The Walking Dead companion series Fear The Walking Dead has been highly touted as a show that will take us to the start of the zombie outbreak in the United States. Set in Los Angeles during the period when Rick Grimes is stuck in a coma on The Walking Dead, Fear will give us insights into how humanity began to lose its footing. However, this week, showrunner Dave Erickson revealed there’s one thing the series won’t show us: the origins of the outbreak.

One of the sticking points with The Walking Dead franchise is that we’ve never known why zombies have become a thing in the modern world. But Erickson says the show tinkered with the possibility of revealing that piece of the mythology to fans and decided it didn’t matter.

I had a couple of early pitches that touched on that and Robert shut me down. For him, it's never been about what caused it; it's always been about the impact it has on people.

In a recent interview, the showrunner also elaborated on this concept a little more to THR when he explains that part of the reason this lack of information works is because of the characters and stories Fear The Walking Dead has chosen to follow. Here’s what he had to say to the outlet.

We definitely will not see politicians and generals trying to coordinate and figure out what this is. It's not World War Z. These are folks that are people you would see on the street on any given moment. People that we know. Teachers, guidance counselors, wannabe nurses, aspiring nurses.

Although I’d hardly qualify teachers and nurses as “blue collar work,” his point is clear. The people we will see in Fear The Walking dead are regular people, working class families who are just thrust into the situation with the walkers with no special insight other than what has been brought up on the local news. Most of us are average people, and most of us would be in a similar situation if an outbreak or pandemic like this did break out rapidly.

We’ve been hearing about and waiting for Fear The Walking Dead for quite some time, now, but the wait is almost over. The new AMC series will hit the schedule this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, in The Walking Dead’s regular timeslot. If you’d like to be prepared, you can check out our review, the first three minutes of footage or everything else we know about the upcoming drama.