Can’t Spell Fungus Without FUN
Hey, hey, hey! These Cordyceps zombies sure are a bunch of fun guys! Bet nobody’s ever made that joke before. Not once.
It’s pretty neat, though, the whole Cordyceps angle they went with for the zombies. We’ve gotten necromancy, viral and bacterial infections, nanomachines and cyborg-ified deceased hosts in the past. Heck, there’ve probably been fungal zombies before. But everything has seemed sort of… meh, to be honest. Like, there is a visible progression and growth to Cordyceps fungus and a reason for them to hunt people based on something we observe in the real world.
When it’s necromancy, you know it’s going to be fantastical, almost completely ungrounded. But on the other hand, you can get creative with everything surrounding it. Not every feature needs to make complete sense, so long as it doesn’t break immersion within the context it is encountered. So while neat, it’s limited to a rather specific genre/type of work.
When it’s a virus or bacteria, it’s more grounded, in the sense that these are things that actually exist. I guess you could also reason that the virus could make people attack other people to spread the infection, but then they have the whole cannibalism thing so often. Or zombies just tearing people apart. Seems counterintuitive. Also you get things like Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead where they have all kinds of wild mutations that don’t really make practical/logical sense.
When it’s like a nanomachine thing or you’ve got a Frankenstein’s Monster, you’re getting kind of fantastical again, though obviously in a sci-fi way. With the latter there isn’t much reason for them to attack people unless directed. I guess it could be a Borg situation, but they aren’t quite zombies. I don’t know. Cool in a sci-fi setting, but it doesn’t have the vibe of a classic zombie.
With Cordyceps there’s a reason for strange growths. There’s a reason it keeps the body moving and trying to find other people. There’s a clear reason for most of the zombie behaviors that feel realistic. Despite being zombies.
All this to say, more fungus zombies please. I’m sure there’s still mushroom for improvement.
