Westworld

[dropbear8mybaby]

Wow, that first episode was absolutely awesome. There was a little bit of on-the-nose exposition, but it was such a minor part of it that it really didn't detract from the overall sense of it being a thoroughly enjoyable first episode.

If they keep this up, I think this series could be the next Game of Thrones.

[kraftcheese]

Wow, that first episode was absolutely awesome. There was a little bit of on-the-nose exposition, but it was such a minor part of it that it really didn't detract from the overall sense of it being a thoroughly enjoyable first episode.

If they keep this up, I think this series could be the next Game of Thrones.
Can I ask how closely they hew to the story of the movie?

I mean is it more of a "new story in with the same themes/same world/same characters in a different situation" in the vein of 12 Monkeys, Fargo or Hannibal? (if you've seen any of those)

[Berserk Mecha]

Seems like a whole series about the holodeck from Next Gen. Not a bad idea, but I wonder how they can extend that concept over a whole series. How long can Dolores and her boyfriend (I forget his name) go about feeling like something is wrong in their world until they figure out what it is and then do something about it over multiple seasons? At least I assume that this is open to multiple seasons.

But other than that, it looks like a promising show. Seems like Jurassic Park with robot cowboys mixed with Ex Machina.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

I watched it and I am confused. How often do the bots reset? If it is daily then killing someone is meaning less because they just come back...

[Clertar]

Seems like a whole series about the holodeck from Next Gen.

Made me laugh. I always loved to hate those episodes.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Uu9pF2xqwiM/UUuLUVDXxPI/AAAAAAAACQw/Yzvpwu6fx8o/s1600/A_dealer_at_a_Royale_table.jpg

[dropbear8mybaby]

Can I ask how closely they hew to the story of the movie?

Dunno, never seen the movie.

Even if it only goes for one season, it's worth the watch though, that I do know.

[Narkis]

Great first episode, can't wait to see the rest. I don't see it reaching GoT levels of popularity though, I'd imagine being both a western and scifi will limit its appeal.


Can I ask how closely they hew to the story of the movie?

I mean is it more of a "new story in with the same themes/same world/same characters in a different situation" in the vein of 12 Monkeys, Fargo or Hannibal? (if you've seen any of those)

It appears to be a loose sequel. There's mention of a major incident 30 years ago in-universe, and at some point they go down to a deep basement where they see the old abandoned lobby of Delos corp. So same world and a new story, though none of the characters return afaik, and the theme, as of the first episode, seems to be more "man's creation surpasses creator's limitations" and not "robots are dangerous, yo".

[dropbear8mybaby]

Great first episode, can't wait to see the rest. I don't see it reaching GoT levels of popularity though, I'd imagine being both a western and scifi will limit its appeal.

That's what they said about Firefly...

[Chen]

I watched it and I am confused. How often do the bots reset? If it is daily then killing someone is meaning less because they just come back...

They mentioned resetting at the end of their narrative arc. It's not clear if they die and the "arc" is not resolved what happens though. Maybe they just stay out until that story is done?

[Dienekes]

Can I ask how closely they hew to the story of the movie?

I mean is it more of a "new story in with the same themes/same world/same characters in a different situation" in the vein of 12 Monkeys, Fargo or Hannibal? (if you've seen any of those)

Completely different story. Implied to be same universe. The movie is about a couple guys who get stuck in Westworld during the androids going on a rampage after some sort of virus effected them all.

[hamlet]

Curses! I do not get the HBO! If only I had the money!

I saw the preview for this and was dying to get a look at the premier. Now I'm gonna have to figure out how to manage it without a 400 mile round trip to the nearest person in the family who has it.

[Chimmon]

I watched it and I am confused. How often do the bots reset? If it is daily then killing someone is meaning less because they just come back...

For the recall, they mentioned having the bandit come to town a week early. That also seems like a finale type of event, so 1 week is probably the time period.

On another note, the scene with the gunslinger putting the Host's gun to his forehead - even blanks cause serious damage like that due to the gas and pressure being released. Of course, the player might not of known that (and the writers might not have either), but then I read about the "Good Samaritan" aspect of the Hosts - and the scene took on a whole new meaning. The gunslinger knew all of that, and was testing or playing with that particular rule. i.e. If the subconscious directives could override the Hosts' conscious desires.

[Chen]

For the recall, they mentioned having the bandit come to town a week early. That also seems like a finale type of event, so 1 week is probably the time period.

On another note, the scene with the gunslinger putting the Host's gun to his forehead - even blanks cause serious damage like that due to the gas and pressure being released. Of course, the player might not of known that (and the writers might not have either), but then I read about the "Good Samaritan" aspect of the Hosts - and the scene took on a whole new meaning. The gunslinger knew all of that, and was testing or playing with that particular rule. i.e. If the subconscious directives could override the Hosts' conscious desires.

I don't think the guns were actually shooting blanks. Something was hitting the gunslinger when he was being shot. I presume the coding won't actually let the hosts shoot guests in the face (presumably because it would actually cause some damage). It did look like he was trying to shoot but couldn't.

[Chimmon]

I don't think the guns were actually shooting blanks. Something was hitting the gunslinger when he was being shot. I presume the coding won't actually let the hosts shoot guests in the face (presumably because it would actually cause some damage). It did look like he was trying to shoot but couldn't.

Yeah, the guns shoot small projectiles like BBs. They just damage hosts like a real bullet. My point wasn't that they were firing blanks, but that whatever they were shooting (even if it was nothing), the pressure at point-blank range is dangerous.

[CynicalAvocado]

I never knew how great Black Hole Sun sounded on an out of tune piano until now

[Joran]

I watched it and I am confused. How often do the bots reset? If it is daily then killing someone is meaning less because they just come back...

As Chen mentioned, the bandit from the hills arrived a week early, so the implication is that the narratives are at least a week long. One of the guests also mentioned that he had a blast as a black hat for 2 weeks, so my guess is that each loop is 2 weeks long.


Great first episode, can't wait to see the rest. I don't see it reaching GoT levels of popularity though, I'd imagine being both a western and scifi will limit its appeal.

From Ars Technica's podcast, there's a couple of things weighing against Westworld being as big of a hit as GoT.

1) It's most definitely a sci-fi show with all the trappings of sci-fi. Game of Thrones started out as more of a historical drama with typical dynastic intrigue, only throwing in the fantastical elements later. This slow start allowed people who normally wouldn't want to watch fantasy give GoT a try. For instance, my father is very prejudicial against anything sci-fi, so I can't imagine him watching Westworld. I could see him giving GoT a try.

2) There's no gleefully delightful character like Tyrion Lanaster. While there are all sorts of interesting characters in Westworld, there's nobody who's as fun to watch as Tyrion is.

That said, HBO is definitely throwing a lot of money at Westworld and the quality shows. I hope it's a big enough hit that we get more of it.



But other than that, it looks like a promising show. Seems like Jurassic Park with robot cowboys mixed with Ex Machina.

The original movie was written by Michael Crichton (RIP), so the Jurrasic Park vibe is not random. With the technology on display, a Jurassic Park knock-off is possible and it'd be fun to have.

[An Enemy Spy]

Wow, that first episode was absolutely awesome. There was a little bit of on-the-nose exposition, but it was such a minor part of it that it really didn't detract from the overall sense of it being a thoroughly enjoyable first episode.

If they keep this up, I think this series could be the next Game of Thrones.

Westworld is a show? I thought those trailers were for a movie.

[dropbear8mybaby]

Westworld is a show? I thought those trailers were for a movie.

Given that they spent $100 million on the first season's episodes, the production values are up there with a top-end feature film.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

I thought the second episode was tonight, but they put it up early on HBO go. I watched it and thought it was pretty cool, it answered some questions and gave us some new ones. I was trying to figure out the maze thing...then I went online and got blown away.

https://youtu.be/9maMJX7vc64

this reviewer had made a connection to Grand theft Auto before, but to day went and connected it to Live Action Role Playing, and I have to agree the bots as NPCs make sense. Has anyone else watches ep 2?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by HardcoreD&Dgirl
I watched it and I am confused.

I watched the first episode and was both bored and confused.

This isn't my ordinary reaction to SF, but I had a hard time following…everything, really. I'm still not sure if this is actually a holodeck environment, or--what seems more likely--if this is a physical location with slave AIs inside constructed bodies. I'm guessing the latter, but there were some confusing moments.

And then there's the nature of the AIs' consciousness, the possibility of latent memories and a machine subconscious (echoes of Dollhouse?) and the creepy, sometimes degrading wish-fulfillment fantasies.

Presumably, yes, the AIs will gradually come to realize they're held captive in their own bodies and their world is a simulation, yadda yadda…but the prospect of watching this slowly unfold seems more tedious than interesting to me.


Originally Posted by Joran
There's no gleefully delightful character like Tyrion [Lannister].

This is a major reason I was bored. There simply wasn't any character with whom I could discover an unexpected sympathy, someone interesting and worth caring about. Ed Harris was brutally effective at being sadistic and evil, but that's not exactly a character I want to root for.

By way of comparison, the first ten minutes of Serenity introduced us to half a dozen quirky, interesting, sometimes surprising and contradictory characters. Each one of them was presented with a dash of humor and an insight into an aspect of their character--Zoe the imperturbable, Simon the passionately protective, River the oddly insightful.

In the first ten minutes of Westworld, I was caught trying to figure out who was human and who was AI, whether everything was tangible or holographic, and how far in the future it was supposed to be. In all the puzzlement, there wasn't a single genuinely interesting, empathetic character for me to ride along with.

Given the lack of a character to care about, I really don't have much interest in watching the second episode. There's too many good books I'd rather read.

[Rodin]

Having just seen the third episode, I'm pretty enthralled. It really looks to be more of a BSG style - nobody is perfect, everybody has their own agenda going on, but virtually none of them are actually evil. Ed Harris is, of course. It looks like there's going to be a lot of intrigue.

I think it also is just taking a slow start to set things up. As of the third episode there's now a number of characters that we're following, and not all of them are human. I'm very interested to see where they go with it.

I do think that suspension of disbelief is required here - if you get too bogged down in HOW the place runs you'll miss out on the events that are happening, and much of the park's inner workings are already shaping up to be of the black box variety.

I've just been thinking of it as "a real place that runs on a groundhog day loop", with the various bots self-correcting any that go too far outside of their expected parameters. That's held me in good stead thus far.

As to telling who is real and who isn't, for the most part I think you can tell by the hats. Black hats and white hats are almost always real people, and brown hats are always NPCs. I think it'll also get easier as we get used to what the "expected" behaviour is, and as we get more guests that stick around for longer than a single episode.

Guests I've identified that seem like they'll have a part to play going forward:



White hatted newbie dude that has a thing for Dolores.
His black-hatted friend, who I'm betting won't last the series.
Ed Harris, of course.
Black-hatted chick that rode out with the posse - we don't know much about her yet, but she's shown up enough that I think she'll have a part to play. I'm intrigued by her having a black hat and yet joining the posse.

[Cespenar]

One thing I found funny in this series is that it explores pretty much a game design duality: attention to detail vs. sensory overload. I haven't seen many series exploring such a thing.

Also, apart from what everyone said, I also found the music direction of the series pretty good as well, which is not a thing I usually notice.

[Quild]

Given that they spent $100 million on the first season's episodes, the production values are up there with a top-end feature film.
Budgets aren't an easy thing to compare.

The duration of these 10 episodes and the duration of a movie are very differents.
The parts of budget you put into actor salaries, into CGi and into promotion has to be observed separately. And then, there's the rest.

[Berserk Mecha]

Well, four episodes in and I'm, well, moderately engaged. There's a few issues with this show. One of them is that the stakes are still kind of vague at this point. We don't know what Mr. Ford exactly has in mind or how his change might be bad or good for Westworld. What is Bernard's end game with Dolores? We still don't quite know what the deal with The Maze is, yet, either. There was some built up for that last episode. Is The Maze some kind of Hot Coffee hack that is known only to a few and never intended to be found by the guests? Is there a prize or achievement point for finding it?

The plot with Maeve was interesting... until she was shot to death, which means that her memory is reset. Ugh, how long are they going to draw out the hosts becoming self-aware? The hosts are barely characters as they are. This is the same problem that I had with the dolls in Dollhouse. (The Joss Whedon show.)

Going back to The Maze, I've heard a theory that connect it to I'itoi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27itoi), a myth of an indigenous tribe called the O'odham. It may be a coincidence or may simply be an inspiration. Don't know. Here's hoping that we'll learn some more next episode.

[cucchulainnn]

The movie was one of my favorites when I was a kid. If memory serves. It was very similar to a real word MMO. The droids where either NPCs or Mobs. The story was that two friends go to the park. While there they kill a gunslinger. from what I remember the droids would be reset when killed or at the end of period of time. say after a few days or a week or so. So they kill this gunslinger. the next day or day after they meet and kill him again. the next day they meet and kill him again and start to suspect the gunslinger might be looking for them. After this happens a few more times the droids in general go berserk and start killing everything including each other. This particular gunslinger is now hunting these two to the exclusion of everything else and kills one of the two. they eventually get into the underground command center for the park. where they have the final confrontation. while in this area it is revealed that the park management had suspected something was going on with the droids. And that it was what we now call a virus but that term was not used at the time. the movie was made in the early 1970s. the park didn't have anti virus capabilities and it got out of hand.

At first I was hesitant about the remake. The advertising hinted that it would be about the droids becoming sentient and "THE ONE" leading them to freedom with butterflys and rainbows. To be blunt I am tired of that story line and actively avoid it. So far I am enjoying the show. Hopefully it will end in disaster.

[Rodin]

The plot with Maeve was interesting... until she was shot to death, which means that her memory is reset. Ugh, how long are they going to draw out the hosts becoming self-aware? The hosts are barely characters as they are. This is the same problem that I had with the dolls in Dollhouse. (The Joss Whedon show.)

I dunno about her memory being reset. In theory, yes. But as we see from her hidey-hole, she has been having her memories of the staff remain for quite some time, and she already had her memory survive one reset - that's how she knew she was shot the first time. I'm betting she starts her next loop with a significant amount of her memory intact, and we'll see what effect her realization about the world means.

[Clertar]

Rather than the new GoT, it feels more like the new Walking Dead.

[Aedilred]

That's what they said about Firefly...
That's not encouraging. Yes, Firefly was murdered by the network, but it was never a mainstream hit. The movie, which was released on the back of two years of hype and active attempts to expand the fanbase, and was critically well-received barely scraped its money back at the box office and may well have ended up making a loss when all factors are considered.


Rather than the new GoT, it feels more like the new Walking Dead.
Why does it have to be the "new" anything?

I've been enjoying it so far. I feel like the ambiguity in the first episode over who's a guest and who's a host is intentional, to indicate how lifelike the hosts are and to make them more sympathetic. For instance, up until his encounter with the Man in Black in the first episode, I had assumed Teddy was a guest. There are some obvious themes to do with AI ethics, which feel relevant and interesting, as well as the usual, but ever-pertinent, observations about how people behave if you remove the boundaries imposed by society.

I'm interested to see where it goes.

[tantric]

possibly stupid question - is Westworld on earth or another planet? i'm having trouble visualizing any future with that much empty space to devote to something so frivolous. and why not just VR?

[Cespenar]

Why does it have to be the "new" anything?

People like their labels.

[Chen]

possibly stupid question - is Westworld on earth or another planet? i'm having trouble visualizing any future with that much empty space to devote to something so frivolous. and why not just VR?

Relatively speaking the area isn't THAT big. I mean flying over the desert in Arizona or something you can see just how much empty space there is around.

The "why not VR" is probably because this was based on a 1973 movie and at the time robots in a park was more in line with future thinking than virtual spaces.

[Aedilred]

possibly stupid question - is Westworld on earth or another planet? i'm having trouble visualizing any future with that much empty space to devote to something so frivolous. and why not just VR?

I think it's meant to be Earth. And there's still a lot of empty space out there (or easy to create) if you have enough money. Given that they seem to cater to the super-rich I get the impression money is not much of an object. And the park's in the middle of what seems to be a desert, so even in a future where the population is twice what it is today that space still probably isn't going to be used for anything much.

Why not just VR? Because why plug yourself into a virtual simulation of reality when you can actually go there? The park prides itself on its realism, and I imagine that the literal physicality of it is part of both the appeal and the marketing. Moreover once you have the physical robotics side of things down (AI complexity being equivalent for both), I think it would still be easier to create a fully realistic spectacle using lifesize props than it would be to program an equally realistic VR environment.

[dropbear8mybaby]

You can only fool the brain so much without major repercussions. Our brains are hard-wired from several million years of evolution. VR will never be able to compensate for that short of rewiring the actual brain and using chemical stimulants, and even then you could only really approach maybe 50% simulation.

VR like in the Matrix is an even bigger sci-fi myth than FTL.

[ArlEammon]

You can only fool the brain so much without major repercussions. Our brains are hard-wired from several million years of evolution. VR will never be able to compensate for that short of rewiring the actual brain and using chemical stimulants, and even then you could only really approach maybe 50% simulation.

VR like in the Matrix is an even bigger sci-fi myth than FTL.

FTL is not necessarily impossible, it would just take superior genius to invent.

[dropbear8mybaby]

FTL is not necessarily impossible, it would just take superior genius to invent.

...

Well, that clearly takes you out of the running.

[ArlEammon]

...

Well, that clearly takes you out of the running.

I'm not sorry, this is simply not true. We need at least three conditions for FTL.

#1:
We need greater science already in existence.

#2:
We need superior resources.

#3:
We need superior intelligence.

All three are attainable. Before you say, "But Einstein is smarter than you" I"m going to point out, there are a lot of dumber people than Einstein that constantly point out how he was wrong about a few key scientific principles which were more advanced than anything else that he had at the time.

[Aedilred]

I'm not sorry, this is simply not true. We need at least three conditions for FTL.

#1:
We need greater science already in existence.

#2:
We need superior resources.

#3:
We need superior intelligence.

All three are attainable. Before you say, "But Einstein is smarter than you" I"m going to point out, there are a lot of dumber people than Einstein that constantly point out how he was wrong about a few key scientific principles which were more advanced than anything else that he had at the time.
Well in order for conventional FTL travel to be feasible, the precepts need not only to be erroneous, but to be completely bogus, because even if there's some slight wiggle room in there, your mass becoming nearly infinite is not much less of a problem than your mass becoming actually infinite.

Which is not impossible, but it would mean a greater error in the fundamentals of Einstein's work than anything we've observed in, say, Newton's over the centuries (alchemy notwithstanding).

What Einstein's theory does not rule out is equivalent-FTL where by means of, say, wormholes, or other transdimensional travel, in which your speed never actually exceeds that of light but for <whatever reason> you arrive at your destination more quickly than light travelling from the same starting point would have done. But I don't think that's true FTL as generally considered, and is still the sort of thing which is a long way into the realm of science fiction.

Full VR by contrast is still some way off but appears much more obviously attainable in incremental improvements from our current technology than does FTL, and it doesn't require us to rewrite any of the basic rules of our understanding of the scientific universe. The psychological repercussions of a fully-immersive VR environment are worthy of consideration but again their resolution seems rather more within our grasp than does FTL. The negative psychological impact is in any case still somewhat speculative in itself.

Which is not to say that VR makes more sense for a setting like Westworld, of course. We are still much further from creating a complete VR environment of that complexity and realism than we are from doing the same thing through robotics and AI; for a series set in the "near future", it makes much more sense even assuming VR is a possibility.

[Berserk Mecha]

Well, now we have corporate espionage. Now this is really getting Jurassic Park-ish. It kind of came out of nowhere, though. Is one of the characters that we've been introduced to in on it? If so, I cannot tell which one.

I'm glad to see that Maeve and Dolores are progressing as characters. I was afraid that the hooker would lose her memory and go back to contemplating her flashbacks again. What caused her to retain her memories this time? Something to due with the surgeon practicing his coding?

And how did Dolores go from being with William and Logan to being in the underground facility with Mr. Ford to being with the guests again so fast? Was her scene with Anthony Hopkins a flashback?

Oh, and how exactly does one conduct a robot to robot blood transfusion? Seems like you'd need equipment for that, even if the patients are androids.

[Rodin]

Well, now we have corporate espionage. Now this is really getting Jurassic Park-ish. It kind of came out of nowhere, though. Is one of the characters that we've been introduced to in on it? If so, I cannot tell which one.

I'm glad to see that Maeve and Dolores are progressing as characters. I was afraid that the hooker would lose her memory and go back to contemplating her flashbacks again. What caused her to retain her memories this time? Something to due with the surgeon practicing his coding?

And how did Dolores go from being with William and Logan to being in the underground facility with Mr. Ford to being with the guests again so fast? Was her scene with Anthony Hopkins a flashback?

Oh, and how exactly does one conduct a robot to robot blood transfusion? Seems like you'd need equipment for that, even if the patients are androids.

Maeve: I think this has just been a gradual process, with the finding of the bullet being the final straw. When she said "nothing matters anymore", that represents the host going into full DGAF mode. I think she was awake the entire time they were working on her this episode and ignoring commands outright.

Dolores: A night passed, she left during the night and returned for the morning. William briefly mentions that he lost track of her that evening, if I'm remembering correctly. I'm not sure how long it would take to completely leave the park and come back in, but I'd guess that if Ford wanted to chat he has a way to expedite her getting out and back in again.

Transfusion - Them being androids probably makes it easier, since you don't have to worry about blood types. Other than that, the robots appear to be fully organic, just made with synthetic materials and cyber-brains. There's the question of performing a blood transfusion using a guys blood dribbled into a saddlebag (wouldn't it coagulate?), but I'm happy enough to 50/50 that between "Hollywood Blood Transfusion" and "It works because robots".

[Joran]

Well, now we have corporate espionage. Now this is really getting Jurassic Park-ish. It kind of came out of nowhere, though. Is one of the characters that we've been introduced to in on it? If so, I cannot tell which one.


No, I don't believe so. I think sabotage was raised as an option during the first episode, but otherwise, we haven't really had that brought up.


Ford (Anthony Hopkins): Who's off doing his own thing with his new narrative.
Theresa (head of QA): She seems to be operating at the behest of Delos (the corporation which owns Westworld).
Bernard (head of behavior, person unable to use eyeglasses like a human being): He seems more interested in fiddling with Delores.
Elsie (Programming, found the device): Since she found the device, it's definitely not her.
Lee (Head of Narrative): Seems a little out of his depth in terms of espionage and plots within plots.
Ashley (Head of Security): Not really sure what his role is other than as Muldoon and worrying about the hosts going berserk.

Then there's random minor characters who seem mostly unimportant and are support staff.

My random guess is that it isn't corporate sabotage but Delos checking up on Ford.

[Chen]

Dolores: A night passed, she left during the night and returned for the morning. William briefly mentions that he lost track of her that evening, if I'm remembering correctly. I'm not sure how long it would take to completely leave the park and come back in, but I'd guess that if Ford wanted to chat he has a way to expedite her getting out and back in again.


While it might be that, that seems awfully risky. Same as the previous episode where it starts with her talking to Bernard about her family being killed yet she was asleep with William and douche in their camp. Would be extremely risky to whisk her away at night without waking either of them up or risking them waking up while she was gone.

I think it might be more they're talking to her via some sort of VR tech. They specifically mentioned in this episode there is some sort of VR rooms available (when the doctor talked about some redhead he had programmed in there). The talks with both Bernard in previous episodes, and Ford here, all happen when she's asleep/unconscious. They also always start with her acknowledging she's in a dream. So either a VR connection or some sort of other computer interface seems to make more sense to me, rather than them actually taking her in and out of the park repeatedly. Much easier to be covert that way too I'd think (in Bernard's case).

[Joran]

While it might be that, that seems awfully risky. Same as the previous episode where it starts with her talking to Bernard about her family being killed yet she was asleep with William and douche in their camp. Would be extremely risky to whisk her away at night without waking either of them up or risking them waking up while she was gone.

I think it might be more they're talking to her via some sort of VR tech. They specifically mentioned in this episode there is some sort of VR rooms available (when the doctor talked about some redhead he had programmed in there). The talks with both Bernard in previous episodes, and Ford here, all happen when she's asleep/unconscious. They also always start with her acknowledging she's in a dream. So either a VR connection or some sort of other computer interface seems to make more sense to me, rather than them actually taking her in and out of the park repeatedly. Much easier to be covert that way too I'd think (in Bernard's case).

I remember in episode 2 Bernard specifically saying "You should be getting back, Dolores, before someone misses you."

Also, Bernard, with his talks with Delores, she's clothed, but with Ford, she was naked. At least with Bernard, it seems more likely that he's actually physically with her; I think in episode 3 he gives her a book that he used to read to his son.

[Chen]

I remember in episode 2 Bernard specifically saying "You should be getting back, Dolores, before someone misses you."

Also, Bernard, with his talks with Delores, she's clothed, but with Ford, she was naked. At least with Bernard, it seems more likely that he's actually physically with her; I think in episode 3 he gives her a book that he used to read to his son.

Yeah the earlier episodes it certainly felt like she was actually there, since she had been "killed" at the end of each of those by the bandits. It may in fact just be a plot hole that they somehow whisk her away at night without alerting people. But even in the orgy scene this time, there had to be SOME other real people there. I can't see how they'd manage to get her out to talk to Ford at that point.

While giving the hosts things like the book or clothes/no clothes is possible in a virtual environment, I think the way Ford was holding her hand and checking her arm was very similar to the places they found the transmitter in that other host. If that is the case, its a big strike against any VR theory unless the VR is EXTREMELY advanced.

Another possibility that gets around the whole whisking her away at night, is that when she falls asleep/goes unconscious, she's just REMEMBERING the interviews that had happened sometime prior.

[Rodin]

While it might be that, that seems awfully risky. Same as the previous episode where it starts with her talking to Bernard about her family being killed yet she was asleep with William and douche in their camp. Would be extremely risky to whisk her away at night without waking either of them up or risking them waking up while she was gone.



I think that time was a flashback. It's definitely confusing, but I think the structure of that one indicates flashback (cutting straight from the interview to her waking with a start) while the second one is her getting pulled in realtime. And of course, the earlier ones were her getting fixed up after getting killed.

In terms of how they do it, I'd say it's pretty simple. Only William and his black hat buddy know who she is (and thus would miss her), so they can send her a command to leave town once they're asleep. Ride for an hour by horse, then pick her up with a proper modern vehicle far enough away that it doesn't ruin immersion. They know where all the guests are with that big monitoring room, so it wouldn't be that difficult to avoid all the guests.

There has to be a way to quickly remove and replace hosts, because they need to get killed hosts fixed and back on the show floor rapidly. Every time there's a massive shootout in town they wind up with dozens of corpses that have to be removed and taken back for processing. It holds that this is equally true for the bad-guy town Dolores was in at the time (see: Confederados).

[Chen]

There has to be a way to quickly remove and replace hosts, because they need to get killed hosts fixed and back on the show floor rapidly. Every time there's a massive shootout in town they wind up with dozens of corpses that have to be removed and taken back for processing. It holds that this is equally true for the bad-guy town Dolores was in at the time (see: Confederados).

Yeah I was wondering about that too. The scene where Maeve remembers the men in suits coming to get her after the saloon massacre, I wondered why no one else was near town. I suppose there might be a relatively small number of people in the whole park, but even that seems like a stretch. You'd think there'd be others in Sweetwater when something like that goes down. How do you get them out so you can clean up?

[MintyNinja]

I always get the impression that the facility is deep underneath Westworld itself, and that there are a number of access points for quick extraction. Using a pneumatic tube or some sort of rapid transit, you could get from Headquarters to a mountainside in a few minutes, or below Sweetwater or the other towns. The traveling in the actual park could be to those places far enough off that it wouldn't be efficient for the transit system. I don't recall seeing an interview scene with a host that's too far from an important location.

[Aedilred]

Haven't we seen outdoor shots of the facility which indicate that it's actually above ground? (And presumably linked to the Westworld resort by the train that brings in the incoming guests, as well as hosts like Teddy).

[Joran]

Haven't we seen outdoor shots of the facility which indicate that it's actually above ground? (And presumably linked to the Westworld resort by the train that brings in the incoming guests, as well as hosts like Teddy).

During the first episode, Theresa and Lee meet up overlooking some land, so parts of it appear to be above ground.

However, episode 2, Ford goes out into Westworld through an elevator (we see the entrance in the desert) and the next episode Elsie + the security guy go up an elevator to go find the stray, so most of the facility appears to be underground.

[Chen]

I always get the impression that the facility is deep underneath Westworld itself, and that there are a number of access points for quick extraction. Using a pneumatic tube or some sort of rapid transit, you could get from Headquarters to a mountainside in a few minutes, or below Sweetwater or the other towns. The traveling in the actual park could be to those places far enough off that it wouldn't be efficient for the transit system. I don't recall seeing an interview scene with a host that's too far from an important location.

That seems clunky but would make sense for quick cleanups too. I mean imagine someone shot up the whole orgy/palace area. Presumably you'd want to be able to dump all those bodies into some tube quickly and clean up and get out as quick as possible to avoid contaminating the stories.

[Berserk Mecha]

I think it's clear that some, or most of the park's facilities are underground and that there are methods of quick transportation for the staff. Reminds me of the Disney theme parks. Those have extensive underground facilities and whatnot for the staff's use and for waste management and whatnot. That way, no one has to see a dump truck in the happiest place on Earth.

Still, I would have liked some indication that Dolores had physically moved from the desert to the underground facility, though. Seeing her with the guests and then naked in an interview with Ford and then with the guests again is a little clunky.

Come to think of it, does anyone think that the 'main floor' of the park might be underground? Or at least under some kind of dome, like in The Truman Show?

[Joran]

Come to think of it, does anyone think that the 'main floor' of the park might be underground? Or at least under some kind of dome, like in The Truman Show?

The theory that the park is indoors was blown apart by the revelation of the laser communications device that hits a satellite. Additionally, one of the screens Elsie was looking at had GPS on it.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

The theory that the park is indoors was blown apart by the revelation of the laser communications device that hits a satellite. Additionally, one of the screens Elsie was looking at had GPS on it.

witch now leads to the question of weather control... how do they stop vacationers who pay 20-40 thousand dollors a day from getting rained out?

[Eldan]

During the first episode, Theresa and Lee meet up overlooking some land, so parts of it appear to be above ground.

However, episode 2, Ford goes out into Westworld through an elevator (we see the entrance in the desert) and the next episode Elsie + the security guy go up an elevator to go find the stray, so most of the facility appears to be underground.

I remember a shot in one of the early episodes of the interior of the facility that showed what looked like dozens of escalators on top of each other, so it's not impossible that there's parts that are up on a mountain (it seemed to be on a cliff) and parts that extend underground under the park.

[Berserk Mecha]

Yeah, seems like a company that practices so much control over its robots and keeps records of its guests would not skimp on weather control. There's a minimal chance of rain in the desert, but the park may not have been built in a desert. Given those huge machines that we saw, I'm guessing that landscaping someplace to look like a desert could not be too difficult.

As for the GPS thing, I'm guessing that there's radio transponders on the ceiling of whatever dome or structure could be covering the park. It would take the G out of GPS, but such a system would be functionally the same.

[Eldan]

witch now leads to the question of weather control... how do they stop vacationers who pay 20-40 thousand dollors a day from getting rained out?

The classic Sci-Fi solution would be a transparent dome.

[ArtWitchEstee]

While attending a halloween extravaganza, I encountered a multitude of guests dressed as Westworld characters, of which I had no knowledge, much to their chagrin.

You don't know WESTWORLD?!?!

DO YOU LIVE UNDER A ROCK.

yes. yes I do.

[Aedilred]

While attending a halloween extravaganza, I encountered a multitude of guests dressed as Westworld characters, of which I had no knowledge, much to their chagrin.

You don't know WESTWORLD?!?!

DO YOU LIVE UNDER A ROCK.

yes. yes I do.

To be fair to you, there, going as a character from a show that's on a subscription-only channel and has been running for less than a month is relatively niche, and expecting many people to recognise them is a bit of a stretch. Especially when most of the characters just look like fairly generic cowboys anyway. At a glance, there's not much to distinguish the Man in Black from Frank (Once Upon a Time in the West) except facially, which is the one thing that costumes don't change. There are differences but you have to be pretty familiar with the characters to notice them.

[Quild]

Since the beginning of the show, I'm a little puzzled by the clean-up thing.

Guest can stay several days and some of them go outside the town. So, how do they avoid a guest meeting the clean-up team in the night?

I suppose guests are warned that if they kill some host, it will be back the next day, so they're not surprised by how it breaks realism.
I wonder if Lawrence's family was back while he was still captive and if he could have seen them alive after having seen them killed.
Removing Dolores for investigation while she was with William is weird. Without warning or anything? Here again, I suppose that's the game.

[Rodin]

Since the beginning of the show, I'm a little puzzled by the clean-up thing.

Guest can stay several days and some of them go outside the town. So, how do they avoid a guest meeting the clean-up team in the night?

I suppose guests are warned that if they kill some host, it will be back the next day, so they're not surprised by how it breaks realism.
I wonder if Lawrence's family was back while he was still captive and if he could have seen them alive after having seen them killed.
Removing Dolores for investigation while she was with William is weird. Without warning or anything? Here again, I suppose that's the game.

Remember that they're monitoring all the guests all the time, and also appear to be able to send commands remotely. If a clean-up crew is fixing up a town as a guest is heading in, they can divert a quest hook or random encounter that way to delay them - same way they do in the Truman Show, come to think of it. If the guest is already with a host, the host can act to delay them.

With Dolores, she left while William was asleep. I also don't think it was a usual thing - that was Ford acting on his own again. I don't think we've seen any other hosts get removed while on duty unless something was seriously wrong. We've also now got confirmation that the facility has underground elevators into the park, so she didn't have far to go.

The one thing I've had trouble with is how they stop guests from conflicting with one another. What happens when a bunch of Black Hat guests riding with the bandits into town is met by a bunch of White Hats who happened to be enjoying Maeve's um...hospitality? You've got two conflicting fantasies, so how do you deal with it? And unlike the hosts, two humans are perfectly capable of seriously hurting one another if they get too into it. Sure, the guns might be fake, but there's an abundance of knives and other low-tech weapons for shanking a fellow guest that pisses you off.

[Quild]

The clean-up team does not seem in a hurry when they work, however you're right, monitoring can help.

Regarding murder between guests, well, they're monitored. If a guest realizes he can't kill another guy because he's also a guest, then, he shouldn't try to knife him.
It does not stop a guest to knife another guest thinking he's a host, but... maybe hosts can react fast enough in this kind of situation (like Terry did on Robert's order) when [Ed] was being threatening.

It also seems that any "pyrotechnic" effect has to be granted before happening. When [Ed] made the two "cigars" explose, we've heard about two requests for pyrotechnics effects. Doesn't stop it from being dangerous though.

[Chen]

They mentioned a "Good Samaritan reflex" when talking about the host that crushed his own head. If you ask that question to the auto-reply thing on the Westworld fake resort page you get:

"You’re safe from the hosts by design, but what about other guests? Not to worry, hosts have been imbued with a “Good Samaritan” reflex—we are programmed to protect you from harm’s way."

So it's possible that Ford didn't actually command Teddy to grab MiB's knife and that was actually that reflex in play. Something where the hosts will try to ensure that two guests don't accidentally kill each other. Still seems super dangerous though, since that's clearly not foolproof.

[Aedilred]

They mentioned a "Good Samaritan reflex" when talking about the host that crushed his own head. If you ask that question to the auto-reply thing on the Westworld fake resort page you get:

"You’re safe from the hosts by design, but what about other guests? Not to worry, hosts have been imbued with a “Good Samaritan” reflex—we are programmed to protect you from harm’s way."

So it's possible that Ford didn't actually command Teddy to grab MiB's knife and that was actually that reflex in play. Something where the hosts will try to ensure that two guests don't accidentally kill each other. Still seems super dangerous though, since that's clearly not foolproof.

Yeah, I thought it was clear that Teddy had been pre-programmed to do that (or perform some similar reaction) rather than Ford giving him a command at the time. I did assume though that he reacted in such a direct way without consideration for personal wellbeing because it was Ford - that the hosts are all programmed to protect Ford at all costs where with other humans they might do it in a less obvious or direct way (to preserve verisimilitude, perhaps?)

After all we also know that the hosts are capable of inflicting violence upon the guests: we saw them beating up Ben after the nitroglycerine deal went bad. That doesn't seem to quite square with Teddy's immediate and apparently unconscious reaction to grab and disable the Man in Black's knife as soon as it appeared, unless there's a higher level of programming to protect the staff (or just Ford) over and above that for the guests.

[Chen]

Yeah, I thought it was clear that Teddy had been pre-programmed to do that (or perform some similar reaction) rather than Ford giving him a command at the time. I did assume though that he reacted in such a direct way without consideration for personal wellbeing because it was Ford - that the hosts are all programmed to protect Ford at all costs where with other humans they might do it in a less obvious or direct way (to preserve verisimilitude, perhaps?)

After all we also know that the hosts are capable of inflicting violence upon the guests: we saw them beating up Ben after the nitroglycerine deal went bad. That doesn't seem to quite square with Teddy's immediate and apparently unconscious reaction to grab and disable the Man in Black's knife as soon as it appeared, unless there's a higher level of programming to protect the staff (or just Ford) over and above that for the guests.

It could be Ford added more safeguards for himself, but it could again just a Guest vs Guest protection. If the hosts know they won't seriously injure someone they will let other hosts punch guests and such. Could also be a level of danger since it was a knife in this case vs fists in the other case. Maybe even context sensitive in what he was saying. He had threatened another guest in the previous episode but didn't actually have a knife out. Here he took out a weapon and made a threat, which might be enough to trigger the reflex.

[Quild]

Regarding episode 6:

About Dolores:
Is the oldest host of (or in?) the park, but I thought they would have rebuilt her as a second generation at some point. It's surprising that they keep first geneneration even if they cost more to repair.
Hosts were suppose to crash easily in the beginning of Westworld (like that Buffalo Bill guy in the cold storage) and Dolores obviously does not.

So, is she first gen or second gen?
Was she upgraded or is she the oldest in the park (besides the ones Robert kept hidden) but not the oldes host built?


About Maeve:
I'm not sure I like where they're going with this.
Ok, Sylvester does not seem particularly clever and Felix was already trying to become a "behavior" guy, but they shouldn't go that far.
They should have reported Maeve's disfunction way before.
Elsie blackmailed a guy who was recorded having fun with a host, Felix should have been detected already.
They can shut her down, but they obey her for almost no reason? I feel like they dropped Fish Mooney from Gotham to Westworld...

About Teddy:
It's funny how he's rewritten with this new narrative he has. When he speaks about the man that died countless time and is now in the middle of the maze, I half expect him to be that man. He recovered pretty well since last episode!

About Elsie:
Maybe she shouldn't trust Bernard that much. I wonder what else she found and who get her. Tropes says that when someone finds out something and says "wait, there's more" before being interrupted, they die. Hope she'll stay a little more with us!

[Ramza00]

New episode on 11/13 people's thoughts?

[Chen]

Episode 7 spoilers (they're big, you've been warned)
Well that was a pretty crazy episode. Will sleeps with Delores and seems to be really getting into the whole thing. Which is pretty odd. I wonder if they're going to make things come crashing down on him later when he realizes Delores is just a robot or that his time there is up. It'd be a pretty dark way to end that arc, but a realistic one I'd think.

Maeve's storyline seems a bit odd. Like threatening to kill the techs seems ridiculous to me. Sure they don't want to lose their jobs, but at this point you'd think they'd go to their boss with their "issue" and make sure Maeve got taken down with extreme prejudice next time she came in.

And of course the big one, Bernard being a host and Ford having him kill Theresa. Very interesting twist here. I suspect if you go back and watch the previous episodes there are some good hints showing that Bernard was a host. Now I wonder how they're going to explain Theresa disappearing? Unless Ford has already made a new Theresa (or that's the one that was being made in the lab). I guess that's probably the best way to go about it, otherwise it's going to be a little suspicious as to where she wandered off to. Also wondering if Elsie had any link to this. I mean she found out about Theresa using the satellite but she found something else too. Could it be Ford/Bernard who ended up grabbing her at the end of last episode? Next episode will be interesting.

[Alabenson]

Episode 7 spoilers (they're big, you've been warned)
Well that was a pretty crazy episode. Will sleeps with Delores and seems to be really getting into the whole thing. Which is pretty odd. I wonder if they're going to make things come crashing down on him later when he realizes Delores is just a robot or that his time there is up. It'd be a pretty dark way to end that arc, but a realistic one I'd think.

Maeve's storyline seems a bit odd. Like threatening to kill the techs seems ridiculous to me. Sure they don't want to lose their jobs, but at this point you'd think they'd go to their boss with their "issue" and make sure Maeve got taken down with extreme prejudice next time she came in.

And of course the big one, Bernard being a host and Ford having him kill Theresa. Very interesting twist here. I suspect if you go back and watch the previous episodes there are some good hints showing that Bernard was a host. Now I wonder how they're going to explain Theresa disappearing? Unless Ford has already made a new Theresa (or that's the one that was being made in the lab). I guess that's probably the best way to go about it, otherwise it's going to be a little suspicious as to where she wandered off to. Also wondering if Elsie had any link to this. I mean she found out about Theresa using the satellite but she found something else too. Could it be Ford/Bernard who ended up grabbing her at the end of last episode? Next episode will be interesting.



I don't think it would have been Ford who grabbed her (given his age I doubt he would do something like that personally) and Bernard was with Theresa at the time, so it couldn't have been him.
As for Maeve, the issue the techs have is that if they report their problem management is going to start asking the sort of questions that would end with them both being fired, so they're stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one.

[Aedilred]

Regarding episode 6:

About Dolores:
Is the oldest host of (or in?) the park, but I thought they would have rebuilt her as a second generation at some point. It's surprising that they keep first geneneration even if they cost more to repair.
Hosts were suppose to crash easily in the beginning of Westworld (like that Buffalo Bill guy in the cold storage) and Dolores obviously does not.

So, is she first gen or second gen?
Was she upgraded or is she the oldest in the park (besides the ones Robert kept hidden) but not the oldes host built?


"Oldest host still operational" doesn't necessarily equate to "first generation". Although I suspect Dolores is not actually the oldest host still operational, just the oldest one on the books (the Ford family being older than her).

It seems likely to me that the early hosts went through a number of design revisions fairly quickly during Arnold's period at the park, but then settled on one which has maybe had a few upgrades but essentially has remained the same in terms of hardware for decades. That model may be the second, third or tenth "generation" but the model has been in service for longer than all previous generations put together: that being the implication of the continued references to the way they're still reliant on the stuff Arnold created before his death. Of course they may have a different classification for host generation or edition number anyway.

My suspicion is that Dolores is the last host Arnold created before his death. She may have been a prototype for the rest of the hosts now in service, or could conceivably actually be more advanced, or off on a different branch of the design tree, if Arnold included undisclosed elements within her creation which therefore aren't in the other, later hosts. Or she could have some successors we don't even know about because they're not registered: a more advanced type of host secretly developed by Ford like Bernard

I also suspect that Dolores had something to do with Arnold's death (or disappearance), that Ford suspects there's something more to her that he hasn't figured out, hence why he leaves her in the park where she remains visible and active (unlike those who've been retired) but where there's a limit to how much damage she can do.

Ultimately it's all still speculation at this point, though.

[Quild]

@Aedilred: I specifically mentionned "besides the ones Ford kept hidden", so we agree :smalltongue:

I suspect there's more than Bernard "just" being a robot.
It sure would be practical if Ford had implanted him since the beginning as a robot so he controls the Behavior Department, but it doesn't explain everything.
Bernard had a skype call with his (ex?) wife in a previous episode. It is possible that he was someone who got killed and replaced by Ford when he started being a problem, like Theresa now is.


Anyway, Maeve is really becoming the kind of character I hate. Really looks like Fish Mooney to me.

[Chen]

@Aedilred: I specifically mentionned "besides the ones Ford kept hidden", so we agree :smalltongue:

I suspect there's more than Bernard "just" being a robot.
It sure would be practical if Ford had implanted him since the beginning as a robot so he controls the Behavior Department, but it doesn't explain everything.
Bernard had a skype call with his (ex?) wife in a previous episode. It is possible that he was someone who got killed and replaced by Ford when he started being a problem, like Theresa now is.


Anyway, Maeve is really becoming the kind of character I hate. Really looks like Fish Mooney to me.

More episode 7 spoilers
If Ford can create super complex AIs that are essentially indistinguishable from humans, I'm sure he can setup a fake chatbot to pretend to be Bernard's wife just to keep the internal history going for him. If he just replaced Bernard, he'd actually have to KNOW all his history if he allowed him to actually talk to his real wife. There are bound to be intimacies there that Ford wouldn't be able to code in. If both Bernard and Wife are "fake" though that goes away.

I was thinking about replacing Theresa, but even that is risky. He doesn't have all her memories. Clearly there was a deal going on between Theresa and the board that Ford doesn't know the details to. Not sure how he's going to do it, unless he replaces her just to have her quit or something. I guess that could work. I suppose alternatively maybe he DOES monitor ALL her communication and he does know everything she's been talking to people about. He insinuated he controlled her phone and he did use the "blood sacrifice" line that was used when she was talking to the board member (what's her name?) in her room.

As for Maeve, those techs should really now be thinking about turning themselves in. I mean when she was just blackmailing you by threatening to out your side business and breaking the work rules it was one thing. She's now threatening to kill you. It's when you bring in the big guns to have her decommissioned.

[Cespenar]

Everyone seems pretty sold up on Ford replacing people with hosts. Are there any actual evidence of it that I missed, or is just conjecture?

[Quild]

Everyone seems pretty sold up on Ford replacing people with hosts. Are there any actual evidence of it that I missed, or is just conjecture?

The fact that Ford's machine is building a robot (it seems to me that some robots are hosts, but not every of them), when Theresa get killed seems like a big clue.

The memories are an issue though.

For Bernard, it can be managed. If he told enough about him to Ford and stopped most of his social life after losing his child, Ford could have replaced him. For Theresa, it would be harder.

On another hand, Ford showed that he knew stuff about Theresa, including the exact place she had lunch decades earlier. His information is probably limited to what happens in Westworld/Delos, but it might help.

[Chen]

Everyone seems pretty sold up on Ford replacing people with hosts. Are there any actual evidence of it that I missed, or is just conjecture?

Just speculation from me. Seem like it'd be hard to explain way Theresa disappearing otherwise.

[SuperPanda]

My baseless speculation is that Ford actually died back before Arnold did and the ford we see now is a Host. Or the more realistic side of that is that he wants to download into a host but hasn't perfected the memory transfer part yet - so he's experimenting.

[Chen]

My baseless speculation is that Ford actually died back before Arnold did and the ford we see now is a Host. Or the more realistic side of that is that he wants to download into a host but hasn't perfected the memory transfer part yet - so he's experimenting.

I'm assuming that putting human minds into hosts is actually the "big secret" Delos wants the parc's information for. If that's true, I think its very likely NOT Ford's motivation too

[Berserk Mecha]

Well, so much for Maeve's plan. The best laid schemes of mice and madams, eh? After all she did to change the stats on her character sheet when the DM wasn't looking, a simple blunder did her in. Is she done for? Seems like her story is going to converge with Bernard's in the next episode. Can she convince him to rebel against Ford?

As for the Man in Black... I want to like his story, but I'm not really seeing the significance. He can be an entertaining character, but given that we have corporate espionage and a potential robo-revolution, the MiB's story just seems like peanuts by comparison. Granted, a host did turn on him, but there don't appear to be any huge consequences to that, at least not yet.

Also, the tech guys have dermal regenerators out of Star Trek? Granted, we knew they could easily make the hosts look like new, but I just thought that was because the hosts have simpler biology that was easier to fix. Come to think of it, we really don't know what kind of technology is available to people outside of the park, do we?

[Darth Ultron]

My suspicion is that Dolores is the last host Arnold created before his death. She may have been a prototype for the rest of the hosts now in service,

You might note the papers in Fords secret lab do list Dolores as a prototype, so that should make her a second generation prototype.


I hope Ford is not a host, I'd rather have a human villain. If Bernard can be a host, you kinda wonder if anyone else, worldwide, might also be one too.

So does anyone here like the two timelines theory? That William is the Man in Black ''30 years ago''?

''The maze'' does not feel like it is going to be a good payoff. So it's a game where people can die...wow, exciting. ''Turn off the holodeck safeties''.

See a ''normal narrative'' for a guest would need to be written with Plot Armor anyway. It would not be any fun to ''play the game'' on ''invincible mode'', you need that element of false danger. You can't just have bad guys ''shoot'' the guest every couple of minutes as that would get pointless and boring quick. For example, it is fun to ''duck behind some rain barrels'' when shot at....but it's not fun to just stand there and be like ''you can't hurt me''.

And so Arnold wanted the hots to become alive and, er, make the game real? Odd as I thought he did not even ''like'' the game. Though I guess ''making the hosts real'' would ''let them kill people'', right? I guess that could be the endgame? Arnold wants to hosts to commit mass murder on all the guests, have the park be closed and likely have it destroyed. Sounds like a good plan?

[Ramza00]

Wow they really went there, they really went there



One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire
That quote of Ford's when he is talking to Bernard after Bernard killed Theresa Cullen is actually an identical quote from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. It is quote by Doctor Frankenstein the creator of the "monster."

Now for the people who are unfamiliar with the original novel and just know movies and pop culture. Dr. Frankenstein is the real monster of the work, even though he is "human", even though he is the point of view protagonist. The 8ft creature of his is instead a tragic figure, a figure who did eventual murder yes, but only after everyone in the world cursed and scorned him even though he did no ill will besides being "made 8ft" tall and ugly.

But the real monster is Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster. He is a complete and utter narcissist, with a god complex, and would meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder (a disorder category which has psychopathy and sociopathy as subsets of antisocial personality disorder).



Spoilers for Code Geass R1 and R2 (seasons 1 and 2, with me comparing character

While watching the Madame Maeve arc I am reminded of CC / C2 of Code Geass. While there are numerous differences both of them do not want an "artifical life" for mere experiencing, and continuing is not life but instead a form of undeath.

Maeve is cursed with living a loop while the Westworld Butchers rebuild her after every death. CC is cursed with immortality due to her code.

[ryuplaneswalker]

So

The Man in Black is dying. Not in the "he is gonna get into trouble sense" but I mean "He has whatever the future cancer is."

[Joran]

You might note the papers in Fords secret lab do list Dolores as a prototype, so that should make her a second generation prototype.


So does anyone here like the two timelines theory? That William is the Man in Black ''30 years ago''?




I'm not a big fan of that theory. I think there's two things that make me think it isn't right:

1) The Man In Black had mentioned that he had cut open one of the original mechanical hosts, before they became fully organic. So far, it seems like William has just encountered fleshy ones.
2) When Delores went off loop with William, we had a shot of the control room saying she went off loop. I think that was the same control room as the "current" day.

That said, I can see why people think the theory is plausible. Even one of the things that I thought refuted it (Logan mentioning the death of Arnold), ended up being ambiguous. I just think it's a twist that's unnecessary.

[Darth Ultron]

That said, I can see why people think the theory is plausible.


It does seem less so after watching more episodes. Dolorous was not always the ''pretty farmers daughter'', but she is nothing but that in the show. So if she and Will were ''years ago'' she should be a different character and not have so many memories.

Plus Dolorous is ''awakening'' in the modern day, not years ago. And Dolorous also work up Mae in the modern day...not years ago.

[Eldan]

Time is wonky, however. Dolores and that other guy's storyline seems to all be on the same day, so far, while Maeve has died a half dozen times and lived through the same day again.

[Quild]

I read here and there that the church is the proof that there are two storylines because it's not destroyed when Dolores and William get there.

But while watching the episode, I saw... this:
http://cdn.fansided.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/386/files/2016/11/westworld-trace-decay-evan-rachel-wood-jimmi-simpson.jpg

Soooo, while I get there are some flashbacks and that Dolores is kind of confused, it seems to me that William is indeed evolving in the present. In the same present where Dolores is confused and remembers being recently raped by the MiB. In that same present she followed her double in Pariah and was right after being interrogated by Ford or Bernard (not sure which one).

[Chen]

Time is wonky, however. Dolores and that other guy's storyline seems to all be on the same day, so far, while Maeve has died a half dozen times and lived through the same day again.

Dolores and Will are clearly passing more than one day together. There have been various nights there. Maeve has been getting killed repeatedly which just means her story is resetting more frequently. How those resets actually work I have no idea. I mean if someone shoots Maeve but remains at the brothel the next day, does he see Maeve come back? That would be kinda immersion breaking.

Timelines

I believe Will also sees Maeve at the brothel when he first gets into town doesn't he? The techs said she had only been there a few months, so that too discredits the Will is the MiB theory. The other thing is that we see the same control room with the same people for both the MiB and Will. MiB for the part where the guy says he gets whatever he wants, and the pyrotechnics and Will for the part where Dolores is going off loop. I'll grant the later doesn't actually mention Will, so its possible that they're simply referring to some other time Dolores went off loop...but that would be pretty weak.

[Friv]

Dolores and Will are clearly passing more than one day together. There have been various nights there. Maeve has been getting killed repeatedly which just means her story is resetting more frequently. How those resets actually work I have no idea. I mean if someone shoots Maeve but remains at the brothel the next day, does he see Maeve come back? That would be kinda immersion breaking.

Timelines

I believe Will also sees Maeve at the brothel when he first gets into town doesn't he? The techs said she had only been there a few months, so that too discredits the Will is the MiB theory. The other thing is that we see the same control room with the same people for both the MiB and Will. MiB for the part where the guy says he gets whatever he wants, and the pyrotechnics and Will for the part where Dolores is going off loop. I'll grant the later doesn't actually mention Will, so its possible that they're simply referring to some other time Dolores went off loop...but that would be pretty weak.

Timeline stuff!

Will and Logan don't see Maeve - when they arrive, the only Host at the brothel that we recognize is Clementine. who we have since learned was the brothel owner before Maeve was slotted in. Now, they might have just missed her, but it is pretty noticeable. They also arrive at a train station with a different Westworld logo than the one the park is currently using, and Logan discusses the fact that Westworld is in severe financial danger and his company is thinking of buying it, which Delos never references in later episodes. What is referenced is that Delos wasn't the original owner; they moved in some time ago, for reasons that aren't fully explained.

I think the timeline is currently as follows:

40 Years Ago: Arnold and Ford begin working on Westworld. Both want to develop the Hosts into more than just robots, but they have very different ideas of what that means. Eventually, things come to a head. Either Ford kills Arnold, or he prevents Arnold from doing something in the heart of the park, but Arnold dies in the process. The first generation of Hosts are in place, and Delores kills them all.

30 Years Ago: The Incident. Canonically, we know that there was a major incident at this time, and that the Man in Black is considered to be responsible for saving the park. I believe that this is when William and Logan came to the park. Logan's been here several times, including when the hosts were more mechanical, and represents Delos. William is going to marry in to the family.

Delores goes off-script, remembering flashes of Arnold and Ford's conflict, and travels with William to the town where that conflict happened. Things go increasingly wrong, and in she tries to re-start Arnold's plans and destroy the park (we haven't seen this happen, but it's been hinted at). Either William or Logan stop her. My guess is it's actually Logan who stops her, and William dies; Logan will go on to be the Man in Black.

After the conflict, Ford creates Teddy to be his "Judas Steer", holding Delores to her loop in Sweetwater. He doesn't want to retire her because he's still studying Arnold's plans, and she is important to them.

Present Day: Ford begins building the Wyatt narrative. As part of that, he pulls Teddy into a new storyline. At the same time, the Man in Black arrives in search of the Maze that Arnold left behind - a thing that may remove the safeguards and restrictions from the Hosts, granting them sentience, or may do something else. The Man in Black triggers something in Delores, which alongside the reveries Ford programmed causes her to go off-book again.

Delores wanders into the wilds, which the techs notice. Because of how Host memories are shown to work, she's now hallucinating her last trip, with William, as though it were happening right now. As she moves towards the Maze, she gets increasingly confused about what is and is not real - notice how people keep appearing and vanishing from her field of vision. William in particular has vanished more than once, especially at the river, where Delores couldn't see the dead woman in the water (a woman who is there as part of Ford's Wyatt story) for more than a moment.

Meanwhile, Delos is trying to get the secrets of the park away from Ford, and Arnold's programs are re-asserting themselves, either with or without Ford's knowledge.

[Chen]

Timeline stuff!

Will and Logan don't see Maeve - when they arrive, the only Host at the brothel that we recognize is Clementine. who we have since learned was the brothel owner before Maeve was slotted in. Now, they might have just missed her, but it is pretty noticeable. They also arrive at a train station with a different Westworld logo than the one the park is currently using, and Logan discusses the fact that Westworld is in severe financial danger and his company is thinking of buying it, which Delos never references in later episodes. What is referenced is that Delos wasn't the original owner; they moved in some time ago, for reasons that aren't fully explained.

I think the timeline is currently as follows:

40 Years Ago: Arnold and Ford begin working on Westworld. Both want to develop the Hosts into more than just robots, but they have very different ideas of what that means. Eventually, things come to a head. Either Ford kills Arnold, or he prevents Arnold from doing something in the heart of the park, but Arnold dies in the process. The first generation of Hosts are in place, and Delores kills them all.

30 Years Ago: The Incident. Canonically, we know that there was a major incident at this time, and that the Man in Black is considered to be responsible for saving the park. I believe that this is when William and Logan came to the park. Logan's been here several times, including when the hosts were more mechanical, and represents Delos. William is going to marry in to the family.

Delores goes off-script, remembering flashes of Arnold and Ford's conflict, and travels with William to the town where that conflict happened. Things go increasingly wrong, and in she tries to re-start Arnold's plans and destroy the park (we haven't seen this happen, but it's been hinted at). Either William or Logan stop her. My guess is it's actually Logan who stops her, and William dies; Logan will go on to be the Man in Black.

After the conflict, Ford creates Teddy to be his "Judas Steer", holding Delores to her loop in Sweetwater. He doesn't want to retire her because he's still studying Arnold's plans, and she is important to them.

Present Day: Ford begins building the Wyatt narrative. As part of that, he pulls Teddy into a new storyline. At the same time, the Man in Black arrives in search of the Maze that Arnold left behind - a thing that may remove the safeguards and restrictions from the Hosts, granting them sentience, or may do something else. The Man in Black triggers something in Delores, which alongside the reveries Ford programmed causes her to go off-book again.

Delores wanders into the wilds, which the techs notice. Because of how Host memories are shown to work, she's now hallucinating her last trip, with William, as though it were happening right now. As she moves towards the Maze, she gets increasingly confused about what is and is not real - notice how people keep appearing and vanishing from her field of vision. William in particular has vanished more than once, especially at the river, where Delores couldn't see the dead woman in the water (a woman who is there as part of Ford's Wyatt story) for more than a moment.

Meanwhile, Delos is trying to get the secrets of the park away from Ford, and Arnold's programs are re-asserting themselves, either with or without Ford's knowledge.

Timeline
I couldn't recall if they had seen Maeve or not. Without seeing her, then I agree there's a possibility there. The only weird part then being the control room trying to get Dolores back into her loop while she is in that weird town WITH Will. It would definitely feel like a cheat if they were getting modern time Dolores back into some other loop and then cut to a scene where Will keeps her in a completely different out of loop scenario.

I think it does make more sense for the man in black to be Will rather than Logan. We know the host that the MiB just rescued is the same one that greeted Will. Again its possible she greeted Logan on some previous visit, but that too would feel like a bit of a cheat, narratively speaking. Another hint may be how the MiB reacts to Lawrence at first. I don't remember how, but you'd think he'd remember that Lawrence was the big bad leader of that other town, as Will, Logan and Dolores experienced.

[Ramza00]

So concerning episode 1x07 Trompe L'Oeil (aka Last Weeks episode since 1x08 has aired ) something seem off to me but I think I figured it out.

During this episode Tessa Thompson head of QA was talking with delos boardmember Charlotte Hale. During this conversation Charlotte says the board, the gods will need a blood sacrifice. Later on in this episode Rober Ford /Anthony Hopkins, the robots creator then used the exact same kind of phrase Blood Sacrifice with Theresa. This wording is too unusual to be a spontaneous phrase or improvisation, Ford / Hopkins must know the exact conversation to use that turn of the phrase but how could Ford know this when he or Bernard was not in the room when Charlotte and Theresa talked.


But this week I realized Hector Escaton was in the room. Hector is the host who is the outlaw who is always trying to rob the safe at the saloon (the safe being a metaphor for memory), yet Charlotte request Hector temporarly from the park and place him in her room to have sex with him. Thus Ford could see and everything Charlotte did for Hector was there and we know that even in sleep mode the hosts record sensory data including video and audio. This is how Ford know the term of phrase blood sacrifice.

This is not the first time this has been used as a plot point for Elsie uses this to blackmail a surgeon / butcher name Destin so she can inspect a host who smashed his brain with a rock. It was also used by Maeve to threaten Sylvester, the butcher/surgeon who works with Felix.

Perhaps this continued use of this is a good metaphor of how humans struggle with object permanence. We often forget about things when it is not in our immediate sensory awareness, like a child when you play peek a boo or got your nose, out of sight out of mind. But even when we remember /we realize the objects are there we forget to animate them and assigned them agency. We instead treat humans and animals as if they were robots on little loops where they will do things like they did last time or what we expect of them. We feel we are masters of this world for we are cocky and full of huebris for we are so sure we know what is going to happen.

But things do not always go according to plan, if we were introspective and self reflective we would realize this and realize our errors and we can forsee why things went wrong. Note this introspection and self reflection is the key of consciousness according to Julian Jayne theory of the bicameral mind. Without introspection you are not truely self aware, you are not truely an object with your own agency and animacy instead it is just stimulus response, with the responses being your first insticts, habits, or improvisation. Put another way it is like evolution where progressive change happens due to memory and RANDOM mistakes/mutations/improvisation and with natural selection then weeds out productive vs non productive random mistakes so we get a more effective X due to memory and the mistake. But true self conscious is different it can via introspection and theory of mind imagine the future prior to it happening and then it can make planned improvisations to modify the result, aka you look at the loop inside your mind see where it ends up and make changes prior to these events.

If you are not self aware you are not truely consciousness, instead you are merely experiencing.

[Ramza00]

So Westworld 1x09 has already aired (Sunday 11/27), and the season finale will air on 12/04. The Season Finale will be over 90 mins long so think of it as an episode and a half since the traditional episode is an hour long.


So 01x09 pretty much confirmed that the story is told with multiple time frames in a non linear fashion. The story skips back and forth from different timeframes and does not always tell the reader / viewer what time it is. It is up for the reader to figure it out. What is happening now, what is happening 30+ years ago, what is happening 35+ years ago and so on.

Personally some people are shocked by all of this, but I do not find it that much surprising (lots of people on the internet figured it out weeks ago). One hint that the narrator / story teller / writers of westworld is willing to do this is they started the show with a 2nd person point of view. I am referring to the 1st scene of the story where Dolores and Arnold (but at the time we thought it was Bernard) were talking about the nature of reality, all the while Dolores and Arnold are talking, asking, and answering questions about the guests and the park we see Teddy enter the park on the train followed by Teddy and Dolores going to the farm, followed by Teddy being killed by the MIB and Dolores being taken to the barn and something traumatic happened to Dolores in the barn.

During this event it is 2nd person point of view since the narrator is talking about YOU, not Dolores talking about I, not Dolores talking about Dolores / She / He but instead the narrator is talking about You / Dolores

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/1st-3rdpersonnarrativeclassslides-120425000400-phpapp01/95/1st-3rd-person-narrative-classslides-11-728.jpg?cb=1335312277

Why is this 2nd person's point of view important for the reader? For it established as fact, immediately since it was the first storytelling event, that what we see on screen is not necessarily sequential time, since we are seeing events while at the same time getting audio narration from a different timeframe. To use a stage metaphor for a play, imagine there were two stages on different sides of the room, where Arnold and Dolores were talking and the spotlight is shown on that stage A, and then during the conversation a 2nd stage a second spotlit up and it brings the people watching the play's attention to that 2nd stage and the director does an attentional shift to Dolores in the town where she interacts with a dozen more characters.

Well the same thing happened in Westworld, and the Westworld direct / writer / storyteller made it quite obvious that they would be doing a shifting point of view. Except unlike the play / stage analogy I gave a paragraph earlier the cuts from one point of view to another are barely touched upon and are much more subtle. Thus it is easier for the reader to get lost in these shifts of point of view on purpose, and the only reason why you should expect the director / writer / storyteller not to do even more of these points of view shifts and make the points of view even less obvious is that you trust the writer not to do so. You trust the writer to not be an unreliable narrator, but that onus is on you, you are the one making the mistake and assuming something of the storytelller.

-------





Episode 01x09 also made it clear that William and Logan's story happened 30 years earlier than the most recent story. One of the clear things is that of all the confederados host army that William butchered in the night were the 1st generation host androids that were more mechanical but life like than the 3D printed biological hosts that they use in the most recent version of Westworld. You can tell for you see metal limbs and metal organs.



But here is another point of evidence that some very astute internet readers also noticed that the logo of Westworld is different from William point of view vs other parts of the story.

Old Logo http://i.imgur.com/fWVlZk9.jpg

Modern Logo http://i.imgur.com/Qa8YrgO.jpg

-------




In 01x09 we also learn that Bernard is an host android based around Arnold. We also see a photograph of 3 people, 2 being Ford and Arnold and the third person. The third person is most likely Ford's father since in 1x06 we see Bernard meeting the host android family of Ford that Arnold built for Ford and the actor who plays Ford's father is the same actor in the photograph.

http://esq.h-cdn.co/assets/16/47/768x388/gallery-1480303765-screen-shot-2016-11-27-at-100336-pm.png

https://i0.wp.com/media2.slashfilm.com/slashfilm/wp/wp-content/images/arnold-and-fords-father-in-westworld-comparison.jpg

In fact when Bernard enters the house in 01x06 and sees these people he asks Ford's father are you arnold (since Bernard learns of Arnold and firsts see the photo with 2 people in 01x02), before Ford's father can answer he responds with violence and then Ford steps in from nowhere.

-------




Now there is a fan theory that since William happened 30+ years ago, and that MIB is in the present that it is likely William is MIB. Lots of evidence which I will not go into detail here since the evidence is extremely lengthy. But lets focus on one piece of evidence for I find it most important from a storytelling perspective for it was a macguffin in the story and the origin of the macgufffin appears in 01x09 even though its power was revealed in the pilot

The photo of William's fiance / Logan showed William in 01x09 is the same photo that Peter Abernathy / Dolores's father / The preacher who turns cannibal saw in the Pilot / 01x01 and it is this photo that triggered Peter Abathey to have his epilepsy but also for Peter Abathey to talk to Dolores in his ear and this causes Dolores to later place a gun in the barn and then to leave her loop after someone tried to rape her in the barn and she instead shoots the person. Now Dolores leaves via horse in the modern timeframe and the narrator gave misleading information for we soon see William and Logan meeting Dolores on a horse so we assumed William and Logan rescued Dolores from the recent "farm escape" even though it was a different farm escape. Aka an unreliable narrator.

It was this photo which sets up Dolores current mission to find the church / maze which she finally does in 01x09

This is Logan holding the photo in 01x09 prior to putting it into William's clothing

https://heavyeditorial.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-1-15-33-am.jpg?quality=65&strip=all&strip=all


This is Peter Abernathy holding it

https://typeset-beta.imgix.net/2016/11/1/bu_xyGj0cG18AAXQrEynq3skQ3ojvp8BkQMFbuOvHPw-ba2a519f-0f82-4423-a018-7650f0887d37.jpg?w=640&h=&fit=max&auto=format&q=70&dpr=2

[Joran]

So Westworld 1x09 has already aired (Sunday 11/27), and the season finale will air on 12/04. The Season Finale will be over 90 mins long so think of it as an episode and a half since the traditional episode is an hour long.


So 01x09 pretty much confirmed that the story is told with multiple time frames in a non linear fashion. The story skips back and forth from different timeframes and does not always tell the reader / viewer what time it is. It is up for the reader to figure it out. What is happening now, what is happening 30+ years ago, what is happening 35+ years ago and so on.

Personally some people are shocked by all of this, but I do not find it that much surprising (lots of people on the internet figured it out weeks ago). One hint that the narrator / story teller / writers of westworld is willing to do this is they started the show with a 2nd person point of view. I am referring to the 1st scene of the story where Dolores and Arnold (but at the time we thought it was Bernard) were talking about the nature of reality, all the while Dolores and Arnold are talking, asking, and answering questions about the guests and the park we see Teddy enter the park on the train followed by Teddy and Dolores going to the farm, followed by Teddy being killed by the MIB and Dolores being taken to the barn and something traumatic happened to Dolores in the barn.

During this event it is 2nd person point of view since the narrator is talking about YOU, not Dolores talking about I, not Dolores talking about Dolores / She / He but instead the narrator is talking about You / Dolores

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/1st-3rdpersonnarrativeclassslides-120425000400-phpapp01/95/1st-3rd-person-narrative-classslides-11-728.jpg?cb=1335312277

Why is this 2nd person's point of view important for the reader? For it established as fact, immediately since it was the first storytelling event, that what we see on screen is not necessarily sequential time, since we are seeing events while at the same time getting audio narration from a different timeframe. To use a stage metaphor for a play, imagine there were two stages on different sides of the room, where Arnold and Dolores were talking and the spotlight is shown on that stage A, and then during the conversation a 2nd stage a second spotlit up and it brings the people watching the play's attention to that 2nd stage and the director does an attentional shift to Dolores in the town where she interacts with a dozen more characters.

Well the same thing happened in Westworld, and the Westworld direct / writer / storyteller made it quite obvious that they would be doing a shifting point of view. Except unlike the play / stage analogy I gave a paragraph earlier the cuts from one point of view to another are barely touched upon and are much more subtle. Thus it is easier for the reader to get lost in these shifts of point of view on purpose, and the only reason why you should expect the director / writer / storyteller not to do even more of these points of view shifts and make the points of view even less obvious is that you trust the writer not to do so. You trust the writer to not be an unreliable narrator, but that onus is on you, you are the one making the mistake and assuming something of the storytelller.

-------





Episode 01x09 also made it clear that William and Logan's story happened 30 years earlier than the most recent story. One of the clear things is that of all the confederados host army that William butchered in the night were the 1st generation host androids that were more mechanical but life like than the 3D printed biological hosts that they use in the most recent version of Westworld. You can tell for you see metal limbs and metal organs.



But here is another point of evidence that some very astute internet readers also noticed that the logo of Westworld is different from William point of view vs other parts of the story.

Old Logo http://i.imgur.com/fWVlZk9.jpg

Modern Logo http://i.imgur.com/Qa8YrgO.jpg

-------




In 01x09 we also learn that Bernard is an host android based around Arnold. We also see a photograph of 3 people, 2 being Ford and Arnold and the third person. The third person is most likely Ford's father since in 1x06 we see Bernard meeting the host android family of Ford that Arnold built for Ford and the actor who plays Ford's father is the same actor in the photograph.

http://esq.h-cdn.co/assets/16/47/768x388/gallery-1480303765-screen-shot-2016-11-27-at-100336-pm.png

https://i0.wp.com/media2.slashfilm.com/slashfilm/wp/wp-content/images/arnold-and-fords-father-in-westworld-comparison.jpg

In fact when Bernard enters the house in 01x06 and sees these people he asks Ford's father are you arnold (since Bernard learns of Arnold and firsts see the photo with 2 people in 01x02), before Ford's father can answer he responds with violence and then Ford steps in from nowhere.

-------




Now there is a fan theory that since William happened 30+ years ago, and that MIB is in the present that it is likely William is MIB. Lots of evidence which I will not go into detail here since the evidence is extremely lengthy. But lets focus on one piece of evidence for I find it most important from a storytelling perspective for it was a macguffin in the story and the origin of the macgufffin appears in 01x09 even though its power was revealed in the pilot

The photo of William's fiance / Logan showed William in 01x09 is the same photo that Peter Abernathy / Dolores's father / The preacher who turns cannibal saw in the Pilot / 01x01 and it is this photo that triggered Peter Abathey to have his epilepsy but also for Peter Abathey to talk to Dolores in his ear and this causes Dolores to later place a gun in the barn and then to leave her loop after someone tried to rape her in the barn and she instead shoots the person. Now Dolores leaves via horse in the modern timeframe and the narrator gave misleading information for we soon see William and Logan meeting Dolores on a horse so we assumed William and Logan rescued Dolores from the recent "farm escape" even though it was a different farm escape. Aka an unreliable narrator.

It was this photo which sets up Dolores current mission to find the church / maze which she finally does in 01x09

This is Logan holding the photo in 01x09 prior to putting it into William's clothing

https://heavyeditorial.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-1-15-33-am.jpg?quality=65&strip=all&strip=all


This is Peter Abernathy holding it

https://typeset-beta.imgix.net/2016/11/1/bu_xyGj0cG18AAXQrEynq3skQ3ojvp8BkQMFbuOvHPw-ba2a519f-0f82-4423-a018-7650f0887d37.jpg?w=640&h=&fit=max&auto=format&q=70&dpr=2





I'm kind of disappointed that I found out about the timelines theory before this revelation, but it does make me want to go back and re-watch to see what kind of things I missed, or what things have new meanings now.

The inconsistent storytelling also has a neat in-universe explanation. The hosts experience memories as if it's the present.

[Aedilred]

Having watched the latest episode and read the discussion here I am sold on the theory, which seems to be all but confirmed. However I've been watching it with my housemates who haven't been analysing it in the same amount of detail as this thread and have essentially been taking each episode as it comes, and the suggestion that there are multiple timelines seemed to leave them confused and cold prior to the latest episode, with no mention thereafter that they've changed their minds. So I wonder whether, if/when it is made more explicit, presumably next week, whether there will be a lot of bewildered viewers who feel it's a last-minute plot twist out of nowhere. And whether they will be in the majority or not - which will likely affect the way the show gets treated in pop culture thereafter.

[Rodin]

Having watched the latest episode and read the discussion here I am sold on the theory, which seems to be all but confirmed. However I've been watching it with my housemates who haven't been analysing it in the same amount of detail as this thread and have essentially been taking each episode as it comes, and the suggestion that there are multiple timelines seemed to leave them confused and cold prior to the latest episode, with no mention thereafter that they've changed their minds. So I wonder whether, if/when it is made more explicit, presumably next week, whether there will be a lot of bewildered viewers who feel it's a last-minute plot twist out of nowhere. And whether they will be in the majority or not - which will likely affect the way the show gets treated in pop culture thereafter.

I certainly didn't have the first clue, even after the most recent episode. I had long forgotten that photograph and didn't make the connection at all, and up until that was pointed out I've been reading the discussion about it with eye rolls constantly. I've been watching it with my father and there's no indication he has a clue either.

I think there's going to be a lot of very confused people when it's made official.

[Eldan]

I must admit, I never thought of multiple timelines, even though I'm usually good at overthinking things and figuring out plot twists before they happen. (And bad at poker face. My friends hate those moments when I suddenly wince and mumble something like "Oh ****, she's going to die in the next scene" or "Oh, he's the killer himself" to myself.)

I only heard about multiple timelines next week, thought a bit about it, didn' see much evidence and shrugged. But yeah, after this... I'm on board.

[Chen]

So I guess I was right about those times when Dolores was talking to "Bernard" being memories rather than someone whisking her away in the night. Just turns out she was remembering talking to Arnold, rather than Bernard.

[Rodin]

So I guess I was right about those times when Dolores was talking to "Bernard" being memories rather than someone whisking her away in the night. Just turns out she was remembering talking to Arnold, rather than Bernard.

Hah, that's brilliant. Adds a whole new layer to those scenes.

That whole plot twist does raise a ton of questions for me though. How do the people working for the park not have the first clue what Arnold looked like? If Bernard truly looks like him, it surely would have come out by now. I can see the grunts not knowing, but what about the board? Or Theresa? Did nobody in all the time that Bernard has been working there happen to look up Arnold's Wikipedia page and recognize the similarity?

[Ramza00]

Hah, that's brilliant. Adds a whole new layer to those scenes.

That whole plot twist does raise a ton of questions for me though. How do the people working for the park not have the first clue what Arnold looked like? If Bernard truly looks like him, it surely would have come out by now. I can see the grunts not knowing, but what about the board? Or Theresa? Did nobody in all the time that Bernard has been working there happen to look up Arnold's Wikipedia page and recognize the similarity?


When arnold commit suicide, but now according to 01x09 perhaps instead Dolores supposedly killed him...but...according to Ford in 1x03 the records of Arnold were specifically scrubbed. All written and recorded stuff was removed. Now Logan knows of Arnold by a second hand source, a human source talking about a rumor, and even that person did not know Logan's name. Aka this is how myths are born or facts are forgotten during the telling of myths and legends. Memory without external memory device is only human.


Bernard: With due respect, sir, I'm not sure you've told me the entire truth about this situation.

Ford: I did tell you the truth, Bernard. What we do here is complicated. For three years, we lived here in the park, refining the hosts before a single guest set foot inside. Myself, a team of engineers, and my partner. You had a partner? Yeah. When the legend becomes fact, you print the legend. My business partners were more than happy to scrub him from the records, and I suppose I didn't discourage them.

His name was Arnold. Those early years were glorious. No guests, no board meetings, just pure creation. (machines beeping Our hosts began to pass the Turing test after the first year. But that wasn't enough for Arnold. He wasn't interested in the appearance of intellect or wit. He wanted the real thing. He wanted to create consciousness. He imagined it as a pyramid...
Combined with a low amount of staff during those early years and then some years after the park open Bernard was created (we know Ford was much older when Bernard first awakens based off his appearance).

This is Young Ford shown in the flashback of the first 3 years when he was talking about Arnold

http://images.hellogiggles.com/uploads/2016/10/17052054/hopkins1-700x525.jpg

This is a scene from 01x09 when Dolores enters the church, she has a flashback to a previous memory. We do not know the time but it shows Ford and he is talking outloud calling for Arnold in another room saying Arnold we need to talk.

https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/583bd845dd0895491a8b4895-2400

Now compare those 2 pictures of Ford, the ford which is supposedly 35+ years ago to the Ford that is there when Bernard awakens after Ford built him

https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/583bd845dd0895491a8b4892-2000

Bernard may have been there for a very long time, like Elsie said practically forever (when she was commenting he could not be the mole who wanted to do corporate espionage) but it is obvious some time has passed in those photos of Ford, at least 5 years I would not be surprised if 10 or more.

[Quild]

I'm not sure if I should applause the show for the multiple timelines or blame it for being over-complicated and misleading.

Even knowing the multiple timelines, it's hard to follow when a scene takes place.

I believe that Dolores had the following process:

At some point, 30-35 years in the past, she went crazy/off loop, and shot some hosts, maybe some guests and certainly Arnold. It's certainly that moment that was put in Teddy's memory with some modification for the Wyatt's narrative.

After that, she's somehow not put into the fridge and went on a quest for the maze, during which she meets William. She end her trip in the city where she had gone rampage and manage to remember that she killed Arnold.

And it's only after that, that she goes in her farmer's daughter routine. Choosing to see the beauty in the world and stuff. Being in a wonderful easy questline where she get raped by hosts or ****ed as a reward by guests. Or raped by guests.

In the present, MiB/William is now [truly evil] since he lost his wife and comes to rape her. It helps to trigger something and she goes off loop again. On her own. And sometimes has memories of her first travel off loop with William (in front of the church covered by sand and on the shore).


Now, it would make more sense if Dolores' went crazy only after doing the maze, but it doesn't seem to work this way.

[Joran]

I'm not sure if I should applause the show for the multiple timelines or blame it for being over-complicated and misleading.

Even knowing the multiple timelines, it's hard to follow when a scene takes place.

I believe that Dolores had the following process:

At some point, 30-35 years in the past, she went crazy/off loop, and shot some hosts, maybe some guests and certainly Arnold. It's certainly that moment that was put in Teddy's memory with some modification for the Wyatt's narrative.

After that, she's somehow not put into the fridge and went on a quest for the maze, during which she meets William. She end her trip in the city where she had gone rampage and manage to remember that she killed Arnold.

And it's only after that, that she goes in her farmer's daughter routine. Choosing to see the beauty in the world and stuff. Being in a wonderful easy questline where she get raped by hosts or ****ed as a reward by guests. Or raped by guests.

In the present, MiB/William is now [truly evil] since he lost his wife and comes to rape her. It helps to trigger something and she goes off loop again. On her own. And sometimes has memories of her first travel off loop with William (in front of the church covered by sand and on the shore).


Now, it would make more sense if Dolores' went crazy only after doing the maze, but it doesn't seem to work this way.

I think this is the best chronology I've seen so far. It makes Dolores' story make a little more sense. Spoilers obviously.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Westworld_Hosts/comments/5flud3/a_chronological_view_of_westworlds_timeline/

[Ramza00]

So just predicting for the finale. Based off stuff In Episode 01x06 / The Adversary, while not spoilers on 01x10 merely speculating this may influence your surprise on the finale if I guess right for I am deconstructing earlier events.


We learn via Elsie (and previous stuff from Ford and Bernard) that while all the old and current hosts have a Bicameral Mind, the Bicameral Mind of current host vs older models is different. I feel that most people have forgotten a very important exchange between Bernard and Elsie.

How are old vs new hosts different, let me explain, but we are going to need to lay down some foundational material so it will take a second for me to explain.




Both old and new models use a bicameral mind, with one side of the mind being used for command controls. This command side of the mind is to set both the narrative, but also what the Hosts can or can't do such as weapon privileges, preventing lying to operators when in analysis mode, preventing the harming of humans, good samaritan reflex, etc. The host command side of the mind feels like hallucinations and memory.

The other side of the mind is the hosts own thoughts and is an internal language like the list diagram that Maeve did with Felix on what to say and do next in order to achieve the goals that she holds for herself, aka what it is her narrative.

Arnold's goal was to eventually do a form of awakening where Hosts were truly self aware, truly alive, and truly their own being by bootstrapping consciousness. How this bootstrapping is supposed to occur is unstated by Westworld, it involves 1) Memory -> 2) Improvisation (aka mistakes) -> 3) Self Interest, -> 4 is unclear in WestWorld but Julian Jaynes author of the 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness we humans gained a new type of thinking, a form of introspection and from introspection we gain self awareness and our language evolved and new words in newer languages that were not in older languages appeared and we can have these two sides of our mind influence each other. Put another way Julian Jaynes theory (which is now discredited both via science and via literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh includes lots of introspection and self awareness) stated that this style of introspection is similar to dreaming except we now are changing the style of our dreams for we are awake and we rewrite our narrative / we hallucinate in an introspective state and come up with a new future in our mind and then we do that future.

So all the hosts old and new have this bicameral mind, and while they can receive commands from operators such as Ford and other people, they here these commands as hallucinations and they are then compelled to obey. Most of the hosts are not "self hallucinating" but Dolores is now is (and can change her weapon privileges during her story with William and during the time she kills the milk man who was going to rape her). Maeve since Felix edited her code can also command other hosts via modifying their narrative and can go as far as freeze all motor functions on Bernard.




Now lets get back to Elsie and how old vs new hosts operate.

One difference is Bernard explains older hosts have their own GPS cache and goes down to Basement B82. (Basement B83 is Cold Storage of older hosts). This is how they tracked down where the Woodcutter was at specific times for the Woodcutter was an older host.

But a 2nd key difference was also explained in this episode very fast. Older hosts have a receiver where some form of relay system (I am guessing radio) can cause them to send commands remotely to the hosts and influence their bicameral mind. There are multiple of these relays and Elsie was going to one that has been active for a while in sector 3. Theresa and QA according to Elsie used this system to hack the woodcutter. But supposedly someone with different credentials has also been using it, someone who is influencing core code of the Hosts. Elsie says it may be Arnold but she really does not know. And that was the last time we saw Elsie in a speaking role.






So older hosts there are currently 87 in the park, 82+5 which are the

Ford's Family plus

Based on the flashbacks to the pre park when Arnold was alive Dolores,
Maeve,
Angela (Blonde Gal who dressed William),
Peter Abernathy (Preacher, Dolores 1st Father, now Charlotte / Sizemore mule),
Armistice (Snake Tattoo Girl),
Rebus (Milk Guy),
Teddy Flood,
Lawrence Childhood Daughter who knows about the maze are all 1st Generation and thus are likely to still have the receiver

All of those people can be updated and changed remotely from people who are not in the room. Newer hosts can still be given verbal commands but these other hosts can be updated via some form of relay.

[Ramza00]

Thoughts on the Season Finale?

[Joran]

Thoughts on the Season Finale?


The reveal finally happens. I don't like how they compressed so much character development for him in such a short period of time. He went from "In love with Delores and a goody two shoes" to "butchering robots" in the span of a night. It didn't feel like it was earned. I would have liked more of a dark descent while I guess we're to believe he was just a bad dude and it took Westworld to show that.



Man, the guards at Deilos have TERRIBLE aim. They never put up a good fight; the guards SUCK.



I feel like I need to watch Westworld again to fully understand exactly what parts were memories (especially with Delores) and what was the present. I also want to see Ford acting like a jerk, with the idea that he's trying to foster a mistrust of humans in the Hosts, as a defense mechanism.

I do like the show and feel like it was very well-written and well-acted. All in all, I felt like I was watching a really good show that I wanted to watch closely and think about later.



I feel like Maeve isn't Ford's doing; her code change happened with Arnold's old password. Additionally, I feel like her going back into the park for her "child", is her bypassing her new "escape the park" programming and instead is her asserting her independence.

It'd be hilarious if the next Westworld is in Samurai World.

[gomipile]

Why is episode 2 called Chestnut?

[Darth Ultron]

Thoughts on the Season Finale?



The reveal finally happens. I think it was a bit rushed too.




I guess you could say they were bad guards as they got almost no practice. From what we see everyone is really, really over confidant and sure no host can even accidentally by inaction harm a human. So the guards just stand around a lot.

Also, it is possible Ford, or whoever, hired the worst possible guards.....so the escape could happen.



Defiantly a show you need to watch more then once.

My only complaint might be the season being so short. Ten episodes is just not enough. They really could have used a couple more shows. A full, normal season of like 22 shows would have been great....but even like five more would have been good.

Like I think it would have been nice to do a ''commercial show'', where a future family sees the Westworld commercial and goes to the park for a normal vacation.

And in turn it would have been nice to see a ''rated X'' visit where, say a married couple travels to the park to ***********.

And maybe a ''Day in the life of a Westworld worker'' and that would have been a good episode to give us a map of the park too.

The ''update'' is in episode one, but I think that should have been more like ''episode 4''. We don't get to see much of the ''normal park'' as they go right into ''the update changes everything''.

[Rodin]

One thing I didn't understand the significance of:

At the end of episode 9, we see the security guy with a gun go out to track down the signal from Elsie's tablet, which had suddenly started transmitting again. He goes out and is quickly surrounded by Indians, who have had their control words removed and presumably murder him up good.

This is not revisited at all in the season finale. Why did the tablet start transmitting again? We now know that it was Bernard/Ford who grabbed Elsie in the first place, and neither is careless enough to just leave the tablet out there. The presence of the Indians indicates that it was a trap, but I don't recall security dude having anything special about him that would warrant it. Elsie got ganked because she dug too deep, but he's just a random schmuck.

[Ramza00]

One thing I didn't understand the significance of:

At the end of episode 9, we see the security guy with a gun go out to track down the signal from Elsie's tablet, which had suddenly started transmitting again. He goes out and is quickly surrounded by Indians, who have had their control words removed and presumably murder him up good.

This is not revisited at all in the season finale. Why did the tablet start transmitting again? We now know that it was Bernard/Ford who grabbed Elsie in the first place, and neither is careless enough to just leave the tablet out there. The presence of the Indians indicates that it was a trap, but I don't recall security dude having anything special about him that would warrant it. Elsie got ganked because she dug too deep, but he's just a random schmuck.

The tablet was found in a different sector than the one Elsie was calling in in Episode 6.

Thus the tablet did not turn on by itself but instead had to be moved by a human or a host.

So likely suspects.

* 1) Elsie is still alive and was trying to recruit / capture Stubbs for she trust Stubbs by himself and no longer trusts Bernard. The memory Bernard had is either completely artificial and created by Elsie or she was able to deactivate Bernard prior to the stranglehold actually killed her.

* 2) Bernard did it to recruit / capture Stubbs or to Kill Stubbs.

* 3) Ford did it to recruit / capture Stubbs or to Kill Stubbs.

------

Note if you were Ford why go after Stubbs specifically prior to some big plan that happened hours or days later? Aka someone could have noticed who that Stubbs disappeared, or if it was not going to be Stubbs being sent out some other people from Security.

In theory it could also be a 4) person with some form of host that Arnold commandeered from beyond the grave.

[Quild]

The reveal finally happens. I don't like how they compressed so much character development for him in such a short period of time. He went from "In love with Delores and a goody two shoes" to "butchering robots" in the span of a night. It didn't feel like it was earned. I would have liked more of a dark descent while I guess we're to believe he was just a bad dude and it took Westworld to show that.

I think it's less rushed than what you may think.
William started to change in Pariah. He also abandonned Logan here while he was beaten. Logan made remarks about how Westworld was already showing the true William.
He probably killed the guy on the shore while Dolores was getting some water and had some of her hallucinations.
The bloodbath with Logan's soldiers was indeed a big change.

But he says he became truly evil only when he lost his wife and killed Maeve's daughter one year before "present time".

I'm not a big fond of MiB searching for the maze because he wants to be in real danger while the robots can't hurt him more than a certain amount. If it wasn't for this securities, he would be dead already.

[gomipile]

I'm watching through season 1 a second time. I find that the corporate/medical/mesa scenes remind me a lot of the Mass Effect series of games. It's a combination of visuals and sound design, especially the score in some of these scenes.


One scene that especially brings Mass Effect 1 to mind is the final scene of episode 6, "The Adversary." The music as Maeve reacts to having her bulk apperception and through into the credits reminds me a bit of Sovereign's theme in ME1.

[Dragonus45]

I think it's less rushed than what you may think.
William started to change in Pariah. He also abandonned Logan here while he was beaten. Logan made remarks about how Westworld was already showing the true William.
He probably killed the guy on the shore while Dolores was getting some water and had some of her hallucinations.
The bloodbath with Logan's soldiers was indeed a big change.

But he says he became truly evil only when he lost his wife and killed Maeve's daughter one year before "present time".

I'm not a big fond of MiB searching for the maze because he wants to be in real danger while the robots can't hurt him more than a certain amount. If it wasn't for this securities, he would be dead already.

Actually I think that's a the point, he pretty clearly has a deathwish.

[SirKazum]

Actually I think that's a the point, he pretty clearly has a deathwish.

In the final episode, doesn't he smile as he gets seriously wounded by a gunshot from a host? He doesn't look particularly concerned about what might just as well be a fatal wound.

[gomipile]

Actually I think that's a the point, he pretty clearly has a deathwish.


In the final episode, doesn't he smile as he gets seriously wounded by a gunshot from a host? He doesn't look particularly concerned about what might just as well be a fatal wound.


I think he's acting out of nostalgia for a future/present that never happened.

He fell for Dolores when she was exhibiting aberrant behavior that indicated that she was more than a programmed construct. William's final turn in the story from 30 years ago happened when it became totally obvious that Dolores would return to her loop. The Man In Black set out on his current mission in earnest when Maeve proved to him that the hosts in general could break free from their loops and restrictions.

My read is that the Man In Black is honestly happy to now be in a world where the hosts have slipped their chains.

[Dragonus45]

I think he's acting out of nostalgia for a future/present that never happened.

He fell for Dolores when she was exhibiting aberrant behavior that indicated that she was more than a programmed construct. William's final turn in the story from 30 years ago happened when it became totally obvious that Dolores would return to her loop. The Man In Black set out on his current mission in earnest when Maeve proved to him that the hosts in general could break free from their loops and restrictions.

My read is that the Man In Black is honestly happy to now be in a world where the hosts have slipped their chains.


Both are kind of true. I think the moment William realized Delores never had the capacity to love him, even though he may well have been wrong, was the moment he really lost himself inside even if it took years for the Maeve incident to push him over the line. But I really do get the feeling that in the end he has a deep seated death wish stemming from the realization that despite all his good works and charity the people closes from him despised him and he knew he couldn't deny it to them. He has said several times he doesn't intend to make it home. I do wonder if part of his hopes for hosts to be able to fight back is a combination of him desperately wanting to be punished and knowing that no one in the real world will ever do it do to his powerful position and his hope that at least Delores' love for him was true in even the briefest sense. Unlike the love anyone ever had for him.

[gomipile]

A question: do you think Bernard could have swatted a fly early in the season? What about during his time at the park before the series "current" time?

[SirKazum]

A question: do you think Bernard could have swatted a fly early in the season? What about during his time at the park before the series "current" time?


Given that such restrictions are part of the programming and can obviously be lifted by the programmer (see last episode), and since Bernard is supposed to fool everybody, I'd think that Ford made it so he can kill animals, yeah, and probably even people (that Ford doesn't order him to), maybe with an exception for Ford himself.

[Guttercleaning]

Great show. A little weird. But I like it alot. It's amazing at how well hbo can cast. They seem to get it right most if the time.

[Phearnun]

Just finished watching Season 1. That ending was incredible.

[gomipile]

Just finished watching Season 1. That ending was incredible.


I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the ending.

If Ford wants the hosts to be free, what does he think will happen to them after slaughtering a party full of wealthy Delos investors?

Or is that part of his plan? Has he arranged news stories to engender the sympathy of the general public of the world precisely because the hosts killed only people responsible for their slavery? Do Delos and Westworld investors have a poor public approval rating?

Has Ford arranged for a government somewhere to offer asylum to Turing human-equivalent hosts and fight for their rights?