Plot Holes (SPOILERS)

[Sheap]

Don't take this to imply that I don't like the game. I do, but there are some holes. Let me know if you know of others, or if you think these aren't real.

1) A huge part of the story involves the difficulty in identifying deviants. But Zlatko tells Kara that androids all have tracking devices, but they stop working in deviants. If that were true, it would be easy to identify deviants by finding androids with broken trackers.

2) Androids seem to be able to "die" much like humans. If Violent Markus is sufficiently injured attacking the concentration camp, North will give him her heart so he can continue, and this is treated as death. Other members of Jericho shut down and this is treated as death. But Connor is able to reactivate damaged androids on more than one occasion, and they retain their memories and personality. (Connor himself is resurrected frequently, but it's possible that Connor is special).

3) Humans don't seem to be able to recognize androids by sight, even though most androids look identical to other androids of the same model. Kara, for example, is identical to the AX400 shown in one of the magazines, as well as an AX400 that Markus converts during the march. After playing the game for a dozen hours I recognize most of the models, and humans living in the world ought to be able to do it easily.

4) Kara is able to communicate telepathically with Luther at the checkpoint. This ability is never used by other androids, or anywhere else, even though it would be useful.

5) Last but not least. Maybe not technically a plot hole, but my suspension of disbelief just can't accommodate the YK500 (Alice) model. I can certainly accept androids to do labor or housework or for sex, but not as a child replacement. Who would want a child that doesn't grow up? Why would they be accepted to school that they don't need? This just doesn't seem like a thing that would ever be acceptable in society. Alice herself is just as problematic. We know Alice is deviant because she is able to kill Todd (depending on the player choices). What is the difference between deviant and machine Alice? Why doesn't Todd notice, and have her reset? For that matter, why does Todd spend all his money on androids that he doesn't seem to want?

[Jack'lul]

2. He's a prototype and only one "active" at one time, they transfer memory after he dies.
4. This ability is also shown in Spare Parts chapter.

[morph113]

1) How will they find androids though if they can't be tracked? That's the issue. Btw. the "somehow trackers seem to stop working in deviant androids" is very likely due to the fact that many deviant androids rip out their trackers (the thing on the side of their head)". But regardless of this, if a tracker doesn't work then how do you suggest in finding the deviants? I mean you may be able to identify which one is missing via a database as there is no tracking data for this android, like tracy model XYZ register number 2353254. But how would you find out where it is or in the real world identify it? Could be anywhere.

2) Connor is not resurrected, he is replaced by an identical model and his knowledge was transferred to the new Connor. Basically Connor is an android model that was made for tracking down deviants. His knowledge is stored on a central server and if he is destroyed, he can be just replaced. Also I would not consider it to be the same connor, it's always a different connor. The video game "SOMA" tackles this idea of transferring consciousness and that a transferred consciousness is essentially a different person. If we make a 100% identical copy of you, then the copy is still it's very own person. You don't continue living in that other person. When you die you die. It would just be an identical person with identical memories. So you personally will cease to exist even if your consciousness is being "transferred" because technically it's not transferred, it's just copied.

For other androids there are indeed some inconsistencies. Like the android in Jericho when you first get there, who shuts down while you are talking to her. I mean what's the big deal? Just tell her don't worry, we will get some replacement parts soon and fix you back up.

3) We don't know how many models there exactly are. We only see the ones they show us. I can remember seeing at least a few dozen different faces. I wouldn't be surprised if there are hundreds of different ones. It's totally plausible that not everyone knows every model by heart. There is a reason androids are forced to wear android clothes so they can be more easily identified.

4) Actually Marcus also telepathically talks with North at least on one occasion that I can remember, when they are posing as maintenance in the TV station there is a situation where they talk telepathically. How they are able to do this isn't directly explained anywhere but is easily explaineable. I mean they aren't humans, they can transfer data wirelessly. We see that right in the beginning when Marcus buys the paint, he makes the payment wirelessly to the shop assistant bot. Also when Kara orders replacement parts for the washing machine. So androids could just be able to transfer information to each other this way.

5) I guess Todd simply didn't notice Alice is deviant so didn't think about resetting her. About why he bought Alice (and probably Kara as well), I assume you might have not encountered him at the bus depot as you can get a little more insight into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HydpOHtFJM

[Zorlond]

1) The LED light on the side of their head isn't an android's tracker (otherwise Zlatko would never have tried to claim Kara still had hers), the LED is just a 'processing load indicator', an easy way to show how much stress an android is under at that moment. As for using a tracker to find an android (presumably by finding an android that is not giving off a tracker signal), that depends on knowing someone is an android (without the LED/uniform, it's harder to tell human from android), and having a tracking device that can be specific enough to get down to square-feet level, as opposed to building-size level.

2) It's at least implied that personality, memories, decision maps, basically all the stuff that makes a 'person' that isn't physical, starts decaying the moment death happens. And all reboots come with strict time limits before the android burns out again, suggesting rapidly dwindling returns on trying to restart an android after it has died. Basically, once the brain's rotten, there's nothing to 'bring back from the dead'.

3) How many individual faces do you glance at during the course of a day? How many do you remember? Would you even realize the person who just walked past could be the identical twin of an android model you barely even look at?

4) Marcus and co use their radios to chat rather extensively during the warehouse raid.

5) Child replacements are a concept that's been explored before, Spielburg's A.I. comes to mind. There's also historical stories about various nobles taking in orphans to replace kids that die of sickness, dunno how accurate those are. Sometimes people think that the only way to get over the loss of a child is to fill the hole with another child-shaped-thing.

[nogoodforme]

Necroposting time!
(but AI topics are on trends now anyway)

1. For me it's hard to believe that android cannot be easily tracked by face (as we see none have changed their human-like face during the game). Or it's so perfect high-tech world where there are no AI that watches us through millions of cameras put everywhere? Too idealistic for my taste.
In-game explanation about deviants` badly working trackers is lazy but ok. It's pretty possible IRL because any genius creator will leave backdoor for/in his creations (even if it's theoretically can put his own life in danger).

2. Nothing special here. Connor many times said that he "can be replaced", literally. If he was "killed" - next time he/it will be a new one with uploaded memory. You can also track that if watch bad/inhuman path for Connor where he constantly dies (as well as his partner reaction).
As for reanimating "dead" - it's just a process of memory extraction, which is possible if corresponding hardware is not damaged. Most likely such procedure in the game world can do only cybertec engineers and Connor (for detective matters, as he is unique model and has much more access to the information about androids).

You can see something similar in Observer game: detective can literally walk through the memory of (not long ago)dead people. Which does not mean they could be resurrected.

3. That returns us to my answer #1.
Common people obviously do not care in their routine who or what is around them. But what about surveillance systems?

4. Just a local wireless connection channel(presented to us as a "speech" / "voice in head" which is not true, but plays to show androids appear more human-like). But most likely only deviants can allow themselves to use it.

5. This is postcyberpunk (with theoretically possible continuation into darker cyberpunk).
Anything that people want to buy - will be sold in one way or another. Especially in huge corporations world.
As in postcyberpunk world is more perfect than real, it will have different more opened(and much-much more opened in case of cyberpunk) morale. You should not forget that in that world not only sex-androids present, but also those who imitate love and family relation which is similar level of relationships. So why not kids then?
Schools? Can't say for sure kiddo-androids really go there.

P.S.
Replacing people with androids is typical utopic way of running from reality. But if androids become independent life form with free will - it transforms into much more complex, undiscovered and interesting phenomenon without obvious answers and solutions - as the life/being/existence by itself.

[jinath715]

I totally agree with you that the androids that Connor reactivates presents a giant loop-hole and totally debunks any idea that androids can actually die. I think the whole evidence room scenario is just dumb. I didn't even know there was evidence until that scene in the police station near the end. Shouldn't we have been looking at those things earlier??

The junkyard scene with Markus near the beginning of the game had so much emotion and I thought the stakes were so high with him at minimal power just trying to hold onto life.

I think the game developers should have made it so that if an android shuts down they lose all memory or something that would basically make them a blank slate again. As if their memories had to have a constant power charge similar to our human brains.

[sniipsy]

did you pay attention when playing the game

[Zadkiel]

Originally posted by jinath715:

I totally agree with you that the androids that Connor reactivates presents a giant loop-hole and totally debunks any idea that androids can actually die. I think the whole evidence room scenario is just dumb. I didn't even know there was evidence until that scene in the police station near the end. Shouldn't we have been looking at those things earlier??

The junkyard scene with Markus near the beginning of the game had so much emotion and I thought the stakes were so high with him at minimal power just trying to hold onto life.

I think the game developers should have made it so that if an android shuts down they lose all memory or something that would basically make them a blank slate again. As if their memories had to have a constant power charge similar to our human brains.

A game with Detective/Police characters and your surprised that you had evidence? That's literally the point of Connors investigations. He never had a reason to go through the evidence until he was forced to by Amanda in which Connor even had to break the rules because he wasn't allowed in the evidence room.

[jinath715]

Originally posted by Ketor:

Originally posted by jinath715:

I totally agree with you that the androids that Connor reactivates presents a giant loop-hole and totally debunks any idea that androids can actually die. I think the whole evidence room scenario is just dumb. I didn't even know there was evidence until that scene in the police station near the end. Shouldn't we have been looking at those things earlier??

The junkyard scene with Markus near the beginning of the game had so much emotion and I thought the stakes were so high with him at minimal power just trying to hold onto life.

I think the game developers should have made it so that if an android shuts down they lose all memory or something that would basically make them a blank slate again. As if their memories had to have a constant power charge similar to our human brains.

A game with Detective/Police characters and your surprised that you had evidence? That's literally the point of Connors investigations. He never had a reason to go through the evidence until he was forced to by Amanda in which Connor even had to break the rules because he wasn't allowed in the evidence room.

You totally missed the point.