The Full Setting Of The Michonne Miniseries
Good day, person reading this post!
Motivated by the request of @lordrugal625 on my thoughts on the Michonne Miniseries, I composed a relatively long post explaining what I believe happened before "In Too Deep" took place. Lots of interpretation went into the elaboration of this, so—while, from my perspective, it perfectly captures what took place beforehand—take it with two gains of salt. I filled in the gaps with interpreted information of the game itself.
Be sure to point out if you are doubtful on how I came to certain conclusions and I will do my best to clarify the sources! Also, don't hesitate to tell everyone what you think happened instead! I will update the original post when more sensible points surface.
Let's start a discussion.
One year prior to the events of Michonne Miniseries, Pete, Oak, Berto and Siddiq, the crew of The Companion, arrived at the shores of Chesapeake Bay, where they established commerce with Rashid and Vanessa, two traders who had a boat of their own. After the exchange, the crew sailed back to Oceanside, a grounded community around Virginia where they resided when they weren't out on the sea; and Rashid and Vanessa stayed.
At some point, bands of survivors settled in at The Mobjack, a wrecked ferry, and Rashid and Vanessa joined as well. There is no indication that they didn't live as much of a peaceful life as the apocalypse allows. This group, which we will call the ferry inhabitants, stayed out of conflict. They had all the supplies that had been left there when the outbreak burst into motion.
The day came when a second group of survivors, who we will call the ferry scavengers, found The Mobjack. In an attempt to obtain a better life for themselves, the ferry scavengers killed most or all of the ferry inhabitants, possibly including Rashid and Vanessa. The scavengers took over the ship and adopted the inhabitant's place, leading a better life than they previously had. They were no different than the previous inhabitants—and they had kids, teenagers and an elderly amongst their numbers—except for the fact that they had selfishly taken the lives of dozens of other people instead of co-existing.
Simultaneously to the uprising of the scavengers, a woman who had been the owner of a boat shop and her touched brother started the floating colony of Monroe. There were Norma and Randall. Some of Monroe's early members were Zachary, serving as an advisor to Norma; Jonas, serving as the medic of the community; and Gabby, a hot-headed woman serving as right hand to Randall.
Few miles away from The Mobjack and Monroe lived the Fairbanks, a broken family including John, Samantha, Greg, James and Alex, and the self-deprecating outcast known as Paige. Tension built inside the house after John asked Samantha and Paige to lie to his sons about their mother's death, and Paige threatened to leave several times after her learning that her romantic interest toward her childhood friend Samantha was unrequited. Their shelves grew emptier day to day, prompting Sam to search for supplies away from home and close to the shore.
Samantha stumbled upon a float of boats that had left a stack of supplies unsupervised; tempted by the wish to see her family in a better condition, she ran for it and attempted to flee with her hands full. Sam was caught and brought to the leader of the place, whose name was Norma. The woman looked old, and, after hearing an embellished version of the young woman's life—that included starvation—Norma let her go with the supplies, much to the annoyance of Randall and Gabby.
Minutes later, Samantha found The Mobjack and the scavengers with it. Fearing that her family would ever realize that she stole from a near community, she exchanged the stolen supplies for other supplies. In a sense, she and the scavengers became allies.
More survivors and their boats began to cluster around the main ship of Monroe, also called The Monroe if I'm not mistaken; families were welcome to stay as long as they kept the interest of the entire colony in mind. The residents of Monroe adopted a real sense of community, growing plants and decorating the boats with Christmas lights and umbrellas. This inevitably drew attention to the place. The ferry scavengers found themselves running out of supplies, and decided that moving in onto Monroe was the next step toward ensuring their well-being.
Some of the ferry scavengers set out and approached Monroe. They were spotted, the horn was sounded, the colonists found them and potentially shot them. Randall, who learned that their base was The Mobjack, headed down to the wrecked ship along with Gabby and others, assault rifle in hand, and fired at everybody and everything, not distinguishing between kids and adults. A few of the scavengers that did not die during his outburst of sadism were zip-tied and left to be devoured. Randall and his companions took the remaining supplies of the scavengers to the community.
Samantha and Greg were on the area of The Mobjack at the time of the massacre, and therefore heard gunshots and screams. Since she did not know the scavengers had attempted to overtake Monroe, and was only aware of a fragmented side of the story, Sam came to the conclusion that the community which had previously let her go had become no more than a float of pirates that kill everybody and steal everything.
Arriving back at Monroe, Norma questioned Randall on his horrid behavior, insisting that anything of the kind must never be repeated; she also disproved Gabby's handling of the situation, causing friction between the two. From that point forward, Norma gradually relied more on Zachary and less on her brother, leading the latter to hold a grudge on the former and on the doctor of the community. A colonist of Monroe sailed to The Mobjack at some point to kill the zip-tied scavengers, either out of mercy or anger.
Days later, Samantha convinced Greg of sneaking into Monroe to obtain more supplies for their family; they managed to execute their plan successfully—though they were seen—and got ahold of two yellow duffel bags of The Mobjack—one containing cigarettes, ammunition, medicine and a can of peaches and beans, among others; and the other solely with firearms and ammunition on the inside.
Samantha worried that arriving back at the house with two duffel bags of supplies would raise suspicion of her father and Paige, and told Greg to await on a room of the ferry while she carried the bag with firearms home, and left the bag of assorted supplies with him, along with one of the handguns. However, her brother would be left at risk of being found by the pirates of Monroe; therefore, before leaving, she attempted to establish contact with somebody using the shortwave of the ferry, and she was able to speak briefly with a woman of deep voice, but contact was lost.
Alerted either by the shortwave signal or by the arrival of The Companion, Randall, Zachary, Gabby and another colonist headed down to The Mobjack once again.
Comments
No...from what I gathered...Sam.never ventured to the Mobjack until she wanted to see if she could get the radio working.
I believe from things that Norma said to Randall...he and a group killed everyone on the Mobjack because they refused to join.
Norma had nothing to do with the attack...but she turned a blind eye to her brother's decline.
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Samantha did visit The Mobjack prior to the massacre, since she said that she and her brother traded with the scavengers "sometimes."
Perhaps you are right...but I still believe it was Rashid and Vanessas group that Randall killed.
For reference
Here's a link to my other discussion, with my last comment being on my thoughts on the plot, and my review of TWD: Michonne
This link is a reference to my review post, so it's much cleaner instead of posting my review again here; my review of the game gives some of my two cents of what happened prior to Pete and Michonne arriving at the Mobjack.
Yeah! Sam had friends on the Mobjack she frequently traded with.
BetterToSleep
Getting down to business, this is what really happened.
I thought that the boat that Pete's boat snagged on, which was located right at the designated trading spot, was one of the trading boats within Rashid and Vanessa's trading community. Pete also said that the spot is usually filled with boats at this point, when Oak then said that something scared them the hell away.
I always interpreted this as Randall and the pirates of Monroe's doing, same with the Mobjack slaughterhouse.
Also, I think those people on the mobjack, including the children, were zip tied and executed on the spot, right after an interrogation Randall had with the Mobjack's leader to take their hidden or secured supplies.
Moreover, I dont think that the Mobjack was ever taken over by bandits, i think the families were just regular scavenger folk the whole time, that were eventually caught up in Randall's greed.
Sam got caught and in trouble on her second stealing attempt, when Michonne and Pete arrived.
Also Norma bragged about making the Mobjack slaughter look like a fairy tale compared to what she was going to do to Sam's family and her house. She said that in dialogue with Michonne in keeping her brother unhurt. This means to me that Norma was possibly in on the Mobjack ordeal, b/c
1. she wanted the people of the Ferry to join Monroe, to combine forces and supplies, and she unfortunately sent Randall to negotiate, getting kinda mad at him but turning a blind eye. OR
2. She wanted to just kill some of them and take their shit.
One of the main reasons I believe this is if you spare Zach's life, Zach literally tried to kill Norma (aside from trying to kill randall, and accidentally killing greg), b/c she thought Norma was kind of a piece of shit, not just for trying to kill Michonne, but for hurting innocent people to defend her worthless shit stain of a brother, kinda like how she lied about Randall being a hero before.
Also Siddiq, while being held captive by Norma, was all "whatever you do, don't give Norma shit," before getting knocked in the head by one of the guards. This tells me they were hostile to Pete's captive crew from the get go. Norma's philosophy of "we take care of people here" is total bullshit.
Rashid and Vanessa's boats were unfortunately there at the time, and probably tried to help the people of the Mobjack fight back, but then one or more of their boats got assaulted by small, more agile motor boats from Monroe (they had plenty), and were sunk by molotov cocktails and small arms fire, engulfing the boat in flames.
This is why I didn't believe Norma's propaganda that Randall was a pure hero, bringing justice to the people that executed the Mobjack inhabitants. She was lying to cover Randall's ass, and get Michonne on her side and to distrust Sam. Randall... the guy that talked about how kids' skulls didn't crack, but actually sorta melted... a hero... mmhmm.
Randall and crew were alerted by greg's warning shot towards michonne and pete. Sam used the radio to call for help b/c they were being hunted down.
This is how it really went down.
This is why I didn't feel so bad when Monroe got burned to shit.
I think you're mostly right, with the exception of Sam not going to the Mobjack. She said she frequently traded with them. Also check my last comment and see if my interpretation sounds about right to you.
You're right about that. Norma told a lie to protect her brother's psychoticness. There's more than one reason why Zach and Jonas helped you escape if you let Zach live. It's b/c Zach, normas advisor, knew what really happened, and that Randall was a psycho, aaand that Norma constantly went out of her way to protect him and brush his psychotic murdering off.
My feed is at thirty seven thanks to your many edits!
I will address your post tomorrow morning; until then, no edits.
Haha, sorry about that. The devil's in the details!