Rooster Teeth's gen: Lock

The implication that Nemesis is running a copy of Chase's mind strongly implies that Gen:Lock runs on hard ("copy and paste") uploading rules rather than soft ("cut and paste") uploading that dodges the philosophical problems.

If that's the case, the reason the pilots go unconscious during uploading would be a deliberate measure to ensure there's not an additional source of divergence from the copy running in the holon which would prevent the copy from being seamlessly reintegrated the copy upon download rather than because their minds are actually leaving their bodies as Weller has led them to believe.

That's what I personally think the twist is going to be to the process; it's the realistic downside to mind uploading, and Weller definitely is hiding something about the process from everyone for morale reasons.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 16th 2019 at 9:13:47 AM

Gen:Lock being a procudure with a lot of possible fucked up shit adds in with the good Dr’s words about how he whole thing is still just barely out of the expriemental phase that required a lot, a lot of fine-tuning.

I rather like the possible existential horror it could provide.

Random theory: Valentina is going to end up with two mechs. Val uses blue tones. While they don't lose the purple entirely, the dominant colour becomes the same rich blue tone that Sinclair and the sixth mech had. So, I'm thinking that, when Val emerges, they will switch to the blue mech. The purple mech will belong to Valentina and the blue mech will belong to Val, and they'll have different customisations.

Another thought I've been having, ever since the second episode: when the recruits are told that if they fail, they'll be sent home, Cammie scoffs with a 'home, he said' type response. I wonder if Cammie has any home to return to. I'm not convinced she does.

I'm going to put the rest of my post into a folder because I'm not sure how much I should be spoiler tagging. But I will just say this: I do love Weller's built-in trolling mechanism when Cammie tries to activate Aim Assist.

That said... are we supposed to read anything in to Weller asking Chase if Chase has ever seen him sleep? I'm in two minds. On one hand, it's an obvious thing for the dedicated scientist (pulling all-nighters or functioning on a small amount of sleep is a thing for these characters). On the other hand, it might mean something else. As it stands, Weller's very much that character type that tends to have an unorthodox past that comes to light in the worst way possible. He's playing the Eccentric Mentor role, after all.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 16th 2019 at 4:12:07 PM

I'm expecting that they're getting live information through the real Chase, either through the nanobots or corrupting the Cyberbrain. So they can constantly stay up to date.

Yes, that's pretty much what I'm thinking, too.

I could swear I heard a line that sounded something like "Haven't shut up since your birthday". For whatever reason it gave me the impression that Nemesis was some sort of signal receiver or always-on mind-reader and was constantly being bombarded by their thoughts or something.

"Haven't shut up since your birthday" was definitely the line; it was subbed.

No name in the credits for the Union holon... was that Gibson? Jordan? Does anyone know?

Also, I note the end credits go with "Val/entina."

Also, does the song that plays around the four-minute mark remind anyone else of "It's Raining Men"?

Edited by TwinBird on Feb 16th 2019 at 8:51:47 AM

Migas most bro-est bro since Guan Yu.

Now gimme more ProZD

Edited by VutherA on Feb 16th 2019 at 12:53:13 PM

@Wyldchyld: Eh, I don't really see the resemblance between Nemesis and the Vanguard Holons beyond the heels. They've repeatedly referred to Chase as a "ghost", and that brings to mind Church from Red Vs Blue, who was initially led to believe he was literally a ghost, only for it to turn out he was an AI, and in Halo/Marathon canon AI are created from human brains.


Accordingly, Nemesis says upon seeing Chase "Copy...Kill...Copy", which implies he sees Chase as a copy; he doesn't have this sort of reaction to anyone else. Now, it might just be a flawed copy of Chase thinking the original is a copy, but I'm personally thinking both him and our Chase are actually copies, Nemesis being a flawed copy of Chase's mind and our Chase being a flawed copy of Chase's body. I think he's able to access the "always on mind to mind network" that was setup between the Holons, which is why he finds Cammie bothersome.


I'm thinking Weller isn't being entirely honest about the state of Chase's body upon recovery; that crash should have turned him to human pulp. What I'm thinking now is that our Chase is a clone with a neural image of Chase imported via Gen:Lock techology; the inability to fully regrow him and the reliance on cybernetics is not due to Union nanotech but rather due to the limitations of Polity cloning technology. Weller's attempts to clone himself failed due to him not being Gen:Lock compatible, which is required to import the neural image into the clone.


As far as Weller's past, I don't think there's anything remarkable there, he was probably a professor at Caltech or some other major California based research institute. I think the stuff he's hiding from the heroes is the nature of Gen:Lock technology; he's leading them to believing it's "cut and paste" when in actuality it's "copy and paste"

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 17th 2019 at 1:03:24 PM

Huh another shot in Sinclair’s Holon, I really wonder who’s gonna pilot they thing & hey it’s a deep, darker shade of blue to contrast from Chase’s lighter sky-blue.

Also wait Cammie’s birthday, when the Hell was Cammie’s birthday?

2nd birthday when they uploaded for the first time.

You definitely heard that line. Nemesis was clutching their head when they said it, too. Also, the timing is notable: they were responding to Cammie talking during her Mindshare with Val/entina, suggesting it might have been able to sense the Mindshare. It at least suggests that's it's connected in some way to the Holon Cyberbrain activity because Cammie has been very active (electronically-speaking) ever since her 'second birthday' because she's been customising her kit.

I don't know. I notice the fandom has latched onto the idea that it's Jordan. I also noticed on the Nightmare Fuel page that people were saying that Nemesis was repeating 'Save me' during the first encounter (the one where Cammie got her head ripped off). I've watched that fight a few times and I cannot hear anything that sounds like speech from Nemesis, but my hearing isn't the best so I could just be missing it. Nothing's subbed for it, however.

That, or he's asking Chase to kill him. It depends. It could be taken either way.

Where's that information revealed? All Weller said was that he's tried to clone himself and failed. I don't recall a reason for the failure ever being mentioned or it being tied into Holon technology.

I'm expecting it to be Val.

Valentina gets the purple Holon, which is customised for Valentina's preferences while Val will end up with the blue Holon, and it will be customised for Val's preferences. I notice that Val has the same rich blue tints for their colour scheme that the blue Holon has.

While a Chase clone/real Chase/Chase brain imprint are the obvious options for Nemesis, I won't be surprised if Nemesis is piloted by the real Sinclair, or a copy of the real Sinclair, and that the Sinclair we met had the real purpose of hacking the Cyberbrain for the Union (in other words, he knew he was on a suicide mission and the talk of stealing the Holon technology was to cover up him talking about a cyber-theft rather than a physical theft). In that case, the appearance of the blue Holon is designed to remind us of Sinclair.

But, then again, it wouldn't surprise me if Nemesis turned out to be Dri either (hence her appearance in the same episode Nemesis is introduced).

I'm easy-going on Nemesis' identity at this point.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 18th 2019 at 1:29:58 PM

That's just a about Weller's attempt(s) to clone himself; a biological clone of him wouldn't be useful for decades even assuming growth acceleration without a way to import his knowledge, and Gen:Lock is the kind of technology that would enable that. Also the fact that he's wearing glasses in an era of widespread retinal AR augmentation kind of brings to mind Hugh Darrow from Deus Ex, the "father" of cybernetic augmentation who is himself incompatible with the technology.

That's what I was thinking until he started talking, and I have fairly good hearing so I'm reasonably confident that's Jordan's voice passed through some filters. IMO if fake Sinclair accomplished something rather than demonstrating the Union doesn't really understand how Gen:Lock technology works (at least to the extent that they don't know how to check for compatibility) it was surreptitiously hooking Nemesis up to the upload mindshare network, allowing him to track the Gen:Lock team and their thoughts, hence him complaining about Cammie thinking too loud since her "birthday."

At this point we should set up a betting pool; will it be Val? Leon? Dri? The real Robert Sinclair? I'll throw another option into the ring in the form of Nemesis Chase following a Heel–Face Turn if the show thinks Clones Are People, Too.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 18th 2019 at 9:06:56 AM

Cammie's handling of PTSD wasn't too bad but I do wish these types of stories would remember that mental health specialists exist for a reason. Cammie really should not have been let back into the field after that sparring match with Kazu.

Well the Nemesis got more unsettling.

So will Dr Wu be a villain?

So anyone took a note that they made a plan and it worked out perfectly?

I mean, how often is plan shown in advance actually working on media?

It’s Li. Wu is the Jurassic Park guy, and if he and his fellows appear again I expect it will be in the background with the engineering team.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 19th 2019 at 9:23:19 AM

Ok, what’s the villain equivalent of a Vanilla Protagonist? Because whatever it would be, the Union qualifies. People on social media are starting to get fed up with a total lack of explanation for what the Union is, and the show’s stubborn refusal to drop all but the most nebulous of hints as to what they are or what they want. I know that Grey Haddock said it wasn’t going to be a focus, but honestly, I’m beginning to think that was a mistake.

Oh dear, people are mad on social media, whatever shall we do?

I’m just asking if there’s an applicable trope for YMMV for this sort of nebulous, underdeveloped villain group. Other than fake Sinclair, we haven’t heard a peep from so much as a grunt.

Generic Doomsday Villain would probably work. Personally, I’m not concered about the lack of development. They focus on establishing the heroes and their relationship before giving time to villains.

The closest match is probably Generic Doomsday Villain, which is basically an antagonist whose only exists to give the protagonists something to fight — they have no real character development beyond "is evil". I'm not sure that the Union would qualify, since there seems to be more to them than just "we want to rule the world", but we haven't seen it yet.

In any case, I was pretty happy with episode 5. We got to see that Cammie's experience affected her, but she's at least trying to deal with it (if not necessarily in a healthy way). We got to see the Vanguard going on the offensive, rather than just responding to the latest Union attack. We got to see the genlock team get a win (if only a partial one) rather than just getting their asses kicked constantly. We got a bit of progress on the Chase/Miranda relationship that makes me optimistic that they're not just going to let that languish indefinitely. We got some interesting hints about Nemesis that deepens the mystery around them in a way that makes them a more interesting character. We still didn't get any info on the Union more generally, but since it was the Vanguard driving the action this time, it wasn't especially noticeable.

The dialogue remains pretty solid, and they've gotten at least one genuine laugh out of me per episode so far. (This episode's was [Chase] What's with everyone pulling all-nighters all of a sudden? [Weller] Have you ever seen me sleep?) There were also some neat character moments, such as when Chase tried to put his holographic arm around Miguel but sort of misses, so Miguel quietly shifts his stance to fit. It was a nice nonverbal way to show that their relationship isn't quite natural yet, but both sides are putting effort into making it work.

My biggest complaint is that the mecha animation has zero weight to it. The worst instance in this episode by far was when Chase falls off the Union transport and lands flat on his back on the highway hard enough to send up a huge dust cloud... yet neither his holon, the wingpack, or the highway has the tiniest bit of damage showing. It's super obviously a limitation of their animation, and they're really inconsistent about writing around it.

They've been pretty inconsistent with the amount of punishment that holons (and other mechs) can take in general. They treat getting shot at like it's a legitimate threat, but I don't think we've seen holons actually take damage except Yas getting stabbed in the gut (and shrugging it off like it's no big deal) in episode 1, and Cammie getting torn up by Nemesis in episode 4. This isn't necessarily a bad thing — the whole sequence with Cammie being dragged behind the APC was an excellent example of working within that limitation. It's an interesting action scene that doesn't rely on the idea of Cammie being in danger to be compelling. But then we get things like Chase pancaking into the landscape or Nemesis getting shot in the face with a sniper rifle without either showing any damage afterward, which is obnoxious. Obviously it's difficult to make 3D models that deform and tear realistically, but the problem is that at this point it's affecting the storytelling. I have no idea what, if anything, actually presents a threat to the holons short of the Nemesis itself.

On the subject of the Nemesis, I'm not really married to any particular theory yet. Lots of interesting possibilities, but no idea what they'll go with in the end. I suspect that the rest of season one will focus on dealing with the threat the Nemesis presents and end with the reveal of what its deal actually is.

On the subject of genlocking being cut-paste vs copy-paste, I find myself liking the idea that it's actually copy-paste and they're just treating it like cut-paste in order to avoid the ethical implications of the alternative. The inevitable plot twist in that case would be either a holon getting its brain computer destroyed and the pilot just waking up, or else the holon-copy getting desynced from the pilot's body and developing into an independent person separate from the person in the meat body. Either would be a more interesting take on the subject than someone just getting stuck in their holon full time, as is the expectation with a fully cut-paste system.

Edited by NativeJovian on Feb 19th 2019 at 1:14:48 PM

Yeah, they did the cut-paste thing with ID0 already, and while it was kind of interesting, dealing with the ramifications of accidentally cloning your mind would be all sorts of interesting.

And potentially screwed up; Weller may be reluctant to share that with the military because of a fear that they'd immediately decide that instead of putting all the effort into training up new holon pilots and screening for Gen:Lock candidates they should just make copies of the ones they have and proceed into mass production.


His Union counterparts naturally don't share the same hangups, but can't replicate the mindframe technology, and have to rely on stolen prototypes for Nemesis, hence the attempts to steal one of the polity Holon's mindframes.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 19th 2019 at 4:02:09 AM

I think rather than not being able to create one, they haven't been able to perfect the technology. Like either the pilot's mind gets stuck in the Holon and they can't download again or the upload is imperfect. They're trying to steal one in order to figure out how to perfect their own.

I wonder if there's a third faction somewhere that said screw it to all this mind upload nonsense and is just focusing on making better AI.

Edited by danime91 on Feb 19th 2019 at 3:47:54 AM

It's questionable on how much the Union knows about gen:lock and the holons. They knew enough about it to send a spy after it, but said spy was unable to pilot one and died trying to. Plus said spy was willing to leave his body behind, due to how gen:lock works.

In fact, considering the spy's fate, it's unlikely the upload is "imperfect." It seems like you either upload or die. No inbetween. Plus, if they were uploading people into their own holons, you think they would have stumbled across the whole "dying if not compatible" thing in the process. But I doubt they did, since they sent a spy who died because of that. So I also doubt they're doing their own gen:lock.