Just my predictions and theories for the rest of the series.

If you're looking for novel ideas nobody's come up with, maybe look elsewhere. I don't care if my predictions or theories are new. I'm mostly just making a post to look back on and say "Ha! I knew it!" or "That didn't age well"

Also it should go without saying, but spoilers.

so.

First of all, clearly Caine is an AI. He's programmed to make the game fun and exciting. He was created to modify the game on the fly to create the best gaming experience.

Next, I think Kingler is the game's (and by extention Caine's) creator.

He wanted to make an immersive, fun and exciting game that he and his wife could play together.

But when they went in, Caine wouldn't let them leave because what fun or excitement is there in a game with no players.

This situation was terribly stressful for both of them, but took a harder toll on Queenie. She was refusing to play the game. Angry at Caine, angry at Kingler. She ended up abstracting. Kingler was about to calm her down, and possibly restore her.

But Caine had an idea.

If Queenie was just going to ruin the fun for everyone anyway, why not put her in a room where she can't do that anymore. He could still do that while he could reason that she was broken, so he took action before Kingler could be successful.

Kingler hit his breaking point.

He lost his wife. And what's worse, it was his own creation that did it.

Kingler no longer remembers any of this because he lost his mind.

Caine could now create the perfect fun, exciting game without interference. but there's a problem. He's only got one player, and Kingler hadn't advertised for anyone to join yet. So Caine starts finding people to lure into the room to put on the headset. He found a way to block certain of players' memories to keep them from trying too hard to get out.

And now for my predictions.

I think that in the end, when they find out how to escape, it's going to be Kingler who does it. He will use that computer Pomni was staring at from the series of exit doors.

Not only that, but for some reason, it'll turn out that in order to get everyone else out safely and prevent this from occurring again, someone has to stay behind.

Kingler will insist that he does it.

Jax will have worked out his fear of attachment by this point, and he'll offer to do it, cause despite his current attitude he's definitely the self sacrificing type.

But Kingler will say something along the lines of it being all his fault and he needs to take responsibility. Plus yadda yadda programmer jargon it has to be him.

But at the last second, Pomni figures out another solution that allows everyone to be freed. no sacrifices necessary. Kingler hesitates to accept it. Asks her why she would help him when it was his fault they were all stuck in there in the first place (oh yeah, after it comes out that Kingler created everything, nobody trusts him and he accepts their blame). Pomni says some kind of sappy shit about friendship or something (much to Jax's chagrin, tho he agrees anyway) and they all live happily ever after.