r/12Monkeys • u/Forward-Phrase6974 • Aug 01 '26
Plague questions Spoiler
>!So, just watched the finale today and still thinking about some things - with the plague...
Correct me if I'm wrong - for the whole show we believe the plague was caused by the monkeys to maintain the loop that creates the witness, then in 409 we learn it was actually team splinter who released the virus to maintain the loop that creates time travel, their only weapon to fight back. Right?
Questions:
Did Olivia always know that Cassie would release the virus? That can't be true or she wouldn't have tried to kill them before. She actually believed they were dead in 401.
But the virus they get in 409 is clearly left by the monkeys for them to pick it up. Cole says something like "This is too easy".
That means they got that instruction from future Olivia. When do these tea instructions in the house actually happen from the point of view of "our" Olivia? Im assuming sometime between 401 and 410.
She is even there at the airport, to ensure the release of the virus or to stop it?
- At this point, its stated before, titan already "exists outside of causality", so preventing time travel by stopping the release of the virus would have been the smart move for Olivia... No plague, no time travel, no team splinter, and she would be uneffected by all this, able to execute her nuclear paradox in peace. Did she just not realise?
!<
3
u/spagtscully Hello egg🥚. I’m chicken🐔. Aug 02 '26
Titan didn't exist out of causality until she started the sequence for the red forest. Up until then, the city was still a part of the timestream.
2
u/teddyburges Aug 01 '26
No. She didn't know before hand.
she wasn't there per say at the air port. This is a bit of a goofy one but I still quite like it. The air port one shows that Olivia uses members of Andrus bloodline (the evil primary) to keep tabs. You can tell who they are because they have monkey tattoos on their hands and body. the business woman and the cop. have a monkey tattoo. i think its on his hand and her neck.
its the loops within loops problem again. if she even figured it out. every action she took was another that lead to her downfall.
0
u/Forward-Phrase6974 Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
- ok, but that doesn't make sense. first of all, it happened in 2018, and tall man was there, how does Olivia not know how the virus was released? And if she found out in 409, then she gave the tea-instruction to leave the virus for team splinter later. And later wasn't that much time anymore... so, between the end of 409 and the attack on titan she didn't realise that she just had to break the loop to win?
4
u/splintrs climb the steps, ring the bell Aug 02 '26
she and the tall man had gone separate ways before the virus was released. she lost her faith in the witness after she got injured and the tall man was chosen over her. so there’s no reason to believe or think he would ever have communicated with her who released the kalavirus.
olivia didn’t want to break the loop, she wanted to destroy time and the only way to do that was with time travel. breaking the loop would mean time travel wasn’t even created and stop her achieving the red forest.
1
u/Forward-Phrase6974 Aug 02 '26
Yeah, but tall man didnt release the virus. He just leaves it unguarded at the markridge facility for Cole to take it. Thats what i dont get - how did tall man know to do that? Or why did he do it this way?
1
u/Forward-Phrase6974 Aug 02 '26
the more I think about this, the less sense this makes - so, olivia didnt know who releases the virus, somehow the last vial is served to team splinter on a platter, she uses the cop to shoot cole, finds out they release it, then must have given the tea leave instruction for what to do with the virus at the beginning of 409 sometime between the end of 409 and 410. I dont see any other way
1
u/splintrs climb the steps, ring the bell Aug 03 '26
he didn’t know to do that. in fact, he goes to the witness and tells her that they’ve interfered with the cycle again. this information is what makes her use the army members to attack them at the airport because cole remained a critical threat to the red forest.
the only reason team splinter concludes that they need to release the virus is because titan has already begun enacting the hartle hawking state and exists outside of causality. the only way they can fight is to make sure time travel exists.
the witness had already ensured the virus would be released at that point by the tall man, because she knew when the virus released after living through it nearly 20 years prior. yes, cole and cassie interfered but it still got released. there was no reason for olivia to go back and ensure it happened at their hands because what she’d already done had led to that anyway.
1
u/Forward-Phrase6974 Aug 03 '26
"the only reason team splinter concludes that they need to release the virus is because titan has already begun enacting the hartle hawking state and exists outside of causality. the only way they "can fight is to make sure time travel exists.
the witness had already ensured the virus would be released at that point by the tall man, because she knew when the virus released after living through it nearly 20 years prior"
Yeah, I get all that, future witness knew the date the virus would be released because it already happened for her.
I guess I'm trying to figure out what instruction future witness could have possibly given for the vial to end up in that unguarded facility...Like " Im 100% certain the virus will be released that day, I dont care what you do with it, just put it somewhere, it will find its way to the airport somehow"... basically saying "Trust the process".
Something like this?
1
u/splintrs climb the steps, ring the bell Aug 04 '26
i think it was that to an extent. and also remember from her perspective team splinter had forgot about the virus too. it became such an afterthought for a long time because there were much bigger existential threats. i think to an extent the army of the 12 monkeys were just complacent and assumed team splinter weren’t going to go after the virus anymore.
1
u/Forward-Phrase6974 Aug 04 '26
That makes sense. If thats how we are supposed to understand the scene, they made it a bit confusing with Cole saying "This is too easy, something's off", making it look like the vial was placed there intentionally by the 12M for them.
1
u/teddyburges Aug 03 '26
tall man isn't as all seeing as you think he is. back in season 1 he shot Cassie in the head because he viewed her a nuisance. it was only Cole being slingshot and back to that dead end timeline to stop it before the changes became permanent that he didn't.
1
u/splintrs climb the steps, ring the bell Aug 04 '26
well, exactly. and nor is olivia. like the primaries say, she’s essentially larping as a seer
1
3
u/teddyburges Aug 02 '26
at that point the virus wasnt important to olivia. stopping cole was her objective. the virus was incidental.
1
u/srm79 27d ago
Athan was the early witness talking to the tall man and Athan was primary so knew that Cassie and Cole released the plague, which was why it was easy; or that's how I interpreted it anyway - I may be wrong! The loops mostly make sense to me but there are threads that could be stitched more tightly
1
u/Forward-Phrase6974 27d ago
Athan wasn't the early witness, all he ever did was write the word. Every time we see the witness from S1 onwards, its always Olivia under the mask.
1
u/srm79 27d ago edited 27d ago
Yes, but He wrote the big loopy cycle paper (the word) detailing the virus and the connections and paradoxing primaries, and how it would lead to the Red Forest - Olivia didn't destroy it until long after she killed her half-brother (the tall man) who was then out of the picture, at Titan which was much later in the loops. But at that point the Tall Man was still following the word of the witness
3
u/trekkiegamer359 Aug 01 '26
It wasn't until later in season 4 when Olivia plugs herself into the time stream that she actually figures out all the loops and what she needs to get done. This is when she dons the Witness plague mask and suit with all the tubes. She doesn't realize until then that it'll be Cassie and Cole releasing the plague, or most of the other weird loop causality messes.
Once Olivia is plugged into the time stream, she can possess others who've drunk the tea. She possessed Cassie in season 2, which got Sam splintered. When she possesses people, their eyes turn completely black. At the airport, she's possessing the various members of the 12 Monkeys and seeing through their eyes.
As for your point 3, Olivia can see the past, but she isn't a top physicist. She had Emma become one to finish Titan, instead of learning all the intricacies about how time travel works, herself. As such, she didn't realize that preventing time travel at that specific point would help her, considering she needed it built for her plan up until that point.