"Ink," the origin and meaning of his tattoos...

**Eviebae** · Sep 7th, 2013, 04:31 PM

So, do you think the bullseye is just a bullseye--denoting he's good at hitting (or catching) things?

**Inklings_Rule** · Sep 29th, 2013, 07:50 PM

I apologize in advance for the length of this post but I needed to get this out, anyone curious about what I have to say please give me the benefit of the doubt and read the whole post . I’d really like to get some hopefully positive feedback.

I dont really have any evidence to back this up just speculating but i think the scientific explanation is more likely and i think the religious and voodoo like aspects from the tattoos are more an inspiration for inks actions. i think that ink is a bio-chemist with a fixation on voodooism and various religions having to do with aspects of rebirth, fate, and the renewal of mankind, and this religious fixation and scientific background drove him to find a way to recreate mankind to create a more perfect world. i believe through human experimentation he found a way to alter humans to a similar state as the "zombies" using aspects of modern science and homeopathic medicine, tying with his science background and voodooism beliefs, but he needed a way to spread his gospel and sought the help of the american military or a private pharmaceuticals company by using their funding for his work while working projects for them, maybe even Radon Labs located in L.A. I agree that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons seem like a likely biological carrier due to their mutagenic and teratogenic properties and i think the tattoos may indicate that the virus is based one of those PAHs and because they are most commonly found in oil like substances such as soil, crude oil, and tar it may be possible that Ink during the course of his work found veins of tar and soil underneath inglewood maybe connected to the La Brea Tar Pits or just happenstance and he used those veins along with the highly concentrated PAHs to create a massive aerosolized release of his virus.
This second part may be a big leap but i think it would explain the seemingly simultaneous release of this virus and that is that i think Ink had co-conspirators who helped him to find multiple locations globally and to prepare and to coordinate the release of his virus, he did it on his own, or im just completely wrong.
Another point you made was that maybe tonya didnt find anything in the blood was because the virus didnt actually add something to the body but it actually recoded DNA that was present in human genetics but dormant and this could explain the rapid rate at which people turn because the virus is using the body’s nature to maintain equilibrium and once the DNAs recoded the body mutates itself and it could account for the varying rates of turning because each persons genetic profile and compatibility with the virus would vary, it could really explain a lot if its true.
This could also explain the special variants because it means that Ink likely used his understanding of his virus to first infect himself with a strain of the virus that allowed him to in large part retain his intelligence and simultaneously gain the attributes he needed to take power in his new world, and using this retained intelligence and understanding of the virus he began experimenting once he gained control. Along with his experimenting i believe the virus is highly mutative and varying neurological, physiological, and genetic factors influenced some of the biters to become runners, some to be smarter, some to be more violent or aggressive, and it would explain why the jumpers disappeared so quickly because they were a failed mutation. This experimenting would also better explain the arena it wasn’t just a hive it was a proving ground of sorts that was used to find the promising candidates for his experimentation and as a way to train his "people" for the inevitable conflicts that would occur with humans. the idea of experimentation would also explain two things that have been bothering me why was there blood, body parts, and corpses all over that ward in the hospital and why haven’t there been any indications of juvenile zombies. Even assuming that the viruses initial stage had a high mortality over infection rate which it would have to or else L.A. would have been overrun with millions of the infected and I think there were tens of thousands at best, that still means that there should be infected children and if there had been im sure that someone by now would have been shocked by it. So I think that Ink is using all of the infected children he can find as test subjects to create his soldier inklings hoping to take advantage of a child’s physical and neurological adaptability to improve his success rate, but I think he had a high failure rate before he was successful which would explain the blood, fingernails, and broken syringes on the beds ands and the blood streaks, body parts, and corpses that were strewn throughout the ward. Ink continued to experiment with his Inklings even after he’d created 12 of them which would account for the rapid growth and the continued and seemingly controlled adaptations and mutations.

**Witch_Doctor** · Sep 29th, 2013, 08:06 PM

Originally Posted by Inklings_Rule

I apologize in advance for the length of this post but I needed to get this out, anyone curious about what I have to say please give me the benefit of the doubt and read the whole post . I’d really like to get some hopefully positive feedback.

I dont really have any evidence to back this up just speculating but i think the scientific explanation is more likely and i think the religious and voodoo like aspects from the tattoos are more an inspiration for inks actions.

I agree, the voodoo symbols are inspirational, not the source. I think Ink is using his unique circumstances and possible insight to capitalize on the outbreak. He didn't start it but he may have known it was coming, its effects and maybe even experimented with some of the contagions. Perhaps even building up some sort of immunity or tolerance to the source via exposures to the Hot Spots. perhaps this exposure can explain his 'insanity'.

**Inklings_Rule** · Sep 29th, 2013, 08:48 PM

I figured that it would be a stretch that Ink started it i just wanted to put the idea out there, but at the very least i think Radon Labs is involved because its too coincidental that a government or private laboratory just happened to be in the city where this virus started or at least where there's a hotspot. i also think that Radon Labs was either studying the cause of this event or virus, or that they possibly even had something to do with it. And I really think Ink was involved like maybe he worked there, understood what happened, or was connected to them and the event in some way.

**Grognaurd** · Sep 30th, 2013, 06:14 AM

RE: Blood in the Hospital

If one wants science, one of the biggest is the Law of Thermodynamics. We live in a world where energy is required to do things. We are biological machines and our energy is measured in calories. Say the contagion rewrites the metabolism and changes the structure of biological machine. That will require calories. The initial outbreak may start with mindless killing machines because they are literally insanely hungry. We see "eating" in the initial outbreak, but then it seems to stabilize and we even see advanced planning and "food" storage.

But, I would be remiss if I did not put on my Tinfoil hat.

Wars are most often fought over a scarcity of resources. I do not have enough, so I am going to take yours. Keep stealing all the dinosaurs I put underground to ferment for 65 millions years so they taste just right and I might get really pissed off and come out of the Earth and kill you to stop you. Hell, I might even take a few billion of your dead bodies and cram them underrground to start the seasoning process. LOL

Seriously though, the one thing that has not been given enough discussion is what Saul says to Angel on their first trip out. "I do not get it, three (?) days and there is no one left in LA. Where did everyone / every "body" go? Say we have a 5,000 biters in LA. There is no way they each ate 1,000 people in three days.

**Robzombie** · Sep 30th, 2013, 11:32 AM

Yeah good point. Where has a mass of 5 million, among millions elsewhere; zombie, still human, or corpse, actually gone to??

Sssshhhh...I think maybe it's something we're not supposed to think about.

IDK, maybe that many bodies can be spread over such a large area without it not actually looking like a LOT of bodies...

**Inklings_Rule** · Sep 30th, 2013, 07:48 PM

im positive that he engineered this virus or that he at the very least had a very good understanding of its properties. he has a tattoo on the right side of his skull representing the veve for Erzulie pointed out by Red Shirt and her veve has the connection to her husbands Damballa, Oogoun, and Agwe who represent creation of life; craftsmanship, creation, and war; and the ruler of the seas, those are respective to each husband. Red Shirt made the point that one of the tattoos on upper left of his skull could represent either a bacteriophage or a hydrogenated carbon bond, and if it’s the bacteriophage read the introduction and it says they can be found in bacterial places like soil and can be found in enormous quantities in sea water, Agwe lord of the seas anyone.

Red Shirt made some points that I think give my idea some weight on page six on some of the symbolism in his tattoos and his possible origin, id quote but im not entirely sure how.

**Inklings_Rule** · Sep 30th, 2013, 08:00 PM

Has anyone put any real thought into what triggered the event and its global spread because its not it could have spread through transportation not with how fast people turned. Did it happen the same way as in L.A. some sort of seismic activity and a release of some sort of pathogen, and if so how did happen almost simultaneously within a day or less of the initial event. I sort of think there had to be some sort project being done on a glodal scale researching something, testing something, and maybe some sort of accident or unforseen consequence, or maybe it was just a really horrific large scale natural catastrophe. Anyone have any ideas how it happened maybe even how Ink is involved, if thats who TOWTM really is.