The Walking Dead Universe References in The Ones Who Live Explained

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.] "The world is so much bigger than we knew," a captive Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) wrote in a letter to his wife Michonne (Danai Gurira) during his six-year consignment at the Civic Republic of Philadelphia. "So much better, and so much worse." As the charge of Lt. Col. Okafor (Craig Tate), Consignee Grimes spent another two years moving through the ranks of the Civic Republic Military as Sergeant Major Grimes: a helicopter pilot and soldier serving in the force of 17,000 commanded by Major General Beale (Terry O'Quinn).

The CRM's code is "security and secrecy above all," Rick wrote in his letters. "Everything was about secrets. The army kept the city a secret at all costs. Everything the army did was secret to the city. And then there were the soldiers with those blood-red stripes keeping what they did a secret to the whole force. Secrets on secrets."

CRM Force Command secrets are classified within the Echelon Briefing, which contains "all the info, the whys, the things 90% of our force doesn't know about and 100% of our city doesn't," Okafor told Rick and Sgt. Maj. Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt). The top-secret file includes intel on the "tactical military operations" that former Lt. Col. Elizabeth Kublek (Julia Ormond) and Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes (Pollyanna McIntosh) carried out on Beale's orders over on The Walking Dead: World Beyond — plot points that were indirectly referenced on the series premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, along with callbacks to the earliest seasons of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead.

The episode began with a Civic Republic news broadcast reporting that the city of Omaha — one of the three surviving cities on the continent — had fallen, and that the CRM was investigating if the collapse was caused by pressure from a zombie mass. The Alliance of the Three was now an Alliance of Two.

The Alliance of the Three

The Walking Dead: World Beyond established the Alliance of the Three, represented by the three-ring symbol:

• The Civic Republic of Philadelphia (Population: over 200,000)
• Omaha, Nebraska (Population: 97,407)
• Portland, Oregon (Population: 87,000)

The allied civilizations included another 9,671 survivors of Omaha's smaller satellite community, the Campus Colony. 10 years post-outbreak, in 2020, Beale order Kublek and Stokes to destroy the Omaha Safe-Zone and the Campus Colony. CRM Force Command killed civilians with a chemical strike of chlorine gas, then blew up the walls with explosives and had the communities overrun by zombie herds. 

Publicly, the CRM claimed that herds of the dead merged into a massive "mega-cluster" that ran through and destroyed the Omaha and Campus colonies. Secretly, the CRM eliminated two potential threats to the Civic Republic. 

On World Beyond, Jadis stated that the CRM's modeling revealed the Alliance would soon become a drain on the CR's resources of food, water, energy, and power. Omaha, the Campus Colony, and Portland had become too reliant on the Civic Republic and would never be fully self-sustaining. To prevent famine and conflict from spreading to "the last light of the world," the Civic Republic's army moved to sever all alliances.

CRM Origins

World Beyond revealed that the CRM agreed to a transition of power to the Civic Republic's Civilian Government after ten years. But a decade later, in 2020, Beale lobbied for an emergency delay of civilian oversight and cited the "tragedies" at Omaha and the Campus Colony as cause for the Civic Republic's army to continue operating independently from the city. 

On The Ones Who Live, Beale told Rick that the CRM originated as the Pennsylvania National Guard. True to their motto — "civilian in peace, soldier in war" — Beale and the Guard stopped federal forces from bombing Philadelphia at the onset of the outbreak in 2010, then became the Civic Republic's army when the city of Philadelphia was fortified and walled off as the Civic Republic.

Operation Cobalt

As a member of the Air Force, Okafor carried out the bombings of Atlanta, Georgia, and Los Angeles, California, during the military's "Sunset Protocols." Operation Cobalt was the military's last-ditch effort to contain the Wildfire Virus that spread across the globe in August 2010, and these events were depicted on The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, and The Walking Dead: World Beyond.

On World Beyond, Marine LCpl Jennifer "Huck" Mallick (Annet Mahendru) refused orders to execute civilians during Operation Cobalt and joined her mother, Elizabeth Kublek, in the ranks of the CRM. The Ones Who Live revealed that Okafor went AWOL from the Air Force when he was tasked with "liquidating" Philadelphia. Okafor was en route to Philly when he switched sides, bombing 4,000 Marines — including his wife, Estelle — at Lincoln Financial Field. He then joined the ranks of Beale's CRM.

Okafor recruited Rick and Thorne to help him "change the CRM from the inside," but Okafor was KIA during a helicopter flight. As Okafor warned Rick: "There's no escape for the living." 

Read our rundown on everything you need to know about the CRM, our Rick & Michonne timeline explainer, and our recap about Rick's eight-year disappearance. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.