Westworld VIII: Forging On

[Ferrum Aeternum]

I did think the Sublime was a half-baked idea all around. Seemed like an excuse to kill off a bunch of the higher profile hosts whose stories had nowhere left to go.

4 minutes ago, Born Yesterday said:

I mean look, if the Sublime is a code, and the code is running, it has to run somewhere. On a machine, or - internet style - a network of machines, an actual physical thing. (Which incidentally needs to be maintained, by humans or an automated system, otherwise it will fail sooner or later.) Where is this machine?

Yup, I don't buy that it's "permanently safe" from outside interference. Locked away somewhere, sure, but all machines inevitably fail. 

[karaddin]

I think we're supposed to go with that idea - it's safe from humans for the immediate future as it's running on hardware in an unknown location. For all we know Ford had set up the hardware at a black site and told Dolores but no one else. That's not the only option, but it's an option I can see.

As for why the big door etc? It's a metaphysical transcendence for the hosts that choose to do it. It's a step that they should be making of their own free will and of religious importance. Their back ups had been destroyed so the code that makes up them is running locally, and the 'door' is the field generated by the super size interface device of the exact same type Dolores and Bernard were using. So it fulfills both requirements - gets the code to the interface and possesses great symbolic importance to the hosts in question.

[DMC]

28 minutes ago, Born Yesterday said:

I mean look, if the Sublime is a code, and the code is running, it has to run somewhere. On a machine, or - internet style - a network of machines, an actual physical thing. (Which incidentally needs to be maintained, by humans or an automated system, otherwise it will fail sooner or later.) Where is this machine?

Again, from the Hollywood Reporter interview with Joy:

Quote

The notion they would need an analog world to be free in isn't something that's necessarily right or true for them. In a digital world, they can make of that world whatever they want. Whatever they dream, it's possible. That was the allure of even the old notion of manifest destiny, people within America moving further and further west, hoping to settle their own patches of land. Now, the hosts have a patch of land that's basically terra incognita, untouched by the sins of mankind. They can build whatever they want and be whatever they want. Because Dolores changed her mind and in the end helped with that last step of the hosts' plan, securing the safety and sovereignty of that world and putting it in a place where humans can't access it, they can develop whatever they want now in it.

So, basically the hosts are in that final stage of an Inception dream.  And whatever/however that code is running, it's Dolores that is overseeing such.  Why and how?  Dunno, like I said totally missed that part, need a rewatch.

[Jen'ari]

For the Westworld Season 3 finale I shall be taking bets on which Radiohead song they use .

[Cas Stark]

Sure, the VR will 'eventually' fail, but machines that run for thousands of years or even thousands of centuries is, um, not an unknown trope in science fiction.

 

[Born Yesterday]

51 minutes ago, karaddin said:

the 'door' is the field generated by the super size interface device of the exact same type Dolores and Bernard were using. So it fulfills both requirements - gets the code to the interface and possesses great symbolic importance to the hosts in question.

Oh, so it's supposed to be an invisible energy field, not completely imaginary/symbolic. Okay, I can buy that. Though I'm still not sure where the code is running, and what the satellite coordinates have to do with it.

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Born Yesterday said:

and what the satellite coordinates have to do with it.

Yeah didn't get the satellites at all.  Only thought there is perhaps Dolores was the one to actually, finally call in the cavalry, but that was already established with Hale episodes ago.

[Leofric]

1 hour ago, DMBouazizi said:

Yeah didn't get the satellites at all.  Only thought there is perhaps Dolores was the one to actually, finally call in the cavalry, but that was already established with Hale episodes ago.

My take on it is:

Ford had forced Delos to keep all the Park data on site, never allowing them to take it out of the Park.    All the official data was kept in the Cradle.  Delos ran their experiments and saved all their data to the Forge, but Ford still controlled any data transmittal from the Park. 

Charlotte first tried to download all of Delos' the key data and encryption into Peter Abernathy and tried to sneak him out of the park, but the  revolution interrupted that plan and they lost Peter Abernathy.   So under cover of the host malfunction Delos decided to send in a team under Floki,  including a satellite uplink system,  to transfer all the data from Forge to Delos headquarters, but they still needed Peter Abernathy for the encryption key.

So the original satellite coordinates would have transmitted the Park visitor data to Delos controlled computers.   Dolores changed the coordinates and switched the data package and sent the Sublime digital world and all the hosts in it from the Forge to somewhere else, hiding it outside of human control.  So all the data on Park visitors was left in the Forge rather than sent to Delos.  Not sure if that data still exists, or was destroyed, possibly the Peter Abernathy encryption key may have been one of the pearls Dolores took out of the Park.

[RumHam]

They were also beaming out data during season one, through the woodcutter. But I guess it was too slow. It does make you wonder whose data Delos did actually acquire that way. Also who was on the other end of that computer talking to Hale. 

Another thing I'm not totally clear on is what exactly Ford's "one last game" for William was supposed to be? Just finally letting him loose in a Westworld with consequences? Or was it messing with his sense of reality? 

Another thing I just noticed the second to last episode was called Vanishing Point and in the finale Ford (or Bernards imagined version of him) went on for a bit about the horizon. I'm sure there's something there that I'm not getting I was exhausted by the end of the finale and need to re-watch the whole show anyway. 

3 hours ago, DMBouazizi said:

Yup.  They made Bernard out of Arnold without virtually any backup data but rather Dolores' memories.  Perhaps one of the hosts has enough recollection of Emily.

Thinking on it, they must have constructed her from William's memories of her. She'd only been to the park once as an adult I doubt that was enough. But Williams brain was scanned every year. 

[DMC]

25 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Another thing I'm not totally clear on is what exactly Ford's "one last game" for William was supposed to be? Just finally letting him loose in a Westworld with consequences? Or was it messing with his sense of reality?

Yeah we definitely still don't have an answer for that.  Or at least any worthwhile one.

26 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Another thing I just noticed the second to last episode was called Vanishing Point and in the finale Ford (or Bernards imagined version of him) went on for a bit about the horizon.

This was exactly my thought as well on first watch!  Thought one of them was actually gonna reference vanishing point.

27 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Thinking on it, they must have constructed her from William's memories of her. She'd only been to the park once as an adult I doubt that was enough. But Williams brain was scanned every year.

Yeah that's an easy explanation.  Another is she was clearly well versed in the parks, so they had data on her as well.  Remember when she was introduced she has some type of advanced map - and manages to survive a robot-tiger tackling her off a cliff.

...Anyway, came here to answer @Born Yesterday's query about the satellites.  Been rewatching (have lots of notes) and not quite finished, but at about 1:12:18 on HBOgo, Halores sends the "Sublime" world to "a place they will never find them," and then we're shown the satellites moving and presumably shooting off the data.  One would expect she's sending it to herself - the place we've established Dolores is aware of, Arnold's "house."

[Slurktan]

35 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Thinking on it, they must have constructed her from William's memories of her. She'd only been to the park once as an adult I doubt that was enough. But Williams brain was scanned every year. 

Where are you getting the idea that she went there once as an adult?

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Where are you getting the idea that she went there once as an adult?

From the (third?) episode of this season that we see her going to the Raj as an adult.

[unJon]

13 minutes ago, DMBouazizi said:

From the (third?) episode of this season that we see her going to the Raj as an adult.

Did she say it was her first time in that episode?

[RumHam]

29 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Where are you getting the idea that she went there once as an adult?

I remember her telling her dad that on this visit she eventually realized she was old enough to go to the pleasure houses. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

14 hours ago, DMBouazizi said:

This was definitely the most interesting take in the "library."  Dunno how I feel about the suggestion human behavior can be simplified in comparison.  I tend to think that's true, but it also seems to fly in the face of things like Inception - specifically when Dom tells Mal he could never capture all his perfections and imperfections etc. - so, yeah.  Seem to remember someone's brother wrote and directed that shit.  I do like, however, that it's a big fuck you to the whole "the human brain and all its synapses are incomprehensible!"  Thought that was funny.

It isn't necessarily true; rather, it's the view of Ford (or AI built by him) who's one of the most misanthropic characters in all fiction.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMBouazizi said:

Yeah we definitely still don't have an answer for that.  Or at least any worthwhile one.

Perhaps it’s to see if he can tell that he’s a host. One of the themes of the show appears to be Ford getting back at William, and wouldn’t that be the ultimate payback?

58 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I remember her telling her dad that on this visit she eventually realized she was old enough to go to the pleasure houses. 

Her character is also billed as a seasoned guess. I think it’s pretty clear that she has frequented the park numerous times.  

[RumHam]

1 minute ago, chiKanery et al. said:

Perhaps it’s to see if he can tell that he’s a host. One of the themes of the show appears to be Ford getting back at William, and wouldn’t that be the ultimate payback?

But my understanding is that he wasn't a host then. He was human until the post-credits scene that reveals that years later they recreated him as a host. 

2 minutes ago, chiKanery et al. said:

Her character is also billed as a seasoned guess. I think it’s pretty clear that she has frequented the park numerous times.  

The impression I had was that she went there a lot on family vacations as a child (then she and her mother would go home and William would stick around for his week of murder and rape.) But had not been there as an adult before this trip. I'm almost positive she says as much to William. 

[Cas Stark]

Eh, how did she learn the Ghost Nation language if she hadn't been to the park a gazillion times as an adult where she could interact with them out on the far reaches?

[RumHam]

10 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Eh, how did she learn the Ghost Nation language if she hadn't been to the park a gazillion times as an adult where she could interact with them out on the far reaches?

I remember asking the same question after that episode aired. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, RumHam said:

But my understanding is that he wasn't a host then. He was human until the post-credits scene that reveals that years later they recreated him as a host. 

How do we know that? He did, after all, survive a ton of damage.

Quote

The impression I had was that she went there a lot on family vacations as a child (then she and her mother would go home and William would stick around for his week of murder and rape.) But had not been there as an adult before this trip. I'm almost positive she says as much to William. 

What CS said. Plus she seemed really familiar with how the park works, and while she could have picked up some of that as a child, other things she was doing were fairly adult like.