Headscratchers / Oryx and Crake

• Crake's Plague, how effective was it? In O&C Jimmy seems to believe it is airborne and after activating would slowly kill through the human population. He locks out the MaddAddamites no doubt thinking they would get infected.
  • In YOTF we see Jimmy was clearly partially mistaken. As anyone who managed to be protected from other human beings and not taken BlyssPlus seem to have survived. However given that some of the others would have probably ran into the infected people along the way, I think it's safe to assume the plague was not actually airborne.
  • Could be contagious from being in contact with an eroding victim. As the only person who interacts with a diseased person in the series is Jimmy and he was immunized.
  • Katrina in the third book suggests the original pills were contact only spread, but there's no answer to what Crake did to differentiate them if any.
• Why didn't Jimmy tell anyone that he had a vaccine? A lot of people could have been saved.
  • The disease made people act violent and if he gone outside to deliver the vaccine they might killed him and destroy it. He also had the safety of Crakers to think about.
• Why did Crake kill Oryx?
  • I think it was probably out of jealousy and to incite Jimmy to kill him in retaliation.
• Why did Jimmy never make a sundile to determine what time it was?
  • He probably didn’t see any point in it.
• How old is Jimmy by the time the plague hits? In O&C he mentions that he spent four years at Martha Graham (presumably beginning at age 18) and then at least five years writing copy for Anoo Yoo, making him at least 27 or 28 by the time Crake brings him to Rejoov, and it seems like at least another year or two passes with Jimmy there, making him about 30 when the plague hits. Yet Ren in the second book says that she is always the same age as the God's Gardeners' year, and the pandemic takes place during GG Year 25, making Ren canonically 25 during YOTF, which runs concurrently to O&C. Yet Ren went to high school with Jimmy, which should make them no more than 4 years apart in age. So how old is Jimmy? Is this another case of Writers Cannot Do Math?
  • He's 27, or maybe 28. In addition to all of the above, Ren says in YOTF that Jimmy is two years ahead of her in school. Jimmy may have been at Rejoov for only a few months.