Westworld Season 2 Episode 9: The Forge Contains An “It That Learns”

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1. Ford made several intriguing comments to
William at the party: He congratulated
William’s “extraordinary achievements” and
implied one of them is the project in the
Valley Beyond. He said the project broke the
agreement that Ford would stay out of the
Valley Beyond and Delos would stay out of
Ford’s stories, which implies the project has
interfered with Ford’s stories. And he said
it learned a lot about the guests. Together
those sound like hints that the Forge spawned
an Artificial Intelligence: an extraordinary
achievement; capable of interfering the same
way Ford’s mind in the Cradle was able to
interfere with the park’s systems; capable of
learning.

An AI in the Forge could be what Ford meant
by “origin of an entire species” during his
final conversation with BernOrd. We know
Ford didn’t mean Akecheta because Ford’s
advice to Akecheta — to lead the Nation to
safety after Deathbringer kills Ford —
hadn’t been part of Ford’s plan. Ford
probably didn’t mean Maeve, because he’d
planned for her escape to the mainland before
his final Journey Into Night story. Ford
probably didn’t mean Dolores, whose code
seems as broken as the code in the loathsome
humans. Thus, by process of elimination,
Ford probably meant the new species is
something at the Forge we haven’t yet seen…
and the Door must be opened to free it from
the Forge. A hint that Ford meant something
singular like an AI, rather than something
plural like immortal copies of guests, is
when he told Maeve that, just as she’d chosen
to stay in the park to save her child, so had
he. That suggests Ford’s child, rather than
Ford’s children. Another hint is the
singular title of episode 10, “The Passenger.”

The Man in Black might not be aware of the
AI’s existence; he may simply seek to destroy
the immortality project and the data
collected about the guests.

If the new species is an AI and not just a
bunch of immortal copies of guests, I hope
it’s given a body and that the actor who
plays it will be either Ed Harris or Jimmi
Simpson. Or both, since it could have more
than one body. If it were up to Ford,
though, he might choose a body that looks
like Logan or James Delos, both of whom
appear in the trailer for episode 10.

2. In the final scene with Emily and the Man
in Black, the moment before he concluded she
was a Ford creation and turned on her, she
told him the reason she wanted to clone
Juliet was to learn why Juliet committed
suicide… what was different that night.
The Man in Black knew the real Emily would
already know about something different that
night: Emily had insisted Juliet go back to
rehab. A clone of Emily, on the other hand,
wouldn’t have known that since Emily hadn’t
been in the park for years.

The Man in Black then said to Emily,
addressing her as Robert, “You just want to
shove what I’ve built here in my face.” I
think he meant the Forge, since Emily
couldn’t be an ordinary host; if she isn’t
human she’s a fairly high fidelity copy of a
guest, which only the Forge can produce.
Though I doubt the human Emily could be as
good a sharpshooter as her clone, who shoots
as well as augmented Teddy did.

Emily never gave a straight answer about how
she located the Man in Black. First she said
she’d searched everywhere, which is
impossible given how quickly she found him.
Then she said it was fate and changed the
subject. Not a satisfactory explanation if
she’s human.

3. High fidelity copies of guests won’t have
explosives in their spines since they’re
intended to live (forever) in the real world.
Assuming QA doesn’t know about the
immortality project, they wouldn’t know their
portable host detection scanners can’t
distinguish between humans and copies of guests.

4. Are the clones of guests connected to the
mesh network? I’d bet not. If I’m right,
then to hosts they’d appear fully human. For
instance, when Emily came to Akecheta’s camp
to rescue the Man in Black, Akecheta would
have believed she was human even if she
wasn’t, and not had reason to doubt her claim
that the Man in Black was her father.

5. I disagree with Emily’s claim that
continual deep scans of guests’ brains would
be needed to make high fidelity copies. A
single deep snapshot should contain all the
necessary information about how a guest’s
brain is wired, the strength of each synapse,
the health of each neuron, etc. Continual
deep scans were never feasible because guests
spend most of their time in the real world,
don’t sleep with hats on, etc.

6. Deep brain scanner in a hat? I don’t
believe it could be lightweight enough to be
concealed. More believable would be to take
snapshot scans of guests while they sleep, as
opportunities arise.

7. It was ridiculous when the Man in Black
said to himself, after shooting Emily, that
she couldn’t have read his profile because
he’d never told anyone about it. He lost
track of his profile card the night he
carelessly hid it in the book Slaughterhouse
5, so he couldn’t know whether Emily had
viewed it.

8. When the cradle replaced BernOrd’s
control unit back into his skull and sealed
the entry wound, did it also patch his
previous head wounds? I didn’t see wounds on
his head in episode 9.

9. Why did BernOrd lash his left wrist to
the dune buggy’s steering wheel, when
preparing to plug the tablet into his right
arm to delete Ford’s code? Why did Elsie get
scared when she saw his lashed wrist? I
must have missed something.

–Steve

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