Stray Lore To Sleep To ► Companions & Corporations

once upon a time in a not too distant land in a not too far off future life is fighting to find a way so settle down Tuck in and dream of our little ones Adventure vapora loves tossing buckets with her friends but she's clumsy Yan meditates but does not want to be interrupted razin put tried downloading an Aimbot and installed some malare that turned his face upside down don't tell anyone but I'm creating my own shade of pain May is in her deconstructivist period and is so messy I'm calling it garbage Brown Billy has a leg shake and hangs out at the bar all day with Jacob bartender who employee of the month padro was angry that he was sold a faulty battery though he greets the little one cheerfully funny thing is the merchant is probably also using the same faulty battery arus enjoys playing music that is found by our little one the companions get cold any of them sit idly with colorful blankets Elliot the cater shakes like a drug addict in front of his screens at first I kind of thought he was mimicking human behavior that he had seen however after acquiring the super detergent trading the bartender for some cables and bringing those cables to Grandma Grandma will emit a sweater give the sweater to Elliot and he offers to fix anything our little one needs this whole trading sequence required to advance the game is very telling of the complex systems the companions rely on as a whole grandma is probably my favorite of all these companions she is loved by many for the stylish sweater she knits she sits patiently waiting for more cables so she can continue to knit one of the most fascinating places in the whole game to me is J's Library there are so many books here the touring test Legacy the ethics of artificial intelligence I recognize some of these did I have a library this Library feels like a repurposed apartment perhaps Jess felt some obligation to protect and deserve the books left in this world I remember nothing was quite like the smell of books and the turn of a page it was a feeling almost like Comfort a book was like spending time with someone there are 14 generic book titles and several unique ones broken String Theory guitar maintenance my uncle is lagging spine reading my aunt is a robot might be a comedy about a pervasive issue with within the companion culture most comedy is about real world issues like my bank account all this may appear punny to us on the outside this allows us to understand that perhaps many of these companions had issues with not being able to adapt and evolve to the conditions that they were left in by the humans the four-eyed robot I'm interested if this could be alluding to some kind of leader or enigmatic companion with a different head that happened to have four eyes could also be a nerd companion with glasses this companion is fun to imagine because why would a fored robot have a whole book dedicated to it the bestseller void an essay about nothing the fact that this book is almost everywhere and there are so many copies of it in this Library tells us that the humans and the companions like have adopted an nihilistic outlook on life which makes more sense in these conditions however the adoption of this book across the wild cities can also contribute to the lack of Hope guide to synthetic wine synthetic wine would be the anema to modern-day wine snobs it is readily apparent almost everywhere that a culture of drinking took over during the pandemic within the Walt City the companions adopted this Behavior consuming oil to mimic humans Quantum tunneling a boring book Quantum tunneling is an issue in our real world and it's one of the things limiting our technological advancement transistors cannot get any smaller because transistors can flip from 1 to zero at random because of their small size this is where Quantum Computing comes in but it's expensive and cumbersome however it does currently exist perhaps this book expands on the issue that originally existed and AI move past the alternative is that the society never Advanced Beyond this issue which is why so many copies exist of this book perhaps the humans were encouraging the AI to help with the problem by writing a book that the companions would understand on the other hand if it was written by the companions Perhaps it is an explanation for the humans hence the title being a cheap pun the great bolt shortage upon reading the cover of this book it com be thinking about how unsustainable a city can become once things start to run out what hope is there for a collective society when even basic bolts start to run out there is a book referencing Gravity Falls which has a handprint traded for the PO print and the letter D instead of a number in the middle of the AL Cove of this library is presumably Jess who may have shut off due to books toppling her she was holding a book this book she is holding gives us some insight as to how the companions may have evolved how to develop your artificial intelligence in order to be as creative as a real human volume 42 so this book implies that the companions have developed their AI to act like humans and they are even trying to further Advance their AI to include creativity this stands in direct opposition to what we learn about the scientist in the memory about RAM and b12 tells us that he didn't know the compan would or could evolve digestive systems and is confused by it AI isn't exactly creative if you've played around at all with AI and art chat GPT you might have experienced this for instance chat GPT is a language-based model cannot tell you the right answers to everything accurately and it cannot create new work only string together pre-existing work AI hasn't developed to this level yet in our real world however in this world it appears that companions are teaching each other to enhance their internal software so the only one who's a real person is just the scientist [Music] B12 the only sarcophagus in the game are the one at the scientist's own lab in chapter 3 and later on in chapter 9 ant village it's unclear whether more than one person could use the same sarcophagus considering there aren't more around it becomes difficult to determine whether it is really possible for the companions to be humans unless there's some kind of Bunker or basement of nego Corp hiding a massive amount of these devices feel like it would be fair to conclude that access was limited to a select few special individuals I don't believe that the scientists made the sarcophagus because more than one exists it would be difficult to explain why and how the devices could have even moved to such a place the companions do sleep which is explained by the fact that they can have low batteries one of the things that makes a person sentient is self-awareness I'd say most of the companions are in fact self-aware then there's M much in ant village I do love the smell of fresh paint it reminds me of oh wait I can't smell anything how sad B12 has Amnesia after scanning about who he really is and when he remembers he needs a few minutes but then he can remember everything the various shades of death that we see companions subjected to in jail lead to questions of what the definition of death is if the mind of a human is uploaded into a companion then is that person still alive what if they have the personality but not the memories what if the memories are subsequently deleted B12 was trapped in the network presumably City technical it was dark and he was alone this suggests that Amnesia is a deliberate side effect of being uploaded to the network hundreds of years the scientist waited alone if people can upload their Consciousness who decides if they get a body this begs a question are there others trapped within the network was it only B12 this gets even more complex with the implication of the companion in the sewers within the first shop in Midtown we meet vlat he is casually reading how to be a ninja and The book must be a banger presenting philosophical questions that hang on vat's mind while reading so there's a theory that suggests we are all inside an underground bunker City made up things are presented to us as Shadows on the walls but those Shadows are made up by someone and in order to learn the truth we must exit this underground city at the risk of being dazzled philosophy is considered to be a deeply useful skill by humans Plato believed that philosophy is therapy for the soul this is where we arrive at the most famous philosophical concept allegory of a cave according to Plato this was used to compare the effects of education and the lack of it in our nature in book seven of Plato's book The Republic there are people residing within the cave there is no natural light in this cave the walls are dark the only thing that the people in the cave can see is the Shadows projected by the light of a nearby torch they assume that the Shadows are real and paying attention to the shadows will teach them much about life and the real world oh is that the outside that Momo keeps talking about another picture of the outside get out of here with that stuff it's all nonsense ah the myth of the Blue Sky beautiful concept one of the residents escapes the cave and is dazzled by the sunshine he encounters the true forms of the Shadows he saw within the cave previously he had been looking merely at Phantoms now he is nearer to the true nature of being there are ones who know about the outside but are to designed to do anything there's a logo of The Outsiders they were a group of people looking for the surface Momo was one of them he goes back to the other residents to explain the outside world they don't believe him and eventually plot to kill him I really like the way School of Life put it here the cave dwellers are humans prior to philosophy the sun is the light of reason the alienation of The Returned philosopher is what the truth tellers can expect when they take their knowledge back to the people who have not devoted themselves to thinking this side effect is very telling the companions may not remember ever being human know for a fact that companions were made as helpers to the humans based on the ancient Relic the existence of the sarcophagus blurs the lines between companion and human consider this tomorrow if I replace my arm with another robotic arm and then the next day my other arm to and then my body and so on until I've replaced all my parts and upgraded my software will I be the same robot you are talking to now the ship of Theus is a philosophical question posed by plutar he asks if a ship was made out of a th000 planks of wood and each board was replaced over a thousand years is it still the same ship there are six philosophically accepted answers to this question we will use B12 as an example for the application of understanding this question this is based on the actual question posed by the ship athus in scenario 1 B12 is the scientist the underlying Assumption of scenario 1 is that ordinary objects can survive gradual change in scenario 2 B12 exists and so does the scientist but the scientist also lives in the network better yet his body is still presumably sealed within the sarcophagus scenario 2's underlying assumption is that B12 can't be the scientist because the scientist still exists somewhere else now we have two scientists but which one is the real scientist you can see how this gets extremely convoluted right how does that apply to human consciousness then is human consciousness under the definition of an ordinary object the underlying Assumption of scenario 2 would be building off of the underlying Assumption of scenario 1 the scientist still lives in the network because B12 was just a copy of him this would also make sense because the scientist's entire Consciousness couldn't possibly fit within B12 this would explain the massive amounts of memories that are missing perhaps there was hope that Tech technology would one day be able to hold an entire human consciousness all that would remain are the necessary Parts scenario 3 an object goes where its parts go meaning the scientist is in fact B12 the scientists move through these forces and there's only one Consciousness this creates a problem for the second scenario if both were to exist the first solution for this problem is that no B12 can't be the scientist it is not possible denying the Assumption an object goes where its parts go the second solution is that the scientist eventually died due to change as his Consciousness was copied over and over again not immediately but at some point the third solution is that as soon as his Consciousness was uploaded he was technically dead what if the disc is completely wiped if the head is completely destroyed and removed at some point death happened that's exactly where may be a question for philosophers and a new version of the scientist was born the destruction of each Consciousness was replaced by the birth of a new one the fourth solution is that both the scientist and b12 are both the scientist this denies the transitivity of identity solution five is that it's no longer clear who the scientist really is it becomes a four-dimensional problem called a wormhole solution this adopts a separate Paradigm that looks at the object differently this would mean that every version of the scientist throughout all time is the scientist if you apply this problem to each companion it becomes really unclear who they are so with this new paradigm in mind my thoughts began racing would Death happen as soon as a person tries to upload their Consciousness or do they survive beyond that does death eventually happen after after copying Consciousness over and over again brains are essentially electrical signal can the Soul really transcend a body is the soul real does the soul even matter in this process uploading may have seemed like the only viable option if the pandemic was extremely deadly as implied by the severity of the punishments on the posters perhaps the humans would have wanted to be uploaded this explains the human-like behaviors that that the companions have for instance why would they have an entire cut scene for watching this argument between two companions if the little one actually observes the conversation the gestures are just so humanlike when Momo bumps into Zach while he's running to the bar there's just this like little headshake same with Kim in ant village when talking to the person running the restaurant Gan ma thinks that nothing makes sense if they can't dance and MO is actually really good at dancing did they learn how to do that as companions or could they actually be human it's these little quirks and how they move and act that cause me to question if the companions were once human what if parts of themselves were lost through the transfer process are they still the same person if they are human each of the companions live in sheer ignorance carrying out old habits [Music] today I'd like to believe that the human race is extremely stubborn I'd wager there is a blend of both human and companion almost creating a new unified hybrid race as a result the most clear example of how companions have evolved is through the beautiful story of a father and a son's mutual love there are familiar relationships same as Mrs father doc they obviously love each other doc longs to survive day after day with the hope of seeing his son famus again this desire to survive is a quality that only living things possess if this were just some mere robot why would they be programmed to care and to love why would they develop their AI to make with these behaviors if not to evolve to me it doesn't matter if they weren't human cuz there's no way that they were programmed to act like this this is the evolution of a race capable of creating artwork poetry science works of fiction economy fla government and civilization companions have evolved together into a new species one that cares for the environment for their Community for justice these companions have evolved Beyond language- based models Beyond AI into something new [Music] human the mighty concrete shielding me in its womb shall you also be my tomb wal City 99 was once a flourishing human society and now there's companions in our last episode we discussed the evolution of companions Within this Society this giant circular City measures about 450 m in diameter sealed by the massive roof those look like staffs but they're only lights marking the Hermetic roof sealing off the city humankind built the shell to protect themselves from the outside but it came at a cost nobody can go out the outside was a disaster completely Barren unlivable and dangerous the main city has two levels the upper level and the lower level every system between these levels is managed by the network this decision to have the levels in a blueprint of a city inevitably led to a class-based system look at how huge this wall is I remember it was a symbol of the division between those in the slums and in Midtown the only Transportation connecting these levels were tightly controlled systems the elevator and the met line that and the fact that they kept throwing their garbage down here what a horrible thing to do maybe that's why they failed you can imagine the outrage the humans living the slums must have felt when the upper levels started throwing trash down that access to the outside is fully restricted and the elevator has been disabled no wonder the transportation between these levels is so tightly controlled it isn't much better on the upper levels though the Sentinels they were meant to protect people fighting crime and maintaining order starts to make you wonder who is giving the commands it appears Sentinels are connected to the network they shoot bolts of electricity that appear strong enough to shock a zerk I'm unsure how it would affect a companion but given how the companions react to the Sentinels seems that they do not wish to defy them but as life became harder in the city and groups started to rise up the Sentinels quickly became the hounds of the powerful it seems as though the Sentinels were owned by private interests of the corporations and perhaps they were running on City technical Network the story illustrates how the involvement of City technical Network combined with the greed of niik Corp leads to the decline of humanity within the confines of Wald City 99 we here at Neco Corp care about the citizens of Wal City 99 subscribers to our ultr premium loyalty program are granted access to the upper level and more importantly Midtown shopping center exclusive packages for our five-star Apartments include increased security and adaptive Waste Management Solutions at Neco Corp we work all day long to gather the waste and send it downstairs where they recycle and repurpose it and remember we take care of [Music] everything Nico Corp they were responsible for Waste Management the corporation started before the humans disappeared niik Corp likely partnered with the official government to construct the walled City nearly every street corner is drenched with their influence do you hear that down below that Eep that flow the city haunts me it taunts me that trash the city blasts is no joke that influence even grew on the companions being oppressed within the nios system the soothing sound of trash falling shimmering waterfalls no dangers look at all the hidden gems in this trash Pennies from Heaven or from somewhere some may call this junk me I call them Treasures niik Corp managed the way was and what did they do with that power they neglected that responsibility they yeed it over the wall day after day garbage rained down from Beyond the wall to the upper levels things all appeared in a control trash from the upper levels overloaded the slums though huge sounds but never friendly old bacteria of human time Nik Corb tried to develop a bacteria to dissolve all the tra after the humans disappeared that bacteria mutated another company solving problems with the easiest Solutions growing eating way more than trash and now we have xer the problem was it began evolving imagine all trace of organic life has disappeared except for what we call the zerk they evolved into these metal eating gross cute things they seem to eat almost everything that moves and breed at an conceivable rate as if being locked in this city wasn't hard enough I have a theory that there may have been two branches of evolution within the slums and parts of Midtown are several boxes that urge the consumer to report mosquitoes the other branch thrived in the darkness evolving hatchlings eat all kinds of materials total vision in the dark the bacteria mutated consuming more than just trash they began to eat metal they look and sound cute but don't be fooled those things Che through metal they're terrifying the great bolt shortage upon reading the cover of this book it got me thinking the ni Corp used these microscopic bacteria to eat the garbage they disposed of from the upper levels the corporation never considered the implications of how these guys would evolve began imagining what would be prioritized for bolts there is the sewage system though that seems to have given out a long time ago many parts of the sewers are entirely broken off the water isn't fresh and clean either it's viscous and green so if it's not the sewage perhaps it has something to do with what powers the city this kind of City would need a lot of power because despite the absence of humans it still functions within the sewers is the home of the flesh eyeballs and they are terrifying they do not react to UV light rather they react to our little one's presence within the sewers they summon hordes of zerks so it begins to paint a picture of the structure of the zerks they kind of react like a hive mind eating anything that moves or breathes at the heart of the sewers is this large cylindrical room this hold largest flesh eyee of them all this calls into question how could the xerx have evolved into a being without weakness to UV light the answer to all these questions is super simple nuclear technology nuclear energy requires something very hot and usually radioactive creating steam to rise up and power turbines these cylindrical rooms appear to be suspended in water curiously there appears to be more than one most nuclear plets have multiple reactors so this makes sense the reactors are within the walled City or perhaps the entire upper level was constructed to house nuclear reactors underneath a suspect ant village is portraying a turbine part of a reactor all the elements are there the water the steam the turbines B12 alludes that there is a building that that could fit an entire water tank as well so perhaps this is a water tank the sewer system yes I remember now clean water was scarce the city was supplied by huge Machinery that dug deep into the Earth then there's the atomic battery the battery is powering the ni Corp Factory right there but this whole area is restricted and heavily guarded the batteries seem to be the same kind of battery as what is housed within the companions the name Atomic clearly references nuclear technology perhaps nuclear energy was being concentrated into these batteries consider that humans may not have understood the dangers of radiation perhaps they couldn't control what was happening because the humans were surrounded by radiation I think this is where the bolts were being prioritized too because no one would want radiation to leak it is clear to me that my hypothesis is correct the xer are present with Within These reactors the detrimental actions in the way Nu Corp handled their operations created an inhospitable world for the humans they used to be strict Energy caps especially in the slums but people couldn't handle the constant Darkness so niik Corp clearly had to devote power to something more important the quantum computer allows the factory to run and carry out the code from eons ago the network keeps everything running commands are sent from the control room down to the city in every part of the city there are power lines dangling to smaller control units everywhere you turn there are traces of the network there was hope to contact someone outside the city however it seems that those in power did not want stress signals leaving the city the people were desperate for help and once again their pleas for help War suppressed so Power and Water both in limited Supply this would be upsetting for anyone living within the walls of the city imagine being cut off from the things that you need to survive so that the company survives there were clearly no ethics or morals going into the practices that keep the city running if the companions are indeed only AI then what Blazer parrots to Clementine is very telling of the human's attitude business is money and I value money way more than friendship or camaraderie I see this as almost a mission statement for neoc Corp it's apparent that life was hell and people became restless and the capitalistic greed of companies like niik Corp and the police state created by the Sentinels I Sentinels the corporation needed protection from the people they were slowly killing they had created weapons to match the people's outrage while people on the lower levels were suffering they were free to move as they please for those people on the upper level life was not much better these Sentinels were likely also manipulated from the control room I remember hating them so much they had everything clean space Limitless power free fre to move little good it did them I have a hunch that they also work on the network given the way the boundaries and the cameras on the Sentinels glow you know what my friend stay away from the Sentinels it seems that the Sentinels are ruthless when it comes to Defying them the Sentinels refused to help me they told me of no place to go then more work here together the peacemakers in the Sentinel phased out anything that gave people Joy or Solace no fun allowed cooperator we will have to transfer you to jail and reboot you some were put in jail for the most minuscule of infractions they put me in jail because I I wanted to overclo my Pro processor they told me I can't go to Midtown because the Sentinels will capture me life is boring since the Sentinels put cameras in our residence I just walked near the elevator and I got yelled at by the Sentinels the Sentinels rebooted the Companions and removed their feelings self-awareness and memories this suggests there might be a technology or network managing AI Consciousness and storing data you have to imagine some overlap from when the humans were alive remember the helpers and the humans coexisted I believe the peacemakers did not come too far after that companions Who provided the benefits to the system don't seem to mind I have a very good relationship with the Sentinels I don't understand why people complain so much about them so with all this going on the only choice the scientists felt he had to survive was uploading himself into the network but the upload something went wrong he was stuck for hundreds of years he was alone and it seems like he couldn't communicate with anyone all this time allowed B12 to know how to decode almost any padlock in the city it's unclear why language would be coming through the network though I was stuck in a computer and alone for a long time the network is complicated because even though B12 was stuck inside he could still see the companions communication in the network I remember it happening when I was in the network I don't know when exactly but at one time all the communications started to switch to these simp perhaps the companion's communication is under surveillance this is why B12 wasn't able to communicate with anyone on the outside of the network so I translated every symbol and word one by one until I was able to understand everything now that I'm out and I know their language I am curious to hear all they have to say I interpreted their communication as part of the technical Network throughout our little ones Journey B12 finds memories that are eily similar to The Colors reflected on the screens of the network the mechanism isn't explained in the game do they really consume this their original design didn't have a digestive system B12 also turns objects into digital form I've digitized the key and stored it in the backpack to me this is a sign of how much technology has grown especially since B12 comes from a commercial Ed drone what if there's just one thing that puts it all together seems like they left in a hurry given that their coffee mugs are still half full I think that reactor within the walls of the city melted down they locked it down sealed it in what's the point of providing food or water to people who are going to die and so as conditions around the humans worsened they slowly began to die this includes the scientist he was sick before making the decision to upload himself this was a last stage effort for some humans the people were dying from a plague without sunlight and clean water how long can a human freely survive on the machine is a note reading I hope this works this is what happens when you deprive humans of their most basic needs they become sick and they die this could have all been prevented if someone in power were to think about the ethical impact of their actions the one thing that might make sense is perhaps if the reactor wasn't powered then it would lead to a meltdown within the city but what if that reactor was being broken into by their own creation mut ated and morphed into something beyond their control what if the plague the humans died from were the microscopic remnants of the bacteria eating the trash the profit margins have to always increase they can't slide not for anything even the survival of humans the most important thing was [Music] greed I love this game and I yearn to revisit the wal City and reimagine its Secrets it's games like this that hold a special place in my heart and if this is your kind of Storytelling consider subscribing to the channel leaving like and engaging with my ever growing Community I want to cover more lore and other games I love such as Elden ring and outer Wilds I will still cover Zelda and I have many exciting plans in the future future for that I needed a mental health break from Zelda after the developer announcement to reassess my thoughts stepping outside the mold of the norm I have made for myself is kind of scary which is why your support is vital I have a patreon for those of you who wish to financially support our future endeavors on this channel I appreciate each one of you willing to Journey with me wherever I decide to go I can promise I will always choose meaningful stories that entice your fascination thank you so much to my channel members and also thank you for watching I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Moxie Watts

Views: 2,828

Keywords: stray, lore, to sleep to, video game lore to sleep to, moxie, moxie watts, lore to sleep to, stray gameplay, stray story, stray game, companions, neco corp, city technical network, cat game

Id: H6J4qp6Uae0

Length: 38min 17sec (2297 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 24 2023