but-thats-its-own-story:

[Spoilers, for gen:LOCK through episode 5, and for the psychological horror game SOMA (and minor spoilers for an older season of CW’s The Flash)]

First, let me start by saying gen:LOCK is fantastic, and I can’t wait to see more.

Part of what makes it, or any show like it for that matter, so fantastic, is the use of background detail to reveal incredible amounts of information before it’s necessarily relevant to the plot. That way when it does become plot-relevant, it feels like it’s been there all along, because it has.

Sometimes this is overt, like Migas hinting at Chase’s wings, or Cammie considering how to modify her holon’s legs to better suit her (despite both of these modifications already being revealed in full during the opening credits, which makes the choice to make them slow reveals of information we already have an interesting one).

Other times it’s subtle. Like Valentina being very specific about which variant of their name Kazu uses, because they switch names when they switch genders.

Here I propose to use background information of both kinds to predict the origin of Nemesis. The origin. Not the identity- that’s all but been revealed to be Chase.

But not our Chase.

At least…

Not anymore.

Forgive the obligatory pun here but I’ll cut to the chase; If you’ve played or watched a playthrough of SOMA you likely see what I’m getting at:

I theorize Nemesis is a copy of Chase’s mind from an earlier attempt at gen:LOCK that wasn’t properly erased from the “always-on network between all uploaded minds” when his mind was downloaded back into his physical body. Somehow the Union managed to hack/hijack this network and download this copy into their own prototype holon, potentially modifying it to suit their needs.

For those who haven’t played/watched SOMA, I’ll briefly explain:

The protagonist of SOMA goes in for a new type of brain scan, then suddenly wakes up in an unfamiliar setting (in a broken down underwater facility, to be specific). He soon learns that he is not who he thought he was, but a copy of his mind produced by the brain scan, downloaded into a robot body by a rogue AI decades after his original self’s untimely death. Later, he uploads his mind into yet another new body, only to learn, to his horror, that while the upload successfully copies his mind to a new body in what he initially believes was a data transfer, his first body still contains his pre-upload mind. He has, in effect, created a copy of himself, and as far as the original knows, the upload was a failure as he is still in the same body.

What brought this comparison to mind, aside from both gen:LOCK and SOMA being centered around brain uploading as the primary plot device, is the process by which in-game the protagonist of SOMA uploads his mind: a minigame in which the player must synchronize two oscillating wavelengths representing signals; one for the source of the upload, and one for the destination.

My theory is that gen:LOCK works the same way, despite Dr. Weller’s seeming assertions to the contrary.

Seeming, because I believe he’s already admitted this to be the case.

The devil’s in the details:

One of the first things Weller says is that he’s tried cloning himself. I don’t think he was talking about his body; rather that he’s attempted to copy his mind.

When Weller exposits about the abilities and limitations of the holons, he mentions that the pilots only have one mind, as “it’s not as though he’s making backups”. Why might he even suggest that possibility, if it weren’t possible, due to a pilot’s supposedly singular mind being transferred back and forth? Except he never says “transfer”; only ever “upload” and “download”- actions which are not transfers at all, but copies made from and back to an original source, respectively, in the latter case overwriting the original (We’ve already seen that in code form, not only can the digital minds be rewritten, entire memories can be erased outright).

The neuroplasticity requirements. Because people’s brains aren’t perfect storage devices. After enough times storage is overwritten, they begin to degrade, like a hard disk. Aging out. “As many happy returns as possible.”

Speaking of which… Second Birthday.

The day your second self— your copy —is born.

But Nemesis doesn’t call it Second.

“You haven’t shut up since your birthday.”



He’s talking specifically to the Cammie in the holon.

“Copy… Kill copy…”



He’s talking to a more recent copy of himself.

From his perspective the current Chase is the copy.

When the pilots upload, their bodies go dormant. When they download, the holons go dormant. But what’s really happening when either body wakes up is that the most recent version of the pilot’s mind is synced to that body.

That is, after all, the purpose of the device gen:LOCK takes its namesake from: to synchronize two signals. But there are two signals. Two different versions of the same mind. And if they grow too out of sync, they’re no longer compatible. Like an old OS that hasn’t been updated in so long that it can no longer be updated to the most recent version.

Weller tells the pilots this as he wishes the new recruits a happy second birthday- as the camera pointedly focuses on him manually enabling the “maximum safe upload count”.

“As many happy returns as possible.”



But what happens if a pilot exceeds maximum uptime? How did Weller figure out that there should be safety protocols to prevent this from happening, lest the mind becomes incompatible with its original body?

The answer? My guess is that it happened to Chase already.

And here’s the kicker:

Let’s say Chase learned the hard way that his uploaded mind was no longer compatible. What’s to say Weller didn’t just tell him everything would be fine, before erasing the copy from the holon, and waking up the pre-upload chase with no memory of any of it ever happening?

But what if that copy wasn’t fully erased. What if it remained on the “always-on network” in some form, realizing what had happened, and watching himself, (and eventually the others) copied back and forth again and again, moving on as if it never happened, powerless to stop it or reveal the truth.

This alone would be enough to drive a “copy” insane (see: Savitar from the CW’s version of the Flash), but we’ve already seen how easy it is to modify a traumatized digital mind into a “near-psychotic feedback loop.”

Nemesis sure looks “near-psychotic” in his initial appearance…

(They showed us the effect it had on Cammie for a reason…)

One last thing: Similar to the term “holon” being taken from a book discussing the concept of mind-body duality, but literally referring to “something that is both whole itself and part of a (greater) whole”, the term “Nemesis” has a deeper meaning;

For the most part we’ve come to think of a nemesis as an archenemy to a hero.

The original Nemesis was a deity of vengeance; retribution personified.

Let the good times roll…