Glowing Ones: Why and How
They look beautiful, don't they?
Lonely beacons of light in the darkness of the wasteland, those radiant guys were difficult to break down.
In definition, glowing ones āor "luminous necrotic post-humans" as the wiki states, despite them not being necrotic whatsoeverā are said to be "ghouls who have absorbed so much radiation that they emit a strong, green glow," and I could've taken the easy approach and agreed, but then I continued reading the wiki, and they presented me with this:
"The distinctive luminescence that is the trademark of the glowing one can be best attributed to an unusually high amount of radioactive material that builds up in the bloodstream and muscle tissue of a typical ghoul. Sometimes, upon the transformation into a feral ghoul, the neurological systems of the body cease filtering these particles from the blood and tissue, instead of causing them to build a distinctive bio-luminescence that is a characteristic of the glowing ones. In daylight, they simply appear to be incredibly pale feral ghouls, but in the darkness, they glow with a vivid yellow-green hue, their opaque skeletons clearly visible as in an x-ray."
...And I felt like I had to intervene.
Disclaimer: I get the green glow allegory for radioactive stuff, and I know making those ghouls glow was a design choice more than anything, but I like speculating and applying medical knowledge to daily life. I could also be wrong in my assumptions, and am always happy to be corrected when needed.
First of all, it's really not the "neurological system" (nervous system, I assume, because there's no such thing as neurological system) that "filters the blood and tissue" :") it's the organs from our immune system, like the spleen, lymph nodes and other glands. And as for the "radioactive material build-up," if there were solid radioactive particles in your blood stream I think you'd have to have injected them with a needle lol, because simple exposure to radiation wouldn't cause solid particles to infiltrate the human body.
Radiation damage to tissue is caused by, wait for it, the radiation in itself, the invisible waves that are emitted by a solid like radium or uranium (or graphite...). Fabrics, rough cement and some types of wood catch a lot of particles because of their structure, and they 'become radioactive' because of that, but our skin is not as favourable to this and taking a good shower would be enough to decontaminate us in some cases.
(chunk of radioactive material^)
If a person has breathed in a significant amount of radioactive dust (the literal meaning of fallout), however, then there would be deposits of said dust inside the lungs, and the radiation emitted from it would destroy the nearby tissue. Also, if a bomb fell somewhat close to you and you survived, chances are you're completely peppered by radioactive shrapnel, so...
Now that that's dealt with, let's move on!
The first thing that comes to mind when considering their glow, besides cartoony radioactivity, is bioluminescence. This is a living being's ability to emit light, and it is present in many species of algae, bacteria, sea creatures and even insects like fireflies and other beetles. It's the result of the activity of a very specific enzyme, and knowledge surrounding it is complicated, so for convenience's sake I'll say it's a product of a cell's metabolism, that can be triggered by specific circumstances.
(Look up Aequorea victoria, aka crystal jellyfish, they're very pretty)
Nowadays, some species of bacteria have been found to thrive in radioactive environments, processing substances and essentially using radiation as fuel. This has huge potential in leak-prevention and management of disaster sites like Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Imagine now, if you will, that there exists a type of bacteria in the Fallout universe that feeds off of radiation and responds with bioluminescence, shining constantly as long as there's a stable source of fuel for them. This would pretty much explain the glowing as a biofilm (visible bacterial colonies that stick to stuff, plaque on teeth for example) of that specific bacteria feeding off of radiation, with the shinier patches being a thicker film that grew above radioactive material deposits, or just areas in the body with higher radiation. This material could be a piece of shrapnel from the bombs, a chunk of uranium, or any other solid and long-lasting irradiated thing that got lodged into the ghoul's body.
The relationship between the ghoul and the bacteria in this case would be symbiotic (cooperation of organisms from different species that can't survive when separated) to a point or even just mutualistic (cooperation of organisms from different species that can survive when separated), because they continue glowing even after the ghoul's death. For those ghouls to be as long-living while glowing all the way, though, this bacteria's feeding process would have to be extremely slow, so that could be tied to this.
Tldr: glowing ones have radiation-eating, bioluminescent bacteria infestations as an added bonus to their ghoulishness.
And that settles it : ) hope ya liked it!
(P.S.: I have some other posts in this same vibe, in case you're interested ^^)
