[WARNING: Spoilers] The Story So Far... [REDACTED]

[UsedDentalFloss]

SO! As you saw from the title, BEYOND THIS POINT THERE BE SPOILERS!!! You have been warned.

I've been taking my time, exploring the map. I haven't seen everything, or read every note, but I've started noticing... Patterns... Of sorts.

Black Military Gear: Orange band, Dragonfly Logo. There is a Spec Ops Helmet, and Plate Carrier with an orange patch, and a dragon fly logo.

There's the lab, which also has this as their logo.

This logo is different from the "standard" military gear, which is either unmarked, or marked by a red dot logo.

It's also different from the Coyote's logo, which is a skull wearing a beret with twin crossed swords under it as seen on the Coyote Spec Ops Backpack.

----

We know from some notes, or radios, that the origin of this outbreak started at that lab, the one with the dragon fly logo.

From there it spread.

Patient Zero Building is where it just happened to become public knowledge, and also became the grounds for the government cover up.

I think the dragon fly logo is a private company, funded by the government, for war(?) research, and something got out, causing what we see in the game.

The military might not have been in on it, but the special forces may have been. Either that, or there was a secretive branch within the military that acted as the private guards for the lab, and the company behind it.

The coyotes, it's mentioned they came in AFTER the infection, and started shooting people on sight. They took over the observatory, but are also seen guarding the lab.

This leads me to a string of thought that ends in two conclusions: The way they are dressed tells me that the Coyotes are a Private Military Contractor. PMCs are usually hired by governments, corporations, ect. ect. to protect assets in hostile environments. There are tales, however, of certain groups committing espionage, and even sabotage operations. I won't name real world names here, I'd rather not get put on a list somewhere.

So if the Coyotes are a PMC, they were hired by someone... The question is who? And here is where my two conclusions come into play: Either the Coyotes were hired by the company that owns the lab as a clean-up crew, OR they were hired by a competitor to grab whatever they could.

Either way would make sense to use the Observatory as a FOB since it has the high ground, and is right next to the lab, literally overlooking it. They'd kill anyone on sight because in example A: Anyone alive is a threat to the company that hired them, and needs to be cleansed, or B: Being seen by anyone is a threat to their mission. The competitor wouldn't want anything to be known about their involvement, including any possible links, no matter how far off they may be.

Bandits: They're just escaped convicts, really. Just judging on how they're dressed.

Everyone else: Just other survivors, either locals or from elsewhere since we know from another radio that this thing pretty much has started spreading globally.

What are your thoughts? :V

[Evan Rath]

The giant live nuke stuck in the road would probably keep everyone sane away once they know about it.

I think the coyotes are those crazy sovereign citizens and flat earthers that refused to leave and took advantage of the situation. No one else would be dumb enough to stay within a few miles of a huge live nuke.

I think they are around the lab cause they want to loot it. The "gear" is just stuff left around by the dragonfly SF unit that was guarding gov sites.

The survivors are probably the few folks that dont know about the nuke and are trying to help others.

The "gov" probably pulled out all assets at day 1 and tried to nuke it like noko did in WWZ.

(theoretically)

[shkibs]

Lets add couple of variables to that theory:
regular airdrops(if enabled). Who drops those and to whom?

and info + stuff on Oil rig. (it's been a while since I visited it, thus I might be talking through my a** about it).

I'd love to see a surviving scientist npc in the future, in hazmat suit and offering various quests and answers (deceitful or not).

[UsedDentalFloss]

Originally posted by shkibs:

Lets add couple of variables to that theory:
regular airdrops(if enabled). Who drops those and to whom?

and info + stuff on Oil rig. (it's been a while since I visited it, thus I might be talking through my a** about it).

I'd love to see a surviving scientist npc in the future, in hazmat suit and offering various quests and answers (deceitful or not).

I haven't yet been to the Oil Rig... Hmmm. May need to head there for some lore if it can be found there.

As far as the air drops, I mean, I don't want to bring politics into it so I'll be keeping specific real-world events out of this, but there have been situations where one power had essentially surrounded another in war, the world wanted to send aid into the surrounded area to prevent civilian suffering, the surrounded did not.

It was proposed the aid could be air dropped into the area.

I'm not saying it's 100% somewhere else, but if this virus, infection, whatever has spread outside of the Valley, than it'd make sense that allies would form tighter alliances, pooling of resources would happen, and if the world were to survive this? There'd be A LOT of political power to be gained from being the ones that sent help to others.

There could also have been a schism in the government causing something akin to a civil war of sorts. One of these groups could have split off because they're dedicated to the ideals of helping others out in this situation.

Unfortunately, we don't really have that much information about the world outside "The Valley". So where the aid is coming from? Who knows?

Originally posted by Evan Rath:

The giant live nuke stuck in the road would probably keep everyone sane away once they know about it.

The "gov" probably pulled out all assets at day 1 and tried to nuke it like noko did in WWZ.

(theoretically)

The nukes could have been the government as a last-ditch effort to cleanse the area, or it could have been a hostile entity seizing an opportunity to attack their enemy while it was weak. There's no enough information given on the nukes themselves, besides them being the extremely outdated air-drop type. There's no markings or flags to be seen on them from what I could tell.

But that goes in on another topic: How come only the BIG one is labelled as a nuke? Why not all the little ones seen dotted throughout the map? Also, why does only that one explode when struck, the others don't?

My theory there, is because that one giant one? That's the only nuke used here. All of the others? They're Pumpkin Bombs. The Pumpkin Bomb is essentially just conventional explosives in a Fat Man like shell. They don't contain any atomic/nuclear aspects to them. They also were fairly prone to failure.

This leads me to think there could have even been war at one point, considering conventional explosives wouldn't make too much sense if the government was going to nuke the area to cleanse it.

[wolfsmile1966]

what if their not all nukes?....what if there a way to spread this virus/pathogen etc?

[Grayrabbit]

I'm more curious about why in primary infection it's spec ops guys are the one trapped in a infection roots.
Judging by the looks of it, this, tree thingy is grow rapidly and petrified black ops soldier and trap other survivors to feast on it... like how Qliphoth works in devil may cry.

I think there's good touch to it, even if it is asset flip...
Either way, Back 4 blood did try to pull off something like this and they somehow flopped so I guess I shouldn't even think about it deeper though.