Con Claiming Culture Masterpost - Claiming Culture is a serious practice the Decepticon's hold and it was only a matter of time before someone introduced the Autobots to it.
The Edge of the Universe and Other Stupid Places to Live - AI-Mecha AU in the style of Murderbot/Zoids/etc.
Discworld book where the auditors hear about the phrase "it's not over till the fat lady sings" and hire someone to kidnap all the fat ladies in the world to find the One who will end the world when she sings.
Lady Sybil Vimes is one of the ladies, so Sam Vimes is on the warpath until he can find her, while the watch desperately try to keep all infrastructure from falling apart without all the fat ladies who keep it together on a daily basis
It ends when Sybil leads a hoard of fat ladies into battle, which ends up being so glorious an unrelated time traveler who witnesses it goes back to his native time starts the myth of the Valkyries
I simply love Drift and Ratchet and I wanted to draw them from quite a lot 💖!
Got the chance with this commission to finally do and they melt my heart 🥹 The style is ofc TFP inclined 😘. Uuh Primus my babies ❤️🔥 (or also old mech yaoi).
I have so many questions regarding C&A and how people get pulled into the Circus that I ended up deep diving after ep 8 so here is an all comprehensive list of What We Know (plus questions and screaming I'm labeling as thoughts)
Caine’s Creation:
What We Know (IE what is explicitly shown or told in the show, not necessarily what is true bc the characters can lie/provide false info/etc.)
C&A is a real company that developed artificial intelligence per Kinger (“specifically creative AI, the kind that could come up with it’s own ideas and create things within the program.”)
Caine was C&A’s first semi-successful attempt.
Caine (red dot) was quarantined for performance issues (outputting nonsense data) broke out of quarantine and consumed/ate/killed/etc the second AI (blue dot, often referred to as Abel in fandom) and created the circus.
Kinger created Caine with “some pointers” from Scratch--but Kinger is clear that Caine was primarily his creation.
(He refers to Caine as “one of my greatest achievements as a programmer.” When directly asked if he (Kinger) made Caine he answers “Partially, yes” and says he got a few pointers from Scratch. He goes on to add that Caine was “pretty rough around the edges” and that he wasn’t on Scratch’s level of “thinking outside the box.”
This directly implies Caine would have been “better” had Scratch been more fully involved in his creation.
Kinger continues (Caine) was “good groundwork for something the rest of the team could wrap their heads around.” but excludes Scratch from the team, because Scratch was a genius and his ideas were “often so bizarre and abstract that the rest of the team had no idea how to work in his language either due to pure brilliance or the tumor in his head.”
Kinger adds Scratch was trying to make something, directly after the tumor comment, meaning Scratch’s primary focus was on something other than Caine.
The Circus & C&A
What we know:
You have to put on a headset/goggles to get into the circus.
It is implied through repeated visuals that the C&A building is abandoned (and equally implied this is how Pomni become involved, vis urban exploration) and that there is at least one headset connecting to the circus has been left behind.
Kinger is the last man standing of the C&A team--others who came into the Circus include Scratch and Kinger’s wife.
There are 4 other shown members of what is implied to be the C&A team in ep 8, meaning 7 people total from C&A was the first set of humans to go into the Circus.
Scratch is shown arguing with Caine in Ep 8. In the German dub, he says “uh, can we somehow get out of here” and “what exactly is this place anyway” (the German team does say these are throwaway lines as they felt the scene was too quiet, but we’re assuming they still had approval to add these lines in.)
Kinger apologizes to his wife for “roping her in” with him.
According to Kinger, Caine created the Circus from nothing--the circus is not a C&A creation.
When discussing Scratch’s “abstract ideas” the show focuses on imagery that looks very much like the more abstract parts of the circus. This implies a lot of the visuals of the circus came from Scratch.
Humans have the ability to conjure within the circus per Kinger--it just doesn’t come as naturally to them as it does Caine.
Kinger Accessing the C&A Computer
What We Know
I am not a programmer but there are several tumblr and reddit posts from programmers deep diving into this part so I’ll just highlight the stuff we are explicitly shown:
In the Characters section, Kinger shows two files--one labeled AI and one that says CA…NeuralScans(Obsolete)
The code shows another part that says “us/ai/module/brainscans
A creation date of October 15th 1996 for Caine-core.lisp (as well as bubble-chef.lips and wacky-watch.c)
October 15th 1999 for [Scratch].dat
October 15th 2008 for [Ragatha].dat
The earliest date shown is that 1996 date. Ragatha’s date makes sense because in an earlier episode she doesn’t know what Breaking Bad is, but Jax and Pomni do.
As many people have pointed out the computer actually starts arguing with Kinger, and while Caine and Bubble imaginary are popping up all over the place it doesn’t expressly say who is arguing with him.
The arguing party says “Whoa when did you make THAT” and “I must hand it to you G an, your mind was always resourceful” -- and goes on to basically bait Kinger into deleting Caine/interprets his commands as a kill command.
Kinger did not intend to kill Caine.
This is of course later confirmed when Kinger says “I think I accidentally killed Caine.”
Questions then Become (with assumptions following)
What would lead the entire C&A team to get pulled into the circus? 7 people is a lot of people.
-- I assume Caine eating/corrupting the other AI/Abel would be the kickoff event, but it could be something else. Even a regular test that maybe they were pulled into due to Caine’s corruption if it hadn’t been caught before they put on the headsets.
What event would lead to the building being abandoned with presumably expensive equipment left behind? (at least one active headset. This also implies something is still powering the circus/access to the circus in that building.)
-- obviously a company closing or going bankrupt would do it. We know from real urban explorers that buildings get abandoned with shiit left inside plenty--but there’s a lot of shots that imply things were all left in place (personal items, expensive things like the active headset(s.)
This usually implies an abrupt, unexpected closure such as one following a tragedy or major event rather than a normal “companies closing and we’re all out of jobs, come get your shit” type situation. The fact no one returned to the building to reclaim anything is equally suspicious.
What do the headsets even do/what was the original intention of the headsets/is there more than one headset?
--a headset like this in the 90s early 00s would be (presumably) expensive as fuck to create. Is there more than one? If there isn’t, that would mean all 7 members of the C&A team individually put on the headset one after the other, vs if there was multiple. Multiple means the headsets could presumably be used simultaneously.
--We know for certain that the headsets are the entry point into the Circus, and the minds/mindscans of the humans are plugged into it because that’s shown in the show. But what was the original intention of the headsets? Was it to get into the Circus, or were they a part of Scratch’s other project that Caine managed to overtake/connect himself to?
If digital copies were the intended outcome of the headsets, and not just a way to interact with Caine (or separately, a part of Scratch’s project) then you would assume the copies would be aware of that. Because it’s assumed they aren’t aware*, then it’s possible the C&A team did intend to create copies, but were unaware of how intelligent their copies were.
If that’s the case, it’s entirely possible Caine’s corruption of the other AI/Abel could have led to the company bankrupting/closing, and the C&A team simply never realized the full extent of what they had created or left behind.
* Kinger makes a statement in Ep 7 that could be read as him knowing they ARE copies, if that ends up being correct. He says leaving the circus “doesn’t make sense.” and asks how they would even do it.
I’m personally pretty hooked on the SOMA theory but let’s assume it isn’t that and the humans involved are getting physically sucked into a digital world a la Digimon. If that is the case, the C&A team's disappearance could have led directly to the company closing, and potentially even involved a cover up.
What the hell's up with October 15th?
Clearly that’s an important date, given it appears in three different years -- 96, 99, 08.
Theres a lot with color too I want to deep dive into but this is long enough lol
this is so late renaissance early mannerism. the controversial male nudity? the lighting and value on the figure of emphasis?? him bathed in light and placed ABOVE while the police are clad in dark and BELOW?? Uh HES HITTING THE CONTRAPPOSTO??
Just you, me, and our fbi agent that’s listening in 🌹🌹 how romantic… on the bright side at least it’s not like Starscream is peeping in 🙄 maybe SDW is just a fan of these two being sweet and quieter than everyone else back at base (he’s just a nosy guy)
