S02.E06: Phase Space

[Pippin]

What is bothering me is the unrelenting, unrestrained violence. Convoluted storylines I can deal with; after all, I stuck with Lost and the X-Files to their respective bitter ends.  But the weekly dose of carnage this show is serving up is getting to be a bit much.

I get that war is not nice, and what is going on is indeed war. But sometimes less is more.  I refer you to the reaction to the infamous video tape in the first season  of True Detective.  We never see its contents, but the characters' reactions suggest things far worse than anything  that could be shown on screen.

A little bit of this kind of restraint would be a welcome relief.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Pippin
Less is more.

[Head-Full-Of-Thi]

11 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

The best scene was the first scene where Dolores revealed that she was re-creating Arnold in Bernard-bot this whole time (or at least in most of the Dolores vs Arnold/Bernard in room with 2 chairs scenes) :P

Do you think the scenes from last season were also host Arnold? I think season 1 scenes were real Arnold and the only scenes where he's a bot are the season 2 premiere and the scene in this episode

[WatchrTina]

4 hours ago, Luka1997 said:

Do you think the scenes from last season were also host Arnold? I think season 1 scenes were real Arnold and the only scenes where he's a bot are the season 2 premiere and the scene in this episode

I had assumed that some of those scenes in season 1 were original Arnold and some were Bernard (who never told Dolores that he wasn't Arnold.)  Part of the fun was trying to figure out if the scene was set in the distant past before the park opened (so, original Arnold) or more recently (Bernard).  But wasn't it in this episode when we see Ford reveal that he's kept Dolores and Bernard apart because they "alway have an unpredictable effect on one another" (or words to that effect)?  When was that scene set?  Was that the scene where they give Dolores the gun to use at the Ford's farewell party?  If so, what did Ford mean?  Could it be that he had had Bernard masquerade at Arnold to interact with Dolores but the results were not what he wanted so he put a stop to those meetings and erased the knowledge of one another from their bot-brains?  That would explain Dolores' surprise at seeing Bernard.

I'm so confused. 

[LoveLeigh]

On 5/29/2018 at 9:33 AM, Luka1997 said:

Well kodus to everyone who guessed that the scene in the first episode of the season Dolores was the one in control! Still don't know what it means and what timeline it is though.

That's just my point. Why does the show have to be a guessing game? If the writers created more clarity as the plot unfolds, it would be more enjoyable. The writers are so invested in creating these mysteries and puzzles for the viewers, the story becomes lost and confusing to the viewers. 

Instead of building to "big surprises," the season would have been so much better and more engaging if it was heavier on character development and storylines. All the carnage and slaughter doesn't even make sense because it has gone on for so long in such a broad way and all it does is provide more reasons to have gun control and to create narratives where guests can participate in the park experience where guns and killing are not the part of any theme. 

How about guests who go to the park and fall in love with hosts, or guests who go to the parks and become major motion picture stars, or guests who go to the parks and live during Biblical times? 

Why is violence and these violent delights such a part of the WESTWORLD  experience? it seems to have been built for closet sadists. I for one would not enjoy going there and shooting up people for fun and sport. 

Edited May 30, 2018 by DakotaLavender

[DarkRaichu]

18 minutes ago, DakotaLavender said:

Why is violence and these violent delights such a part of the WESTWORLD  experience? it seems to have been built for closet sadists. I for one would not enjoy going there and shooting up people for fun and sport. 

Logan (IIRC) said they tried a peaceful Westworld but guests were more interested in more violent stories.  Although there are parts of Westworld that are kid / family friendly (per Control in season 1) and also in RajWorld (per Grace). 

29 minutes ago, DakotaLavender said:

How about guests who go to the park and fall in love with hosts, or guests who go to the parks and become major motion picture stars, or guests who go to the parks and live during Biblical times? 

Once the goals you mentioned are achieved and the pleasure tents visited, guests would start shooting at random hosts out of boredom.  :P  Kind of like when I played Sim City 2000 back in the day.  After a certain point, I built everything I wanted to and my city generated more money than I needed.  So I started sending tornado, flood, alien invasion, etc to wreck my city since I had nothing else to do :D  

[Casually Observant]

On 5/27/2018 at 9:26 PM, Teitr Styrr said:

Not sure I like the new Teddy. However, I don't know that he is bitter with Dolores. I think he is just now built bitter, if that makes sense.

Welcome back Ford!

This season's Teddy looks different from last year's. Last year he looked youthful, fit and fresh. This year, starting from the first episode he has looked a little bloated, tired and sad. Is it due to the hopeless storyline or has James Marsden changed something in his fitness routine (or dropped it altogether)?

[Head-Full-Of-Thi]

I think the difference between this season's timelines and last season's is that last season there weren't really multiple timelines just one. What I mean is that when we see Dolores and William the scene is not 'Dolores and William take the train 30 years ago', it's 'Dolores being on a train and remembering how 30 years ago William was there with her' (we just didn't know that that's what we're seeing, except for a few people who noticed the clues like cuts in which William wasn't there). The point of the scene, or the part that matters the most is in the current timeline.

This season we do have something similar with Bernard being all 'is this now', but we also have a lot of scenes that happen strictly in the past like the Dolores&Teddy and the Maeve ones. No one is remembering something that happens in the past it's just a flashback shown to the viewers. And while last season the non linear timeline was critical to the plot - Dolores following her memories, this season it's just an artistic choice.

 

Also I wanted to add about the William is a host discussion that in the conversation with Emily he made a numerous amount of confused head tilts, that reminded me a lot of James Delos's ones.

[WaltersHair]

I don't like having to choose black or white hat. I'm more a gray hat. People are not black or white in their preferences in general.

but that's me

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour ago, WaltersHair said:

I don't like having to choose black or white hat. I'm more a gray hat. People are not black or white in their preferences in general.

but that's me

I don't think the guests are supposed to stay white or black hat for the reminder of their time in the park.  The white or black was just their starting character. Like in any good RPG, you set up your character / avatar a certain way in the beginning, but the choices you make in the game define your character's alignment as you play.

[Netfoot]

23 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

the choices you make in the game define your character's alignment as you play.

Your hat colour should change to suit.  Hey, if they can make humanoid bots, they can make mood-ring hats, right?

[DarkRaichu]

3 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Your hat colour should change to suit.  Hey, if they can make humanoid bots, they can make mood-ring hats, right?

Can't do. They spent their budget making intelligent bullets and sexbots that look and feel like real human

[Primetimer]

As with any theme park, Westworld is a great place for parents and children to bicker, fight, and cut out each other's hearts. Our EPIC OLD-SCHOOL RECAP of 'Phase Space' is there for every bitter remark!

View the full article

[Cruella]

On 30.05.2018 at 7:08 AM, Pippin said:

What is bothering me is the unrelenting, unrestrained violence. Convoluted storylines I can deal with; after all, I stuck with Lost and the X-Files to their respective bitter ends.  But the weekly dose of carnage this show is serving up is getting to be a bit much.

I get that war is not nice, and what is going on is indeed war.

I can deal with violence and gore and horror (especially here, where they mean little), but I want to understand them, and I want other characters to care, or why should I?

 

E.g., I could deal with Dolores being ruthlessly cruel to humans, they dehumanized her and she dehumanizes them. It's not "right" but it makes thematic sense. But she also doesn't care about needlessly killing hundreds of other androids, all of them potentially "woke" AIs. So what's her problem with humans then? Again, it would make sense if she grew to see "non-woke" androids as lesser than she is (and they probably are!). It's hardly avoidable and interesting moral dilemme. But there is no dilemma here, "rebels" just kill tons of other androids without second thought. 

In the first season, it was tragic when humans destroyed awoken hosts. In this season awoken hosts don't seem to care either. 

Dolores is supposed to be problematic, but why is she such a cypher? Maybe, if we understood her plan, we could consider the price of it, if it's worth all the death, but we don't. 

Maeve is supposed to be "good-ish",  I think, but really, she feels sorry for one host like herself, and makes others kill each other in droves, when she supposedly could just tell them to freeze, or go sit under the tree. All of these nameless samurai are potential AIs! They could gain self-awareness if Maeve didn't make them kill each other. Who knows, maybe two dudes she forced to slice each other have backstory where they are brothers or best friends. But we for some reason aren't supposed to care about that. What ARE we supposed to care about? 

Sometimes they show us humans kill droids needlessly, and that's still supposed to be bad somehow, I think. But really, it's free-for-all at this point. At least it makes sense when humans don't realize gravity of it, not the same with hosts. 

Edited June 1, 2018 by Cruella

[Pippin]

Cruella: You expressed my concerns perfectly!  Thank you!  The violence seems senseless and adds nothing to the character growth or story.  

I still think that stylistically, less can be more. What you imagine is always worse than what you see.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Pippin

[The Companion]

You know, it occurred to me last night that some of the reaction we are getting from Delores with regard to Teddy might be this very human belief that there is some part of us that is immutable. No matter what we change or go through, we are still us. She told Teddy that no matter what she had been through, he was always there. I wonder if the change in attitude towards here is driving home how very much of what she considers to be her identity is set by the computer. We also may see that there are aspects of Teddy that come through anyway. I am probably over-analyzing it, but there you go.

[ReallySpecial]

My two cents on some minor nitpicks:

1. Coughlin sounded Irish to me--not Scottish. Also, I looked up the actor who plays him, and he is Irish.

2. I think Teddy was encouraging Phil to commit suicide by giving him the gun and the bullet. Like in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where Johnny Depp's character is given a pistol with one shot, presumably suicide is better than the fates they were being sent to.

Edit: One final thing to add... Am I the only who was left unmoved by the dialogue between MiB and Emily?  He's ambitious and driven, and it's already very clear that Westworld makes him an even darker version of the man he is outside the park.  So I can understand his letting down his guard with hosts because they're not real to him, but I just didn't buy him being vulnerable with his daughter.  The whole conversation just seemed like a scene from a different show and was jarring to me.  (I said to my husband, "If she wakes up and he's still there, then the show will have undercut everything they've been telling us about him up to this point.")  Plus, it didn't make sense to me for him to think she's a host since he's been very savvy up to this point.  If we assume she isn't a host, then it's a rare misstep for him.

On 5/28/2018 at 6:22 PM, arc said:

The reality of host resurrection drastically undercut the moment for me.

Same here! I asked my husband, "Why can't they just resurrect her?" If there were a good reason not to, it would have been nice for them to address it, a la Sizemore addressing why Maeve could only control English-speaking hosts at first.

On 5/28/2018 at 8:44 PM, tennisgurl said:

Shogun World was cool, but what was the point?

I think Shogun World accomplished a few things. It allowed us to see more inner workings of the park, i.e. copied storylines and characters. I think it's an interesting dilemma for the Westworld hosts to view their doppelgangers and contemplate what identity they want to have apart from the ones assigned to them. Also, it allowed Maeve to figure out that she can mind control in other languages and to hone that skill. Finally, with the Akane storyline, it put in sharp relief the main difference between Dolores's revolution and Maeve's: Maeve will let hosts be who they are and choose their own paths, but to Dolores, if you're not strong, then you're a liability. She's not above even changing Teddy to suit her needs. Everyone else becomes subservient to Dolores's desires, whereas Maeve (apart from hosts who are an immediate violent threat) chooses to live and let live. Also, they picked up Hanaryo! Perhaps they could have stumbled across her another way, but finding her in context is not a bad thing, to my mind.

Edited June 1, 2018 by ReallySpecial

[tennisgurl]

11 minutes ago, ReallySpecial said:

Finally, with the Akane storyline, it put in sharp relief the main difference between Dolores's revolution and Maeve's: Maeve will let hosts be who they are and choose their own paths, but to Dolores, if you're not strong, then you're a liability.

Thats actually a really good point that I didnt fully think of. It also shows in their interactions with the humans they meet. Delores is full on Kill All Humans, and treats them like enemy's to be used and killed (all the while talking about how much it sucks that humans use and kill hosts), while Maeve, who certainly has a lot of disdain for humans, will team up with them to achieve her goals, without being violent or cruel towards them. She even genuinely thanked Sizemore for his help finding her daughter, and she cant stand that guy! 

I do hope that Maeve would stop killing all the non Woke hosts she meets. All the random soldiers she killed are just going along with their program after all. I expect a bit more from Maeve, especially compared to Delores. 

Edited June 1, 2018 by tennisgurl

[ReallySpecial]

10 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I do hope that Maeve would stop killing all the non Woke hosts she meets. All the random soldiers she killed are just going along with their program after all.

I get the feeling that Maeve's only acting in self-defense, but even so, she could have the violent hosts chop off each other's hands and feet or shoot each other in the kneecaps or something.  In other words, she could wing them but not kill them.  Maybe that's what you meant.

I also like your point about the two women's interaction with humans.  Both of the humans with Team Dolores are murdered by the end of this episode, but the three humans with Team Maeve survive.  Felix Lutz has even been won over to the point that he puts himself in danger to help Maeve.  On the other hand, Dolores, as you pointed out, has become like the humans she despises.

[DarkRaichu]

39 minutes ago, ReallySpecial said:

Same here! I asked my husband, "Why can't they just resurrect her?" If there were a good reason not to, it would have been nice for them to address it, a la Sizemore addressing why Maeve could only control English-speaking hosts at first.

 

Agreed. They should have said something along the line of they would need the tablet thingy to resurrect "dead" hosts since Maeve's power only work on hosts that are online.  When the hosts are dead they are offline, so the tech need the tablet to reboot their internal systems (just like how Dolores' tech brought the confederados lieutenant back from the "dead").

Edited June 1, 2018 by DarkRaichu

[tennisgurl]

17 minutes ago, ReallySpecial said:

Maybe that's what you meant.

Yeah thats what I meant. I get that they had to be stopped or she and her team would get hurt or killed, but if she can get them to do anything, I wish that she would just have them knock each other out, or just lose a limb to take them out of commission, or something where they arent a threat, but dont kill them. Its not their fault they arent woke yet. But Maeve is kind of just figuring this out, and is certainly a ruthless person/robot when she has to be, so I get why she killed them, but I kind of hope in the future its less so. 

[piequinn35]

Does anyone know what Felix and Sylvestre were carrying? (covered in a tarp) and how are they eating? Found food underground same with the new clothes? I wanna know how the techs/cleaners go from one place to another, is there a map of the underground? lols

Edited June 1, 2018 by piequinn35

[DarkRaichu]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Yeah thats what I meant. I get that they had to be stopped or she and her team would get hurt or killed, but if she can get them to do anything, I wish that she would just have them knock each other out, or just lose a limb to take them out of commission, or something where they arent a threat, but dont kill them. Its not their fault they arent woke yet. But Maeve is kind of just figuring this out, and is certainly a ruthless person/robot when she has to be, so I get why she killed them, but I kind of hope in the future its less so. 

Why do the woke bots need to care if other bots are "alive" anyway?  Technically each bot is a self sufficient being.  They do not need to eat, drink, mate, etc.  They could, but they do not need to do those things to stay "alive".  The only bots either Maeve or Dolores care about are the either the ones programmed as their "family" or the ones they need at the moment to help them reach their goals.  Dolores even changed Teddy the old one saw things differently than her.  So why should Dolores or Maeve care if some random bots are alive or dead ?

[Kid]

On 5/28/2018 at 5:43 PM, walnutqueen said:

Honestly, I am so fucking Lost I'm expecting a polar bear or a smoke monster to appear any minute.  What a clusterfuck this show has turned out to be.  Moments of greatness interspersed with aimless inanity.

Amen, Walnutqueen!    The Riddle of the Sphynx was a brilliant gem midst lumps of coal!! And that was mainly due to 1) the quality of the actors playing James Delos and young and old MIB and 2) NO Dolores.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Kid

[WatchrTina]

On 6/1/2018 at 3:20 PM, piequinn35 said:

Does anyone know what Felix and Sylvestre were carrying?

I don't think we do know.  Judging from the size it looks like a gun -- maybe an assault rifle liberated from under the Mesa?  But if so, why hide it?

I was thinking about this show during my walk today and I got thinking about Sizemore and how he is continually freaked out by the 'bots going "off-script."  It reminded me of the contrasting styles of two of my favorite writers.  John Irving (Cider House Rules / The World According to Garp / A Prayer for Owen Meany) says that he plots everything out in advance.  He may spend up to a year figuring out the ins-and-outs of a plot -- who does what to whom -- and then he sits down and writes the whole thing straight through, filling in the dialog and nuance.  He's like Sizemore -- his characters may "improvise" during the writing (the making-up of the dialog as he goes along) but he already knows who his characters are and where they are going.  As a result his novels can be very clever. When his final puzzle pieces of plot fall in to place you go "oooooooh."  (Or at least I do -- especially at the end of A Prayer for Owen Meany.)  Contrast that with Diana Gabaldon (The "Outlander" series -- one of my favorite book series, see my avatar.)  She freely admits that when she is in the early stages of writing a new novel her characters do things that astound her.  She admits that the heroine of the series became time-traveler because she would not stop talking in a 20th century style while in an 18th century setting.  Diana does not precisely map out the plot in advance like Irving. She writes vignettes based on a general outline and then at the end bridges them together via editing and fill-in pieces.  I don't want to get into a debate of the merits of her writing style I just think it is interesting that Sizemore is used to 'bots whose behavior is like those in Irving's novels (plot driven) but he's now encountering 'bots whose behavior is much more unpredictable, like Gabaldon's, because they are character-driven.  

Edited June 3, 2018 by WatchrTina

[Nashville]

On 6/1/2018 at 6:05 AM, Cruella said:

E.g., I could deal with Dolores being ruthlessly cruel to humans, they dehumanized her and she dehumanizes them.

Er - physical form notwithstanding, how exactly do you “dehumanize” that which was never human?

 

Quote

It's not "right" but it makes thematic sense. But she also doesn't care about needlessly killing hundreds of other androids, all of them potentially "woke" AIs. So what's her problem with humans then? Again, it would make sense if she grew to see "non-woke" androids as lesser than she is (and they probably are!). 

If Dolores persists in treating “non-wokes” in as casually horrendous a manner as she says humans treated her, then any claim of hers to moral superiority over her human oppressors is totally negated.

 

Quote

Dolores is supposed to be problematic, but why is she such a cypher? Maybe, if we understood her plan, we could consider the price of it, if it's worth all the death, but we don't. 

Really?  I see Dolores as more simpleton than cypher, but maybe that’s just me.  Dolores is in full-on Stage 4 Tommy mode.

Probably showing my age here, but if you’ve ever seen the movie Tommy (based on The Who’s album and Pete Townshend’s rock opera of the same name) you’ll know what I mean.  The titular protagonist Tommy is so severely traumatized by an event at a young age (5), he retreats into a state of near-absolute autism.  Tommy then suffers through years of his family’s fruitless curative attempts, neglect and abuse.  Eventually Tommy finally finds his own salvation - pinball - through which Tommy becomes a media sensation and eventually returns to reality.  Tommy’s joy at his rebirth and his family’s greedy desire to cash in on his celebrity combine to create an religious cult-like environment where the “Tommy cure” is prescribed as a solution to cure all society’s ills.  It fails to do so, of course - and when Tommy’s followers reject his “cure” and revolt, the end results are catastrophic.

In any case, there are three primary lessons taught by Tommy:

1. For everybody there exists a form of salvation.
2. The forms of salvation may be very unique and personal; what works for one person may not work for another.
3. Attempt to push one person’s salvation as a solution for all, and you do so at your own peril.

Dolores found her own salvation in her awakening; fine and dandy for her.  Dolores now evangelizes her personal salvation as the One True Way, though, and immediately alters (Teddy) or deactivates (humans and non-wokes) everybody or everything, human or nonhuman, which does not immediately agree to follow her - and down that path lies Dolores’ destruction.

In his journey, Tommy transitions through multiple stages:

1. Pre-autism (ages 0 - 5).
2. Autism (5 - early/mid-20s): period marked by initial multiple ineffectual attempts at a cure, followed by extended period of neglect and abuse.
3. Awakening: phased emergence from autistic state, attainment of celebrity status.
4. Evangelism: presenting his salvation as a path for others.
5. True illumination: discovering - and understanding - salvation is not a one-size-fits-all process.

This is the basis of my earlier “Stage 4 Tommy mode” comment regarding Dolores.

[grawlix]

On 6/1/2018 at 1:20 PM, piequinn35 said:

Does anyone know what Felix and Sylvestre were carrying?

 

I think they are carrying the katana Maeve was wielding in Samurai world.  Can't leave Samurai world without a souvenir!

Edited June 3, 2018 by grawlix

[piequinn35]

1 hour ago, grawlix said:

I think they are carrying the katana Maeve was wielding in Samurai world.  Can't leave Samurai world without a souvenir!

Maeve gave the katana to Hector, he was holding it while Sylvester was carrying something covered. 

[DarkRaichu]

4 hours ago, piequinn35 said:

Maeve gave the katana to Hector, he was holding it while Sylvester was carrying something covered. 

It was Armistice's flamethrower.  She wrapped it up in the tunnel where MAeve met Felix and Sylvester.  Sylvester has been carrying it ever since. 

[Miles]

Dolores talking about how they killed Teddy so many times. But truth is, they never killed Teddy, just temporarily deactivated him. She killed Teddy. Teddy is dead and in his place is some mindless robot. That is all Dolores' doing.

Almost nobody left to root for on this show.

[Earlwoode]

Has anyone else wondered why some robots (Bernard, Abernathy, the Shogun(?) seem to leak fluid and need servicing while others seem to go on forever without a sign of maintenance (Dolores, Teddy, and countless others)?  I don't know of one single machine that doesn't need servicing at one time or another so how come some of them never seem to need any?  Has there ever been a hint that they are somehow self-sustaining?  We need to keep reminding ourselves these beings are just machines comparable to the likes your refrigerator or your car.

[ACW]

1 hour ago, Earlwoode said:

Has anyone else wondered why some robots (Bernard, Abernathy, the Shogun(?) seem to leak fluid and need servicing while others seem to go on forever without a sign of maintenance (Dolores, Teddy, and countless others)?  I don't know of one single machine that doesn't need servicing at one time or another so how come some of them never seem to need any?  Has there ever been a hint that they are somehow self-sustaining?  We need to keep reminding ourselves these beings are just machines comparable to the likes your refrigerator or your car.

Bernard shot himself in the head and was hastily patched up.

The Shogun was presumably in a fight.

Abernathy was lobotomized, stuffed full of extraneous data, and given a thin cover identify meant to last a few hours.

Everyone else does need maintenance, especially after being injured or killed (although Dolores, and probably Maeve, can now shrug off minor injuries). It's just harder to get an appointment these days.  

[Nashville]

2 hours ago, Earlwoode said:

Has anyone else wondered why some robots (Bernard, Abernathy, the Shogun(?) seem to leak fluid and need servicing while others seem to go on forever without a sign of maintenance (Dolores, Teddy, and countless others)?  I don't know of one single machine that doesn't need servicing at one time or another so how come some of them never seem to need any?  Has there ever been a hint that they are somehow self-sustaining?  We need to keep reminding ourselves these beings are just machines comparable to the likes your refrigerator or your car.

Well... all through S1 Dolores and Teddy did undergo regular maintenance, when they were getting raped to death / shot to death / whatever elsed to death on a recurring basis.  Abernathy aside (he’s a special case - get to him in a moment), I’d expect the hosts to be built with sufficient toughness and resilience to absorb degrees of physical trauma well beyond human-tolerable levels and continue to function, in case repetitions of a given storyline call for “superhuman” feats to be performed on a regular basis.  By the same token, however, a host which could absorb massive (i.e., human-lethal) levels of trauma and keep functioning would give lie to their “real-ness” as human analogues - so hosts have to be able to “die”, but do so in a manner which can be quickly serviced so the host will be ready for the storyline’s next iteration.  

Bernard is an excellent example; he’s not leaking cortical fluid due to a simple mechanical malfunction, he’s doing so because Bernard shot himself in the head - a degree of trauma Ford (who triggered the “suicide” attempt) obviously not only expected to destroy Bernard’s capacity for autonomous function, Ford was COUNTING on it.  We are given no clue as to exactly how the shogun wound up in a similar condition, but it can be safely presumed a similar near-lethal degree of trauma was involved.  Like Bernard, the shogun still managed to continue functioning in a handicapped fashion; without his own Elsie, however, the shogun’s operative capabilities continued to deteriorate - and while Bernard’s decline centered around Bernard’s physical operational capabilities, the shogun’s decline was more cerebrally focused.

Abernathy, however, is a case totally distinct from the others; a lobotomized host (said “lobotomy” being little more than a specifically targeted type of deliberate trauma) which was apparently re-activated and given enough of a functional personality bootstrap to serve as an ambulatory mass storage device.

[Earlwoode]

Yes but all that still doesn’t explain why they now don’t seem to need maintenance.  I realize they were all “fixed” if shot, stabbed, “ killed” etc.  but I would assume they would still need regular maintenance as highly complex machines with (presumably) delicate balances in their computer brains.

 

I’m not buying Maeve’s sudden shift into Superwoman Mode.  It seems excessive and patently silly that she can now telepathically command all the other robots.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Earlwoode

[Mindthinkr]

8 hours ago, ACW said:

It's just harder to get an appointment these days.

And the waiting time might be a bit long without updated magazines. 

[Athena]

5 hours ago, Earlwoode said:

Yes but all that still doesn’t explain why they now don’t seem to need maintenance.  I realize they were all “fixed” if shot, stabbed, “ killed” etc.  but I would assume they would still need regular maintenance as highly complex machines with (presumably) delicate balances in their computer brains.

Do you mean maintenance in general? We are to assume that when the park was in operation as shown in S1 (Maeve was rebuilt completely), the current timeline of the show has only been two weeks max (probably around one week in this ep). My computer doesn't need weekly maintenance checks; I would hope a host wouldn't either. 

[DarkRaichu]

49 minutes ago, Athena said:

Do you mean maintenance in general? We are to assume that when the park was in operation as shown in S1 (Maeve was rebuilt completely), the current timeline of the show has only been two weeks max (probably around one week in this ep). My computer doesn't need weekly maintenance checks; I would hope a host wouldn't either. 

Wasn't 1 of the storylines in season 1 about how maggots could grow on host's body when wound was not repaired correctly?  Dolores' shoulder and body wounds would need to be sterilized and patched correctly before long. 

[Athena]

6 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

Wasn't 1 of the storylines in season 1 about how maggots could grow on host's body when wound was not repaired correctly?  Dolores' shoulder and body wounds would need to be sterilized and patched correctly before long. 

Yes, all the hosts can get infected. Maeve had MSRA in S1. Their skin tissue is allegedly very close to human so they will suffer the same. I am hoping Dolores is cleaning her wounds but who knows.  

[AAEBoiler]

I guess I don't understand why the hosts would have a human looking heart (that was cut out of Akane). I get that they would need some kind of pump to push realistic looking blood out of the bodies when they get shot/chopped/sliced/bit/blownup/other but it doesn't seem logical or good engineering practice that the designers would design a heart that looks exactly like a human heart. Thoughts?

[dgpolo]

7 minutes ago, AAEBoiler said:

I guess I don't understand why the hosts would have a human looking heart (that was cut out of Akane). I get that they would need some kind of pump to push realistic looking blood out of the bodies when they get shot/chopped/sliced/bit/blownup/other but it doesn't seem logical or good engineering practice that the designers would design a heart that looks exactly like a human heart. Thoughts?

My problem with this was kind of opposite, I think. I can 'get' why they have a heart that looks and works like a humans, especially if the hosts are used to advance medical breakthroughs. Since they are now organically made, why not? My problem is, if they have a human looking heart, human looking blood etc, why are the brains different? I guess I just feel that the 'coding' should also be 'organic' and made to look human. I also had a problem during the samurai fight when limbs and then the head were hacked off, there should have been blood spurting out, instead there was a few streams. Maybe they were trying to lessen the gore but it wasn't very realistic and if 'real' is what they were going for, it fails. (all I could think of was back in the 'golden age of TV they weren't allowed hardly any blood at all so no matter how a character was shot there was no blood showing)

[Nashville]

12 hours ago, Earlwoode said:

Yes but all that still doesn’t explain why they now don’t seem to need maintenance.  I realize they were all “fixed” if shot, stabbed, “ killed” etc.  but I would assume they would still need regular maintenance as highly complex machines with (presumably) delicate balances in their computer brains.

Increased technical intricacy does not necessarily imply increased brittleness; just because the storylines generally run two weeks at a pop doesn’t necessarily dictate the hosts require service every two weeks.  More likely, the park staff simply uses the opportunity to do preventive maintenance - which, considering each host constitutes several millions of dollars worth of technology and IP, would be smarter then hell of them vs. running the hosts until they break and THEN trying to fix them.

Assuming...

1. All core host systems are engineered to withstand common baselines of exposure/exertion/abuse.
2. Those baselines include the capacity to maintain uninterrupted continuous operation in the dirt and dust and rough terrain of the Westworld environment for up to two weeks at a time - the previously-stated duration of most Westworld storylines.

...then absent lethal trauma, I’d expect the vast majority of hosts to maintain operational capacity for as long as their internal autonomous power supplies can function - and since we have zero notion what kind of internal power supply the hosts DO have (Lithium ion batteries?  Self-contained cold fusion reactor packs? Duracell AAAs?), the range of possibility runs the gamut from two weeks to near-infinity.

 

3 hours ago, dgpolo said:

My problem with this was kind of opposite, I think. I can 'get' why they have a heart that looks and works like a humans, especially if the hosts are used to advance medical breakthroughs. Since they are now organically made, why not? My problem is, if they have a human looking heart, human looking blood etc, why are the brains different? I guess I just feel that the 'coding' should also be 'organic' and made to look human. I also had a problem during the samurai fight when limbs and then the head were hacked off, there should have been blood spurting out, instead there was a few streams. Maybe they were trying to lessen the gore but it wasn't very realistic and if 'real' is what they were going for, it fails. (all I could think of was back in the 'golden age of TV they weren't allowed hardly any blood at all so no matter how a character was shot there was no blood showing)

I’d be inclined - as usual - to take a slightly different view. ;>   Just because...

• It looks like a human heart.
• It acts like a human heart - beats, spurts “blood” when you cut it out, etc.
• It is located where you’d expect to find a heart in a human chest.

...none of that means this heart-looking device IS a heart - i.e., it performs the exact same life support function for a host that a heart does for a human.  The hosts may be (and probably are) completely outfitted with a full complement of human organ analogues, to be sure - but they may serve no other purpose than suitably realistic window dressing, in case a client’s tastes run more toward the lines of ritual disembowelment.

[WatchrTina]

On 6/5/2018 at 4:31 PM, Nashville said:

The hosts may be (and probably are) completely outfitted with a full complement of human organ analogues, to be sure - but they may serve no other purpose than suitably realistic window dressing, in case a client’s tastes run more toward the lines of ritual disembowelment.

Yup, that's my rationalization -- particularly in uber-violent Samurai World where guests hack at the 'bots with katanas.  It would spoil the illusion if a recently bifurcated 'bot revealed a bunch of gears and servos instead of human-looking viscera.  I had speculated that the "internal" dressing was more elaborate in Samuri World than in the other parks for precisely that reason.

Edited June 9, 2018 by WatchrTina

[AudienceofOne]

All I have to say is that I called that the very first scene between Dolores and Bernard was in the far future when Bernard was under her control and now I feel weirdly vindicated like I am a Very Clever Person.

[LeGrandElephant]

During the whole Sakura funeral, I kept thinking "so, no one has bothered to tell Akane that she and Sakura are immortal robots, huh?" And then Maeve SAYS everyone has a right to choose their destiny, but apparently that comes with the caveat "unless you're a henchman who I will just kill". If she can make the henchmen kill each other, why can't she make them take a nap, or do anything else to render them harmless without killing them? And then when Akane and whats-his-name decide to stay, again, yes they get to pick their own destiny, but without the highly relevant information that they are robots and this isn't really japan and a big security force is going to arrive soon to kill them all. Don't they deserve to know that when choosing their destiny? Very inconsistent. 

[AudienceofOne]

4 hours ago, LeGrandElephant said:

During the whole Sakura funeral, I kept thinking "so, no one has bothered to tell Akane that she and Sakura are immortal robots, huh?" And then Maeve SAYS everyone has a right to choose their destiny, but apparently that comes with the caveat "unless you're a henchman who I will just kill". If she can make the henchmen kill each other, why can't she make them take a nap, or do anything else to render them harmless without killing them? And then when Akane and whats-his-name decide to stay, again, yes they get to pick their own destiny, but without the highly relevant information that they are robots and this isn't really japan and a big security force is going to arrive soon to kill them all. Don't they deserve to know that when choosing their destiny? Very inconsistent. 

Guards! Guards!

Maeve inconsistent in her application of her new morality? No! Never!