Quote Originally Posted by Osiris View Post
I'd be inclined to avoid the airborne contagion scenario, simply because it makes little to no sense and seems like a huge cop-out. It's like a nuclear explosion in place of the a giant squid. Like the writer/s simply gave up and plucked an idea from a spinning Wallace Plot Wheel.

I'd also avoid the typical 'transferred via saliva and blood' as the vehicle. After the whole 'Saul Lived' debacle that throws a big old monkey wrench into the mix. Sure, there are a lot of variables in that incident that could account for Saul not ending up being seriously dead-ish.

I like to sway in time with the idea of psionics being the cause. It explains the feelings of discomfort, nausea and so on that some characters noted when they drew close to certain sites around the city. It helps to explain the hive mind consciousness that I've touched on before either in post or blog. It could be that Patient Zero's initial exposure to whatever it was that caused the genetic mutation gave him/her access to an unknown higher brain function allowing him/her to 'infect' those in his/her immediate vicinity. It would mean that the biting is merely a side effect of the chemical change in the victim's brain, but entirely unrelated to the passing of the 'infection'.
If you say psionic now, you have to explain why not psionic before now. The game has to have changed. In other words, the people behind this have to have gotten hold of a way to make it work for them better than ever before, what could that be?