The white-eyed undead at Verdansk

[anonymous]

With the new Warzone update we saw the Vodianoy, the ship we encountered earlier at the coast of Rebirth Island, head to Verdansk where it would subsequently crash on the shores southeast of the city. The shipwreck brought the ultimate crossover between Warzone and Zombies, possibly even implying a connection with the Dark Aether story. For the moment, the zombies are slow and only limited to the area around the shipwrecked Vodianoy, but it seems like they’re slowly going to make their way to Verdansk downtown and the countryside around.

 

Remarkably, the undead feature white eyes, in opposition to the orange eyes we encounter in the Dark Aether story thus far. Now of course, the Dark Aether story is set in the Cold War while Warzone is in 2020, meaning that an event at a particular point in the Dark Aether story may cause the white eyes that we now see in modern day Verdansk. But I don’t like such guessing and waiting. Therefore, I have a potential other theory.

 

Thus far, white eyes in Zombies has been associated with local ethereal controller fields. The most noticeable encounter is probably in Alpha Omega, where Cornelius Pernell succeeded to construct a man-made Aether Pyramid that “hijacked” ethereal control at a specific spatial location, even though at that point, Samantha was still in charge in the rest of the universe. A less obvious example in the Skull of Nan Sapwe, which, upon activation, also is believed to generate a local ethereal controller field. It makes the eyes of the undead nearby turn white, and after this the holder of the Skull (so Primis, in this case) can decide to make the zombies either passive or smack their heads, similar to what Samantha does at the end of every Zombies match.

 

What does this say about the zombies in Warzone? Is there a local ethereal controller field within the ship? Consider this: The zombies are resurrected by activating a “Zombie Event” via a machine found on board of the Vodianoy.

This would imply that an artificial signal indeed causes this outbreak. But what does this fine piece of high-tech do on board of an old Soviet ship? Bear in mind that the Vodianoy is considered as the ‘twin’ of the Rusalka, the boat that was supposed to broadcast a signal across the United States which activated hidden sleeper cells to deploy the deadly Nova-6 gas. The Vonianoy and Rusalka have the exact same design, and both names refer to a mythical Slavic demons that were believed to be responsible for drowning people. This may indicate that the two boats served a similar purpose: broadcasting a signal that enabled a weapon of mass destruction. And while in case of the Rusalka that concerned Nova-6, the Vodianoy may activate a local ethereal controller field that resurrects the fallen soldiers in and around the shipwreck, and possibly further in the future.

 

Why the Vodianoy originates from Rebirth Island may be due to the connection between Nova-6 and mindcontrol (of the resurrected). We know that Kino der Toten, Group 935’s mindcontrol facility, had Nova-6 involved, just like the Pentagon and Camp Edward in its mindcontrol experiments, and Steiner being the mastermind of both Nova-6 and Nazi brainwash research. Perhaps Stitch continued the development of this mindcontrol through Nova gas at Rebirth Island, hence why the gas is so much more dangerous than any comparable nerve gas. I think the crew of the Vodianoy died in a zombie outbreak on the ship, causing it to crash on the shores of Verdansk, where it now set the stage for a whole new predation ground for the undead…

[C L A S S I F I E D]

Interestingly enough, they got the Zombie's orange eye color right in the Haunting of Verdansk event, so it was deliberate to make the color of their eyes white. (Or maybe it could just be an extremely pale shade of yellow lol)

Here are a couple of images for comparison.  (Haunting of Verdansk up and Outbreak down)

 

[anonymous]

@C L A S S I F I E D okay so I don't know anything about it and all I do is guessing, nor do we know if the temporary Halloween event can be considered canon in a way, but this could hypothetically make sense. Consider this: the orange eyes is the regular colour of the zombies in the world, in both the Dark Aether story and Warzone (if we presume both happen in the same universe, ja?). So, normally, also in a weird Halloween-related outbreak, the zombies eyes colour orange. 

 

The key is in white eyes being encountered in local artificial controller fields. In Alpha Omega, Pernell controls his white-eyed minions around Camp Edward for the length of the APD's existence: everything outside it (in both space and time) is still controlled by Samantha. I bet if Ultimis walk several miles from Camp Edward to, say, Hangar 18, the colours would be yellow again as Pernell's field is very local. When the CDC reached Nuketown after Pernell's sample was taken, the eye colours are also yellow again. Same goes for using the skull of Nan Sapwe, where only the zombies in our near proximity get white eyes and "listen" to our will, while all other zombies further away on the island still have their orange eyes and are running to our direction. Before the Vodianoy crashed at Verdansk, any potential resurrected human would have orange eyes, like we see them in the Dark Aether. But now they are white...