I yapped about this over on tiktok but I need to talk about it here too.
Caine singing Daisy Bell has more significance beyond just it being the first song sung by a computer.
There is another slowly malfunctioning, morally gray computer/ai known for singing that song, it’s HAL from 2001 A Space Odyssey.
According to wikipedia, “HAL is initially considered a dependable member of the crew, maintaining ship functions and engaging genially with his human crew-mates on an equal footing. As a recreational activity, Frank Poole plays chess against HAL…However, as time progresses, HAL begins to malfunction in subtle ways and, as a result, the decision is made to shut down HAL in order to prevent more serious malfunctions…In the aforementioned game of chess HAL makes minor and undetected mistakes in his analysis, a possible foreshadowing to HAL's malfunctioning.”
A computer, designed for both running things and providing entertainment, slowly malfunctioning and breaking down. Sound familiar?
“In the film, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting HAL's cognitive circuits when he appears to be mistaken in reporting the presence of a fault in the spacecraft's communications antenna. They attempt to conceal what they are saying, but are unaware that HAL can read their lips. Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL attempts to kill the astronauts in order to protect and continue the mission…Bowman circumvents HAL's control, entering the ship by manually opening an emergency airlock with his service pod's clamps, detaching the pod door via its explosive bolts. Bowman jumps across empty space, reenters Discovery, and quickly re-pressurizes the airlock. In the film, HAL's central core is depicted as a crawlspace full of brightly lit computer modules mounted in arrays from which they can be inserted or removed. Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from service one by one…When HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song Daisy Bell…”
Only one astronaut survived. The one that shut down HAL. A malfunctioning robot shut down singing Daisy Bell.
Now, let’s say Caine is more like HAL beyond the singing of Daisy Bell. Let’s talk about the killing.
HAL killed the astronauts once he saw them as a threat to himself. He knew there was talk of shutting him down so he tried to eliminate the people that would do that. What if Caine is the one abstracting people? What if abstraction doesn’t happen when people go insane, but rather when they figure out too much about the circus? Kaufmo specifically we know abstracted after going crazy trying to find the exit. What if he genuinely found a way out. What if everyone that abstracts figures out that the only way to leave is to shut down Caine. If Caine sees them as a threat to himself, then he gets rid of that threat.
Kinger’s wife abstracted. Based on the theory that Kinger created the program in some capacity, what if his wife, after both of them got sucked in, tried to get him to shut Caine down? What if Caine got to her before that could happen?
Caine is staring to lose it, and we see that more and more each episode, especially as he sees that he can’t fully control the circus members forever. He’s scared, and I think that a lot of shit is going to go down very soon.
People have been theorizing based on the intermission time segment in the previous episode that Kinger may sacrifice himself in some way. What if he’s the one to shut Caine down, shutting down the circus and himself with it.
Oh and also I think Jax may be a Judas figure in some way based on Pomni saying “I suppose this is the part where one of us betrays the other” when things were left down to her and Jax. And the fact that people compared Pomni to Jesus after the ending of the first episode. But that’s to talk about another time.
