Chapter 47-1 The Lion's Den

[Grognaurd]

I had a lot of thoughts about the zombies always leaking a low level of gas and people nearby falling asleep, not sure that is going to hold up.

What I think Ink might have been doing is purifying gas out of the dead ones. Oxygen is a gas, it is in the air. Blood our blood cells absorb it and carry it through the body to the cells. If I take a pint of blood, I could purify the oxygen out of it and use it for something else. I wouldn't because I can get it out of the air more easily. Maybe Ink is doing something like that.

A closer example might be cyanide. Say some Jim jones style cult commits suicide with cyanide. It would be gross to liquefy the flesh and purify the cyanide to use it to make some new suicide capsules.

I think the little ones scratch themselves. Tanya describes what appears to be self inflicted wounds. Maybe they have only a little bit in their saliva, but a lot more in th blood. Scratch themselves to draw blood and deliver blood to the blood, instead of saliva to blood. If there is more gas in the blood, the scratched victim might get a higher dose of gas in this blood to blood contact.

[Grognaurd]

So, to summarize

Maybe a high amount of exposure makes special zombies, call them patient zeros.

If a special zombie bites someone, they pass a small dose to the next victim. call them patients one generation

Patient ones would only pass a small amount of what they got to create patient generation two.

Maybe unlike a cell phone, the higher the generation, the weaker they get.

Maybe the little ones are taught to deliver blood to blood and this reduces the rate of generation degradation. I base this on two obscure observations. (1) Tanya describes self inflicted wounds on the little one she autopsied. -- loading the finger nails with blood? (2) The only record we have of a survivor who might have survived a little one attack was Amy, she said do not worry, the tall skinny one just scratched me, it did not bite me, or something like that -- delivering blood from nails to the blood of the victim?

Maybe the gas is in the blood. Ink could suck the blood out infected bodies and concentrate it. If he got what he wanted, the gas held in the blood, he could just leave the rest of the corpses in "one big lump" as Riley describes it.

Ink might purify the gas out of the dead and concentrate it. Then using a higher dose he might be able to make special ones.

[Eviebae]

I think the little ones scratch themselves. Tanya describes what appears to be self inflicted wounds.

I forgot about that!

You make some interesting points; how much of the haze does it take to make a zombie and if it's not something reproducing in the bloodstream why doesn't it peter out through spreading/diffusion at some point. On the other hand, if you only need a tiny bit why didn't Victor and Pegs change when they breathed it in (CJ said the haze had been known to change people)? Maybe it requires direct access to the blood? The first victims were all cut up from what I think were the explosions.

Ink may have been an insane genius, but was he a super mastermind kind of genius? For instance, did Ink make the first of the different types or did he see differences in the first wave of zombies that he was able to attribute to the chemicals they'd been using?

It's so tempting to think he knew all about it because of how he came out on top in what would otherwise be super-random ways.

[Grognaurd]

I do not know for sure, but I do have a strong difference of opinion on the "accepted" timeline the community has generated. It has the encounter of Saul, Burt and Lizzy at the tanker farm close to the arena incident. I put this much closer to the initial outbreak. I do this for several reasons

I do not think the power grid would last that long unattended
Lizzy is still not sure of Saul's name
Lady is alive, those food and water disperses are for a few days, maybe a week, not more than a month
When Kelly is looking for stolen items in Lizzy's room, she rattles the sweat jars and Lizzy says, hey, that is like three weeks worth of work
So, if this occurs a week or so into the outbreak, that means Durai was planning on firebombing something that early in the story. (1) He firebombs Ink, was Durai already gunning for Ink a week after the outbreak? Latch and Scratch seem to have no fear of normal biters, Bricks even says he is not, but he is afraid of the special ones...


Edit: the reason Saul is able to take Lizzy is that Angels is still banged up from the Burt Rescue. Way more than a month is a long time to be laid up with an ankle sprang. In addition, he goes on the Water Works mission without hesitation and never references any miscomfort. So, putting the tanker mission close to the Burt rescue gives Angel a sprang ankle and gives a few weeks to heel ( pun ) for the water works.
(1) Scratch and Latch discuss that Durai already has plans for all those tankers and that is why they are so anxious in getting them back after meeting Saul, Lizzy and Burt...

[7oddisdead]

Good stuff folks.

just throwing this out there, what if part of the bodies changes once you've turned, happens in order to facilitate the "growth" of whatever the haze is. Think incubator..in that regard, the haze will kill us all(eventually, all sides). Perhaps ink is -again- hoping to prolong his life.

[Grognaurd]

Good stuff folks.

just throwing this out there, what if part of the bodies changes once you've turned, happens in order to facilitate the "growth" of whatever the haze is. Think incubator..in that regard, the haze will kill us all(eventually, all sides). Perhaps ink is -again- hoping to prolong his life.

I do not know what to think about Ink's motivations, but I am struck by Ink's fear of death we hear in Chapter 47 with one of the first things we hear in Chapter 1.

"I did not fear death or what might be there on the other side..."

I do not think Michael feels that way now. He wants to live. Will they reach common ground or has/will Ink changed his position?

[Storm]

I do not know what to think about Ink's motivations, but I am struck by Ink's fear of death we hear in Chapter 47 with one of the first things we hear in Chapter 1.

"I did not fear death or what might be there on the other side..."

I do not think Michael feels that way now. He wants to live. Will they reach common ground or has/will Ink changed his position?

That line's been the same through most of the series even... 'I didn't fear death or what might be there on the other side if today was my last day, but that was then and this is now.'
Remember how the 'This is now'-part was just kinda gone when he said it in the beginning of this season? I have a feeling that's somewhat important...

[lloyd]

exactly!!!! paint KODI up with the protection symbol and then sit him out in the open and yell "HELP!!! HELP ME!!!!" on the Radio........ Sit back and watch the Zombies come running up for a snack and then stop when they see the symbol....... then when they walk off yell Help again so they run back and forth....... just keep doing that until their heads explode from confusion!!! :DI am thinking coat KODI with the mass amount of guts that covered the back of the truck in addition to the protection symbol, pray there aren't any smart ones and have Saul get KODI deep in the tunnels & blow that place up.

[Eviebae]

Coat everything with the symbols that keep them from attacking because Ink couldn't teach them to disregard them without losing his control via the tattoos
.

[Gooer]

Coat everything with the symbols that keep them from attacking because Ink couldn't teach them to disregard them without losing his control via the tattoos
.

Something tells me that it wouldn't work; I feel the smart ones would be able to see through it, like Randy did with MVS and the sweat....

[7oddisdead]

Serious question...how many "smart" ones are there? To my knowledge there's only Randy and ink. I'm sure there's more we don't hear about...but...yea...

[clem131]

Here's some random thoughts. Hope no one minds.

"Lion's Den" reminds me of the biblical story "Daniel and the lions den". Lions don't attack Daniel in the story. So maybe Saul goes back in to the zombie-hole (with a bomb or just to recon) sometime before this chapter ends. Makes sense to me.

Also who is smart enough to deduce the ultimate cause of the outbreak? The only person I can think of is maybe Ink (maybe via a journal or notes). So there is a chance that the root cause of the zombies is one of the mysteries that's left at the end. But Ink's actions looks like they'll be fully explained.

Ink...A Story of Survival.

I am late to the forum since I was on vacation for a week (it rained all the time), but I haven't seen it mentioned yet: it is also a quote from Riley, when Angel, Datu and her start following the trackers on foot right after losing Michael at the waterworks: she says something like "we kept going forward, deep into the lion's den".

[Witch_Doctor]

Serious question...how many "smart" ones are there? To my knowledge there's only Randy and ink. I'm sure there's more we don't hear about...but...yea...

Until this last chapter, I was beginning to think that ONLY smarts ones were left. How else could they all follow directions to dig tunnels and hide dirt inside of buildings. But now it looks like the sweat-switchammaroo only works on the run-of-the-mill zombies (per Saul) Of course Saul could have been mistaken, but at this point, I've stopped second guessing what the characters discover/reveal in the story.

[Witch_Doctor]

I am late to the forum since I was on vacation for a week (it rained all the time), but I haven't seen it mentioned yet: it is also a quote from Riley, when Angel, Datu and her start following the trackers on foot right after losing Michael at the waterworks: she says something like "we kept going forward, deep into the lion's den".

Chapter 8 part 3 around 17:00+.
Good recall.

[Grognaurd]

Until this last chapter, I was beginning to think that ONLY smarts ones were left. How else could they all follow directions to dig tunnels and hide dirt inside of buildings. But now it looks like the sweat-switchammaroo only works on the run-of-the-mill zombies (per Saul) Of course Saul could have been mistaken, but at this point, I've stopped second guessing what the characters discover/reveal in the story.

I am like WD in this regard. I guess the question is how do we define smart one? Intelligence is not binary. If it just smarter than the Romero Shambler, I think they all are, but at Ink's level, not so much.

[Storm]

I am late to the forum since I was on vacation for a week (it rained all the time), but I haven't seen it mentioned yet: it is also a quote from Riley, when Angel, Datu and her start following the trackers on foot right after losing Michael at the waterworks: she says something like "we kept going forward, deep into the lion's den".

From the end of chapter 8:
Riley (V.O.): "Looking back I don't know why I changed my mind to go with him, maybe I felt sorry for him having to go through so much pain and los in one day. I knew that going with him was going to be a mistake, but we continued behind him anyway. We headed on foot, down the road, deeper into the lion's den."
I'd totally forgotten that... So yay... Thanks for the reminder ^^

[Witch_Doctor]

http://www.zombiepodcast.com/forum/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Litmaster http://www.zombiepodcast.com/forum/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.zombiepodcast.com/forum/showthread.php?p=77668#post77668)

Um, Saul.... Angel.... Hope.... ? I don't recall a St. Bixby in the Bible. Wait- could Gatekeeper be a reference to St. Peter at the pearly gates??!?

Sorry dude, but I think you are

http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.8844975.2236/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg
LOOKING FOR SOMETHING THAT JUST ISN'T THERE


It's there, it just might not mean anything important to KC in terms of the story. Maybe it's there because people used to use names from the bible in naming their kids, or certain concepts are deeply imbedded in our culture. There's always Jung.

And the title of the chapter IS The Lion's Den.

[clem131]

Ok, I know I am now SUPERLATE, but as I mentioned I wasn't here, then listened to the episode on the plane back from vacation, blablabla, anyway:
I am stuck on part of Tanya's reconstruction of past events. Briefly: Ink is not turned, then he gets attacked. The biters grab his arm through the window of the police truck he was in, and don't see the protection symbol he has on his face because the windows are probably very small or narrow. He is bitten and he turns.
So, from now on, when he leaves the truck, there's no surprise the biters don't attack him. He's one of them.
At this stage there is still plenty of humans around, they are certainly not starving and not eating each other, this is the initial bloody phase where most of the human population is wiped out.
So I don't get this passage: why does he embark on a project to find out which symbol did protect him when in fact he wasn't protected at all?

There's the possibility that Tanya got it wrong, that he did not turn (after all we only have low quality security footage to assess that) and he in fact improved himself using the same substances he used on zombies. I don't buy it, though: we have so many clues that he is a zombie as well, and Tanya's sequence this episode was clearly meant to be "Tanya's fun explanation hour". It would be a cheap and bland use of the unreliable narrator. So I believe he was turned, which means for all he knows the protection symbols didn't work.