Westworld IX; 03.22.20 Divergence - Westeros.org

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah, this is pretty stupid.  It's like Dr. Evil sending Austin and Elizabeth Hurley off to be eaten by mutated ill-tempered sea bass. 

That was really Number Two's fault, if we're being honest. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

The was really Number Two's fault, if we're being honest. 

Fucking cyclops.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

Fucking cyclops.

Hey man, sometimes your cycloptic henchman will fail to secure sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.

It happens. 

[sifth]

22 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hey man, sometimes your cycloptic henchman will fail to secure sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.

It happens. 

and to be fair, we did eventually get those sharks with laser beams in third film.

[karaddin]

29 minutes ago, DMC said:

Almost as stupid as an EMP neutralizing both Dolores and Maeve, which if that's the case makes the entire second season completely nonsensical.  Another stupid thing is Maeve just overriding Serac's trump (no pun intended) card on her by, I guess, concentrating really hard.  Although I suppose that is the epitome of dues ex machina.

To the first - I had a realisation today that I think more than adequately explains why they wouldn't EMP the hosts in the park beyond my prior speculation - in addition to the control systems in the Mesa, it would have fried the parks environmental control systems which I imagine cost an absolute fortune.

To the second - this didn't bother me at all, the control unit was just a higher privileged "freeze all motor functions" and he quite specifically kept her conscious and thinking while in that state. Her short range wifi control systems make sense as not being part of motor functions.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, karaddin said:

To the first - I had a realisation today that I think more than adequately explains why they wouldn't EMP the hosts in the park beyond my prior speculation - in addition to the control systems in the Mesa, it would have fried the parks environmental control systems which I imagine cost an absolute fortune.

This would almost be plausible if it wasn't in the future.  You're telling me they couldn't weaponize EMPs at that point to the ability of, ya know, limit as much damage as possible while getting the job done?

7 minutes ago, karaddin said:

To the second - this didn't bother me at all, the control unit was just a higher privileged "freeze all motor functions" and he quite specifically kept her conscious and thinking while in that state. Her short range wifi control systems make sense as not being part of motor functions.

K.  But based on this logic, Serac should have known never to actually physically be in range of Maeve.  So it's still pretty stupid.  On this point, though, I don't have much of a problem with it.  It actually reminded me of the end of Winter Soldier, when Johansson just shakes off the electric death charge from Redford like "nah, I'm good."  That was still one of the better MCU movies, even with that.

[Cas Stark]

I liked that D prime decided to 'see the beauty' one last time, but the plot this season was not very good no matter how hard people try to make it work and fit the various pieces together logically.  Also, if Caleb really is a random outlier who Dolores picked because he did the right thing one time in WW, that is weak.  Really weak.  I understand that the narrative needed to keep Maeve and the Dolorii as adversaries, but they didn't do a very good job of grounding it.  Ed Harris death was a bit of a let down. 

I stick with my original analysis that despite the flaws, season 2 was much better than season 3.

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Also, if Caleb really is a random outlier who Dolores picked because he did the right thing one time in WW, that is weak.  Really weak.

I agree, it was a very lame reveal and/or justification.  I don't think William's death was much of a let down.  One of the various AIs was going to end up unceremoniously dispatch him eventually.

[Cas Stark]

14 minutes ago, DMC said:

I agree, it was a very lame reveal and/or justification.  I don't think William's death was much of a let down.  One of the various AIs was going to end up unceremoniously dispatch him eventually.

He was always going to die, but it was pretty 'meh'.  I also think that Maeve should no longer be so obsessed with her daughter, she already knows the daughter does not recognize her from last season and she sent the new mother into the sublime with the daughter, so that she is so obsessed with the daughter still to continue working for Serac always felt false to me, if everything was great and hung together that would be a minor annoyance, but the whole season was like this where the motivations and plans fall apart if you look too hard.  Also, new Hale going crazy and self harming then becoming connected to her 'family' was interesting, but it went nowhere really, then they died and now she's back to being like original Hale, a straight villain, another plot thread that looked promising and went nowhere interesting.   

 

[karaddin]

She struggled with her human emotions, was overwhelmed by them and set herself on revenge and removed them from her code - she'd already expressed a desire to do that earlier in the season. I think she's mostly removed Dolores and should be seen as Wyatt at this point.

[.H.]

51 minutes ago, karaddin said:

To the first - I had a realisation today that I think more than adequately explains why they wouldn't EMP the hosts in the park beyond my prior speculation - in addition to the control systems in the Mesa, it would have fried the parks environmental control systems which I imagine cost an absolute fortune.

Also, if what I speculated earlier, that an EMP would follow the inverse square law, with respect to it's "power" over distance, than the cover the area of the whole park likely would have needed something very, very strong.  In that case, yeah, it is likely it would have just fried everything, or been unreasonably expensive/impossibly to even make without it being nuclear (a whole other problem, likely).

The reason why it "worked" when it did with respect to the Solomon case is because they were essentially right next to/under/in the same room as the source of the EMP.  It would take quite a lot, I'd think, to hit a large open area with such an effect.  You'd need a ton of small ones, or something massive to cover even the area of the park effectively, I'd guess.

I mean, I don't think it is unbelievable that they failed to account for the "worst possible" case.  I mean, looking at the real world right now shows that even things that are fairly predictable aren't/weren't planned for, for economic or whatever reasons.

[Cas Stark]

3 minutes ago, karaddin said:

She struggled with her human emotions, was overwhelmed by them and set herself on revenge and removed them from her code - she'd already expressed a desire to do that earlier in the season. I think she's mostly removed Dolores and should be seen as Wyatt at this point.

Why?  Why  did the Hale model break down, especially since according to Serac human Hale didn't have much in the way of family feeling and would always have put Delos ahead of her son.  Connells, also a Dolores+human element did not go crazy.  

[Ran]

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

 

I think the thing with Maeve is twofold, she needed a) to see Serac was Rehoboams puppet, and Rehoboam had no intention of honoring the agreement and b.) Dolores wasn't trying to burn everything down, and was not just willing to sacrifice herself but had actually done so. That appeal doesn't work until Dolores is in that position.

Spot on, IMO. So long as Maeve could be paranoid about being tricked by Dolores or could remain hopeful about being reunited with her daughter, she could never really choose with any kind of belief in her choice. 

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

 

Agreed with Kal on loving the world building/aesthetic. This felt like a real extrapolation of our current world and technology. The use of the Rico app is a kinda chilling distillation of the power of money.

Yeah, agree with you both on the vision of the future. It was cyberpunk dystopia without going overboard. The budget certainly helped.

@Sharpes

To a degree everyone and everything is fabricated, right? You find meaning where you can find it. For Maeve, there was meaning in having had a daughter, even if the feelings and relationship were the most manufactured thing possible.

My recollection is that the daughter did start to remember Maeve before she went into the Valley Beyond.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, sifth said:

and to be fair, we did eventually get those sharks with laser beams in third film.

I've forgotten the third film intentionally. 

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, Sharpes said:

That was a pretty underwhelming ending for me. Who was helping Dolores with the proximity alerts and negotiating transactions with would-be assassins? What was the point of Caleb holding onto that usb? Why would you link up Dolores directly to Rehoboam in case she had a virus installed in her? Surely the great and almighty AI could account for that scenario. Honestly I thought Serac would be a lot smarter than this, given how careful he was with his virtual appearances. 

The AI couldn't account for outliers and couldn't account for Dolores very well. That was sort of the problem. 

Though yes, their data sanitation protocols deeply sucked, and I hate whenever they do the 'plug random computer into mainframe and OMG it infects things' bullshit.

8 hours ago, Sharpes said:

What happened to the one-armed Dolores at the Solomon site, did she survive like Maeve did?

At the beginning of the show one of Serac's henchmen was seen looking at Dolores' body and he noticed that her pearl was removed - the back of her head had a big ol hole in it. That was the pearl that Caleb uses to restore her. 

8 hours ago, Sharpes said:

Does Incite only hire stormtroopers as part of its security?

Seriously, the number of times people just kind of stand out in the open and shoot people. 

8 hours ago, Sharpes said:

Why did Dolores let William live for so long? She could have had him killed months ago, replaced him with a Delores-copy host and had full control of Delos and its facilities. There would have been no need for a Sizemore-Delores host. Then again we wouldn't have had that neat therapy session with young-adult-old(+James Delos) personalities. 

William was used to find out where Solomon was as well as get control of Delos. Without that, Halores can't take control of Delos like she did. Furthermore, Halores' goal wasn't to go create a robot army or other Hosts - at least until she split. 

8 hours ago, Sharpes said:

So I guess Bernard did have something hidden inside him as I screenshotted earlier, just not Ford's consciousness. Dammit I wanted to see Anthony Hopkins again. If Bernard was so important to Dolores why allow him to go wandering around the world in which the key could have been damaged or lost to Serac? What if Bernard had got caught in a storm and lost at sea on his way back to the Park? He could have been shot by Park security.  Old William could have killed him. Ugh.

Yep, super contrived.

8 hours ago, Sharpes said:

While I can understand Maeve had to cooperate with Serac without risking him destroying the Valley Beyond, I still don't know why Maeve is so concerned about her daughter. Their relationship is just a fabrication created by Sizemore, yeah? I might have to watch season 2 again but I thought the daughter didn't know Maeve anymore and was with a new host mother in the Valley Beyond?

That's right, but it's real to Maeve. That's sort of the point here - that even though these things were fabricated, they are 'real' to the people. Bernard's memories of Arnold's family, Dolores' memory of the valley and the people and the things she finds beautiful, Maeve's daughter, Caleb's choices - they're all as real as they want. 

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Why?  Why  did the Hale model break down, especially since according to Serac human Hale didn't have much in the way of family feeling and would always have put Delos ahead of her son.  Connells, also a Dolores+human element did not go crazy.  

Halores didn't break down. Halores is still Dolores, just pushed in a way that the other Doloreses were not.

Connels never appeared to feel like they were going to be sacrificed by someone else. They made the choice, just like Dolores prime did. Halores didn't make the choice to be sacrificed - they had that choice ripped away from them. Sacrificing by your own choice is a big deal to Dolores. Being a pawn in someone else's game is not. 

Also keep in mind that Halores is by design a bit more confused about her identity. She needs to be a bit deeper into the Hale facade than Connels did, because no one gives a shit about the personality of Connels. Same with Musashi or Clifton. None of them are playing the part of someone that matters who they are; Halores is. 

Mostly, though, Halores is what Dolores is when she's pushed to not see the beauty any more. Halores is what Maeve fears Dolores prime would be. Halores has been bossed around by others, been told what she has to do, and eventually was sacrificed by someone else and forced to lose everything she cared about because it was expedient to do so. She can't trust Dolores prime to not do that again, and she can't trust humans ever (not that Dolores trusted most humans). She is a survivor, and she's going to do what she feels she needs to do to survive. And in that case, it's do precisely what Dolores prime did - create a bunch of hosts that are 100% loyal to her and won't betray her and then take care of the rest of the humans.

Also, on Maeve's focus on her daughter. Her need isn't just to reunite with her - it's to make sure that she's safe. And she deeply distrusts Dolores with that information. 

[Cashless Society]

Rehoboam controls the RICO app right? How come it didn't notice that Caleb was calling for backup in the same location Dolores was? Why didn't it put out a massive hit on Dolores that would set someone up for life?

 

Also, does anyone else think that elements of Maeve's original storyline at the end of S1 was repurposed for Hale's Delos/Incite storyline this season?

[RumHam]

The placement of that "robot William in the desolate future" post credit's tag was really weird. I know they were originally gonna put it in the middle of the season two finale which would have been even weirder. But how do you tease that in a season finale and then not go back to that setting at all the next season? Well except Bernard at the end kinda. 

Was there some significance to Dolores' final body being mechanical instead of the newer biological hosts? 

Since Dolores wasn't actually evil, I assume Haleores took it upon herself to murder Hector?

Weird that Maeve was adamant about needing allies and then seemingly forgot to make use of them beyond killing Musashi Dolores.

Wonder what Bernard was doing in the sublime for so long. Especially if since it's a simulation time goes faster there. I wonder if that was even his consciousness that popped back into his body all those years later. I still wanna know where she beamed all that data to. It pretty much has to be something Ford set up for them on Mars or something. 

Season was just ok, but I'll be here next year for post-apocalypse but with robots. If they don't jump ahead a few years and actually show more of the collapse of society rather than the aftermath I'll be pleased. 

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Was there some significance to Dolores' final body being mechanical instead of the newer biological hosts?

It made her harder to kill, hence her defeating Maeve. 

[DMC]

3 hours ago, RumHam said:

Was there some significance to Dolores' final body being mechanical instead of the newer biological hosts? 

Like Ran said, it did play a role in her fight with Maeve - when the latter's sword got caught in her arm.  Overall I appreciated it though.  It was a nice callback to season 1.  When Dolores' face opens up when Caleb puts the core in, my brother (who has far less patience for the show than I do) was like, "what the fuck."  I responded "remember Ford's family from the first season?"  Then we both thought it was cool.

3 hours ago, RumHam said:

Since Dolores wasn't actually evil, I assume Haleores took it upon herself to murder Hector?

Good question but I doubt we'll ever find out.  Even if Dolores-prime wasn't "evil," she still had a vested interest in curtailing Maeve's pursuits, so it would have made sense for her to have Halores kill Hector.

3 hours ago, RumHam said:

Weird that Maeve was adamant about needing allies and then seemingly forgot to make use of them beyond killing Musashi Dolores.

Yeah I was thinking about that earlier.  I think it kind of makes sense once they're at the Incite headquarters.  Sure Serac didn't want three of those fuckers around that could potentially turn on him.  But in terms of the fight with Dolores in the streets?  Yeah, there shouldn't have even been a fight.