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What do you think is the actual cause of the Knox Event?


ohgodspidersno

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Obviously there isn't a fixed answer, that's kind of the point, but what do YOU think is the real cause?

 

My personal theory is that it is some sort of space-borne pathogen from the meteor shower, which is mentioned only in passing as something that the news will NOT be covering any more due to the Knox Event.

 

This would help explain why it starts appearing spontaneously throughout the globe later on despite quarantines. Also, it's a real-life logical fallacy to assume that Big Scary Things need to have Big Scary Reasons for happening, and subverting that expectation is a common trope in fiction. It seems snarkily satisfying that the real reason would be the very thing that people explicitly stopped talking about in order to float other, incorrect theories.

 

Also I'm pretty sure the original Day of the Dead's zombies were caused by some sort of outer space thing, so this could be an homage to that.

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So, I've done a little reading and the one thing that keeps popping up in some radio/TV logs is Raleigh, North Carolina. They keep saying "they didn't learn anything from Raleigh", or the CDC official who commented that he was scape goat'd in regards to Raleigh (He also noted Raleigh only infected livestock, yet the radio host comments that multipl. I haven't been able to find anything regarding Raleigh in real life. People bring up Raleigh in parallel to this current outbreak, how the CDC wasn't prepared, how people died from incompetence, and how the virus/infection itself is seemingly of unknown origin. 

Now, the question in regards to 
Raleigh is if it's connected to the Knox Infection. There isn't any real evidence, but something to think about is the nature of the Knox Infection and if it's prone to mutate rapidly. If the "Second Wave", the airborne iteration of the Knox Infection is actually the Knox Infection, it could indicate that the current outbreak was indeed not the first, and simply another iteration of the infection that has mutated in some fashion. 

 

However, I'm not convinced the series of events we see and hear on the TV/Radio are 100% accurate. Around two weeks into the outbreak word spreads of people getting sick without direct fluid contact, which is basically the breaking point where things go completely haywire. 

 

1) We don't have any evidence that the virus wasn't already airborne. We start the game three days after what we think was the start of the outbreak, and in three days the entire Knox Country is infected, which is pretty difficult to imagine from a virus that only spreads from direct contact. Now, not everyone is infected, people died and an unknown amount of people are refugees on camps bordering the Exclusion Zone. 

 

2) Once the virus starts spreading past the Containment Zone, reaching Louisville and further reports of it jumping to international, everything becomes hearsay and unreliable at best. There is also the possibility that the "Second Wave" is not actually the Knox Infection, although there are some people who call into radio stations who comment on people who weren't infected from physical contact coming back to life.

Now, with that all being said, I have my own personal theory;

 

The Raleigh outbreak was some type of proto-"Knox Infection". This is what tipped the hat of the United States of some novel virus that was out in the open that they couldn't pin point the origin of, and could have possibly been mutating rapidly. This version of the infection did not reanimate, but I'm guessing in labs and general samples they found it to be highly adaptable and prone to mutations. 

Sometime later, a second(?) outbreak happens in Knox County. This outbreak actually starts days before the "official" outbreak becomes known via the Exclusion Zone. The
Raleigh Infection is confirmed, and instead of repeating the same mistakes of the original Raleigh Infection event where the press was everywhere, the CDC wasn't prepared and general incompetence, they start off by cutting communication lines. 

 

During the initial days of the new Raleigh Infection outbreak in Knox County, it mutates into what is known as the Knox Infection, the current iteration that is able to reanimate those who are killed via the infection (Note that killing oneself before succumbing to the infection does not reanimate the host, this is an important distinction to make).

 

Once the infection jumped and reanimated the infected, things quickly deteriorated, this is where the current known timelines starts. 

From there we go to when the infection breaks containment, and in my view there are three distinct possibilities

1) The "Second Wave" of the Knox Infection is not an actual airborne iteration of the Knox Infection. After containment broke the government formulated a plan to use highly contagious and lethal biological weapons that was dispersed over the Knox Event Line and Louisville. The illness that started infecting everyone and killing them was essentially a plan to deny the infection from gaining any further numbers by killing the at risk population with a different highly lethal virus. Both the Knox Infection and this unknown biological agent spread like wildfire as major population centers become infected with both.

2) The "Second Wave" is the outbreak of the original Raleigh virus that was airborne, infecting people in conjunction with the Knox Infection. Zombies are capable of holding both version of the virus, which explains why survivors who had no physical contact with zombies became sick

3) The Knox Infection did indeed go airborne, which is the worst outcome.

I personally think #1 and #2 are what I would consider the most likely. Based on the initial reporting, the rapid response from the US government, the severed communications before the infection even deteriorated and the WHO stopping international flights from the US, there are major indications that the US/International community had some idea what this was before it got out of hand. WHO halting international flights to the US just a week after the Knox Event became public, and before containment was broken, is a major clue that those in charge (beyond their knowledge of the Knox Event) had some indication things could get far worse, before they did indeed become worse. 

The question I have at this point is how did the Knox Infection jump internationally when flights were shut down? That would indicate two possibilities, that the infection was already spreading before containment was even officially broken, which is a very real possibility. Or, Knox County wasn't ground zero, and the original infection which started the Knox Event happened elsewhere which had gone unreported till the global situation deteriorated from the unknown airborne strain. 

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Accident in fort knox caused the release of a top-secret bioweapon.     
Military is censoring it because they do not want to cause an international incident initially and were formulating a plan on how to cover it up without causing mass chaos.     

However when the airborne effect begins to take place and it reaches Louisville, the ensuing mass swarm unleashes the infection into america at large.    

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Purely speculation, but I recall seeing something on either the T.V or the radio about locals in Knox County smelling something peculiar or otherwise sour on the air weeks before infection. My guess is if I do remember seeing that, the Military attempted to create a new virus/bacteria that takes over a hosts nervous system and cognitive functions. More than likely to use in secret on unsuspecting foreign populaces to gain control of a region of interest for either resources or to fill other motives while not causing unrest. As we all know, the U.S government did the same to unsuspecting Guatemalans to learn more about Syphilis and penicillin/vaccines. I wouldn't be surprised if the Military had knowingly released a newly created disease on Knox county to test it's effectiveness on wiping out populations. Knox county is an easy target. Close to military instillations, surrounded by thick wilderness, as well as closed off by a large body of water on its east side. I mean, how was the government so quick to quarantine the area? I'd say their response time was calculated. Just a theory, but I don't think it had anything to do with raw chicken.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

 

On 11/1/2019 at 12:44 AM, ohgodspidersno said:

My personal theory is that it is some sort of space-borne pathogen from the meteor shower, which is mentioned only in passing as something that the news will NOT be covering any more due to the Knox Event.

 

There are two mentions of meteorite showers within the radio text, so it is possible.

 

However, if that were the case then why isn't the whole world getting infected at the same time? The knox event occurs atleast a good week and a half - two weeks before the entire world starts to show signs of infection.

 

I made a topic on my theory :)

 

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The Spiffo's theory is interesting.  Like maybe Spiffo's was created by the government in order to test the efficacy of administering a biological weapon to a population through their food supply.  People eat at their restaurants and their food becomes popular.  Then, once a significant portion of the population is eating at Spiffo's on a regular/semi-regular basis, they begin adding the pathogen to the food.  The secret military base near Rosewood was established to monitor the progress of the infection.  But one of the interns there was uninformed and brought some Spiffo's to work for lunch...   Another idea is that, due to the close proximity of the secret base to the prison, they were testing the pathogen on the prisoners there.  But one of them escaped and was picked up as a hitch-hiker...

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I think its a "Contagion" Plot. In the 2011 film Contagion a virus spreads rampant killing 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide in 26 days.  At the end you learn that a sick bat was eating a banana in a pig farm in a unnamed jungle. The bat flies over a pigpen, dropping a chunk of banana, which is then eaten by a piglet. The virus then mutates in the pig. A chef in Hong Kong buys the piglet. As he handles the carcass in the kitchen, he does not wash his hands when called to meet a customer. The chef shakes hands with the customer, giving her the mix of bat and pig viruses.

 

I think this is how it started.

 

The military was running test on the virus that hit Raleigh, North Carolina. When somehow the virus came into contact with one of the security dogs, mutating the virus (On the radio a janitor talks about how he works at a military base and one of the dogs started to get sick). The dog then transmitted the virus back to a human (Likely one of the security officers) where it mutates once again(In game if you get bit or scratched by a zombie it can take anywhere from 1 hour to 2 days for you to "start" to zombify, how long it takes for you to die can vary even more). When the military tried to stop the virus they thought it was the "Raleigh virus", but in reality it was a whole new virus. The "Knox virus". At one point they would have investigated how the virus got lose likely finding the (Now sick) security guard and his dog. And concluded that dogs were spreading the virus hence why they start taking dogs from people leaving the zone.

 

You learn that the owner of the Twiggy's bar in West Point left the night before the quarantine to visit a cousin and that he took his wife and dog with him. And that when he came back the next day the zone had gone up (Let's call the day the zone went up day 1). And that his dog had just started to get sick. You also learn that the World Health Organisation grounded all flights in and out of the U.S.A almost 8 days after the "exclusion zone" goes up. A study said that the average person will physically meet 10,000 people in one year, divide that by 365 you get about 27 people you will "physically " meet in one day. That means if Twiggy come into contact with 27 people every day for 8 days you get 216 carriers now lose in the U.S.A before planes are grounded. Now 27 sounds a bit high so lets cut it by half to about 13 rounded down. now it is about 104 in 8 days. Now what if those 104 people each came into contact with a human being over the course of 8 days. Let's do some math.

 

Day 1: 1x13=13

Day 2: 13x13=169

Day 3: 169x13=2,197

Day 4: 2,197x13=28,561

Day 5: 28,561x13=371,293

Day 6: 371,293x13=4,826,809

Day 7: 4,826,809x13=62,748,517

Day 8: 62,748,517x13=815,730,721

 

This means there is a potential 815,730,721 carriers lose BEFORE the planes are grounded (This is not even including the wife and cousin). Now, this is still a LARGE number but if you compare it to the population of Louisville 256,231 (according to a census taken in 2000). And the fact that Louisville is also home to the Louisville International Airport, that has 1400 domestic flights and 1605 international per day (2012). This could explain how the virus got around the globe even before it went "Airborn" (More on this later).

 

Now Outbreaks are confirmed around the world at around day 13. it takes about 2 days before you start showing symptoms, in the game if you take antibiotics and keep eating food so you stay at max healing you can stave off the virus. So if it takes another 2 days for the virus to kill someone with that would put us at about day 12. As for that last day the military kept the "Knox event" a secret for around 9 days. That is when the photo showing the first zombies got out. Other governments around the world could have done the same thing to try to stop the spread of panic. Thus easily putting us in the time-line of 13 days.

 

Now for the "Airborn" part. It took 11 days for the infected to escape the "exclusion zone". When the human body starts to decay it starts to release gases. it takes about 4-10 days for a body to start making this gas. When the undead escaped the zone and the military shot them it was like shooting hundreds of balloons filled will gases that could have contained the virus.

 

As for why the military set up the zone so fast... It was to save face. From the little we hear of the president he is someone that cares about his face. On the T.V and Radio. you learn that the budget for the CDC has been cut again and again after the "Raleigh outbreak" likely by the president. When the planes are grounded you hear the president say and I quote: " This move is as unwelcome as it is economically unsound.". In another statement he says " I assure the American people that every dollar I have at my disposal will go toward their healing and rehabilitation.". So we know he cares about money. If another a outbreak were to occur after he had cut the CDC budget again and again and the virus escaped a "GOVERNMENT LAB", all the blame would land on him. So as soon as he hear that there "Could" of been another outbreak, he told the military to block it off and cut all communications in and out of Muldreough and West Point. Also at around day 9 every radio and T.V station is down for the whole day with only static and garbled words. Hinting that the government tried to stop them from reporting on the infected escaping the zone.

 

One last thing is if we can say it takes around 4 days for someone to die to the virus then if we look at the chart above by day 4 the first zombies should appear at places not in kentucky. And by day 8 there should be between 28,561-371,293. So why do we not hear about zombies around the U.S until day 13-14? On the radio you hear about Riots across the U.S People raising guns to the police. At around day 5... Who wants to report about some old lady dying of the flu when you have the military BOXING in U.S citizens on U.S Soil. when you have RIOTS in the streets! Police SHOOTING UNARMED CITIZENS!!!!! Who wants to hear about a few sick dogs?

 

Same for around the world, think about 9/11. News stations all around the world were talking and covering that. And like a said around day 12 it is reported that zombies are now global on day 10 all stations start talking and showing the first video of the infected and covering the deaths at the "exclusion zone". And on day 11 the virus goes "airborn" so, makes sense why foreign nations would have all eyes on Knox and not outside there own doors. Also if we use something like the Walking Dead T.V show. According to the lore it takes almost 5 days after the first zombie before they become wide known.

 

But that is just a theory... A GAME THEORY! Tell me what you guys think.

 

One thing i don't have an answer for is some people in game talk about a "bad smell" that has been going on for "weeks" that would place it far before the outbreak. On the radio and T.V you hear about how there have are toxins in the fields and forests around the dixie area that have been there for almost a year so it could be that.

 

But ya tell me what you think and if I missed anything.

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