The Plague Approach

[Aki]

BUT, what if it did mutate and it did somehow combine and create a new being. Are we then really screwed?

No. Because a werewolf zombie would liable be as slow and retarded as the rest, with only the benefit of strength, claws, and bigger teeth. A bullet through the cranium would kill it just as dead.

[AriesWolf]

Just to add my own personal nitpick to this, zombies don't bite to infect; they bite to kill and devour. It's just that since zombies are slow and rather unsteady on their feet, it's fairly easy for a victim to escape before being eaten. And of course they collapse and die later on, only to reanimate.

Now, to werewolves. I assume it'd be much harder to escape the grasp of a werewolf, whether it was intent on eating you or biting with the intention of infecting you. Be that as it may, a werewolf plague just couldn't spread the way a zombie plague would (IMO); I'll try to explain why. running through a crowd and biting everything that moves would be a stupid thing to do because it would not only tip people off to their existence in the first place, but also what they were up to. No problem, you say, they would just do it over a longer period of time, grabbing folks here and there. Two problems with that: 1) if they just pounced, bit, and left, the authorities would notice a dramatic increase in animal attacks. That fact alone would make them think something weird was going on, but imagine the reaction to a large number of people-even over an extended period of time- reporting being attacked by a large wolf-like creature, and falling ill and disappearing shortly thereafter. 2) if they pounced, bit, and then kidnapped the victim until they shifted for the first time (if not longer) the authorities would notice a dramatic increase in missing-persons cases, which they would likely view as more serious then animal attacks. Depending on where it was happening, it might even be taken as a warning sign of a possible serial killer in the area, which would make it top priority. Either scenario is a problem for the werewolves, since success depends on no one noticing anything amiss until it's too late to stop it.

Of course, that's just my own personal opinion.

[Terastas]

Just to add my own personal nitpick to this, zombies don't bite to infect; they bite to kill and devour. It's just that since zombies are slow and rather unsteady on their feet, it's fairly easy for a victim to escape before being eaten. And of course they collapse and die later on, only to reanimate.

The virus is also typically depicted as killing/turning rapidly, so even people who are killed and being eaten can reanimate. Its very likely that the body could reanimate into a zombie before any zombies that were eating it can finish.

It's one of the few things I have to give the Resident Evil movie kudos for; some of the zombies looked like they had bites taken out of them already. Which is probably how swarms form -- the corpse a zombie was eaten reanimated and starts shambling off looking for fresh meat, and the zombie that was eating it is all like "hey, wait, I was eating that" and follows after it. . . Followed by the zombie that was previously eating him, and so on and so forth.
Like a hellish conga line.

[Scott Gardener]

It occurred to me at one point that contagious lycanthropy would fairly quickly overwhelm the human population. It only would take one werewolf with the right motivation to spread it to others before a major epidemic would spread world-wide. Imagine a "disease" that in effect made people healthier--more powerful, better able to heal injuries, faster, stronger, and in short better fit across the board. Those not infected would be at a substantial survival disadvantage.

I came to the conclusion that this line of logic was just one step away from conclusive proof that werewolves in the sense that we picture them do not exist. If they did, we'd all be werewolves by now. If they did exist, they'd almost certainly have to have come about fairly recently, unless a very extended and planned effort was made to deprive the rest of humanity from the benefits of being infected.

In my novel, the very premise of near-inevitability of mass infection, or even of possible eradication of non-lycanthropic humanity, kept my lead character awake at night a lot. Not that lycanthropy is known for helping one get a good night's rest anyway.

Resistance is futile!

[Wingman]

I suppose it depends on how contagious lycanthropy would be, the methods of transmission, and whether or not the lycanthrope(s) in question were aware of their contagious nature.
If someone has to survive a werewolf attack/encounter in order to become one themselves, then an intelligent werewolf would quickly catch onto that fact. Though, it's entirely possibly that by the time the other person wakes back up the werewolf is already running for the hills to escape the pitchfork-wielding mob, and so they never really discover that people they attack are waking up furry. The flip-side would be if someone has to die from a werewolf attack, so that they can be taken over by the lycanthropy.

For example, many vampires(by and large one of the most mainstream 'infectious' creatures) are often depicted as breaking the necks of their victims, or beheading them or taking some other suitable precaution, unless they want to create more vampires. It makes sense that after a while a werewolf would either start doing that, or find some way to ensure they aren't attacking anyone, either by locking themselves up, or going to unpopulated areas.

I'm going to avoid the whole issue of lycanthropy ensuring survival, because if I start talking about it I know someone's going to get offended.

[faladunaju]

Turning all humans into werewolves is bad idea because in my opinion werewolves are social and in some way territorial creatures. If someone turn into werewolf he/she will look for pack, group of just created werewolves would probably create pack. Now let’s imagine there’s werewolves plague and almost all humans in town turn into weres. Pack A territory is street, pack B territory is tower block .Their territories are not big enough to live in comfort so they starting to fight for terrain . There would be too much werewolves and too little space.

[RedEye]

Okay, try the plague approach 180 degrees reversed.

Humans are facing possible civilization-ending in a plague that is every virologists nightmare; a new disease with no natural resitance.
Infection = death. Period.

Now, might the Werewolves actually become anti-heroes or even plain heroes, as they save something of our world by making Earth into a Wulf World?
I wonder if the old-time Werewolves would be able to adjust? Maybe the new Werewolves would be stuck as dishwashers, maids, etc...

[AriesWolf]

You know, I just thought of something. If the werewolves are intelligent enough to increase their numbers by purposely infecting others, they probably wouldn't use either of the methods I described. They would slowly, methodically, and quietly contaminate the food and water supply. I imagine a small number of coordinated individuals, say 20 or so, spread out over a large geographical area could infect possibly thousands of people before anyone caught on. And it would be even longer before anybody started thinking 'werewolf'.

[Wingman]

You know, I just thought of something. If the werewolves are intelligent enough to increase their numbers by purposely infecting others, they probably wouldn't use either of the methods I described. They would slowly, methodically, and quietly contaminate the food and water supply. I imagine a small number of coordinated individuals, say 20 or so, spread out over a large geographical area could infect possibly thousands of people before anyone caught on. And it would be even longer before anybody started thinking 'werewolf'.

I'm not sure if you've ever seen Perfect Creature, it's a vampire movie, but the antagonist does just that. He breaks into a water treatment plant and splashes some of his blood into it, which has the result of making everyone go crazy.

[Terastas]

It occurred to me at one point that contagious lycanthropy would fairly quickly overwhelm the human population. It only would take one werewolf with the right motivation to spread it to others before a major epidemic would spread world-wide. Imagine a "disease" that in effect made people healthier--more powerful, better able to heal injuries, faster, stronger, and in short better fit across the board. Those not infected would be at a substantial survival disadvantage.

*nods* Even if the werewolves had no actual agenda concerning infection, it would still give them the advantage. That's more or less how the werewolf nation in my alternative time line setting came into being; the original werewolves only infected consenting individuals, and the people that were refused to compromise their human purity. . . Well, they all wound up contracting the other virus (that being the zombie virus).

What would balance that out in a real time setting, however, is the fact that giving everyone on the planet a gestalt form would be kind of like giving everyone on the planet a loaded gun. Some people can be trusted with it, others cannot. Parting with one's lycanthropy isn't as easy as parting with a gun, however, so the only way a community of werewolves could protect themselves and their neighbors would be to never let lycanthropy pass into any dangerous individuals in the first place.

A lot of people might see such an act as a deliberate attempt to deprive humanity at large of the benefits of lycanthropy, but you can't take the pros of lycanthropy without also taking the drawbacks.

[Berserker]

are social and in some way territorial creatures

Pack A territory is street, pack B territory is tower block .Their territories are not big enough to live in comfort so they starting to fight for terrain .

What you've described is no different than what human beings are already like.

[Terastas]

are social and in some way territorial creatures

Pack A territory is street, pack B territory is tower block .Their territories are not big enough to live in comfort so they starting to fight for terrain .

What you've described is no different than what human beings are already like.

Which is sort of like saying that human beings are dangerous enough as it is.