To Be A Champion

Canon Changes

As most of you know, my books are fanfiction for the running app, Zombies Run, and the character "Five" is a character who I've given a unique backstory. Five in the ZR game never speaks and is never given a name, gender, and is never really hinted at being in a relationship with anyone so you can make Five whoever you want.

So, with that being said, some obvious canon changes throughout the series has been my entire Five's backstory, her name, etc.

Those things, while having a big part of my story, have not really impacted the overall plot of the seasonal story that these books surround. The same goes for some of the Original Characters that you won't find if you ever decide to give Zombies, Run! A try. Characters like Callista's kids, Nicole, Caleb, and other characters from Callista's backstory are all characters I created. Again, their presence had some big impacts on my books but didn't disrupt the overall season's plot besides taking some lines from canon characters to give to them.

However, this season was one of my least favorites, and so I did change some things that did drastically alter from the ZR season canon and (some of it) will have an impact on the next book. There are also a few things don't have as much impact on canon that I added that just, in my opinion, made the story better. I won't discuss everything, but I will mention the bits that, if you gave ZR Season 8 a listen, you would realize what I changed.

The Major Changes

Rory was not a big character in ZR season 8. In the season, he only appears in 2 episodes, which would be, in my book, Chapter 35: Take a Chance on Me and Chapter 48: Lady in Red. I gave him more relevance in my book because it made his "introduction" chapter smoother, and so Nicole could have a love interest (also angst because she is the one who shoots him.)

Tom in canon never gets infected with the nanites. In Chapter 23: Codified Likeness Utility, Tom goes with Sam, Five and Shona to confront Jones. In ZR canon, he doesn't. I did this because him being sick and infected made this fight with Shona in Chapter 42: Soft Target more believable. Because while Shona is faster and stronger due to red fungus, she had no fighting experience and Tom is an MI6 agent with tons of experience and training, plus we know from in past stuff (my own add-ins and ZR canon) that Tom when in a malnourished, mentally unwell state, he was able to take down Janine, another MI6 agent. In canon during the fight with Shona, he was healthy, mentally well and already had his guard up, so him struggling with that fight made no sense to me. So I decided if he was sick due to the nanites, the struggle would be more believable.

Going back to Chapter 23: Codified Likeness Utility, I changed canon by Jones still having the syringe with nanites. In canon, he doesn't and it said he got infected because some must have been on his hand and he must have rubbed his eyes or got a cut. This didn't make much sense to me because it has been weeks since Jones had infected Janine, and he didn't realize he was dying until just before the zombies invaded the town, which is why I decided he had the syringe and accidentally stabbed himself with it, or something similar as Jones said he was unsure. It also gave grounds to infect Tom with them.

In Chapter 42: Soft Target, Callista ends up making it to Tom from the caves and saving him, even though we know he does end up losing his leg after getting shot by Shona. In canon, that is not what happens. In the ZR episode, Five doesn't make it to Tom in time, and Shona kills him. I changed this because, as it has become increasingly obvious in this book, I really like Tom, and have grown to like him more and more as I've written him as a part of the main cast in this book. Also, I feel like it was poorly written by the ZR writers considering how skilled Tom is to die like that. There is more I could say about it being a plot device, but that delves into stuff for the next book/stuff they use in the next season and I won't be giving any spoilers. But Tom living will impact the next book. It's another reason I kept him alive, because looking at the plot during the next season, there are certain things that would have made more sense with Tom doing them instead the character/characters that did or said them.

Minor Changes

The entire Project Feive subplot. That doesn't exist in ZR canon.

Also, while this was in the last book, the Train to New Oban subplot is actually supposed to be Runner Five's origins in the apocalypse, so Halima knew Runner Five. I changed it to Catherine because of Callista's backstory not aligning, as she would have been 12 at that time and still in the United States of America.

Peter does appear on Radio Abel, but only for about half of the Season 8 Radio Abel clips. That's all we hear from him in canon and he never gets in contact in any main plot episodes. Callista's late night Rofflenet chats with him obviously don't happen in ZR Season 8. I did it just because I've already established how much Callista cares about Peter and I don't think it would have been realistic for her character to not have talked to him.

In Chapter 30: Dear Alice, Frances tells Sam that Alice wrote about him, and he replies, "Really?" She says, "Well, you were her boyfriend." This is not the case in the canon episode. In the canon episode, Frances actually just jokingly says, "Yeah, a bit, mate." And tells him that even though she never told him, Alice really liked him. This implies that Sam and Alice were never actually together, even though in Season 1 (and therefore in Book 1: To Be A Runner) Sam hints that they were together. And in the 5k Trainer, which, if I had access to during my time writing it, would have been chapters in Book 1, Sam also heavily hints that he and Alice were in a relationship. Because it make no sense to me for Sam to act as he did when learning about Frances (a lot of it was in fact canon) and in the other times he's mentioned Alice, for them to have not actually been in a relationship, I decided to change that and say that they were.

Because the Project Feive subplot doesn't exist, in canon Five doesn't have any man-made, watered-down version of the Red Fungus in her blood. Therefore, while in the later chapters of my book she doesn't have many of the red dreams like everyone else, in canon it is implied that Five does have these dreams. I changed it because Chapter 48: Lady in Red, everyone else claims to be turning V-Type slowly, but Five was never indicated to be turning, so in order to make sense of it, I say there was something slowing down that process. Also, Five has given the indication of turning once, with canon not having Five speak but having Five cough in Season 5 when Five was bitten by a non-infectous zombie and given drugs to mimic symptoms of going gray. So if ZR writers had wanted to indicate Five was turning, they could have by having Five cough, but they didn't.

In Chapter 48: Lady in Red, canon has Shona die by jumping off the cliff when Jody tells her she is going to arrest her. Because that felt rather boring and didn't feel like a well written death for Shona—a villain I already wasn't a fan of and couldn't do much to fix besides give more foreshadowing that ZR canon really didn't—I decided to create the fight between her and Callista, along with her finally getting shot by Catherine as a way to officially introduce the older clone, as this is the first time Callista and Catherine have met in the real world. Something to know is that Catherine will play a larger role in the next book.

And that is some of the canon changes I have created. I hope that these changes made the book more enjoyable for you! Please be sure to let me know what you think of them! Have a blessed day!