Ribegelain (Planet)

Virus wiped out most of the people on the planet, turning them into something vaguely resembling zombies.

Planet is mostly covered in city, one particular city houses the survivors, the remaining city is split ideologically between two factions, fighting could break out at any moment on the street, and already some gangs and the like have started fighting each other.

Technocracy vs Theocracy, differing opinions on starting to reclaim the world, Theocrats think the plague was a divine puishment and they shouldn't mess with it, Technologists want to reclaim.

Theocrats have radical sections that want to set the plague loose inside the city, to judge everyone. Many of the religious leaders are people who were exposed to the virus but weren't totally effected by it and are only partially mutated.

Technocrats, want to experiment with the plague, have rogue scientists who want to weaponize the plague in order to use it against other planets. Different sections of Technocrats are going after a cure for the plague, which is the big part of it.

Theocrats believe suffering is needed in order to overcome the plague.

Religious leaders who have been mutated by the plague have gained psionic powers, some of the religious leaders use it to help their people, many of the others use it to manipulate their congressions.

Plague has a "lifecycle" of turning most of the world, then cultivates a "meme" of devotion towards the plague and those who are infected and partially infected. The plague gives "spirtual experiences" as they begin to mutate. They are going to be like commanders, retaining some of their humanity.

Plague symptoms:

Plague spreads through physical touch. As you get infected, you grow spores than then spread from your skin. Spores growing in decaying corpses, that then blow away. Infection is controlled via spores and the like, has something of a collective sense, but more like a social insect, less like a formal hivemind typical of scifi settings.

Various versions:

-Speed infected, longer legs, run fast, touch a lot

-Big ball of limbs and infection rolling around

-Those who are just spewing spores

-Two people, joined at the hips/stomach walking around with four legs, for arms, connected by threads of infection

Infection came up about when the scream occured, technocrats are trying to preserve pre-scream technology, but in the scream most of the civilization was overwhelmed and infected. Now the technocrats are trying to get all of their technology back.

Series of outposts across the planet, which are capable of filtering out various spores. The one big city also has such a filtering system set up.

Instincts of the half-infected are to command the plague and to direct it a certain way. Those half way have something in their mind about if they should spread the plague or not and the urge. Infected feed on the hosts that have been infected, turning them into husks, until all of the biomass on the entire planet is spores.

See standing bodies, or skeletons, that are just covered in spores and consist entirely of spores.