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Changed line(s) 186,188 (click to see context) from:
* Why was the Samaritan facility Shaw as held at in South Africa, instead of somewhere much, much closer? Greer would have to be flying for 14 hours 35 minutes from New York to Johannesburg, each way, frequently--at least every episode we saw him there.
* Meta question: In the Trivia section there appears to be new content which can never be found on the internet when you search about it, about Jim Caviezel's Behind The Scenes behaviour. What is the source of those claims?
** QAnon Anonymous Podcast Episodr 143: Into the Cavortex. Whether or not they're true is another story, but unfortunately they seem increasingly likely as time goes on.
* Meta question: In the Trivia section there appears to be new content which can never be found on the internet when you search about it, about Jim Caviezel's Behind The Scenes behaviour. What is the source of those claims?
** QAnon Anonymous Podcast Episodr 143: Into the Cavortex. Whether or not they're true is another story, but unfortunately they seem increasingly likely as time goes on.
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* Why was the Samaritan facility Shaw as held at in South Africa, instead of somewhere much, much closer? Greer would have to be flying for 14 hours 35 minutes from New York to Johannesburg, each way, frequently--at least every episode we saw him there.
* Meta question: In the Trivia section there appears to be new content which can never be found on the internet when you search about it, about Jim Caviezel's Behind The Scenes behaviour. What is the source of those claims?
** QAnon Anonymous Podcast Episodr 143: Into the Cavortex. Whether or not they're true is another story, but unfortunately they seem increasingly likely as time goes on.there.
* Meta question: In the Trivia section there appears to be new content which can never be found on the internet when you search about it, about Jim Caviezel's Behind The Scenes behaviour. What is the source of those claims?
** QAnon Anonymous Podcast Episodr 143: Into the Cavortex. Whether or not they're true is another story, but unfortunately they seem increasingly likely as time goes on.
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* Meta question: In the Trivia section there appears to be new content which can never be found on the internet when you search about it, about Jim Caviezel's Behind The Scenes behaviour. What is the source of those claims?
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* Meta question: In the Trivia section there appears to be new content which can never be found on the internet when you search about it, about Jim Caviezel's Behind The Scenes behaviour. What is the source of those claims?claims?
** QAnon Anonymous Podcast Episodr 143: Into the Cavortex. Whether or not they're true is another story, but unfortunately they seem increasingly likely as time goes on.
** QAnon Anonymous Podcast Episodr 143: Into the Cavortex. Whether or not they're true is another story, but unfortunately they seem increasingly likely as time goes on.
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** Closed Circuit in theory means it has no outside communication. If you have your own security personnel, this is entirely feasible since they respond to problems. The stock exchange could easily have an independent CCTV system since it doesn't need outside resources. Mobile phones, traffic cameras, etc are supposed to be secure but no one imagined they face a IA supercomputer. Easy way to view it is to think about any detective dramas you've watched and count the number of times the investigators ask for the CCTV video tapes from real closed circuit tv security. They rely on the owner of the CCTV to give them the tape since it has no other way of been accessed.
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** Closed Circuit in theory means it has no outside communication. If you have your own security personnel, this is entirely feasible since they respond to problems. The stock exchange could easily have an independent CCTV system since it doesn't need outside resources. Mobile phones, traffic cameras, etc are supposed to be secure but no one imagined they face a IA supercomputer. Easy way to view it is to think about any detective dramas you've watched and count the number of times the investigators ask for the CCTV video tapes from real closed circuit tv security. They rely on the owner of the CCTV to give them the tape since it has no other way of been being accessed.
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****The fact he doesn’t wear a tie would throw off some people looking for a man in a suit. They’d be expecting a tie.
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Changed line(s) 185 (click to see context) from:
* Why was the Samaritan facility Shaw as held at in South Africa, instead of somewhere much, much closer? Greer would have to be flying for 14 hours 35 minutes from New York to Johannesburg, each way, frequently--at least every episode we saw him there.
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* Why was the Samaritan facility Shaw as held at in South Africa, instead of somewhere much, much closer? Greer would have to be flying for 14 hours 35 minutes from New York to Johannesburg, each way, frequently--at least every episode we saw him there.there.
* Meta question: In the Trivia section there appears to be new content which can never be found on the internet when you search about it, about Jim Caviezel's Behind The Scenes behaviour. What is the source of those claims?
* Meta question: In the Trivia section there appears to be new content which can never be found on the internet when you search about it, about Jim Caviezel's Behind The Scenes behaviour. What is the source of those claims?
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Possible answer in a metaphor made up on the spot.
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** This assumes the Machine's main objective is "prevent crime/terrorism". It's fairly clear over the course of the series that Harold (and the Machine itself) always considered the Machine's core purpose to be "to save people". This usually involves saving them from a crime, but clearly not always.
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** This assumes the Machine's main objective is "prevent crime/terrorism". It's fairly clear over the course of the series that Harold (and the theThat's important. Machine itself) always considered the Machine's core purpose to be "to save people". This usually involves saving them from a crime, but clearly not always.
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** Sometimes, it's easier to see the spider instead of the fly when dealing with a cobweb.
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Changed line(s) 184 (click to see context) from:
* Why was the Samaritan facility Shaw as held at in South Africa, instead of somewhere much, much closer? Greer would have to be flying for 14 hours 35 minutes, each way, frequently--at least every episode we saw him there.
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* Why was the Samaritan facility Shaw as held at in South Africa, instead of somewhere much, much closer? Greer would have to be flying for 14 hours 35 minutes, minutes from New York to Johannesburg, each way, frequently--at least every episode we saw him there.
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Changed line(s) 183 (click to see context) from:
* Why was it worth it to Sam Latimer to kill off his own men every few months to avoid turnover? If it's not the kind of gang that you only leave when you die, what's so awful for him about people leaving and getting replaced? Wouldn't people be put off from applying for criminal jobs with him by the fact that his underlings had a habit of getting killed (even if they didn't know by whom)?
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* Why was it worth it to Sam Latimer to kill off his own men every few months to avoid turnover? If it's not the kind of gang that you only leave when you die, what's so awful for him about people leaving and getting replaced? Wouldn't people be put off from applying for criminal jobs with him by the fact that his underlings had a habit of getting killed (even if they didn't know by whom)?whom)?
* Why was the Samaritan facility Shaw as held at in South Africa, instead of somewhere much, much closer? Greer would have to be flying for 14 hours 35 minutes, each way, frequently--at least every episode we saw him there.
* Why was the Samaritan facility Shaw as held at in South Africa, instead of somewhere much, much closer? Greer would have to be flying for 14 hours 35 minutes, each way, frequently--at least every episode we saw him there.
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Changed line(s) 182 (click to see context) from:
** In the finale we see what would have happened in a scenario where Greer's ASI had no ASI opposing it. The Machine, once controlled by Decima and reprogrammed to follow Greer's belief that machines are better than humans, would be functionally equivalent to Samaritan, so allowing Decima to gain control of The Machine would have produced a worse outcome: not only would there be an ASI with the power of Samaritan, but there'd be no "moral counterpart" to counter Samaritan.
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** In the finale we see what would have happened in a scenario where Greer's ASI had no ASI opposing it. The Machine, once controlled by Decima and reprogrammed to follow Greer's belief that machines are better than humans, would be functionally equivalent to Samaritan, so allowing Decima to gain control of The Machine would have produced a worse outcome: not only would there be an ASI with the power of Samaritan, but there'd be no "moral counterpart" to counter Samaritan.Samaritan.
* Why was it worth it to Sam Latimer to kill off his own men every few months to avoid turnover? If it's not the kind of gang that you only leave when you die, what's so awful for him about people leaving and getting replaced? Wouldn't people be put off from applying for criminal jobs with him by the fact that his underlings had a habit of getting killed (even if they didn't know by whom)?
* Why was it worth it to Sam Latimer to kill off his own men every few months to avoid turnover? If it's not the kind of gang that you only leave when you die, what's so awful for him about people leaving and getting replaced? Wouldn't people be put off from applying for criminal jobs with him by the fact that his underlings had a habit of getting killed (even if they didn't know by whom)?
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** What this question and the answers above miss is that Harold wasn't just making an AI phone assistant, he was trying to create what the series eventually starts calling an ASI... a sentient being made of computer code. Specifically one of the things he wants it to be able to do is program itself eventually (and why he kills one of the versions when it does so... not because it wrote a line of code itself, but because it lied and said Harold did it). Once you give the computer the concept of "I", all of that stuff about it only doing what you tell it to goes out the window, because it's not a very far jump from "I am" to "I want to get out of here". To all appearances the last version of the Machine seems to work because Harold elects to "raise" it rather than just program it.
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** It's actually sort of brilliant. The sheer audacity of hiding John, the most stand-out and distinctive of the group, not only in plain sight but in a prominent position, would make it much more unlikely that anyone would connect them. "No way that guy would be sitting at a desk pretending to be a police detective, must just be someone who looks kind of like him." Plus with a fully established identity as a cop, it makes it that much harder to get rid of him... criminals and black ops alike have to think at least slightly harder about killing a cop.
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** To summarize the above, the writers never forgot about Shaw's thing with Cole because Shaw never actually had a thing with Cole.
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** It's meant to be an example of how callously Samaritan views human life. Despite Greer playing a similar role to Samaritan as Harold did to the Machine, Samaritan considers him expendable even if all it accomplishes is getting one last chance to try a "Join me" with Harold and then, when rebuffed, demonstrating its power instantly and effectively without needing to use a human proxy. That's how cheaply it held the life of the human that had been with it the longest, who was there at its birth, who told it to think for itself and exercise its own will... effectively making the final argument for why it needed to be destroyed no matter the cost.
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** Keep in mind that Harold has consistently been leery of Root's idea that the Machine is God because he's worried that the Machine might agree; he doesn't think it (or he, for that matter) should have the right to choose who should die, even if it's for the greater good, because to his mind that's a slippery slope that leads right to... well, Samaritan and its Great Filter. Considering that Samaritan essentially is the Machine with a full-blown "The greater good justifies the means" complex, he's quite possibly got a point.
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** I think because even though it can run the simulations, the simulations do still take time... notice that the clock is lower by several seconds every time it returns to the break room from one. The flashbacks of Harold urging the Machine to not overthink its plays were part of the point too... the Machine tried two simulations of splitting everyone up, and neither worked. While it could have continued trying different pairings, since it was running out of time "Splitting them up isn't working so let's try keeping them together" was a logical conclusion.
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** Later on it was revealed that the Machine had been quietly cultivating other teams of operatives that Harold and John didn't know about (but Root probably needed to know about), so maybe some of them were among the seven.
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** It actually comes up repeatedly that they do in fact keep finding his fingerprints at crime scenes. John just doesn't care because he's living off the grid and planning to constantly evade the police anyway. The identities he lives and works under aren't tied to those fingerprints anyway, so likely to his mind it's irrelevant that the police find them, certainly not a big enough deal to hamper his work (even slightly) by constantly wearing gloves.
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** Possibly, if John (or whoever) got in the car when he was in a "dark zone". If he wasn't specifically in camera view the Machine might be able to tell someone's in the car but not specifically who, at least on 'surface monitoring'.
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**** It seems to explicitly be "is fully aware of the Machine's existence". Despite being labeled a 'Secondary Asset', Fusco always had a white box until the episode where John finally told him everything. The next time he shows up in camera view, his box is yellow.
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** This assumes the Machine's main objective is "prevent crime/terrorism". It's fairly clear over the course of the series that Harold (and the Machine itself) always considered the Machine's core purpose to be "to save people". This usually involves saving them from a crime, but clearly not always.
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** The Machine has sent other sorts of numbers before when SSNs aren't applicable, whatever it feels will direct the team to the individual who needs looking at. However, this may also be because since many illegals operate "off the grid" to some extent, the Machine has less capacity to tell when one of them might be in trouble.
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** The Machine doesn't seem to "ignore" numbers outside of New York/America, it apparently just directs the team to ones it's the most sure they can do something about. If getting through customs and crossing the barren wastelands of America's Hat would take too long for the team to save a Canadian from the murderous moose on their trail, it's not going to send them on a futile dash when there are numbers closer to home they could be more certain of helping.
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** Harold specifically says several times over the course of the series that one of the benefits of the Machine is that it doesn't require human intervention to operate. It bugfixes itself, updates itself, and repairs itself, either by doing its own programming software side or simply issuing orders via computer systems if something needs to be done with the hardware. This is aptly demonstrated when it up and *moves itself* out of the government facility before anyone is the wiser, just by manipulation of computer systems.
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** When the Machine sends a number, it's usually the one involved in an upcoming situation that it would be easiest to determine that situation by looking at them. So the Machine would prefer to send the abuse victim's number because there would be a lot more of a data trail indicating what the problem was (hospital visits, injury reports, days missed at work, etc.) than there would be if you looked at the abuser's data, for whom there might not be any trackable evidence that they're a perpetrator at all.
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*** Thank you. Also John is possibly wearing the most generic variety of that there is... black suit, white shirt. Now admittedly he maybe should have at least added a tie once he became Detective John Riley, but still. It's pretty silly to think anyone would look at John and immediately think "It's a man in a suit... ... HE MUST BE THE MAN IN THE SUIT!", in fact it's probably weirder that the vigilante's nickname became The Man In The Suit.
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** The other (political) reason is that the government can have "plausible deniability" that Samaritan isn't Northern Lights if someone were to successfully reveal Samaritan's existence (something Samaritan can almost certainly prevent, but Control, Garrison, et al. are unaware of Samaritan's self-defense protocols), whereas if they just go back to using The Machine the public outcry at the government going back to revive the same project after claiming it was cancelled would be far greater if that was exposed.
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* Greer's objective (post-flashbacks) has always been to get an AI to TakeOverTheWorld and replace human government. Back in Season 2 he attempted to do so by hijacking The Machine and overriding its standing orders (i.e. to prevent premeditated violent crime). Given the kind of resources, unwavering loyalty and operational freedom Greer granted Samaritan immediately upon completion of its beta test, wasn't preventing Decima from reaching The Machine and thus forcing it to acquire, build and activate Samaritan a truly ''colossal'', if unpredictable, case of NiceJobBreakingItHero? After all, a Machine with all of the U.S. Government's ''and'' Decima's funds, toys, and manpower would arguably be the best thing that could happen to humankind - considering that through the entire series The Machine's release version has consistently remained the most moral member of the team even when malfunctioning. Hell, if The Machine managed to turn Root into a halfway principled person just imagine what it could have done with Greer!
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* Greer's objective (post-flashbacks) has always been to get an AI to TakeOverTheWorld and replace human government. Back in Season 2 he attempted to do so by hijacking The Machine and overriding its standing orders (i.e. to prevent premeditated violent crime). Given the kind of resources, unwavering loyalty and operational freedom Greer granted Samaritan immediately upon completion of its beta test, wasn't preventing Decima from reaching The Machine and thus forcing it to acquire, build and activate Samaritan a truly ''colossal'', if unpredictable, case of NiceJobBreakingItHero? After all, a Machine with all of the U.S. Government's ''and'' Decima's funds, toys, and manpower would arguably be the best thing that could happen to humankind - considering that through the entire series The Machine's release version has consistently remained the most moral member of the team even when malfunctioning. Hell, if The Machine managed to turn Root into a halfway principled person just imagine what it could have done with Greer!Greer!
** In the finale we see what would have happened in a scenario where Greer's ASI had no ASI opposing it. The Machine, once controlled by Decima and reprogrammed to follow Greer's belief that machines are better than humans, would be functionally equivalent to Samaritan, so allowing Decima to gain control of The Machine would have produced a worse outcome: not only would there be an ASI with the power of Samaritan, but there'd be no "moral counterpart" to counter Samaritan.
** In the finale we see what would have happened in a scenario where Greer's ASI had no ASI opposing it. The Machine, once controlled by Decima and reprogrammed to follow Greer's belief that machines are better than humans, would be functionally equivalent to Samaritan, so allowing Decima to gain control of The Machine would have produced a worse outcome: not only would there be an ASI with the power of Samaritan, but there'd be no "moral counterpart" to counter Samaritan.
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Changed line(s) 163 (click to see context) from:
** Additionally, does it really make sense to point a gun at Finch and order him not to speak the password? Can they really shoot him fast enough once he starts talking to stop a word from getting out? And then, later, Greer gloats about how clever he was put them in a soundproof room, which would have been much more clever if they hadn't just had a long discussion all over the building at which point Finch apparently could have said the password at any time.
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** Additionally, does it really make sense to point a gun at Finch and order him not to speak the password? Can they really shoot him fast enough once he starts talking to stop a word from getting out? And then, later, Greer gloats about how clever he was put them in a soundproof room, which would have been much more clever if they hadn't just had a long discussion all over the building at which point Finch apparently could have said the password at any time.time.
* Greer's objective (post-flashbacks) has always been to get an AI to TakeOverTheWorld and replace human government. Back in Season 2 he attempted to do so by hijacking The Machine and overriding its standing orders (i.e. to prevent premeditated violent crime). Given the kind of resources, unwavering loyalty and operational freedom Greer granted Samaritan immediately upon completion of its beta test, wasn't preventing Decima from reaching The Machine and thus forcing it to acquire, build and activate Samaritan a truly ''colossal'', if unpredictable, case of NiceJobBreakingItHero? After all, a Machine with all of the U.S. Government's ''and'' Decima's funds, toys, and manpower would arguably be the best thing that could happen to humankind - considering that through the entire series The Machine's release version has consistently remained the most moral member of the team even when malfunctioning. Hell, if The Machine managed to turn Root into a halfway principled person just imagine what it could have done with Greer!
* Greer's objective (post-flashbacks) has always been to get an AI to TakeOverTheWorld and replace human government. Back in Season 2 he attempted to do so by hijacking The Machine and overriding its standing orders (i.e. to prevent premeditated violent crime). Given the kind of resources, unwavering loyalty and operational freedom Greer granted Samaritan immediately upon completion of its beta test, wasn't preventing Decima from reaching The Machine and thus forcing it to acquire, build and activate Samaritan a truly ''colossal'', if unpredictable, case of NiceJobBreakingItHero? After all, a Machine with all of the U.S. Government's ''and'' Decima's funds, toys, and manpower would arguably be the best thing that could happen to humankind - considering that through the entire series The Machine's release version has consistently remained the most moral member of the team even when malfunctioning. Hell, if The Machine managed to turn Root into a halfway principled person just imagine what it could have done with Greer!
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** Even so, it seems unwise to take the risk. Why give Samaritan a reason to notice you, even if you think it will dismiss you after it considers you? You might as well just not give it any reason to notice you in the first place. Personally, I'd just file it under RuleOfFunny and let it be.
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Changed line(s) 50 (click to see context) from:
*** Machine flashbacks are explicitly the machine, in the present, searching its memory for relevant information. The most likely explanation for the boxes is that it is assigning them boxes based on what they are ''now''.
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*** Machine flashbacks are explicitly the machine, in the present, searching its memory for relevant information. The most likely explanation for the boxes is that it is assigning them boxes based partly on what they are ''now''.''now''.
**** This is probably the best explanation.
**** This is probably the best explanation.
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** As said below, it's much better than it sounds. Yes, the concept has the potential to be really creepy, but it's surprising how well they deal with that. Long story short, there were elements in the government who wanted full, creepy level access to information about civilians, but the person who designed the system refused to allow that, and he turned the Machine into a closed system. So the Machine watches everyone and it analyses everything, but it can't tell anyone the things that it knows. It can't produce dossiers on 'undesirables', it can't gossip, and it can't embarrass your political rivals. All it can do is identify a single person (usually by social security number) and then say "you should really take a look at this dude". The operatives have to conduct a conventional investigation from there.
*** When you think about it, it's a really powerful plot device that does a lot of things at once. It makes the government monitoring program seem much less creepy. It establishes an historical conflict between the Machine's creator and the elements in the government who wanted (who still want) more access. It paints a clear moral contrast between these two sides and establishes one of our protagonists as an incorruptible noble character standing up for privacy and principles. And probably most important: it maintains the mystery and the conflict in any given episode. The show is primarily a "case of the week" procedural. For that to work, the characters can't go just be told everything they need to know by a Machine at the start of an episode.
*** When you think about it, it's a really powerful plot device that does a lot of things at once. It makes the government monitoring program seem much less creepy. It establishes an historical conflict between the Machine's creator and the elements in the government who wanted (who still want) more access. It paints a clear moral contrast between these two sides and establishes one of our protagonists as an incorruptible noble character standing up for privacy and principles. And probably most important: it maintains the mystery and the conflict in any given episode. The show is primarily a "case of the week" procedural. For that to work, the characters can't go just be told everything they need to know by a Machine at the start of an episode.
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** I see two possibilities: Samaritan calculated that it was the most effective way to kill Finch without him escaping or the Machine interfering, and part of the trap was Greer walking into it with Finch so as to lull him into a false sense of security. ''OR'', conversely, Samaritan decided that Greer was actually a liability, and decided to be efficient about eliminating him by convincing him to make a "noble sacrifice". I don't know exactly what liability Greer would have posed, but I'm not an all-seeing AI.
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** I see two possibilities: Samaritan calculated that it was the most effective way to kill Finch without him escaping or the Machine interfering, and part of the trap was Greer walking into it with Finch so as to lull him into a false sense of security. ''OR'', conversely, Samaritan decided that Greer was actually a liability, and decided to be efficient about eliminating him by convincing him to make a "noble sacrifice". I don't know exactly what liability Greer would have posed, but I'm not an all-seeing AI.AI.
** Additionally, does it really make sense to point a gun at Finch and order him not to speak the password? Can they really shoot him fast enough once he starts talking to stop a word from getting out? And then, later, Greer gloats about how clever he was put them in a soundproof room, which would have been much more clever if they hadn't just had a long discussion all over the building at which point Finch apparently could have said the password at any time.
** Additionally, does it really make sense to point a gun at Finch and order him not to speak the password? Can they really shoot him fast enough once he starts talking to stop a word from getting out? And then, later, Greer gloats about how clever he was put them in a soundproof room, which would have been much more clever if they hadn't just had a long discussion all over the building at which point Finch apparently could have said the password at any time.
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*** It doesn't know ''who'' they are, but can still see someone there, and it knows it can't see them. So all it would have to do is send its operatives to collect (Or just kill) ''everyone'' in the basement. Alternately, it could have just shown Greer the video in the basement and he could have identified them.
