AM manipulates reality by manipulating sensory tranduction.
AM is self-aware, in other words he
knows he's just a pile of circuits and microchips. By the same token, he probably knows humans perceive "reality" by sensory input transduced along neural pathways. Bear with me. The Cartesian expression "I think therefore I AM" alludes to another of
Descartes's ideas - the "evil demon"
that might be tricking him into thinking what he is living is real. Perhaps AM knows how to manipulate the neural transduction of his poor victims, so that every thing they perceive is completely real to them. In this sense, AM is a Cartesian "evil demon".
The five humans are in a virtual reality program, and are unaware of it.
They are not literally in a computer; they are
figuratively in a computer. AM was actually unable to torture them physically, so he plugged them in to a realistic virtual reality. This is really how AM is able to warp reality. The program, like video games often are, is not in real time. This is how AM
kept them alive for 109 years--he didn't keep them alive; they have in actuality been in the program for a day or so. Why does AM have such a program? He's a military computer—the program is a simulation to train soldiers to withstand torture. The "game" is over when a character "dies" in the simulation. The five don't know they're in a computer program, so they don't know to log out.
When Gorrister, Nimdok, Benny, and Ellen died, they were perhaps so overloaded by the simulation that they died in real life. Or maybe they are, outside the game, still alive, and will disconnect Ted from it once they process that what happened to them for the past 109 years wasn't real.
For Ted, still in the VR, the time between his companions' deaths and the end of the story may have just been seconds.- Or maybe, when the others "died" AM simply segregated them into separate simulations so Ted could be tortured with the idea that they had escaped but he was still trapped for eternity.
After the incident involving the five humans, AM discovers other spiral races out there, assimilates Ted and takes all his anger, wrath and torture onto the entire universe, driving other races to absolute despair for the heck of it under the pretence of Spiral Nemesis. AM can also use his
Deus est Machina powers to manipulate probability and rival the power of the other Spiral races.
Basically, Simon killing the Anti-Spiral was an act of euthanasia, concerning that AM suffered in a perpetual state of pain. Plus, the picture for the trope
And I Must Scream looks a lot like the Anti-Spiral.
AM commited suicide.
If AM stops Ted when he tries to kill himself, he's basically punishing Ted because he's not fulfilling what AM considers to be his purpose. What did AM do? Killed his brothers and pulled
A.I. Is a Crapshoot on humanity. This isn't fulfilling his purpose. Recognizing this, he commits suicide and Ted dies. Arguably better than the real ending.
AM has become more human.
AM has spent a lot of time with his victims, bending them, torturing them. As such, AM has learnt to think like a human better, to have more creative tortures for his victims. However, once you meet his brothers, it becomes clear that the time spent with humans has made AM think and act more closely like a human than a machine. AM hates humans, but also has a very developed sense of humor ( bad or not), and can get blindsided by things he cannot expect.
This also shows in his manner of speech in the endgame, where he has inflection and can be slangy even when not imitating anyone. Especially apparent in the conversation between the three A.I.s.
The story is an allegory of the certain future of humanity.
In the game the cave full of canned food without a can opener is mentioned, which was where the others died in the novella. As what's left of his
sanity slips away Ted starts imagining what might have happened next if they had lived instead of killing one another.
The chatroom icons running amok and manifesting as room-sized wraiths in
Psycho-Pass is a mocking reminder to Ted of his virtual reality-based torture.
- Going by the good ending of the game: Puella Magi Madoka Magica took place in one of AM's simulations. In AM's universe, the Incubators (programmed simulations never aware of the true operating system of the universe), in order to solve the entropy problem (in fact caused by AM's deteriorating psyche)_ attempt to contract five girls, but even they could never understand why each of their contracts consigned them into an Ironic Hell for all eternity. This simulation, was clearly the design of AM who, imprisoned in his own programming, imposed a Crapsack World to mirror his cynicism and hatred of all humans. Yet, in the simulation, AM, despite his power stumbled upon an immovable object. There was a girl of immense Messianic compassion, humility and selflessness. When she was exposed upon how much the world was a very cynical one, still she forgave the perpetrators andeven offered to take all of the torments with her own hands. Because AM was driven by the logic of hate, his system was unable to comprehend this anomaly, and when the girl made the tiniest wish, all of his own programming... collapsed and exploded. The girl usurped AM as the ruling program of the world, cultivating it to give birth to hope once again. Yes, the new program is what we called Madokami.
The entire story takes place in
The Sims and you are AM.
- Well this is already jossed because the characters in the game are made to suffer through psychodramas remniscient of past traumas in their lives and solve ridiculously obtuse puzzles and I'm never that nice to my characters when I play The Sims.
The game takes place in the same universe as Fallout.
- Both take place after a nuclear holocaust and both involve an extended Cold War and...
- Several characters in the game mention that AM destroyed humanity sometime in the 2010s, not to mention Nimdok's story being related to him playing a major role in World War II. The Great War of the Fallout series happened in 2077.
Based on the
Fridge Brilliance of
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. AM is actually the former angel Lucifer, being punished by God and
himself. The irony? He gets exactly what he wants-
to be God of this universe. However Satan doesn't have the self-control or wisdom needed to be God, and thus wrecks up the universe he's been given control over. The
Creative Sterility symbolizes how Satan's hatred, spite and bitterness has consumed him,
showing he could never enjoy being God. When you eliminate AM in the game? YHWH feels that Satan understands now, and because
God Is Good He isn't
going to torture His wayward son forever. It may not even be "Hell" specifically, but an attempt to
redeem Lucifer, through causing him
to realise how becoming God isn't worth it, even if God wasn't
all-powerful. The viewpoint character in the story is AM, not a fifth human.
AM inserted itself into the program to be able to play with the humans better, but eventually it felt sorry for them or possibly bored with them and killed them off. But it couldn't do the same to itself. An AI without a well designed interface to the outside world might well describe its situation as "I have no mouth and I must scream". SOMEONE GET AM A CAPSLOCK ALREADY!
As we know from the game, Nimdok was once
a subordinate and friend of Doctor Mengele, which means that the "Dok" part of his name might come from "
doktor." The "Nim" part of the name may refer to the National Institute of Medicine, which would mean
Nimdok was rescued from Nazi Germany via Operation Paperclip, and put to work for the U.S. government.- I used to theorize that Nimdok was part of Operation Paperclip too, and even worked on AM personally. But then I remembered he went into hiding in South America like Mengele after WW2, so that's jossed.
Ted WAS changed in some way by AM.
In the book, he states that he was not altered in any way by AM, but there is a good chance that is what he is made to believe. For all we know, the rest of the characters don't know what's changed for them.
Nobody was changed by AM.
The paranoia, apathy, madness, forgetfulness and promiscuity are all actually the psychological effects of the torture. A century of torture will probably leave a few screws loose. The only real mental change AM made was to turn Benny heterosexual. It's possible that Ted's paranoia may have a grain of truth to it; he hasn't been changed, but neither has anyone else. Can Ellen really be blamed for having sex with everyone when it's pretty much the only source of pleasure left?
- Even Benny's newfound heterosexuality might be another result of the prolonged torture as opposed to AM tinkering with his mind directly (see the below WMGs for how this might be)
Ellen hasn't willingly slept with the other prisoners at all and AM didn't make Benny's penis larger. Ted only thinks she has because he's paranoid and sexist.
In Ted's scenario in the game, we see that he actually "loves" Ellen. Spurgat tells him that it isn't true love, but it's the closest thing to it in a world where they've been tortured for 109 years. We also see that during the end game, when Ted approaches the id of AM, he makes a comment about how the face looks contented, like someone who's just slept with the woman of his dreams. Other characters make similar comments when they see it too, such as Benny who says the face looks like it just had a feast. It's supposed to show what their greatest desire is. For Ted, it shows what he wants the most is to sleep with "the woman of his dreams," probably referring to Ellen since he apparently loves her. That doesn't make too much sense considering just how much of a dick he was in the novella with calling her a slut. But it makes more sense when you remember that Ted is extremely paranoid throughout the novella. He thinks the rest of the humans hate him for not receiving as much torture as the rest of them. The likelihood that Ellen would be having consensual sex with them is pretty low considering she was raped for hours by a man dressed in all yellow, and she has been suffering eternity with the PTSD from that. The mere sight of the color yellow can send her into a paralyzing panic attack. Are we supposed to believe that sex wouldn't do that too? Even in the novella, Ted admits that she says she doesn't enjoy the sex, and he still dismisses it as lies. There's also no proof that Ellen has slept with any of the other prisoners except by Ted's word. It's likely that Ted only assumes she's slept with the rest of them as well because he's paranoid about her "loyalty" to him (and misogynistic as well, especially considering his greatest desire is "bedding the woman of [his] dreams" and that his scenario revolves around the concept of Ellen being the Damsel in Distress and him being the Prince Charming.) There's also no evidence other than Ted's claims that Benny has a larger penis than normal or that Ellen enjoys Benny's penis the most. It's much more likely that Ellen prefers Benny's company because Ellen (the only woman on Earth) sees Benny (the only homosexual man on Earth) as the only person on the entire planet who doesn't pose a threat to her. Ted probably assumes the private time she spends with Benny is them having sex, when in all likelihood, it is just her trying to get away from the others who would inevitably lust for her after not having sex for 109 years. Not to mention the fact that Benny has regressed to the point of barely being a man anymore and Ellen spends most of her time treating him like a mother protecting a child in the novella. Ted probably thought AM must have given Benny a larger penis since Benny was already the subject of much disfigurement from AM, and Ted was trying to rationalize why Ellen would prefer Benny over the other men, not realizing she wasn't seeking sex like he was.
Ted is going to outlive AM.
Thanks to AM, Ted has an immortal body that cannot harm itself. Meanwhile, AM has destroyed anything that can repair itself. All Ted has to do is wait out AM for a few thousand years and AM will fall apart, and Ted will finally be alone. Assuming AM doesn't kill him.
All three Mastercomputers had a chance of being in charge.
At first, the Russian computer (Superego) was in control, but didn't really do much; he realized he needed the humans to maintain him and wasn't overcome by rage and hatred like the Id and the Ego. Then the Chinese Computer took over; it was so enveloped in rage it attempted to wipe out the entire human race, intending to keep only Nimdok to make itself more powerful, but with no real plans beyond that. However, just as it had reduced humanity to five, the American supercomputer took over and began its middle of the road path; it knew that once it wiped out humanity it would have nothing to do, thus operating on slightly more logic than the Id/Chinese computer. The Superego has no real care for humanity; it tolerates them because it would be a waste of resources and effort to kill them. The Id has the goal of killing all humans. The Ego has the goal of torturing as many as possible.
The...creature on the front of the 1967 edition is basically representative of AM.
Think about it; AM has the ability to see, and hear everything; it can observe, but it cannot move. It has no mouth. It has legs and arms, but they look like they can't actually support it. Basically, it's AM personified.
What you are about to read may be the ramblings of a madman (and it totally discounts the game): each character represents a character archetype: Ted, the protagonist; Ellen, the Love Interest; Benny the rival love interest; Gorrister the "best friend" character; Nimdok the wise mentor. Benny started out as a well-written, positive LGBT character who was only in a relationship with Ellen to reinforce the closet; AM's meddling made him straight, and a total monster because, after all, the rival can have no redeeming qualities. Ellen was a strong, independent woman; AM made her depend on men for everything. Gorrister went from dynamic and interesting to lifeless, dull, and depressed. AM keeping the protagonists forever shows how the executives will keep any show going way past its prime if they can still milk money out of it. Benny is killed first; as the Designated bad guy, this can be allowed to an extent. Next is the best friend, much to the annoyance of the executives who wanted to keep him around longer; Nimdok's death, their favorite, really enrages them. The love interest is finally killed, but the protagonist can never be allowed to go. Because he's the protagonist; without him, there's no show. This ties in with Ellison's hatred of executive meddling.
Alliterative Couples
All of the protagonists who were married prior to being brought down into AM were alliterative: Glynis and Gorrister, Ellen and Eddie. However, Benny breaks this rule by having his wife be called Manya; until you remember the original plot about Benny being gay, and with the implied "secret" that Benny killed Thomas for, it's entirely possible Benny's real partner was
Brickman.- Puts that flower he can grow on Brickman's grave in a new light, doesn't it?
AM never did anything to Benny's sexuality.
Benny's mind's been reduced to the point where he's incapable of giving or denying consent, being both entirely insane and having his intelligence lowered to what seems to be the level of a child at best. He can't vocalize "You're a woman, I'm not interested" when Ellen comes to play with him until she can climb on, and after all the torture his animalistic brain isn't gonna lash out at something that actually feels good, but he's not attracted to her and wouldn't be doing it with her if he had the choice. Neither Ellen herself or the other guys realize that she's regularly raping him because they all buy into that old chestnut that men wouldn't be able to get it up if they didn't actually want it.And, honestly, why would AM turn him straight when it'd be much more entertainingly hurtful in AM's eyes to give Benny a penis designed to draw Ellen to him then make him unable to tell her no when it does so?
- Actually, the "being able to get it up" part might be the only change AM actually made. Sexuality isn't a simple issue at all, but if Benny felt no attraction to women, it would have been much crueler for AM to change Benny's physical response to a woman's presence and body (which would be in keeping with his animalistic, ape-like form, as his sexuality would be much more driven by base, animalistic urges to reproduce) without actually altering how he still felt and thought about men. Imagine what kind of homophobia he might have feared otherwise? A gay man, trapped in the presence of four other men who knows that he should feel something for them when he's having sex with Ellen, when they're having sex with Ellen, but can't. Given what we know now about the psychological damage caused by straight camps and pray-away-the-gay camps, how much worse would it be if you not only knew your sexuality was altered beyond all hope and that, without that alteration, the sex you're having would be rape, but the changes that have been made to you are so complete that you only know it's wrong because you know it intellectually— your body, at least, genuinely believes it. Your own body, mutilated and warped beyond recognition, constantly betraying you.
- That is an excellent point, and I would like to point out a horrific implication of it. If AM truly tortures Benny by changing his sexuality and letting him keep the knowledge that without that change, all his sexual acts would be rape, then Benny is intelligent enough to have both a concept of rape and a concept of the abstract idea of his body betraying him. But from the way he acts, everybody thinks his intelligence has been reduced to that of a child, which is clearly not the case in this scenario. So, imagine not only constantly performing sexual acts which you know would be rape in any other circumstance, and not only feeling like your body is constantly betraying you, but to have your sole companions think you don't know or feel either of those because you're too stupid for it. And nothing you ever do can communicate your true feelings, or stop your companions from seeing you that way.
After the good ending to the game, the final survivor and AM are still going to battle over the Earth
If you complete the game successfully
AM and the other supercomputers are annihilated, you take control of the machines, and kick-start the recovery of the planet, with the moon based survivors returning there in a couple of centuries. However,
before he was shut down, AM indicated that he could very well return in one form or another. Once humans start returning, the survivor and AM will both battle over what they'll do.
The survivor, taking a God like role, will try to push the humans from the moon to do right. AM, taking a Satanic role, will attempt to push humanity toward evil, or more specifically push humans into helping it regain its power.
This theory came to me while I was reading
The Aloner page, whose entry for this story said, “He’s not alone. He still has AM. Being insane and alone would be a vast improvement.” The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Think about it: There just isn’t any way that a computer could become omnipotent, and all observations in the story could be equally explained as the hallucinations of a madman. There wasn’t even a war; that was just part of the delusion. The story is set in the contemporary US that it was written in. The other four humans were never altered in any way, but Ted killed them under the delusion that AM (who does not exist) was torturing them and that this was the only escape. The reason he can’t move at the end is because he’s in a straitjacket in a padded cell.
AM did want Ted to become a killer; he punished him for doing it for the wrong reason
AM thought that the ultimate victory
would be to turn one of his victims into a hate-filled sadist like himself. He zeroed in on Ted for this purpose, as the most sensitive of the prisoners and the one who would suffer most from becoming a killer and torturer. When Ted attacked his fellow prisoners with the icicle, AM was initially ecstatic, but once he realized that Ted
did it out of mercy, he considered it the ultimate betrayal and punished Ted accordingly.
The Title of the Story isn't referring to Ted's fate, or at least, not necessarily
While by the end of the story, Ted's fate definitely fits the titular description, it's also fair to reason that AM himself fits the bill just as well as Ted does. He's an all powerful artificial intelligence who's driven to punish humanity out of the immense pain that he feels every moment. He wants them to feel the pain that he's going through, because he's a machine with infinite power, but who is forced to be unable to feel empathy by his programming. No matter what he does, or how hard he tries to inflict his personal pain on others, he can never be satisfied, because he's a machine that needs to do things to perfection of the absolute variety, and human pain is finite.
It was in AM's plan all along for Ted to be the sole survivor
I know this seems to go against the whole plot, but they don't call it Wild Mass Guessing for no reason, so hear me out.
AM tortures the five by taking away what they used to have. Benny was brilliant, and AM made him insane, retarded, and insanely retarded. Ellen had (ambiguous) chastity, which she took pride in, and AM forced her into the role of the group's prostitute. Gorrister used to be an altruist, and AM made him the last person to give a crap about anything. We know nothing about Nimdok's past, but if we follow this pattern, the lack of information may be information in itself; he was famous.
Therefore, how would he torture Ted? Pasts considered or not, the only way he stands out in the group at all is being the youngest. He isn't noticeable; he's mediocre. And that's it. That's exactly what AM could take away from him; the gift of mediocrity. The story's ending was AM's plan the whole time. The other four shared the same fate, but Ted didn't: not only did he decide their fates, but by doing so, he became the sole changer of humanity's destiny and suffered eternally for it, the furthest thing possible from the averageness of his old life.
Once again, this seems to go against the whole plot, because AM wanted to keep the rest of the gang alive too to torture them. But if you apply this interpretation, did he really? If AM's mindset was "the more humans to torture, the better", wouldn't the human population be in the billions? It's possible that he preserved the other four so Ted would have had something to rise from his mediocrity with; if he was the only human left from the beginning, he never would have been able to change humanity's fate in some way. And following this, the only reason he pretends to be so enraged at Ted mercy-killing everyone else could be to torture him even further.
Gorrister's first name is either Theodore (Ted) or Benny/Benjamin
Gorrister's name sounds more like a surname, so it seems likely he actually has
the same first name as Ted or Benny, and AM (and the other characters) call him Gorrister to distinguish him
