Burt and the Mallers

[Grognaurd]

Hmmm....

Could there be more than one special weapon? I have some continuity conflict in my mind.

The outbreak occurs and Burt runs to his store. When he gets there, the safe had been cracked. At this time, I would assume Latch is still in jail. For this to work, Scratch has to fight her way into a Maximum Security Prison, spring Latch and all the others. Reorganize and then go from the prison (West LA, almost at the coast over to Burt's shop which is on the far side of East LA. They must do this by basically going through Ground Zero on the day of the outbreak and have to accomplilsh this task before Burt gets there. Maybe Burt loligags on the day of the outbreak. But, as a survivalist, I think he would have a go-back and get to his shop pretty damn quick.

I can envision Scratch breaking into Burt's safe and getting the RPG. But, I am hard pressed to see how Latch could could do it.

But, then we still have an incongruity because we know Latch got some sort of weapon out of a safe.

[reaper239]

i don't think there are continuty issues because burt never says how long it took him to get to his store. it wasn't until friday (i think, maybe saturday) that saul and angel found him in the bathroom. probably the latest he could've arrived and been trapped was that morning wich gives scratch wednsday night for the jail break, and then all day thursday for the raids. in reality prisons aren't hard to get into, you can walk right into most, what makes it hard is doing it without the guards seeing you. the guards would no doubt have abandoned their posts by early afternon wednsday to go home and tend their families. this would mean that scratch would just have to sneak by any zombies around the prison and then the prison would've been realatively clear.

[cPT.cAPSLOCK]

Listening to the chapters, it's clear it was illegal the way he was selling it. Whether possible or not, he didn't have the required papers.
While the mallers would've been in jail, it's definitely plausible that one of them knew about him as a black-market dealer. That's most likely I guess.

[h3half]

Maybe Scratch went to Locked & Loaded before springing the inmates? It would be a lot of stuff for one person to carry, but if a zombie apocalypse occurs a gun store would be a pretty obvious choice. Maybe Scratch had broke into there before? Burt said that the people "knew what they were doing" so maybe Scratch already had some hands-on time with Burt's security system. If she went to the prison with explosives, that would explain why they didn't just stay there, if she blew a giant hole in the wall.

That being said, a prison would be super easy to get into without guards. You could literally just walk right in, so I don't see why she would blow a hole in the wall. Just putting it out there, though.

[nikvoodoo]

There's also the possibility that the theft of Locked and Loaded was coincidental to the outbreak. A scenario I played out in my head just now makes sense.

Scratch is planning on staging some kind of jail break, so she goes and robs Locked and Loaded in the early A.M. of May 8th. The outbreak occurs rendering Scratch's plan moot. In the meantime, Burt goes to the shop (as you may have noted throughout the series he has sort of a blasé attitude about most things....like when he feels like opening his shop), a little later than his normal time, finds it raided, and only has enough time to investigate the expertly broken into GUN safe () get into the bathroom before he gets eaten.

The basic gist of the situation is I don't think the Mallers as a collective existed when the robbery happened, or else they probably would have found a way into Burt's vault. It seems like the RPG might have targeted for theft specifically....perhaps to punch a hole in the wall of the prison to facilitate the escape of certain convicts.

Not to mention, the Maller territory seems to only be on the Western half of the city or the Tower and the Mallers probably would have encountered each other earlier, especially since the Tower advertised their position with Pegs' sign. If the Mallers (and not just Scratch) found this amazing cache of weapons protected by a huge vault, I think they might have moved their camp closer to Locked and Loaded.

[Eitri]

I wouldnt call them illegal or sold on the black Market, Hes a gun collector and a Marine so he has a good reason

[h3half]

You wouldn't call them illegal?

Well I can't say I have read the giant book of US laws we have at the local public library, but I can guarantee that owning C4, RPGs, assault rifles, SMGs, handguns, Claymore AP mines, straight-up AP mines, etc is illegal.

Gun collectors still have the have the permits and such, but most weapons you CAN get legally. Most.

(Also, Burt came right out and pretty much said most of it was illegal outside of the Maller's mall. He said 10% of his C4 was legal)

[Cabbage Patch]

I don't think we should assume that Scratch was working on her own prior to the breakout from Eastern Bay. Remember that the only person in We're Alive that we know, beyond a doubt, was in prison on the day of the Zombie outbreak was Latch. While I assumed that Durai and the other Mallers were prisoners who were released by Scratch I haven't been able to find anything in the story that actually says that.

What if Durai wasn't a prisoner in Eastern Bay, but rather on the outside, and the mastermind behind a prison break that just happened to come at the same time as the outbreak. Scratch was then his Lieutenant from the outset, along with some extended crew of henchmen and minions. That gives them the manpower to raid Locked and Loaded before the outbreak, and eliminates any problems with timelines or continuity.

[nikvoodoo]

I don't think we should assume that Scratch was working on her own prior to the breakout from Eastern Bay. Remember that the only person in We're Alive that we know, beyond a doubt, was in prison on the day of the Zombie outbreak was Latch. While I assumed that Durai and the other Mallers were prisoners who were released by Scratch I haven't been able to find anything in the story that actually says that.

What if Durai wasn't a prisoner in Eastern Bay, but rather on the outside, and the mastermind behind a prison break that just happened to come at the same time as the outbreak. Scratch was then his Lieutenant from the outset, along with some extended crew of henchmen and minions. That gives them the manpower to raid Locked and Loaded before the outbreak, and eliminates any problems with timelines or continuity.

Durai was in prison. Though not explicitly stated, Latch implies it in his conversation with Scratch (in chapter 6-2 around the 16 minute mark) that Durai was imprisoned and continues to reward Scratch for springing all of them.

[Cabbage Patch]

Durai was in prison. Though not explicitly stated, Latch implies it in his conversation with Scratch (in chapter 6-2 around the 16 minute mark) that Durai was imprisoned and continues to reward Scratch for springing all of them.

Just re-listened to the section, and it really strongly implies that Durai was one of the released prisoners. But it doesn't say that explicitly. And Latch's statement could still work if Durai was the mastermind on the outside, rewarding Scratch for releasing his imprisoned colleagues. I'm not saying that's the case here, just that I haven't found anything that makes it impossible.

And it didn't have to be Durai. The outside mastermind scenario could have been some other person who we've never seen, who might not even have survived the outbreak. That person could have ordered the RPG from Burt, bankrolled Scratch's jailbreak plan and provided the manpower to loot Locked & Loaded.