S01.E06: Fuck You and Eat Shit

[AnimeMania]

Flynne and Wilf discover Aelita’s ties to the Neoprims, who want to destory London as we know it. Inspector Lowbeer makes her appearance in London and demands to meet Flynne, Burton and Conner.

Original Air Date: November 18, 2022

[AuntieMame]

Okay, does anyone else think that the issue is that everyone from the future is actually dead from a material perspective? Their bodies and those of everyone else are dead and gone. The earth is destroyed. 
 
The elite, at least some of them, cracked consciousness transfer before the end and robotics took a huge leap forward. Man’s hidden agenda of the pursuit of immortality has been partially achieved in that individual sentience is forever and there is something to walk around in that provides at least the simulacrum of sensory experience. Except it turns out that not really being alive and not really having a body isn’t as much fun as people thought. 
 
The elites are running around in the stub and generating research in every possible field to fix the massive mess up. Except that they’re using the same tools that created the disaster. The neoprims are attempting to fix the same disaster but from a different ideological perspective and with different tools. Maybe. We don’t know enough about the neoprims yet. And it’s a sad fact that people trying to do good can sometimes do more harm than people trying to do bad. Not always but sometimes.  
 
Some of what we’ve seen in the future is the existential struggle and some of it is elite robots playing games to stave off the boredom of eternity. In fact some of that boredom may have generated interest in fixing the Jackpot. It’s essentially a giant video game with consciousness upload (this is the cyberpunk genre after all) and I guess boredom and ennui are still issues. 
 
My textual support for this: 

1. Cherise talking about the bees and their multiple attempts to climb back out of extinction. That scene wasn’t exactly subtle and almost screamed that it was a very important metaphor. 
 
2. Wilf/Wolf showing Flynn just how empty and devastated London really is. The viewer suspected this but here it was made explicit. 
 
3. Lev murdering his ancestors. I knew watching the scene Lev saw it as mercy but I couldn’t understand why. Lev doesn’t want them to live through either the Jackpot or the existential wasteland that comes after it. 
 
4. The things that are completed and not data generated illusions are about material healing of the planet, e.g. the huge carbon scrubbers. And Cherise’s bees which are important and every failure gets a try, try again. 
 
5. That all that is left of Aelita is her chips. It’s why she can’t be “found” in the digital world. Also Aelita’s dioramas as metaphors of control and longing. 
 
6. The good bad girl/bad good girl dichotomy between Aelita and Grace that was stressed. 
 
So, this is my theory, that this is about cyborgian transhumanism and isn’t entirely against it either even though I guess it turns out that messy, mortal material reality is the only game in town. 
 
Specific to the episode all of this explains why Wilf/Wolf looks so sad all of the time and why his obvious love for Flynn has an anguished quality of never to be. The actor plays transcendent spiritual longing with a very fine hand. 
 
I’m not sure how I felt about Inspector Lowbeer. The name and the character felt like they were refugees from a Dickens parody. I know Lev and Cherise chew the scenery here and there but it’s a different style and both hold back enough to keep things from going entirely over the top. This character was one of the things made me really consider even more that none of this was real in the way we conceive that term. 
 
Poor Conner. His character is the other side of the argument. I’ve known/know serious illness; the material and mortal has incomprehensible suffering attached to it. Burton’s surety that of course Conner shouldn’t be suicidal, or be willing to trade some months of seeming life and health in fake, future London for death here made me angry. What the hell would you know about it perfect Burton?
 
What evil genius decided to manipulate people with a wounded dog? I’d get my damn legs blown off too. 
  
So, that’s my theory on what we’re watching. Some of the reveal is going to leave us over a cliff. I’m still more than onboard because these are some of the questions we’re facing. I just hope we don’t get facile answers. 
 

Final pondering. I’m wondering if 2099 London is a stub and if they needed that stub to reach/create Flynn’s stub because of the limitations on quantum time travel via server. First, it would take a while to get all the way to existential ennui in computer generated transhumanist utopia and because they’re making deathless disembodiment attractive in some ways. 
 
I feel sorry for the Deputy. He really should lay low for a minute to recalibrate and see what develops. Oh and I loved the way the assassin Bob got the drop on Pickett’s smug wife. “Is that saltwater?” I guess there’s a reason Bob is the best. 

Edited November 18, 2022 by AuntieMame
Making Sense (Hopefully)

[dwmarch]

10 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

What evil genius decided to manipulate people with a wounded dog? I’d get my damn legs blown off too. 

In this particular case, Netherton. We saw his side of it last week as his "look what I can get the haptic squad to do!" demonstration.

I'm enjoying this show but I am finding it a little frustrating that we are getting more questions than answers. I guess I know how the Deputy feels.

Speaking of the Deputy, wasn't there an actual Sheriff who got himself killed by the invisible car squad? Was he from the next county over or something? But he seems to have disappeared just like the cars and somehow no one is looking for him. Is he from a different stub or something?

Also why did that one cop think it was so funny to make the passwords FUCKYOU and EATSHIT? Just so he could say that to Uncle Badass? It didn't seem like they were opposed to each other in any other kind of way but maybe there is some nuance of southern hospitality that I am missing here.

There's a population crisis going on in the future but the police can execute people inside of ten minutes when it suits them to do so? I wonder if those two things are related.

[peach]

12 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

Okay, does anyone else think that the issue is that everyone from the future is actually dead from a material perspective? Their bodies and those of everyone else are dead and gone. The earth is destroyed. 
 2. Wilf/Wolf showing Flynn just how empty and devastated London really is. The viewer suspected this but here it was made explicit. 
 4. The things that are completed and not data generated illusions are about material healing of the planet, e.g. the huge carbon scrubbers. And Cherise’s bees which are important and every failure gets a try, try again. 
 5. That all that is left of Aelita is her chips. It’s why she can’t be “found” in the digital world. Also Aelita’s dioramas as metaphors of control and longing. 

I had been thinking this, but confounding factors:  I remember that Lev asked Wilf how long Aelita could actually last without the immunity provided by her implant,  Also, Daniel seems to have actually been murdered, because the robotic version of him is obviously a copy.  Why couldn't Cherise just make another of him if he wasn't real.  And the Inspector is investigating his murder.  Grace had two children, and Aelita even suggested it was a stipulation.  Perhaps you're required to repopulate if you're married.  

My theory is the people are as ravaged as the landscape and they're holed up in various places operating their picture perfect peripherals. Or they just have a "cloaking" device on themselves.

Aelita and Wilf were kids and they grew up and appear to be the correct age for the timeline.

Lev exists in Flynne's time as an adult, with kids.   He and his family exist in this same state decades in the future.  So are they dead?  Is Lev an old man somewhere in a room operating this body?  Do the implants prevent aging?  Certainly you wouldn't prevent the children from growing up if they were real.  His whole situation is very weird.  As I write this, I just remembered that Wilf had to wear a blindfold to go into Lev's club, because certain patrons didn't wish to be seen.  Maybe they were old and feeble and not in their "outside" bodies.

Edited November 19, 2022 by peach
add a detail

[peach]

41 minutes ago, dwmarch said:

I'm enjoying this show but I am finding it a little frustrating that we are getting more questions than answers. I guess I know how the Deputy feels.

Speaking of the Deputy, wasn't there an actual Sheriff who got himself killed by the invisible car squad? Was he from the next county over or something? But he seems to have disappeared just like the cars and somehow no one is looking for him. Is he from a different stub or something?

I thought the same thing!  But I rewatched that episode, and the bad guys were getting gas so they must have been in another area.  This episode, we meet the local sheriff.  So the dead sheriff would have just appeared to have been hit by a car, off in another county.

Burton seems to actively dislike Tommy, and it's personal, not because he's the deputy.  I wonder if it's related to killer Bob saying he didn't see Tommy as being ex-military.  Maybe he's the only one that didn't sign up when their group of friends went in and did the haptics thing, and Burton resents him for it.

[AuntieMame]

10 hours ago, peach said:

I had been thinking this, but confounding factors:  I remember that Lev asked Wilf how long Aelita could actually last without the immunity provided by her implant,  Also, Daniel seems to have actually been murdered, because the robotic version of him is obviously a copy.  Why couldn't Cherise just make another of him if he wasn't real.  And the Inspector is investigating his murder.  Grace had two children, and Aelita even suggested it was a stipulation.  Perhaps you're required to repopulate if you're married.  

My theory is the people are as ravaged as the landscape and they're holed up in various places operating their picture perfect peripherals. Or they just have a "cloaking" device on themselves.

Aelita and Wilf were kids and they grew up and appear to be the correct age for the timeline.

Lev exists in Flynne's time as an adult, with kids.   He and his family exist in this same state decades in the future.  So are they dead?  Is Lev an old man somewhere in a room operating this body?  Do the implants prevent aging?  Certainly you wouldn't prevent the children from growing up if they were real.  His whole situation is very weird.  As I write this, I just remembered that Wilf had to wear a blindfold to go into Lev's club, because certain patrons didn't wish to be seen.  Maybe they were old and feeble and not in their "outside" bodies.

I thought of these things too and they constitute my sub theory. That the future people might be locked in a life support room/building/area because the world doesn’t support life and everyone uses various peripherals to live and interact with the world. It would be a case of mostly dead instead of all dead. 
 
I think that Aelita’s implants and by extension everyone’s implants are used in the peripherals. We’ve been told and shown that the peripherals are at least partially organic and it would make sense that even peripherals have difficulty surviving in a ravaged world. Did anyone else flash to the Cylon goo baths when Burton and Conner’s peripherals came to consciousness? 

Aelita and Wilf being kids that grew up doesn’t necessarily kill either theory. Peripherals could be made to mimic different developmental timelines and with the semi-mechanistic and data driven model of sentience shown, the mind and personality wouldn’t “need” the body in order to grow and mature. That brings up an interesting question though, is our body intimately engaged in how our mind forms not only developmentally but from moment to moment? I personally would vote yes. I think that the strict substance dualism built into all of our thinking is one of the roots where we go wrong. I’ve never liked data driven ideas of uploading consciousness as tropes in science fiction, even though I’ve read tons of them because I like sci fi and generally just ignore my doubts. 
 
Lev and his family existing in Flynn’s time is confounding. And doesn’t make sense. I honestly don’t know what to make of it. Tangential to these questions, how did a mafia guy end up one of the elite? It would have made more sense if Lev had been written as a Russian oligarch rather than Russian American mafia. The oligarch would have the power to survive as well as the resources. 

The continuing quest for obscene amounts of wealth doesn’t quite track for me either. Don’t you think whether everyone is dead and using peripherals or mostly dead on a planet so ravaged and toxic they can’t even enjoy their own bodies in a daily way, teach us that while material safety and comforts are important that there are some things money just doesn’t fix? Or has greed been Ré entrenched because only the wealthy survived? 
 
Though in this situation I would think that you would want smart people more than rich people. Think of our own plutocrats and oligarchs, rich but not necessarily geniuses. And a person who can manipulate the financial markets or find loopholes in the tax code is going to be of limited use when nobody can breathe the air. 
 
Grace referred to all of the fields of endeavor, but we haven’t met anyone like that. Though it looks like our orphans were trained in STEM. Aelita was in Beans and Legumes. Once the Jackpot started maybe intelligent people and people trained in STEM and the Humanities became a resource. Grace listed fields not considered hard science in her list of studies taking place in the stub. Though where are these people? Maybe only the elite are allowed to be in the real world with any regularity because it damages even the peripheral bodies. Hey, at least it’s a show where we’re trying to figure things out. 

[peach]

8 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

I thought of these things too and they constitute my sub theory. That the future people might be locked in a life support room/building/area because the world doesn’t support life and everyone uses various peripherals to live and interact with the world. It would be a case of mostly dead instead of all dead. 

That's what Connor wants to do.  I think that's possibly a clue, and also part of the bigger question of the meaning of "life."

8 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

Lev and his family existing in Flynn’s time is confounding. And doesn’t make sense. I honestly don’t know what to make of it. Tangential to these questions, how did a mafia guy end up one of the elite? It would have made more sense if Lev had been written as a Russian oligarch rather than Russian American mafia. The oligarch would have the power to survive as well as the resources. 

I think the answer to that is what he told Cherise.  He married one, and he is subordinate to her, including accepting her cheating or anything else she wants to do.  Does she know what he's up to with Aelita and the stub?  Because it seems like she would be a big help now that the Met is on his back. (Another point to them still being alive is Cherise's threat to use his DNA to kill him and everyone he's related to.  But that could STILL mean they used their own DNA to make the machine bodies.  AAHH, this is making me crazy, lol)

8 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

The continuing quest for obscene amounts of wealth doesn’t quite track for me either. Don’t you think whether everyone is dead and using peripherals or mostly dead on a planet so ravaged and toxic they can’t even enjoy their own bodies in a daily way, teach us that while material safety and comforts are important that there are some things money just doesn’t fix? Or has greed been Ré entrenched because only the wealthy survived?  

I think it takes a lot of money to live like these people do.  The peripherals, the augmented reality, the servants, the robots.  The Jackpot itself selected for some quite sociopathic individuals.  Are the Neoprims altruistic?  Or just their own version of psychopath.  Aelita believes she has a righteous cause but she's pretty brutal about it.

I wonder if in the still ruined landscape beyond the mirage if there are people living out there, like Aelita and Wilf used to, Mad Max style.  Or if it's unsurvivable.

8 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

 Grace listed fields not considered hard science in her list of studies taking place in the stub. Though where are these people? Maybe only the elite are allowed to be in the real world with any regularity because it damages even the peripheral bodies. Hey, at least it’s a show where we’re trying to figure things out. 

My friend (the only one I can get to watch this so far!) thinks that AI is doing the studies, this Godfont thing, and is attempting to recreate humanity with the few left.  I don't know, but every week I want to find out more!  Glad you like talking about it!!  There is so much going on!

[Quilt Fairy]

23 hours ago, peach said:

My theory is the people are as ravaged as the landscape and they're holed up in various places operating their picture perfect peripherals.

Wasn't that a movie with Bruce WIllis? 

[ottoDbusdriver]

14 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Wasn't that a movie with Bruce WIllis? 

It was called 'Surrogates'.

[AuntieMame]

On 11/19/2022 at 4:43 PM, peach said:

That's what Connor wants to do.  I think that's possibly a clue, and also part of the bigger question of the meaning of "life."

I think the answer to that is what he told Cherise.  He married one, and he is subordinate to her, including accepting her cheating or anything else she wants to do.  Does she know what he's up to with Aelita and the stub?  Because it seems like she would be a big help now that the Met is on his back. (Another point to them still being alive is Cherise's threat to use his DNA to kill him and everyone he's related to.  But that could STILL mean they used their own DNA to make the machine bodies.  AAHH, this is making me crazy, lol)

I think it takes a lot of money to live like these people do.  The peripherals, the augmented reality, the servants, the robots.  The Jackpot itself selected for some quite sociopathic individuals.  Are the Neoprims altruistic?  Or just their own version of psychopath.  Aelita believes she has a righteous cause but she's pretty brutal about it.

I wonder if in the still ruined landscape beyond the mirage if there are people living out there, like Aelita and Wilf used to, Mad Max style.  Or if it's unsurvivable.

My friend (the only one I can get to watch this so far!) thinks that AI is doing the studies, this Godfont thing, and is attempting to recreate humanity with the few left.  I don't know, but every week I want to find out more!  Glad you like talking about it!!  There is so much going on!

I agree that the Neoprims might be just another version of bad; it happens in our world too. Actually doing good is very difficult and if the do-gooder is blind to their own motives or obsessive by nature it can quickly become the proverbial slippery slope. Aelita does seem like a righteous obsessive, but she does seem genuinely good too. 
  
I think the machine bodies are at least partially organic and that knowing the details would solve the conundrum of Lev too. Lev is a trophy wife, with a bit of the flavor of the Dollar Princesses who married into the English aristocracy in the late 19th and early 20th century! Poor Lev. I did hear him say that, but didn’t process the implications. 

Yes it takes a lot of money to live this way but if everyone else is more or less gone, the economy would form differently. Capitalism is based on volume and growth. With a severely depleted population, neither is possible. I’m not dinging the show badly on this one; we can’t figure out another way to even think about our material life but what we’re seeing doesn’t make sense.  
 
I got the feeling that Wolf and Aelita as children were still inside of London proper, just not in the part controlled by wealth and illusion. So some people are left by implication or were when they were children. Whether that remains the case is an open question because if all that’s needed is DNA and living tissue, they clearly have the biotech to keep that going without using resources to feed people and keep them nominally healthy. Frightening what Sapiens hidden hatred of biological life can do. 

 I’m glad that you like talking about this too. Waves and smiles. Because right now I don’t know anyone who would watch this much less discuss it. Are you a refugee from the late, lamented TWOP? 

Edited November 21, 2022 by AuntieMame
Housekeeping with Paragraph Breaks

[Tachi Rocinante]

The scene with the dog was both sick and lame at the same time.

With the resolution on their scopes and the dog moving around, they should've seen the wires and implant.  They just didn't stay focused long enough.