u/Utenziltron

(An aside, I'm not sure that now all existing sessions of the series are concluded whether or not we're supposed to apply "spoiler" tags. Let me know)

So Rebeck and Patton are on the outer edge of the people oMark is acquainted with, he knows them via Ricken.

From Rebeck's complaints about being pecked by birds on the back of her head to Patton's general strangeness and the way they interact, it seems like they may have been subject to some sort of Lumon's experiments. It doesn't seem like they'd have been severed but it really isn't clear what happens after a severed employee is let go. Burt seems to be fine for the most part, for example.

So why are they weird? I'm thinking it was some early prototype of the Severance procedure. Not enough to create the innie, but enough to prove key aspects of the technology. Also, they may have been a part of this at a fairly young age.

I have rewatched some episodes to try to fill some gaps but I don't think they mention contraception. They do encourage procreation, so it seems like they'd be against contraception.

It also seems like there would be many millions of pregnant women at the time of the mass infection, some tiny amount of which could potentially have resistant children. It's not clear if they will screen newborns for resistance

The very helpful John Cena made it clear that food was eventually going to be a central problem. I had a funny thought that resistant humans, especially Carol could "help" them with overpopulation issues simply by getting pissed off. Like, how far can they bend their operating principles to where they could "accidentally on purpose" upset Carol such that she relieves them of millions of mouths to feed.

The plurbs' attitude and mannerisms can change towards the resistant humans even if their feelings cannot. The plurbs should be able to calculate the point at which food shortage will become close to overwhelming. For example, the resistant humans will always be taken care of, and the plurbs can estimate how much each of the 11 will eat over the span of their lives, even if they dine lavishly it will be a drop in the bucket when compared to all the rest.

So they know what they have to build, have a good idea how long it will take, and how long they have left. The scientists who located the signal prior to the infection said the antenna alone would have to be massive, the size of Jupiter, to generate such a signal. So they may need to rephrase one of the dollar system's gas giants? How are they going to accomplish that?

I like sci-fi in general, and I like Pluribus, I like Severance. I like good stories. You probably do also. As consumers of story-based entertainment we appreciate the interacting and situations in the story, but also the creativity and cleverness applied in the making and telling of the story.

So Pluribus and Severance are similar in that they take place in familiar surroundings, but something very odd, creepy, disturbing, bizarre, darkly funny and/or surreal is going on all she same time.

So ok the bee-like plurbs really are just like bees. Rather than swarming and moving from field to farm to hollow log, they move across interstellar space and wherever they can finally establish a hold is where they set up. They don't build their hive in a space, though, they build it in the minds of faraway sentient beings. Simply by following their basic, normal operating principles as life forms and as a society. Their destructive and conquering power doesn't come from willful might, but just following their nature, and true destruction is accidental. There's no malice. Also you could say that bees use destructive force as defense when defending their hive that the plurbs do not.

But the plurbs will shun particularly resistant opponents, stepping down their normal operating principles to a bare minimum.

It has been noted there is hypocrisy: once the little Andean girl is co-opted, the group silently leaves the domesticated animals to their own devices, demonstrating while they wouldn't kill animals for food they won't go out very far of their way to aid them. So terrestrial zoo animals are let out to their own devices, regardless of their natural range. Did they move the dolphins and whales from sea parks? Did they airlift penguins to their proper climate, or just into the nearest water? Maybe they did, maybe they determined the Andean livestock would simply eventually escape.

While not maliciously deceitful, then, they are oddly duplicitous, obviously not completely forthcoming and definitely opportunistic. They are self aware yet self unaware and seem to be only aware of their own set of principles at a very broad level.

Could they be actually be preparing Earth for a more hostile takeover, where they are like bees that have beekeepers? So as far as they know, they actually will have to deal with their own widespread starvation and are preparing for that, but in fact there is a race of "beekeepers" they are unaware of that has loosed them?

Also they are willing to pare back higher levels of caring for the resistant humans in order to shun them for self protection. I'm interested in how far they will be portrayed as willing to do that because it's a very key part of the appeal of the story and also the mechanics of the story. What are the clues that tip us off to how far they might go towards putting Carol and Manousos in prison? A fairly nice prison, but prison. They can have their bomb on a far away luxury resort island where they'll get everything they want, but they just can't leave. They are already pretty close to that now, their current location being rather remote as it is.

So we see cars from different eras, devices in use ranging from typewriter to smartphone, decor ranging over 100 years in various places.

The reason for this was stated by the producers of this epic was to the effect of "we wanted it to not seem too fixed in one era" which may well be.

But Severance is not just a show, ladies n gemmemun. I would assert it is ART.

In art, perhaps paradoxically, the artist's intentions don't actually matter. The intentions of the artist, as conduit from the recesses of the collective unconscious to the world at large, are not the message. They matter, but they are the messengers.

So cast chock a block, willy nilly into the heady creative endeavor like twigs over the edge of the world's tallest waterfall, they plunge into the frothy abyss, dig deep, Bob to the surface and reveal... stuff.

One of those things they may reveal is The Future.

I would submit that we regard Kier, PE as a potential future. A future beset with energy scarcity.

Kier is a particularly sleepy town. A bedroom community for Lumon employees, with Lumon working both openly as well as furtively with the government at all levels. But, no doubt in part to Eagan aceticism, numbingly dull. I mean, that it is even partly conceivable that an Helena Eagan might drop into a everyday place like Zufu for a dinner is very odd. But Mark's outie doesn't even question it.

For your phantasmigorical consideration, then, imagine that the homes unoccupied by Lumon employees are designed to draw very little power during Lumon operating hours. In fact, the only place where we see bright lights is on the Lumon campus, because this is where the grid's power goes first.

The reason Irving leaves on a train rather than a plane is because there is no more jet fuel for civilian travel.

The reason for the old cars is because no new ones are being built.

The reason people even consider undergoing a severance procedure is job scarcity.

In this future corporate considerations dwarf those of the electorate. Maybe "Kier, PE" is a clue. Is PE a corporate entity, rather than a state? Province of Eagan?

A senator's wife is severed to avoid the pain of childbirth, offloading this onto an innie who knows inlet the pain of childbirth. This particular person is severed outside of Lumon's auspices, sounds like something expensive, or at least something that would hold a senator indebted to the company.

In the Severance universe, there is a constant tongue-in-cheek poking at modern corporate concepts and the tenets of industrial society.

For example, the severed individual has the ultimate "work/life balance".

The legalese surrounding being severed, the banal perks, Milchick's greatest corporate annual review ever, the management vs.worker conflict... all of these things offer some of the most delicious moments in the series.

But there is some real truly amazing commentary on the entirety of "first world" history from Kier's time (mid 1800s) to the present.

Young Kier Eagan was a rather mundane product of his times. He was swept along in the rapidly industrializing society that arose during his childhood, where the elite held seances and pondered the mysteries of antiquity. Cults abounded, and more than a few of these proponed a strong Protestant work ethic and involved communal labor and practicing austerity, but also could involve mysticism and Eastern philosophy.

We know Kier was a sickly child of parents who were more closely related than the usual. He was employed as a child laborer stuffing chairs for a furniture "tycoon" who physically beat and demeaned his employees. Kier absorbed this experience and concluded this was the essence of the reality the work life: to endure and steel oneself internally, because in the work life one's internal self is the only environment one could control.

He continued to labor in factories and ended up in ether manufacture. The proximity to the substance led to his abuse of it, whose highly intoxicating properties led to his fantastical and magical thinking about the nature of the self. Thereafter, he was a medic in the military, and engendered the idea for making and selling various medical salves, which became the basis for Lumon Industries' pharmaceutical products.

So although Lumon is a pharmaceutical and biotech firm, the primary focus of Lumon's more esoteric research is to prove the legitimacy of Kier's 19th century "theosophical thinking" with regards to the four tempers, the Nine Principles, and other epiphanies he had a a result of his ether intoxication experiences, which can include not just drunk-like euphoria but visual and auditory hallucinations.

At the very center of "Kierosophy" is the notion that the bedrock reality is life sucks, abuse and degradation are the constants in work life and life in general, and one is continually set up to fail. But through the practice and application of Kierosophy, one can persevere and possibly even triumph.

It's all much more mysticism than science but it is the solemn creed of the Eagans. It justifies their hardness towards their staff and their entire existence. Therefore, scientifically proving the truth of these ideas and building useful applications based on them are obsessions at the core of Lumon, and the reason for the Eagans' continued tight control of their empire.

There's some alternate or vague history, but Lumon is the captain of industry's/robber baron's ultimate company. All of the modern ideas of workers' rights, equal opportunity, prohibiting child labor have been conveniently avoided by Lumon's Kiersophical policies. They're are clearly copious layers of lawyers and bought-off officials that protect the Eagans' darkest practices and methods of management.

The question that occurs is "how can the Macrodata Refiners get away with so much crap?". There's a lot of energy that goes into their oversight. They wander the hallways and seem to break all kinds of rules.

But the answer is "because their important and mysterious work is of central, paramount interest to the Eagans."

Gemma is at the center, and we see them losing months and months of expensive experiments and critical data gathered as Gemma steps through the door to the stairwell.

So what were they really doing with those experiments?

My theory (which, not unlike Monty Python's Ann Elk's, is mine) is that the events experienced by Gemma during her ordeals in the testing rooms are actual memories from the women represented in the museum. This is because of the Eagans' mistrust of people outside of their inner circle. They need control data they can trust. So they get it from within the family.

They are taming the tempers within humanity by using simulated defining experiences based on actual events in Eagan women's' lives. They somehow recorded and are replaying these experiences again and again through some methods involving Gemma's severance chip and then collecting the temper measirement readouts, which the MDR team then processes.

To ensure Gemma's complete immersion in these events, the different clothes that Gemma wears are actual outfits worn by Eagan women that we see during the Perpetuity Wing tour that Irving conducted. This is a very important observation.

All of the experiences in the testing rooms are particularly intense in terms of "temper content", and each involves particularly extreme temper levels (Woe, Frolic, Dread and Malice). Taming the tempers is what Kier regarded as the ultimate human quest, he claimed to have achieved this and owed his success to it.

It seems like the severance chip can be programmed to counteract the spikes in the temper measurements that these situations generate.

So, the ultimate application of severance chip technology is to tame the tempers of the innie per Kierosophy and the will of the Eagans, eradicating emotional and physical pain, creating a totally compliant, neutral and obedient employee, and ultimately apply this to the entirety of humanity, making them all "Kier's children".

There is something interesting about Irving being let go from Lumon due to his attack on Helena. His innie was "terminated" but it sells like his innie's memories remain available to him as evidenced by his interaction with Burt.

So, really, isn't it that his outie that was terminated, or basically imprisoned, and Irving's innie remains in control?

I am thinking this is related to the various s-chip operating modes, like the Glasgow Block: it's a reverse Glasgow Block, where the outie is submerged even when the innie is away from the Severance floor.

\*POTENTIAL SPOILERS\*

​

​

So ok, Netflix I will take your suggestion and watch "Money Heist", which couldn't be a worse name. Spanish with subtitles, ok ok, challenge accepted. "House of Paper" why didn't they just go with that?

​

\*starts watching "Berlin..."\*

Oh geez, it's, like, "Oceans 2, 4, 8, 10?? I will NEVER be able to relate to more then two of these characters. So the Entertainment Algorithm would have it some are going to die, it better be in an entertaining manner each time.

​

Wait, is this a comedy? The Berlin actor is pretty good as the proper Iberian gentleman and his buddy's a good foil.

​

Stereotypical Latin hotheaded woman on the balcony, give me a break. She must be a cop, or comic relief.

​

\*further on\*

But these kids, they are just fodder. I'll hang with for a while anyway. But i like the way they slowly reveal the plan. I like the hacker girl and her bf. But the two that won't talk to each other are just annoying.

​

\*into the thick of it\*

There's no way they get out of this. Well, he's dead. There no way he gets out of that. The bodyguard will snap them all like twigs. No, they are really screwing up, why get drunk NOW? Cmon you punk man up. No way, no way... !!!

​

\*during final episodes\* No no, not THAT one? There was such initiative! What's the moral lesson here??

​

Dammit. I'm crying.

​

Bravo.

​

Well I'll watch the next series...

​

holy crap, it's like Oceans 10, 18...? No way half of them will make it to the end... oh it's a prequel?

​

\*further\*

​

Oceans SEVENTY PLUS??? NFW.

​

\*further\*

​

if the crew doesn't off this hostage, the cops will by mistake... what a dick

​

Is she the best character or the worst?? This guy evokes no sympathy.

​

She's not very pretty. Wow she's kind of gorgeous. This kid is worthless, he will screw it up. Holy crap, he did the right thing.

​

Oh no. Man my sympathy is evoked, not on the bingo card.

​

He's the worst. No, she's the worst. Wait, she's the best!! Wow, he's really a heartless dick in this one. Wait, no no no, oh he makes it out!! How could I think she was the best.

​

.... unbelievable I'm crying???

​

Fuck these Spanish people making me cry. Dammit.

​

WAIT, there's ANOTHER one...???

​

​

​

​

So the song Bella Ciao, which of course is Italian, piqued my curiosity. Why did they sing it? An informed Italian gentleman explains in the linked video.

​

In short or if tldw, this my understanding:

​

It is a protest song that originated in 20th century Italy, purportedly first to protest brutal bosses and poor working conditions, then definitely later to celebrate the WWII Italian resistance and the end of the Fascist regime, where it was selected to be politically humanist and have broad appeal..

​

It worked pretty well, because it is used worldwide as a protest against oppressive regimes and just as a catchy tune, even occurring as an EDM synth version. In the Spanish historical context I guess it would be pro-democracy, anti-Franco.

​

IMO the English translations I saw weren't that good in terms of being singable, it's lovely and rhyming in Italian. SO, because us Americans gotta mess with everything 😀 I modified the English language versions found online into a viable US version for "21st century times":

​

"Bella Ciao", US Version

​

Chords (same throughout), can be easily played by striking on the quarter note.

​

Am

There was a morning, when I awakened

Am

Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

Dm

On that morning,

Am

when I awakened

E

The infiltration

Am

had begun

​

TRANSLATION:

​

There was a morning, when I awakened

Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

On that morning, when I awakened

The infiltration had begun

​

There was a morning, when I awakened

Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

On that morning, when I awakened

A filthy tyrant was installed

​

Sweet resistance, lend me your shoulder

Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

Sweet resistance, lend me your shoulder

We'll send the tyrants on their way

​

Oh brave companion, let us go forward,

Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

Oh brave companion, let us go forward,

Even though I lose my life

​

And if I die here, in the resistance

Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

And if I die here, in this resistance

You will have to bury me

​

Bury my body, upon the mountain

Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

Bury my body, upon the mountain

In the shade of a flowering tree

​

And any people who may pass by there

Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

And any people who may pass by there

Will exclaim: "What a beautiful flower!"

​

This is the flower, of a resister

Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao

This is the flower, of a resister

Who gave their life for our liberty

​

FIN

​

\*POTENTIAL SPOILERS\*

​

​

So ok, Netflix I will take your suggestion and watch "Money Heist", which couldn't be a worse name. Spanish with subtitles, ok ok, challenge accepted. "House of Paper" why didn't they just go with that?

​

\*starts watching "Berlin..."\*

Oh geez, it's, like, "Oceans 2, 4, 8, 10?? I will NEVER be able to relate to more then two of these characters. So the Entertainment Algorithm would have it some are going to die, it better be in an entertaining manner each time.

​

Wait, is this a comedy? The Berlin actor is pretty good as the proper Iberian gentleman and his buddy's a good foil.

​

Stereotypical Latin hotheaded woman on the balcony, give me a break. She must be a cop, or comic relief.

​

\*further on\*

But these kids, they are just fodder. I'll hang with for a while anyway. But i like the way they slowly reveal the plan. I like the hacker girl and her bf. But the two that won't talk to each other are just annoying.

​

\*into the thick of it\*

There's no way they get out of this. Well, he's dead. There no way he gets out of that. The bodyguard will snap them all like twigs. No, they are really screwing up, why get drunk NOW? Cmon you punk man up. No way, no way... !!!

​

\*during final episodes\* No no, not THAT one? There was such initiative! What's the moral lesson here??

​

Dammit. I'm crying.

​

Bravo.

​

Well I'll watch the next series...

​

holy crap, it's like Oceans 10, 18...? No way half of them will make it to the end... oh it's a prequel?

​

\*further\*

​

Oceans SEVENTY PLUS??? NFW.

​

\*further\*

​

if the crew doesn't off this hostage, the cops will by mistake... what a dick

​

Is she the best character or the worst?? This guy evokes no sympathy.

​

She's not very pretty. Wow she's kind of gorgeous. This kid is worthless, he will screw it up. Holy crap, he did the right thing.

​

Oh no. Man my sympathy is evoked, not on the bingo card.

​

He's the worst. No, she's the worst. Wait, she's the best!! Wow, he's really a heartless dick in this one. Wait, no no no, oh he makes it out!! How could I think she was the best.

​

.... unbelievable I'm crying???

​

Fuck these Spanish people making me cry. Dammit.

​

WAIT, there's ANOTHER one...???

​

​

​

​

*POTENTIAL SPOILERS*

​

​

So ok, Netflix I will take your suggestion and watch "Money Heist", which couldn't be a worse name. Spanish with subtitles, ok ok, challenge accepted. "House of Paper" why didn't they just go with that?

​

*starts watching "Berlin..."*

Oh geez, it's, like, "Oceans 2, 4, 8, 10?? I will NEVER be able to relate to more then two of these characters. So the Entertainment Algorithm would have it some are going to die, it better be in an entertaining manner each time.

​

Wait, is this a comedy? The Berlin actor is pretty good as the proper Iberian gentleman and his buddy's a good foil.

​

Stereotypical Latin hotheaded woman on the balcony, give me a break. She must be a cop, or comic relief.

​

*further on*

But these kids, they are just fodder. I'll hang with for a while anyway. But i like the way they slowly reveal the plan. I like the hacker girl and her bf. But the two that won't talk to each other are just annoying.

​

*into the thick of it*

There's no way they get out of this. Well, he's dead. There no way he gets out of that. The bodyguard will snap them all like twigs. No, they are really screwing up, why get drunk NOW? Cmon you punk man up. No way, no way... !!!

​

*during final episodes* No no, not THAT one? There was such initiative! What's the moral lesson here??

​

Dammit. I'm crying.

​

Bravo.

​

Well I'll watch the next series...

​

holy crap, it's like Oceans 10, 18...? No way half of them will make it to the end... oh it's a prequel?

​

*further*

​

Oceans SEVENTY PLUS??? NFW.

​

*further*

​

if the crew doesn't off this hostage, the cops will by mistake... what a dick

​

Is she the best character or the worst?? This guy evokes no sympathy.

​

She's not very pretty. Wow she's kind of gorgeous. This kid is worthless, he will screw it up. Holy crap, he did the right thing.

​

Oh no. Man my sympathy is evoked, not on the bingo card.

​

He's the worst. No, she's the worst. Wait, she's the best!! Wow, he's really a heartless dick in this one. Wait, no no no, oh he makes it out!! How could I think she was the best.

​

.... unbelievable I'm crying???

​

Fuck these Spanish people making me cry. Dammit.

​

WAIT, there's ANOTHER one...???

​

​

​

​

I like using Suno. I find I get the best results using audio input to try to create a section for a song. In this way I can sing or him parts along with a rhythm and then work work them in my DAW. I will separate out stems for this purpose to remove parts that strike me as derivative.

Here is my main reservations: I know very little of how the system works. Are portions of the output are based on samples taken directly from training material and then transposed and/or stretched to fit into the song? Is it that instruments are stem separated out from the training material and these are then used as samples?

Or is the AI algorithm determining popular frequencies and waveforms used in a particular genre and then using MIDI to drive virtual instruments?

I would like to read a white paper that generally describes the process. Not wanting any proprietary info/ secret sauce etc.. Just a honest high level description of how it works.

Creating music always carries some copyright risks because it is the case that musicians working together on their own have inadvertently infringed on existing material. It's always a risk that you might have unconsciously lifted a defining melody or riff from a song. But at least you can determine where your process picked up the "contamination".