crackpot theories and thoughts

So with all the speculation on who's the rat, and what happened at ground zero. I figured why not create a space to truly let your mind wander. Frankly, with such a diverse storyline as this has become, I'm finding it very hard to keep with the facts of what we know within the storyline. My creative brain simply wants to make shit up...(!) so here we go lets take a few facts and create some fiction....


riley did in fact know pippen, she and her girlfriend were camping with him in the canyons ( she is a pro archer,and quite outdoorsy ) when the mallers took Pippin and her girlfriend riley was the one that got away..she made contact before the party and was told if she wanted to ever see her girlfriend again to make contact at the best opportunity,which happened to be the party...now when pippin, a person specifically sent because of that connection...shows up at the tower...she knew what to do..

so there's one, feel free to rip that to shreds or, better yet elaborate on it...ill throw some more out there later.....:zombie:

Assumption:
Thief == Rat == Shooter

If this is true, we can eliminate most of the cast. Most were invollved in the Arena while the theft occurred.

Pegs
Kelley
Lizzy -- Although she was not at the Arena, she was not in the tower at the time of the shooting
Steven -- less fullfilling. We have no mystery to solve regarding Theif and Rat, because no actions of Steven can be parsed
Red Shirt -- Even worse than above.


Here is my twist that I have not seen on the forum.

Pegs does not do Guard Duty, because she will not use a gun. SO, she gets double duty in her Garden. If Pegs has never done guard duty before the colony, why would she all of sudden be placed in the rotation?

It is some people's Nature to Talk. Not taking is pure torture. Guard duty is a solo activity. No one to talk to unless one has a radio... 8 ). So, I can see Kelley chatting on the radio. But, as long as I am spreading it, I might as well spread it deep.

1) Although Pippen knows there was a rat. He may not have any idea who it is. If the contact was always over the radio, the mallers may have no idea what the rat looks like. So, it blows Pippen's mind that the person who was so warm and friendly is in fact the rat and about to shoot him.

2) The Mallers did not know Pegs' voice, right? The identifications of people were done by voice. So, if Pegs is never on guard duty they would never hear her voice. This is not as much as a stretch as one may initially think. Imagine the rat in the guard room chatting. Someone else comes to the guard room. The rat better shut the hell up. But, there is a huge risk that the mallers may something over the radio. How does one prevent this? Keep the microphone keyed. If the radio is sending it is not going to recieve. If the radio is sending. Then all the voices in the room are sent to the mallers. The rat says something like Oh, Burt, What are you doing here, your shift is... Blah blah blah. The use of anothers name indicates the rat is no longer alone and it is not safe to speak down.

Art, way out on that flag pole...

love the "voice recognition" theory arthur..and that something we havent thought about when it comes to the rat/shooter....so how bout one for the rat is not the shooter?


pegs as the shooter

at the point right before pippins arrival at the tower, kalani had probly already tapped pegs as the second pilot. so pegs already has the weight of that responsiblity on her head, more on that in a sec..so we know that scratch has on excellent ability to remember faces correct? what if pippen was sent to the tower specifically to remind pegs that she is a dead woman, its only a matter of time..pegs would have been described to pippin in physical detail..as thats all scratch really knows of her. so with pippens arraival and the weight of flying the second chopper on her mind....the newly steely cold pegs takes matters into her own hands and takes pippen out....she easily could have had access to the barretta, and to be honest....i believe michael would cover for her....and the twist
their never was a rat durin the war only bill stealing shit, and some red shirt (or kalani) who was on duty prior to tommy checked channel 18....the general use trucker channel and of coarse the mallers were already listening in and they woud also have known what the last freq. used was that way...(that last part is biiiig stretch, but whatev)

art imitates life/life imitates art

so in the beginning, probly quite a while before we come into chapter one, we have ink. mr roberts has quite the group of followers on the internet. friends, associates, ex-coworkers, etc..all of which have one thing in common, zombie apocalypse. how to prepare for it, where to best hold up, all the things we all scheme about and discuss when we just watched that latest movie and see all the terrible plotholes. but,in addition to this he also has friends on the bio industry, one in particular mentions that the head of the bio-engineering dept. may have just stumbled onto the actual virus. THE virus..this of coarse peaks the interest of our antagonist. come to find out a few simple combinations of virus's when exposed to x ray radiation bursts begin to mutate, and mutate and mutate....until you are left with a virus that is as much electicity as it is a cell tissue chop shop so to speak. the spark reanimates the brain, and the brain sends the signal to the shop to build it the best machine it can with whats available....and so long as theres a spark...it will continue to produce

now among the friends of ink there are several he shares this info with. the concensus among them is "if we could actually make this happen, why wouldnt we?" and so a plan is hatched

after some considerable footwork by our bio friend, who happens to work at raydon labs...(!) he acquires the info and numerous samples of the virus. said virus's are sent piece by pieces to our conspirators around the globe. a plan is assembled for the construction of radioactive carbombs that give off a x-ray like flash...(NOTE; i seriously have no idea how this would work, but to fit into this theory i needed radiation presence and x-ray waves to penatrate the skin of the victims). so a simple method of spreading the virus.... be it spread on some rose bushes, to wafted around a crowded shopping center. to dumped into a public water fountain and the virus is spread..but it remains dormant until its exposed to radioactivity,just a nasty flu like virus......que the car bombs....wired to a cell phone...with one phone number on speed dial. the looney bin...

now good ol bill roberts had a little plan up his sleeve, see having around a hundred people across the globe eating out of the palm of your hand is quite the feeling.. a zombie apocalyse is going to put a serious damper on this situation. so if you cant beat em join em right? better yet. lead them.. millions at your beck and call..can you imagine ?
and jus to throw the real twist on all this...skittles was the head of bio-engineering..... he created the virus.....and the place where all of these people who schemed this entire thing first met and started it all......a zombie poscast forum.....


way out there?

I don't know if this is the correct place to ask this question but I will ask it here. The first part of episode 1 starts as if Michael is writing his journal. Has the story moved past this point or is the story still in Michael's past?

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Originally Posted by trubkir

I don't know if this is the correct place to ask this question but I will ask it here. The first part of episode 1 starts as if Michael is writing his journal. Has the story moved past this point or is the story still in Michael's past?

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We have no godly idea. We probably won't know until either the narration stops and we are told that the journals are done, or the series ends.

Well more with the crackpot theories theme. Why is there such a "Geneva Convention" attitude towards dealing with the zombies. I am sure people with combat experience like Michael, Saul and Burt could come up with some dastardly gravity type traps, IED's and so forth to protect the tower. I know they are dealing with a bunch of civilians but the term civilian would no longer exist in my opinion. The lookout structure is totally wrong. There should have been lookouts assigned to watch adjacent rooftops because that is just sound strategy. That way hopefully a "smart" zombie wouldn't be able to assess the tower without having to at least dodge some bullets.

It is hard to write intelligent victims.

A good defense in depth with long rifles against an enemy with a limited attack range of three feet and roughly animal cunning intelligence could be pretty dull.

But, we have not seen many attacks. The first occurred pretty early. Then, basically a stealth fighter. Mallers may have triggered any traps before Michael goes all Vercingetorix and calls the zombies to put a ring of attackers around the ring of attackers.

So I've been having a slow week at work. And I decided to restart the series from the beginning..one of the first purposes for this was to look at the different angles one could take when trying to put theories together...but my focus quickly changed to something a bit more outlandish and...fun

before I get to far into this. Let me say; I don't believe this to be what is happening, its simply a fun way to relisten to the series and get a different "perspective" on the whole thing.....
Michael is in a coma, this entire story is in his head. We are listening to him write it down afterwards.....
there's quite a few Easter eggs in the story that would support this as a theory, but its just way to crazy to think its the case....makes for an interesting listen though

One thing that won't get out of my head in regards to the journals is that for now EVERYTHING we have heard has been from one persons journal or the other... but how reliable are the journals? someone else mentioned (in another thread) that if you want to keep something secret you'd just lie in the journal. As we are essentially listening not to the past but to the interpretations of the past dramatized as based on the journal entries, certain elements we've heard/witnessed could have been fictionalized. What really happened to Datu? we don't know. Did he and kalani form a pact while in the clutches of ink? are they working for him? Unlikely. but as we only have the fallible journals to go on, anything is possible when noone else was around to witness it.

/\ This was my thought behind the prediction of mine that Nik used in the chapter predictions...right now we have Tanya transferring the journals to some form of digital media..if there is any difference between any stories "From the field" she should pick up on it...im thinking more along the lines of someone not having a journal altogether...during my relisten I still have yet to hear any narration from riley or Kalani from a "journal-like" perspective...when both have had the opportunity to give such stories...

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Originally Posted by 70DDISDEAD

/\ This was my thought behind the prediction of mine that Nik used in the chapter predictions...right now we have Tanya transferring the journals to some form of digital media..if there is any difference between any stories "From the field" she should pick up on it...im thinking more along the lines of someone not having a journal altogether...during my relisten I still have yet to hear any narration from riley or Kalani from a "journal-like" perspective...when both have had the opportunity to give such stories...

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That would certainly lend credence to the 'riley is the rat' theory... wow the rumors are really stacking up against her!

Exactly. . Though I dunno. It seems everybody has a small part that could point fingers at them...

It'd be interesting to see if kc would change things if anyone got too close, or if he's just going to let it run it's course no matter if the arc is properly guessed or not.

Well damn....chapter 8 part one opens with exposition from riley...so that blows the journal theory a bit.....but riley does mention that SHE has a baretta as well...hmmmm...and man, is she a drunkard....

so I'm on probly my fourth re-listen of season one...without taking the time to site specific examples..there seems something a bit strange about the overall storyline..at times people appear to know more about their fellow tower residents then they should..everyone in some way or another has something incriminating in their past...i guess the point to this little rant/ thought is, we first heard of sauls mom way back in chapter five...we then meet her late into season two. So how many random things that have been said in passing, that we have "perked our ears" to have yet to come to fruition?...couple big things I noticed tonight.

when cleaning up after the first break in of the lobby, datu comments about cleaning up the bodies..." I've had to clean up worse"
when cleaning up after the flowerpot incident, Kelly comments that datu should be used to lifting heavy things..datu replies "what's that supposed to mean?" to me, I took this as she was directly incriminating him...as if she knew he had done this before, pre-outbreak....

another thing to consider is datu came to the states when his brother found him a job over here...would a simple maintance man at an apartment building be job to move all the way to America for? (Perhaps it is...im a bit out of the loop on worldly lifestyles)

I'm not trying to say anything one way or the other about datu, just sighting examples of possible things we could come back to.....todd out

Random 7houghts. 6-20

Hhhmmmm a little light reading
HTTP://stereoscopicmicroscopy.com/ants.html

how many things sound familar?

Little more reading for ya.....while I build some theories

HTTP://news.mongabay.com/2011/0302-h...cordyceps.html

very interesting...

And in keeping with the theme

HTTP://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/formic_acid

Human reaction includes nausea,choking,and swelling of throat..

I thought the reason that I considered the subsonics? I will have to check again. I got the impression that they used Scott packs or SCUBA gear and were suit affected. Even a standard vapor mask with activated charcoal should stop this.

But it is a nice tight idea and I may have my facts wrong.

Arthur
since you seem to be the only one who is willing to comment on my running rant/blog/thread of interesting(read:nutty) ideas. Here is my take on subsonics

Subsonics would require such a large level of equipment, that I don't see how it would be a viable option within this story...just from the equipment I have..2 15" subs on 2800 actual watts in an SUV. The sound produced from that at say 6hz..the tones low enough to be inaudible produce ZERO sound, but additionally,produce no I'll affects to myself or anyone else for that matter. In researching infrasonic waves, the primary causes were found in LARGE industrial ventilation ducting and surprisingly enough wind power turbines found in cal. And Arizona.. Also a thing to note is, if it were a sub or infrasonic weapon..with the amount of time that has passed. Large structures would be destroyed from the sonic impact..this may or may not be visually noticable....

The acoustical weapon may be a viable option, as tones produced by them are typically above the 2.5 khz range. This is damn near out if the range of human hearing. But,two things would need to occur to get the reaction we saw in victor and pegs; either one hell of a big weapon or they were pretty damn close to it.

And I'm working on the formic acid idea..to many things add up when you start looking at the behaviors of ants..to me its as if the entire story...the zoms the tower the colony the mallers...us as a forum...all of it fits when you view it(and us) as merely ants....todd out

I think Victor is a spy for the gatekeeper

Possible Reasons For This

1 He didn't drink the soup

2 He bust into the house Pegs was been kept in just because there was loud music playing

3 Weird the way he was asking about Michael and Pegs relationship (Trying to find out if she could be used as leverage)

so a somewhat lesser liked thought around here has been kalani and datu working together as dual rats. Here's some thoughts on that

kalani being from Hawaii. He would have a better idea of the state if the virus in the Philippines . Not a clear answer no, but he could certainly tell datu what he needed to hear. Datu has made more than a couple mentions of his children so I'm sure at least knowing what happened to them is on his mind

after the war, those two were the most adamant about leaving the tower. Speculation or not, I still say kalani knew of the lax chooper the whole time, and datu would be the proper person to bring along to fix it

If kalani were somehow associated with the mallers, pippin would have recognized him, kalani stayed quite distant from that entire situation. Meanwhile, datu would have been able to inform him of what's going on.

the scenario I've made in my head goes like this...while kalani is in with Michael. Datu prepares for the shooting, as kalani leaves the room, datu waits for him to get a ways down the stairs then cuts the wire, angel runs out...take out pippin. Catch up with kalani..bam...appears to anyone else as if they are leaving together.
Reason. For shooting the radio? Kalani tell him if anyone sees you, take them out. Of coarse datu cannot kill hope so instead he shoots the radio, so kalani won't know he failed in that...
the thing That got me to thinking about this was when they began working on the chopper kalani says " oh you found some tools?"... Now I'm no idiot,and I realize maintence ma. Tools are not going to be the best for working on a helicopter, but this could be a simple piece of dialogue to clue us in on something bigger..

Well that's my fiction for the evening..i highly doubt this is remotely close to what will come to pass. But,,its an interesting take on it

so I have been puzzling, like most over skittles and how he could possibly fit into the story. What we do know is he like his loner status, seems a bit traumatized the current state of the world (so to say), and he watched his friends be eaten. That's about all the backstory we have....fiction time

many people who commit terrible crimes are given tests to judge their mental stability at the time of the crime. The question we should ask is, what could someone like skittles actually be capable of....at our first meeting he seemed a total lost cause, mind completely gone. But, in the second meeting in the watertower,at times the inflection in his voice seemed vaguely sinister..what I'm proposing is this:

could skittles actually have been an eastern bay resident? Perhaps one in a solitary confinement type situation...at first,getting together with a faction of the other prisoners that were not a part of durais group. He would have been happy to be with others,ANY others at that point..then when his group was attacked his natural instinct of self preservation and "hiding in a hole" would have kicked in...at that point he would also acknowledge that he is destined to be alone for the rest of his days, that all people he comes into contact with are simply destined to be eaten...the mind can shape its own reality when its been left on its own for so long, also one who has been in situations like solitary confinement, be it prison or self imposed isolation have INSANE powers of observation....i dunno...i seem to be rambling at this point...perhaps I'm just describing myself at this point. But, the point is

skittles...the nice guy who went off the deep end and did something real bad...maybe?

I am seeing accusations of Pegs on here. I would like to take a moment to explain why I don't she is the rat or shooter.

1) She owned a flowershop. Her career would have little opportunites to ever tie her in with the people like Mallers. While there are people at the tower who's careers are more likely to have associated them with criminals. Such as Kelly, she was a lawyer.

2) She can't handle a gun. And more than that, shooting a gun. She has terrible nightmares and cries that she had to kill a man that was about to murder both her and Michael. It would be impossible for her to murder a man that posed no immediate threat to her like Pippin. With her personality, we would be able to tell a major change in behaviour from her if she were to kill another person.

3) And I don't see any advantage to her being the rat. She has been relying on others in the tower for comfort, support, and safety the entire time. She would not be able to survive alone in the zombie world, or with the mallers, and she knows it. Also, she is in love with Michael. I don't think Pegs could give up the relationship she has with Michael, when such a thing is rare in that world, and ten times more valuable.

Creem

1: Agreed

2:agreed

3:Agreed

I'm simply exploring ideas here, not popular ideas mind you. But ideas none the less...i personally agree with everything you said.
Pegs the rat? That's just nutty....;)

Don't know if this one has appeared yet but does anyone else think that maybe Pippin's accent was 'bad' because there is actually the real Pippin out there somewhere? Love the idea that Michael and the others will be in one of the choppers (crashed) and some guy turns up and saves them. They are grateful but that changes when Michael realizes that he recognizes the guy but is not sure where from. They think he's a maller and then he tells them: "My name is Pippin!"
Would love there to be a Pippin 2.0 with a 'real' accent!

I had some interesting little notes I made along the way while relistening to WA for the ... time. I just thought they were worth mentioning and don't necessarily always add to or take a way from a theory. Anywho, scope out my notes, let me show you them:

5-1 - First time we hear the "command call" from a zombie leader?
7-1 - Riley says Bill keeps yelling at Datu to connect his breaker box to the generator to watch movies, a sign that he was indeed hording supplies via the elevator?
10-1 -Angel says the line "Just follow your nose," which is funny considering that later his callsign becomes Toucan
10-3 -There is a rhythmic cheering/stomping/clapping as the one with markings kills Samantha
11-1 -Kelly told Pegs about the break in at Riley's shop; also Kelly is part of the search for stolen goods; and Tommy was left in charge of the shop during Riley's abscense to Kelly may have had access to the keys. Did she assist Bill with the hording?

Those are just a few little things I jotted down. As you can see, nothing amazing but I thought they were interesting tidbits. Hope they get some gears turning or seem interesting.

Minor points, but we hear command calls sooner and more often then that. Before they retreat to the arms locker, there is a command call. When they first have Burt and take back the tower. One starts a command call and is killed before it completes.

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Originally Posted by Arthur LaMarche

Minor points, but we hear command calls sooner and more often then that. Before they retreat to the arms locker, there is a command call. When they first have Burt and take back the tower. One starts a command call and is killed before it completes.

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Good job! I guess I have selective hearing.

Another interesting little tidbit:

12-2 - has Epic Meal Time music, which leads me to believe the biters are former Youtube celebs who just want to eat bacons strips, and bacon strips, and bacon strips...MORE BACON STRIPS!

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Originally Posted by Adventureless_Hero

12-2 - has Epic Meal Time music, which leads me to believe the biters are former Youtube celebs who just want to eat bacons strips, and bacon strips, and bacon strips...MORE BACON STRIPS!

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Bwahahaha! I'm going to have to relisten to THAT episode soon! :-P

It strikes me as funny the dynamic differences of opinion on certain characters. Most of us seem to latch hold of one character or another and that is "our guy"(or girl).. But one questions why? What draws us to these specific people? For me its burt. In burts character I can see aspects if myself, my father, and most importantly my grandfather. If we all were to stop and think about it, the characters we enjoy the most are not actually the characters we are presented with. Instead they are the people we could see them being. Their the friends, the fathers,sisters, lovers, lovers that do not exist in some cases. I find it interesting just how diverse the cast KC has given us has become. Certainly when you start to consider the people we have grown to hate...which are few but the feelings toward them are very strong..ive said this before. And I'll say this again, from a story as a whole standpoint, view this entire thing as a dream in Michaels head...with no influence of your own personal feelings. Then, Tell me if you feel the same way..

Well enough rambling....todd out

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Originally Posted by 7oddisdead

It strikes me as funny the dynamic differences of opinion on certain characters. Most of us seem to latch hold of one character or another and that is "our guy"(or girl).. But one questions why? What draws us to these specific people? For me its burt. In burts character I can see aspects if myself, my father, and most importantly my grandfather. If we all were to stop and think about it, the characters we enjoy the most are not actually the characters we are presented with. Instead they are the people we could see them being. Their the friends, the fathers,sisters, lovers, lovers that do not exist in some cases. I find it interesting just how diverse the cast KC has given us has become. Certainly when you start to consider the people we have grown to hate...which are few but the feelings toward them are very strong..ive said this before. And I'll say this again, from a story as a whole standpoint, view this entire thing as a dream in Michaels head...with no influence of your own personal feelings. Then, Tell me if you feel the same way..

Well enough rambling....todd out

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I see what your saying. And agree. If I haven't made in obvious in a lot of my posts, I love Pegs. I think we latch on because we can relate with those characters the best. And since KC has created such a diverse group of characters, there is someone for everyone. And once there is a character you begin to relate to you, you feel really protective of them.

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Originally Posted by Creem_Filling

I see what your saying. And agree. If I haven't made in obvious in a lot of my posts, I love Pegs. I think we latch on because we can relate with those characters the best. And since KC has created such a diverse group of characters, there is someone for everyone. And once there is a character you begin to relate to you, you feel really protective of them.

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Oh dear. My favs are scratch and skittles... What on earth does that say about my ability to relate. *shudders*

the latest in things to occur to me is, how many generals? What we know of "ink" or "the one with the markings" is pretty basic. Pinstriped suit, tattooed hands and head,short hair....and that's about it. We know that the "little one" bricks broke a piece off of had a freshly inked tattoo. We know that a "marked" one was at the arena about the same time "paul" was at the tower. All of this points me at one thing...

I am an artist and creative mind by nature. This is something I cannot change,nor would I want to..while I have no tatoos, I do know that if I did they would be of my own design. Being an introvert and generally speaking a hermit would lead me to not want the work of another on my body. So I would know the placement and design of each and every ratio I had. We have evidence of someone within the zom clan/army having access to tattoo equipment...could it not be possible for "ink" to create more than one of himself from a few of the "smart ones"?...his generals as it were? When it comes to the undead..if I saw a zom in a pinstriped suit with hands and face tatt'ed up I would naturally assume its always the same one....

Is thus likely? No. Is it possible? Yes....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 7oddisdead

the latest in things to occur to me is, how many generals? What we know of "ink" or "the one with the markings" is pretty basic. Pinstriped suit, tattooed hands and head,short hair....and that's about it. We know that the "little one" bricks broke a piece off of had a freshly inked tattoo. We know that a "marked" one was at the arena about the same time "paul" was at the tower. All of this points me at one thing...

I am an artist and creative mind by nature. This is something I cannot change,nor would I want to..while I have no tatoos, I do know that if I did they would be of my own design. Being an introvert and generally speaking a hermit would lead me to not want the work of another on my body. So I would know the placement and design of each and every ratio I had. We have evidence of someone within the zom clan/army having access to tattoo equipment...could it not be possible for "ink" to create more than one of himself from a few of the "smart ones"?...his generals as it were? When it comes to the undead..if I saw a zom in a pinstriped suit with hands and face tatt'ed up I would naturally assume its always the same one....

Is thus likely? No. Is it possible? Yes....

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so multiple Ink underlings of his own creation and design? I like. Very The Prestige-esque. That would be an awesome twist, if they think they've got him and then he reappears.

HA! Brain is a nutter. On the prestige note, the markings can be covered and "randy" is actually ink in disguise! They are one in the same! (Ok, so that one is a stupid one, brought about by lack of sleep, but your idea has merit and is cool.)

wouldnt it be awesome if ink was just like wesker from resident evil. Lol just saying

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg

Yep...a total thought based on mems crock pot

A crock pot by design sloow cooks food. You put say, a pot roast in before you leave for work, and presto! Come home to freshly cooked meat. We have been speculating about who was behind the zom apocalypse in this story, but thing we haven't really thought of is.

What if LA wasn't the origin of it all? When will the "master of the house" come home to see how the pot roast is doing?
it would seem the zoms are evolving beyond the original carpenter ant mentality..they now are working as what would seem an "army".this is beyond the typical ant behavior..outside the nest, ants do not have leaders, each simply knows what their job/role is within the hive....and they do their job...so I'm curious when the true "master" in this equation will be revealed..but I'm saving more thoughts on that for the break..

And....more fun facts about ants

HTTP://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/oleic_acid

HTTP://Indianapublicmedia.org/amomen...nd-their-dead/