Last Men (Netflix)

The Last Men are a prominent organization within the Sweet Tooth Netflix web series. They are the main antagonists of the series.

## Overview

In the context of the story, The Last Men are a paramilitary organization formed following the Great Crumble. Their primary aim is to exterminate, and where possible, hunt down and capture hybrid children for experimentation, all for their stated goal of saving and restoring mankind at the expense of the hybrid "mutants".

## History

A team of Last Men personally led by their overall commander, General Douglas Abbot, tracked Doctor Gladys Bell to her home after her unapproved "retirement" from their research program, and subsequently killed her.

A Last Men contingent was seen overseeing the train delivery of people and supplies across the continent. They encountered Thomas Jepperd and Gus, who were seeking passage on the train. After an attempt to steal medicines for Jeppard's chronic pain by the duo went awry, Gus's hybrid nature was accidentally revealed, and after a brief scuffle, the Last Men captured the pair and tried to ship them of to a secure facility for hybrid experimentation. An ambush was staged upon the paramilitary to rescue the hybrid Gus by an enemy faction, the pro-hybrid group, the Animal Army. All of the Last Men soldiers were killed in the process. Elsewhere concurrently a messenger arrived at a forward operating base on horseback, alerting General Abbot of the location of The Preserve, and its caretaker, Aimee Eden. Upon hearing this, Abbot ordered an expedition against the Preserve in which he hoped to capture the Hybrid-filled location for research purposes, as they were running low on hybrid test subjects necessary for a viral cure for "The Sick".

After running low on hybrid test subjects, the Last Men sent a note that denied the Singh family's anonymous request for more shipments of the hybrid-extract-based experimental treatments secretly used by Rani Singh to abate "The Sick" within her body. After murdering their former comrade for perceived treason , the Last Men learned that shortly before her demise, Gladys Bell had given her research notes to her former colleague from before the Great Crumble, the brilliant doctor and medical researcher Aditya Singh, in hopes that he could finish the research she had begun. Subsequently, General Douglas Abbot and his men simultaneously saved both the research notes from destruction and the Singhs from their execution by immolation by their now hostile townsfolk. Thus, in one fell swoop, The Last Men took into their possession not only a replacement head researcher for their program in the form of Doctor Singh, but also the experimental data need to continue the work.

Unfortunately, the shortage of test subjects remained a stumbling block in their efforts to research a cure to the H5G9 Virus. Undaunted, the Last Men sought to remedy this problem and secure more hybrids for their research efforts and so set their sights on the famed hybrid-sheltering Preserve of Aimee Eden. A company of Last Men soldiers, once again led by General Abbot from the front, launched a successful military operation to conquer and secure the facilities. Though they did suffer moderate casualties due to Eden's booby traps. The paramilitaries are currently using the former zoo as their new headquarters and as their main research laboratory for leading the charge in their quest for a cure to "The Sick".

## Personnel, Influence, Assets and Resources

The actual status and nature of their resources and influence within the show can only be speculated on. The resources and influence that they are confirmed to possess are their military strength, organizational power, and widespread presence throughout the post apocalyptic world,

### Military Force

Overall, the Last Men appear to be a professional outfit of combatants, made up of a hard core of well-trained and well-equipped former veterans and other military personnel from before the Great Crumble.

#### Recruitment and Training of Civilians

Presumably, the Last Men supplement their pool of former professional military personnel by recruiting and then training and equipping people who had no military background or experience before the outbreak of the H5G9 virus. Many survivors of the Great Crumble became Last Men out of the fear that they would otherwise be consumed by the virus, and that the group represents their only chance at survival in the post apocalyptic world. Given the nature of the world, this state of affairs probably has not ceased, which would give the Last Men no shortage of recruits. How they train and educate these inexperienced and unskilled civilian recruits and mold them into professional soldiers is unknown at present,

#### Leadership

Little is known about the Last Men's military or civilian leadership and command structure , "General" Douglas Abbot is the notorious and feared leader of the Last Men. Abbot is in fact, the only known leader of the group and the only prominent figure seen. However, given the scale and sophistication at which the group operates, it would necessitate a level of bureaucracy beyond a single leader, The Last Men thus must posses some semblance of a command structure and a leadership cadre besides General Abbot in order to function at all as a group, let alone to function as efficiently as they do, though who these deputy leaders and organizations are is unknown at present. (Though General Abbot was seen pulling a soldier, presumably one such deputy leader, and ordering him to hunt down Aimee Eden in revenge for killing of his soldiers through her firework-based traps.)

#### Motorized Division

The Last Men are confirmed and shown to have a sizable number of functional motorized vehicles at their disposal, both civilian and military, including armored fighting vehicles such as tanks.

### Intelligence Network

The Last Men also have an intelligence division in addition to their main combat force of professional soldiers and vehicles. It is unknown if they have access to former professional intelligence operatives among their number, whether from civilian agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency or the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or former soldiers and officers from the Army or Marine Corps that are, or were, trained in military intelligence, or even if they are bereft of trained operatives and are simply forced to rely on amateur specialists without any formal espionage or counterespionage training at all. Regardless of the competence of its staff, such a specialized division does indeed exist within the Last Men. General Abbot states in a conversation with the captured Doctor Aditya Singh that he has a coast-to-coast-spanning network of “ears”, implied to be spies and informants, at his disposal that keep him updated on current events, such as the fact that a new epidemic of "the Sick" is looming on the horizon.

### Research Program

The Last Men also seem to have a small research program staffed by a corps of professional scientists, researchers, and physicians, all of which are tasked with searching for a a cure to "The Sick", the H5G9 Virus. The research was formerly led by Doctor Gladys Bell as head researcher. After her demise, General Douglas Abbot procured a replacement head researcher in the form of doctor and medical researcher Aditya Singh.

Doctor Singh had an initial unwillingness to compromise his ethics by participating in the research program, especially when he learned the research involved forcible and unethical human experimentation on hybrid children, this did not change even when he learned that his beloved wife Rani Singh was herself afflicted with "the Sick" and in her unique case, Rani Singh's strain of the virus was forestalled temporarily via administration of some experimental treatments derived form said unethical program provided by Doctor Gladys Bell, much to the horror of the Singhs, as they were unaware of the source of the treatments until General Abbot indirectly revealed it to them though a note denying new hybrid extracts and thus new shipments of the treatments. Rani Singh was then held hostage by the Last Men and continually implicitly threatened to ensure Doctor Singh's cooperation and participation in the medical experimentation program, forcing his hand.

The staff of the program seemed to be very few in number, with the acquisition of Doctor Singh being hailed as a major victory, unsurprising, as due to the reduced and scattered nature of humanity its intellectuals are in short supply. In fact, due to this very scarcity, Doctor Gladys Bell and Aditya Singh may have been the sole members staffing the program, doing research for a cure as a one-person research team.

This possibility would explain the extraordinary measures the Last Men took to rescue the research notes from destruction and the Singhs from execution by their now-hostile community, and also the additional protective measures they took when escorting the two to their base of operations in the newly captured Preserve.

This speculation is later shown to be untrue as multiple medical personnel are seen and later, as further confirmation, a radioman from a loudspeaker can be heard ordering all medical personnel to the laboratory to assist Dr. Singh in his research. This confirms, at the very least, the presence of trained medical personnel within the Last Men, if not actual, professional, scientific researchers aside from Doctors Singh and Bell.

### External Reach, Power and Influence

The Last Men also seem to be very widespread geographically, spread across multiple former states and territories of the United States of America, and by extension, they are quite possibly the most widespread and organized group in the otherwise scattered and isolated communities of the post-apocalyptic world, in addition to their near ubiquitous presence throughout the land, they are implied to wield considerable political influence within the communities, and may be the closest thing to a functional government and law enforcement body within and without them. Though it remains to be seen whether or not the Last Men actually have a dedicated law enforcement body and if so, if they have former professional police and law enforcement officers among their ranks, they may instead simply rely on warlordism through use or threat of use of their formidable military strength.

### Internal Organizational Culture

As befitting of a paramilitary initially formed of actual servicepersons, there appears to be some level of *esprit de corps* among the group's personnel, with members holding loyalty the the group, each other, and the cause as paramount. As a show of such loyalty, all members of the Last Men have the logo of the group imprinted onto their chest. This marking makes identifying deserters easier, such "traitors to humanity" like Thomas Jepperd are despised by the loyalists and hunted down and killed where and when it is possible.

### Individual Members

* Douglas Abbot (commander)
* Aditya Singh (head researcher)
* Rani Singh (hostage and bargaining chip)
* Johnny Abbot (civilian member)

## Trivia

From an "out of story" perspective, as antagonists, the Last Men can be seen as a archetypical example of an "evil army" in fiction, being a well-organized army of professional soldiers with a severely damaged moral compass.