(WE WILL GET AS FAR AHEAD OF OURSELVES AS WE WANT TO, NYAH)
The Machine of Death anthology did really well as a bunch of thematically-linked stories with a shared concept and not much else. And I agree with the elaborate shared canon thing; it's one of the reasons I've never gotten into a bunch of other open/shared worlds: familiarizing myself with all the canon everyone else has developed is just too much of an investment. On the other hand, you can look at something like a fandom, where you have people working on an original canon, and then people spin off fanfics, and then other people may jump in and fanfic the canon or ask if they can fanfic other people's fanfics, etc, etc; I think something like that (albeit with even less centralization) would work really well. Someone writes a thing, someone else writes a thing that follows on from person A's thing, and as long as you can point to either the concept or the next immediate parent fic, people's brains are flexible enough to figure out where they stand.
INFINITE BRANCHING CANONS FOR FUN AND POSSIBLY PROFIT
INFINITE BRANCHING CANONS FOR FUN AND POSSIBLY PROFIT
:D :D :D
... and yes, that seems like a sensible way to do things. Also, I suspect that if we DO go forward with this, we'll probably be reading each other's stuff and quite likely seeing a lot of it as it develops, which will help with maintaining a general sort of shared consistency, if not a shared continuity in any formal sense.
Edited (what is grammar) Date: 2015-12-07 02:07 am (UTC)
Okay, so, still thinking about the logistics of this, it seems likely that in a more advanced case of the disease, brain damage would be an issue, wouldn't it? Everything else about the body is degrading, so surely the neurons would, as well.
Which would mean that even when you're on your meds, you would still have issues like partial amnesia, concentration problems, short-term memory loss, aphasia ... whatever your particular brain damage happened to cause.
And now I feel like the supersoldier angle could wind up halfway between Winter Soldier and Final Fantasy VIII (except... worse) which I am PERFECTLY OKAY WITH.
Basically, almost all of your main characters have been raised together since childhood and trained to be super-soldiers, but none of them remember each other because the noncorporeal entities that live in their brains and let them use magic also eat memories.
...and now I'm wondering what would happen to child development with the virus. I can't imagine that it would be anything good. If you're infected with the virus as a small child, I feel like ending up as a languageless adult would be the absolute most fortunate thing that would happen to you. Or possibly you'd see things like chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or...
... but, yeah, it would have to affect childhood neurological development. Plus the drugs themselves would probably be not so great for young children, either, although it's possible that it could be stopped/reversed more easily in younger children, perhaps, because of more resilient and flexible brains and bodies? Not always, but young children might actually be able to shake it off, or carry it asymptomatically in a way that adults usually can't (which would, however, potentially make them contagious ... oh god, everything makes it worse).
I assume that, like good zombie viruses everywhere, it's transmitted through bodily fluids.
Possibly low levels of infection in very young children can be more or less managed by the developing brain's natural plasticity, so long as the infection set in early enough and wasn't overwhelming, though it might still present as some form of neuroatypicality once the child reached adulthood -- but if the infection did become rampant or happened after the brain stopped being so plastic, it would absolutely massacre the brain structure to the point where even if the person was treated later in life, there would not be a functional brain there. Or at least not a brain culturally recognized as functional.
Which could make it really interesting to have stories with people coming out of the pre-epidemic neuroatypical communities dealing with the new "AUTISM IS CAUSED BY ZOMBIES" rhetoric. Because you just know that would happen. Because people are awful.
Two thoughts on zombies and children: 1) It would be interesting if the virus actually did rewire most children's brains in a very similar way -- e.g., would they tend to feel constantly hungry? Would they be extra ambitious because the virus prompted them to go after something without stopping? Would they have a harder time recognizing other people as humans? (It kind of sounds like I'm going towards, "Does it predispose them to be psychopaths if they don't die first," which was not my original intent, but. It could also give them increased hyperexcitability, to make them move more and infect more people.
2) If children developed an immunity, a) they could try to get a vaccine out of that, and b) if they got infected early enough, maybe they could recover most of their mental faculties because of the plasticity.
3) And if that's the case, what if it became like the chicken pox? Infect them early; now you have almost all humans who's brain has been rewired by a this disease except for a few small groups who refused.
4) It... is probably more likely to be a fungus than a virus, in terms of rewiring brain patterns. I don't know that I've heard of many viruses that actually cause a change in behavior (aside from things like weakness), although admittedly I haven't researched it much.
(Not a super-detailed answer as it's late enough that my brain isn't being all conducive to super-detailed answers, but...)
Re: 3, I feel like that pings off an Octavia Butler novel. Which is not at all a bad thing. But she totally had a world where basically the entire population of Earth (except for the telepaths?) had this alien disease which more or less made them feral.
...re: 1, I feel like zombie-induced-Capgras-delusion should be a thing.
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chiming
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Date: 2015-12-07 01:38 am (UTC)From:The Machine of Death anthology did really well as a bunch of thematically-linked stories with a shared concept and not much else. And I agree with the elaborate shared canon thing; it's one of the reasons I've never gotten into a bunch of other open/shared worlds: familiarizing myself with all the canon everyone else has developed is just too much of an investment. On the other hand, you can look at something like a fandom, where you have people working on an original canon, and then people spin off fanfics, and then other people may jump in and fanfic the canon or ask if they can fanfic other people's fanfics, etc, etc; I think something like that (albeit with even less centralization) would work really well. Someone writes a thing, someone else writes a thing that follows on from person A's thing, and as long as you can point to either the concept or the next immediate parent fic, people's brains are flexible enough to figure out where they stand.
INFINITE BRANCHING CANONS FOR FUN AND POSSIBLY PROFIT
no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 02:06 am (UTC)From::D :D :D
... and yes, that seems like a sensible way to do things. Also, I suspect that if we DO go forward with this, we'll probably be reading each other's stuff and quite likely seeing a lot of it as it develops, which will help with maintaining a general sort of shared consistency, if not a shared continuity in any formal sense.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 02:16 am (UTC)From:Okay, so, still thinking about the logistics of this, it seems likely that in a more advanced case of the disease, brain damage would be an issue, wouldn't it? Everything else about the body is degrading, so surely the neurons would, as well.
Which would mean that even when you're on your meds, you would still have issues like partial amnesia, concentration problems, short-term memory loss, aphasia ... whatever your particular brain damage happened to cause.
In short, MEMENTO WITH ZOMBIES. :D
no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 02:21 am (UTC)From:And now I feel like the supersoldier angle could wind up halfway between Winter Soldier and Final Fantasy VIII (except... worse) which I am PERFECTLY OKAY WITH.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 02:34 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 02:46 am (UTC)From:Basically, almost all of your main characters have been raised together since childhood and trained to be super-soldiers, but none of them remember each other because the noncorporeal entities that live in their brains and let them use magic also eat memories.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 02:48 am (UTC)From:... okay, yes, I could see something similar in this setting very easily.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 02:58 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 03:17 am (UTC)From:... but, yeah, it would have to affect childhood neurological development. Plus the drugs themselves would probably be not so great for young children, either, although it's possible that it could be stopped/reversed more easily in younger children, perhaps, because of more resilient and flexible brains and bodies? Not always, but young children might actually be able to shake it off, or carry it asymptomatically in a way that adults usually can't (which would, however, potentially make them contagious ... oh god, everything makes it worse).
I assume that, like good zombie viruses everywhere, it's transmitted through bodily fluids.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 03:34 am (UTC)From:Which could make it really interesting to have stories with people coming out of the pre-epidemic neuroatypical communities dealing with the new "AUTISM IS CAUSED BY ZOMBIES" rhetoric. Because you just know that would happen. Because people are awful.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 07:04 am (UTC)From:1) It would be interesting if the virus actually did rewire most children's brains in a very similar way -- e.g., would they tend to feel constantly hungry? Would they be extra ambitious because the virus prompted them to go after something without stopping? Would they have a harder time recognizing other people as humans? (It kind of sounds like I'm going towards, "Does it predispose them to be psychopaths if they don't die first," which was not my original intent, but. It could also give them increased hyperexcitability, to make them move more and infect more people.
2) If children developed an immunity, a) they could try to get a vaccine out of that, and b) if they got infected early enough, maybe they could recover most of their mental faculties because of the plasticity.
3) And if that's the case, what if it became like the chicken pox? Infect them early; now you have almost all humans who's brain has been rewired by a this disease except for a few small groups who refused.
4) It... is probably more likely to be a fungus than a virus, in terms of rewiring brain patterns. I don't know that I've heard of many viruses that actually cause a change in behavior (aside from things like weakness), although admittedly I haven't researched it much.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-07 08:52 am (UTC)From:Re: 3, I feel like that pings off an Octavia Butler novel. Which is not at all a bad thing. But she totally had a world where basically the entire population of Earth (except for the telepaths?) had this alien disease which more or less made them feral.
...re: 1, I feel like zombie-induced-Capgras-delusion should be a thing.