewer, you are raptured away into the storytelling of it.

It makes you feel like you’re living through the moments with Gerry, as he traverses through every situation on the movie.

And I think that’s one of the parts that really made the movie a success.

That I don’t know if it would have been that good if they would have stick to the original plot of the book, which is just actually a compile of stories of people telling their survival tale throughout this epic crisis, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I do need to read the book of World War Z, which I think is called…

It is the World War Z itself that it’s called?

No, I don’t think so.

I think it’s got a different name.

Let’s see if I can find it.

Yeah, World War Z.

Oral history of the zombie wars.

Yeah.

Zombie war.

It’s actually World War Z.

Yeah.

I think I have the book here.

Images, images, images.

Yep, this is the book, actually.

That’s how it looks.

Max Brooks is the writer.

But yeah, man, this movie actually was very interesting.

Now, do you think that there is such a thing that could behave as this virus ever?

But it is very unlikely, much less to want to say impossible.

From what we know of the way viruses work in the human body, very unlikely.

A virus requires the infected host cells to reproduce it.

Viruses don’t move around by themselves like bacteria do.

Viruses are very much a delivery system that hooks into a cell and then makes the cell produce more virus.

And it’s in infecting cells and changing what they do to making more virus is what makes you sick and then your body reacts to it.

So most of the things that you feel when you have a virus is actually your body reacting to try and get rid of it.

And it’s actually harder for the body to get rid of a virus than it is for it to get rid of a bacteria, because things like macrophages can attack bacteria and swallow them.

So like when you get a pimple with a whitehead, the pus is actually macrophages, which are the white cells, that have chomped up a whole bunch of bacteria and then died, because doing that basically kills them.

But they’re basically the frontline fighters trying to defend your body.

And against bacteria, which exist functionally outside of your cells, they can quite easily find them and glomp them and destroy them.

But viruses get into yourselves.

So what actually has to happen is that your cells will release markers, which the body will recognize as virally infected cells.

Cells are no longer doing the purpose that they were meant to do for your body and are now virus factories.

And then your body will go around killing them.

So your body actually has to start killing itself in very small parts.

But your body has to kill parts of itself to survive a viral infection.

It’s kind of like a chemotherapy going on inside your body.

Kind of.

I mean, it’s not chemical so much, but yeah, it’s that sort of a thing.

You have to get rid of the infected cells and then the body generates markers so that it can recognize the virus and try and get rid of the virus particles as well.

And then basically to a certain point, you will then eject all that crap from your body.

But yeah, the virus requires your cells to reproduce itself.

But I don’t know if too many viruses will actually change the way you operate.

They will kill you because they will infect enough cells that your body will stop functioning because your organs or what have you will no longer function.

AIDS is a good example of that.

AIDS infects your immune system, your immune cells.

And in doing that, it basically removes your protection.

And then you don’t actually die from the AIDS, you die from the other things that your immune system can no longer protect you from.

So basically in the whole country and army analogy, AIDS is like your anti-military virus.

It destroys the military in your body, and then your body no longer has any defenses, it can’t fight against anything else.

So anybody can wander in and take over and put up their own flag, and you no longer exist as a country.

So that’s sort of the thing that it does.

So in other words, not only AIDS, but I think that COVID, SARS, it does the same thing.

It attacks your immune system.

So they are not what kills you, but they become a proxy for the death.

Because they are like what enables anything to kill you really, even a small cut.

Well, COVID and SARS don’t attack your immune system directly, but they do overwhelm it.

And if your immune system is so busy trying to deal with that, and then something else comes along that it just doesn’t have the capacity to deal with, then that will kill you.

So it’s not a direct attack, but it’s just basically overwhelming.

It’s not an aversion attack.

Yeah.

But yeah, basically, diseases are bad news in most cases.

And usually it’s a bit of a party.

You don’t just get one.

You get more than one.

And yeah, I mean, there’s different ways of going around it.

But I mean, we’ll talk about it in the science behind science fiction.

But I can’t see something like this evolving in a way that we’ve seen on the screen.

It just seems like it would be very, very difficult for a virus to have that sort of an effect on the body with what a virus is.

It’s a very small package.

It’s a small amount of DNA which just gets replicated and then pushed out of the cell.

So I can’t see how it would have a way to cause this sort of a effect on a person.

Again, the only way that I think it will be remotely plausible is if it does it at the expense of touring away and wasting away the body, the vehicle of the virus.

So for that, really, when you look at the movie, there should be observations in detail where only recently infected really aren’t that agile.

And people that have been infected and decaying for longer periods cannot, because, I mean, if you have a broken leg and a couple of torn muscles, it doesn’t matter what’s moving it.

The mechanism is not in place for you to be able to move on that complexion.

Well, going on what this infection in World War Z is supposed to do, you’re not going to be healing either.

No, the infected aren’t going to be healing.

Think about it.

It’s all downhill.

Yes, yes.

I mean, if you think about it, if you think about it, the moment that a person is infected, they forfeit any kind of regeneration and waits to really feed the body.

The body starts shutting down eventually.

And on top of that, I mean, the whole the whole premise for biting is just an instinctive behavior of the virus to spread.

There’s no feeding going on.

So when infected is biting a person that is not infected, they are not trying to feed of it.

They’re just responding instinctively to the virus wanting to continue to spread out.

But basically, I mean, you can see that when they go to the lab, for example, and the people that have been infected for the longest, they look very decayed already.

It is because they’ve been standing there doing nothing, dehydrating and going on malnutrition because they’re not eating anymore.

They’re incapable of it.

But I think that they did draw from the Hyphiocodylis unilateralis, which is the fungi that infects ants, that makes them like climb up higher so they can actually spread, the fungi can spread more.

Because when they get infected, the first thing that you see that happens is that their eyes go white, white and out.

So you can see that something happens that it goes straight to the brain right away and tries to take control of their neural system, for sure.

I am sure that even though it’s not the same thing, they draw inspiration on how this virus works from that fungi, specifically.

Fungus and viruses are completely different things.

Having them work in the same way doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense from a biological perspective.

Even if a fungi behaves in a parasitical way.

Well, I mean, the definition of parasitic is basically something gaining an advantage without you gaining any advantage.

In fact, you’re most likely at a disadvantage because this thing’s gaining an advantage from you.

So that’s what a parasite means.

I mean, people had, in the Middle Ages, they used to swallow tapeworms to help them diet, because the tapeworm would eat the food up in their gut, and then they wouldn’t put on weight.

But I think it’s a pretty gruesome way to do it.

Oh, that’s disgusting, bro.

I mean, that’s a parasite.

And theoretically, you’re not supposed to be gaining any advantage.

In fact, you’re supposed to be at a disadvantage because you’re not getting the nutrients from your food, the tapeworm is.

But if you’re overeating, it changes things a little bit.

If it comes to that, then this virus is not, this is not a virus.

People actually gain something.

They gain strength and speed when they actually get infected.

True, but they lose sense of sense.

So, they stop functioning as a human.

It’s like, oh, I’m going to have to compete in the Olympics.

I’m going to get beaten by a zombie.

That reminds me, there’s a movie, a zombie movie about a group of teenagers who get infected from this weird chemical that fell off the back of a military vehicle.

And I can’t remember what it’s called, but you see them talking to each other and walking around, but they’re actually zombies, but they don’t realize they’re zombies.

They’re zombies.

Have you seen that one?

It was crazy.

He’s trying to look it up.

You’re on mute.

You’re on mute.

Is it called Quarantine?

It might be.

Ah, zombies, just like that.

Ah, zombies.

That’s the one, that’s the one, ah, zombies.

Ah, zombies.

Did.

Yeah, also known as Wasting Away, is another name for it.

So this is supposed to be the movie.

Yeah, that was more, that was more a horror comedy.

Not quite in the same vein.

Ah, you can see it on Tubi.

Yeah, probably what Robert likes.

Probably what Robert likes.

Where is this?

Why is it sharing the screen?

Oh Lord.

I don’t know.

You shared the wrong screen.

Thanks for watching.

Was it just me or the stream just crapped out?

Thank you.

Well, this is Ray Duell, if you think about it.

Robert likes this kind of movies.

I think he will show me a movie about, he will show me a movie about, a movie, no, a TV show that he likes, that is about a guy that gets infected, but he’s still aware, and he falls in love with this girl that is not a zombie.

It’s a Netflix thing.

All right, what was it called again?

What, the one we were talking about?

The one on Netflix.

Let me tell you, I think it’s My Boyfriend is a Zombie.

Oh, I think I’ve heard that.

My Boyfriend Zombie, just like that.

Warm, no, it’s called Warm Bodies.

It’s called Warm Bodies.

Let me see.

Yep, Warm Bodies, it’s called.

This, this image kind of encases the whole thing.

No, it’s not available on Netflix in Australia.

That movie.

Oh, I think I’ve seen the shorts for that.

Robert loves this, man.

Yeah, Robert, we’re calling you out right here, while you’re not here, so you can not do it in Scotland.

You have all up against zombie movies, but just shove some rom-com onto it and you’ll go junkie on it.

Well, that’s a combination that I wasn’t expecting to ever see.

Horror romance.

Oh, yeah, they kind of kill the horror on this genre with a rom-com, making it zombie and the funny thing about this specific show is that the girl kind of exploits him being a zombie.

So they use him as a zombie whisperer, literally.

So they don’t have to fight zombies and he talks to zombies.

And if zombies are kind of self-aware, then zombies don’t have to die either.

It’s like, it’s like, what?

What?

No, just fucking kill him.

When I look at that, it reminds me when I was watching Freren, and they were showing how she’s adamant about demons.

And it’s like, yeah, you’re going to try to live with them?

Good luck with that.

It didn’t go well.

Yeah, it did not go well.

That’s a great show by the way, man.

Oh, yeah.

They had a fantastic episode that just dropped with Freren had to fight an exact copy of herself.

When did they drop it?

Because I’ve been like putting it off.

About 15 hours ago.

I’ve been also waiting for solo leveling and the wrong way to use healing.

Wrong way to use healing dropped today too.

Solo leveling tomorrow or a couple of hours actually.

Oh, yes.

There’s some good fire animes coming up, man.

Oh, for sure.

And I’m still waiting for Mashuko Tensei.

You and me both.

After watching maybe like five times now, the whole thing.

So we sort of slipped into talking about the virus and how it might work, which is probably more a topic for science behind science fiction.

So perhaps we should have final thoughts and then slip into the sciency bit.

Absolutely, man.

I’ll go first so that way once you give your final thoughts, you can kind of segue into the science and sci-fi.

Sure.

I feel it’s a good movie.

I really like it.

I’ve watched this movie more than 20 times.

This is one of the movies I’ve watched.

Yeah, I really like it.

I do enjoy zombie apocalypse movies, but it has to be a good formula because after some time, they started bringing up so many that they floated the genre with movies that were not really worth it.

And this is one of those movies that are original.

It reminds me a lot of another movie that I want us to cover, which is I Am Legend, which I think is a great movie too.

It’s very much up the street of this sort of movie.

Right?

I think that I Am Legend is a little bit more unrealistic because you don’t see the decay that much on the zombies.

And they try to portray it like it might be reversible.

And I think that there are certain processes on the body that once it happens, there’s no turning back from it.

And I mean, the way that the zombie works, once you become undead, it’s like your body is in a state of decay and it’s so infected that even if you regain consciousness, you die.

You know, there’s no way to really replenish malfunctions on organs for a long period of time.

It creates chain effect reactions in your body that it’s going to end up in death, no matter what.

But this movie, I probably watch it maybe once a year, at least that’s how much I like it.

And usually when I watch it, I get pumped up and play the game too, which is pretty cool.

If you like zombies at the end of this movie that you should watch, I think it keeps one on the edge of the seat when you’re watching it too.

The way that the storytelling is done on the movie, there’s not a dull moment throughout the movie, which I think is also very, very good.

There’s a lot of tense moments, like.

Oh yes, full of it, full of it, full of it.

It’s like that’s one of the great things that when movies good man, you will be engaged on it from the beginning to the end.

So that’s what those are my final thoughts, man.

This is like a movie I had it hold close to my heart.

I really like it.

Everybody should watch it, even Robert.

So my feelings on this movie, well, for starters, it’s a good movie, but it doesn’t feel particularly science fiction-y.

Certainly it’s portraying something that would be happening in our future, because we know that there hasn’t been a zombie apocalypse yet.

COVID doesn’t even come close, but not yet.

I don’t count anything out, man.

But the whole thing is there’s actually quite a bit of science in this movie with infection rates, dealing with outbreaks of infection, not just the medical science, but also the social science of how will countries deal with these things?

What will they do?

Will they have a disaster plan ready or will they try and wing it?

And will it have any effect at all?

I mean, the bigger the country, the higher population, the bigger the problem.

Like with most problems, the more people you have to throw at it, the better.

But in this case, the virus has more people to throw at you.

So it’s a complete flip of the coin and it’s a complete reversal of the situation.

So, you know, the bigger the country, the bigger the problem.

So obviously when they were talking about, you know, India is a black box and nobody knows what’s going on there anymore.

India is a very populous country.

So, you know, it’s a lot of zombies.

There’s the old saying, man, big city, big trouble.

Yeah, exactly.

It is for a reason.

I mean, totally.

And that many people trying to run away, it’s just a smorgasbord for the zombies.

So, you know, they get more populous and we get less populous.

But I really felt like despite the fact that Robert thinks his movie would have been better presented, more in the way of the novel, I do think that this movie told a good, clearly road mapped and well flowing story, having the guy who used to work for who, who was an epidemiologist and he got out of it because he’d been to too many dangerous places and nearly lost his life a whole bunch of times and just didn’t want to do it anymore, but got dragged back into it to try and keep his family safe.

It hit on a lot of levels, it hit on a sort of a personal level, it hit on a social level, it hit on a world, you know, humanity surviving level.

And the way it was told was quite raw and in your face.

And I thought that it worked really quite well.

It gave lots of opportunities for action and lots of moments of high tension.

And I think it was a very entertaining movie, as long as you don’t get completely freaked out and can’t sleep for three nights if you watch a zombie movie.

If that’s you, don’t watch it, because it will get you.

But yeah, I mean, the way the militaries worked, the way the governments worked, him traveling all over the place and seeing how different groups were trying to deal with this, you know, life world changing event, it really hit hard.

And I think it was good storytelling.

And even though it wasn’t your shiny spaceships in your face science fiction, it had quite a lot of science fiction in it in, you know, how does humanity deal with something this virulent and this nasty?

It’s just…

And I mean, who needs 80 days around the world when you can watch World War Z?

Wow, there’s two genres that I never thought I’d hear in the same sentence.

So yeah, recommend this for the zombie fans.

Not sure I recommend it for the people who can’t handle zombie stuff.

I’d probably stay clear of it.

But I mean, yeah, it’s a bit of an offshoot of sci-fi, but I do still feel that it’s very close to the sci-fi genre, only a little bit divergent in that there wasn’t a lot of…

There was no big sciency ray gun or something used to deal with the zombies.

It was modern technology.

It’s scientifiki.

Scientifiki, right.

So, they didn’t pull a scientifiki doodly-dad out of their butts and deal with it that way.

Are you sure?

If you guys don’t know what we’re talking about, you should join our YouTube channel so you can see it.

This is why we do these kind of things.

Yeah.

Please like and subscribe so that Gio can get his 10K ass tattoo.

Yes.

If you want to actually have a say on what I tattoo on my butt, let’s make it happen, guys.

10,000 subscribers.

Bring it on.

Bring it on on my butt.

No.

I got to throw up the hashtag.

That didn’t sound right.

I said, bring it on on my butt.

No.

Don’t bring it on my butt.

We’re just getting it done, guys.

And with that, I think we better move on to the sci-fi.

You should become a voiceover man.

Donald science and sci-fi.

So you put this big section into the show notes about the, you know, the whys and wherefore of the virus.

Do you want to go through that?

Yeah, absolutely.

So basically the fictional virus depicted in the book and film World War C is a horrifyingly efficient engine of destruction, rapidly transforming human into ravenous undead monstrosities.

Could such an apocalyptic pathogen ever become reality?

While some elements of the virus might be rooted in the realm of scientific possibilities, the overall scenario presents in World War C remains thankfully within the realm of fiction.

Yes, thankfully.

You might think I would have sleep if that will be a reality, bro.

I will become a germaphobe.

No, no, that will be probably a homophobe as well.

No, but here’s the thing.

You might think that being a germaphobe will keep you on the safe side, but not really.

If you think about it, if you become a germaphobe and you’re actually just putting hand sanitizer on every little thing you do, you’re just becoming an easier target for any virus that catches you because you’re not letting your body really be strong.

It’s like whenever there’s a flu or something and I get infected, I tell people, I’m just doing a system update.

You know, like I’m not afraid of getting a flu or getting a cough or whatever.

I treat it, but it’s not like, oh, no, I cannot get it.

I cannot get it.

Like I need to get it.

If I don’t, eventually you’re going to be off from updating your body so long that something is going to come and hit you so hard, it’s going to neutralize and kill you.

That’s the way I think the body biology works.

I think it’s a necessary thing for us to continue to evolve so much that I actually wanted to ask you as a scientist if even though physically we have not evolved and adapt differently, I think that genetically we are far stronger than we were hundreds of years before.

I think that, and what I’m trying to get at, for example, Christopher Columbus, the discovery of the new world, when they got here, they came with a lot of viruses and things that their bodies were used to it.

But it killed all the indigenous people here that did not have those pathogens or viruses updated on their system.

So it’s like, yeah, we’re carriers of death for our own species that has not been in touch with the same reality, bacteria-wise, that we have.

But at the same time, we are able to survive in harsher environments that are biological warfers, if you think about it.

Right?

Well, in any given population of a decent size, be it humans or other animals, there will be some who will be more resistant to a particular pathogen than others.

And of course, if it’s an unknown pathogen to your genetics, as in the population group that you’re in has never been infected by before, then it’s very likely that there will be a lot of deaths because there’s a lot of genetics there that can’t resist this pathogen.

But there will always be a few that will be able to resist it.

And those few who have survived will then get to reproduce and their genes will become a larger percentage of whatever population is left.

So you get these pandemics or huge infections like the Black Death that kill a lot of people.

But there are some people that survive and then those people’s genetics get passed on.

And then the next time it comes around, we’re not immune but more resistant.

It’s very unlikely without medicine to be completely immune to an infection.

But at least there will be more people who survive better.

Now, the big problem that the Native American populations had was that so many of their people died, like up to 80% of their people died because of these infections, that their bodies weren’t able to resist that their social structures fell apart.

And then they couldn’t resist the conquistadors and other invaders, and basically they got taken over.

And their societies as a whole were wiped out.

I’m from the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic is supposed to be the first island of contact on the New World.

They call it like Spaniola.

And the population in the Dominican Republic, indigenous population, got decimated.

So much that right now, to the present moment, or even before I was born, but they are not really known direct descendants from indigenous people.

Because they all died off from all the plagues and things that came on the ships.

And with the people, you know.

But I mean, people, those diseases were in the people that came on the ships.

But the people were still going.

I mean, some would die, but a good chunk of them would survive.

Because their genetics were such that they couldn’t, they weren’t immune, but they could survive longer with infection.

And oftentimes, they recover from the infection, and then their immune systems would be able to fight that infection off the next time around, if they got enough to eat, which they didn’t always.

But on a personal level, it’s complete crap.

But on a population-wide level, you want some of the people to get infected, and you want them to build up immunity, and then they’re able to go and deal with these things.

You know, workers…

What we say is that way, man, we sound like chemical terrorists.

Oh, totally.

But it’s like you said, if they stay completely away from the infection, they will never build immunity.

They won’t die either, but at some point, the infection will get to them, and then they will have no resistance.

Staying away from new viruses, again, I look at it from a technical standpoint, you’re updating your system.

You’re basically giving your system a new software that is preparing it for adapting to its environment, which is planet Earth.

A virus is nothing more than a pathogen that is airborne or in the water or anywhere that is surviving that we’re going to eventually come in contact with.

And being ready for it is the way of keeping yourself alive.

In other words, it’s like if you grab a computer or a super computer and you live it offline and then you connected 10 years down the line on the internet and you don’t have any antivirus on it, you might just get fried.

You’ll be like, I cannot move the fucking mouse.

What the fuck is going on?

You know?

And it will be so bad that you’re not going to be able to even get online and save it.

But continue with what I wrote down in here.

So how the World War Z virus works?

In the World War Z, the virus possesses several alarming traits, extremely rapid incubation.

In the film, the transformation from human to zombie can occur in less than 12 seconds, a speed that defies known virology.

Yes, we agree on that.

On that cycle, on that size, on that size theology, the infected cease to resemble any living human.

They show no need for oxygen or substance and are virtually indestructible except for brain damage.

Well, not quite virtually indestructible, but basically they will continue to move and try to spread one way or another until the main engine of the body gets shut down, which is the brain.

Aggression and hypersensitivity.

Infected individuals become hyperaggressive, attracted by sound and movement, pursuing prey with single-minded ferocity.

Transmission.

The World War II virus spreads primarily through bites, a common mode of transmission for certain real-world viruses like rabies.

Rabies like the fictional virus can also induce aggression and alter behavior through the disease, takes far longer to manifest.

But I think that rabies really historically study, it’s not made, it just doesn’t make people safe.

It makes them go into a fit of like an attack, like somebody having an epileptic attack, you know?

So somebody getting attacked by somebody with rabies, it’s probably because you’re trying to hold them down or something, you know?

So it’s just a response.

But if a person has rabies and you’re behind a door, they’re not going to try to break that door to get to you, probably.

They’re just going to move on to something else.

At least, I think, rabies causes aggression, delirium, and sensitivity to a stimuli, which is very similar to virus in that aspect.

Toxoplasmosis, on the other hand, is a parasite that’s sometimes found in cats that can influence behavior subtly in humans, potentially increasing their risk-taking.

That’s why Ray here, my friend, is a risk-taker.

And Robert too.

And, okay, here comes the freaking name that I never can get my head around.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis.

I said it right.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis.

Yeah, you look like Latin now.

It is Latin.

It is Latin.

And that is actually a fungus.

It’s the one that trips me to freak out the most.

I actually watched a documentary about this shit.

It’s scary to look at this shit working, man.

But it’s a fungi that infects ants.

And really, not all the ants, actually.

And the documentary that I saw, it infects a great variety of small living beings from insects to even birds, I believe.

Taking over the nervous system and driving them to spread its force.

Like in the documentary I watched, for example, you can see ants usually follow patterns.

They are in their big pack, in their big groups.

But when one becomes infected, you will see that ant or that insect trying to climb up as high as possible.

And basically what the fungi does is it takes over control of their nervous system and makes them do this.

So as they are going up, they are going to become infected and die in there.

Then the fungi is going to sprout on the dead body and those spores are going to fall down.

Also, the dead body becomes some kind of bait for any other thing to come and try to eat it.

And voila, it just got infected.

So it’s some very scary shit.

So the final verity, the World War C virus, thankfully is exaggerated creation of friction.

However, the world of real world microbes and parasites contain plenty of examples illustrating the power of pathogens to manipulate host behavior.

Emerging sonotic viruses, emerging sonotic viruses, those which jump from animals to humans, poses constant threat, highlighting the importance of pandemic preparedness and understanding the complex ways in which disease can evolve.

Zombie ant fungus, again, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis species of parasitic fungus of the order of hypochreals that infect ants and alter their behavior before killing them.

The fungus is largely panthropical and primarily infects carpenter ants.

Yeah, fun stuff.

So that’s one that I found and pasted in there.

It was a bit more detail on the point you had on plausibility.

But also there are other infections that can cause zombie like behavior in other animal species.

I love these names.

They’re so hard to pronounce.

Thanks, science.

Yuhaplochris californiensis.

These worms make their home in a carpet-like layer atop the brains of California kill fish.

But they can only reproduce inside the guts of birds.

So the worms force the fish to swim near the surface of the water.

There the fish are more likely to catch the eye of and get eaten by a bird.

Little bastards.

And then there’s the jewel wasp.

Females of this species inject mind-controlling venom into the brains of cockroaches.

This allows the wasp to lead around the cockroach by its antenna like a dog on a leash.

The wasp takes the cockroach back to the wasp nest where it lays eggs inside the cockroach.

When the egg hatches, the baby wasp devours the roach for dinner.

Cockroach.

So the larvae is born into dinner.

That’s like waking up as a baby in a TV dinner.

I mean, I’m not afraid of bees or most things, but I am terrified of freaking wasps.

I think that they’re vicious creatures, and I am just horrified of the sight of them.

And I tell you, I went to Nicaragua once, and I was having coffee, and I was freaking out because basically, I was staying over at a chalet that was inside of a crater, so the wind was hard.

And you could see the wasps just coming and going with the wind.

And you could see birds even like jumping down, swooping down and eating them.

And I was freaking out.

I was like, okay, I’m going to relax.

They’re not minding me.

The moment that I relaxed, and I started sipping my coffee with the wind, one came, pa, and stung me on the fucking, between my eye and my eyebrow.

And I had my eye like this for like two days.

Oh, shit.

That’s not what you want.

We have wasps that sometimes build nests in the gaps between the stairs, going down around the side of our house.

They’re flying around looking for mud or whatever the hell they’re doing.

And I just walk down there, and they just fly around me, and I don’t make a big deal about them, and they don’t make a big deal about me, and I’ve never been stung, touch wood.

Ladies and gentlemen, Australians.

Yeah, we just walk around it.

But for the last few years, I’ve been going downstairs to the Granny Fat downstairs, where I’ve got my gym equipment and working out, watching anime.

And coming back one night, I was using my phone lamp to light the way up the stairs, because I didn’t want to leave lights on, because it attracts a stupid number of moths.

So I’m walking up the stairs, and I see this wasp.

It’s got a huntsman spider.

So you know what huntsman spiders are like, right?

I think so.

Like this.

They’re pretty big, right?

And this wasp has got a huntsman spider.

Yeah.

Yeah, these are nope, nope, nope.

They’re like, they’re the leopard of the spider world.

They run really fast.

They don’t look very fun.

They look like they will do some damage.

No.

Oh yeah, that picture there, the CNN one on the top row.

Yeah, some of them get pretty damn big.

But they don’t tend to bother people all that much.

Holy shit, bro.

We have a few in the house at the moment, just sort of running around the ceiling.

Well, they don’t tend to bite people.

I don’t know that they’re particularly venomous to humans.

They’re certainly venomous to other insects and stuff.

But there was this wasp and it was dragging the huntsman’s spider.

It was a mid-sized huntsman’s spider, it wasn’t a huge one.

But it was dragging it up the stairs towards its nest.

Huntsman’s all sort of scrunched up because it’s been stung, so it’s got venom in it and it’s dragging the wasp.

The wasp is dragging the spider up the stairs.

The wasp wasn’t big enough to carry it in flight, so it was dragging it up the stairs.

So you had the perfect opportunity to went to birds in one stomach.

We’re okay.

I know that they’re necessary for the environment anyways.

They are one of those species that also do natural pest control if you think about it.

Yeah, exactly.

We have some mosquitoes around here.

It would be really nice for them to kill you.

Yeah.

I have a racket around here.

I don’t have it in my room now, but we have a lot of mosquitoes here.

I keep my electrified rackets.

The other day, I didn’t know if you have batteries, so I just click on it and it doesn’t turn any light, so I just put my finger on it.

Sap the shit out of my head.

Great way for you to test if your electric racket for mosquitoes is working.

Just sap yourself.

Just before I close out the show, there was a couple of other things I wanted to mention.

First was the socialization of the idea of zombies.

And this is a website called Sydney Zombie Walk.

And I know people who, back before COVID, actually went and was part of this.

It’s basically a massive rally, where everybody gets dressed up as a zombie, and then they walk through the center of Sydney like a zombie horde.

But they don’t do the fast zombie thing, they do the slow zombie thing.

But as you can see there, that’s a significant number of people.

It’s actually coming back this year.

But National Zombie Day is 7th of October, and that’s when, a weekend around there is when the rally is on.

For those who are listening to the podcast, I’m showing the Sydney Zombie Walk website, and there’s pretty gruesome looking makeup jobs for people dressed up as zombies.

So they’re certainly getting into it.

And you know, man, if you’re dating one of those girls, you know you’re going to like it without makeup too.

So, how do you know?

She’s like, they asked the girlfriend, how do you know that he truly loves you?

Well, we met in the zombie walk.

So, he likes me without makeup, he likes me with attitude.

I look better actually without makeup.

So, the last thing I wanted to mention was, seeing as World War Z is about a pandemic, pan meaning everywhere and demic meaning infection, I just wanted to bring up the world’s deadliest pandemics.

Now, there’s different ways of looking at this as figures.

And this one is set up as percentage of the population of the era that died, right?

So obviously, as it was quite a number of years ago now, certainly the plague or the black death, as it was known, still exists as a pathogen, but it’s easily treatable with antibiotics.

Ever since we came up with antibiotics, it’s never had another chance to spread because occasionally in sort of remote areas in India, people contract the plague.

And the moment they get antibiotics, they’re fine.

So before antibiotics, this was a big thing, bad news.

Once antibiotics came on the scene, it’s not a big problem at all.

But you can see here, black death, the year of population estimates 1300.

There was 390 million people on earth as they estimated at that point in the year 1300, and 51% of them died, which was 200 million.

Now, 200 million today is a drop in the ocean.

It really is, compared to the 1.9 billion people that live on this poor little rock, this over-parasitized rock, parasitized by human beings.

We were talking about the definition of a parasite before, and of course, I don’t think the Earth is gaining anything from us being here.

So we are effectively parasites.

So yeah, Black Death took out 51% of the population, 200 million, which was significant, and puts it as number one world’s most deadly pandemic of its time.

It was effective.

It was very effective.

Now, World War Z, I would be thinking would be 90 to 95% effective.

Sorry?

You think?

I think that the way that they portrayed it wasn’t that effective.

Yeah, I think so.

There were way too many people alive.

But it hadn’t finished yet.

Well, that’s true.

I think that also like the movie extends over a span of time longer than it leads to believe.

So the second most population destroying pandemic was in the year 500, which was the plague of Justinian, and it killed 19.1 percent of the world’s population, 40 million.

So kill 40 million of a population of 210 million.

So that was that was a big chunk of the population.

Now, as I said before, you lose a certain amount of the population and your social structures fall to pieces, and that’s when your society goes belly up, and you end up, you know, with chaos, from Captain Chaos going up here.

So the next one, so number three on this list is in 1500, year 1500, that was smallpox killed 12.1 percent of the population, which was 56 million, of an estimated 460 million worldwide population.

The Antoni Plague is at number four spot in the year 200, when the world had about 200 million people, and it killed 2.6 percent or 5 million people.

So 2.6 percent of the population.

You can see here that these numbers are dropping very rapidly.

So there haven’t been that many big disastrous plagues.

This is called harsh reality check perspective.

Yeah.

So you can see from an epidemiological point of view, this one was bad, but we can deal with it now.

And, you know, it’s very quickly tailing off.

So the numbers are getting quite small.

So we had Spanish flu in 1919, killed 45 million, which was 2.5 percent of then the world’s 1.82 billion population.

The third plague, I didn’t know what that one is, but that’s in 1850.

It might have been a version of the Black Death, a version of the plague, the plague as they called it, killed 1 percent of the population of 12 million, of an estimated 1.26 billion population at the time.

HIV AIDS, 0.7 percent of the world’s population, 30 million people, which is in 1981.

And COVID-19, our recent buddy, which locked down everybody and had huge numbers of international flights canceled, and you couldn’t move around, you couldn’t do this, you couldn’t do that, you couldn’t do something else.

It killed 0.04 percent or 3.5 million people.

3.5 million people sounds like a lot, but in global terms, it’s not very much compared to 51 percent, 0.04 percent.

So you could say that the controls put in place to control COVID did just that.

Not a lot of people do.

Let’s put it this way.

I know that COVID has been a tragedy for many people, but I’ve been one of the lucky people.

Nobody directly related to me that I know died of COVID.

For example, no friend of mine or no direct family member has died of COVID.

But as we-

And that perspective, if it were to be a higher rate, let’s say smallpox.

Let’s not go as bad as black death.

Let’s say smallpox.

Chances are that several of my direct family members or friends or myself would have been gone for it.

And COVID did bad things to people who are already weakened because whether they’re immune compromised or aged or very, very young or whatever, a lot of the people who died were already weakened by other things.

So these sorts of things pile up.

When they pile up, that’s when you tend to get deaths.

I know people who had COVID like six or seven times, and they just treat it like the flu.

I had it three times, and it only affected me harshly once.

Because you built up an immunity.

Yeah.

I mean, the first time that it hit me was when my Crohn 5 variant came out.

That was the very first time that it actually hit me.

I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I never vaccinated for this time, for this instance.

The two times that it hit me after my Crohn, it wasn’t anything like it didn’t put me into bed.

It didn’t give me any bad symptoms.

It was almost a symptomatic.

I had a light coughing on the second time.

And the third time, I didn’t even have symptoms at all.

Update your system.

I will also say that as new variations spread, because these diseases, when they get into a large number of people, you tend to get mutations.

Now, when a virus jumps into a population, it’s usually highly, not necessarily highly contagious, but highly deadly.

So it will kill most of the people that it gets into.

And that means that it doesn’t spread very far.

But then you get mutations, which reduce the severity but increase the transmission.

So you get a lot of people catching it, but not that many people dying.

And that’s when a viral population stabilizes, because it keeps getting around, just like the flu every year.

The flu kills a few people.

What you’re describing is mankind acting like a single cell organism altogether.

It’s like even though we’re separated individual bodies, our system behaves in unison to fight back together.

In a way.

So yeah, that’s the top 10 world’s most deadly pandemics.

And in sort of the upshot since medicine’s been around, which is sort of COVID, AIDS, there’s a bit of medicine.

I ran in 1850, but it wasn’t great.

1919 had some reasonably good medicine.

But these ones here, very small amounts of the population, because our population has ballooned as well, which means that there’s, you know, a disease has got a lot more people to kill before it’s really going to have an impact on the population like this.

So basically, yeah, as long as it’s not something as ridiculously deadly and transmissible as the World War Z zombie plague, I think we’ll be alright.

You’re muted.

I’m probably alright for sure because I am updating my system constantly.

Whereas I took the other alternative and I’ve been vaccinated like six times and I haven’t had it yet, even though my wife had it in the same house.

There you go.

Which one did you take though?

Did you take the…

I think I’ve had all of them now.

Oh, you got it in the boosters.

Mixed and matched.

Yeah, I pour all of them into the syringe and just…

I think the variations in between bodies, everybody’s different too.

I can tell you that by how happened to my family.

Like my dad got, I think…

It was our young son, the one from Pfizer.

He got the two shots and he had a bad effect for like six months, but then he was all right.

My mom got the Johnson one.

Nothing ever happened to her.

She never went to bed for virus.

She always stay healthy.

So I know it variates also from person to person.

Oh, it does, yeah.

Because our biological state is very unique.

And on top of that, once we get the vaccine, every single one of us is in a different state of health too.

And that’s also, I think, a very big altering factor on what is gonna be the end result of having a vaccine on your body.

Yeah, I mean, no medicine, no medical treatment.

Yeah, no medicine and no medical treatment is 100% effective for all people because you have people who are resistant to things.

You have people who are allergic to things.

And people who, for whatever reason, have parts of their immune system or their body is not functioning as normal.

So the effect of the drug or the vaccine or whatever isn’t the same for them as it would be for somebody who’s in standard health, you know, in the sort of health that the majority of the population is in.

So yeah, it’s very variable.

And the fact that people get upset when a very small percentage of people have a bad reaction to it, a very small percentage of people have a bad reaction to every single drug that’s ever been created.

Not the same people, thankfully, because it’s been rough.

But there will be a small percentage of population who have a bad reaction to every single drug ever made.

But that does not mean that the drugs don’t work.

It just means that there’s always somebody out there who doesn’t deal well with it.

Yeah, true.

And you can’t take them as red.

If the benefit of the population is 90, 95 percent, you don’t say, no, we won’t release this drug.

Because there’s 95 percent of the people who are going to benefit.

And you just got to be really careful.

That’s why they say, oh, you got to sit around the waiting room after you’ve had the shot for 10 minutes to see if you have a bad reaction to it or not.

So, you know, they’re looking out for you.

And they understand that not everybody is compatible with a particular type of vaccine.

But they do do a lot of good.

I mean, we don’t have polio as a problem anymore because of the polio vaccine.

If it wasn’t for that, we’d still have people living their lives out in iron lungs.

So, I mean, thank God for vaccines, I say.

I know a lot of people will argue with me, but sorry, scientists here, I need work with a vaccine.

I just want to tell you, I do live in vaccines, and I think that they are a necessary thing.

If not, we wouldn’t be able to really fight off many great viruses and plagues that have come across our society throughout time.

So they have been instrumental for the survival of humankind.

That’s the truth.

If not, the harsh reality of how we would have gotten over it is that several times, population would have gotten decimated to just the elite biology human being.

It would have made us stronger, but every time that you have something like the black plague going on, you would have really decimated humans to the point that you just have the ones that were really strong enough.

Thank you.

Something happened to your mic, Gio, you’ve suddenly disappeared.

No, you’ve gone.

He’s gone.

I heard something go crash, and then you disappeared.

Did your microphone fly off the handle or something?

Oh, you’re back.

You’re there?

No, you’re gone again.

You were there for a second.

Yeah, I’m used to the headset mic.

All right.

Well, we can hear you.

But anyway, we’re up to the closing of the show, thankfully.

So technical issues aside, if you would like to discuss World War Z or any of the other movies in our back catalogue, of which there are quite a few now, or the TV shows, the games, or the books that we’ve covered, or the comic books, because we’ve covered a whole bunch of different material.

Or if you have an IP that you particularly like to discuss, that’s Cypherware or Cypherware adjacent, do join us on our Discord.

You can see the Discord invite in the show notes below the podcast where you’re listening to us right now.

Or if you’re watching us on YouTube, hi, waving to you.

There’s the Discord link just below us there.

You can scan that with your phone and we’ll give you a Discord invite.

If you’ve got Discord on your smartphone, that will take you straight through and to join our Discord, which is a great place.

We have a channel for just about everything, and lots of discussion going on there with all sorts of people to discuss things to do with sci-fi.

Of course, if you have an IP that we haven’t got a channel for, or it’s not being discussed at the time, feel free to bring it up.

We always love people to bring up new topics for us to talk about.

Of course, if it’s a IP that we haven’t covered yet, and you would love to come on the show and tell us all about it, because topic specialists are great things.

We always love to be informed by the people who know the most.

So we’d love it if you came on and you could join us on the show as a special guest and talk about your favorite IP.

In fact, our next show will be having a special guest when we discuss the movie 65.

So watch out for that one.

Now, we also have a couple of websites.

There’s sciencefictionremnant.com, where you can see our latest episode that’s just been released, or check out our back catalog.

It also has a bunch of other information, including small articles that have been written about things to do with science fiction and science in general.

And they’re short reads, but very informative, written by hosts and guests.

So there’s lots of different topics there that you can check out.

So do give them a read.

Come over to sciencefictionremnant.com and check those out.

We also have a very new website that’s only just gone up recently called thisisscifi.net.

That one is new, so there’s not a huge amount of content there at the moment.

But just like the hashtag, it’s designed to bring people together from different fandoms and different IPs, and share with each other the wonders of the wide range of science fiction that there is out there that we’d all like to explore and enjoy.

So do check out thisisscifi.net, which will be bursting with new material before you know it.

And we’ll have all sorts of links and topics of discussion there to do with all sorts of sci-fi that you may or may not already know about.

So check that one out.

Now, it does cost a little bit to produce this podcast.

It’s not entirely free.

Robert’s been fielding the costs for that.

Thanks, Robert, for a fair amount of the costs.

But of course, if you wanted to help out, you could become a Patreon for the podcast.

And you would get access to limited edition materials, pre-show recordings that when we’re getting everything set up, where we joke and bullshit around and say things that wouldn’t necessarily make it onto the podcast.

So if you wanted to hear what we really think about some-

If you want to hear the stuff that we say that will get us cancelled, become a Patreon.

That’s the best we can give to our audience right now.

If you want to see how chaotic chaos can get, check out the Patreon.

Having good behaviour on show, guys.

I really am.

He does try to behave, doesn’t always work.

You know, I always try to freak out Robert before a show and then I just behave.

Yes, if you hear Robert say, moving on, that’s when you know he’s freaked out, on or off the show.

Now, if you think that becoming a Patreon might be a bit too much for you fiscally, but you would like to support showing some way, shape or form, you can use the Buy Me a Coffee link which is popping up right now.

That one enables you to give a small one-off donation towards the show, which will of course help keep chaos caffeinated.

Of course, if our chaos isn’t caffeinated, he’s usually taking a nap, so we don’t want that.

If you could help him out with a coffee, it would be greatly appreciated if you get just that little bit extra chaos.

Of course, we have our hotline that you can leave us a message on.

As mentioned earlier in the show, that’s a great way to leave us a message.

You can send hate mail to chaos if you like on that one, he’d really enjoy that.

Or you could say what you liked about the show, or suggest other topics that we could cover, or just say g’day if that’s what you wanted to do.

That number is a US number.

You need the one in front of it if you’re calling from outside the continental United States.

But otherwise, it’s 305-563-6334.

That’s 305-563-6334.

You can leave us a message there, and if you’d like us to, we’ll play that on the show, and talk around what you had to say.

Or you could suggest topics there, and you could even, from that particular call, if you leave us a way to contact you, we could get back to you, and you could join us on the show talking about your favorite sci-fi IP.

So do drop us a line.

It’d be great to hear from you.

So as we tend to do at the end of the show, I’d like to thank you all for joining us.

It’s great that you could come on and listen to another sci-fi remnant.

We do love talking about different IPs.

You can check lots of them out in our back catalog.

And then you can enjoy what we’ve covered in the past.

Also, feel free to reach out to us on our Discord, as I’ve said, and let us know if you’d like to cover something that we haven’t gone through yet.

We’re always looking for the next big thing in science fiction IPs.

And you could be the one that gives us the next great topic of conversation, which we will, of course, spend hours ruminating over and discussing on the show.

So with that, thanks very much for joining us, and we hope you’ll come back next week when we’ve got more interesting sci-fi IPs to cover.

This has been Ray from Australia, and that’s chaos over there in Florida.

And it’s great to have you, and we look forward to speaking to you again real soon now.

Well, this is all for now.

Reach out to us and let us know what do you think about this episode.

Share your comments and let us discuss this episode and any ideas on topics you would like us to discuss on future episodes.

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The link is posted in the description.

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Doing this will help others find and enjoy this show.

Thank you.

See you next time.

This is Science Fiction Remnant, signing off.