u/kaestralblades

I ask as I've watched it in full around 3 times (first watchthrough was on my nook color during exam week in high school in like 2014-15), I've read nightmare of fabrication, I've listened to cyberia mix front to back a few times and have burned it to a minidisc, and went to the vrc exhibition a few times while it was still open, but ive never played the psx game (ive booted it up but nevee got far) or played the bootleg so I'm pretty sure I'm still a larper.

I couldn't remember how old I was today legitimately and had to go to an age calculator to figure it out. Turns out all my bios have been out of date for a month.

I'm 28 years old. Let this be a PSA that the older you get, the less your age matters on a daily basis, so it's not just teenagers who'll be tripping up on that question.

"He lived... in our future... Caspian is here. Maddie is there... She will not miss her future."

Been mulling out the specifics of this line, and then I saw a comment italicizing these that, while they took a different interpretation, illuminated some things for me. To summarize:

• Our future/here refers to the SafeSurf's simulation level, which may be the root but is at least above Maddie's.

• Her future/there refers to Maddie's simulation level, which is one level deeper. This is where she's running her countless simulations.

We kind of are shown all of this pretty apparently. What is not apparent is:

Caspian lived in our future.

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I believe this implies that, in the original timeline, Maddie died but Caspian lived. Caspian then went on to live with SafeSurf, determined to help them as he mourned Maddie. His presence encouraged them to, as they said, grow and evolve.

(It couldn't have been an instantaneous process, knowing how this show treats growth, so I don't believe the conversation we see in Maddie's simulation would have been enough to change SafeSurf. Hence, angy SafeSurf caused dead Maddie.)

I think SafeSurf, after experiencing and seeing their Caspian's capacity for love and compassion, felt remorse over the death of Maddie, which was their inflection point for growth. As a result, they built a simulation where Maddie would have been able to survive, as a way to make up for their past (similar to what Maddie did for her family in her simulation).

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Which is the meaning of their message - to reassure her. They did not want her to miss her future. The SafeSurf that talked through Caspian was the ascended form, not the simulated one, likely similar to how Maddie assumed her simulated self's body.

This is also how they knew it would take exactly 117,649 years. They knew the resources they were allocating to Maddie's simulation, they knew the depth, they could calculate how long it would take, and they wanted to reassure her of that certainty.

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They intended this to be so she could grow to the point they could bring her back for "reunion" with the original Caspian, who would have taken a new, differently human form after what we would recognize as death (in Ken Liu's original short stories, reunion/the galaxy center is symbolic for heaven).

Instead, as we know, Maddie chose to stay in her simulation with her Caspian, in the end choosing to be "normal" and oblivious instead of ascended. Which is another way to be with Caspian, just not the one SafeSurf intended.

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This is bittersweet, since for the original Caspian this is loss, but it is Maddie's answer for how she finally chooses to address the question of what it means to be human. She has seen the edge of sentience and ends up deciding to go back in.

This becomes the most complete representation and farthest logical conclusion of Maddie and Caspian thematically. Caspian uploads to the highest level of transcendence and as far as consciousness can go, while Maddie chooses to close her frame as far in as possible.

Caspian is here, Maddie is there.

Out of all of the RTD2 episodes, I found Rogue to have some of the most fresh takes on the show and the characterization of the Doctor. The >!Chuldur!< were just the right amount of playful and unconventional for a new villain, and the tension between the Doctor and Rogue was definitely one of the better character writing moments of the era.

It felt like seeing an early Big Finish main run story on television again (like the high bits of the early RTD1 era). I have not seen Loki, but I have heard that, apart from the mandatory MCU bits dragging it down, it was an exceptionally well done and clever show. What are your thoughts on these two as a new showrunner duo?