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CEDA | Civil Emergency Defense Agency is an YouTube Analog Horror created by For6bey
set in the Left 4 Dead universe, primarily focusing on the events of Left 4 Dead 2 and its aftermath.
Most videos comprise of tapes produced by CEDA during the early days of the Green Flu epidemic... but, as they go on, we get glimpses not only further ahead in the timeline, but at things far more worse than a Witch or Tank.
The series' channel can be found on YouTube here.
This series provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: The ending of L4D2's "The Parish" saw the survivors escape in a military helicopter and left it at that. The CEDA series expands on that: the four were interrogated and barely spared from being put down in the nick of time. The fates of the other three are left vague, but Nick is confirmed to have been drafted into CEDA due to his expertise against Special Infected and is being dispatched to Newburg.
- Alternate Reality Game: CEDA provides elements of this throughout videos, with unlisted videos hidden in captions as well as in annotations, along with a few links to things such as documents.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: In Summary. Twenty agents were sent in to clear the Liberty Mall of the Starer colony. Only three men came back. CEDA responds by fire-bombing the place.
- Distant Sequel: The series itself seems to take place after Left 4 Dead 2, with Summary being listed as in the year 2015.
- Evil Old Folks: The first-documented (and best-known) Starer is an infected old woman.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Various pieces of text and imagery will briefly appear for a split second before vanishing as if they never existed, only being able to be properly viewed with the right pausing or going frame by frame.
- At the very start of BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY, a graphic providing information about The Starer is shown before cutting off. Considering the style of the graphic and the brief piece of music that plays during it, this implies that Starers have possibly been around far longer than imagined prior to the Liberty Mall incident and that CEDA had known enough about them to produce material about them in their tapes.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Enforced. Some aspects of the story are told through heavily-modded gameplay segments; usually in-service to contextualizing already-mentioned information.
- Given Name Reveal: Authorized reveals the legal names of the Left 4 Dead 2 survivors: Wendell "Coach" Jones, Nicolas Murphy, Rochelle Aytes Langely and Ellis Gilmen.
- Hive Mind: Summary implies that Starers are part of one, given other recorded instances act exactly like the Liberty Mall hostile.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Starer, much like other Special Infected, looks mostly like a human.... except for other half of their body, which is often warped and distorted akin to a melted candle, leaving them with a single functional eye.
- Immune to Bullets: The few times CEDA actually engages Starers, their guns do absolutely nothing.
- It Can Think: The Starer is implied (and discussed In-Universe to potentially have) a higher intelligence, though not as such compared to other special infected, as it will pick and choose targets before waiting for an opportunity to strike.
- The Whisper are an extremely intelligent but rare breed of Special Infected. They are almost exactly like common infected, but unlike commons, they remember the languages they spoke prior to infection and retain the ability to speak, using it to manipulate and lure non-infected into attacks.
- Oh, Crap!: The text has this reaction in Summary after the reveal of Starers' ability to establish colonies.
- Parody Commercial: The Vannah shows one for the titular hotel, which would later become an evacuation zone as the Green Flu got out of hand.
- Stalker without a Crush: The Starer, a new type of infected that was discovered in the Liberty Mall incident, which stalks its victims from the dark until it decides whether to strike or leave.
- Stealthy Mook: Exaggerated with Starers. They're so good at blending into environments that they spent a good chunk of the outbreak undetected and even managed to craft a whole nest out of the Liberty Mall.
- Strong and Skilled: Starers are both outstanding predators and Immune to Bullets. The only preventing them from being the ultimate foe is their innate passivity and that there are smarter Infected out there.
- Tempting Fate: The two guards in Liberty Mall decide it's a great idea to sneak off and explore the abandoned mall by themselves. After all, there's nothing in there anymore...right?
- Zombie Advocate: Many of the tapes produced in the early stages of the Green Flu epidemic prohibit the killing of any infected individuals, stating that they are still human and that it is illegal. This attitude is later dropped as the infection continues to spread and mutate.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Wouldn't be a Left 4 Dead story without it.
- Zombie Infectee: The Riverside church survivor from Death Toll, featured in BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY, who's bitten on the arm by someone he let into his safe room that was secretly infected. He ends up turning into a Smoker.
