spoilerKurt Russell’s character realises he is in a simulation and has an existential crisis. You lived your entire life to this point and from someone else’s perspective you’re basically an NPC. Dread.
The difference is NPCs exist only for the main character’s experience. Oblivion’s Adoring Fan does not have a life outside of interacting with the main character or an existence outside of when the human in the external reality controls the main character in the simulated reality. In our reality there is apparently no main character. Everything and everyone simply is. To learn one is an NPC is to realise that everything one has done is artificial and confined to the boundaries of someone else’s experience. A created slave with a hollow origin and no means of escaping a forced purpose.
I mean a cursory glance at your own life ought to show you that you do in fact have a life outside of the experiences of some arbitrary person. If you were told you are an NPC, does your lifetime of personal experiences simply vanish?
Even if you were shown proof that you’re a simulation, can you really just let go of your entire existence like that?
I think denial would be a far more common reaction than existential crisis.
I just want to see how happy and relaxed Ensign Picard is. No critical decisions to make. Able to make friends among the crew without his rank getting in the way.
We get to see Captain Picard in Ensign Picard’s body, but we never get to see the slacker who has big dreams but doesn’t bother to push himself.
What we don’t see in the episode is that Q does the same thing to ensign Picard and he is like: “This sad and lonely fellow would be me if I sacrificed everything for my career?”
Makes me think of the plot from The Office when Michael had a telemarketing job and seemed so much happier when he was one of the underlings instead of the guy at the top.
Like… did Q just re-create existence around him? Or did he pluck Prime Picards consciousness and dump it into the body of Beta Picard? I like to think it’s the latter with Beta Picard in the background just like “Wait… what? What’s happening?” and then Q and Picard fuck off leaving this poor dude to desperately rely on therapy for the next couple years.
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