Chapter 32 part 2: Captive Hearts

[Osiris]

I would like to rehash the conversation from 31-3 we were having about gatekeeper with connie killjoy. I'd like to know if their opinion changed after this episode.

Greatly enjoyed it, saul is an idiot, cj is destined for heart break, and durai is about to be killed in public.

Sounds like a prediction.

[7oddisdead]

Is he?....or is bricks?

Rep bet?

[Osiris]

Is he?....or is bricks?

Rep bet?

I'm hopeful that Durai buys it.

[7oddisdead]

I'm just looking at who durai would find more useful...bricks or scratch...i do like the twist of them offing the big man(durai) himself though

But I'm sticking to my guns...bricks...lead salad.

[Osiris]

salad for everyones!

[Tales from Valhalla]

There's not enough shovels to make Bixby pay for being such an arrogant jerk. Just because he has his tail between his legs doesn't mean he's a changed man.

The same goes for the Gatekeeper. He had power, he was happy, people were not killed. I don't feel assured with the possibility of him being forever The Great Leader of The Colony, it must have taken some time for Marcus to be a crappy leader and an abusive force. Until this point I've seen nothing but Gatekeeper acting like a psycho nutfreak. My bet is that if the Mallers never went to the Colony, he would eventually be as abusive as Marcus. So, yeah, I would never miss Gatekeeper if CJ went Katana Power Chopchop on him.

[LiamKerrington]

Good morning everyone,

so, the majority is in for the prediction that The Mallers will hold kind of a public meeting and that Durai will be killed, right?

A public gathering, 'everyone' (?) is invited to join? Sounds strange to me; but we actually never got into the ways and means how The Mallers organize things. But a public trial against folks or a public execution?
Assuming that Bricks really went to Durai and showed him the video, what would be the next thing to happen? Probably Durai would be pissed of - either by Scratch violating 'family'-rules again, which by the way don't seem to apply for standard-issue-Mallers-and/or-criminals, or by having Bricks stepping too far out of order by blackmailing others. Would Durai ask for a public trial or roll call against family members, or would he even do so in order to punisch Bricks? Strikes me kind of odd. Looking back at the Kalani-backstory or the first contact at The Tower I had the impression that Durai likes to keep things as simple as possible, meaning as small as possible. To me he does not appear as the type as to make an example of others; same with Scratch who really goes WTF-bitching if things slip out of her control.

Anyway, I may be wrong.

Which is why I go one step further and stick with the majority for a short moment: Durai is pissed off for whatever reason and asks for the roll call everyone is entitled to show up. And everyone does. Then some kind of politics or trial or whatever happens. Scratch and Bricks are confronted, the situation escalates and one to two members of the triangle Durai-Scratch-Bricks die... What would be the next thing to happen within the ranks of The Mallers and/ or The Colony? If Scratch survives, would people really shriek and terror and follow her orders? Probably, because most guns are locked away and only the doubtless followers are well equipped, as I understand it. But would the story gain anything from such a development? Durai was of no real meaning so far, and Bricks actually provides a lot of potential for the future - like in his relation to Lizzy, to Tardust, to Scratch, and to some degree to Saul.

Basically I wonder why Durai would do or risk something like this. We never learned a lot about him; we only knew very few things about his character; and we know enough to assume that Scratch falls in line with his command and rulership; I don't recollect any tight or tense situation between both of them - maybe except for Durai wondering what all this around Burt is good for after already four months now ...

I don't want to disagree, but since we may only guess about what may happen at the roll call, I would like to try something completely different.

The Mallers as we know them have some kind of scavenger-attitude. First they tried to infiltrate The Other Tower, then they went all mad and crazy about The Tower after the tanker-rig was 'stolen'; in the meantime they tried to gather as much food, weapons, slaves and whatnot from shops and facilities of all kinds.
What makes them special are two things: a) early in this z-pocalypse they already started to analyze this whole thing, b) they unleashed a broad attempt to attack/ destroy the arena, which is kind of cool to some degree; so obviously there is more to them. Durai seems to look at the bigger picture and tries more then just to survive, which is supported by the mere fact that The Mallers had a huge radio-station they used in order to receive any communication on any available channel - not for the sake of helping maybe, but especially for the sake of finding other people to exploit ...

Anyway:
At the moment we know two more things: As The Mallers are in The Colony, they also own a much more powerful communication-facility now - the one from The Colony. And just a few days ago there was a chopper in town/ over LA; since the city is utterly silent ver since the z-pocalypse was a few hours old, and nearly void of life that creates noise and sounds, the noise generated by a chopper can be listened to over huge distances. Therefore I guess that The Mallers will have recognized the chopper; and unless the chopper did not use special frequencies or encryption technology on radio-communication it is not unlikely that The Mallers might have learned enough about either military services or at least someone, who is out there. Maybe they even tried to get into radio-contact or at least to listen to more radio-communication from the outside.

That is why I think, it could be possible that this whole roll-call is not so much about Scratch, Durai and Bricks, but more about introducing the new situation to The Mallers and parts of The Colony in order to prepare 'something'.

I know, this is like kind of a stretch; but I don't thing this is too farfetched.

Since WA literally jumped from August to December the audience has not learned anything about Fort Irwin and any other of The Tower-folk so far; and I wouldn't wonder too much if Kc plays the surprise-card another time - especially since this would be a huge surprise-blast ... Also this would add a new dimension to the complete story by connecting to very seperate "circles" in which main characters are heavily involved ...

just my more then 2c ...
Liam

[Adventureless_Hero]

... saul is an idiot...

Oh c'mon man. What makes you say that? I can sympathize with him. Sure he knows what he wants to achieve but has no idea of how to actually pull it off, but he's a determined little fucker AND he is faithful. CJ's thinking logically, but when the fuck has love ever been logical?

[nikvoodoo]

Oh c'mon man. What makes you say that? I can sympathize with him. Sure he knows what he wants to achieve but has no idea of how to actually pull it off, but he's a determined little fucker AND he is faithful. CJ's thinking logically, but when the fuck has love ever been logical?

He's an idiot because he didn't see it before. That's all.

[Adventureless_Hero]

He's an idiot because he didn't see it before. That's all.

Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know if he was really ignorant to that or if he was feigning ignorance. When you aren't attracted to someone because you are trying to remain faithful, you do your best to convince yourself that there is nothing there. Maybe Saul was just lying to himself that he was unaware of CJ's feelings for him so that he could have an easier go of ignoring those advances.

With all that time to think he must have been fighting with himself. I'm sure he recognized that she was a good friend considering all the down time they spent together but the guy is loyal as hell. It must have been tough to keep from going for the easy thing.

Unless he really is that stupid and didn't see it. In which case I agree, he's an idiot. But I'm still a fan.