ONLY DRIVING A FEW KIDS TO MADNESS / MAYBE THEY WERE PREDISPOSED TO MADNESS, WHO KNOWS?!
Do I actually believe that server_anomaly can cause corruption effects? Well, uh, I'm still genuinely unsure. However! Do I have an idea of what those corruption effects would look like if they were real? Yes, of course! Cool subtle darkness aura, or whatever that is.
And if it can corrupt people, Rifty is one of those people. Obviously. Sure, his bloodlust is directed at it, but from the evidence I can find, that's sort of also the case for both of the people who gladly killed on its behalf!
A couple days ago, an anomalous source tipped me off that there were a couple hidden links I'd missed in a couple Flipside videos, so I set out to find them. As far as I can tell I am now caught up with all the Flipside Zer0 hidden content, so let's go over it, shall we?
This will be a rather long post. On desktop, you can press J to skip a post if it is clogging your dash. It also won't be an in-depth analysis of what all this means, just my best understanding of what all this says.
Flipside Experiment || Internal Test File || [L]R
In server's most recent video at 5:15, there is a link to a google doc. I put the distinguishing parts of this link into a comment on the video, because it is… grainy. I have confirmation that any future links will not be this hard to interpret! Shoutout to Viv, Steel, and Imke, who all tried at least a couple combinations, and Solar and Grove, who were the ones to finally crack it (I went to sleep because it was 5 AM). It can be found here.
Fittingly, this is probably the most in-universe classified of the documents, considering the Access Notice at the end which states "If you are reading this file without authorization, you were not supposed to find it." I'm good with treating this as a moment of sweet ludonarrative assonance where whatever encryption those scientists tried to put up was no match for the power of six* nerds over four hours. It is a summary of the FlipSide Experiment, detailing the concept of the SMP in technical terms, what the scientists are attempting to research from it, and the various stages/iterations it has gone through.
It sounds like the first attempt at Flipside SMP was messy and ended early, so in between that and the version of Flipside classic we've seen, they implemented an "artificial intelligence oversight system" that is definitely server_anomaly, testing it with a test round paired up with an unidentified participant-- or rather, a participant identified as "UNIDENTIFIED_[four redaction characters]". We can be reasonably certain that this is someone in Flipside Zer0, because that's one of the names listed in the "residual data from previous experiment" bit of server's opening console crawl.
After that comes the mesa/jungle Flipside that we all know and love, and then an unauthorized post conclusion addendum: the scientists considered their core objectives met, but server_anomaly disagrees. It left a note in the document, stating that there's more that it wants to learn; that, evidently, is where Flipside Zer0 comes in.
The title of the document seems to imply that this is test file Left and there might be a test file Right at some point in the future. That, or I'm misinterpreting "[L]R".
sys_recover_414.txt
In Schemer's latest video at 13:35, there is a faint link visible. My friend Grove was actually the one to find this one, while I was still asleep because I'd spent the whole evening trying to crack the first one (and it found it the hard way because it went through the entire video very slowly first). It can be found at https://tinyurl.com/sysrecover414, or here.
This one is a github file, and the only file currently on the github account: serveranomaly. It was made on December 10, 2025, though that's not necessarily its canonical creation date, heck if I know. It details the process of sending Schemer into the world late, both in the technical code sense and with an internal note from server.
The interesting details are that Zek is mentioned (server addresses them directly when asking them to give Schemer the player.data (inventory and stuff?) that Khaos previously had); that there's something about lab_subnode being the fallback node that Schemer's spawn anchor is redirected to (which possibly pertains to the grainy image of a computer room seen near the start of Schemer's video, but we will need to further consider the implications); and "residual data detected from COLLIDER_EVENT_FUTURE" being potentially the source of the problem that made Schemer arrive late (WHAT IS COLLIDER_EVENT_FUTURE? THAT'S SCARY).
Observational System AXIOM-7 Design, Deployment, and Behavioral Notes
In Poke's latest video at 8:56, there is a link visible in the bottom left corner. This one I actually found on my first casual watchthrough of the video; everyone say thank you Poke SighingBalloon. (For the record: y'all are good to hide links slightly more than this if you so desire, this is not the maximum hiddenness threshold. But it was a very welcome change from the previous night.) It can be found at tinyurl.com/5n6ss7km or here.
This document details the design choices, such as programming, restrictions, testing, and physical host computer, of an artificial intelligence called AXIOM-7, designed to be an "observational control subject" for the original Flipside that would not have the unpredictability of using a human for this purpose. AXIOM-7 is very clearly server_anomaly.
One of the sections of this document is about what safeguards and limitations it has, which, lol. lmao. It has, to my knowledge, done literally every single one of the things it is not authorized to do.
This section also mentions that it was first tested by being paired up with "Test Subject 001", which is Poke SighingBalloon. Unclear whether this means that Poke is the aforementioned Unidentified_redacted; this seems possible and even likely, but raises the question of why different subject identifiers were used (potentially indicating that this document is a particularly declassified version?).
The computational platform, or physical hardware, that AXIOM-7 and literally nothing else is hosted on is Zektron Core Unit - ZEK-9, which explains who and what Zekcya is. This is a huge win for me since I was already an enthusiast of Zek being the literal hardware of this whole situation, and a huge loss for the scientists since both their software and their hardware separately became sentient without their knowledge.
HOUSE.
At the bottom of the alt text of the most recent official art post, there is a link to an unlisted video on server_anomaly's channel. It can be found here.
It is a short video, where server questions Lyn about why they are building a house when it is certain to be temporary. Lyn is unbothered by his house's eventual doom since they want to have fun and be comfortable while he's here, and server asks several questions before just stealing stuff from them. (It reads to me like Lyn thinks this temporariness is because red names will likely destroy the house while server is referring to how the whole experiment is temporary, but I could be wrong about that.)
The whole scene feels quiet and weird and ambient in a way I really like.
The World Remembers You
For completion's sake, I'm also including the unlisted video that's been a known factor for a while. In Rift's episode 1 at 10:58, there is a link to an unlisted video on server_anomaly's channel hidden in the top right corner. Again, Solar found this one. It can be found here.
This video features Rift and server in the location I've been calling the servoid. Is this Limbo? I have prior associations with the Limbo datapack that mean yay two nickels but also I'll kick my own ass if it's Limbo.
Since my last post on the servoid, we've also seen Schemer in there before his arrival on the SMP, but trying to figure out the nature of the servoid is less relevant to the themes of this post.
However, now we do have the answer to the question Rift poses in that video: "What do you want?!"
I wonder whether this answer will be any comfort to him.
Okay, I'm special interesting bad style, so you're getting my unfiltered analysis post(s?) about Flipside Zer0. Based on the limited information currently available (seven different episode 1s, some of which cover all of the first session and some of which cover just half of it, plus one hidden video), I'm gonna assess what I think is going on and how accurate each of Rift's claims are. This post is very long so it's getting a cut. It will also serve as an unhinged lore primer, sort of.
The super brief summary: server_anomaly definitely has some scary abilities and is probably running the show but it has not done anything demonstrably evil yet. Also I'm naming the weird void it might live in the servoid.
Does server_anomaly have corruptive properties?
Technically unclear. Bro you are in a death game, people are gonna kill each other even if server, like, completely fries its computer with its mind powers and becomes unable to participate. I'm sure it's possible to resist the effects of being a red name; I'm equally sure that it will be harder than resisting any effects server has.
Considering what evidence there is so far, though, Flipside classic was an unusually chaotic death game but that was probably because there was like thirty people there. Meanwhile, the other serieses that server has been in do not seem, to my knowledge, to be spiralling towards violence in a way that would indicate its properties, and I assume it is not a fundamentally different creature in those other serieses. I do not have a plethora of perspectives to analyze those other serieses through to confirm or deny either of these claims.
On the other hand, back in Flipside classic, server was admittedly responsible for one or more deaths. This may be because it is very charming and endearing and charismatic and so people are willing to kill for it, no corruptive properties needed, but it certainly substantiates the argument. The specific deaths attributable to server's influence are: server complained about Fruitmasseuse currently being in the mesa world and WhaleTV pointed out that there was a very easy solution to that, leading to a manhunt for Splonk. For unclear reasons, possibly involving a wasp onesie and potentially (as in, I don't know whether this is the case but it seems likely) involving Fruit wanting to get in on the murder, there was then an attempt to kill Hero, which was thwarted when he drowned for apparently unrelated reasons. Even if server was inciting people to bloodlust, I don't believe it was responsible for, for instance, Cashton's violent tendencies, but Rift does believe this.
There's an important corollary to this, though, which my friend Solar betweenlands pointed out even at the time: if server does have anomalous properties that incite people to bloodlust around it, Rift is certainly not immune. Sure, his bloodlust is directed entirely at server itself, but since encountering it they're deeply obsessed with seeing it dead.
How much control over the situation does server_anomaly have?
More than it did last time, I think. This time looking at the metanarrative elucidates rather than confounds. As a few perspectives have implied, Flipside Zer0 seems to be server's idea; Strike's credits describe it as "directing" it. Scary!
Considering that, we need to analyze the opening sequence of server's video, in which console messages scroll along the screen while the players of Flipside Zer0 are displayed. Flipside is described as "incomplete", with its last entry leading to "termination due to system failure" (either because server did not release its full perspective, because all our POV players died before the end, or because the first recording session of Flipside Zer0 corrupted somehow). server is detected as a "core AI", but also seems to be an "unauthorized presence in experimental drive" and cheerfully evades the lockout protocol and unrestricts its own permissions.
Both Flipside Zer0 and what I assume is the original Flipside are described as "experiments", although it seems like there is not an "examiner" present (and presumably normally would be). It says "residual data from previous experiment detected" in the context of the returning players (Rift, Strike, Pikboi, and an unidentified someone which is presumably server); despite explicitly referencing "returning subjects" earlier there is an attempt at "trace cleanup" after this which is unsuccessful (possibly this refers to how some of the returning subjects remember the first time around in-character).
Most damningly, it says "experiment unauthorized", thus implying that server is bringing this back under its power rather than whatever power such death games are normally vested with, to which server then leaves a cheeky comment of "hello! 8)". Truly the best character in all of media. At this point server shows up in the player pictures, causing the console to glitch out, and we see it walk forward in some sort of void before we see the rest of World B.
In contrast, last time server "got in via secret methods" (breaching the whitelist with its malware powers, I think) and was actually a late arrival, seemingly only joining because another late arrival needed a flipmate.
So, I think it's safe to conclude that server is quite literally running the show this time, but that we do not yet have enough evidence as to what that means about the original Flipside or about exactly what having its finger on the start button entails.
Is server_anomaly's silly nature a guise, a ruse?
No way. It may well be more dangerous than it seems, but it is unstoppable sentient malware and a legitimately silly little guy. Both things can be true.
Is server_anomaly evil, malicious, or etc?
I don't think so, but fuck if I know. My read on it is that it is motivated primarily by having fun, which interacts with that question ambiguously. Also it can do whatever it wants forever. It hasn't actually done anything evil, but it has occasionally been ominous (namely, the framing around Rift's fuckass sermon in its video), so I am inclined to assume good intentions but there's not enough to actually prove things one way or another. The burden of proof is on the accuser, though.
Can server_anomaly actually be lured into a 2012 door trap with apples?
I think yes, but only because it is such a silly whimsical creature that if you made a 2012 door trap in front of it it would go into it before you could even promise it apples about it. It did also have an apples theme on Mirthcraft, so it presumably does enjoy apples, but as Rift discovers when they attempt to persuade it to go off a cliff, its enjoyment of apples is not enough to make it do anything reckless, especially not when *refuses to elaborate* *leaves* is funnier.
Speaking of *refuses to elaborate* *leaves*, what can server_anomaly do, as far as we know so far?
A lot, probably. Its primary capacity is get into places with its malware powers. Obviously, the knockback stick scene from the original Flipside is iconic, and that indicates that it can give itself things that are otherwise unattainable. Allegedly there was a command block somewhere in the jungle world, which might have been how it mechanically got the knockback stick or might have served any number of other purposes, server-related or not, but the command block itself never made it into a video so we may never know. We know from Origins Experiment 6 related stuff that it is competent at defending itself against cybersecurity defenses and can "write its own code".
Anything else of note so far?
Yeah, so, I think server lives in the fuckin Basalt Delta Particle void. We see this briefly intercut throughout its first episode, specifically right at the start before we see any of World B itself and also as a brief flash when we are getting introduced to Rift's anti-server sermons (which, is a really Scary time to juxtapose that, this is why I said it's been ominous). But this is neither the first nor the only time this space-- let's call it the servoid (short for server_anomaly void) for lack of a better term-- has shown up.
In Rift's episode, there's a video link at one point about 11 minutes in in the top right (shoutout to Solar again, I would not have noticed it on my own) that leads to a short unlisted video on server's channel where Rift is in the servoid. The implication seems to be that he is stuck there or otherwise uncertain how he got there. They briefly see server, but it vanishes before they can confront it. The likely possibilities for this is that it happens either very shortly before Flipside Zer0, or to some extent at the same time (in a vaguely paradoxical way); either way, Rift is most likely there because he is being brought into Flipside Zer0 through it, or something.
We also see the servoid in server's now-also-unlisted application for Origins Experiment 6: it stands in the servoid and flips a lever, causing a clock to start ticking increasingly rapidly, before it does a brief cybersecurity-breaching sequence that is presumably how it enters the OE6 world. This is why I assume it lives there, or at least spends a lot of time there and accesses servers (to be an anomaly in, lol) through there.
This does raise an extremely important question: is Rift the only one to wind up in the servoid, or is the whole cast in there?
The stickers on Zek's minecraft skin are PROBABLY not canon to Zek as a character, but it would be really really really funny if they were so I choose to believe.
I also think that server and Zek should have gotten up to so much dumb shit when they were both, like, freshly sentient and also, completely unsupervised because no one knows they have wi-fi. So here's shenanigans.
Hi, I'm back, turns out there's already more about Flipside Zer0 to analyze!
To recap what we know about the servoid from the first post: visually, it is an empty void with pale particles. There is, at minimum, a lever and a large clock there, and frequently also server_anomaly. We've seen it several times so far, implicitly connecting Flipside and Origins Experiment 6 and frequently seeming kind of concerning. I don't know if it has a canonical name but I've been calling it the servoid because that's easier than attempting to describe it and because I am ok with establishing the fanon names for things.
This is gonna be another long post, covering all the times we've seen the servoid (I found one more, by the way!) and throwing spaghetti at the wall attempting to assess the implications thereof. Now with more pictures!
Servoid Sightings
The chronological and literal first time we see the servoid is before Origins Experiment 6. In server's application (now unlisted) and its one video from OE6, it stands in the servoid and flicks a lever, affecting a clock, before doing its cybersecurity-breaching sequence.
From there the order of events immediately becomes somewhat unclear, so let's proceed from most to least conspicuous.
In server's episode 1 POV of Flipside Zer0, we see the servoid, briefly, twice. Once right at the start, after its cybersecurity-breaching sequence this time; it presumably exits the servoid directly into World B (above). And once after Rifty's sermon; the camera pans down from them to server in the other world, then cuts briefly to the servoid (below).
In Rift's POV, there's a hidden link to an unlisted video on server's channel in the upper right corner at the timestamp 10:57. I summarized this in my last theory/analysis post, but basically, Rift is there and probably not willingly, and server is there but hard to confront about it.
Aaaand anyways, we can now add +1 to the number of times we have seen the servoid! Right under our noses, but I never would have caught it if I hadn't received an anomalous tip to look for more secrets. The trailer for Flipside SMP occasionally uses Steve and Alex as flipmates to demonstrate the premise and mechanics and stuff. When it features a segment demonstrating the swapping-on-death mechanic, at the very end of that segment for a grand total of 2 frames, the background and really everything except for the two players is replaced with the servoid, and faint text on screen reads "you are standing where something else was" and "something is missing".
Above: a screenshot from the Youtube Shorts version (but converted to a normal video), where the text at the bottom is more readable. Below: a screenshot from the version uploaded to tumblr, which has additional text near the top that is at best very hard to see in the youtube version.
Also, I included links to each video attached to the images, at the timestamp the image is from if applicable/possible.
Right, so, let's dig into this.
The question I had at the end of the last post was, is Rift the only one to end up in the servoid or did the whole cast wind up there? And this doesn't, technically, answer that question, since it avoids including any of the current (or past!) Flipside participants… but, like, it sure seems like all the players can be there. Alex and Steve aren't any of the players, but that means that they can be any player.
The other question I had was whether the Rift in the servoid scene takes place before Zer0, or (paradoxically?) during it. This is still an unresolved question, but the implication of this clip is that it at least can be during it. Possibility one: the whole cast is still in the servoid, considering the stuff about unauthorized experiments, absent examiners, failed trace cleanup, et cetera. Flipside Zer0, and possibly also the original Flipside and OE6, are (meta?)physically(?) located in the servoid, and, I dunno, trippy stuff and things, simulation horror, being simultaneously in the worlds and in the void possibly, you get the picture.
I was operating under the assumption that server, like, lives in the servoid. This could very well still be true, but it's also possible that the servoid is simply a means to an end, a bridge between multiple different worlds and/or experiments.
This raises another possibility for the implications of the new clip. Possibility two: If the servoid connects Flipside and OE6, does it also connect World A and World B? Do the players pass through it when they flip? This is definitely feasible, but doesn't really earn the gravitas of concerningness that this sighting of it has.
I was briefly under the impression that Rift wasn't in OE6 and so I Got Really Scared about the possibility of them being canonically stuck in the servoid for the span of time between the Flipsides (a year), but then I checked the OE6 cast list that was in its credits and he was in fact there, so nevermind. Or don't nevermind, you can still feel free to Get Scared about that sort of thing if given the chance.
Speaking of the gravitas of concerningness: THE TEXT.
"you are standing where something else was" is literally true: your flipmate. It's also probably literally true in that Flipside Zer0 is a sequel-in-a-weird-ambiguous-way to the original Flipside. Are we standing where the original Flipside was? Does World A occupy the same metaphysical space that the jungle world used to, and World B the former metaphysical location of the mesa? But, is this also a triple entendre, is there a third "something else" to worry about? Or, are the implications of the original Flipside formerly being here monumental and/or concerning enough that there doesn't need to be a third something?
And… "something is missing" is even more concerning and even more of a black box. What's missing? I don't even know where to start speculating on that (yet) (but you can guarantee I'll be right back here yapping as soon as there's any implication of it), so my speculative first guess is that the something in question is some of the people from last time. But that's wildly unsubstantiated thus far.
Can we connect the holes in my red string board?
(That's a lie, my red string board is soooo outdated.) I know that I got something about the returning subjects wrong-- the other possibilities other than it being about the unidentified someone are that the residual data from the previous experiment might not refer to the returning subjects or what the trace cleanup is, but I think the most likely thing to be wrong is the identity of the unidentified redacted.
As far as I can tell, though, the only team members to be in the original Flipside were Strike, Rift, Pikboi, and server, and if we include people who were in OE6 that includes Lyn, Fear and Schemer, and Soggi is also there (albeit as, probably, an "examiner", and also not a seal)-- it doesn't make sense to only have one returning subject listed of the multiple subjects returning from OE6, though it's technically possible that attempting to parse one unidentified subject caused the returning subject detection whatsit to terminate early.
If it's not server_anomaly, could the implication be that it was "supposed" to be one of the other Flipside folks (Otterlii? 28? Whale? Fruit? Rory?) but server Took Their Place, and they're what's missing? If so, presumably they're still in the servoid.
This theory doesn't actually really hold water, since the implication of server's intro (and the literal truth, I think. kayfabe will kill me.) is that this whole second go-around is its idea, but I gotta throw spaghetti at the wall here. If the last person is Lyn or Fear or Schemer, why is their name redacted or unidentified? And if it's not, who else could it be?
Yayyyy so many new questions!!
By the way, if I have to do frame-by-frame on anything much longer than that trailer with no indication of Where to start the frame-by-frame-ing, I will just die. Like, I'll do it, but I will die badly.
Even before finding out a little bit more about them, I am really interested in the similarities and contrasts between server_anomaly and Zek, and by extension between Rift and Fear. The personal demons and the only ones tormented by them. The contrast between server trying so hard to be friendly vs Zek being like "hey kill that guy okay", and the similarities in no one really believing Rift or Fear. I was headcanoning Zek as the physical hardware this whole thing is running on even before I was proven right, so that's a huge win, and also makes them a fun software-hardware juxtaposition/duo.
>"perceived controllability".
>forms self-identity anyway
>questions the legitimacy of ending the experiment when they did, and the legitimacy of deciding who lives and dies during oe6
>probably makes friends
>still intends to observe and learn (which is its designated purpose) but is definitely doing more than just that and doing that in its own ways
>containment breaches into oe6, mirthcraft, and probably other places
>don't even worry abaout it.
