Transistor is a VR. Red is an AI

[McDunkerson]

The whole "Transistor is an Virtual Reality" theory has been the most dominant out of all. The similarities between the Process and Transistor with their real life counterpart being the biggest clue.
But what if it all went deeper than even that?

I think that the world of the Transistor is indeed a VR, a social experiment that was created to see what would happen if people were given absolute democracy with the power of a the gods.
Changing to the majority's whim. At first i thought that the people in the VR were just blissfully unaware of them being in the VR themselves as when Asher finds out that the centuries old history of CloudBank has been the same for centuries he is shocked. Overall the characters seem to think that all of this is real. I think that certain individuals where plugged in the VR and reproduced inside it,having an offspring,of course it would be ridiculous to think that at that point an actual real human joins in at the exact moment of birth and lives his entire life as a baby inside it.What i think happened is that the offspring is AI containing the data of both the parents giving it unique traits in order to simulate how real babies inherit their traits.. I think that after the first generation of people died in the VR,their data was stored inside the cradle,and their children where pure AI.During its life cicle tho the VR reached its goal,the result of having people decide what the world's shape is solely on their own opinion,which was (based on the game itself) a neverending switch between the same elements,the choices too short-sighted,ever going in circles.The world basically looped over and over.

Right about now i need to answer what the Transistor is,as well as the Process. I am sure you all heard about this so i am gonna keep it brief. Think of the Transistor as the level editor, with it you can shape the whole VR to your whim using the Process, which is literally a Process runing through the Transistor which is a part of the Cradle aka the Processor AKA The one that processes. The Cradle is the Processor that uses the Transistor as the level editor which in turn uses the Process to change the VR. Think of the Process as game that runs in your pc,and the CPU is the Cradle,the game is being processed by the CPU. The CPU is in turn millions of millions of tinny Transistors,each of them so important that if one of them was to crash,the CPU itself would eventually crash too.

It is unknown how an AI inside the VR itself is able to unnawarely control the software in which it runs. Altho it is somewhat possible as seen in games like "I'm scared" in which the game crashes,renames and creates its own DATA! (important word) and overall manipulates and creates other data. So it isn't a far fetched idea.

After the Camerata obtains the power of the Transistor, they decide to target specific people that -in their opinion- understood what the people of Cloudbank wanted. However in their attempt to absorb (or rather at this point Download is more appropriate) Red, a mysterious person is absorbed instead. It is never clarified why Breach being absorbed instead would make the Process go insane, which is where the VR theory really shines. Breach is a hacker (Hence his function) that got himself in the game for unnexplained reasons and thanks to him being a hacker, he could do the one thing no AI has ever done in the VR, be anonymous. While every other AI has voted multiple times,going on a loop destined to always vote, just like the original VR people did to get data, Breach decided to be the exact opposite,anonymous,without a voice. While most people playing the game see this world as heaven due to its perfect Democracy,i think its more creepily implied that every person in Transistor was somewhat forced into voting even if they didn't want. Making Breach the only person that had no data,took no space,didn't exist. A perfect example of how unique Breach really is, is Missingno from Pokemon. In Pokemon, if you catch missingno (short for missing number), the game doesn't know what to load as missingno has no associated data,which in most occasions causes PERMANENT damage to the game,no amount of rebooting will save your game, as the Processor of the console has already downloaded random numbers,garbage,absolute gibberish which in turn corrupted the game and even in some cases the whole console. I believe the same happens here. When Breach is absorbed into the Transistor, the Transistor tries to download data associated with Breach, but having none it instead starts to download gibberish,corrupting itself,destroyting the VR and letting the Process inside of it to go insane. It fundamentaly makes the game/VR absolutely corrupted just like missingno.

The spine is another part that makes sense. A big bunch of Process is heavy on the Transistor (Just like a heavy Game makes your pc go slower and lag). Which is exactly what Spine is. It makes the Transistor overload,go slow,and at the end even freeze to the point where you can't hear him anymore.

While to this point it all made sense but didn't make you think of the game too fundamentaly different,it is the ending that will probably get you.

Since this is isn't fallout and i don't expect the people who made the VR to be horrible people,i expect that when a real person would die in the VR, the VR would wake them up rather than kill them.

This could mean one of two things.

When Breach got stabbed and the Transistor downloaded the corrupted data, which also ended on Breach's death,he woke up in the real world, unable to get in again,what was left behind is Breach's AI. The personality data that the VR managed to record of him while he was there. Sure he didnt answer any polls but what he has been doing was surely saved which means that the character you see in the game is also just what the VR thinks Breach would say,how he would have reacted. In the end the real Breach is left out probably in a hospital preserved in a similar manner that Sword Art Online characters were left in (Don't hate me just on the base that i know what happened in SAO). And Red's AI is along with Breach's AI alone. A romantic and conclussive ending,if only it were that simple. In the end every character's AI has been terminated,every "level",every location corrupted to an uninteligable data pile. The only inhabitans being Red's AI and Breach's, now if Red would rebuild Cloudbank,and its AIs,who knows how Cloudbank would end up. But now, with the "level editor" left alone without a way for outside sources to intervene,the VR is in a state of permanent freeze. All that will ever happen inside of the VR is Red's and Breach's lives until they die (It is unknown if you can die inside of the Transistor of old age). However this is still Virtual Reality made for research and since it is stuck, or rather completed,there is only one thing remaining. Removing the plug. A depressing ending indeed,altho no matter what, Red and Breach will be together forever as data.

The other ending theory is that since Breach didn't literally die,but rather absorbed into the Transistor,he never woke up,meaning that this time it is really him and Red in the end. Once again destined to die together one way or another. A bit more fullfilling.


So this is it i think. I personally think this solves every mystery,explains everything that isn't explainable otherwise. Thank you for reading this far if you did and please let me know of your own theories.

P.S:I also have a theory as to why Transistor's ownership was switched to Red after Breach was stabbed btw if anyone is ever interested.

[Bomoo]

I think it's just a highly advanced full-immersion social network analogue than a "social experiment." The physical bodies of Cloudbank's residents are implied to be in suspended animation, but for what reason isn't made clear.

[McDunkerson]

Originally posted by Bomoo:

I think it's just a highly advanced full-immersion social network analogue than a "social experiment." The physical bodies of Cloudbank's residents are implied to be in suspended animation, but for what reason isn't made clear.

The reason i decided to go for "Social experiment" rather than a social network is because in the end you are given the option to start the whole thing over. For research to be completed,the conclusion must be duplicable so the researcher (You) is given the choice to start it all over to see if the result will be the same, which it is. Still if you see the Recursion mode as just a New Game+ without it having to do with the story, then it is just as valid. It's just that, if its a social network that is indeed full-immersion (which i guess means that you forget there is a thing as "real life") then wouldn't the Cloudbank's residents be able to reproduce? And if they do then the children should be AI and not actual people as i don't see how else that would work without the people in the VR being suspsicious that the reproductive system that humans have had since forever doesn't work. Altho i guess the woman can be artificially impregnated while in the VR and
then the baby is put in the VR itself? Dunno seems kind out of place in the world of Transistor but its plausible and that is all i care for since there are almost no theories in the game that explain the unexplainable.

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by McDunkerson:

The reason i decided to go for "Social experiment" rather than a social network is because in the end you are given the option to start the whole thing over. For research to be completed,the conclusion must be duplicable so the researcher (You) is given the choice to start it all over to see if the result will be the same, which it is.

Interesting.

[Chonccc]

damn that's deep !

[Pebbles]

Hi there! I was originally gonna post my thoughts here. But it got really long so I made another discusiion thread. Go check it out:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/237930/discussions/0/371918937265856541/

[McDunkerson]

Originally posted by Novalex:

Hi there! I was originally gonna post my thoughts here. But it got really long so I made another discusiion thread. Go check it out:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/237930/discussions/0/371918937265856541/

Cool theory altho i never take the songs the way most people do,for example while people will consider "In Circles" to be a song about how the game loops i just think it just fully explains Sybil's personality.

[takashi_K]

I kind of get the impression more than the citizens of CloudBank are upload human consciousness, rather than just in some VR world. They have no physical bodies to return to, all they are is their data.

This is why it's still aweful when people die, and why recovering a piece of them as a Function is better than nothing. Immortal data consciousness or not, when you (and presumably your backups) are corrupted, you die the final, true death.

[McDunkerson]

Originally posted by takashi_K:

I kind of get the impression more than the citizens of CloudBank are upload human consciousness, rather than just in some VR world. They have no physical bodies to return to, all they are is their data.

This is why it's still aweful when people die, and why recovering a piece of them as a Function is better than nothing. Immortal data consciousness or not, when you (and presumably your backups) are corrupted, you die the final, true death.

That is also a very creative workaround for the seriousness of death to something that shouldn't be important like getting out of a VR.....interesting to say the least. Maybe there was a research that concluded that the VR world is just better at everything than the real world,and you dont need actual resources to create a building,nor manpower or skilled people, but to truly experience the fake world would mean having to sacrifice your real body (maybe the brains are removed from the body and wired into the world and when you die in the fake world all you leave behind is a brain without conciousness,just a broken piece of "hardware" which would fit the game).

[ihavenolife]

Okay, gonna start off with a big ol mean truth. I absolutely hate the VR test/experiment theory or any experiment/test theory for that matter. I will try to explain logically why this theory can't be true but my energy against it is thematically I strongly believe that if the characters aren't real characters, really dying, than the choices made, the effort put forth, it all means nothing. Secondly if for some reason some humans did decide to make a social experiment or test such as this it would way morally unethical. Making sentient creatures that think they are human and can make decisions for themselves but are forced to live an unhappy existance for a test is way messed up. These real humans have to live in a weird seperate society from our own for such a test to go on or are damn good at hiding such a vast experiment. Thirdly considering this so-called experiment turns out so much like what Plato has written about in ancient Athen's decomracy I don't know what the point would be for letting it go so far and to such detail. Fourthly, Breach being a hacker adds a huge chunk of character developement and backstory that is left out of the game.

Okay now for "attempted logic".

We don't know what year this takes place, when it relates to our time, or even if it relates to our world at all. This could be like some Final Fantacy universe. It doesn't have to relate to our own.

Breach isn't a hacker. He mentions that a bunch of bars he likes have been changed to other things when they are near where they use to be. Why wouldn't he turn them back? Why would he continue to let the world shift in a way he doesn't like when he could change it?

Okay, say Breach only knew how to hack into the system but not anything else. Why doesn't he know about the Process? Why is he surprised by them? Why doesn't he know about the different places of Cloudbank they go to? And most glaringly why is he a part of recursion?

As for VR, what exectly points to this being VR? If this is a future way off in the distance or a seperate universe all together there is no reason that everything that happens in Cloudbank couldn't be part of real advanced technology.

If anything is possible why is it so hard to get to Fairview Island?

Why are there some plants and trees but not forests?

Birds, owls, and cats are there. How do they function in this test. An owl is an awfully specific animal to chose to include... unless you're making an Athena reference which it seems to be.

Why do they bother with having a bathrooms and a need to use them? Doesn't it just waste time? Same with sleeping.

If you go up to the water in Goldenwalk Bay. It says, "Potable: False" which either means its salt water, or its poluted. That doesn't seem like a detail they would add to a VR utopia or a world with such limited vegitation and natural resources. Also if they have godlike powers over their world why do they have such a lack of vegitation? Clearly by the city designs and heaven- country association they rather like vegitation.

And my super huge issue: Why can't the process effect water or travel within it? If its just data which is corrupted and going haywire, why doesn't the water change? The process bits just sort of float on the edges. Breach reacts to this. He wonders why it is happening too.

Please do refute.

[Sorin]

Agree with OP with on most points. Some reservations about smaller details like what the spine actually is. but i'd say overall pretty close to what developers intended