In Stephen King’s The Stand, the superflu virus is nicknamed Captain Trips.
Captain Trips is the informal name for the genetically engineered influenza virus that escapes from a secret military laboratory. The pathogen spreads rapidly and kills most of the world’s population, creating the devastated setting in which the novel’s survivors struggle to rebuild society.
The official strain is known as Project Blue, and its extreme contagiousness makes containment impossible. The nickname “Captain Trips” evokes the counterculture expression associated with the Grateful Dead, although the novel uses it as the virus’s popular name.
The Stand is not simply a disease-outbreak story. After the plague, survivors are drawn toward two opposing communities led by Mother Abagail and Randall Flagg. Their conflict gives the novel its religious and moral structure.