The governor killed those men because they were a threat to his personal power, not because he thought they were bad people.

 

If you think there is anything realistic about the comical way they depicting the military.... you are completely wrong..

 

completely disagree now that Operation COBALT has been revealed

while true that the ex-soldiers that the Governor killed could have rejected the order to kill civilians and they meant no harm to the Governor, how could you trust any soldiers if you were a civilian in this story

 

I understand what CS Furious is saying...I kind of agree that later into the apocalypse, they just become people like everyone else...

 

Well, COBALT is a new concept, and didn't exist when the Governor script was written. During that episode, the implication was that the Governor was power hungry and willing to eliminate potential competition. He even killed Welles, who was just a single man, injured in bed. Plus, we have no evidence that Cobalt was a national operation. The official order is from the California Office of the Adjutant General, and involves specifically the safe zones in Cali.

I think the NG in Atlanta were a plot device to show us the sociopathic nature of the Governor.

 

I don't agree that this is what turned the Gov against the rest of the world - i think there were a lot of things that led to that, more specifically what happened to his daughter and family.

I do think that perhaps it had something to do with how he handled the military people he came across though. Yes, they were a threat to his "power" in Woodbury, but if he really wanted he could have weeded a few of them out and tried to recruit the bodies for help. But instead he didn't even give them a chance and just killed them. Knowing now what they military did to most people, it makes more sense.

 

We don't know yet what the military is planning for Cobalt. It sounds like an evacuation coupled with termination of those deemed dangerous to the rest.

Everything we were shown about the military guys indicated that they were decent people who were still following orders. The Governor had no justification to mow them down, except for survival of the fittest.

 

How the hell would some guy named Phillip in Atlanta know about COLBALT?- A plan for clearing out the LA Basin.

 

Right. And if the Gov thought there was even a chance they might still be exterminating civilians, he wouldn't have approached them the way he did, with arms up, in a friendly manner. If that was their M.O, they would have shot him on the spot, the moment he stepped out of the car. He would have instead just had everyone, including himself, ambush them from the woods. He was just making sure that he stayed in charge.

 

i don't know why you would be so naive as to think that COBALT would only exist in Southern California

it would be an order that would come from the upper echelon of the federal government

remember the napalm over Atlanta

 

Cobalt was specifically the operation to eradicate the safe zones in California. You can read the official document on the AMC website.

 

National Guard is dual, i.e., state and federal; this type of plan would not be authorized for a state; also, hard to believe that the Governor of California would be in charge and not the President of the United States

federal control means Operation Cobalt would be nationwide, e.g., use of napalm on Atlanta

even though this is science fiction, let's be a little realistic

 

Can we call him Phil?

 

Take a peek around you. A ZA has happened. You are describing how the world would work without a ZA.

We don't even know if the President is alive, or if California is even in contact with any central government.

 

it is only about 3 weeks out, i think Kirkman is trying to show how bad are leaders really are and the extermination of most of the infected is a coordinated plan to stop the spread

9 months out, central government is gone; one month out, reminds me of Battlestar Galcatica where the Secretary of Education is in charge

 

I remember when Shane visited Rick in the hospital, he ran into soldiers evacuating the hospital and were shooting at what looked like civilians including hospital staff. This could be the Cobalt equivalent in Georgia.

I am not sure if the Governor knew this. But I think he mowed down those 10 or 12 soldiers mainly not due to distrust of them but because this group being in Woodbury is very likely to challenge his leadership. He was hiding a lot of outside world information from the Woodbury folks and this military group should easily see thru his fakes and exposed him. So, he wanted to eliminate them.

 

You're making up numbers. Nine months out, we are almost at Woodbury stage. We have no idea if they are still in contact with central government. And the official document for the order suggests it came from inside the state.

 

Yeah, we aren't sure what kind of a scope that hospital seen was. They could have been told to take down the hospital and everyone in it, since it was crawling with infected. That would have happened at an earlier stage than Cobalt, because the hospital was still functioning with regular patients like Rick in it, and non-government doctors.

And I think your assessment of the governor's motives is exactly correct.