If you read one of my articles called The Realistic Aspects of Zombie Apocalypse in Pop Culture (if you haven’t please check it out here), then you would know that I have a thing for mental exercises on some apocalypse scenarios. I like to imagine how realistic that scenario is in our real world. Now, I am going to talk about my latest game conquest specifically: The Last Of Us.
[SPOILER ALERT]
We are (obviously) going to discuss the comprehensive world of The Last Of Us, hence the ending for The Last Of Us, Left Behind DLC, and The Last Of Us Part 2 will be discussed to provide more context. Consider yourself warned!
The Last Of Us (abbreviated as TLOU) is a horror survival video game franchise developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony. It sets in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by infected (yes it’s zombies), 20 years after the initial outbreak which killed 60% of the world’s population. The first game follows the story of Ellie, an immune girl, and Joel, a smuggler with a task to smuggle Ellie across the United States to a research hospital in hope for a cure. I will not dwell too much on the game’s storyline, but I will focus more on the realistic aspect of the world and what is my take on such aspects.
1. The Origin of the Virus
The infection is caused by a mutated strain of Cordyceps fungus. It is a fungus that takes over your brain, resulting in a zombie-like uncontrollable behaviour. This medical phenomenon is called Cordyceps Brain Infection in TLOU. The infection spread through bites and spores, making mask as a must-have item (which kinda reminds me of the current pandemic).
The outbreak occurred in late September 2013. In several months 60% of the world population was either infected or dead. The infection started from plantations in South America, then the crops from those plantations exported to the United States and other parts of the world, thus infecting a large number of people quickly.
Why Is It Realistic?
Cordyceps is a real fungus and (currently) is only zombifying insects. It grows in a humid and hot climate making South American plantations as a good starting point for an outbreak. Plus diseases from South American crops are not exactly fresh news. You can easily google them and find several cases of diseases brought from plantations.
If you think “Pffft, my country produces banana and sugar, we don’t have to import it from somewhere else” well then should I remind you of two of the biggest exports from South America?
It’s cocoa and coffee.
Yes, even though you are pretty sure you only consume local goods, many big brands of coffee and chocolate are based in the US and most likely import their raw materials from South America. Can you find Mars chocolate bar in your city’s supermarket? If the answer is yes, then the fungus can find itself to your city. Even if you avoid them, someone buys that imported stuff and becomes a transmission agent.
2. Humans Are Still Humans
20 years after the outbreak, humans are still roaming the earth. With all the tales of badassery and destruction, humans are still humans. In TLOU we find people die because of old age, heart attack, accidentally electrocuted, falling, stroke and other normal reason for people dying. In a typical post-apocalyptic zombie world, it seems like there are only two ways to die, killed by zombies or killed by other people.
TLOU also tells the tale of the protagonist being killed in a…. unspectacular way. Joel, the protagonist from the first game is killed by a golf club in the second game. He is not dead by sacrificing himself to save the city from upcoming horde or something like that. No. He died normally (for TLOU world’s standard). There is also Isaac, the leader of a huge faction called Washington Liberation Front or WLF. He leads a war against the federal army during the initial outbreak, wins the war and takes over the city, organizes and feeds thousands of people in Seattle, and he does all of this in 25 years AFTER THE OUTBREAK. He is ruthless, cunning, and a great leader. This man is a legend. And this legend got shot in the back while talking in an island during a war (at least that’s cool) by a relatively unknown enemy soldier (unknown for him but one of the main character for us). Even with all of his greatness, Isaac is still just a human who will die from a simple gunshot wound.
Why Is It Realistic?
TLOU humanizes the character. By killing the fan-favourite protagonist, it shows that the world is unforgiving to everyone. No one has a special treatment, because that’s the way it is in the real world. Everyone is a hero in their story and a villain in someone else’s. This is why playing through this game feels realistic, sometimes when you play video games you don’t expect the protagonist to be permanently killed in such a way, but TLOU shows that humans are still humans. There is no such thing as glorified death, all death is the same as the characters reap what they sow.
3. Humans Rebuild the World
As we all know, the human is a stubborn species (that’s what you get if you leave 40% of population survives). In the early stage of the outbreak, the government forms the Quarantine Zone or QZ in major cities to shelter survivors and appoints FEDRA (Federal Disaster Response Agency) as the ruling authority, but FEDRA’s rule is deemed too strict and totalitarian that many citizens form an alliance and try to overthrow FEDRA, in which many are successful.
Aside from QZ, many survivors form and build their sanctuary and shelter without aid from FEDRA. They have a system to ensure their safety, they produce food, they farm crops and animals, the filtrate waters, they have schools, and they even have electricity. We see these shelters throughout the game in a sewer, a stadium, an abandoned town, a resort, and some build their city (almost) from scratch using woods and primitive technology. Many of these communities survive for decades with thousands of civilians living and working.
Why Is It Realistic?
Humanity always prevails. As long as we have survivors, we will always rebuild. Just look at the history, we survive the world wars, black death, and more awful disaster and yet we will always manage to rebuild and thrive from such circumstances. I love how they still have electricity for renewable sources (hydroelectric dam, solar panels, wind turbines, etc.), huge buildings, heater, farms and stables and many more amenities humanity manage to rebuild. Even it is implied that some communities manage to manufacture things such as bullets and parts. Infected has become another disturbance in daily life for people in TLOU, it is the same as how we see dangerous wild animals. The world does not have to stop revolving, the world will find a way to heal itself and human will find a way to put itself on the top of the food chain once more.
Can We Create A Vaccine?
This is the big question. In the first game, we are actually on our way to create a vaccine by using Ellie’s immunity from infection, but knowing Ellie has to die, Joel resists the idea and escapes the hospital by killing everyone, including the chief doctor with the knowledge and skills of creating a vaccine. So there’s that.
Other facilities with work towards a vaccine are very unlikely in a world where everyone just trying to survive and thrive. A vaccine has a low priority compared to many aspects of civilization, even if a vaccine is discovered, the world will not go back to the way it was quickly. It still takes decades and war might happen because of the vaccine.
One of the hope lies in immunity. Ellie’s immunity proves that it is possible to become immune to the infection. Ellie can bear a child (I know that she is gay but for the sake of my theory let’s just assume Ellie is willing and wanting to bear a child) with a chance her immunity will be passed down to her children. Even only a slight tolerance to the infection is good enough to be passed down to the next generation until enough people have immunity. It might take thousands of years and thousands of generations of Ellie’s descendants, but it is hope nonetheless.
There is also another slim chance of other people having the same immunity as Ellie, but along with the slim chance, there is also a big chance that particular person might die from infected/falling/drowning/getting shot or even simply not knowing about his or her immunity before he or she can pass down the immunity to the descendants. BUT, if the descendant of another immune person can have a child with the descendant of Ellie, it can speed up the process a little bit by improving the immunity gene they each carry. Or the gene trait can also end up being recessive and extinct before it gains enough descendant. Either way, there is a way for things to be normal again…. in thousands of years.
Oh yes, there is also a chance that Ellie’s immunity is not passable… Just a weird random biological phenomenon, if that’s the case well then good luck TLOU people in eradicating those fungi all your life!
Will It Happen To Us?
Okay look, if Cordyceps Brain Infection exists in the real world, there is a high chance we can survive it. Why? Because sourcing the infection from one place with transmissions through spores and crops, is a bad way to start a pandemic.
The current pandemic is so massive because it can easily travel through the air and the infected person has no symptoms on the first few days. In TLOU, the infected person begins coughing the first few minutes of the exposure… with clear changes in physical appearance after a day, there is plenty of time to put that certain person on quarantine.
Also, some countries can avoid crops from South America. European nations are most likely imported from Africa or Asia, and then Asian and African nations are most likely imported among each other within the continent or produce their own. It is true we can still find the US big brands with raw materials from South America in the supermarket, but in developing nations, they most likely only have them in big cities. Smaller cities might not have it at all and can avoid the initial outbreak.
Plus we also need to consider the time taken for the product to reach those countries, when the outbreak reaches the US, it might not have reached the other countries. Some countries might block and hold all products from American continents after hearing about the outbreak.
I believe the American continent will be devastated by the outbreak, but I refuse to believe the whole world suffers from the same fate. The other nations might be too busy to keep their nations survive instead of helping other nations.
This current pandemic also tells us some countries can respond quickly to defend themselves from the outbreak. My biggest bet of survival is in New Zealand and Australia. Separated from neighbouring nations by the ocean, low-density population, and advanced medical care. Some island countries might survive as well, probably not the whole country but I bet some small remote islands will survive in countries like Japan, Greenland, Madagascar, and Phillippines. These surviving countries can form a trade bubble among them with a very tight and strict health and safety protocols.
Maybe in TLOU people in Tasmania are living normally and drinking cappuccino with chocolate sprinkles in a cafe downtown and thinking about travelling to impacted countries for adventure… I bet some people provide services for such activities because humans are still humans.
