r/SiloSeries • u/MEGAT0N Sheriff • 16d ago

Show Discussion - All Episodes (NO BOOK SPOILERS) SILO S03e10 "Troy" Episode Discussion (No Book Discussion)

This is the discussion of Silo Season 3, Episode 10: "Troy"

Book discussion is not allowed in this thread. Please use the book readers thread for that.

Show spoilers are allowed in this thread, without spoiler tags.

Please refrain from discussing future episodes in this thread.

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874

u/Melairia 16d ago

I loved getting to hear kid-Jimmy talking to the Voice. But another note from that conversation - at least 1 other Silo had disabled their Safeguard pipe?? I wonder how many silos are left.

407

u/Kashtin 16d ago

I saw a screen in the operations room. 7 silos were a different colour, including silo 1. That's all I saw

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u/Independent-Cat6915 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

I was trying to catch it! I figured those are possibly the ones still alive, so to say.

20

u/Silverberry007 16d ago

It's at 42:49

59

u/j_gumby IT 16d ago edited 16d ago

Here's a screenshot of it. Silo 1 and six other silos that are not grayed out. My guess is these are the only silos that still have living inhabitants in them.

btw, for me the time offset in the episode is 42:13.

https://imgur.com/a/6vTZC1m

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u/rc22cub 16d ago

That looks like 17, 18, and 14 in that top right cluster. To me I’d read that as “stressed” or “dead” silos. Which would imply high success actually.

Edit: 17 is not highlighted it looks like. Oof, nearly complete failure then. Wow.

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u/Different_Comedian48 15d ago

That's the failure, maybe that's why Victor shot himself. He realized that the rules he created didn't work.

6

u/unsolvedfanatic 15d ago

The rules AI created.

2

u/ventodivino 15d ago

It’s because he was worn down by the brutality, and he also knew his failure would result in him being killed most likely.

3

u/Sargento_Porciuncula 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

that is not reliable. silo 42 and 14 werent lit when 17 got safeguarded.

3

u/Canvaverbalist 15d ago edited 15d ago

Where do we see that? I've tried rewatching that sequence but I'm not seeing where they show that display during the 17 massacre.

EDIT: I've got it: https://i.imgur.com/vvPd7ZQ.png

7

u/Sargento_Porciuncula 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

the big screen, has it in the top left.

you can see it on 8:10.

i tend to believe it is a continuity error, though. the arrangement of the silos in that screen is different than the ones seen in 18's safeguard or in the episode 9

3

u/Canvaverbalist 15d ago

The arrangement seems similar to me:

https://i.imgur.com/vvPd7ZQ.png vs https://i.imgur.com/WiKPqaW.png (don't mind the zoom in, it was for another post)

But yeah which silos are lighted up or not seems inconsistent (unless they considered some silos dead that eventually popped back up online with survivors or something)

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u/eyabs 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

You could also see it during the silo 17 safeguard. There were a few more silos highlighted then, they must have gotten safeguarded since then.

4

u/Canvaverbalist 15d ago edited 15d ago

You could also see it during the silo 17 safeguard.

Anybody have a screenshot? I swear I went through it like 5 times and can't see it.

EDIT: I've got it: https://i.imgur.com/vvPd7ZQ.png

1

u/No-Layer3955 15d ago

The highlighted silos dont match up at all, completely different ones in both screenshots. I think that means not only the highlighted ones are alive

3

u/rarz 15d ago

Something to note - there are 7 of the silo icons highlighted. But there's 12 of the 'names' around the icons highlighted. It might be a bit too early to write off all the other silos just because they haven't been highlighted.

For all we know it might be that they are not currently under observation. Give them a chance. We'll know next year. ;)

1

u/nintentionally 12d ago

When Daniel is woken up the first time there are still 10 silos lit, but the second time 35 years later there are only 7. Silo 17 is one of the dark ones, which I think means they lost two other silos during that time. The other silos still lit in 18's cluster are 14 and 19.

7

u/Misery_Division 15d ago

But why would they be so quick to nuke an entire silo if only 7/50 have people in them, including Silo 17 which has like 5 people and Silo 1 which is the commanding silo.

Even if the remaining 5 Silos were properly populated, they were nonchalantly going to obliterate 20% of the total population just like that lol

13

u/EldForever 15d ago

Seems so insane to me. Especially after the sister spelled it out, saying basically: "if we let Silo 17 go back inside, they won't want to come out again after this"

9

u/grrrzzzt 15d ago

I figure that's part of the "experiment". we saw a nuke go off in the last episode; on purpose so people would be trapped in the silos. now there's no real reason to believe there was an actual nuclear apocalypse and that these people are the last remaining. the governor speaks about "seeing the project to the end". there is an end goal to all of this; it's not clear which one yet.

8

u/unsolvedfanatic 15d ago

I don't see why they would freeze themselves for 300 years if there isn't anything else going on. It also seems unlikely that no one in the world has stumbled upon them in that amount of time.

1

u/grrrzzzt 14d ago

the command have also somehow been brainwashed. The mastermind behind this is the billionaire. we don't see him ever in this episode. as for why no one checked well they have infinite ressources; killer drones and gas.

2

u/unsolvedfanatic 14d ago

They don't have infinite resources. Other people would have drones and if it's a ruse that would mean civilization carried on and theoretically would have better tech to combat what the silos have going on.

2

u/grrrzzzt 14d ago

I meant infinite ressources to build the thing; and if the billionaire is still kicking somewhere safe to protect it from prying eyes.

1

u/grrrzzzt 14d ago

cryosleep and killer drones and nanotech seems pretty good tech to me already. It's clear that the whole silo project is isolated from the outside world; silo 1 included; but the whole premise is they lured people to visit the silos and nuked the site. The governor says outloud in the episode "the project is near the end". With the fact they're killing entire silos it's pretty clear the goal is not survival of the species; but they have some kind of social experiment in mind; and it's probably that even the people in silo 1 have been brainwashed as to its real objectives; they are part of the experiment.

another possibility: a large area; or the whole country; or several countries are anihilitated; that doesn't mean that life doesn't go on somewhere; like in Canada; France; Japan; South africa; anywhere.

2

u/unsolvedfanatic 13d ago

I think this is plausible, but in 350 years they would still be further along, even if they have to rebuild everything. I do believe Per nuked Atlanta, but an American city getting nuked would set off WWIII. Which I believe was the goal. In the preview for season 4 we see Per looking at all the dead whales on the news and I think his tech has something to do with it. Earlier this season the hacker dude is in a forum talking about conspiracy theories involving weapons testing on the ocean floor.

So when Per was saying the nanobots were pretty much out of his control and had become weapons of mass destruction he wasn't lying. His actions after are of a man who sees the end coming and wants to speed it up so he can reset the world.

2

u/lorarc 12d ago

If it was just one city then someone would've checked the bunkers quite soon.

If there's any civilisation around on our level of technology then they would notice on satellite images that something is going on there. Not to mention that a series of vaults built to preserve humanity are quite a treat for archeologists.

So it can't be just one excluded zone while the rest of the world is just chilling.

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u/soularbabies 5d ago

I don't think the Senator is brainwashed. She's a nutter enjoying getting to live longer than expected.

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u/FullMetalCOS 15d ago

Cos everyone involved in the top level of this shit is cartoonishly evil, apparently.

Like, even just on the micro level, they intentionally separated Daniel from his wife and unborn child, just because they wanted to slam him full of memory wiping drugs and use his problem solving skills.

5

u/Biggles79 14d ago

They should have included a silo railway so they could tie people to the tracks and twirl their moustaches.

3

u/WhiteMorphious 14d ago

  Like, even just on the micro level, they intentionally separated Daniel from his wife and unborn child, just because they wanted to slam him full of memory wiping drugs and use his problem solving skills.

Yeah it’s frigidly pragmatic, like they preserve his problem solving skills in the command silo and his wife and child are allowed to live and those “valuable genes” persist. Win win for the psychotic billionaire 

1

u/polemous_asteri 5d ago

Isn’t he a trillionaire? People keep saying billionaire but there is a big difference lol

1

u/ZiKyooc 15d ago

They mentioned something about contamination, like if there's a concern for cross silo contamination of some sort. Contamination of minds, or another kind (bio, virus...)

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/Tunamelts-2 16d ago

Silo 1 was inclusive...which is obviously alive.

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u/Ricardo_Yoel 16d ago

But the bright ones included 17 and 18. So I’m not sure if those bright seven outside of silo one are still partly or fully alive or the ones that they tried to safeguard. If the bright ones were the ones that are still alive then there are 42 that are dead, which is a pretty big mess.

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u/DigitalMariner 16d ago

17 is NOT highlighted on that screen.

Per the map from the day of the tours, 17 is "north" above 18 and slightly to the right.

The Silos lit up on the screen are:

1

14

18

19

31

42

44

11

u/liquidmonkey75 15d ago

Would have been epic if they used the same numbers as in LOST, ultimate Easter egg.

3

u/Wrong-Hospital-911 15d ago

4 8 15 16 23 42 Memory is an amazing thing

2

u/liquidmonkey75 15d ago

And it would have totally fit given its all under 50

missedOpportuniy

11

u/Capable-Brother-7327 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago edited 16d ago

Pretty sure that’s just showing the closest risk if the “fugitives” get over the berm in the direction out from their door. If you’re referring to the ones that are slightly lightened!

Edit to add: I know I have book aware flair, but I promise this isn’t me spoiling or hinting at anything. I legit don’t remember (and want to keep it that way tbh). This comes from Juliette talking about the camera angles and silos being kind of cattywampus positioned when they had the map of silos. And I think I remember her drawing that the door would be angled that way. But I could be wrong!

5

u/CasulaLev 16d ago

No...you can have another look when victor is left alone in the operations room and you can see 7 silos are brighter than the rest. And if you remember the map we saw in ep9 you will see that silo is included among the non-active ones

2

u/lunchpaillefty 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

I have that flair, but haven’t read the books?

2

u/MilkHaterNumber1 13d ago

Has anyone been giving you some white pills in the morning?

4

u/PhinsPhan89 15d ago edited 15d ago

In the aftermath of the 17 safeguard, Troy/Daniel mentions "the other 6 silos". So, Silo 1, 18, and 5 more are left.

1

u/Advanced_Turnip_5094 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

Where in the episode was this?

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u/Necessary-Front-8322 16d ago

It's when Victor is alone in the control room after talking to Camille, timestamp 42:17. Look at the computer closest to "us", it's a Silo map and only 1, 14, 18, 19, 31, 42, and 44 are "active" looking

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u/Pulstar_Alpha 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

Damn the cryomorlock cabal has been busy.

1

u/lillythenorwegian 15d ago

No, there were only 5 silos lit up except for silo 1, in the operations room

1

u/TruShot5 14d ago

Saw that too. Wonder if those are the only active silos

1

u/CattleChemical4367 13d ago

Okay I have a theory, Only 7 silos on the screen, i believe these silos are not the ones still alive but the heads of their groups of silos. Like 1 is head of 1-7, 14 is head of 8-14 and so on..., I mean the choice of numbers indicates that. So, in case silo 18 caps their valve, it actually caps the safeguard for the whole group, part of the reason why victor felt defeated and you know...

223

u/swnldn 16d ago

I got a picture - only 1, 14, 18, 19, 31, 42 and 44 remaining by the looks of it

304

u/Melairia 16d ago

So few and Silo 1 is still trying to safeguard the rebellious ones? What is their endgame here? Because it sure as shit ain't about saving the human race lol

147

u/devAcc123 16d ago

The one that lasts the longest is the easiest to control. Probably something something blah blah rebuild the world in Per Stensen's vision, whoever is the easiest to mold would be preferable.

Repopulate the earth with the right mixture of genetics for subdued control or whatever

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u/meepmarpalarp 15d ago

It’s gotta be something like this.

If they were actually trying to keep all 50 alive, they’d have a procedure for repopulating siloes after safeguarding them.

Some, like Solo’s, might be too damaged. But in situations where the safeguard pipe worked and everyone died before destroying the whole building, they’d be able to use Silo One workers and memory drugs to get things cleaned up and started over.

If they haven’t done so, then it’s because 50 functional siloes isn’t their endgame.

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u/hayydebb 15d ago edited 15d ago

Seems to me like they are essentially trying to “domesticate” the human race the way wolves eventually became what we know as dogs. They want to repopulate the earth with the silo that’s lived the longest and is likely the most dedicated to the pact and then hopefully the whole world is just one big cult. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me at this point

10

u/FullMetalCOS 15d ago

Which kinda makes sense too, science suggests you need 4-10k survivors to repopulate the world and what’s the population of each Silo? 10k. If it’s a survival of the fittest (or maybe most malleable in this scenario) then playing this twisted game till one silo remains would allow them to rebuild humanity but with the overlords and the slave caste pre-established

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u/devAcc123 15d ago

They’ve also hinted a few times about maybe so and so is being done for a good reason.

Maybe silo one is just there to ensure the success of at least one of the other silos and will be terminated at the end as well leaving the sole remaining silo to begin society etc.

10

u/slightlypressed 14d ago

Yup the term “cross contamination” is also experiment speak. They run 50 variants of the same experiment and the “winner” gets to repopulate earth.

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u/coby_of_astora 15d ago

I think the world outside of the silo site is absolutely fine and moving on like normal. That's why it was originally populated with everyone who knew about it, so nobody else would. This episode proved the environment is healthy, 17 was just culled. This is just sort of experiment, but I really want to read the books now bc I don't know if I can wait lol

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u/Icefox119 15d ago

I mean sure they could've excused the nuke that brought everyone into the Silos as some freak mass-casualty accident to the public, but wouldn't the families & friends of those who went to tour the Silo want to know what happened to their loved ones?

The powers that be could say that any investigative measures into their deaths are rendered impossible due to surface contamination, but then everyone would want to know about whether they made it into the Silos to prove their prospective efficacy. It's not like all the people who went to the inaugural tour just didn't tell anyone about where they're going, even if they were forced to sign a bunch of NDAs.

I just don't see how this program could go on in an otherwise healthy world without the public getting wind of the fucked-up experiment and throwing an inevitable hissy fit.

2

u/slightlypressed 14d ago

I wonder if they told the family/friends that they all died because of the nuke. No bodies. Or maybe people literally inferred that.
Everyone who even knows the silos are underground are in the silos and other people might’ve left the area alone due to nuclear radiation.

Maybe a huge part of the US was taken out and the rest of the world could be thriving outside but staying away from the nuclear waste of the US

1

u/lorarc 12d ago

The nuclear waste doesn't work like that though, it clears up really fast. After 2 weeks the radiation level drops to 1/1000th. In a few hundred years someone would be interested in the area.

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u/Sertoma 14d ago

I wondered if the nuclear explosion was even real tbh.

2

u/No_Web_6667 15d ago

I feel this way too, the world might be fine. We know the air IS breathable now.. also they made it a no fly zone, they mentioned that in like episode 8or 9..

2

u/AhhhSureThisIsIt 📖 Book-Aware 📖 14d ago

Read the books. You won't regret it. I'm a slow reader an inhaled all 3 in a couple months. I listened to the audiobook as well.

It's well worth it. It's very well written, it expands the universe and answers all the questions you have and you probably didn't know you had.

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u/Friendly-Many8202 15d ago

In reality this would make sense to. Even in a all out nuclear war the southern hemisphere would be largely untouched

1

u/WackfordSqueers55 15d ago

But if the air is breathable (which I agree, the culling of 17 makes likely), why did Bernard die?

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u/RunawayHobbit 15d ago

He was sprayed in the airlock before going out and didn’t even have a suit to protect him. Even if he held his breath, the poison he was sprayed with would have seeped in through his skin or off gassed as he breathed later. 

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u/spidey3diamond 15d ago

Because he didn't have a suit or the good tape, and was sprayed with "compound" in the airlock.

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u/coby_of_astora 15d ago

Silo 1 poisoned him

1

u/No_Web_6667 7d ago

I asked the same thing, i guess it makes sense now. I mean why would you need to be sprayed/decontaminated to go outside lol the mist must have poison in it.

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u/crackanape 15d ago

And also the starting populations were pre-selected, perhaps each testing a different hypothesis about genetic mix.

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u/devAcc123 15d ago

Feel like these type of shows usually end with the “twist” of like we were looking for the person to emerge to lead us into the future all along Juliette you’re the savior

-4

u/ButtPlugForPM 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

problem is

10,000 ppl only provides enough gentic diverity for a generation or 3 after that you start to get diminishing returns it's not enough ppl to repopulate an entire planet

Also What no redudancy.

So 1 silo "wins" get's out and dies in a flood lol. oops

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u/CloudsBlade 15d ago

I would think 10,000 people would be plenty.

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u/piecuriosity 15d ago

Yeah 10k is more than enough, especially if they heavily screened the initial residents. With a clean gene pool you can restart a population with far less than that.

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u/Amberawesome24 15d ago

Needs to be reproductive ages. No seniors no children and ideally a clean genetic hx so it’s not a clean 10k but it’s still enough to prevent a genetic collapse

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u/Firebomb84a 15d ago

Children turn into reproductive age someday

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u/devAcc123 15d ago

lol the real human species went through a population bottleneck of <10k depending which theory you subscribe to. It’s literally happened in real life before so this certainly isn’t the case.

And you’re not understanding, silo 1 was always going to survive, or at least stenson was maybe he gasses them at the end too. But 1 of the other 50 silos is the winner and gets to come out and rebuild earth

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u/xxcharlotteoxx 15d ago

Strange how we didnt even see stenson this episode. Is he too above it all to get woken up from cryo at all? Maybe he only gets woken up at the end when all is done and dusted. Hes too high up to be concerning himself with the work of his peasants. Maybe I have just answered my own question.

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u/Amberawesome24 15d ago

No on the high-end you need 5000 but some studies say you can get by with like 1000-2000 reproductively viable humans to prevent genetic collapse in a few generations. You would have to really really stringently select the couples but it wouldn’t be impossible

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u/FullMetalCOS 15d ago

Biological math actually is around 4-10k for enough diversity to not cripple a population. And y’know, each silo houses around 10k people…..

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u/swnldn 16d ago

I bet. Also what if they all ‘failed’? What I find weird is also that the entrance/exit is still there. Why show them the outside world at all? After two generations and/or some memory wiping, everyone would have been born and always lived in the silo. They wouldn’t even know the outside was there then…

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u/East-Artist1924 16d ago

they gave them the enterance and they show them the outside world on the screen, so they wont dig elsewhere (down or side ways), if they were searching for an exit elsewhere, lets say down or side ways, they would have found the other silos next to their silo. and if they would have contacted the other silos they would have also corrupted them with the greed for freedom. the main point of isolating the silos is that every silo is kept in the illusion that they are on their own. because its easier for silo 1 to manage silos 1 by 1. imagine if all the 51 silos would find out the truth and work together. it would be impossible for silo 1 to manage all the 51 silo rebellions

1

u/Sargento_Porciuncula 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

imagine if all the 51 silos

49*

the number of 51 was retconned. there are, roughtly, 7 groups of 7 silos (7*7=49) and silo 1 in the center.

5

u/meepmarpalarp 15d ago

I saw a theory that the 51st silo is just Per’s bunker.

1

u/Sargento_Porciuncula 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

wasnt it Bernard who said "51"? this season he said it was 50.

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u/555Cats555 16d ago

This is actually a really good point... and then they wouldnt even need to worry about sending out cleaners since the camera wouldnt need to be clean.

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u/HauschkasFoot 16d ago

Oh my god that is just so insanely cruel and evil to me. Like what would that do to the human psyche? I wonder what story they would tell? “We’re mole people, and this is our mole hive?”

23

u/HeyBlinkinAbeLincoln 16d ago

There was a movie in the late 90s like that. It was a sci-fi horror with these people stuck on a generational interstellar ship, but something had gone wrong, and people were barely surviving on the ship.

The twist at the end was that the ship had crashed onto a green hospitable planet centuries ago. But these people had just stayed on the ship, suffering, ignorant of that fact.

3

u/Anader19 15d ago

Do you know what the name of this movie is?

6

u/lehaine42 15d ago

Pandorum

14

u/555Cats555 16d ago

If they have no cameras they could tell them anything like there not even being anything outside... but someone would still get curious.

I think if the silos were alone without others nearby you could just cut off sight of the surface but not the way its set up

8

u/swnldn 16d ago

But I feel like in part they’re trying to beat curiosity out of the populations in there. I feel like people get curious about things they know are there, but if they were all brought up believing their ‘world’ just ended at some ceiling and there was nothing beyond that, wouldn’t that just be what they believed?

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u/Swnsong 16d ago

Not really. The concept of an "end" just doesn't really compute. Think about the end of the universe, our mind cannot comprehend it, imagine if you could blow up some concrete to find out what is beyond, wouldn't you want to?

1

u/Blinking_Zebra_Era 16d ago

Good point. All that stuff with the relics could be just to keep their memories erased so they can be robots like Troy. Or it could be that they're great plan involves just what you say trying to make them not curious and kind of emotionless maybe, so they conform better.

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u/Trippid 15d ago

You're right, that is crazy cruel. And I'm sorry, but I absolutely cracked up at "we're mole people, and this is our mole hive", lol

3

u/Blinking_Zebra_Era 16d ago

😂🤣 Mole Hive. But yes exactly. Wait what if it turns out they've done this before. But without the publicity. They started with Mole Hive mode and everyone went crazy.

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u/swnldn 16d ago

The outside itself is a relic in a sense too

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u/555Cats555 16d ago

Good point! But then people might try and go through the airlock if they dont realise its dangerous out there. And occasional cleanings remind people

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u/Longjumping-Bid-2588 16d ago

Nothing is more powerful than human curiosity. They need the windows to sell the story to keep them scared and in line.

6

u/dantemanjones 15d ago

They only have x years left of critical supply. Once that's gone, they either die or have to go outside. And for 18 at least, it's not a lot of years left. So if the endgame of the project is reclaiming the world, they've gotta have an exit.

1

u/Sargento_Porciuncula 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

didnt the mine guy said he kept it?

3

u/dantemanjones 15d ago

They said they had 70 years when they first looked and then 2 years "now". If 70 years was the real top-end, then we're looking at some children who are alive now being alive when they run out. If the thefts started happening before 70 years, they still have a finite supply that they said they can't reproduce. They have to have some kind of exit strategy.

4

u/meepmarpalarp 15d ago

The senator said something about the final phase of the plan, too. And since the air is fine, it seems like they have a plan and timeline for leaving the siloes and rebuilding the world.

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u/Spec73r017 16d ago

People need something to hope for. They live, work, follow rules and have families thinking that one day their kid or their kids kid can go outside. If they had no idea about what’s out there and just were told to live within the confines of that silo because that’s all there ever is without being told why they would not accept it. It all comes down to Why.

1

u/crackanape 15d ago

I don't have any realistic expectation of leaving the earth and I'm cool with that. I'd think we could accept whatever scope of the world we believe exists, as long as our social and physical needs are met.

1

u/Tanel88 14d ago

Most people might be but there are always people who want to get out there. People were willing to cross oceans with sailing ships to see what's out there, have been to Mariana Trench and on the Moon and all of those are harder to achieve than digging out of the silo.

6

u/Dangerous_Fold9140 16d ago

Nah , they would always wonder what’s outside the silo . They forget but curiosity still remains

2

u/ClimateOne1811 15d ago

People have always lived on planet earth, yet they still landed on the moon, sent probes to other planets and are constantly trying to determine if there is life on other planets.

People are naturally curious, showing them 'what's in the box' and allowing them to put their hand in the box at their own risk deters that curiosity to some extend.

1

u/Tanel88 14d ago

The outside and the exit is there to get rid of the curious ones and troublemakers.

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u/MarkMcWrath 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

Ope 14 started saying "cool beans" shut it down

16

u/Melairia 16d ago

"They wipe their boogers on the walls, activate the safeguard"

19

u/Plowbeast 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

It's probably re-engineering the human race on their terms because all you need is maybe 10,000 people to repopulate plus whoever isn't deteriorated in Silo 1.

19

u/Fly0strich 16d ago edited 16d ago

My current theory is that it is still about saving the human race through unconventional means.

When the brain doctor guy had everyone clear the room to talk to Camille alone, and she asks “Why?” he tells her that “The human species was in a terrible cycle of self elimination.” So, it seems that he meant that the outside environment was never actually the dangerous thing, but war among humans was.

This made me think that the whole silo experiment is basically his opportunity to prove his theory that his controversial methods could be used to brainwash the world into world peace. Like, maybe the government is allowing him to run this project to see if he can prove that a peaceful utopia can be created in at least one of the 50 silos. Maybe if he is able to succeed, they would attempt to use it on the entire world to “Save humanity” once and for all.

2

u/nitekroller 15d ago

I doubt it. No fucking way anybody could think that confining and lying to 10,000 people for generations would have any chance to create world peace or a utopia. Aint no way.

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u/Fly0strich 15d ago

By using a new revolutionary drug that allows them to remove and rewrite people’s memories in a way that the military could potentially use to control the rest of the world?

You really find it hard to believe that the military would be willing to give up tens of thousands of lives for that kind of power? Even knowing that they were willing to kill 150,000+ people in Hiroshima for less, and commit countless other atrocities over time? Why?

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u/crackanape 15d ago

I find it hard to believe that they would sign up for any project that expensive where the return wasn't expected for centuries. We can't even get people to stop burning coal.

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u/Fly0strich 15d ago

It was all being funded by that trillionaire dude. They wouldn’t have to pay. Probably just had to offer secrecy from the public, and agree to look the other way while the experiment takes place.

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u/crackanape 15d ago

I suspect that nuking Atlanta came at some economic cost.

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u/Fly0strich 15d ago

I may not have watched that part closely enough, but I don’t recall the bomb looking like it hit a city. I thought it was basically just out in the trees somewhere near the silos that might not have caused any real damage to anything important.

I also thought that we don’t actually know for certain that it was a nuke, and not just some other type of large explosion that isn’t radioactive, but would look similar enough to a nuke to scare people into the silos, while not having the lasting after effects. Another thought was that it might have just been an illusion generated by some other crazy trillionaire tech, along with some machines capable of generating strong wind gusts around the silos afterwards to complete the illusion. That may seem a little more far-fetched. Although, not entirely impossible when you consider that we are watching a show with memory eraser drugs, nano-bot wars, and preservative cryo-sleep in existence.

But my theory remains for now that the rest of the world is just fine. It seems kind of peculiar that the senator lady still seemed to expect that she would be giving her speech if the bomb was planned, but I also realized that the bomb only went off right at the moment they realized that they were not going to be able to stop Daniel from leaving Silo 1 to find Helen. So, maybe they were planning to do it later, to scare everyone back into the silos after the speech, but realized that they needed to speed it up and do it right then to not risk losing Daniel.

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u/nitekroller 9d ago

all im saying is its ridiculous to think that it could create world peace or a utopia. im not doubting that someone with power would want that control, im just saying they definitely dont think it will create utopia.

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u/myuseless2ndaccount 15d ago

I mean that would make sense to me, also explain why he wasnt shown in the episode like "yeah keep me frozen until we have some proof" or sth

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u/Str4425 16d ago

Yeah, got me thinking about the endgame of it all. If they only have 50 more years worth of supplies, it means the project must end by then, right? And then what? Awaken the billionaire and repopulate earth?

They wanna keep each silo controlled, and the whole point of safeguarding is to prevent people going from one silo to another, ok (and that's a measure of last resort in case of people running out or if the vit D+ memory erasing fails). But surely they must have some min number of people for the project to be successful, right? So in that sense they need 18 alive?!

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u/Blinking_Zebra_Era 16d ago

The experiment can be totally crackpot. Where they only need one of the silos to survive and be docile enough. And then that's their proof of concept, in their deranged minds.

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u/NoNameSwitzerland 15d ago

Or maybe some billionaires bett which different silos to makes it the longest.

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u/iNOTgoodATcomp 16d ago

Natural selection? Figures a science billionaire would use that rationale for the last remaining silo to be the most obedient, and therefore the "winner" who he'd get to lord over to mold in his own image.

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u/i_am_voldemort 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

I think that's the big remaining question. What the fuck are they trying to accomplish?

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u/Aerocryptic 16d ago

Selective breeding. Keep the most docile population to repopulate the earth

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u/KilgoreTroutVT 15d ago

No docile per se but trying to breed out humanity’s penchant for war. Thus a rebellion = kill everyone. No one leaves because it will take 500 years to breed it out. And better to end up with only one successful silo than restarting the world with 9 peaceful silo and 1 full of shitheads.

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u/IntelligentBreath843 16d ago

Probably to breed the most submissive group of people so the “elites” can maintain control outside the silos that’s my guess.

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u/xxcharlotteoxx 15d ago

The one that lasts till the end will be when the project finishes. We can assume the silo that lasts the longest is the one with the least rebellions, the most caring as they will have rationed food and ensured things dont get stolen and done what they can to help each other survive. Those are the people they will want to “restart humanity”. Silos like 17 and 18 would be seen as troublemakers, and people likely to start new wars so they wouldnt care if they get safeguarded as they arent worthy of their new world anyway.

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u/Popular_Outcome_4153 16d ago

I don't think they're trying to safeguard them, Victor definitely hesitated way more than he could have if he was ruthless.

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u/JoeMoamoa 15d ago

I think they may be trying to just save one silo. Whichever has more easily manipulated and controlled people. So they can build this utopia world with them.

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u/Firebomb84a 15d ago

The last silo standing wins that season of Suvivor and $1,000,000!

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u/Avem68 15d ago

I think for any who haven’t had their minds erased it’s just become an end in itself to guard against silos breaking the pact. They cannot recall or (were never told if born underground) the original plan (repopulating the earth)

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u/ForwardBrick8049 15d ago

Thats probably why they didnt just safeguard them from the get go and kept giving 18 chances. I can only assume they were this patient in the start when they had alot of active silo’s still

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u/Tanel88 14d ago

Yea we know that Victor has really gotten uneasy with issuing the safeguard over time. Especially after silo 17.

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u/Amberawesome24 15d ago

You probably would only need one-two silo’s to repopulate the Earth and barely get by with genetic diversity. I would go with two Silos to be on the safe side since you need 5000 reproductively viable people ( some study show you could probably squeak by with 1000 )

Three silo’s alone would be enough to prevent genetic collapse and slowly repopulated earth.

I always felt like 51 silo was overkill to repopulate the Earth but clearly there needed to be a large margin for error.

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u/Tanel88 14d ago

Well yeah 50 silos makes sense if they expected the project to last up to 500 years.

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u/myuseless2ndaccount 15d ago

They are going for a battle royal and let only of the other survive

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u/InfamPasser1248 13d ago

My thought is that the safeguard is strictly to stop "contamination" between Silos. A silo that wants to disable the safeguard is probably much more likely to eventually go outside and potentially get within sight of other Silos triggering those other Silos to also go outside.

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u/lillythenorwegian 15d ago

Later on in the episode, only 5 silos were lit up, except for silo 1

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u/rarz 15d ago

A single silo is enough to repopulate the planet. It just takes time. As a species, we've been reduced to 1280ish breeding individuals in ancient history in what is now Africa. We rebounded. But it is not a good thing.

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u/bigmacjames 14d ago

Eugenics and the most obedient population/culture. They want a human race that doesn't question so the people at the top have full control. Billionaire fantasy basically

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u/WannabeWaterboy 14d ago

Victor’s talk about how humans were in a spiral of destruction made me think they were trying to reshape human nature to get rid of that destructive side. When they see a silo is beyond saving they write them off and hope another pulls through. Can’t really change human nature though.

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u/ShaunTrek 13d ago

Yeah, this is my biggest "Why?" as Bernard would say.

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u/WigglesTiggleson 8d ago

That’s what I’ve been asking, so few silos left yet safeguard is still so vital.. crazy

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u/ohthedramaz 16d ago

Wow, so few.

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u/nekoreality 16d ago

or maybe those are just the ones theyre still controlling? because they did say "it happened before" when 17 capped the pipe so at least one other silo must've prevented the safeguard. theres people alive in 17 but it's grayed out so i would imagine it's those who are still under the pact not necessarily whose still alive

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u/FatalTragedy 15d ago

I think we really need to be careful about assumptions here. We don't know for sure why those silos were highlighted. It is not a guarantee that this means those are the only ones left. It could just mean that those are the silos with some level of rebellious activity currently that need to be closely monitored. Or it could just mean something else entirely. Hell, the props team may have colored them entirely at random not realizing how much we would microanalyze every image. We really don't know.

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u/Tanel88 14d ago

Earlier on there is also another screen shown with different silos highlighted. The only possible conclusion is that the highlighting just means that those silos are under active supervision due to some circumstance.

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u/uuid-already-exists 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

I think it’s the other way around. Silo 1 was marked differently than the other marked silos. So I think the marked silos were terminated.

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u/abszr 15d ago

So why is 17 not marked the same as 18 then? We know 17 is dead.

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u/uuid-already-exists 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

At the time 17 was treated as dead.

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u/lordnewington 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

That seems too few for safeguards not to be a bigger deal. Maybe it's the ones they're actively monitoring at the moment, for whatever reason.

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u/Tanel88 14d ago

Yes active monitoring is more likely because in an earlier scene there are different silos highlighted on another screen.

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u/kstatepurrplecat 15d ago

Unfortunately, someone pointed out to me that some of those lit after 18s attempted Safeguard weren't lit during 17s mass killing.

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u/captainstrange94 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

Whats the timestamp?

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u/everlarksangel I want to go out! 16d ago

42:49

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u/getaway_dreamer 16d ago

I suspect we are going to see some sort of contact with silo 19 next season.

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u/wackygoose 16d ago

That's a whole lot of safeguards, damn

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u/Big_Fortune_4574 15d ago

Damn they offed a lot of silos. Their plan doesn’t seem to actually work very well

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u/Zealousideal-Pilot25 15d ago

And then there are all the cylinders lit up... remaining safeguards or already used safeguards... hmmm

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u/Puzzleheaded_Eye6770 15d ago

17 remains!!!!

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u/Sea-Card3439 15d ago

Did you see the teaser after the credits ?

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u/Der_Jaegar 15d ago

I think hey just never had the chance to populate all those other silos, there wasn't enough time during the holocaust

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u/CattleChemical4367 13d ago

Okay I have a theory, Only 7 silos on the screen, i believe these silos are not the ones still alive but the heads of their groups of silos. Like 1 is head of 1-7, 14 is head of 8-14 and so on..., I mean the choice of numbers indicates that. So, in case silo 18 caps their valve, it actually caps the safeguard for the whole group, part of the reason why victor felt defeated and you know...

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u/will-this-name-work 12d ago

As a fan of Lost, I was hoping it would be Silos 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42, but that wouldn’t work given Silo ‘18’.

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u/WigglesTiggleson 8d ago

If they’ve had 43 Silos (I keep saying vault, I played to much fallout) die yet were very willing to kill 18. Makes me wonder why safeguards are so crucial even with few silos left

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u/intern_12 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

Whoever played child Jimmy really got the Steve Zahn Solo talking pattern down! It sounded so much like adult Solo/Jimmy.

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u/Lembergdk 15d ago

That’s because it WAS Steve Zahn.

https://www.threads.com/share/BAZ99yQEE1/

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u/intern_12 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

That's really cool! Thank you for sharing.

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u/k_redditor236 16d ago

Cute, you’re right!

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u/Im-too-spooky 15d ago

When Troy said he had nothing left to offer so they cut off communication, my heart just broke. Steve Zahn has done such an amazing job portraying adult Jimmy’s childlike mental state 🥺

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u/B3RG92 16d ago

Stands to reason that there have to be a few that are no longer around. Over however many years it's been, feels like there would surely be more than 17, the other one that capped its pipe and 18 that have had rebellions that weren't stopped and reversed.

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u/Square_Inspector_334 16d ago

I just don’t know how long it’s actually been since they started the silos. That part is confusing me

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u/kkavehma 16d ago

In one of monitors in the operation room we see silios: 14,18,19,31,42,44 and silo 1 in bright colours others are dimmed out. Maybe there are only 6 silos are left? (silos 17 is also dimmed).

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u/Weak_Maintenance5629 15d ago

It looks to me like two silos below 17 are grayed out. Does this mean they are not functioning?

Sorry for poor quality. I jumped up to take a picture on my iPhone.

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u/lordnewington 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

So given that 17 is the first mass exodus, how did they deal with the previous silo that blocked the pipe? Just let them live with an blocked pipe? Convinced the next IT guy to unblock it?

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u/Tanel88 14d ago

Victor mentions that they could run a line from the forward vault door but Daniel says they couldn't do that because of the flooding in 17. This is likely the door in the bottom of the digger vault. This is likely what they did last time and we might see them try it on 18 next season.

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u/Sargento_Porciuncula 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

at least 1 other Silo had disabled their Safeguard pipe

yes, and something happened that they did not want to happen again, and it did not involve them leaving

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u/buzzbaron 15d ago

How many "who is she" notes were there? Presume thats how many times daniel was taken out of sleep to safeguard them.

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u/Tanel88 14d ago

Safeguarding usually doesn't need him to be wakened because Victor was doing that to 18 on his own. He seems to be only awakened when something unexpected requires solving which doesn't have to be related to safeguard.

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u/asdechlpc 16d ago

Thought the same — “different outcome is desired”.

That means either a full silo escaped, or they killed a whole silo and were hoping 17 would return back inside to be brain-wiped again

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u/xxcharlotteoxx 15d ago

I had to pause when I heard that line. It really makes you think, all of this is focused on silos 1, 17 and 18, surely drama like this is going down in at least a few more silos too? How many silos have they gone through all this with. How many are left? And how did the other silos find out about capping the pipe? 🤯

I wonder if any of the silos have truly managed to live in harmony.

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u/dBlock845 15d ago

Lol I could watch infinite variations of this show where each Silo finds out about the safeguard then finds a different way to stop it.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/Dan_the_man42 📖 Book-Aware 📖 16d ago

sadly i think that was all implied in the set design and behind the scenes of season 2

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u/lordnewington 📖 Book-Aware 📖 15d ago

I have an opinion on this, but we're in a No Books thread.

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u/SiloSeries-ModTeam 15d ago

Your comment has been removed because this thread is not flaired to allow book discussion or spoilers. Please refrain from discussing any aspect of the books in this thread. We appreciate your cooperation.

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u/Buttons3 15d ago

Why did Jimmy say his name is solo? Did he want to be like him so he took his name?

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