A scene with Rick and Jadis in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live hints at how long it may take for the world to finally recover from the outbreak.

A reveal in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live episode 3 provides insight into the long-term future of The Walking Dead’s world. It’s been clear since The Walking Dead: The World Beyond that the Civic Republic Military isn’t just focused on the here and now; they’re a highly ambitious organization that’s spent a lot of time mapping out plans that will keep them busy for decades to come. According to Jadis, though, this plan extends across centuries.

Similar to how things played out in World Beyond with its cast of characters, Rick’s experiences in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live have yielded some eye-opening discoveries about the CRM, their history, and how they operate. There’s also been much discussion of what their goals are in The Walking Dead universe. It’s this particular area, which is addressed in the third episode of Rick and Michonne’s spinoff, that paints a picture of what the apocalypse could look like in a few hundred years.

The CRM’s 500-Year Plan Shows How The Walking Dead’s Outbreak Can End

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live episode 3 opened with a flashback that showed Rick’s first meeting with Jadis since the events of the main series.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live episode 3 opened with a flashback that showed Rick’s first meeting with Jadis since the events of the main series. In trying to explain why Rick shouldn’t want to leave the CRM and resume his old life, Jadis mentioned that the CRM had a “500-year plan” for The Walking Dead’s world. The specific steps this plan involves weren’t detailed, but the endgame was made clear; over the course of these five hundred years, the CRM intends to “remake” civilization.

Rebuilding society, of course, goes hand-in-hand with eradicating the zombies from the planet. Jadis acknowledged this, claiming that the CRM is working toward “besting” the zombie threat. After that, the CRM expects to not only restore the world to what it once was, but make it better than ever. Presumably, the CRM believes that it can institute policies, governing bodies, and other systems that will make their world superior to the one that the zombie apocalypse ruined.

The Walking Dead Already Hinted At A Zombie Outbreak Solution

As for how it can accomplish this goal, a potential solution to the outbreak has already been hinted at in The Walking Dead’s shows. The Walking Dead: The World Beyond confirmed that the CRM’s scientists have done a great deal of research on the virus and have settled on fungi as the best way to get rid of zombies. By studying mushrooms and the fungi that grow on the flesh of zombies, they’ve figured out that they may be able to develop a form of cure that would break down flesh faster. The dead deteriorating at a rapid rate would lead to zombies dying out sooner rather than later.

The CRM may be the strongest known military force in The Walking Dead universe.

In the timeframe of World Beyond, at least, using mushrooms to destroy zombies served as the framework for their strategy to solve the zombie problem. The next step would be to distribute said cure. The worldwide spread of their fungi solution would be an incredibly challenging endeavor. The CRM may be the strongest known military force in The Walking Dead universe, but ensuring that every zombie in the world is affected by their cure would be hard to pull off, but perhaps not impossible. The CRM admittedly does have a strong aerial presence and could use that to its advantage.

Walking Dead Survivors Still Have A Massive Obstacle To Overcome Before The Outbreak Is Over

Supposing The Walking Dead does work out this issue and destroy all zombies, that wouldn’t account for the threat the living pose once they die. As Rick’s group learned from the CDC in The Walking Dead season 1, every person in the apocalypse is a carrier of the zombie virus. That’s why people always turn once they die, regardless of whether they’re bitten or not. So even if the mushroom solution works and they eliminate all existing zombies, the threat of the world repopulating with zombies would remain. Presumably, they’d deteriorate over time, but not before wreaking havoc on the CRM’s rebuilt civilization.

Both of these challenges – spreading the cure and stopping the living from becoming zombies themselves – are such arduous tasks that it’s not surprising that the CRM would put such a long timeline on their plan in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. 500 years may sound like a long time, but what they’re trying to achieve is most likely not something that can be done within the lifetimes of anyone currently working at the CRM. This is a fact that was recognized by the scientists in World Beyond. A world without zombies may be possible, but also one that’s nowhere in sight.