The little ones

[LiamKerrington]

Hello everyone,

is it only me, or do I misunderstand something here:
In chapter #30 Glenn mentions his friend "Roman" being attacked by one of the little ones. And later, when they bail out for the car of CJ's, they get attacked by a little one, and Pete and Glenn confirm two things: a) this was Roman, and b) he changed over the time.

Meaning: The little ones may infect humans who change into little ones and keep mutating/ transforming.

This would also mean: Different Zombies, different agents mutating humans to Zombies.

edit: Dominguez Elementary School is situated 'between' Compton and Long Beach in L.A., which is quite a distance from Inglewood ... So we have 'sepcial Zeds' beyond this particular region.

[ZombieBlake]

All of these recent discoveries have been blowing my mind. There are just so many questions.
The biggest to me is:
Do they start out as little ones or become little ones through their changing?
What makes us tall is not just our bone-structure, but our amount of cartilage in-between the bones and posture.
As we age our cartilage lessens, this is why older people are often shorter or become shorter over time. Posture ties into this too.
Posture is sort of a social construct. We are taught not to slouch or keep our knees bent, hunched over like animals, so it may make sense that the little ones became little through losing their cartilage and social necessity for posture.

And are they little ones because they are actually little or because do they slightly resemble how little ones appeared in the past?
I hope this thinking out loud is contributing, lol.

[Solanine]

The little ones are no longer so little. They are called the "little ones" because thats how they started out. I don't remember them being described as slouching or crouched over by anyone.
They have obviously been tampered with pre or post transformation. TOWTM had tattooing equipment and nail clippings at the hospital.
Nice to here someone coming from a fresh angle and thinking out loud. I fear some of us take the whole predictions thing a little to seriously and post tactically.
Or maybe I'm projecting my own behaviour onto others. Which ever suits.

[LiamKerrington]

The little ones are no longer so little. They are called the "little ones" because thats how they started out. I don't remember them being described as slouching or crouched over by anyone.
They have obviously been tampered with pre or post transformation. TOWTM had tattooing equipment and nail clippings at the hospital.
Nice to here someone coming from a fresh angle and thinking out loud. I fear some of us take the whole predictions thing a little to seriously and post tactically.
Or maybe I'm projecting my own behaviour onto others. Which ever suits.

Any approach serves the issue. Thank you for pointing at the nail clippings in the hospital.

[Jannit]

My apologies if I missed this as I've only started going through all of the posts on this site but what if the Little Ones are 'pure' zombies? Someone mentioned the idea that there might be a Queen or something similar, and what if that's what it was at the Arena?

Perhaps they're organized in a similar fashion which might explain how they're able to communicate, their drive to collect their dead, the creation of a hive/nest and the rare specialized ones such as the jumpers and behemoths (okay, so that's a bit of a stretch). If the Little Ones are pure zombies, perhaps they need some fresh parts to start off, which is why they kept people alive at the arena in the first place. From there, they grow tremendously fast - which might explain the stretch marks - and reach maturity much more quickly that anything that started as human.

Just jotting down some random thoughts for the moment. I'll come back and add some more details when I have a bit more time.

Cheers!

[Solanine]

The stretch marks I think we can say for sure are growth, hence being seen on behemoths.
There is Absolutely no evidence right now for a queen.
This doesn't mean its not possible, its just that Kc usually gives us a little while to marinate and speculate on cues, with 1.3 seasons left I'm not sure there is time.
By pure zombies what exactly do you mean? Turned in a special way? I don't think they need any extra parts as something probably would have turned up in the autopsy.
Also the dead parts could be used for feeding the behemoths/ little ones but from what we've seen the little ones seem to transform pretty fast without food sources.

[Witch_Doctor]

After listening to episode 46 of We're Not Dead, when they mentioned the new forum member pointing out that both Ink and the Inklings have normal eye color instead of the glassy eyes of the other zombies, I thought of something.

Could Ink be an Inkling? Specifically, are they same type of being?

Both the Inkler and the Inklings have normal colored eyes, stand about 2.15 meters tall, seemingly bullet-proof skin, speed, strength and agility.

We are given a glimpse of Ink's super human feats in Chapter 11 part one in the tower where he survives two shots from Burt's rifle (assumed by Saul to be due to body armor), Jumps from the 2th floor of the tower and runs like Steve Austin while Burt Lee Harvey Oswald's him in the hand.

Are his teeth Inklish too? Michael mentions his few remaining broken teeth as he grinned and stood over 6 and a half feet tall.

What about the pale skin? Well, we can't tell because he's covered in all of those tattoos.

[LiamKerrington]

@Witch_Doctor: You crazy b*tch from hell ... Are you drunk? Or did you threaten Kc to reveal his scripts to you?
And the reason why we would not confuse Ink with the Little Ones is that his skin is tattooed all over his body ...
Sounds incredibly reasonable what you state there. Actually this supports the ties between Ink and the Little Ones and theories evolving around them ... So Ink would be "Patient Zero" or the thirteenth "Little One" ...

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Mr. Holmes.

All the best!
Liam

[Jannit]

I really like the Patient Zero idea for the Man with the tattoos. My previous inadequate attempt at describing the pure ones was attempting to get to this idea. What if the man with the tattoos is spreading a 'pure' strain of the zombie infection/disease/condition.

After thinking about it further, and trying to get my thoughts straight, it might be hard to back up the idea that the Little Ones started as anything but human, but what if the slime that is mentioned several times is some sort of amniotic fluid? Even if they started out as children or babies (the hospital would've have a maternity ward), the slime could have been something that was used to help them reach maturity. Part of the reason I'm stuck on this idea is that the zombies in WA don't seem to be dead. Anything that is alive finds a way to reproduce and perhaps this is the next stage in the zombie's evolution. I dunno, just throwing that out there.

As for Ink actually being a little one, do we know anything about his hands? I can't recall hearing anything about it now but he would have the super-long fingers with the crazy nails too, wouldn't he? If he were one of them, I mean.

[LiamKerrington]

Hi there,

mh, actually I don't remember having a close description of the hands of Ink. But at least they should be roughly human-like. Reason #1: He was able to perform actions on the security lock of The Tower; reason #2: he was able to snatch an arrow shot by Riley out of the air right before it would have hit him. I am not so sure whether standard issue Little Ones would be able to do so ...
Considering the one description of the Little One's hand we had from Bricks, Lizzy and Tardust, I kind of hardly believe that Ink and the Little Ones are of the same breed. Remember? The description of the endless number of fingers being mentioned? Also the figure of the Little Ones during the first encounter with Skittles - small, funny moving, skinny ... Anytime Ink was displayed there was nothing special about him - except for his suit and the tattoos - no funny movement, no weird size or movement.

So ... I think, especially getting the Smart Ones involved (we have no close descriptions of their eyes; but considering what they are capable of doing like observing the near surrounding and adapting their behaviour to it they probably have 'normal' eyes as well), this could have happened:

Ink was infected/ was the source of all infection. And when the infection hit the doctors in the hospital (Devil's Workshop), the doctors turned as well, but they kept some of there smartness, knowledge and intelligence - so Smart Ones. And then they probably started to work on engineering of Zeds ... And Ink - just like with the horde of Zeds in the arena, has become their leader - because he is just awesome and just Ink, like Nike ist just sports.

I don't think that Ink himself is the one doing engineering or experiments in order to get the Little Ones; remember him having some trouble speaking to Michael, Saul, Burt and Kalani in chapter #11? Also Lizzy described him (Ink) trying on the security lock for some time before it opened. Therefore I think that he is smart, but not half as smart, thus not smart enough to do engineering or breeding or whatever - but he could lead others doing so. And I wouldn't even wonder if Smart Ones (or real humans - Umbrella Corp-style?) would have extracted some tissue/ blood/ bile/ whatever from Ink to create the next generation Zeeh-agent ...

Wow ... This is a brain-twister. A really good one. Kc - again - did a good job with probing some information, some hints and leaving plenty of room for speculation ...

All the best!
Liam