Talk:Captain Trips

message: Considering going into detail about the effects of the disease and the aftermath, but that's all covered in the Stand article. This goes into more detail about the disease itself.
:BTW, you can "sign" your talk posts by appending four tildes (~~~~) to your post; when you press "Save page", they will be replaced by your username in a handy Wikilinked format. A timestamp will also be automagically included.
:Atlant 14:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ch-ch-ch-changes... 

message: The double recessive gene theory, unfortunately, does not hold water. If it were that direct and simple a trait there would have been lots of people in both Boulder and Vegas with surviving siblings and other first degree relatives. For example, Harold Lauder's sister Amy would have had a 1 in 4 chance of being immune. Extend this over the thousands of refugees in both cities and surely sibling pairs would have been mentioned. If immunity is genetic, maybe it requires multiple genes to give immunity, thereby lowering the odds of siblings surviving? 
Or perhaps, it was a combination of the right genes and some environmental factor, like previous exposure to the original flu virus Captain Trips was developed from. This, however, seems unlikely since no particular age group seemed more likely to survive. Besides, siblings would often be exposed to the same viruses in the home.
It seems highly unlikely that whatever traits cause vivid dreaming would have an impact on influenza susceptibility, and remember our sample is definitely not random. The people we meet in the story are people who responded to the dreams from Mother Abigail and Randall Flagg. Those survivors who do not dream vividly and remember those dreams would simply have not responded. Instead of heading toward Boulder or Vegas and becoming part of the story, they would spend the length of the novel wandering Manhattan or Memphis or Minneapolis, oblivious to the passion play unfolding around them. 
Am I the only one, btw, who noticed the recurring motif of blood in the story? Several characters received lacerations shortly before having contact with another character early in the spreading phase. Nick was attacked along the side of the road before meeting the sheriff. Larry was hit by a one night stand's spatula before chatting with a cabbie. Frannie bit her tongue before rendezvousing with Jess. Perhaps you need genetic immunity and to have the flu introduced directly into the bloodstream via an open cut rather than by inhalation? This could also explain why it seemed to kill a whole lot more people than 99.4%. Perhaps that's the percentage of the population with the gene, but that does not guarantee you'll cut yourself shaving the morning you receive your first exposure.Nosimplehiway--Nosimplehiway 13:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If such a disease existed, it would kill not just those who died directly from the disease, but those that died in the social collapse that would have taken place. Those with partial immunity might have lived, had there been anyone around to help them. Many might have committed suicide, not knowing that they were immune. A child who was immune may well have had the bad fortune to have been immune from the disease, but died because there was no one to feed them. I suppose some might not have heard the call of either camp, and stayed where they were. There likely would have been isolated places never touched by the virus, Pitcairn Island could have been one. If the disease had a non-human vector, such populations might have to stay isolated forever.--RLent (talk) 20:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

text: While RLent's explanation is certainly plausible enough to maintain suspension of disbelief, I remarked on this as well when the discussion of Fran's baby's immunity was mentioned.  Out of the survivors where the status of family members is known, there was not a single genetically linked survivor anywhere - and all the examples I can think of from the novel explicitly died of Captain Trips.  Though King strongly implies that a divine/infernal influence picked the survivors, so maybe those who normally would have survived due to genetics were "Noah'ed" out to clear the way for the chosen few.  SalutationsWolfy (talk) 12:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genetic issue 

message: Is it a reference to something? Felicity4711 (talk) 13:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not too sure but I thought King said it was a Grateful Dead reference. I thought Jerry Garcia was known as Captain Trips. Could be wrong though.03:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Why Is It Called ‘Captain Trips’?

message: It's been quite a while since I read the book, so I don't recall what details King gave about the development of the virus, but he certainly didn't relate it to AIDS or "an AIDS-like illness." The book was written in 1978; the CDC first reported AIDS in June 1981, and didn't begin officially calling it that until the next year. I've removed this reference. Darguz Parsilvan (talk) 14:44, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In the collectors edition of the book, the two doctors in the Free Zone do make an analogy to AIDS while discussing the survival of Fran's baby near the end of the story.  I do not have the book in front of me for page number reference and exact quote, but it is something similar to "due to the fact that its antigens shift so rapidly, its more like AIDS than the standard flu," and is near the end of the book when Tom and Stu return to Boulder.  In this edition, King also retconned the story to occur in 1990 instead of 1985 and changed other pop culture references to match as well. SalutationsWolfy(talk) 14:44, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  AIDS reference 

message: Is it also possible that the flu spreads and kills like it does becsaue there is a supernatural aspect to it? Everybody keeps trying to find logical scientific explanations for Cpt. Tripps, but they seem to overlook the dreams, Flagg etc. It is a Stephen King novel. Perhaps the disease is just amped up a little thanks to some otherworld help? Thunderbuster (talk) 14:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supernatural Influence?