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crazyspookies · 2 years

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ZRS9Part1

Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well, Well...look who’s here

it’s me!

and also

Him

Alright so there’s a lot of stuff ive been thinking about S9, some of it good some of it bad, but i told @siriusmistake (wink ;)) that i had some strong feelings about Van Ark’s presence in the plot so this post is sponsored by them and consists on me flailing about stuff lol Also this is long oops here we go

1. Van Ark is alive Reveal

If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know i’ve always suspected this so just to get it out of the way: i knew it

Many of us did to be fair. Now let me tell you a story “fenn im not here for a history lesson” Well aren’t you.

2. A History of Belief

This is the part where i talk about all the clues and theories about Vana Ark bein alive, you can skip it if you wanna lol. Back in...S5 there was not one but TWO occasions where i thought there would be a “van ark is alive” reveal. Once, in M3 (yes i looked it up) when we infiltrate Abel the first time and there is a moment we talk to Lobatse where we go into one hut and it’s full of cryogenic freezers and i thought “that’s it, here he is”. Same happened when we infiltrated abel as a spy and Sigrid took us to see the cryofreezers.

Why did i think that? My reasoning was that 1) Unless we see someone’s body we can’t really be sure they’re not dead (hello paula, hello sarah, hello simon, hello p-, you get the gist). 2) Sure, we hit him with a rocket launcher; but then again we did too on our first day and we’re fine.

Mostly. I theorized that maybe we damaged him enough to warrant him a few years out of the game. We got told that New Canton took care of the body but, at the time, Sigrid hadn’t showed her true colors yet so it would have been easy for her to just move things around to get it for herself and put him in cryo. Then S7 gave me a red herring by making me think, for the space of a single afternoon, that there was a possibility that Sage was Van Ark. I was real on the fence with this one because i saw the flaws in my theory but also. Didn’t regeneration change Peter’s face just enough not to look immediately recognizable? Was Sage Van Ark faking a nice attitude? Seemed a bit too crazy, but also someone compared van ark, dr.tomorrow and sage together.

Still, it felt too crazy. Right? ...RIght??? And to quote myself “I don’t trust van ark to know how to even fake how to be useful and kind to society and create ways to make a better community and be sensitive to other’s emotions for as long as Sage has been doing it. He can’t be that good an actor. the part where he might be alive and got a new face is not that crazy though.” So true past me, so true. Still, we did get something juicy in S7M25-26 that gave us a clue to Van Ark being alive, besides other things. We go with Maxine to a facility where Sigrid had created some nanotech capable of nullifying the regeneration abilities, in case she needed them to take care of Van Ark. True love right there fellas. HOWEVER, the nanites were in “regeneration mode”. Hmmm well isn’t that interesting. Obviously it gives us a clue that all the above could be true. That Sigrid got Van ark’s body and tried to speed up his regeneration. Now in retrospect it has more connotations still. More on that later.

Also in S8 sam goes ahead and drops one big “well we never did see his body” so

3. He’s Alive! So what.

Amelia: quite a shoker huh! Every one of us who has been expecting him to show his ugly ass at any moment: this bitch again huh So, he’s alive. Not that much of a surprise, considering. Still, the reveal comes around and i can’t help but think that the thing i care about most is how they’re going to pull this off. Van ark being alive by itself is of not much consequence to me anymore as plot device. Bringing a big baddie back - and this is the very first Big Baddie himself- it’s a risky thing to do. Is it the right thing to do? Maybe, if done properly. Or in a way i like lol. And honestly s2s hasn’t given me a lot of confidence when it comes to handling old and sensitive character related topics in S9P1 (looking at you, sam’s-being-opened-up-without-consent-and-injected-with-another-being thing and no one batting an eye about it. Especially not Five who def has no traumatic experiences related to medical torture and being injected people in their head, no sir). So yeah, it’s a risk, and it’s an old baddie anyway, we’ve killed him once already, we know his whole shebang already, he’s old news.

Indeed, Leslie, THE DRAMA. His reappearance is important to me, for the most part, because it’s bound to unbury some very angsty, dramatic little feelings on any Abel character that’s had to deal with him before. Especially Peter. Five too but that’s headcanon territory.

I mean it’s almost fine when we were in the UK. Terrible, sure, but feels...distant enough? We suspected this might happen, we just have to go there, kill him again, deal with whatever has to be dealt with and come back. Easy peasy yeah? Five’s used to this. There’s a little knot in their stomach and kind of a guilty giddiness to get moving already. They think it might have been born out of necessity, because if you dread whatever might happen every time you go out on an (dangerous, possibly deadly, possibly traumatic) “adventure” you’re bound to end up dead. And Van Ark just feels so far away now. The closer we get to scorpion base - and to Van Ark- the tighter the knot in their stomach gets. The closer we get to him the realer it feels, the easier it is to feel old rage bubble to the surface. They look at the others and have to wonder what they feel. In the silence of the desert night they feel their fingers twitch and the scenarios where they meet him more and more real. In the silence of the desert night, the distant gidiness becomes an ugly kind of excitement, mixed with dread and anger when they think how killing him again might feel and their fingers twitch. For good this time. And, if they get to Van Ark quick enough, they can stop Peter from doing something stupid. They look at Peter, and worry. Peter who’s been wrecked by guilt for for years, Peter who’s been suicidal for years, Peter who only now, very recently, has started to want to get better, to make small steps towards doing so. Peter who has a fucking burn cube sewed on his chest. Peter who’s already died twice because of all this shit. It could help Peter move on, Five knows that. For him to see how much he’s changed, how far his come, to look at the old fucker in the face and tell him to go fuck himself. However they’d rather not risk it. They’ rather not end up in a situation where Peter feels he has no choice. He’s been doing well lately, no need for Van Ark to fuck it all that up. They look at Janine and wonder if she’s thought the same, or if she just refuses to even think it at all while dealing with her grief over Tom to even consider the scenario of losing someone else she cares about. (Might have gotten excited here didn’t expect that lol Also i did a little post about five changing classes in dnd to a Paladin while making this post and ooohhh because i went to read about paladins and about how they’re all about protecting the innocent and delivering justice, and yes that is a generally very Five thing but also found this little gem “[...] Or are you an embittered loner sworn to take vengeance on those who have done great evil, sent as an angel of death by the gods or driven by your need for revenge?“ and isn’t this DELICIOUS. Especially after all that nonsense i just wrote up there) (Also like that moment we learn that Peter has a burn cube sewed up, i swear to GOD s2s you better fucking not.).

4. Ernie

Ok So. first time we see Van Ark he’s behind a door, unconcious and hooked ona machine and Bakari tells us he’s not in charge of anything, he’s one of the experiments. Obviously the first thing that crosses my mind is both:

and

Janine said no :( She did say we had to get to the uk first and then come back deal with him but how would be even do that. Two birds one stone is what i’m saying. But then we actually meet the guy and oh boy.

5. M15-16

1) “ERNEST VAN ARK: Hello there. Hello! So thrilled to meet you. Do shake my hand. I’m Ernest, by name and by nature. [chuckles] Sorry, my little joke. Ernie Van Ark at your service… is nobody going to shake?”

By now i was real worried because...i really don’t think i’d enjoy a redemtion arc for this character. Amnesia? Not unless he goes right back to being a villain afterwards. This guy chose all the bad things he did with 0 guilt, it would rightly piss me off to see anyone forgive him just becasue “oh he’s helping now”. Not after everything that happened. It’s still a very funny scenario though dsfsdf just the abel crew infiltrating this base, scared shitless because this old nemesis is going to recognize us and welp no he doesn’t??? and he’s looking young?? and hes kinda nice???

2) “JANINE DE LUCA: You look… young.”

i wonder what that’s about. I think that this is a mix bewteen him being actually younger and also like. We’re all 8 years older. My Five was 26, now they’re 34 it’s been a long-ass time. Guillemete says he’s middle aged so he could be somthing like 45-55? I’ve always guessed him to be early 60′s in S2 so it should be a big enough difference for us to be like “WOAH he looks REALLY YOUNG” so im going to say Earnie looks to be in his early/mid 40′s.

3) “ERNEST VAN ARK: [...] when they caught wind of his immortality… well, I’m told he had a mishap with a rocket launcher.”

4) ERNEST VAN ARK: “A few scrapings from him ended up on the black market, a little pink and gray matter.Red Scorpion Base purchased them, knew they’d be useful. The cells were inert. The base kickstarted the regeneration process, got them to sort of regrow into me. Took some work, but here I am, all his intellect, none of his memories. It’s my regeneration they want to study, of course.”

Ok so this is a lot of info in one place and also puts thoughts in my head about future etc. After a year since this i’ve had time to come down from feeling kinda pissed but let me tell you, by this point both me and my Five were immenseley frustrated. For many reasons. The main one being the “i don’t know if s2s can pull this off seeing how things have gone”. The “he’s not the original and i can’t confront him the way i pictured” is frustrating but i think it can be interesting precisely because it challenges the characters expectations and introduces a different kind of tension.

From a character standpoint my Five¡s about to lose it. They’ve been on edge the whole way here and i’ts been getting worse. The recent situation with sam has left them wondering if they can feel safe around their own friends, if they should cut away from Abel, at least for a while if not longer, when all this is over. And then this guy. This guy who looks and sounds like Van ark but isn’t him in theory but has the potential to be anyway and how DARE HE NOT REMEMBER WHAT HE’S DONE.

And that’s the most fun about this situation for me if we are to keep in close contact with Ernie. All those frustrated feelings no one can properly take out on him because he’s not the original van ark so he technically hasn’t done all those terrible things but god his stupid face is right there and is bringing all of it out anyway.

And besides, he could be faking it. Ernie sounds suspiciouly like the person Van Ark was faking to be when we met him the first time (i don’t think this is the case though tbh) and I imagine Five remembers his warning right before they blew him up. ”PROFESSOR VAN ARK: [static] Runner Five, I do hope you can hear me. I’m broadcasting on a wide band of frequencies just to say – I know your face, I know your name. I do not forget, and I do not forgive. I will come and find you. When you least expect it, I am going to destroy you.”

And even if he wasn’t faking there’s other matters too. This is one of those big “people can change/nature vrs nurture/ etc kind of deals right? Sure this isn’t the original van ark, but he has been formed from the same brain. A man that chose eugenics as his core belief and did genocide, torture and murder about it. The potential for him to choose it again is always there and it makes me nervous to have him around, and leaving him at Red Scorpion Base also makes me nervous because even as an experiment, he’s dangerous. His regenerative abilities are dangerous in the wrong hands. Probably the panagea is one of the things that have been made thanks to it but you know how this kinda things goes: taking the thing and using it to make weapons and super soldiers and the like, as the Guillemete comments here:

“GUILLEMETTE FELIS: [...] Genetic material from Ernie was used to treat a life-threatening injury Henderson suffered some months ago. The results were… dramatic. Your quarry is no ordinary soldier. His endurance is enormous, but his personality, unstable. You will know what I refer to. I believe your own Sven “Psycho” Mountback was treated with a similar but less advanced treatment in Poland several years ago, leading to his current… psychological situation.”

So not the current treatments are unstable, makes you think how can Bakari be so sure the panagea works at all. Also wtf are they doing in Poland.

5) “ERNEST VAN ARK: No no, nothing like that. I always wanted to visit England. I don’t suppose you met a politician named Sigrid? I’m told we were in love. It sounds terribly romantic.”

WHY WOULD THIS BE RELEVANT SDFSDFD Earnest says that Red Scorpion Base (or their top dog i guess) got a hold of the flesh and kickstarted the regeneration process (and i have some STUFF Ive been thinking about when it comes to that), so it sounds like he’s spent whatever concious life he’s had in Red Scorpion Base mostly under supervision, probably. Make sure the investment doesn’t run away. How do you feel about that Ernie. I feel like this guy is mostly “the research here is v important and complicated and i am part of it all so im not really going to think about the fact that i am a piece of property because why would I bother” I justc an’t believe we’re not going to see more of him you know? S2S can’t just present us with this guy and then be like “ok thats all you’re going to see of him ever”, wouldn’t make sense. Also what is this research? We just get that one sentence and i’m already like hmmmm that’s weird and suspicious”.

I imagine that once he became fully concious he must have had questions about himself but it doesn’t sound like he was given too many details. “A misshap with a rocket launcher” doesn’t really tell us whether he knows he was murdered or not, but “im told we were in love it sounds terribly romantic :)” we can tell he doesn’t know Sigrid’s dead and also that whoever told him that either didn’t know the details of their relationship, or did and just didn’t tell him because why would they tbh. SOunds like he was told somethign among the lines of "You were a v smart scientist who lived in the far-away land of the uk, working towards a big cure to save humanity (that's how you got your regeneration powers!) and you and the prime minister were in love :o) And then there was an accident/some terrible spies shot you with a rocket launcher "

Also SDFSDF bless Peter for being like “im gonna kill him” right away when we come across Ernie in the greenhouse like YES THATS WHAT I WAS SAYING!! Peter your brain is huge and so very wrinkly I knew you’d be with me on that one.

I also understand Ernie calling for help, it’s the smart thing to do and i just Love the idea that from his point of view we’re obviously the bad guys. I mean he’s been told we’re spies, to hide away, and now we’re talking about killing him right in front of him sdfsdfs

I just want so badly to bully him. I want to be forced to take him with us and i want his presence to make everyone high strung and uncomfortable and terribly snipy and the whole time he has no idea why everyone hates his guts so badly. Does he even know that the zombie apocalypse was partly his fault? I bet not. I want to tell him we killed him and also his terrible fascist wife. I just think it’d be neat.

6. THEORIES

OKAY so like when i was making up theories about what could happen with Van Ark i remembered something about S7M25-26. Upon reading the transcripts i realized a couple things.

At the time, we had a wriggling hand we cut from a zombie that had bitten Peter and gotten his regeneration abilities. Veronica guided us to a water treatment plant where Sigrid kept a nanotech machine capable of nullifying Van Ark’s regeneration in case she needed to neutralize him at some point, so we set off there to see if it worked on the P-Hand and maybe even be able to use that technology to help Peter lose his so that he felt more like a person, less like a monster who can put everyone he loves i danger. Feelings that are still relevant seeing as we haven’t tried a treatment on him yet (most of the research was destroyed but i think Sage had some stuff too??, i need to check a bunch of stuff to know what happened with this whole thing exacly). And also Ernie, who is also a danger. It will be interesting to see what’s his opinion on his regeneration.

In any case, when we get there we have a terrible misshap and the hand starts growing fast as hell instead of dying.

“ VERONICA MCSHELL: It appears Sigrid’s treatments stimulated growth.”

Well. Isn¡t THAT interesting. Peviously I thought was that Van Ark's body in general might not have been extensiveley damaged, and that Sigrid had gotten it and worked to save his life. In Red Scorpion Base we are told that "A few scrapings from him ended up on the black market, a little pink and gray matter" so i thought that maybe he had been blown into pieces. But now i’m thinking that there is a couple possibilities. Veronica at some point says that sigrid threw failed experiments to an automated furnace. Makes you think.

Clones. Maybe there wasn’t enough of Van Ark’s original body to regenerate, so Sigrid started experimenting with unknown degrees of success and burnt off the failures in the furnace.

We don’t know how many failures there might have been or how many successes. I can’t imgine she’d make more that one if she succeded, but there’s no way to tell. It could be that she herself sold the kickstarted flesh to Red Scorpion Boss although I don’t really see Sigrid doing that with Van Ark though but then again, who knows lol. There’s also the possibility that someone else found the research/got a hold of the pieces of Van Ark she hadn’t used and has been selling them around, after all how did that flesh end up in the black market? It0s just flesh from a dead man, no reason for it to be there unless you know exacly what it is so whoever put it in the market knew exacly what they were selling. If there’s enough bits of van ark to go around, maybe that’s what’s going on in Poland? Who do i see taking bits of van ark, kickstarting their regeneration and selling either the flesh or even clones to the highest bidder? Could be anyone. Could be Valmont, seeing as he has plenty of contacts, could be someone new. I don’t think he’s the top dog at Red Skull base necessarily but i don’t discard it. Whoever it is they obviously recognize us and know what we’re all about and they know to be weary of us. Either our reputation in the uk has reached other countries or this is someone who has been to the uk/we’ve dealt with one-on-one.

Guess we’ll see what happens.

#zombies run #zrs9 spoilers #theorizing babaeyyy #long post #fennel's zr recaps

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