- "Janson: “The Flare virus lives in every part of your body, yet it has no effect on you, nor will it ever. You’re a member of an extremely rare group of people. You’re immune to the Flare. On the outside, in the streets, they call people like you Munies, and they really, really hate you"."
- — Janson talking to Thomas about his immunity to the Flare, The Death Cure
Immunes, commonly referred to as "Munies", are people who are immune to the The Flare virus.
Biology[]
Immunes are humans who produce special enzymes from their brains that can gradually neutralize the virus overtime and give immunity to the side effects of the Flare. Most of the enzymes can only be found in humans under the age of twenty because the youngest has higher metabolism and immune systems than a regular adult. Mostly, young children's immune systems are still developing and learning to recognize and respond to the pathogen, making them exceptionally beneficial. According to Janson, about less than 1% of humanity are immune to the Flare Virus, which means there is a small percentage of humans have the ability to produce these special enzymes. It was these special enzymes that give WICKED the idea of creating the Maze Trials.
Stress can have a significant impact on the immune system, both positively and negatively to the Flare virus, and when an immune individual is under stress, the human body develops these enzymes to gradually break down the virus. WICKED leaders and scientists believed that if an immune individual is in a constant state of stress, the human body reacts quickly to produce the enzymes that are found in the brain cells, sterilizing the virus and break them to pieces. While the virus resides harmlessly inside the Immunes, the Immunes cannot spread the Flare to others, as shown by Thomas and the other test subjects, all of which were deliberately infected with the Flare long before the trials yet did not spread it.
History[]
When the Post-Flares Coalition released the Flare virus as a form of population control after the Sun Flares, the virus mutated, resulting in a majority of the population turning into cannibalistic savages who would be called Crank. As humanity was descending into chaos and dying from the virus, WICKED was formed to find a cure for the virus, and discovered that about 1% of the human population has developed immunity to the virus. To that end, they would search around the globe for any individuals, mostly children, who appear to be immune to the virus.
Despite that, the general population envied those who are immune to the Flare virus, as they would call them,"Munies", but they are considered very valuable. The Crank Palace in Denver was staffed by highly paid Immunes.
WICKED chooses to create the Maze Trials and separate them into two groups with Group A to be all boys and Group B to be all girls. The Maze was built in a giant labyrinth depending on the environment, guarded by monsters called Grievers. These extreme challenges would put the immune children to the edge, stressing them long and hard enough to make them develop the enzymes. In addition, there are some individuals amongst the groups who are not immune as placebo to keep experimenting the nocebo such as Newt, Winston, and Jackson.
In The Death Cure, many Immunes were captured by bounty hunters and sold to WICKED. The Right Arm was against this treatment of the Immunes because the children would be subjugated to undergo extreme stress to develop the enzymes for the cure. So, they saved a bunch of them as they can, including Thomas, Teresa, Minho, Aris, Brenda, and Jorge. They attempted to trick WICKED into allowing these Immunes into the headquarters, a plan which unfortunately failed, resulting in the destruction of WICKED and the Right Arm.
After Thomas rescued the Immunes holed up in the Maze, Chancellor Paige set up a backup plan should the Maze Trials fail to produce a effective cure: take the immunes through Flat Trans to the Safe Haven, where they are meant to live and repopulate the Earth, while the Flare-infected population dies off.
Known Immunes[]
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Gallery[]
