Diseases

There are many famous warriors who surprisingly have diseases that would weaken their performance in battle.

Famine

Somali Pirates were shown to be thin due to the harsh environment of Somalia, a mostly desert region and a lowered fish population due to foreign overfishing, the Horn of Africa experiences constant famines even today (the current famine in the Horn of Africa caused at least 750,000 deaths and is still growing in death tolls). Crazy Horse also suffered famine when the buffalo were hunted to near extinction by the settling Americans. The Khmer Rouge caused a massive famine, which could have been intentionally used with their Genocide. Despite the famine, Pol Pot focused on exporting massive amounts of food to other countries as trade, which worsen the famine. The poor side of the North Koreans also suffered famine as well. Between 1994 and 1998, 1-4 million North Koreans died from famine. 2/3 of the country (16 million people) still suffer from lack of food today. Because of this, North Koreans eat better quality of food only on national holidays. Many foodstores or restaraunts show alot of fake food combined with the real food to give the appearance that there is no obvious famine. It is believed that the nation ignores the famine to better fund its army.

Smallpox

George Washington's army was suffering from Smallpox during the war. He allowed an early form of vaccination to be experimented on his troops, which saved many lives. The doctors were ordered to give very small exposure to the disease to troops so they will build up anti-bodies for when the real disease hit them.

Insomnia

Insomnia is a type of sleeplessness or having problems sleeping. This is normally caused by stress or medical conditions. Napoleon and Pancho Villa both had insomnia, Pancho's insomnia was possibly caused from suffering other diseases and being constantly hunted by the government throughout his entire life as a bandit. Many historians claim that Napoleon's rash decisions in the invasion of Russia were due to his lack of sleep.

Physical Deformities

Asymmetric Bodies

Ivan the Terrible had an Asymmetric spine. This would cause him to experience constant back pain, which he attempted to cure with mercury and alcohol.

Arthritis

Arthritis is a disease that causes serious pain in the joints and muscles of a person. Pancho Villa had serious arthritis, forcing him to use the Colt Bisley which was designed for easier handling. However, the experts claimed that Pancho compensated for his illness with medical carts on railroads that he controlled.

Poisoning/Drug Addiction

Ivan the Terrible would drink mercury and alcohol constantly, making his mentality unpredictable. The Medellin Cartel were smugglers, but many of them smoked the crack/cocaine that they dealed in.

Mental Illness

Abnormal Aggression

Ivan the Terrible's bipolar disorder made him become suddenly violent to others. A famous painting called [Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on Friday] shows Ivan the Terrible killing his son Ivan Ivanovich with a cane only to start crying as he holds his dying son in his arms. As a child, Pancho Villa murdered a rich landowner for abusing his sister. Al Capone physically assaulted others even as a child and would show this brutality in his reign as leader of the Chicago Outfit. Vlad the Impaler killed one of his wives by tearing open her stomache after she lied that she was pregnant. At the age of 14, Genghis Khan killed his half-brother Behter for not sharing food durring a famine. Alexander the Great killed his general Cleitus the Black just over a simple insult of his self-believed origin, and he had executed a number of satraps whom he believed to have went corrupt in his absence, whether or not they really did go corrupt when he was out conquering India.

Hallucinations/Visions

Joan of Arc claimed that God spoke to her. Crazy Horse had a vision that he'd be a warrior who would be untouched by enemy arrows and bullets. William the Conqueror saw Halley's Coment before the Battle of Hastings, believing it to be a sign of victory.

Narcissism

Narcissism has lead to the creation of personality cults around the world. Saddam has created entire museums, cities and statues of himself during his reign. His image was everywhere in Iraq, on buildings as paintings, on TV constantly and always in the newspapers. Most of Saddam's family members had a major political position and power in the government. Many historians claim that Napoleon's wars was caused by his narcissist nature and want to conquer other nations. This is similar to Alexander the Great, who stopped his invasions only when his soldiers refused to fight anymore. Alexander named over a dozen cities in his name, and one in his horses name, but is rumored to live the rest of his life in depression for being unable to conquer the world. Pol Pot ordered prisoners to produce images of himself, many of these prisoners would be executed anyways.

Bipolar

Bipolar Disorder is a mental disease where a person can have sudden moodswings, mainly between mania and anger to major depression and sadness. Ivan the Terrible was bipolar from drinking mercury for his asymmetrical spine. This mercury was supposed to cure his back pains. One bipolar episode had him beat his son to death in a fit of rage, only for him to sob over his corpse. Joan of Arc was also described as Bipolar.

Insanity/Poor Psychological Health

Many warriors are measured by insanity on the show, mainly the violent individuals. According to the experts, someone does classify as insane if it is under about 50. Also according to the experts, being insane can destroy a warrior's chance for victory as their actions would be rash or illogical. If two insane people would fight each other, the one that would be more sane or the one that would use their insanity to their advantage instead of in a self damaging way has an advantage in the fight.

• Hernán Cortés has a reasonable 72. His motivations in the conquest of Mexico was fueled by his greed but has shown to make good decisions and had strategies that helped him create a Conquistador army, avoid arrest from the Spanish Empire and defeat the enourmous Aztec Empire.
• Saddam Hussein had a below average 46. His past showed many acts of violence, including attempt assassinations of politicians. As a leader, Saddam has made both good and bad decisions. He invaded the larger and more powerful nation of Iran but was able to protect his nation from the larger army. He took advantage of oil and created a relativley rich economy in the region. Saddam prevented rebelion by creating personality cults and genocide, but this affected how other nations saw Iraq. Saddam quickly conquered Kuwait, but their Nato allies liberated Kuwait and most of these nations would redeclare war on Iraq in 2003 lead by the USA and lead to Saddam's execution.
• Ivan the Terrible had a low 37. Ivan was one of the youngest rulling Tsars in Russian history, his entire childhood allowing him unlimited power over his nation. His constant bacckpains combined with alcoholism, drinking mercury and being fully devoted to his religion over anything else has made Ivan unpredictable. Although able to expand the Russian Empire under his wars, Russia almost fell apart after Ivan's death due to power struggles and economic problems.
• Pol Pot had the lowest at 27. Although performing poor in collage, there was no evidence of Pol Pot's insanity until he joined growing communist movements in many nations (France, Vietnam, Cambodia). He would stay as a communist leader for the rest of his life until his arrest, shortly before his death. As a leader of the Khmer Rouge, his revolution against the Khmer Republic was more because of the destruction of the Vietnam War and the instability of a poor nation than because of strategy. The Khmer Rouge were mostly children, as young as 10 or younger and would be mentally unprepared for war without facing develomental issues in their psychology. As a leader, Pol Pot's policies created famine and commited genocide on 1/4 of the population, one of the most devistating in human history. His laws were more based on ideology than being logical, executing hundreds of thousands for 'crimes' that happen so commonly in any nation (wearing glasses, farming alone, wearing western clothing). Pol Pot evacuated Phnom Penh and other cities and forced everyone to live in the country side. During the evacuation, parents and children were seperated and all educated people were executed. Many executions were brutal and slow; suffication with paperbags, bleeding to death, disemboweling, clubbing, gassing, decapitation, machinegun fire, throwing people out of windows or cliffs, electrocution and many others. Some prisons had no survivors. As his nation was under chaos, Pol Pot invaded the larger nation of Vietnam (who has been experienced in about 40 years of constant war and defeated millitary superpowers) and massacred thousands of Vietnamese, provoking a war. The Khmer Rouge defense were quickly defeated in about 3 weeks. Pol Pot's insanity lead to his arrest. Even at an old age, Pol Pot was executing members and leaders of the Khmer Rouge, causing his own followers to mutany against him. Easily over 1,000 people died every day in Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

Other warriors have evidence of insanity.

• Vlad the Impaler mass executed many of his own people by impaling; men, women and children. This could relate to his childhood as a prisoner under the Turks, being tortured at a young age. Vlad enslaved boyar noblemen who traveled across Europe because Vlad saw this as disloyalty to Romania. He replaced the old nobility with new rich families that would be loyal. He did use his harsh tactics against the Turks sucessfully, the Turks only able to conquer Romania after Vlad died.
• Some historians claim that Joan of Arc showed signs of insanity.
• In the Napoleon/Washington aftermath, the Napoleon expert claims that most famous generals like Genghis, Hitler and Napoleon were all crazy, otherwise they wouldn't conqueor so much land.
• Adolf Hitler is commonly described as insane. Durring the Invasion of Normandy, Hitler made many poor decisions like refusing to give reinforcements to his needy troops.
• Saddam's son Uday Hussein showed more obvious and unstable insanity than his father. While Saddam's executions are normally a response to his paranoid nature, Uday would publically execute anyone who disobeyed the simplist orders. He owned an Iron Maiden which he used on real people, and abused his political power to become extremely wealthy. There is also evidence that he kidnapped and raped Iraqi women at will.
• The Roman Empire is famous for their insane leaders Caligula and his nephew Nero. Caligula slaughtered thousands of his people, put his horse in the Senate as an official politician and declared war against the gods. Nero drained his economy on rebuilding Rome with artistic images, and was desperate enough to raid temples to get more money.

Paranoia

Paranoia is a mental illness where a person is commonly afraid or in fear of others even at friends or strangers that have no reason to be agressive against them. Al Capone showed obvious paranoia, killing dozens of his own members based only on rumors. Vlad the Impaler killed much of his nobles and replaced them to ensure that the new nobles would be loyal. Saddam had serious paranoia, executing members of his own party believing them to be traitors. He has been described as a germaphobic and demanded constant medical care under the slightest injury or minor medical condition. The Khmer Rouge members were paranoid of each other as even loyal Khmer Rouge party members were executed. Pol Pot was paranoid that former ally Vietnam would invade Cambodia and so rasioned most of the food in Cambodia, creating famine. Pol Pot knew that some Khmer Rouge were planning to overthrow him, which eventually happened a year before his natural death in 1997. North Korea's leaders have made the nation the most censored and secure country in the world. Almost no one can enter the country without being spotted due to the security and to even get into the country as a tourist is normally rejected with only a few exceptions.

Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a mental illness characterized by lack of empathy or remorse, egocentricism, shallow emotions, and deceptiveness. Both Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot were examples of psychopaths and Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible, Hernán Cortés, and Al Capone all might also classify. Vlad the Impaler ate in front of dead corpses and dipped bread in their blood. He even executed a nobleman for complaining about the smell of the corpses. Ivan the Terrible, as a kid, threw animals out of tall buildings and mutilated crows. As a teenager, Ivan joined a group of delinquents and randomly assaulted strangers for the fun of it. Nobleman Andrey Kurbsky was thrown to wild dogs for being a political enemy of Ivan. Later in life, Ivan would drink mercury and alcohol, making him more violent than before. Attila the Hun massacres any town he defeats just for the sheer pleasure of it.

Asthma

Theodore Roosevelt had Asthma as a child and still had it as an adult.

Weak Vision

Theodore Roosevelt had weak vision, and thus had to wear glasses.

Other Diseases

Diseases not mentioned on the show but that did affect some warriors.

Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's Disease. Adolf Hitler suffered from parkinson's disease, but censored most visual videos of his tremors (mainly in his left arm). He suffered from other diseases and required many types of pills and drugs. Drug use combined with his diseases would have affected his mentallity.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is the mental disorder with symptoms of auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social or occupational dysfunction. Khmer Rouge leader and Pol Pot's wife Khieu Ponnary was confirmed to have Schizophrenia. Although Pol Pot's corpse was cremated before being examined, he showed many symptoms of Schitzophrenia.

Callus

Callus is a thickening of the skin from repeated injury. Ivan the Terrible had callus on his forehead from hitting his head on the church floor in respect and loyalty to the orthodox god. He would pray for hours daily.

Zombie Virus

The Zombie Virus (called the Solanum Virus in The Zombie Survival Guide) is a fictional disease, though similar diseases exist in real life and the possibility for a zombie disease is real. It is contagious, though how contagious it can be is determined by the different films, video-games and stories about it. However most say that it is transferred by zombie bites and sometimes zombie claws. Most if not all humans have no immunity to it. It kills the organs of a person except for the major parts of the brain, which the virus then controls and turns the person from a dead corpse to a moving zombie. Because the person would be dead after being infected, there is normally no cure as the damage to the body would be too great even if the virus was removed. The only known way to prevent becoming a zombie after being bitten is to amputate the infected area, and this will only work if the virus is slow spreading.

Symptoms include vomiting, loss of body temperature, loss of pulse, lack of pupillary response, no reflexes and the urge to commit cannibalism. Some zombie viruses have flu-like symptoms that will lead to death or being turned into a zombie. In "Highschool of the Dead", the virus makes humans vomit large amounts of blood. In the "2008 remake of Day of the Dead", the symptom of the Zombie Virus is nosebleeds and will lower in body temperature until they are paralysed and turned into a Zombie. Also in the film, Bub is the only Zombie not hostile to humans (either because his bite was treated with bleach, which weakened the virus, or because he was a vegetarian as a human and doesn't hunger for flesh). Most victims of a zombie bite who are aware that they will be turned into a zombie often attempt suicide or ask their friends to kill them in hopes that they don't turn into a zombie and attack their friends.

How quickly someone is turned into a zombie varies on the media, but someone who is alive will take longer to become a zombie than someone killed and bitten. This maybe because the virus works once the person is dead but if the person is still alive the virus must kill the person first, which can take a while. In "Highschool of the Dead", the virus kills and turns someone into a zombie in less than 20 seconds if the Zombie bite was large, and about 10 minutes if the Zombie bite was small. In "The Walking Dead", the virus kills in at least 24 hours and the zombie wakes between 2 hours and 6 hours. One of the longest examples is in Dawn of the Dead, where one character claims no one can survive over 3 days of the infection. However when another character dies from blood loss instead, the virus quickly revives him in about a minute. Deadliest Warrior showed the virus infect a human in less than a minute to kill an reanimate them as a zombie. The vampire, who is resistant to the disease, took a few minutes after getting bitten before showing signs of infection, even then its unknown if the vampire was truely turned into a zombie or if he was still resisting against it.

Deadliest Warrior showed that a person who's infected with the Zombie Virus will change into a dark green skin color and have different eye color before their body shows obvious signs of rotting. Many modern films are now depicting their Zombies as having different eye colors than people. There is some truth to this, as real corpses lose their eyecolor or their eyes get cloudy after death (since blood isn't flowing and the eyes are beginning to rot).

Some zombie viruses have showed the abillity to deform or mutate the zombie, making them more deadly by giving them more powers (normally relating to a reasonable physical difference). Such powers include being stronger and harder to kill, shooting acid or bile (like the Boomer and Spitter from Left 4 Dead), being more faster or vampire-like (fast zomibe from halflife) or growing longer appendages (the Smoker's tounge of L4D or the tenticles of Las Plagas in Resident Evil 4).

Although rare, there are cases of the Zombie Virus infecting animals as well.

Kuru (spread by eating human brains) Mad Cow Disease (spread by eating infected flesh) and Rabies (spread by biting) are real world diseases that make a person act similarly to a zombie, being feral, violent, unable to think normally and insanity. In 2012, a unique cannabis has caused multiple people to be cannibalistic; eating live human flesh, being feral and unresponsive to commands, and being resistant to pain [1].

The Walking Dead franchise has a segment detailing the effects of the Zombie Virus. It should be noted that the Walking Dead depiction is unique as the virus has already infected every human and will reanimate them no matter how they die, but overexposure to the virus, mainly from a zombie-bite, will lead to the poisoning from the virus. Otherwise the humans function normally. As seen on the Walking Dead Wiki:

• The dead corpse of anyone that dies for any reason will reanimate as a zombie, unless the brain of the individual is badly damaged or destroyed. When a person dies, the infection they carry reactivates critical areas of the brain that support necessary vital systems, resulting in reanimation. Because only a portion of the brain is reactivated, the reanimated person retains only a physical resemblance to their former self.
• In the TV Series, it was stated that a corpse can reanimate between three minutes and eight hours after death.
• The first cases of infection progressed through a state of fever, aches, and internal bleeding, and this illness ultimately was fatal. As seen on the MRI of Candace Jenner, the virus apparently spreads into the brain like meningitis. It apparently infects synapses, mostly concentrating on those in the brain stem. It eventually causes the adrenal glands to hemorrhage and the brain to shutdown, all brain activity would cease, followed by the major organs and the body would be clinically dead: no measurable brain activity, no reflexes, and no respiration or pulse. A variable time later, the pathogen, through some means, would revive synapses it infected and reactivate the brainstem of the dead body, but only the brainstem and not the cerebrum or cerebellum.

The videogame Plague Inc gives the virus an official name: the Necroa Virus. The virus is a quickly evolving virus, probably first appearing as a nonthreatening yet symptom free cotangent. Within months, the virus evolves into more lethal symptoms, but they all share a similar trait no matter which symptoms occur. The plague enters the brain and begins to spread in the brain, damaging multiple regions of the brain until death finally occurs. However the brain does not lose mass and is physically intact in some vital regions that the plague will later use as a Zombie. After death the brain is reanimated and the Zombie is born. As the plague continues to evolve, the newer zombies are actually more decayed and physically damaged by the plague as its lethality overwhelms the human body much faster. Even the brain shows more damage in these final stages, and the skin and flesh show intensified rotting. It is implied by the images of the symptoms that a human will slowly appear with zombie-like traits, like discolored eyes, mental illness, early rotting or strained mouth jaws shortly before officially dying and becoming a zombie. In the game the virus begins with traits relating to insomnia and hyper salivation (a trait unique to this plague). Segmented genome is another unique trait, which makes the plague mutate slightly every time it spreads, increasing the chance of a radical mutation to occur. Psychosis also occurs, which causes the victim to have bursts of violence and hostility even before becoming a Zombie. The virus is capable of absorbing nutrients from the dead organs to energize a Zombie and even temporarily repair or heal damage, and can use enzymes to slow down the processes of decay. This allows Zombies to survive much longer than a typical reanimated corpse could. Zombie Hordes also use chemicals to create communication and sometimes even a social structure, where a 'Zombie Leader' determines where to travel to. But othertimes it can be simplified to having a Zombie follow other Zombies because mentally, the only thing they can do is mimic others and cannot function independently. Zombies can even 'hybernate' until prey arrives, this inactivity prevents the Zombie from damaging itself and decaying. Sometimes the plague will evolve the Zombie mentality, allowing them to strategize and ambush prey. Cranial metastasis is a highly evolved trait that allows Zombies to function even when decapitated as nerves and a psudeo-brain form inside the lungs while regenerative bio-synthesis can regenerate limbs and even removed heads.

Although rare; some Zombie Viruses have cures.

• Resident Evil 4 can remove the parasites within a host using laser surgery; but only in the early stages of the parasite's development.
• Dead Rising's Zombrex can suppress the virus temporarily, but only for those not already killed by the disease.
• Minecraft can completely reverse the Zombie Virus using Golden Apples.

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