Rooster Teeth's gen: Lock

Compared to the previous map we saw, the situation is actually a lot better in Eastern Eurasia. the Union previously controlled most of the Chinese coast, which is where the majority of the country's GDP comes from (and in 2050 China is projected to be the world's largest economy both in nominal and PPP terms) and where most of the population lives.

Meanwhile the situation is stagnant in India, the world's second largest economy; it's the western hemisphere where the Polity seems to be getting its ass kicked.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 12th 2019 at 10:27:24 AM

There's also the fact that they lump in Polity with Union opposition, so nothing says that everyone in blue is actually working together, just against the Union. I can't very well imagine Russia joining a military-political coalition with the West, for instance.

Edited by danime91 on Feb 12th 2019 at 8:53:37 AM

IRL there was a sort of lull between the end of World War 2 and the start of the Cold War where the allies remained on speaking terms; this period lead to the establishment of the UN and the framework for modern international relations.

Perhaps runaway climate change resulted in a crisis (RIP Florida) that could not be addressed without a greater degree of global governance, leading to a quasi-United Nations Is a Superpower scenario that nobody was really happy with and which had serious systemic flaws ala the Eurozone that eventually brought about the series of events leading to the formation of the Union as a backlash against ineffectual global governance.

The only problem with that is how what we've seen of the Union so far doesn't really lend itself to them being a populist movement; how the hell are they so technologically advanced if that's the case?

One other possible reason for the Union's disjointed territory is that they're invading from outer space and this is a Gundam style war between Earth and its colonies.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 12th 2019 at 12:27:49 PM

Obviously, they just needed to make it look like they thought about it all slightly harder than "Someone invades New York again".

The assumption is that whatever the Union started as, anti-globalism/ Far Right Redditors/ Whatever they clearly have a functioning government that their initial movement evolved into. Pleas for emigration, propaganda, a formalized military that probably includes a dedicated command structure, etc.

Of course this swings back to asking what is the Union’s ideology, and how long have they existed as a formalized government and just a message board.

The presence of all these other theatres of war does make one wonder what’s going on elsewhere. The Holon only exist in North America, and Dr. Weller made it VERY clear he was a long ways away from mass production of Holons, much less having gen:Lock ready to field a platoon of soldiers. Given that and the overwhelming technological advantage the Union has, the only thing the Russians, Chinese and other Polity forces might have is numerical superiority, and that only works for so long. Unless of course they’re working on their own machines and we get a spinoff about the Asian theatre. A video game perhaps?

Oh, by the way the Union Mech has an official name According to the concept artist for it:https://twitter.com/Cbotme/status/1095290046075219969?s=20

'Nemesis"

While things are bleak in the North American theater, it seems more even in East Asia, with two of the three Union fronts against China collapsing between 2068 and 2072 and the Northern Chinese theater remaining largely stagnant, possibly because of Russia's entrance into the war. That might be why the Union is attacking from the east coast, the polity and allies are still putting up a significant fight in the Pacific theater.

Edit: Also, Switzerland is surprisingly non-neutral. I wonder how that happened.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 12th 2019 at 4:23:28 AM

Because mountains and bank accounts don't do much against people with planes raining killer nanos on you.

Sounds like you're not using enough bank accounts then

Yes, but that means the Union attacked them first, which given the strict Swiss neutrality policy and their incredibly defensive strategic position is rather surprising.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 12th 2019 at 5:42:15 AM

Their neutral stance wouldn't mean squat if the Union's goal is global unification. Switzerland has to be conquered sooner or later. And how defensible they are also comes into question when up against Tripods and nano-swarms.

Another possibility is sleeper agents armed with disguised nanobots, like !Sinclair. Perhaps they tried to launch a covert coup, but failed, and Switzerland realized that sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring this particular conflict wouldn't work, so they decided to throw their lot in with the Polity. Or at least recognize the Union as an aggressor that wouldn't be appeased.

Edited by danime91 on Feb 12th 2019 at 3:44:18 AM

Nah, Sydney’s still on the map here.

The full version of Belgrade by Battle Tapes was posted on Youtube

New episode is up, with a healthy dose of Transhumanism meta context, Cammie vs trauma, a guest spot from Pro ZD of Anime Crimes Division fame, and some more vague hints as to what Nemesis is, but none as to what the Union is.

I’m having fun, but the enemy needs a face soon.

So we open with a healthy dose of PTSD for Cammie, poor girl. Looks like there's some personality rewriting function in the holons?

Apparently everyone starts getting dreams about being a skinjob sooner or later, but different for each one - Yaz accidentally reveals that she's naked with Barbie Doll Anatomy, Valentina teasingly talks about having different sorts of dreams about being a different sort of robot for years now, if you catch my drift.

First upgrades for the holons! Just basic custom weaponry/gadgets at this point.

Nemesis is back, and speaks more clearly than ever (lines identified with the help of subs): "Miranda" "You think too loud, you haven't shut up since your birthday" "Let the good times roll" "Copy-Kill Copy"

Also a neat little detail, when Cammie and Valentina do the mindlink thing, its Val we see.

Edit: Yeah, I like all the character bits our main cast is getting, but the lack of anything for the Union is getting old. Maybe the plan is to expand on them once we learn more about Yaz's past?

Edited by TheAirman on Feb 16th 2019 at 1:06:51 PM

So it seems about 99% sure the union holon is piloted by a (probably incomplete) digital copy of Chase at this point; that's a pretty awesome way to work Mind Uploading into a narrative.

, I agree, it's getting old not knowing what we're fighting about.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 16th 2019 at 2:19:50 PM

Union infodump will probably take a full episode. Now that we have some PO Ws to debrief it might happen next time.

The Nemesis is an interesting threat, we've seen it retreat twice now and it's clear it can't take on all of our heroes... At the same time. But they still fear it, rightfully so, because it's smart and will try and pick them off one by one. No wonder they're having nightmares about the thing. Reminds me of the Xenomorph actually.

Well he was afflicted by their nanotech...

Man, I really like this episode too. Some really poignant lines (Chase tears up at a jetpack but hey wouldn't you.) and diving into the ramifications of the Gen: Lock system. It's clear Cammie's shaping up to be everyone's little sister, as if the team rallying around her when she was in danger wasn't enough. Her punting a union soldier continues her trend of brutalizing them in hilarious ways.

Of course they give Kazu a katana, although an Axe would have made more sense IMHO.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Feb 16th 2019 at 2:53:07 PM

I'm half wondering if the nanotech thing was a lie that Weller told Chase to explain why they couldn't fix his "body", and in actuality the Chase we're following is a digital copy of Chase's mind reconstructed from a brain scan taken before the battle of New York inserted into a cyborg/quasi-vat grown body and led to believe he survived a crash that should've turned his body to pulp.

Considering the massive head trauma he was told he had suffered, he probably wouldn't be all that bothered by the lack of memories from the battle. Indeed, my first guess when Chase died was that "our" chase was going to be a whole brain emulation. After it was revealed he was in a tank, I kind of dropped that, but it would be a hell of a twist on par with RVB's AI twist if both our Chase and Nemesis Chase are digital copies of a dead person.

Edit: Also, I'm going to theorize that the uploading isn't cut and paste like the show (and Weller) has lead us to believe, it's copy and paste like real Mind Uploading would be*, and the reason for uptime limits is to ensure that the digital copies don't diverge far enough from their human counterpart to prevent them from being reintegrated into their human consciousness; eventually someone's going to blow past uptime limits or have their "mindframe" stolen by Nemesis, only for them to wake up just fine in their human body with no memories of having uploaded into the Holon, and find a very distressed copy of themselves staring back at them the next time they enter the Holon bay if we're going with the uptime limit scenario.

* Ignoring that the most plausible way of digitizing a brain IRL would involve flash freezing it in liquid helium and imaging the brain down to the molecular level with an electron microscope one layer at a time.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 16th 2019 at 3:06:27 PM

Dunno why you spoilered it since it's all conjecture and not any sort of confirmed or actual spoiler.

But yeah, would be interesting if the gen:Lock technology meant that you could take a digital copy of a person and, if it's recent enough, download it into their own brain-dead body, or perhaps even into a clone.

Wonder how many episodes until we get Robo-Bunny Cammie.

Edited by danime91 on Feb 16th 2019 at 12:25:35 PM

Heh, going into the Star Trek teleportation physics academy I see.

My theory on the nemesis is The Chase we know is the real Chase, but when he was being retrieved from New York they didn't think they could save him so they made a digital copy of his mind to study. Chase himself miraculously pulled through, but the copy was stolen by the Union in the battle's confusion.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Feb 16th 2019 at 3:23:49 PM

That's how IRL Mind Uploading would work if you could find a way to nondestructively scan the brain.

Because the reason I came up with this theory (or rather why I revived it) was from the most recent episode in the form of Nemesis seemingly being piloted by a copy of Chase.

On a tangent, Yaz has a remark "rewriting yourself, shameful." that makes me think the Union has similar tech to the Gen Lock based personality editing Cammie used on herself, and use that routinely to brainwash dissidents.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 16th 2019 at 3:37:43 PM

Although thinking about it assigning a bunch of pre-sets to give yourself a temporary berserk mode could be useful in a pinch.

Or a sort of anti-panic mode if you find yourself starting to lose it during a mission. There are definitely ways that kind of thing could be used for good, but it's definitely no substitute for proper training, development, counseling, etc.

Plus, if just merely being away from your body for too long results in a neural mismatch and not being able to download back into your body, I doubt messing with brain settings like that would be much better. So even if that worked for Cammie, it would only work while she was in her Holon, and she'd have to revert back to normal settings before downloading anyway.

I wonder how the gen:Lock tech pagifies memories. By the hour? How large is one "memory" file, I wonder? Would it also contain smell, touch, emotional state, other random thoughts you were having at the time, and other associated sensory data?

Edited by danime91 on Feb 16th 2019 at 5:38:47 AM

Huh I just had an argument with someone who said they were gonna drop the show purely because of Val’s little clarity about her gender despite admitting to loving the show overall.

I know people can think what they want but am I wrong for thinking that’s kinda unreasonable?

I imagine there where plenty of people that dropped Star Trek back in the day because it had a black woman working on the bridge.

I'm on the cusp between wondering if they should go more in-depth with how the Gen:Lock system works and wondering if they should just keep it as magic science. The possibilities it's offering in-universe are already being explored, but if they go too deep they might edge into some truly creepy existential Fridge Horror. Which could be neat on its own terms, I guess.