Quote Originally Posted by Azonalanthious View Post
The rods also suppress the person they are inserted in, preventing them from acting - thus his rendering Naruto harmess (pre-bezerk 9 tail explosion) by stabbing him with them. To me that suggests that he is using them to override the bodies in order to take control, rather then just a new and improved puppet chakra string, which in turn suggests there is something there that needs to be suppressed.
That's a bunch of assumptions. First of them being that there's anything to suppress in the dead bodies. Suppressing Naruto might mean nothing else than that they interfere with his normal bodily functions, which would surely make sense even if they were nothing but remote control devices for zombie soldiers. We have seen the Pain Jiraiya captured was quite comatose when Nagato was nowhere in vicinity and did absolutely nothing after the rods were removed and Nagato arrived.