omg, I think you’re right!
Also I think the Lancasters are more involved too- because why else would Duke Lancaster ban Aurora from leaving the house? Also Cherry mentioned that in the novel Eden had antibodies to the virus… how else would he have that protection unless Duke Lancaster was aware and actively involved in what’s going on?
Exxactly! Ofc we don't have all the details yet but as a high ranking noble there's no way he's clueless.
I mean, it makes sense for him to ban Aurora from leaving at that point regardless so I don't think that's by itself sus. Like by then news of the outbreak have spread, ofc he doesn't want her to leave BUT he's got those >v i b e s<.
Anyway, building off of what you said bc yes: Perhaps it'll turn out that Eden isn't the only one with anti-bodies. It could be a thing where the perpetrators sold vaccines to "important people" or something like that.
Or maybe, more likely, this lil resistance group discovered the makings of the plague own their own, whatever those makings were, and passed the anti-bodies (+strength booster, intel & Aurora) onto the next generation because they knew it wouldn't be another 10 or so years before the outbreak.
Adding onto that, since Vanilla's and Cherry's dad are very dead it might be that the Duke lost the drive to actively expose the cause of the outbreak. It got too risky for him, and thankfully he's a Duke which makes killing him not too easy - which would explain my plothole of why he didn't bring the kids together and is keeping silent. Perhaps he was promised a vaccine for Eden if he kept his mouth sealed? Who knows.
This is cosmic levels of conspiracy at this point but hey, I live for this. Thanks for coming to our TED talk.
My theory for now is that the monster zombie plague is manmade or (un)intentionally mutated into what is it now.
One of those "higher ups" perhaps (2nd prince party? obvious reason being get rid of the crown prince; classic), wants to intentionally create a crisis where they come out on top, or its an accidental outbreak of a bio weapon. It could be both of those at the same time too. Like all these appearences of monsters pre-apocaypse were test runs, lil accidents or simply abandoned after a successful trial. The same herb being found there strongly suggests that. If I'm recalling right these encounters so far took place where Vanilla's father noted locations on FL's blueprints (or they're locations number 2 and so on, which weren't mentioned on there. Perhaps I'll bother digging up those mentions just to see and compare).
Which brings me to this point: Vanilla's dad was somehow involved in these experiments, in whatever way shape or form. The Sinclairs too perhaps, though it's too early to tell just yet. Generally it's pretty clear that parent generation got a bunch of skeletons in the closet, Eden's dad too for sure.
Also I might be super wrong but the og FL, Aurora or what was her name, I'm certain she's a descendent from that mystic protector family Seigrave. Which is why FL's dad said to protect her - that mf knows. How? Idfk.
FL's powers seem inhuman or rather superhuman. I wonder if that was the intended or unintended result of those supposed experiments. Her dad had a shit ton of cash and desperation to cure his daughter, so he was able to come across these people and got some boosted af elixir out of it. And from there he discovered shit was about to go down along with Vanilla's dad (and some others too maybe). They planned to expose the whole operation, but bam and they were abruptly and "accidentally" put to eternal sleep. It COULD be that they were looking for ways to stop the outbreak and in the process came across Aurora, who they decided to keep safe with the Lancesters where she couldn't be harmed. Big MAYBE here. I'm heavily speculating atp.