So Help Me God (Remake)

"*A New Order Dawns...*"
—Tagline of *So Help Me God***[src]**

***Strain Zero Presents: "So Help Me God"*** is a post-apocalyptic horror story set in the relaunched continuity established by *The Walking Dead: Strain Zero*, also called the *Remake* Universe. A retelling of the minseries of the same name, it serves as the origin story for Antony Eden and the events that turned him into the main antagonist of *Strain Zero: Descendents*. The first season, titled *Monument*s, began in 2023; a second titled *Memories* is in development, to be followed by a third season titled *Monsters*.

## Plot

*In an overgrown world where the dead now rule, a lonely wanderer seeks meaning, purpose and answers, things he may find when he crosses paths with a survivor that has learned to embrace the madness of the new world.*

## Series Overview

### Season 1: Monuments

> *Main Article: Season 1: Monuments*
>
>

After waking up with no memories apart from his own name, Antony Eden goes in search of shelter and survivors in the ruins of Sacramento, where he makes a home inside the Capitol building. Plagued by hallucinations and delusions, he encounters another survivor, Sasha, and after initial hostilities they decide to share their new home. Four years later, their friendship had turned romantic and they save a small group from someone called the "Gasman". One of the survivors, a blind girl called Yasmine, appears to recognise Eden's voice and convinces her friends, Sergei and Nancy, that they are not safe around him and they leave in the night.

Needing answers, Eden treks into the city to find them and learns that his true name is "Arthur". He is then attacked by the Gasman, who is revealed to possess unnatural strength and durability and also calls him "Arthur". Their battle causes a sinkhole to open in the street, swallowing Eden and the Gasman into the sewers.

While the Gasman leads a small herd on the Capitol, Eden discovers an abandoned laboratory beneath Sacramento, where he learns his true origins: brainwashed by his cultist family, he committed a mass shooting at a local college before becoming an unwilling test subject for "Project Lazarus", which infected him with modified LBI to turn him, the Gasman and other test subjects into zombie-human hybrids dubbed "einherjar". Having achieved clarity, Eden returns to the surface and, since zombies can sense the modified LBI in his body, lures the herd away from the Capitol, giving the group a chance to fight the Gasman.

Eden is briefly killed by the Gasman, who snaps his neck, and returns to life as a hyper-aggressive, inhumanly-strong einherjar that tears the Gasman's skull in half. In the aftermath, he agrees to isolate himself due to being bitten and finally remembers how he lost his memory: shortly after their escape, the einherjar attacked and killed a group of survivors; Arthur cornered one - Sasha - and let her go as she resembled his younger sister, Ida, who died when he was a child. In his guilt, he killed all the other einherjar except the Gasman and suffered a psychological break that triggered psychogenic retrograde amnesia; the name "Antony Eden" came from one of his victims combined with the name of a gardening magazine.

The next morning, clear of infection, Eden emerges and asks Sergei and Nancy to stay; while they consider it, Eden hears a noise with his heightened senses. They are approached by a large convoy of survivors led by Marcus Aurora of Alpha Force, who claim the Capitol for themselves so they can build a "colony".

### Season 2: Memories

> *Main Article: Season 2: Memories*
>
>

Despite their efforts to defend their home, the Capitol survivors are taken prisoner while Alpha Force occupies the Capitol grounds, transforming it into their "Colony". Their leader, Marcus Aurora, offers Eden and his group a place within the community; Sasha demands that Eden use his newfound abilities to drive them away, but Eden refuses and instead tells her that they need to bide their time. Over the next few days, Eden and Sasha struggle to integrate, while Sergei and Nancy openly engage with the newcomers. Nancy loses a hand during a muerto cull and Sasha encounters Andrea, a woman attempting to establish radio contact with other survivors in California.

Tensions within the Colony reach breaking point when supplies, including medicine, start going missing, coinciding with a visit from a mysterious preacher. Eden finds a bag of supplies and accuses a guard named Ryan and his friends of the theft; in the subsequent dispute Eden is shot and killed, only to "activate", come back to life and massacre them. Despite Aurora's orders that he be executed, his deputy, Dylan, asks Dr. Foye to keep Eden alive.

Eden wakes up in a cell, where Dylan asks about Eden's strange abilities: his unnatural strength, muerto-like physiology and his healing bite wound. Eden admits that he doesn't know the full extent of his abilities, only that he was a test subject who lost his memory. Dylan then makes Eden an offer: amnesty from the community in exchange for his help on an expedition to a local hospital, which, although filled to the brim with muertos, holds the medical supplies that they need to treat sick members of the Colony. Eden agrees to join Dylan's expedition and also ropes in Victor, a colonist who Eden knows is the true culprit behind the supply theft; Eden framed Ryan to lessen the impact of the massacre on his own standing in the community.

## Characters

> *Main Article: List of So Help Me God Characters*
>
>

### Main

* Antony Eden: a lonely survivor searching for purpose in the new world
* Sasha: a hardened survivor on the west coast
* Sergei: a survivor originally from Sovia and the leader of his own group
* Nancy: a former college student and friend of Sergei
* Yasmine: a blind survivor in Sergei's group
* Gasman: a hostile survivor with a connection to both Sergei's group and Antony
* Jeremiah: leader of the Underchurch and a figure from Eden's troubled past

## Trivia

* The events of the series will eventually cross over with the upcoming *Descendents* arc of the main series, in which Eden will appear as the main antagonist.
* The story's title comes from the phrase "so help me god", which is commonly used as part of an oath of office, including the U.S. presidential oath.
	+ In the original miniseries, Eden takes the oath of office to become "president" of the Government
* The series begins around the same time as the events of *Season 4: Remake Part I*, around three years after the outbreak.
* As with *Strain Zero*, there are several notable differences between the characters, setting and zombies in *So Help Me God* compared to the original.
	+ In *Strain Zero* and *So Help Me God*, the infection appears to leave a small population of adults, usually those in their early twenties, alive, unlike in the original where the outbreak almost immediately wiped out the entire adult population.
	+ Not all adults reanimated to become zombies, with only a small majority doing so, and approximately 0.5% of adults proved to be immune to the disease.
	+ Zombies in *Strain Zero* are not technically dead, instead reanimating just before the point of death. However, walkers do still decay as a result of the infection causing their bodies to digest their own tissues.
	+ The series is set primarily in California and the west coast, while the original was set on the east coast around the fictional state of Columbia.
	+ Several major characters have had their names and relationships partially changed.
		- Eden's origins remain mostly unchanged, aside from residing on the west coast rather than the east coast, and this incarnation shares the original's interest in history, politics and philosophy
		- Sasha will have a much greater role than in the original, being more active in her efforts to survive
* The series introduces a new subtype of infected called "einherjar".
* *So Help Me God* will feature a faction called the Republic of Greater California, and will also expand on the mysterious Contingency.