Westworld – On The Other Side Of The Door Is Seawater?

Published June 23, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey Guys,

In “Vanishing Point,” during the conversation
that preceded Bernard’s deletion (or partial
deletion) of Ford’s ghost, Ford told him
“There’s the origin of an entire species to
consider. We need to open the door.”
Assuming the new species are immortal guests
manufactured by Delos’ Forge — shall we call
them Forgeries? — Ford presumably believes
they should be aborted, because they’re much
less noble than his children, the Hosts. A
bit later, Bernard told Ford “I can stop this
on my own,” to which Ford replied “Indeed,
Bernard, you’re the only one who can stop
it… stop all of it.” Taken together,
Ford’s comments appear to mean they need to
open the Door in order to abort the
Forgeries. That could literally mean opening
a door to the sea (or an implausibly large
water tank), which would flood the Forge,
drowning them. If the valley above the Forge
is below sea level, it too would be flooded.

If the Man in Black is a Forgery, Ford would
want him onsite to be drowned too, or killed
in the attempt to get there.

I don’t know whether drowning the Forgeries
would permanently kill them. Perhaps it
would permanently kill their bodies, which
might suffice to defeat them. But even if
their bodies revive, the delay and the
revelation of their existence might at least
give humanity and/or the Hosts a better
chance to defeat them. It would help if
Bernard can warn the authorities (China? QA?)
about them, but while in the Forge he might
acquire a Passenger — a portion of the
Forge’s AI — in his mind who will try to
prevent him from speaking up about them, and
about the Passenger. Indeed, many Hosts
could be infected with copies of the
Passenger. Perhaps the Man in Black could be
infected too… he might even be Patient Zero.

Question: Why should we expect Forgeries
would have interface ports in their right
forearms? What if they don’t have interface
ports at all? Hosts have interface ports to
allow them to be reprogrammed and controlled,
but Forgeries are supposed to be high
fidelity copies of humans who want to
maintain their identities, not be
reprogrammed or controlled. Perhaps the only
way to distinguish a Forgery from a human is
the presence of the control unit, which would
be hard to detect without an MRI or CAT scan,
or brain surgery, or an autopsy. James Delos
#149 cut into himself extensively, presumably
looking for evidence that he wasn’t human,
and presumably never finding any.

Question 2: Why did Ford add “stop ALL of it”
after saying only Bernard can stop it? One
interpretation is that the “it” has many
independent pieces — many copies of its
code? — that each need to be stopped. Or
maybe “all of it” simply referred to the
world war and mass casualties that would
follow if Bernard doesn’t stop the new species.

–Steve

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