Fridge / Murder Drones

Fridge Brilliance

• Why aren't any of the Worker Drones willing to stand and fight? Because they're the ones that survived. All the ones who tried fighting back when the Murder Drones made planetfall were killed early on and added to the corpse pile, so the only Workers left alive are the ones whose first instinct is to run and hide! The only Worker Drones willing to pick up a weapon (Uzi and Thad) are of the second generation, which grew up in relative safety, and thus wouldn't have had all its "fighters" killed off.
  • This may also explain Khan being too afraid to try to use Uzi's gun. He has PTSD from a past incident that caused him to rely on doors only.
    • Actually his PTSD stems from a different reason. He says it himself in the pilot that he had to Mercy Kill his wife, Uzi's mother, when an attack by a Murder Drone left her in an irreparable state.
• V has spent "months" trying to get through Door One without success, but N succeeds where she failed after he follows Uzi back to the door. Once you realize the Murder Drones are basically mechanical vampires, you realize that Uzi, by opening the door when she retreated from him back to the colony, let N in.
• Why do the disassembly drones die in sunlight and have to drink oil to survive? Their designers probably wanted to make it easier to fight them if they ever turned on their creators. This also feeds into what Uzi said about the what company would do with N and his colleagues when they've killed all the Worker Drones, as they wouldn't have any sustenance...
  • N mentioned that they have nanites to repair them. However, in order to repair something as serious as a unit getting their head blown off, they'll probably need resources to replace the now missing parts. Note how the oil of the Workerd Drones is black. Machines don't run on crude oil, and most coolants are translucent liquids. Therefore, it's very likely that the "oil" in the Worker Drones is actual used lubricant for their internal mechanical parts, full of metallic impurities, i.e. tiny specks of metal that have been slowly sheared off from internal components by friction over the years. The Disassembly drones probably have an internal system that can purify the used lubricant they drink to cool their systems, while their nanites gain the necessary material from the metallic dust in the "oil".
• Why do the Murder Drones build an enormous spire of Worker Drone corpses? To demoralize the Workers, sure… but also to make "cleanup" easier once JCJenson retakes the planet. It also doubles as a convenient "larder" of oil for when they can't find prey. After all, robot corpses don't rot…
• As seen in one of the first scenes, it's shown that Worker Drones are able to reproduce. Considering that the company that made them had the technology to create saliva that can instantly repair robot parts (including an entire head) this actually makes a little sense.
  • Also, the babies have a label on them that reads "UNTRAINED NEURAL NETWORK", indicating that the robots that are born have to develop their own A.I. to allow them to be true individuals, rather than follow preprogrammed orders made by their creators.
• As another nod to how different N is to V and J, his is the only one whose name doesn't fit as a human name. Jay and Vee are both names people have, but there aren't any variations of N's name for humans.
• The constant Lampshade Hanging and acknowledgement of character archetypes ("I'm an angsty teen," "classic toxic masculinity," etc.) may sound odd for a story with serious undertones, until you realize that these are robots pretending to be human. Their knowledge of humans and human society probably comes from human media. They act this way because they are going through the motions without understanding the underlying concepts. They're an Emo Teen or a Jerk Jock because that is their function, and they must act out their own Character Archetype because their programming (generated from a neural network) tells them so.
  • What about the other robots? There are other robots with human-like personalities and they never use Lampshade Hanging.
• Why did Uzi insist on fighting J? If she had let N pick J, she would've had to fight V, which would've eventually ended with V getting shot to death by Uzi. In a way, Uzi was respecting N's love for V, especially considering that N chased Uzi into the base so that she wouldn't use the weapon on V.
• Khan Doorman may have a slight resemblance to Mario, with his goggles placed on top of his head, and it's coloured red, no less. His love of doors might even be initially written off as slightly stupid as well to some people. Meggy even joked about him being "Red as a robot" in her reaction video of Murder Drones.
• Why would the Disassembly Drones have the counter to their nano acid in their mouth of all places? Well, when you consider that they need to drink the oil of other drones to stay alive, then barring occasional accidents and treachery the only way they would get a dose of the acid is eating a drone they had jabbed. In which case making the antidote liquid part of the consumption process a clever bit of design work.
• N isn't the outcast in his group because he's incapable of murdering drones, just look at what he did to Khan's men. He's considered a failure and liability because he's the only one without the proper drive to do it. V is an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight who relishes in killing, and J is a Professional Butt-Kisser who values pleasing the company over her own brethren's survival. Meanwhile, even if he's as oil-hungry as the others(It's his function after all), N just does it to please his team, and doesn't really value the company's approval like he does J and V's. All it takes is one conversation to make N question the company he works for, which ultimately dooms J and gets V captured. Naturally, this would be something J would consider a liability, and while the Worker Drones are far better off for it, she turns out to be right.
• In "Heartbeat", V's tail weapon (which, as we saw in "Pilot", has an extended reach) isn't restrained anymore, and she gets more than close enough to Uzi for the tail to strike out. Why doesn't V strike at Uzi with her tail in these instances, and why don't either of her captors seem bothered by the possibility? If V does stab at Uzi with her tail, Uzi and N can just use the latter's saliva to neutralize the nanite acid all over again (even if Uzi won't be thrilled about it) — for all we know, this scenario might have already played out offscreen in the short time-skip between "Pilot" and "Heartbeat".
• How can the other drones understand Doll, who speaks entirely in Russian, just fine? As robots, they may have a language database installed, or something like Google Translate.
• The other students constantly forgetting Uzi's name and entire appearance sets up an amazingly brilliant moment where the business drone awkwardly says "You...?" since he forgot her name - but, since her name is Uzi, it can also be construed as a tongue-in-cheek reference to how she's becoming more akin to a Disassembly Drone since their One-Letter Name tradition would have her name as one be "U" - pronounced you.
• Uzi's catchphrase "Bite me!" is one giant case of Tempting Fate if you take into account that the Murder Drones are mechanical vampires. After all, how do vampires generally turn their victims? Via biting.
• According to N's visor in the pilot, Plot Armor is a real thing in this universe. It would seem weird, but a few notable cases show this in action.
  • Lizzy has a noticeably high survival rate compared to her classmates. For one, Doll tosses her out of the window instead of killing her, Solver Uzi doesn't instantly kill her and gives V enough time to indirectly save her, and she shrugs off a missile detonating a few inches from her.
  • Thad gets brutally impaled by V multiple times and nearly dies to a J reconstructed by the Absolute Solver. He was able to get away multiple times.
  • Braidon subverts this during the events of "Cabin Fever", where his Plot Armor is presumably disabled or has run out after undergoing the events of the previous episodes.
• Doll's eyepatch in "Home" features a big button, just like many real-life dolls.
• In "Home", it becomes apparent that Tessa kept drones meant to be disassembled (seen with their armband) as companions. V, J and Cyn had reasons to be discarded. V had damaged optics, J had a strange adoration for the company and Cyn was all kinds of messed up. But then, why was N, the nice hyper-competent butler marked for disassembly? It makes little sense until you remember that:
  • N forced open a hydraulic door, knocked V unconscious with a single kick and flied out of the supposedly impenetrable base like it was nothing in Episode 1.
  • He casually threw Uzi high above the clouds in Episode 4.
  • Even in the Episode 5, when he was still a worker drone, he could throw a silver plate with enough strength to ram it into a wall.
  • N was indeed a faulty drone. It just tends to remain unnoticed due to his gentle nature but something has made him absurdly strong. This might be the reason why J put up with him instead of murdering him as she had considered doing multiple times until "Pilot".
    • That, and JcJenson apparently refusing to allow her to do so.
• Why do the drones in general constantly name drop tropes? They based their sentience and sapience on humanity's databases and their only source is the internet. And within the internet lies this very website...
• One of the things the drones with Absolute Solver abilites have been compared to is witches. It especially works in Doll's case considering the myth of Baba Yaga, who in most Slavic circles is known as a cannibalistic witch.
• Why didn't J's squad enter the Cabin Fever labs until "Dead End"? They were stuck trying to complete their first order of killing the local robotic inhabitants and completing their spire thanks to Outpost 3's doors. Khan's doors saved their lives!
• How did Doll get past Alice and Beau? She likely teleported past them.
• "Cyn" is a homophone of "sin", befitting the Patient Zero of the Big Bad. It also makes Louisa calling Cyn a "little Antichrist" more fitting. This also ties into the phrase "Original Sin" as the first drone to be possessed.
• The Disassembly Drones used to be "Zombie Drones" as they had revived from being improperly disassembled. This is very fitting, as vampires and zombies are both of undead origin.
• If "Tessa" has been Cyn/Absolute Solver puppeteering her dead body all this time, why did she try to kill Uzi, the soon-to-be host? Since the Solver tends to take control when Uzi is under extreme stress, "Tessa" was likely trying to coerce her into letting it out.
• The reveal that Cyn wants to use Uzi as a host fits perfectly with the Religious Horror theme of "Mass Destruction" - Uzi is the daughter of a woman who was in some way touched by an evil force, and who inherited incredible powers from her in turn, but who now serves as an Apocalypse Maiden. In other words, she's a very thinly-veiled allegory for The Antichrist.
• When Cyn reveals her true colors to Tessa, she proclaims, "You will not have to discard your pets, and I will not discard you." Sure enough, Cyn doesn't "discard" Tessa... she merely flays her, wears her skin and assumes her identity.
• Having to wear a full body suit the entire time is the perfect cover for "Tessa". If there are times she can take it off, the Absolute Solver's charade would've been blown eventually.
• Nori and (likely) Yeva having amnesia due to the core collapse and was cured of their possession by the crucifix patch in "Mass Destruction" answers a few supposed plot holes:
  • How they died to the Murder Drones in the first place, despite their daughters showing how ridiculous the scenario would be in earlier episodes. The shock to their memories literally made them forgot about their powers, leaving them vulnerable.
  • Why the Murder Drones go after and kill them along with the other workers, which would cut of the Absolute Solver from potential hosts. They had the protection of the crucifix patch. The Absolute Solver doesn't want a bunch of superpowered robots it can no longer control running around.
• Why would Cyn need to "discard" N and use his backups instead of reprogramming him? Well, if one recalls the events of "Home" combined with the Freeze-Frame Bonus after N gets broken out of the flashback Cyn gave him, it's evident that N's current body is protected from Cyn's control due to Uzi installing herself as the new admin. Thus, it would be far simpler for Cyn to start fresh with a backup body that doesn't have a firewall installed.

Fridge Horror

• If the terrifying, armed-to-the-teeth "Disassembly Drones" are what a private company sends against unarmed Worker Drones, then what mechanical horrors is the military sending to actual battlefields?
  • Probably actual humans, since it's possible that the drones are seen as expendable
    • Wouldn't that make the drones perfect soldiers? A general wouldn't have to worry about loss of human life as they can simply send large numbers of mass-produced drones into combat without worrying about public backlash.
• All the drones in Outpost 3 (Uzi's colony) go to an evacuation spot. There are very few drones there, just Uzi's classmates and some more generic drones and defense force drones. Is that everyone?
  • No, as later episodes introduce dozens of new Worker Drones both named and unnamed.
• Uzi and N essentially sentenced Outpost 3 to death. Sure the main Murder Drone squad is gone, but now the base's door-operating computer is destroyed, there's a hole in their roof, a third of them are dead (including the entire door defense squad besides the leader), and that remaining leader is now in a state of weakness thanks to his daughter running away. It'll be a miracle if the colony survives another two weeks.
  • On the brighter side, Uzi forgot to pick up her weapon when she and N left, so maybe one of the Workers will pick it up and figure out how to use it.
    • Which brings up the question what Uzi would do without it.
    • The colony seems to be doing fine.
• While quite funny, the dying worker drone in the beginning praying is unfortunately likely useless. Most depictions of good afterlifes and peace after death rely on the person's soul going on to enjoy it. The worker drone is a robot. He has no soul. It's very likely after he died, his consciousness just stopped existing entirely.
  • Have you heard the good news about Robojesus?
  • That attitude won't get one into Silicon Heaven.
  • The Omnissiah knows his own.
• Right after Uzi reveals her intention to Kill All Humans, her eyes flash yellow like one of the disassembly drones, accompanied by error messages like "tampering detected", and "Corrupted/[Ilegible]". Given the disassembly drones are basically robot vampires, could Uzi be in the process of turning?
  • Not to mention she was stabbed by N's nanite acid earlier, which would be the disassembly drone equivalent of a vampire bite.
  • N, V and J were indeed once Worker Drones before getting turned somehow…
  • It's later revealed that it's not Uzi being converted into a disassembly drone and instead, it's her Solver being activated.
• In "Heartbeat", J's corpse appeared to have a disturbingly organic ribcage, complete with some viscera. Are they actually Cyborgs? If so, just what happened to the person they were made from?
  • If Tessa is being truthful, then it's because that they were made by the Absolute Solver whose creations are all biomechanical.
• Also in “Heartbeat”, the form the Absolute Solver takes while repairing J features many disturbingly biological-looking components, most notable being the human hand it uses to grab Thad. Now look closely where Uzi and N encounter it: it’s camped out in a cryosleep lab. Did the Absolute Solver use the dormant humans as raw material?
  • Similarly, in "Home", the Absolute Solver's main appendage is coming out of a broken birdcage, and some other appendages may be coming from a murky aquarium. Pets gone missing, perhaps? In some cases the Solver does seem to generate flesh from nothing, but it looks like at least some of the time it's repurposing scavenged meat.
• According to N's dream, his team used to be Worker Drones themselves, being servants in a creepy old mansion. Back then, V was a polite maid who also had a crush on N. What happened to turn her into the Ax-Crazy psychopath who can't remember N's name that she is in the present? After all, N can remember their old job, and J's personality didn't seem to have changed.
  • Probably being traumatised by what a Solver-possessed Cyn had done to them.
• The bathtub in Doll's house is filled with blood, not oil like her usual Worker Drone victims. And the fact that it was still wet and dripping means it's relatively recent. But there haven't been any humans on the exoplanet for years. Where did it come from?
  • The Absolute Solver seems to be able to generate organic material from inorganic matter, as seen in Episode 4, just... imperfectly.
• What's going to happen to Lizzy? Given the fact that she was complicit in Doll's plan to kill V which included, murdering the other prom candidates, I doubt the Worker Drones would be so forgiving towards her.
  • She plays a role in the next episode.
• If simply reaching out to touch the 'Zombie Drones' VHS was enough to make N have visions, what would watching it do?
  • It's implied in "Home" that watching it caused the internal program that was trying to delete N and V's memories.
• When we briefly assume the POV of Kelsey, who wears glasses, at the start of "The Promening", we see a message saying "LOL nice vision", indicating JCJenson's programmers put in mocking messages whenever a Drone is vision-impaired. We already knew the company was made up of sick bastards, but that's just low.
• It's mentioned that 0.07% of Zombie Drones can develop hazardous mutations such as the case with Cyn. How did JcJenson find out about the percentage of drones that develop such mutations? And what happened to those who developed hazardous mutations?
• It's strongly suggested that Tessa is lying about the origins of the Disassembly Drones and Earth's destruction to manipulate N into killing Uzi. How would he react to the one that saved him, took care of him and treated him like a friend is okay with lying and manipulating him to kill his best friend/crush.
  • Series creator, Liam Vickers, confirmed on Glitch X 2023 that she wasn't lying about the origins of the Disassembly Drones. So, the horror instead now comes from what she could have experienced post-gala and pre-Dead End that made her THIS cynical. Or not really.
• In "Mass Destruction", Cyn tells N that he's one of the main reasons that his team retained their personalities. This greatly implies that N and his friends got lucky when they were converted to Disassembly Drones, while the rest of their co-workers likely suffered a Death of Personality.
• Doll's core was consumed by "Tessa" shortly after her initial death. Unlike the Disassembly Drones, Worker Drones are considered disposable and are not backed up. She's gone for good. Yeva must be turning in her grave.

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