My Theories About Per Stenson
First Reddit post, so be gentle. 😅
I haven't read the books, but what follows is full of TV spoilers. Read on only if you've finished watching through S3E10.
- It's all in the name.
Per Stenson = Per Son of Sten.
Sten comes from the Old Norse word steinn, meaning “stone.”
Therefore: Person of stone | A person with a strong bond to the earth | A stone-hearted person | A stone idol, a man who has made himself into a god.
- The control-freakiest Person ever.
There's just something about being a trillionaire that makes you think you're exceptional and above everyone else, a god among humans. In Per's case, his God complex manifests as a need to control everything and everyone.
He takes control of vehicles (fighter planes, cars); controls the circumstances of the nuclear war; controls who survives; and ultimately builds a system controlling knowledge, memory, reproduction, movement, technology, and even rebellion.
- The loooooong game 1: The Ark and the Flood.
After Per is done developing and perfecting his nanotechnology to be used as a weapon, for memory erasure, and in cryogenic preservation and revival, he decides he wants the end of the world to happen on his terms.
Not: I built the Ark because the Flood was coming.
But: I built the Ark, and I decided when the Flood would come.
(I love all the flood references in the show. When we first encounter the nanotech weapon chronologically, it is in the form of a cloud or cloudburst. The nanotechnology in the water floods your system. The flooding in the silos. The flooding of the airlock with the nanotech mist. The liquid and later aerosolised compound. "Target area is saturated with the compound." The flooding back of memory when one comes across a relic from one's past.)
After he is done manipulating events to end the world, Per begins his eugenics project. He controls which human traits survive (obedience, conformity) and which get purged (curiosity, free will, dissent). He will then perhaps repopulate the Earth with this kind of humanity: the last remaining silo of stable, docile members subservient to the Founder and his religion, the Pact.
- The loooooong game 2: The Tower of Babel.
Per fears people's unity and collective power. Therefore, he scatters them in isolated silos so they won't contaminate each other with knowledge and eventually come together and reach heaven (Silo 1).
Control and surveillance go hand in hand, and we see this in the silo system, which is essentially a giant panopticon. Per restricts and controls people's access to technology, their history, and even their own memories.
- Daniel and Helen (Oftroy).
When Helen and Daniel rejected Per's invitation to participate in the Silo Project, it was the first great challenge to his authority. This must have infuriated him.
So he did what Per does: Take away people's choice and have his way by bringing them under his control.
His taking control of Daniel and Helen's car (and trapping and surveilling them in it) foregrounds how he later controls their lives, when he drives them into the silos.
- Nothing beside remains.
Per is an Ozymandias-wannabe—both the historical Ozymandias and the one from Watchmen. But there's an important distinction (Watchmen spoiler): >!Ozymandias kills the many to save many more!<; Per kills the many so that his chosen few will survive to awaken him from his “stone” sarcophagus and ultimately deify him.
Again, these are just my theories. Don't come at me. 😅