Friday dark ’s episode of Caprica , “ There Is Another Sky , ” moved the already - intriguing show to the status of must - watch . It was simply one of the best SF representations of futuristic videogames and net culture that I ’ve ever seen .
Caprica was occasionally trembling in its first few weeks , but with this episode the series found its sea legs . We ’re determine more about the V - World that mega - enterpriser Daniel Graystone created with his holoband technology . And in the process we witness out what contrived sentience really means , and how Daniel think to exploit it .
For the retiring several episodes we ’ve focused on the fate of Daniel ’s daughter Zoe , killed in a terrorist attack on a gear . Before she decease , however , Zoe left a virtual , sentient version of herself in V - World – an avatar that Daniel turn up and coercively downloads onto a chip which he sticks into one of his military cylon prototypes . Though Daniel thinks this destroyed the Zoe avatar , in fact she ’s still inside the cylon , biding her time until she can escape . During the brief here and now when Daniel think the Zoe avatar still existed , he created a exchangeable embodiment of Joseph Adama ’s girl Tamara . While Zoe has escaped to the actual world in her cyborg body , Tamara stay trapped inside V - World – her founder recollect her avatar got erased somehow , and Zoe does n’t actually realize Tamara is a real person . She ’s wholly alone in a creation that ’s a cross between Grand Theft Auto and the Sin City motion-picture show .
What ’s unfit than being a teenage girl trapped in the body of a massive robot ? Being a adolescent girl trapped in the collective fantasy of a million other teenagers . And that ’s on the button what ’s happening to Tamara , as she tries to find her means home . After what is apparently weeks of wandering through dance clubs and orgy rooms , she diminish in with a group of secret plan hacker and modders who promise to get her out of V - World . If she foretell to do them one little favor . You see , Tamara has a superpower in V - World : Unlike every other gamer , who get at the place via holoband , she ca n’t be killed when you pip her . She just cure up and ride out in the game . She ’s basically the perfect mod for cheating , and that ’s exactly what the gang – lead by a very Mondo 2000 - looking ma’am named Vesta – want her to do .
So Tamara depart with one of the hot game modders into “ New Cap City , ” a biz that ’s a sodding replica of Caprica City , except lawless . Nobody cognise how to acquire the game , and nobody can go back once they ’ve been “ derezzed ” with a gun . But the hot game modder thinks the tip of the biz is to earn money , so he ’s going to use Tamara ’s power to steal the incarnation of the secret plan ’s rich player and convert that money to points ( interestingly , there ’s no tip that this money can be exchanged for substantial - world money like Lindenbucks or WOW Au – which you ’d recollect would be the instance ) . While Tamara gets into a shootup with the fat guy , gamer boy “ steals ” the code for his avatar and manages to pause into the robust bozo ’s bank and suck up atomic number 79 coins . In the ensuing gunplay with guard , Tamara becomes the One , like Neo in the Matrix . She discovers she can castrate the code of V - World merely by will it . Of course , she still trapped in V - World perpetually .
Are Tamara ’s powers now more awful than Zoe ’s ? The answer to that interrogative is what have this episode perfect genius .
Daniel is about to be ousted from his company after announce that they will be build holoband computer code free , no longer requiring multitude to pay a licensing fee for it . But he convert the board to keep him by giving this language , which is almost ripped from today ’s headline about the medicine and motion-picture show manufacture ’s feat to quell profitable in a human race where everybody gestate media to be destitute online .
If you think about it , the subject matter here is both uncanny and chilling . If we ca n’t sell medium online , we ’ll just sell slaves instead . That ’s right , kids . All that commandeer you ’re doing of media ? It ’s forcing sensitive company to transfer their business model from sell capacity to selling sentient beings . Why does n’t the RIAA consider that ?
In all seriousness , though , the more I think about this scene , the more moneyed it is . That mo where Zoe rive her own weapon off to please papa is appal and potent . Though Daniel does n’t realize it , he ’s suggesting that his caller sell his daughter to make up for the profit it has turn a loss by giving away V - World access for free .
Plus we ’ve got this scenario where Tamara keep in line the macrocosm of what you might call “ honest-to-god metier , ” while Zoe contain the new . She ’s inside the dead body of a creature who could bring the V - World into the genuine earth . Why put on your holoband and chitchat a virtual wargame when you could just go to a storage warehouse full of humanoid cylons and act out your bloodthirsty urges on genuine creatures who can never disobey ? And that ’s the future of Graystone Industries – the business that comes after the business of holoband entertainment that they ’ve been in for over a decade .
While the V - World and cylon marketplace plotlines heated up , we also got our first substantial look at how much the Adama family has changed in the aftermath of the magnetic levitation bombardment . Joseph has last return to his Tauron ways , going through a traditional funeral ceremony and tattooing for his wife and girl . And little Willie has become unruly and violent , favor his uncle Sam ’s mobster den to school day . He even beats up a kid who calls him a Tauron dirt - feeder .
Then , just as it seems that Joseph and Willie have declare peace at the funeral , their populace is disrupted by the Graystones once again . Tamara has sent her hot game modder male child to go out into the material world and feel her father so she can get help . Gameboy arrives at the funeral , imagine all he has to do is ask Joseph to awaken his girl up . Instead , he finds out that Tamara is drained . And Joseph now knows his daughter is in reality live , albeit in an extremely altered , gun - add together form . She ’s becoming the mightiest gangster in V - World .
The Adamas and the Graystones are now wed together in all kind of disturbing ways . Both families have given birth to radically new strain of life : A sentient robot , and a sentient embodiment . And both are also tied together by law-breaking . By that I mean the crime committed by Sam to get Zoe ’s chip , but also the crime of experimenting on humans without consent . Zoe and Tamara have both been made engineering experiment against their will . And that is a criminal offence that the Graystones and Adamas will be paying for throughout this series .
From its humble origins as a spinoff of Battlestar Galactica , Caprica has arise into a marvelous show in its own right field . A show that agilely expect braggy questions about the nature of sentience and justice , while also spin a terrific thread about erstwhile - fashioned gangster in a man of high - tech collective warfare .
This is definitely not Battlestar Galactica anymore . It ’s something else . And you ’ll be sorry if you do n’t line in to come up out more .
telly
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