Contrary to its own name, the nether wastes are not the wasted remains of some other biome in the nether. In fact, that used to be what the entire nether looked like.
Humid rather than dry, the nether used to be a lot like a desert. Though inhabitable by most living things, especially any player, it wasn’t devoid of life. Even before the half dead pig men roaming its barren landscape, before the ghasts floating above and resting in the pools of lava below, and far before the ancient builders ever created blazes or left their charred and fossilized remains, the nether was still teaming with life. Not animal nor plant, mold and fungi has always ruled over the nether.
Their network of mycelium ran deep into the rack, making it chalky and brittle, much like mushroom starters you can find today. Easy enough to break with your hands, it turns to a powder, blowing the spores from the barely visible fruiting body of the mold with the incredibly harsh winds.
While nobody really knows the true origin of all life in the nether, or even who touched the dimension first (this is a hotly debated topic with enderfolk) we do know that the crimson and warped fungus we see today was not originally created in the nether. The brown and red mushrooms you can find in places like dark oak forests are a product of the nether.
The link between netherrack, nylium, mycelium, and basalt is still not entirely explained, though we know that the nether is highly radioactive. This does seem to imply the nether wastes are a product of this, but that is fortunately not the case, as the wastes are one of the safest places in all of the nether. The end is much the same, with its electrified air and similar levels of radioactive properties, which is likely why enderfolk are more likely to live in the warped forests, as they’re seemingly unaffected by (or even immune to) most forms of radiation.
We do, however, know the deltas are the centerpoint of all of this, with the highest concentration of radioactivity in the nether, and are much more wasteland-like compared to the actual nether wastes.
Now with far more fauna than ever before, the spores of crimson and warped fungus have no problem transferring their spores. While the larger, and far more radioactive, spores will attach themselves to the spiny hair of a hoglin or piglin, the mold itself still lives in the rack, and they both coexist just fine.
This is also likely the cause of the zombification, rather than being a virus transferred through the air or saliva, the spores of warped fungi latch themselves to a living host and behave much like a form of cordyceps. It sits dormant in the host until their body goes below a certain temperature. It could be when the host dies and is no longer producing heat, but it could take over a living host in colder places in the nether. That being higher above the lava, the nether roof, the overworld, and warped forests themself in some rare cases. Hoglins are naturally afraid of warped fungus for this reason. You’ll often see living piglins run away in fear of the zombified piglins, but they’re likely already infected and already producing spores as there is no negative effects at such a high temperature.
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