Recursion Theory: All of RvB is a simulation run by an AI trying to solve the "Alison Problem"
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
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”.
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?
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.
Wasn't yellow church sister from caboose's mind or something?
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.
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.
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?)
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.
Gamma and Sigma would be a horrible pair to keep together.