The Peripheral: Empathy Bonus Show Only
October 21, 2022 4:33 PM - Season 1, Episode 2 - Subscribe
Mercenaries raid the family home. Seeking answers, Flynne returns to the headset and learns it is not a game ...
but a time machine that goes 70 years into the future. Flynne makes a deal with Wilf and Lev and agrees to help find Aelita.
but a time machine that goes 70 years into the future. Flynne makes a deal with Wilf and Lev and agrees to help find Aelita.
This was kind of a pivotal bit of plot information to put above the fold. I wish I hadn’t inadvertently read it before watching the episode
posted by jordemort at 7:20 PM on October 21, 2022
posted by jordemort at 7:20 PM on October 21, 2022
if you "improve" a stub after using it for your purposes, is that ok?
The second book and presumable season 2 is about this.
posted by Candleman at 7:40 PM on October 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
The second book and presumable season 2 is about this.
posted by Candleman at 7:40 PM on October 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
↑ Of course, games would be higher fidelity, and "recreation" in the brothel was decidedly lower res for mainstream audiences. Shows well how the peripheral is so many generations ahead. Funny, though, that it could be duplicated with current tech. Maybe it's the miniaturization and power - the relatively sleek SQUID in the stub might only need to be the size of a rice of grain in the real. Like how the gamers had a chair and old dude had a body suit.
This feels really nitpicky, but...
The robots in Flynne's and Burton's likenesses that Flynne operated in the future via the headset are the "peripherals", not the headsets themselves.
The present-day VR games we see Flynne, Burton, and Burton's friends on the one hand and Corbell Pickett ("old dude") on the other playing are, I think, at comparable levels of fidelity, visually at least: all blown-out highlights and everything looking like an oil painting slightly blurred but with an edge-sharpening filter run over it. The reason Pickett has a bodysuit and Flynne et al. do not, I would guess, is that Pickett wants the haptic feedback from his VR brothel, whereas the gamers, who appear to be playing a WWII sim back in episode 1, are also veterans (except for Flynne) and probably don't need a haptic suit to remind them what getting shot feels like. It probably is also in part supposed to be a depiction of the wealth disparity between Pickett and Flynne et al. because while they both have the VR glasses, Pickett also has the haptic bodysuit complete with haptic codpiece while Flynne and crew have only the glasses and a handheld controller (at least until the SQUID shows up).
Also, I wouldn't characterize future as "the real" and the stub as not, even though the future characters do sort of seem to treat it that way; as a software developer, I'd say the stubs are more akin to branches in a Git repository that have too many conflicts with the main branch to ever get merged back in.
posted by zztzed at 9:27 PM on October 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
This feels really nitpicky, but...
The robots in Flynne's and Burton's likenesses that Flynne operated in the future via the headset are the "peripherals", not the headsets themselves.
The present-day VR games we see Flynne, Burton, and Burton's friends on the one hand and Corbell Pickett ("old dude") on the other playing are, I think, at comparable levels of fidelity, visually at least: all blown-out highlights and everything looking like an oil painting slightly blurred but with an edge-sharpening filter run over it. The reason Pickett has a bodysuit and Flynne et al. do not, I would guess, is that Pickett wants the haptic feedback from his VR brothel, whereas the gamers, who appear to be playing a WWII sim back in episode 1, are also veterans (except for Flynne) and probably don't need a haptic suit to remind them what getting shot feels like. It probably is also in part supposed to be a depiction of the wealth disparity between Pickett and Flynne et al. because while they both have the VR glasses, Pickett also has the haptic bodysuit complete with haptic codpiece while Flynne and crew have only the glasses and a handheld controller (at least until the SQUID shows up).
Also, I wouldn't characterize future as "the real" and the stub as not, even though the future characters do sort of seem to treat it that way; as a software developer, I'd say the stubs are more akin to branches in a Git repository that have too many conflicts with the main branch to ever get merged back in.
posted by zztzed at 9:27 PM on October 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
Mod note: This has been flagged a couple of times, asking for spoilers to go under the fold — but the text is literally the description of this episode from IMDB, so not much we can do with that. I did split it off after the word "game." Not really seeing any better alternative.
posted by taz (staff) at 1:56 AM on October 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:56 AM on October 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm sorry about the spoilers. The text I used is also the description that Amazon shows on your screen before you hit play on the episode, but I should have cut it even so.
posted by Zonker at 8:23 AM on October 22, 2022
posted by Zonker at 8:23 AM on October 22, 2022
Note that this (these) are designated "show only" threads.
I'm enjoying this quite a bit, but I do have to say that some things are grating.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:29 AM on October 22, 2022
I'm enjoying this quite a bit, but I do have to say that some things are grating.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:29 AM on October 22, 2022
A sad observation - Burton and his buddies are depicted as losers that Flynne can push around, right up until the moment that they decide that this is a combat situation and suddenly they turn into Terminators. As a metaphor for how veterans have trouble dealing with civilian life because they've adapted to combat and can't unadapt, this hits hard.
posted by Mogur at 12:08 PM on October 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Mogur at 12:08 PM on October 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
I didn't get that impression, but I could see how you might. *Edit*: I wanted to mention how the book might be the reason I don't get that impression. Editing to delete that now that I see the Show only tag. It sux not being able to discuss anything from the books :((*
posted by tovarisch at 3:51 PM on October 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tovarisch at 3:51 PM on October 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Love the way the show looks and the actors, too. The only one I've seen a lot of is Gary Carr (Death in Paradise, Downton Abbey, The Deuce), who plays Wilf. And the Prime player really shines when I can't quite place someone I know I've seen before.
posted by kingless at 4:01 PM on October 22, 2022
posted by kingless at 4:01 PM on October 22, 2022
Ash's tattoo! Mega heart eyes.
posted by minsies at 5:36 PM on October 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by minsies at 5:36 PM on October 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
I spent the episode wondering why everyone is acting like the time travel explanation makes any sense at all in a universe with such excellent simulations. If I were Flynne, I would be certain that either "stub" was just a convincing ancestor simulation, or else the "future" was a simulation.
posted by surlyben at 6:58 PM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by surlyben at 6:58 PM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I spent the episode wondering why everyone is acting like the time travel explanation makes any sense at all in a universe with such excellent simulations.
Flynne's character takes great pains to explain the aspects of her jumps to London that we, the viewers, cannot discern, that convince her that it's not a sim. It's all the tactile stuff. The feels. Scents. The air. All those things that root us in reality that aren't there in a sim. At least not a sim that doesn't require a body suit and an ambient atmosphere chamber, which Flynne definitely is not using. When she says "It was real" they know she doesn't mean "it was an incredible sim".
Also, Flynne isn't seen as some ditsy girl. She's respected and listened to when she speaks. So, if she says it's "time travel" to a real place, there may be some initial chuckles and "aw c'mon"s, but her word carries a lot of weight, and the people around her are inclined to believe her.
Yes, some of them require "intel" to back the claim up, but they also know she's not given to making wild claims without pertinent intel.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:36 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Flynne's character takes great pains to explain the aspects of her jumps to London that we, the viewers, cannot discern, that convince her that it's not a sim. It's all the tactile stuff. The feels. Scents. The air. All those things that root us in reality that aren't there in a sim. At least not a sim that doesn't require a body suit and an ambient atmosphere chamber, which Flynne definitely is not using. When she says "It was real" they know she doesn't mean "it was an incredible sim".
Also, Flynne isn't seen as some ditsy girl. She's respected and listened to when she speaks. So, if she says it's "time travel" to a real place, there may be some initial chuckles and "aw c'mon"s, but her word carries a lot of weight, and the people around her are inclined to believe her.
Yes, some of them require "intel" to back the claim up, but they also know she's not given to making wild claims without pertinent intel.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:36 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
“At least not a sim that doesn't require a body suit and an ambient atmosphere chamber, which Flynne definitely is not using.”
She's using something better than a body suit, some kind of direct brain interface. When she initially uses it, she does think this is a sim and attributes the full sensory immersion to the new technology.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:33 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
She's using something better than a body suit, some kind of direct brain interface. When she initially uses it, she does think this is a sim and attributes the full sensory immersion to the new technology.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:33 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Every time Flynne and Burton are onscreen I wish it was Katie and Wayne from Letterkenny.
posted by sixswitch at 4:57 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by sixswitch at 4:57 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Also remember in the first episode that when Flynne was with Aelita in the Burton peripheral, she tore the flesh off her hand to escape from the zip ties she had been restrained with, and saw that below that there was a robotic endoskeleton (like a Terminator). She reasons that if she had actually been in a sim, surely it would have given her simulated human bones, not a simulated robot skeleton.
posted by rustcrumb at 12:11 PM on October 30, 2022
posted by rustcrumb at 12:11 PM on October 30, 2022
I loved Flynne and Burton's conversation about the "Empathy Bonus". I feel like it's both great character development for both of them, and something I'm going to be thinking about for a while.
posted by rustcrumb at 12:15 PM on October 30, 2022
posted by rustcrumb at 12:15 PM on October 30, 2022
Has it been explained why they need someone from the past to pilot the peripheral? Do they not have gamers in the future? Guess I need to go read the books.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:58 AM on November 1, 2022
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:58 AM on November 1, 2022
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Of course, games would be higher fidelity, and "recreation" in the brothel was decidedly lower res for mainstream audiences. Shows well how the peripheral is so many generations ahead. Funny, though, that it could be duplicated with current tech. Maybe it's the miniaturization and power - the relatively sleek SQUID in the stub might only need to be the size of a rice of grain in the real. Like how the gamers had a chair and old dude had a body suit.
The stub - created on purpose (after understanding the phenomena) - is an interesting take on ethics; if you "improve" a stub after using it for your purposes, is that ok? Given infinite universes, that would have happened anyway and time travel just opened up a kaleidoscope of other dimensions. No big. Must would have happened anyway.
Also, straightline extrapolation of the super-rich feels ... correct. Kilometer-tall statue/residences dedicated to themselves, etc. By at least The Bridge series, Gibson's writing has been explicit about his thoughts on wealth disparity.
posted by porpoise at 7:13 PM on October 21, 2022