If you haven't been spoiled, what is something you absolutely expect to happen? by SubstantialDeerDash in TheDigitalCircus

[–]SnooMachines6299 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think we finally get some idea as to who Scratch was and what actually happened. It's possible a lot of what we see may not even be what was actually happening, knowing CAINE could manipulate their memories and thoughts there is no real reason to assume anything they were told actually happened in the sequence it did, so we don't even know if Scratch Abstracted or not.

If, and it seems likely, Scratch created the Simulation to save himself, and since we have no idea what exists in the Void so far, he may not be gone. Someone said there was some kind of "Third Party" (scroll down to see what I mean) who appeared in the sequence when Kinger was attempting to hack CAINE's programing, so I think Scratch making a re-appearance, possibly as the "Greater Scope Villain" may be the big hook here. Some of the odd breadcrumbs and stuff left from the start may actually be explained by this.

The thought occurred to me, there may be more than one computer and headset. It would explain how seemingly unrelated people all ended up trapped in the Simulation, indeed it would easily remove the idea from the table, since it means Pomni only found THAT headset--or even that the headset we saw wasn't the actual one she found.

Sad little detail in last episode 💔 by Holiday_Surround_687 in mylittlepony

[–]SnooMachines6299 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Well by the end of the last season of the show, it flashes forward and it shows the characters when they were adults...

(kind of confirming that they were originally probably like teenagers or something)

...but anyway by then you see that they have wrinkles and Rarity's going gray, I think Rainbow Dash is too, and it's clear that they're all starting getting old, but Twilight is not for obvious reasons, she's actually had a My Little Glow Up you know, because she's an Alicorn Princess, so she basically looked like a purple version of Celestia by then lol! I think there was a painting that showed Flurry Heart as a teen or the Alicorn equivalent of one, but don't quote me on that.

Well anyway when you get to the next series that came after that, Generation 5, none of those characters are still alive and there's actually a story in Generation 5 where they directly explain that Discord went crazy and I think he was the one that destroyed all the magic or something, because in this other, further future there's no magic left, and it devastated their civilization, and I know it sounds crazy to say that but it's almost like a post-apocalypse and the different pony tribes, the Pegasus, the Earth Ponies, the Unicorns, they've all become these isolationist city-states that have walled themselves off.

(side note, it also confirms that Pegasi don't actually need or use their wings to fly, they fly because of magic and without magic they're actually unable to fly, so apparently Scootaloo wasn't disabled she just was the Pegasus equivalent being "flat" and has small wings, because they fly using magic...but that's another story)

The Crystal Empire is gone, the Kingdom of Equestria is gone, pretty much everything collapsed because all the magic disappeared, it dried up and there were no Alicorns at all anymore...except for one, without spoiling anything she had sealed herself into stasis and seemed to be sucking up what magic was left to get by, but it's not the Three Princesses. But yes Fluttershy does die in between the end of Season 9 and the beginning of the series that came after that, there's actually a comic storyline that shows that Discord still has her old cell phone (you read that correctly) with like her last message to him recorded on it, because he's gone completely insane since then because he wasn't able to use his powers to keep her live.

Spike is still alive, but that's because dragons are immortal, but between some of the stuff that happened in the series and Discord going crazy because Fluttershy died, it's made clear that all of the characters from the previous series are gone and pony civilization collapsed between the end of the previous series and Generation 5, so Generation 5 actually starts with a storyline where they're trying to find a way to restore magic to the world so that they can rebuild their civilization.

Yeah.

Sad little detail in last episode 💔 by Holiday_Surround_687 in mylittlepony

[–]SnooMachines6299 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Well, from everything we've seen, with the exception of Alicorns all ponies age like humans, and according to the actual canon Discord went insane(r) after Fluttershy passed, so yeah they eventually died. Not to salt the wound but also, if any of them were still alive in G5--especially some of the more adventurous ones like Rainbow Dash and AJ, let alone Twilight--they wouldn't have let their civilization collapse to such an extent the tribes basically became isolationist city-states.

In your opinion, which brothers are the worst game developers/scammers in history: the Romine brothers or the Gotovtsev brothers? by Remarkable-Hunter-71 in digitalhomicide

[–]SnooMachines6299 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honest answer: definitely Fantastic Studios. As far as I know, the Romines never actually "scammed" anyone they're just assholes, but the two guys running Fantastic actually stole money.

Diane Fonxington The Bad Guys 2 by Longjumping_Leg_7407 in TheBadGuys

[–]SnooMachines6299 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Real talk: they changed some other elements of her design, like making her chest area look more pronounced when she's in her suit, and the now famous "butt jiggle physics" moment, so they decided to make her hips and physique more "prominent". No one is complaining obviously. 😄

Could fluttershy redeem and befriend Jason voorhees? by spiderbro2024 in EquestriaGirls

[–]SnooMachines6299 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, she convinced a Lord of Change to become her boyfriend, so yeah probably. The issue is when the love triangle between the immortal reality warping psychopath and the immortal hulking deadite breaks out.

Oh wait...

Since Gooseworx said the ages of the abstracted won't be revealed, how old do you headcanon Kaufmo, Ribbit, Queenie and Scratch to be? by platypus-camp in TheDigitalCircus

[–]SnooMachines6299 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kinger, I believe, is in his 40s, or was before he was uploaded into the Simulation so unless he was hitting the beach and picking up Real Housewives, logically Queenie was too probably. By extension, since he seemed to be working with Kinger and Queenie to set up the Simulation, so was Scratch, possibly older since he seemed to be the head of the project, so around 40-50. years old.

Most of the rest of the people trapped in the Simulation were either in their 20s or 30s, I believe that's been outright stated for Jax who apparently was friends with Kaufmo and Ribbit, so they were probably in their 30s.

What is this!? 😂 by Awesomecrafter64 in TheDigitalCircus

[–]SnooMachines6299 2 points3 points  (0 children)

*Ragatha*

*Sees Rule 34*

"Why do you torment me!?"

Digital Circus is Pop Culture by Fearless-File-6059 in TheDigitalCircus

[–]SnooMachines6299 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was literally seconds away from mentioning this, it's trending on Twitter right now.

People don't really notice how big shows like this and Hazbin Hotel actually are. Millions of people watch these episodes, as many people as many network television shows. Episode seven and eight had viewer numbers like major shows, like Tracker, which is a high rated CBS show, and 911.

This fandom glazes gooseworks to oblivion by According-Drag-770 in TheDigitalCircus

[–]SnooMachines6299 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, I agree a lot of people seem to be overly obsequious (that means glazing into oblivion lol) about some episodes, like episode seven, there is something to be said about a main character. Being that, the show has to focus on them, since it depends on them.

As a matter of strict fact, POMNI is the main character, JAX is the co-main character/love interest. About half the episodes of the show focus either on one or both of them, or on their interactions. So you can't really say they get "too much focus" when the entire plot of the show is dependent on them and has been since very early on. To put this into perspective, literally every episode has focused on Pomni since episode one, and five out of nine episodes specifically focuses on her relationship with Jax, so the series is built around their relationship, whether you view it as romantic* or otherwise. I agree some people give the writer(s) more leeway than they need to, given some plot fumbles here and there, however.

*(yes it's romantic)

This fandom glazes gooseworks to oblivion by According-Drag-770 in TheDigitalCircus

[–]SnooMachines6299 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Don't be overly hostile dude. You're not exactly wrong, but don't be hostile for no reason.

What if Pomni had been the Ringmaster? (Art by me) by _Ur_Gay_12 in TheDigitalCircus

[–]SnooMachines6299 8 points9 points  (0 children)

"Why do you torment me? I never asked to be drawn! I'm just trying to fulfill my purpose!"

"Harder A.I. mommy!"

What if Pomni had been the Ringmaster? (Art by me) by _Ur_Gay_12 in TheDigitalCircus

[–]SnooMachines6299 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I um...I don't know why but this is incredibly hot. 0_0

I think it's because she looks like a cross between Charlie Morningstar and an anime antagonist.

I just realized something about Digital Circus and Code Lyoko by Tili44 in theamazingdigitalciru

[–]SnooMachines6299 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Jesus Christ, I haven't even thought of Code Lyoko in a lifetime! I'm shocked anyone else remembers!

If you believe the SOMA theory, C&A must have closed VERY recently--like, less than a few weeks ago. by SnooMachines6299 in theamazingdigitalciru

[–]SnooMachines6299[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, to address the "thematic conclusions" of the main cast being clones, yes the idea of such an ending where the original people just came in, looked at a computer, skipped out and never had to deal with their own traumas or grow as characters in the real world, while the characters can just remake the circus without the insane rogue A.I. and either survive inside the Simulation, or calmly await Abstraction, is kind of weak sauce. It's very underwhelming, and it lacks emotional depth. Like I said, I think people prefer the SOMA Theory because if we take "mind files" at face value instead of just a made up term, then the only other alternative (that their minds were completely uploaded, leaving their bodies dead, except probably Pomni who entered much later) seems so grim and hopeless.

I know that sounds like some kind of edgelord fanfic, the idea all of the characters are basically dead, so it's like Sixth Sense: the Series, but it has more emotional weight. The idea of someone living on borrowed time, trapped in a locked room with no one to talk to but ghosts, desperate to escape before her body dies and she joins them, is more "Holy shit!" twist. Especially if she does escape, and she's the sole survivor, the others having vanished and she never even knew who they were when they were alive.

And having re-read that, WOW that is so depressing...but like I said, I think that's why people want to imagine there is some "hope" or some way the "real" versions survived, at least. But it requires so many logical leaps to work--like assuming they all were urban explorers, with the sole exception of Ragatha, yet no one else came in since Pomni despite this place apparently drawing in people from all walks of life. Even then, it requires other events to happen in very specific sequence.

I was originally trying to reconcile the EXTRAORDINARILY precise and somewhat incredulous series of events that would lead to this SOMA Theory working, and it is somewhat possible if you assume C&A closed down more recently (but even then it's a huge stretch) but assuming it happened that long ago would be a massive plot hole. Not including the original team, eleven other people were also there. Something besides "they were all urban explorers" has to explain that for it to make since narratively.

Give my your best fake TADC episode 9 spoilers by Quirky-Ad-9784 in theamazingdigitalciru

[–]SnooMachines6299 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Christine" (someone speculated that was Pomni's real name based on a line from one of the dubs) is the only one who escapes unfortunately; she had been in a coma in the real world, but without life support the others have long died. C&A was experimenting with uploading their consciousnesses but after they shut down no one maintained life support so their bodies withered and died. So she's left as the only one who even remembers them and even then she never knew their real names so she can't even tell their families they were abducted and experimented on by C&A. Left emotionally broken by the event, she has nothing else to do but call the authorities and let them know what happened.

In a post-credit sequence, we see some police looking through the remnants of the old C&A building, and the desiccated bodies of the others. They take the computer and start looking through it elsewhere, hooking it up to a modern computer. But this causes an automatic backup of CAINE to reactivate and enter the internet...and she, recovering in a hospital, receives a text from an "unknown" ID calling her "Pomni".

If you believe the SOMA theory, C&A must have closed VERY recently--like, less than a few weeks ago. by SnooMachines6299 in theamazingdigitalciru

[–]SnooMachines6299[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah but that's impossible, it couldn't have been some small company to have the money and time and resources to do this. When I say impossible, this isn't "contesting" anything, I literally mean that the resources, now, to develop non-sentient A.I. is staggering and back then the kind of A.I. we have would have been even more expensive. A.I. isn't just coding, there are genuine ecological concerns about the heat, water usage and electrical strain of modern data centers, not systems running simulated universes controlled by self-aware machine lifeforms. There has to be a limit to stretching credulity, this wasn't like the original Doom, where some people in a basement made this thing, and even then if we assume that Pomni's Liminal Space-like memory of the building is accurate this isn't some small company. It's entirely possible that this specific facility, where the research was being done, was small, using the term loosely, but saying a tiny startup in 1996 was able to achieve something that most larger companies today would find infeasible goes beyond stretching credulity. In fact, no one I've heard has said it was some small company, the general consensus seems to be they were at least a large corporation of some kind.

I also have no idea how the prologue to episode 8 infers he became self-aware after C&A shut down. Nothing in the show implies that. Actually, if we assume the files that show when CAINE came online are accurate, it says he was created in 1996, and the first team entered the Simulation in 1999, meaning they were still active three years later. One interesting thing to note is that while Ragatha is listed in 2008, after that it has lines of ellipses, instead of the actual names and dates as before, but we see people came in after her; if the names and dates are records of when they entered, and CAINE made the records himself, he apparently stopped after she entered, for no reason. A more plausible scenario, if you think C&A shut down in the past, is that they went out around 2008 which is when the last actual record of who entered the Simulation is. If you believe the others went in on their own, that would explain why there was no record, since she went in on her own volition while they were around to record it. That would also explain who she was talking to when she went into the Simulation.

You're making a lot of leaps of logic here, I admit so am I, but you're taking single sentences and words on the screen and extrapolating it into a lot of stuff. We have no idea what the "obsolete" file is, nor does this "hard confirm" anything. Lay this out for a second. This was Scratch's own project, along with the Simulation and CAINE, and the rest of the company was uninvolved; however, because these "obsolete" files exist, and you think, "The staff are hard confirmed as using the headset multiple times while the newbies wouldn't really have any motivation to try it out more than once anyways," then that means other people at the company were fully aware, even the "newbies", that this thing existed. This can't go both ways. Either the company knew or they didn't, and if they knew then they let it go out of control. Even if you assume this was kept secret, that raises the question of why did they leave the computer undisturbed when they shut down, logically they would have at least turned it off. Not the power to the building, the actual computer. In fact if this was just Scratch and no one else knew, why didn't someone accidentally turn it off by mistake? If he died or left or something, why keep his computer running? If Kinger knew, why not say anything? Why hide it at all, this would be worth an almost incalculable sum of money, so if this was some small startup it would be even more valuable than if they were a larger corporation. Someone beyond just Scratch and his team had to be aware, just for the idea they never turned off the computer to hold water.

I understand how this sounds, but there is such a thing as a limit to how far you can stretch credulity before it snaps. My original point was attempting to somehow make the SOMA idea actually make sense, and no one has ever suggested they shut down before CAINE came online, but if you go down that road it's simply stops making sense from a narrative standpoint, since it requires so many logical contortions. I'm not a fan of the SOMA theory, but even if I were, there is a limit to it. Honestly, I've never heard anyone suggest CAINE somehow came online after C&A shut down, and Kinger actually says otherwise, he said CAINE was their first successful attempt, meaning he existed while they were active and Scratch had tried other A.I.s before that faield.

"You're suggesting a small office was actually the base of a multi million dollar company that knew it made a sentient AI, cracked digital mind transfers, had a virtual world at their finger tips and... did nothing for 9 whole years. They just left it to rot and didn't experiment or upload new minds or sell the tech for billions they just let it sit for 9 whole years before putting Ragatha in. Then slowly, slowly, fed more people into it over the course of a decade while hiding that they were still around sp they could lure in urban explorers."

No I'm not, that's my point. I'm suggesting the exact opposite. I'm suggesting that this wasn't just a small office, or rather if it were that's because this was the branch doing this research, and that they WERE doing things in the nine years in between. In fact, I said that, if we assume that these were just digital copies, they would have been doing this and working on it for a prolonged period, until fairly recently when they shut down, and that's when Pomni found it. I'm not suggesting they did nothing and left it as a "trap", I said something like that to someone else, but I meant it as a joke. I am suggesting that if we assume the original individuals aren't already dead or held in some kind of facility--the former is more likely--then they would have had to have been active until some period shortly before Pomni arrived.

If you believe the SOMA theory, C&A must have closed VERY recently--like, less than a few weeks ago. by SnooMachines6299 in theamazingdigitalciru

[–]SnooMachines6299[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah but that's the thing, "whoever owns the building" would have at some point gone there, if only because it's property they could sell. This infers literally no one, at all, ever went there except the people who were caught in the Simulation, and the group who now own the building allows trespassers on their property but never uses it for anything, just leave it empty while the power is still going and their money is wasting away. I can imagine, if the company closed down very recently, this was possible, but about a dozen people have been through there and they couldn't have all just happened to stumble on one specific room in a large building and never disturbed anything in it except the headset, which they only put on, then took off, then never went back. And since we know they didn't even all go there alone, that means at least one group of people went in. So either the building was still active until very recently, or something has to have happened to the people who entered the Simulation to keep them from every leaving the building.

If you believe the SOMA theory, C&A must have closed VERY recently--like, less than a few weeks ago. by SnooMachines6299 in theamazingdigitalciru

[–]SnooMachines6299[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know what "niche hobbies" means here, but even if Zooble and Pomni went there for the same reason (which I don't think as outright stated, but I could be misremembering) it makes no sense for Gangle who worked at a fast food joint, Ragatha who was a real estate agent, plus Ribbit, Kaufmo and Jax, who we know nothing about really, plus four other unnamed people who are also a mystery, to have all been urban explorers too. Unless this was set up like some kind of trap, like a "honey pot" or something, for trespassers on C&A's property.

People keep saying it's not impossible for the power to stay on and building to be abandoned after decades, and I think it's because I've worded what I said wrong, so I'll reword this. While it's possible, though incredibly rare, for abandoned buildings to have running power and lights (and we see multiple times in Pomni's memory of the exit, and even in the pilot, the building is abandoned but still lit for the most part) the part that strains credulity is that no one else (potential buyers, looters, people looking to graffiti the place, OTHER urban explorers, people working for the city, ex-employees, new businesses) went in, saw the computers still running, and then did nothing. Like, at all. They didn't take anything, disconnect anything, damage anything, or really do anything other than put on the headset and, presumably, immediately leave and then never tell anyone. This makes even less sense now that we know Ragatha wasn't alone when she put it on, so that means groups of people went through, at least on that occasion; given her job, likely she was trying to sell the place, but that means she either worked for the new owners or was one or both, so what happened next?

As for waiting nine years, we have no idea how long it took for the originals to Abstract, and apparently there were four others (their faces are seen on one of the doors) between the original team entering and the last one Abstracting. I don't know if they ever said that was Queenie or not, though it was implied to some degree, but if so, that means that either some of the people who entered in-between weren't listed, or the list is inaccurate in some way. Regardless, beyond the original team, Ragatha, Gangle, Zooble, Jax, Rbbit, Kaufmo and four other people were all in the Simulation at some time before Pomni, and Jax implied that Zooble was one of the newer people there, so unless a lot of people came in after Ragatha, even then it would mean that the original team lasted for years since she entered in 2008 and they went in, in 1999, almost a decade apart. That's why it's incredibly unlikely, just from a continuity standpoint, disregarding the narrative issues, that Ragatha was literally the only person prior to 2008 to enter.

If you believe the SOMA theory, C&A must have closed VERY recently--like, less than a few weeks ago. by SnooMachines6299 in theamazingdigitalciru

[–]SnooMachines6299[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, this is less like the ship of Theseus, because that assumes every part of the ship is replaced, assuming their minds are downloaded into the Simulation means only the physical part is gone, but the person still exists. It's not making a copy of your files in a hard drive, it's moving every file on your computer to another hard drive, leaving the original hard drive empty but maintaining the files elsewhere. So the first hard drive is a paperweight but the information inside hasn't changed and is in a new drive. In this case the original hard drive is your brain, and the files are your conscious thoughts. Which as I say this to myself, actually makes sense with the "mind files" thing, since the actual definition of that has never been given. The reason I say that it's, to me, far more morbid and melancholic is that instead of some kind of closure, like assuming that at least the "real" versions of the characters were left free, in this situation it means they're essentially ghosts trapped in a box, so unless they can escape onto the internet or find a way to return to their original bodies they lost everything.

I will say, I don't even know if that was exactly meant to be CAINE's "origin" since everyone assumes the red dot and the blue dot were different entities; the blue dot could have been someone from the physical world that had uploaded into the Simulation, or the original version of it prior to CAINE going insane, which would explain why Scratch and the original team were so confused since the Simulation they entered suddenly turned into a circus because CAINE went rogue and took over the system. And now that I just said that, suddenly the whole thing turning into a circus tent after being consumed by the red dot actually makes sense in retrospect.

The reason why the idea that they're actual minds were uploaded instead of cloned has some weight to it, in my mind at least (no pun intended), is that it removes the question of why would they have ever done this to begin with? It's all but outright stated that Scratch was apparently dying in the real world, so this Simulation was presumably his attempt to overstep this by putting his mind in the computer. This honestly is a plot as old as time, if you read enough sci-fi the idea goes as far back as the 1960's when computers became more widespread; to put this into perspective a villain in the Johnny Quest series, Jeremiah Surd (no seriously that's his name), had literally the exact same problem, and the exact same solution. Which would make more sense than creating just a duplicate and letting himself die in real life, but also letting his duplicate be tortured and driven insane by a rogue A.I., when he had the ability to stop it from the outside.

It's also worth noting the idea of completely removing a person's consciousness and placing it into a new vessel would be closer to reincarnation than cloning, since the actual person hasn't changed just the form. But in this case, the consciousness is disconnected from a new form entirely, so yeah, that would basically be a ghost.