Recursion Theory: All of RvB is a simulation run by an AI trying to solve the "Alison Problem"

Discussion

Long time theory, first time post, spoiler alerts, please consider the following:

Supposedly, Alpha was based on director Leonard Church, but what if the director himself was not actually the original, and is actually a lower order Church?

This would extend the recursion of Director > Alpha > Epsilon > memory-bank-church, only the other direction, and could explain a lot about the RvB universe and, I believe, unify all the seasons.

This would also support the theory that the entire cast of RvB are basically emergent incarnations of Church's subconscious (whereas the AI fragments pulled from Alpha are from his conscious self). In fact, I think there is a recursive nature to this as well.

The Director's Last Words Before ending his life, and after failing to perfect Tex the director sits watching Alison on repeat before saying, "Maybe in the next iteration". This suggests he is not the original Church and that perhaps the Alison Problem will be solved by another version of himself.

(Alison Problem: the sole object of Church's obsession, to "fix Tex", to "get it right")

The Weather Bomb When the bomb in Alpha's gut explodes, Alpha gets "blown into the past", while the rest of the cast ends up in the future. In this theory I think Alpha reached a point where he could not solve a problem and started to crash. When this happened, Gamma helped him make sense of his newly broken reality by bringing him into a simplified state wherein he begins a shallow recursive iteration cycle trying to stop the bomb from going off.

Asynchronously, the rest of the Reds and Blues, being figments of subconsciousness, didn't skip much of a beat and simply emerged in the "future" without assistance from Gamma.

Once Alpha had a solution to the weather bomb (aka saying, "fuck it, it is what it is and there's nothing you can do about it"), the recursion ended successfully and he reconciles with the rest of the cast. Given the context and proximity, I'm guessing this was at least partially facilitated by Gamma, or Gary. Either way, Gamma seems to be a major anchor point to help Alpha transition from one simulation to another.

Increasing Complexity As time goes on the plots, characters, and even the simulation itself gets more and more complex and detailed. This can be explained by the higher order / more original "Church" becoming increasingly sophisticated as time goes on. This can only go so far, however, which is why the memory-bank simulation broke down, and why each version of Church ends up failing (aka dying for real) eventually. When these real-death events happen, we see more detail and complexity everywhere else, almost as though more resources are available to develop the simulation and attempt to solve the problem in radically different ways.

Post Epsilon After the last remaining Church in the simulation defragments himself, there is a creative explosion in the simulation which explores wildly different bits and pieces of the RvB simulation (aka season 14) before settling into a new timeline*, full of crazy god magic, time travel, ancient powerful AIs, and the fate of the universe. All of which are completely feasible given it's all one big simulation.

  • "line?? Time is not made of lines...it's circles...that's why clocks are round!"

Am I crazy or does this make sense????

Posted Mar 19, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

33124
Cylasbreakdown•

Canonically speaking, you are somewhat correct about the time Church “time travelled”. Gary figured out that Church was the Alpha and decided to put him in a simulation to torture him, just like the old days. He got out of the simulation by saying “f it, it is what it is”.

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DiskFormalOP•

Hmm, agreed Gary has the motive to trap and torture Church in a sub-simulation, but then when Church escapes, he pops out of thin air with a body. If the Alpha was somehow captured and subsequently released by Gary, wouldn't he be spit out as "ghost" Church like when he leaves Caboose's head?

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Cylasbreakdown•

That is a great question that I do not know the answer to. Not everything from the Blood Gulch Chronicles lines up nice and neat. There’s still been no explanation for yellow church.

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Sigma_SPKeyring•

Wasn't yellow church sister from caboose's mind or something?

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Cylasbreakdown•

Yes, but then he got ejected from Caboose’s mind and Wyoming’s helmet sent him back in time to Sidewinder. Problem is, we later found out that there was no time travel, it was a Gamma simulation. They kind of forgot about yellow Church when they made that retcon.

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_Rabble_Rouser_•

The first thing to realize is that nobody actually time travelled. This was a misconception brought up by Sarge when the Reds and Blues woke up in the desert; since they were on the icy Sidewinder before, Sarge claimed that the planet’s ice age had ended, so they must be in the future. What actually happened is that Gamma teleported them from Sidewinder to where they ended up, and he must have also teleported Church to his terminal in Zanzibar and then locked his AI essence into the simulations. This is why Church popped out of nowhere once the Reds and Blues came to Zanzibar, his body had been there the whole time so when Gamma let him go it was as if he’d never left.

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DiskFormalOP•

Huh, I thought Gamma had temporal distortion capabilities, so not sure how they would have been teleported.

Other than that, I still don't get how Gamma would capture the physical host Alpha was "possessing" at the time. Even if he could, then does that mean the bomb never went off? (This never destroying his body?)

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_Rabble_Rouser_•

Gamma had temporal distortion abilities due to the unit Wyoming had in his suit, but (as Gary) he told Church that he could “build” a teleporter which could get him to Blood Gulch to stop the chain of events. Now that was a simulation and Gamma can’t be trusted, but that doesn’t explain how Wyoming was somehow able to escape from Tex every time she tracked him down, nor how the Reds and Blues left Sidewinder. It makes sense that there could’ve been an actual teleporter on Zanzibar that Gamma could have used to transport others for his and Wyoming’s gain. This may also actually play into your theory as the “teleporting” could be explained as part of a larger simulation.

Also, I don’t think the bomb actually went off because I highly doubt our beloved characters could survive the impact of a 10MT bomb, even with plot armor.

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TerliniliaCheerio :WyomingFlair:•

Gamma and Sigma would be a horrible pair to keep together.

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[deleted]•

You're crazy and it kind of makes sense.

The Director's last words did always bug me as they seemed to be a nod to something but as for what that something is I don't think we'll really know.

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GC_Redd•

I think his last words were a bit more for the sake of being a poetic end to such a tragic character. It shows how he viewed his life and the various iterations of himself as his real self and the AIs. Who knows though, maybe he just believed in reincarnation.

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Shazam28CT :CTFlair:•

See i dont like dealing in season 3 cuz its in this weird retcon/not canon/canon thing, but I do like this theory. So was this simulation made by the director in the “real world”? Wait is this like an inception thing? Am I misunderstanding this?

Also, I always kinda interpreted the director’s final words, which were like “maybe the next time around”, to mean that like even in his death he will try to spend all of his time remembering Alison, same as what he spent all of his time on Earth doing. Its a bit of a leap in logic in terms of “what comes after death”, but i mean i do agree it doesnt make a lot of sense lol.

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DiskFormalOP•

Yep, pretty inception like, as memory-bank-church explains to memory-bank-tucker (who accurately surmises how creepy of a stalker he is, through multiple levels of existence).

And who knows what's actually running this simulation in the real world, maybe it's a Corona-level AI trying to find a way to win the war against the covenant (which was apparently the reason for Project Freelancer)?

Whatever it is, or it's true purpose, it keeps getting distracted by Tex and the Alison Problem and thus keeps failing. Tex's own perpetual shortcomings are actually a reflection of Church's original emotional ineptitude.

5
Tallis1618•

I think it makes sense, very interesting take.. Buut do I think that's how it was written?

Mm not so much, I think it's way too elaborate for writers to have been thinking of it this way from the start, parts about the director and his dying come in a season produced years, like maybe almost a decade after they started season 1-5?

So I'm more curious how this does fit well, but that view I think can only come in hindsight and would be a nice way to tie up all the Canon and have the overarching story make more sense, but from how it was written I'd imagine they did have some of this stuff in mind but not the whole concept of the director being a church AI iteration too.. It just sounds a bit too meta and well-crafted. Maybe take that as a compliment 😜

6
DiskFormalOP•

Lol, yeah probably not in the original storyboards! I think a lot of shows are like that, even the writers of Lost didn't know where they were going until the last few episodes (no spoilers!!)!

I think for me, what really tied it all the way back the beginning was when Church muttered, "Alison?", in the first few episodes. Obviously, at that point it was wide open and just a boy meets girl, girl turns out to be half person half jaguar and half shark type of story, a freinemi-panion situation.

And I will thank you! 😜

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Tallis1618•

I thought you were making a cool French reference 😭😭 I think you mean frien-emy/panion 😘

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DiskFormalOP•

That one!!

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jnobs357Washington•

Yeah like someone else said the directors last words really nod to this. In fact the second I read the title I immediately flashed back to that scene. I rly like this theory

6
That_on1_guy•

You guys remember whe RVB was just some dudes standing in a canyon talking?

3
JustaddrobotsSimmons :SimmonsFlair:•

u know i wasnt sure at first but halfway thru i had to sit down and put my chin in my hands and nod along, i think ur onto something

3
TherealscoobydoovanM12LRV (designation warthog):SargeFlair:•

Imagine if epsilon created a backup of it's self, like delta did

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Kornax82Tex :TexFlair:•

Assuming this is the case, how does running endless simulations where Alison has been destroyed help Church find an answer? Why would Church run simulations based on the premise he doesnt exist, because afterall, if he cant exist, then he cant fix Alison either. Why retain these sets of characters that have repeatedly failed to bring forth a solution? This is a decent enough idea, but there ade some pretty large holes in it.

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DiskFormalOP•

As for the other Reds and Blues, "they achieved what project freelancer never could: a complete and total faith in one another" (I don't remember exactly what was explained to Lotus, but I think that's the solution Church finds beyond Tex)

SPOILER ALERT!!

Church was endlessly trying to save Tex, to hold onto her, to preserve her. This is why she emerged during Alpha's creation, and why, when he "learns to to forget her" in the memory bank, he solves the Alison problem, and starts an upward regression of the recursion. Literally one recursion found a solution (to move on from Tex) and passed it on up, just like Church describes to Tucker in the memory-bank.

Epsilon learned his friends could do whatever they set their hearts and minds to and decided to sacrafice himself to save them.

Alpha, holding true to his fuck it it is what it is mentality, I think learned good over evil (tho just barely) when he wung it with Washington against the Meta, dying in the emp.

The director learned he wasn't enough to save Alison OR the human race against the covenant, and hoped the next iteration would get it.

It feels a bit asynchronous (and super nihilistic) but that's also kind of the beauty of recursive programming!

In Church's absence, and perhaps in the absence of a problem to solve, the simulation goes into creative overdrive.

So yeah, definitely holes, but hey, that's why I posted! :P

3