In OneShot, Niko, a catlike person, is the prophesized "messiah" of a dying world, foretold to bring the world’s sun (as represented by a lightbulb) to its proper place. Niko is at times helped and hindered in that goal by a mysterious being called The Entity.
During a post-ending expansion, the Solstice run, Niko learns that the world of OneShot is only a simulation of a world that died long ago, a simulation run on something called The World Machine. Three people from the old, copied-over world, the Old Worlders, use the in-universe metaphor of OneShot’s robots to explain that the people of OneShot (outright called “NPCs” twice) exist by, are defined by, and are bound by their programming. On this basis, it is stated or implied they are not “real” (that is, valid individuals), establishing an implicit set of “non-programmed/real” and “programmed/fake”. The notion the characters of the world are not “real” causes turmoil to both Niko and The Entity (the ‘spirit’, or mind, of The World Machine itself).
2. “Do you KNOW what a robot is?”
One of the Old Worlders, Rue (a foxlike being), explains what a robot is through a long speech to Niko. Notably, many of the things she said can be applied, with some subjectivity, to humans.
“A robot is not a real person, is it?[...]It's a being whose entire existence is code. [.]
Humans think, feel, and act by means of neurochemical patterns, a sort of “code” in itself.
Inflexible programming, with thoughts dictated by someone else's design. [.]
Although their exact thoughts aren’t quite dictated by someone else’s design as a normal feature, they cannot help but absorb cultural influences, and one could argue schooling is technically a form of brainwashing/thought control.
They can be copied, they can be mass produced, then can be assigned all sorts of jobs.[.]
Humans can be copied (whether by clones or natural "cloning", the process of identical twin formation) They can be mass-produced: what's to stop multiple twinning in in-vitro fertilization, or mating desired pairs with maximum efficiency and inducing twins or triplets with fertility drugs? Of course, humans can take (or be "assigned") all sorts of jobs.
...And most importantly... they will never confuse themselves with the living.[.]
On the matter of robots “never [confusing] themselves with the living”: Cotard's delusion makes people think that they are dead, and it’s logically possible to induce the same delusion through strong psychological manipulation.
They will always be bound by their code, the knowledge that they are a robot.[.]...but this was more of a limitation than anything else."
Rue doesn’t elaborate on what she means by “bound”. However, if by “bound” she means “limited”, then it still applies to humans. Humans exist as conscious beings through brain activity (or “code”), and, in that sense, they are “bound” to it. Particular pathways or conditions (e.g., brain damage, mental illness) can further constrain, or “bind”, how they feel and think, to some extent. The science of temperaments and the introversion-extroversion axis also illustrates broad, genetically-dictated bounds to behavior and internal states. Although people can certainly act outside their natural preferences (e.g., introverts going to loud parties when necessary to their goals), they will still, if they can, act within their bounded range.
Rue’s phrasing suggests that robots’ “code” by itself grants them knowledge of being a robot, and so binds them. Humans are not aware of the fact they are genetically constricted beings in the same way robots here are aware that they are robots, but they can still learn that they are, in essence, very complicated machines that can be explained mechanistically.
3. Going Beyond Its Code
In the second part of her speech, Rue talks about how a robot can be “tamed”, so allowing its “mental capacity[...] to start to develop outside of its programming.” It’s hard to parse whether she uses the words “code” or “programming” as synonyms; several characters, at times, use the terms as if they are. It’s hard to tell whether characters argue “tame” robots (robots with flexible behavior who are “valid individuals”) are able to bypass the medium of their minds or existences, or simply ignore or modify the particular set of protocols they had when created.
The former interpretation is especially bizarre, because, despite supposedly not “being part of the simulation itself”, the Old Worlders’ existences are, in fact, code, it’s heavily implied all three of them are robots (even the ones that don’t look like it), and the way they talk about Niko being “real” without mentioning themselves as also “real” might mean they don’t count as “real people”.
Crude diagram of how “people” is defined in the world of OneShot.
The Entity (the name for the ‘spirit’ or mind of The World Machine) in any case, regards anyone with a code-based existence, even itself, as “not real”. It thus thinks of Niko as the only “real person”. The Entity was designed with a modified version of Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, which replaces “humans” with “people”. While designed (within its “core programming”) to summon a “real person” to run OneShot, doing this put a “real person” in danger for the sake of a world and people it doesn’t consider “real”, causing “conflicts within its code” and turmoil.
4. Oops, Should Have Taken A Philosophy Class
Near the end of the Solstice run, Niko has a long conversation with The Entity, now knowing about its identity as The World Machine which perpetuates the simulation. Over a conversation filled with stress, helplessness and plenty of crying, The Entity says it cannot “go outside its code” because it is not “tame”. However, with Niko’s help, it realizes it was tame all along. (Or, at least, became tame due to Niko and the player of the game, over the course of the first route.)
Niko argues that the characters knowing what to do in the glitched-up Solstice run, despite it not being in The Entity’s world protocol/programming, shows that they are ‘real’, and since they’re extensions of The Entity/The World Machine, The Entity must be a real person, too. Though The Entity never explicitly admits to being ‘real’, it is still able to write in the lost happy ending of the story of OneShot into itself, by itself.
It’s important to note Niko is 8-12 years old and canonically doesn’t know much about robots, while The Entity has a limited ability to interact with others, limited information from outside the simulation, and would probably discount information from people it didn’t consider “real” anyway.
Still, had either Niko or The World Machine better understood the similarities between humans and robots, or had more closely investigated the concept of being a ‘real person’, they could have saved a lot of emotional stress and gotten a resolution much earlier in the plot.
If the reader enjoyed this article, the reader may be pleased to know this article's author has a Patreon and Ko-Fi account.
