It all started so innocently.
A brilliant doctor, desperate to save his wife, concocts what he hopes will be a miracle
cure for a deadly virus.
Hoping to speed along the development process, the doctor enlists the help of a family- the
Piggies- who want nothing more than to help the doctor develop his cure.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but in this case it's not hell
those good intentions lead, but a full-blown zombie apocalypse.
Now half the world's been infected and you're fighting for your life, but of all the infected
out tear you limb from limb, none are more dangerous than the original infected- the
Piggy family.
So how are you going to fight and defeat Piggy?
Substance 128, or the potion, has various effects on its host, but mainly acts as a
neurotoxin.
It's not known exactly what Mr. P, its developer, used to create Substance 128, but it either
includes live bacteria or viruses, or perhaps a chemical that short circuits a living brain.
This is because unlike normal neurotoxins that kill their victim outright, Substance
128 instead seems to selectively destroy- or suppress- only the parts of the brain responsible
for higher thinking.
Motor skills and reflexes are maintained, but the ability to reason or act past a rudimentary
level of intelligence are all gone in those infected.
Perhaps Substance 128 contains living cells that act as parasites, or the chemicals simply
destroy parts of the brain devolving the victim to a primal intelligence.
Whatever the case, after the Piggy family was infected, they were able to rapidly infect
others.
This means that the original substance was either a virus, or perhaps an ordinary virus
already infecting the Piggy family was mutated to create the zombie-like aggression and loss
of intelligence.
Whatever the case, Substance 128 is now fully viral, and social distancing won't save you
from the Piggy apocalypse.
The Piggies, as the infected are typically known, show highly increased aggression, although
peculiarly they don't display the typical feeding behavior associated with other zombies
or even predators.
Instead, Piggies seek to simply kill non-infected, and will completely ignore other infected
around them.
This hints at two things- the first being that some higher brain function might still
be preserved within infected hosts, and two, that the infection might be heightening some
innate sense of territoriality, leading the infected to be extremely aggressive due to
a perceived violation of their territory.
No matter how far you run from a Piggy though, they will not stop chasing you, meaning that
the infected seem to consider the entire world their territory and simply fleeing won't be
enough to win the day.
Because of their heightened aggression and a lack of self-preservation, Piggies have
greater strength than the non-infected, though still enough self-preservation to avoid obviously
suicidal things like running into pits or through fire.
Again, this means that some form of higher intelligence is still present in the infected,
making Piggies more dangerous zombies than your traditional walking dead.
Because of the sheer number of infected, escape is likely going to be your best option.
Going hand to hand with a Piggy is going to likely end poorly for you, given both each
individual's heightened strength and the sheer numbers of infected that will certainly show
up to the site of any battle.
It's best then to keep this fight at a distance, so firearms are going to be your preferred
tool for eliminating Piggies- but be careful, the sound of gunfire is certain to draw even
more infected to your location.
Perhaps you'd be better served with more silent ranged weapons like bows and arrows, with
compound bows available in basically any hunting store across the US.
The most terrifying aspect of the Piggy apocalypse however is the simple fact that you can never
be sure of who's infected and who isn't.
While it may be obvious to tell certain infected apart from the non-infected due to wounds
they've suffered, and seem to ignore- others won't be so easy to identify.
The infection is fairly quick acting, but other than an immediate increase in strength
and aggression, there's no physical changes that could easily identify someone as infected.
Your best friend could very well be an infected and you sadly won't know until they're trying
to smash your bones to jelly with a baseball bat.
For this reason, to survive a real-world Piggy apocalypse, you're going to want to do the
opposite of what we typically recommend in these scenarios, and go the solo route.
Teaming up is always a great way of boosting your odds of survival, but in this world gone
Piggy mad, a teammate could be a liability.
If however you absolutely must team up, then you can take some preventative measures to
identify an infected before they get too close.
For example, you could come up with challenge phrases the way that US military sentries
do.
Simply come up with a question or statement, and a response that the person being challenged
has to reply with.
It could make sense or be completely nonsensical, but it should always be the same response.
You could for example make your challenge phrase be, “Who has the most overpriced
and terrible sushi in the world?” and the response would be, “Wokcano”.
That's not only a true statement, but a good challenge phrase because the infected don't
have the higher intelligence necessary to come up with a coherent answer.
This way if you suspect that a friend who's been out of sight for too long is an infected,
you can simply ask them who makes the worst sushi in the world, and they'll tell you Wokcano,
marking them as safe and uninfected.
If however you get no response, it's time to run and treat your friend as just another
infected.
Sadly, you're not going to win a fight against the Piggy apocalypse, because as the Coronavirus
has shown us, infections spread at blistering speed across the world.
Your best bet is to let nature take its course and simply flee for the hills.
Find somewhere remote and cold to hide out at and wait the apocalypse out.
With no higher thinking skills, Piggies will be unable to feed themselves or protect themselves
from the elements, and within a few weeks only a few stragglers should be left alive.
At that point it'll be your job to reclaim the world, and perhaps find Mr. P and punish
him for the evil he so carelessly unleashed on the world.
Ready for more epic showdowns?
Check out You Versus The Rake.
Or check out this other video instead!