Fear The Walking Dead Theory: The Truth About The Bog #7

Thanks to World Beyond, we may have solved one of The Walking Dead’s mysteries.

Whenever it comes to any stories of a zombie apocalypse, my favorite part is always the beginning. I always love seeing how things unravel and how people deal with that most terrible of situations when they’re least prepared to deal with it. I’m no different when it comes to The Walking Dead universe.

This is one of the reasons that I’ve loved just about any Walking Dead webisode, as well as Fear The Walking Dead. It’s also one of the reasons I’ve complained about Fear The Walking Dead of all the series, because rather than focus on that period (Which is kind of how it was touted when it debuted) it seemed to do everything to avoid it.

Now, if this sounds familiar, it’s because I probably said many of these same things a month or so ago when The Walking Dead World Beyond began. At that time, after seeing how the outbreak panned out in Lincoln, Nebraska, it made me curious about that entire period in The Walking Dead universe’s timeline. What we have seen of it has been so sporadic and disjointed, that it’s difficult to discern what happened and when.

One event in particular which has puzzled me was recounted in season five of Fear The Walking Dead. In the fifth episode of that season, “The End Of Everything”, we learn of a tape Althea made right near the beginning of the outbreak, labelled “The Bog #7”, where she recounts a battle between the U.S. Army and the Texas National Guard. On top of all the other events we knew of at the beginning of the outbreak, this seemed to be the most confusing, and had no prior references at any other point in either series at the time, making it seem like something that was entirely out of left field.

…Until now.

Fear The Walking Dead Theory: The Battle Of “The Bog #7” Is Between Soldiers Trying To Carry Out “Sunset Protocol”, And Soldiers Who Refuse To.

In the latest episode of The Walking Dead World Beyond, we saw the outbreak through the eyes of Jennifer Mallick, a.k.a. “Huck”, who, we discover, was a U.S. Marine trying to maintain order in a country desperately trying to hold together as a zombie apocalypse rapidly descended upon it. Throughout the episode, we see flashbacks of Huck’s life during the outbreak: First, hearing about it over the news, then, being assigned to try to rescue survivors hiding out in the service tunnels of a city in New York State.

After her first run-ins with empties, Huck and her squad manage to rescue around two dozen civilians from the service tunnels, however, her efforts appear to be for naught, as her squad is begrudgingly informed by their commander that the government has initiated “Sunset Protocol”: A directive to kill anyone, living or dead, found outside designated safe zones.

This is not the first time we’ve seen this in the Walking Dead universe. Back in the fourth episode of Fear The Walking Dead, Madison Clark, concerned about her neighbors, and not certain the National Guardsmen protecting her neighborhood are being entirely forthright, decides to venture outside the safe zone to investigate. Upon reaching the adjacent neighborhood, Madison discovers people clearly uninfected lying dead in the street from headshots, while narrowly avoiding a National Guard patrol who shoot the corpses around them as they pass by, confirming they are indeed shooting anyone outside of the safe zones. While it wasn’t named in Fear, this was our first introduction to “Sunset Protocol”.

We may have even seen hints of this way back in season three of The Walking Dead, as none of The Governor’s troops questioned his order to murder a squad of National Guardsmen they tracked down in the wilderness outside of Woodbury, suggesting they may have seen the military do things during the outbreak that made them distrust soldiers of any sort. “Sunset Protocol” would certainly fit the bill.

Regardless, in Huck’s flashback, when presented with this order, she immediately questions it, before one of her squadmates shouts her down, openly raising the possibility that any of the civilians they rescued may be infected, and simply not showing symptoms yet. When the squad is ordered to fire on the civilians, Huck shuts off the lights inside the warehouse the Marines are stationed out of, and guns down the entire unit, rather than let them kill the civilians, whom she sets free. I find it unlikely that she was the only member of the U.S. military to refuse to carry out “Sunset Protocol”.

In fact, I think what Althea captured in Texas was, perhaps, an entire unit of soldiers who refused to carry out the grisly order, attempting to stop the other soldiers who, either out of commitment to carrying out their orders (No matter how grim), or, out of the same pragmatic logic as Huck’s squadmate, chose to carry out “Sunset Protocol”, come Hell or high water. Which was which is impossible to tell, though, just going by the fact the National Guard are people from the state they serve in, I’m inclined to think the Texas National Guard were refusing to comply, not wanting to gun down people they may have known.

The beginning of the zombie outbreak in The Walking Dead universe has, somewhat unnecessarily, been a source of constant mystery, with events we’ve only seen in snippets, heard in the background, only had told to us second hand, or seen by characters in the shows well after the fact, and leaving us only a few bits of evidence to try to piece together what happened.

This revelation in World Beyond of “Sunset Protocol”, the fact that it was happening nationwide, and Huck’s handling of it, in my opinion, finally takes one of the Walking Dead universe’s greater mysteries, one thrown out at us out of the blue, alluding to a civil breakdown the likes of which were unseen previously in either Walking Dead series, and cracks it open, giving us some idea of what actually happened.

…Now, if only we can get the rest of those mysteries solved.

But, what do you think? Do you think the battle Al described in “The Bog #7” was over “Sunset Protocol”? Who do you think refused to carry it out? Would you like to see an episode Tales Of The Walking Dead showing this event? Let me know! And, if you want to hear my theories on how to survive a zombie apocalypse in the real world, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also find it at Amazon here, and on iTunes here!