Chapter 43-3: The Darkness Ahead

[UndeadSweeper]

I'm think that it more of a personally issue then brightness. Remember where the majority of the behemoths came from, the isolation wing of the prison. Some are aggressive when with other, but if you left alone for the most of your prison stay you may grow use to be alone and doing nothing about.

[Grognaurd]

Yea, bright was not the proper term. Bright compared the average biter 1.0 still leaves a bit to be desired. However, if it is Nick Rivers, he might be a smart one. He was the department head or something like that.

[YetAnotherBloodyCheek]

BTW, I will always associate the name Nick Rivers with a very particular movie.

[FunkyDung]

I'm not the only one! YAY!

[Red Shirt]

SO, I have had a bit of time to stop and think about the most recent episode. I've also had a bit of time to digest getting to talk to the man himself during the LiveCast on Monday night. That was a riot.

One of the topics of discussion was the hole in the church, underground tunnels and their possible origin... natural, preexisting or recently dug and the connections they may have.

With the names Cordova and Pasadena in hand, with Google Maps, I was lead to Cordova Street. Prior to the show, I was able to determine that Cordova or even Pasadena for that matter is nowhere near the Purple or Red lines (subways) of the LA Transit system. Also, Pasadena as a whole doesn't seem to have any major "recently" active faults running through it, though it does seem to be surrounded.

Another avenue of research for this and another of the conversational tangents was the Army Corps of Engineers LA River channeling project and what amounts to essentially underground rivers and streams. Some that seem to be underground for miles. After some extensive scanning with Google maps satellite view, I am so far not coming up with anything promising for the region around Cordova St. Yet. There's the Arroyo Seco wash to the west and the Eaton Wash to the east... they more or less go around Pasadena. I have however discovered a few other interesting things.

• To the north in Altadena, at the Altadena Golf Course the Rubio Wash goes underground into what looks lie a HUGE tunnel.
• What looks like a spur of the Rubio Wash at Crest Street.
• Rubio Wash surfaces at Robles Ave. here, to the south-east of Cordova.
• A bit closer... Something underground at the Huntington Hospital... (Parking?)
• The Gold Line does go underground HERE and HERE.

It might be important to ask/wonder, which part of Cordova Street?

I also learned that it was reported on October 8, 2013 that:

The state has granted the Los Angeles County Flood Control District $28 million for the construction of a five-mile pipeline that will connect Devil’s Gate Dam in northwest Pasadena and Eaton Canyon Wash in east Pasadena.

What if in the fictional WA LA, this already took place?

---

As it happens, the eastern third of Cordova Street is about 1-2 blocks north of Caltech. Now, I had a listen back to Ch. 40 3/3 to refresh my memory and in addition to being a Pharmaceutical Engineer for Raydon, Dr. Roberts also had a:

• Doctorate in Chemical Engineering from MIT
• Doctorate in Bio-pharmaceutical Engineering from NJIT
• Bachelor of Sciences in Biomedical Engineering from Harvard

While Ink may not have been an alumni of the school, it is home to several research institutes that either have those disciplines on campus, are branches of institutes that do, or seem to have something that might have interested him. These include, but aren't limited to:

• Charles Arms Laboratory of the Geological Sciences
• Seeley W. Mudd Laboratory of the Geological Sciences
• Norman W. Church Laboratory for Chemical Biology
• Gordon A. Alles Laboratory for Molecular Biology
• The Mabel and Arnold Beckman Laboratories of Behavioral Biology
• Seeley G. Mudd Building of Geophysics and Planetary Science
• Beckman Institute

I'd say that the Beckman Institute is notable, it jumped out at me because there is a reflection pool/fountain in front of the building called the "Gene Pool." I won't list them here, (check the above link) but the Caltech branch of the Beckman Institute is involved in some serious high level biology and genomic research... it seems like every department would be of interest to Ink. There's even a Mass Spectrometry Resource Center, EXACTLY the type of place Tanya needs to take her Inglewood haze samples.

[7oddisdead]

I wondered how long before you dropped this stuff you were looking into Monday night. really is interesting with the cal-tech stuff.

one thing that came up during a late night conversation mr. shirt and I had, is just how awesome the w/a story would be if utilized in a mmo style online game. just imagine if we were given some sort of direction (ie: ink and the biters were seen at 'x' address) and we go out via google and reseach and develop the parts of the story, much the way redshirt just did with the cal tech info. im sure somebody must already be doing that..but if they're not....

back on topic

I mentioned it early on in this thread, but what are the chances that anyone (mike & soldiers) actually went inside the arena? we really don't know that the maller tank bombs brought the whole thing down. - according to tardust, they didn't have enough fuel to bring it down.- so whos to say that the tunnel in the church doesn't lead back to the arena? also, with the boards of the church described as busted out-v- busted in...same situation as the transport van at the courthouse...

another bit...if the tunnel leads back to the arena, how fitting? we just had a conversation with datu and hope that we (are lead to think) involves Samantha. aaaaaaaaaaand where's the last place she was?

[Witch_Doctor]

I don't think that Nick Rivers would be Lizzy's father (if that is how I'm reading the speculations). Lizzy said that Nicholas was her grandfather's name. This, of course could mean that her grandfather could have been a psychiatrist too. This doesn't change the idea that there could be a family connection; just clarifies who the family members could be. Then again, Nick Rivers would be an old behemoth.

[Witch_Doctor]

Anyone pick up the part when Victor comments that Saul and Tanya might be in the clear because they couldn't read the zombieglyph? (Lit, I hope I don't owe you a royalty for using that word.) Then Micheal's response is like, "Well, duh!" Sounds like Saul's and Tanya's secret is still a secret. I wonder when, and under what inopportune circumstances it will be revealed. Duh Da Duhhhhhnnnnn!

[Footbutt]

another bit...if the tunnel leads back to the arena, how fitting? we just had a conversation with datu and hope that we (are lead to think) involves Samantha. aaaaaaaaaaand where's the last place she was?[/COLOR]

i seem to remember the speculations about Samantha being used as a "Queen Bee" for zombs?
it sounds like "too much" for me, but the :tinfoil -ist in me can see that little drop of her name in Hope's goodbye with Datu could be foreshadowing.... but unlikely.

of all people, Datu has had his world rocked the most:
Not knowing the fate of his children
watching the people he's lived with die (tower residents)
befriending Towerites, Colonists, only to have them die right before him
falling in love and losing her in a matter of days
being bitten, feeling the change, knowing you're going to die
etc...

but above all, he is having his faith tested. that is the one thing he keeps coming back to. in all of this chaos, he is still clinging to that hope. i admire him for that.

[scbubba]

Hi all. Awesome stuff up there @Red Shirt!

Some key things that stood out to me on initial listening to this episode:

- Datu's "taking a backseat" experience
I've heard lots of talk about out of body experiences from many different sources (drugs, occult, near-death experience, schizophrenia) so the concept of watching oneself as if from a distance or from outside of your control isn't new by any means. The thing, of course, for Datu and probably the zombies in general is what is the cause and who/what "takes over". Meaning, is there a separate consciousness inside Datu's head that has control or is it a lower level "reptillian brain" that has pushed his conscious mind to the back? At this point, I'm leaning towards the lower level instinctual parts of the brain and nervous system are what's taking over. They are probably getting help from the zombie agent working on the brain somehow.

Taking into account that I'm not in the medical field whatsoever and I'm willing to extend a suspension of disbelief pretty far, I'm thinking that there could be some sort of thing, call it the agent, that could enter the human blood stream and reach a certain part of the body - say the brain - and get to work messing with it. I don't have a lot of knowledge on how the brain does what it does but I'm wondering if there were some sort of way to mess with the connection in the brain or the communications between parts of the brain so that the rational/conscious part of the brain could be effectively cutoff from the rest and leave the instinctual/"reptillian" portion in control 24/7? Well, even if there isn't a definitive way for this to occur, it seems like it might be in the realm of possibility for a sci-fi sort of tale....

The "smart ones" have been able to maintain some of the conscious connection and can inform and/or countermand the animal brain at times. The level of intelligence or will of the person before turning may dictate how much control of influence the higher brain has after turning ("the smarter you are in life....")

- Symbols transferring meaning
Following the brain re-wiring idea above, it might be possible to trigger the basic reward centers of the base brain with symbols that had some form of instinctual or universal meaning. In the book "Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory on Language Acquisition", Michael Tomasello talks about the differences between human and animal basic communication (see it here)

To oversimplify, animal signals are aimed at the behavior and motivational states of others, whereas human symbols are aimed at the attentional and mental states of others.

Tomasello goes on to discuss how human linguistically communication is learned via different social and cultural methods. Animals rely on this type of "learning" less and therefore do not develop much learned communication as a species - some individuals or small social groups can/do learn communications in some animals. Animals, as a whole, have more "known" signals than learned signals. Given the humans' abilities to create ad understand visual symbols, the regression to a more basic function in the brain may trigger a much higher sensitivity to a set of "known" vs "learned" symbols.
I'll need to go deeper in the Tomasello book to see if he develops this idea further though....

- Tunnel(s)
Underground population of zombies! Cool. But do they live down there? Do they have a vast warren of tunnels and caves under LA? Or is this one of only a few places that has a tunnel entrance and the zombies are all outside LA somewhere using a few entry points like this one? Does it lead to the arena which is probably still mostly intact at ground level or below ground?

Not sure of the answers but I bet we find out in the near (not near enough!) future. Regarding the dirt from the excavation, if there is some really big underground place(s) that is naturally occurring, the dirt could have been deposited there. Ot if the tunnel(s) end outside LA somewhere, the dirt could have been put on that end - far away from the eyes of Team Human...

In general, I'm envisioning a "safe house" network for the zombies where there are several of these places like the church that have tunnel entries. It allows singles and small groups to get about more freely in LA without being noticed as much. Recall that some of the biggest "defeats" that Ink's army has had were when they were gathered in large numbers (arena, attacking the Colony). Ink isn't stupid as we have seen.

- Cain Hospital and Treehemoth
We all saw something ominous coming when Saul had to leave so much equipment at Cain because of the appearance of the Treehemoth. So, back to Cain we will be going. But there is a big baddie there! And that might work out in their favor... Other folks have said it before in this thread - Behemoths and regulars don't usually hang out together. And Behemoths have a different "trigger" to attack and go beserk. And they don't grasp some basic concepts (in general) like perhaps stairs. So if Tanya, Lizzie, et al can get up a couple of floors then the sounds may not be so bad (i.e., not reach the outside) and if they can sneak in past Treehemoth, then they could have a good ward against the random zombie scouting party (or even against Scratch?)

- The answering machine
I thought it was very interesting that we are told about leaving a message on the answering machine when Tanya switches to the landline. This takes the idea of unsecured radios off the table for someone learning about Lizzie's situation. The attempt to communicate over the police radio could have alerted Burt and Riley. With the Colony emptying out, the question is who all listens to the message and now knows? Does Scratch come across it as she scouts the Colony for intel on Pegs? Does Pegs find it when before she flies the helo out of the Colony and decide that plans need to change (thus getting her back in the mix with the Tower crew and bringing Scratch back into play for Burt and Riley)? Hmmmm.....

Can't wait to see/hear Chapter 44!!!!