Now these are the three plot points I predict we will see in Project Freelancer.1. Because of a quote from agent Washington:“At the end of the war, things didn’t look good for humans, and there were dozens of projects all trying to come up with the magic bullet to win, Project Freelancer was one.”I believe we will see several battles between the Covenant and the Freelancers
2. Maine’s descent into madness: First a little history: In my theory, Maine was always a perfectionist, he came from an aristocratic background and joined the military because he saw it as a personal test to his own courage and skill, when he is inhabilitated in the most humiliating way possible this is an enormous and unbearable blow to his pride and Maine slowly slips deeper into madness as he becomes desperate for more power, believing that it will help him to regain his lost pride, a mindset encouraged by Sigma (I predict Sigma and Maines relationship to be reminiscent of that between Alma Wade and Paxton Fettel). But in the end, Maine realises that his original drive to regain his lost pride has deteriorated into an uncontrollable hunger for power.
3. Washington and Epsilon: First, as I mentioned before in a previous post which you probably didn’t read (you bastards! ;-D) I believe that Wash and Epsilon were once friends, due to another quote from Agent Washington:
“No, just the same old feelings, you know; that I had another person living inside my head and I got to experience first hand as their mind unravelled while mixed with my own.”The main word in that quote is “person”, Agent Washington saw Epsilon as another person going insane, rather than just a rogue computer program that malfunctioned, and I believe that he was genuinely saddened by what had happened to Epsilon.Now this is my theory of Agent Washington’s history: Basically Agent Washington joined the army and- Well Duh! (fuckstick).... ANYWAY. Agent Washington joined the army and got extremely high scores, especially in ranged combat, his marksmanship skills were off the charts, however Washington had one critical flaw: Following orders. Washington couldn’t stand what he saw as the “mindlessness” of his peers, they were all just “Yes sir! No sir! Three bags full sir!” He hated the fact that they had no initiative and simply did as they were told. And so Wash would often disobey orders and follow his own plans, and despite the frequent success of these plans Washinton would have been court marshalled had his creativity and initiative not caught the eye of the director of Project freelancer, who offered Washinton the chance to escape the court marshal by joining Project Freelancer. Washing ton excepted The Director’s offer and for the first time in his life, found himself among equals. He appreciated York’s laidback nature and Identified quickly with Agent Maine’s perfectionist style, which was lucky because Agent Maine and Washington were soon assigned to the same team due to their complementary styles, Washington is a backline shooter and strategist, his ranged combat skills are EXCELLENT but his melee combat skills are- well not CRAPPY but they definitely need improvement, if you noticed during the battle against Tex he was making big swinging arcs, which are quite obvious and leave yourself wide open to a counter attack, something that Tex exploits quite easily. Maine on the other hand is a cunning and opportunistic frontline combatant, and this combination proved to be devastatingly effective, until they were beaten by simulation troopers (but then even the best laid plans often fall prey to bad luck). Of course their were some people he didn’t get along with, for example he was VERY wary of Tex, but then again everyone was. And he hated Wyoming due to the latter’s arrogant and posh nature. Then came the thing with the AI’s. Now wash extremely hesitant about that for the simple fact that having someone inside your head for the rest of your life, no respite would be incredibly annoying, especially someone like Delta. I imagine that Delta was one of the first A.I’s and due to its docile nature was often used as the “example” A.I.
“Okay York, could you please step up for a minute and demonstrate exactly what an A.I is like, Delta.”
And so Washington naturally assumed that all the A.I were going to be like Delta. Not that he had a problem with Delta, it was just the thought of having another “Yes sir! No sir! Three bags full sir!” type person living inside his head forever. “Someone. Please. Kill me!!” But to Washington’s surprise the A.I they assigned him: Epsilon, was nothing like what Agent Washington had expected. Rather than being a docile butler type servant, Epsilon had a sarcastic irreverent nature that Washington liked immediately and the two quickly became friends, however, as we all know, things went horribly wrong.Now I don’t think Rooster teeth will show Epsilon’s decent into madness as simply some random flashes of images. No no no no no. They’re smarter than that, I think they will actually be more subtle, in fact the first signs could actually be quite funny like “WTF” but then it goes from funny to..
Odd....
To ....
Creepy....
To....
Something is very, very wrong here!!And then becomes just outright horrific. So this will be a very dark story, because Washington will be watching his closest friend descend into madness and be unable to help him, and what makes it even worse is that Washington knows EXACTLY what is tormenting Epsilon as he is experiencing it himself. As he said he had to experience it FIRST HAND, and thus is also dragged into the depths of insanity.
4. The Alpha/Tex storyNow this story will be just as dark as the Washington/Epsilon story if not darker, however it will be dark in a different way, you see the Agent Maine story will be morbidly fascinating, the Washington/Epsilon story will be outright horrifying, but the Alpha/Tex story will be heartbreakingly tragic, and of course- because Monty Oum will be there- FUCKING EPIC!!!!!
....Ahem. Sore throat there.
....Wait. How the hell did I get a sore throat from typing? And for that matter, why am I typing word-for-word everything that comes into my head.Oh fuck itANYWAY. Now I believe that the Washington/Epsilon story will focus more on Epsilon’s descent into madness, rather than the actual visions themselves. But in the Alpha/Tex story we will finally be able to see these horrible images ourselves, now not only will they be absolutely horrible images, genuinely horrible. but they will also give us some insight into The Directors mind.Now let me tell you about my theory of the Director’s history. Now a lot of people believe The Director to be out and out just some sociopathic asshole, but I don’t think he is, for the simple fact that Church IS the Director, at the end of the day they are the same person, so for The Director to be a Complete Monster, that would mean Church is one to, but we all know he’s not, so there’s gotta be more to it than that. So looking deeper I looked at a quote from the Director himself during his final log
“Someone extremely dear to me was lost very early in my life, my mind has always plagued me with the question, if the choice had been placed in my hand, could I have saved her? The memory of her has haunted me my entire life, and more so in these past few years than I could ever have imagined”
And another quote from the actor who plays the Director: John Marshall Reed (now I know the actor doesn’t have the final say in his character, but I still believe the actors opinion is very important)
“I basically see the Director as sought of a disgruntled cowboy” you know he’d always wanted to “Go out on the range” and “Shoot his guns” and never really got the chance to do that, and so he’s living out his fantasies through his Freelancers.”
So combining those two observations and quotes I came up with my history of Dr Leonard Church:Now the story begins when Church was about nineteen years old. He was a very, very, VERY intelligent person and for years now he had dreamed of joining the army, and now that he had applied to enlist he felt that that dream was finally going to become a reality. On another front his relationship with his fiancée Allison was closer than ever before, they were soul mates. And when he found out that Allison was also joining the army he was overjoyed: Now they could be in the army together, however his dream was shattered when Tex was accepted into the army and Church wasn’t. Church was overcome without th jealousy and in his fury lashed out at Allison leading to a savage fight between them that ended with Allison breaking up with him and leaving to join the army regardless, and of course, we all know what happened.
Allison died in the line of duty.
The horror of this loss shattered the Directors mind. Allison had been everything to him and losing her along with his dream to join the army proved to much for his sanity to handle and he went mad from grief, he was committed to a mental asylum after he experienced a nervous breakdown but was declared sane after four years.... at least the psychologists THOUGHT he was sane, but although on the surface he seemed normal and even found enormous success from his Freelancer Project. the psychological scars had gone far deeper than the mind. Because he had lost everything he held dear The Director no longer had any interest in life and became stuck in the past thus his Freelancers, rather than being human beings with their own hopes and dreams simply became puppets to act out the play of the directors fantasies. Also his loss of Allison and his failure to join the army collided in the directors mind so that he believed that his failure to join the army was responsible for Allison’s death and thus became insanely intolerant of any failure in any form. Leading to his “Do what ever it takes to win” outlook, for if everyone had done anything possible to win the war, then maybe she wouldn’t have died.Now let me get to Alpha. Now the Director created Alpha for two reasons, one was practical, but the other was because the Director believed that creating Alpha might finally be the chance to rid himself of these horrible memories. When Alpha is created the Director after a few experiments, begins his torture of Alpha, now we all thought (that includes me) that the Directors torture of Alpha was simply an act of sociopathic callousness, but I now believe that the Director actually saw Alpha as his weaker self, the part of him whose failure had led to Allisons death. And thus the Directors torture of Alpha was the Directors way, in his mind to punish himself for failing to save Allison. He tortured Alpha with horrible Images of Allison suffering and dying. And that’s what I was talking about before, because we will be seeing these images and these images come from the nightmares of the Director himself we will finally be able to see just how fucked up the Directors mind truly is. But then there’s also the story of Tex. As we all know Tex is a by product of Alphas creation, because Allison was such a prominent part of the Directors memories when his mind was copied, Allison came back.Now this is another reason why I believe Allisons death to have been a traumatic event in the Directors life, mainly due to this quote:
“She died in her real life and that’s all the Director could ever remember of her!”
OKAY now there’s a little bit of a mix up there you see for the Directors memories of Allison to be able to recreate her they would have to be EXTRAORDINARILY strong. He would have to remember every, little, detail about her which means they would have to have been incredibly close, and yet the only thing the Director can remember about her is that she died!? To me that screams “Repressed memory” and leads me to believe that the loss of Allison was unimaginably traumatic.
So Allison is revived as Tex but the Director’s logical and cynical mind refuse to believe that this is truly Allison returned to him, no this must be some cruel trick sent by fate to torture him, in fact he should probably torture this A.I to harvest fragments from her as well, he’ll do it right now.........well maybe later..........or.......No he just couldn’t hurt her, he couldn’t bring himself to torture Allison. And yet, he still feared getting close to her again, fearful of what might happen, but he couldn’t stay away from her and even became furious with the Counsellor when the latter referred to Tex as a by product. Now at this point Tex was just a personality, she didn’t actually have any memories, so the Director created some false memories for her and a robot body and signed her up in the freelancer project. He didn’t tell her that she was the shadow of his dead girlfriend for in his mind that would be a horrible thing, to know that you’re just a COPY of someone no, he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t be that cruel, not to Allison.....Not to her. However, there was something that the director didn’t predict.
Tex met Alpha.Now because (unbeknownst to the two of them) Tex was literally a part of Alpha’s mind and because they were both copies of Allison and The Director respectively that great love ends up being mirrored with Alpha and Tex, they begin meeting more frequently and soon formed a strong friendship, albeit a bickering, snarky friendship, but a surprisingly close one when you read between the lines. And of course they end up becoming closer and closer to the point of falling in love. But of course, due to being so close to Alpha (I Imagine that Tex and Alpha had already started their relationship a few months before the Director began his torture of Alpha) Tex realised there was something extremely wrong with her boyfriend and when one day he disappeared completely, Tex became desperate in her attempts to find him. Her answer finally comes from an unexpected source:OmegaFrom Omega’s memories, coupled with her own painstaking research Tex finally uncovers the truth about Alpha’s torture, and she is horrified. With Omega’s reluctant help, she convinces the other A.I and their Freelancers to try and break the Alpha out. They almost succeed to, but just when they are about to free Alpha.
Omega betrays them.
You see when they finally break into the “Experimentation Chamber” Omega finally get’s to see EXACTLY what they are doing to Alpha (all he had were memories of pain, suffering and hate) and he LOVES it!!!!!! You see because Omega is born from pure hatred he is incredibly sadistic and decides that Alpha’s torture could be an excellent form of entertainment and thus turns on the Freelancers, infecting them and causing them to massacre each other, he even rips Gamma out of Wyoming’s head a long with a piece of the British Freelancers mind and then permanently infects both Gamma and Wyoming with a piece of himself turning Wyoming from an arrogant posh prick, into an arrogant posh SADISTIC prick. Remember Delta saying,“ May I remind you what happened when Program Gamma removed itself from Agent Wyoming.”
Ironically, this event is what leads Wyoming into becoming Project Freelancer’s most trusted soldier.
So Tex is arrested and placed into a maximum security facility, while Alpha is removed to that frozen base we saw in Revelations were they continue to torture him. Knowing this Tex somehow manages to break out of the prison, laying waste to the guards as she does, remember Tex saying to church,
“the last time I was in a place like this, I was trying to get OUT as fast as I could”
Her reason for trying to escape was to try and save Alpha. Now this will be a very interesting look at Tex, because on one hand, we will be seeing a much more tender, caring side to her, but on the other hand, she will be more badass than ever before, for the simple fact that she truly has someone to fight FOR, rather than fighting for fun, money, duty, or survival. And show she breaks into the frozen facility manages to get into the room where they are holding Alpha.........
And she’s too late.
The torture had become so severe, Alpha had had to rip his memories out of his head, he was now barely more than an empty shell. And so Tex surrenders, why fight, she’d already failed.Then the Director walks in.
You know what, she thinks, fuck surrendering, I may have failed to save Alpha but I swear if it is the last thing I fucking do I am going. To. Rip. This. Monster. APART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.And she flies into a grief spawned rage and begins to slaughter everyone around her making this final stand into both a heartbreaking Tearjerker and also a Crowning Moment of Awesome. But of course Tex is finally subdued and knocked unconscious. Now the Director knows he should delete her, but he just can’t do it, despite everything, he just can’t bring himself to kill Allison, so instead crafts some new false memories for her and Church, which explains why the back stories we heard in Blood Gulch Chronicles, as well as a memory of a meeting between church and Tex which we saw in Out of Mind part 2 don’t match up with what was revealed in the Recollections trilogy.
And that’s my theories, NOW BRING ON SEASON 9!!! :-)
- It does explain why he's called "Washington" while in prison.
- Not likely, given that he said they gave him the name Washington. Can't give someone a name they already had.
- I always read Sarge's reaction as more of not wanting to see Grif's body, but yeah, Sarge was definitely not happy about Grif's death.
- Jossed. Actually, CONFIRMED! I just didn't want to spoil it for people who haven't seen it yet.
There is a side effect. If the "Alpha" technically exists yet again through Epsilon, doesn't that mean that all the other AI - including Omega and the original Tex - are lying about somewhere deep within the AI's subconscious? Somewhere in Church's "afterlife," the other AI are lurking, maybe as ghosts of their former selves. Maybe this explains the inconsistencies in this reality, such as why Donut is suddenly the take-charge leader of the Reds. Maybe halfway in the story, this Troper believes the other AI (at least Gamma and Omega, like old times) will wrestle with Church for control of reality.
Alternatively, perhaps combined with the theory right below...
- Jossed
Or at least her body...
- Confirmed
- How exactly is it confirmed that either Carolina or 479 is Tex?
- I believe that poster had swapped the "or" and the "is" in the theory around.
- Nope. I typed what I meant: either Carolina or 479 will provide Tex with a human body... assuming she isn't a robot from the start... hmmm.
- Still not confirmed, either way. Unless I missed something?
- York said that no one was able to be like Tex and omega, but in season 9, the number one freelancer is C Arolina, however, this is just an observation, who knows, see Text is Tex and Carolina is Carolina to read a theory,if you want
- How exactly is it confirmed that either Carolina or 479 is Tex?
- Plus you'd think York would have a stronger reaction to Tex when she asks him for help if Tex took over anything of Carolina's, since IIRC that same line by Church implies York and Carolina were partners in some sense of the term (or otherwise spent a notable amount of time together).
- However, what if York didnt know about Tex being Carolina? Im a supporter of Agent Carolina is Tex so, let me give a theory: Agent Carolina was York partner (i did not knew this, so lets see...) and Lover/Friend/Relative/Girlfriend/Favorite of the director also. The director create alpha, and split it in 2 (lets say ommega and gamma) and then put them inside Carolina, and then Carolina lost it and died. After that, ommega and gamma informed that to alpha, and alpha star to split again, creating the Tex AI. And call her Allison (there is now non canon, but remember a song from season one about tex?, it was stated that her name was beth, but after the omalley incident, her name was changed to allison). And the only ones who know about this are the director and the A.I.s that were inside Carolina. This is, of curse, a theory, im not taking into account the fact that, supposedly, at the same time the alpha was created, tex AI was also created. in my theory, alpha created tex after know that because of him, Carolina died.
- FWIW, the dialogue I was referring to:
Tex: (talking about the events of "Out of Mind") I thought I tracked him back to O'Malley. But, by the time York and I got there-Church: York- your old freelancer buddy? Was Carolina with him?- That was fast!!! xd2 theories: 1.- Church could see Tex and Carolina as 2 different beings (sound kinda... weird...are you a fan of 07xpansion?xd) 2.- Church forgot about Tex and Carolina being the same person, he forgot about both being A.I.s, Alpha could been trying make himself happy, forgeting about Carolina death, and make epsilon remember it instead.
- The Meta also has Carolina's armor enhancement (camouflage), which is different than Tex's (invisibility). Furthermore, Tex was created off of someone the director loved and lost, not someone the alpha loved and lost.
- The alpha and the director are kinda the same, if the director love someone and lost, the alpha also love her and lost her, to confirm or deny this theory, i think we must wait until somo AI like delta or epsilon appear.
- It's very clear that the list doesn't simply focus on battle ratings. South Dakota's rank down was a result of carelessness and insubordination and Wash has stayed on the board the entire season because he gets results and follows the rules, despite his disagreement with the Director.
This troper honestly hasn't got a clue just what the list would actually be based on, otherwise, but food for thought, I suppose.
- Or, perhaps someone who didn't know the red team as well as they knew blue team got in there before Church did. Someone who would think that Donut was somewhat admirable. Maybe someone who took a Grenade to the face from halfway across the Gultch, thrown by Donut, and afterwards saw Donut as the most competent of the team.
Wash gets Epsilon put into his head, and Epsilon goes nuts. The Director decides to remove "dangerous AI" to stop this from happening; he pretends to do it with everyone else, but only does it to Tex and Omega. They escape, and she gathers some Freelancers to help save the Alpha: Tex, Maine, CT and York go to the base where Alpha is kept...until Omega decides he has a different agenda. Omega takes control of Tex, and shoots York through the eye. However, because of the healing unit, York, Maine and CT manage to escape when Freelancer agents arrive at the facility.
Tex is put into cold storage while a clone Tex is used as an agent, with a clone Alpha (a back-up in case the real Alpha lost too many fragments to function) sent to Blood Gulch for safe keeping . Omega soon arrives, through the radio, in clone Tex's head, and she heads off to Blood Gulch when they radio for help. Wyoming is sent by the Director to make sure that Tex doesn't figure out what happened. York is left to his own devices, CT sets up her own mercenary operation, and Maine is left to his own devices, where he soon plots with Sigma to re-unite the Alpha. This leaves North and South as the only PF agents not occupied (while allowing South to grow more jealous of North, who is the only Agent with an AI and the top agent), so the Director allows Wash back into the fold, where he becomes Recovery One.
And as to why York was shot before the trailer, think of the trailer as like the Recreation Trailer, more about setting the tone than actually being true.
- I have to agree with the York thing. In my opinion, the trailer was true to an extent, like the Meta's being shot in the throat, but moreover I think it was meant to set the mood.
- I somewhat agree on the York thing as well, but you've got a big problem with your theory—where does the clone Alpha come from? It's a rather significant plot point that A.I.s can't be copied and that Project Freelancer ever only had one full AI. They couldn't just have one hiding somewhere. If they had the capability to make multiple A.I.s secretly, they undoubtedly would've done that rather than all the experimentation with Alpha.
There's just too much to show in a 19 episode span. We still need to learn more about C.T., Maine, Carolina, pre-Epsilon incident Washington, York, Wyoming, and Tex. About a third of the way in, we've seen a single mission that the Dakotas and Carolina undertook, and a scene between Wash and C.T., all of this coming before Tex has shown up or any AI have been shown. I believe Season 9 will focus primarily on characterizing the Freelancers we've seen or heard of up to this point, showing several missions they embark on. I do think that Tex will show up in the season eventually, as the trailer showed her fighting alongside York and South, but the AI implantation won't begin until Season 10.
Caboose said that command was sending someone to help Blue Team "recover". Recovery One. The word is fairly out of place, so it's pretty obvious that it's Washington we're going to see. Epsilon-Church will no doubt be incredibly angry.
It will be a different freelancer. If it is Tex, she will be completely different. Anyway, Church will have to unite the teams and use his reality-warping powers to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge with both teams.
Thus, the damaged duplicate of Dr. Church's mind inhabited a damaged duplicate Dr. Church's body. Most likely, the clone was artificially aged to whatever age AI Church believed himself to be, and the AI may have inhabited cybernetic implants in clone church's (non-independently functioning) brain, rather than his helmet like what is usual, so that AI Church wouldn't realize that he was, in fact, an AI as soon as he tried to remove his armor.
- This makes sense, given flash cloning is a very real thing in the Halo universe.
I mean, yeah, the base blew up, but when he was knocked over, it was shown that he fell onto a ledge. Plus, he had special armor and somewhat of a personality, so I feel it would be likely he be a (non-threatening) recurring opponent.
- In one of the first season episodes, Sarge was about to mutter something about seeing "Special Ops" in his days in Sidewi-GEEKAGERGER. Hinting, he had seen freelancers before, and survived.
- In the teaser trailer for Season 9 (a section that was seemingly cut from what was shown at the Con), Washington mentions that the Meta was shot in the throat, then thrown off a cliff. Additionally, in the Revelations Grand Finale, Washington gives Sarge the Warthog's hook and tells him that "he'd know what to do". Was it an idea they shared, or something they did before?
- The Meta is arrogant. As powerful as he is, his biggest flaw is that he underestimates his enemies (especially simulation troopers), which came to bite him in the ass in the finale. For him, Sarge would have been either just an idiot to kill, or actually harbored enough of a grudge to calmly throw the shotgun away and strangle him... And he didn't learn from his mistakes.
- He is just mae her suffer when he met her, or when he re-create her, and he will be trap in a loop for ever, until he realise that he must let Allison R.I.P
- Semi-confirmed. While it doesn't solve everything, Church, believing that the memory unit is failing an his world is ending, realizes that forgetting Tex is the only way to solve the problem with her, choosing to forget her.
- He is busy biding his time and finding a better host body, or massacred the soldiers to draw attention. As Church shows the ability to possess people, he waited till Walter was discovered, then possessed one of the soldiers in a similar manner and escaped elsewhere. There's NO way he'd let Meta take over him.
- Or two theories if he did- he abandoned ship and possessed a soldier fighting the Meta in Episode 17 of Reconstruction, then fled before the EMP went off. Or his memories are stored in Epsilon-Church and waiting to be released.
- Eh, my problem with this is that you could make the same argument for Tex, if not an even better one. My guess is they fought each other until they were exhausted, and that's why the Meta was able to get both of them at once. Alternately, when Omega found out what Sigma was trying to do (put the Alpha back together and/or go find the Alpha), he joined them willingly. Delta didn't seem to complain too much when he was grabbed from Sigma, after all. Not sure what Tex thought about it, though.
- It's heavily implied that Tex was created after Allison died. IIRC, Wash said that Allison "came back" in the form of Tex.
- Well, maybe she was dead for him, maybe carolina an york were dating, and for the director, is like carolina (allison) is now away from him, like if she were dead... or something
- Tex has already encountered numerous people that knew both her and Carolina. If you go back into Rv B, Tex even mentions Carolina, so she also knew her. The Director isn't being metaphorical when he says Allison died, she's dead and even goes on to talk about it in a fair amount of death compared to most Noodle Incidents.
- Jossed, that was about radio transmissions being sent to the Insurrectionists, foreshadowing the fact that the Freelancers already knew CT was leaking info.
- He never brought it up because there was no need to before the freelancers showed up, and once they did, it would be a terrible idea to mention it.
- Seems like a waste to put the characters in a massive map like Forge World and not have them explore it. Maybe the characters will find some way to open the wall, or, considering the place represents Epsilon's memories, perhaps it's a little more existential and the wall is a literal mental block in Church's memory.
- Semi-confirmed. While non-canon, the latest Rv B miniseries, Where There's a Will There's a Wall deals with the Reds attempts to figure out what is behind the wall. There's just another wall directly behind it.
- This Tex is a simulated version like the Reds and Blues, besides Church. The real one will show up later, using the same body type as the other characters.
- It could just be a code name. Depending on how big it actually is, it could hold an item possibly the sword Tucker will grab in season 3.
- It was made in a cryogenics facility, though. It's organic.
- Just judging from the shadow of its contents in Season 10 Episode 16, it contains a Covenant Engineer.
- Jossed, the Sarcophagus was that small vault... thing.
- But if some guy had taken her armor, and was posing as the leader of the expedition, then why did he call himself C.T.? If anyone came looking and knew that C.T. Was leading the original expedition, then wouldn't they know that C.T. was in fact a woman? I mean, sure it's possible that she used a voice modifier to pose as a man, but it doesn't make sense for this new guy to steal her name.
- Confirmed as of Episode 10 Season 10, the CT at Sandtrap was the Pill insurrectionist wearing her armor.
- In Out of Mind: Part IV York said "Omega and Allison were always the best. Nobody could compete with them, not me, not Wyoming, not anybody. Trying to beat them when I should have given up is how I got hurt in the first place." Two things that stand out are 'Omega' and 'Trying to beat them when I should have given up.' So far Omega hasn't appeared as far as we know, and when the grenade blew up near him he was trying yo protect Tex from Wyoming and Maine who were using live ammunition, not competing with her.
- In episode 13 he was able to join the rest of the Freelancers for their mission despite being wounded in the last episode involving project Freelancer. Beyond getting out of a hospital extremely quickly for being blinded he showed no problems with his eyesight.
- This also makes sense when you remember that in Out of Mind, York mentions that Delta compensated for his limited vision in fights, and we actually get to see some of that when he fights Wyoming. In the sarcophagus mission, he obviously is not limited to that degree at all (considering that at this point, he doesn't have Delta yet).
A) It contains state-of-the-art AI technology. Possibly the technology that'll be used to torture the Alpha into fragments.
B) As one troper already posited, Tucker's sword.
C) Perhaps the badass Elite warrior from seasons three and four?
D) The Spartan Laser?
E) Apparently A Covenant Engineer, being tricked into helping fragment Alpha.
- Maine is already ranked higher than South. During the mission briefing in part 13, if you look at the ranking board you can see he's currently third on the list. For the record, at that time it's currently Carolina, Wyoming, Maine, North Dakota, Washington, York. The Director probably moved him up after the fight with Tex. Still, they might move him up further after the sarcophagus mission.
- The Director predicting that Epsilon would go insane is actually very possible. During the Recovery One mini-series, Washington asked South if she still had her A.I. She responded by reminding him that she was in the implantantion group behind him. After Epsilon went crazy, no one else got an A.I. However, during Reconstruction, Delta told Church that North and South were part of an experiment where one agent got an A.I. and the other didn't. So... the Director never intended to give South an A.I. at all, suggesting that he knew there wouldn't be another implantation process after Epsilon. >_>
It says "Bjorndal Cryogenics" on the side. Cryogenics, huh?
- Following on this, said body is a clone of the Director.
- It appears to contain a Covenant Engineer, at least judging from the shadow of its contents.
- Confirmed! And Jossed. Technically the bomb was made by Tex.
- Well, the original Andy was also made by Tex, also from an unused robot kit.
- I think all the insurrectionists are rogue Freelancers. We see them able to fight on par with Carolina and Maine, even getting the best of Maine during the chase sequence.
- ALL the Insurrectionists? Maybe a ton of the leaders, but there seems like there are just too many of them, considering that there are only 50 or so Freelancers, going strictly off the name principles.
Secondly, we've already established that Agent Wyoming is a sucky soldier, yet he gets the best gear, while everyone else gets camo and sheilds.Tex didn't know that Wyoming had time looping gear when they fought, which means he must have gotten it after she went rogue.The only reason he had time manipulation technology in his armor was because he was the last Freelancer, or one of the last few Freelancers,still loyal to the director. Without it he wouldn't stand a chance against anyone.
Thirdly, if the director had direct access to time travel, he wouldn't give it to one of his Freelancers to go off and fight some simulation soldiers, he would use it for himself. If Director Church's engineers knew how to bend time, he would have gone back to save Allison. But it wasn't human scientist that discovered how to alter the temporal plain, it was the aliens. Wether it's the covenant or the forerunners, they figured out some way to bend time, and even managed to make the device small enough to fit inside a helmet. That's why the director hasn't used it yet, becuase his human scientists have yet to understand how it works, they only know how to use it.
Finally, the biggest clue to Wyoming's time travel armor being alien tech is the fact that the sword and it's holder are immune to it's effects. The only reason Tucker found the sword, the only reason Wyoming was sent to kill him, the only reason anyone is in Bloodgultch at all is to test the effects of the time travel device in proximity to the sword. Tex knew they were up to something, but she didn't know it included the sword. in the next season, if they're not still doing prequel episodes, they'll be focusing on Tucker, Junior, and Tucker's big long sword. Bowchickawowow.
- Good theory. Also, she didn't go insane from 2 AI's. It was actually something far worse.
- Jossed. As of episode nineteen, Tex is now number one and Carolina is number two.
- Confirmed. And you, sir, are a genius
- Doc: Sorry my hands are so cold.Sister: That's ok. Sorry my body's so hot.
- So what is your theory, exactly? That she has an abnormal body tempurature? There have been instantces where normal children have fallen under ice for half an hour, and managed to stay alive because their bodies froze before they could drown. It's a common phenomenon. Also, the pregnant part was a crack at her being a whore.
- Methinks that the OP meant this as a joke.
- It's possible. They never did find her body at the crash site in Valhalla. And what Epsilon-Church and Caboose found was just a spare body that Epsilon uploaded repressed memories of Tex into.
- That's Alpha-Tex, not Epsilon-Tex. Regardless, I think it's entirely possible one of them could still be alive. Alpha-Tex was supposed to have been captured by the Meta and destroyed in the EMP (Burnie said it in an interview/podcast, I believe), but Epsilon-Tex probably was just "folded" back into Epsilon. His memories of her are obviously still there, they just... you know, aren't a separate person any more. So I think it's entirely possible for her to come back. And she'd better, if only because it would be hilarious and awesome to see her and Carolina fight.
- It's also possible that Epsilon-Tex isn't really gone. She may have just walked away to respect Church's wishes and is still stuck in the capture unit.
- That hologram room that the Reds just happen to have underneath their Valhalla base? I can see it happening.
1. A team managed to crack into the unit, and in fact that's what has been causing all this mayhem with the earthquakes. Someone's trying to interfere with the simulation, and Church is keeping it together as long as he can until he manages to win over Tex. The earthquakes weren't the 'end of the world', but a signal to hurry up.
2. The unit is failing, and this is the last time we may ever hear from Church and Tex. (Barring an Epsilon unit to the Epsilon unit?)
- Confirmed, of course, by the season 9 finale. Option 1 turns out to be correct.
- Basically.
- Semi-Jossed. Carolina wants the Director dead as well, as is revealed in the last minutes of Season 9, which doesn't entirely remove the theory, just that it won't happen for the reasons you guessed. I'd say Carolina and Tex will reignite some old hostilities that we saw in Season 9. That, or just Rule of Cool.
- Not Jossed. The OP is talking about the all CGI freelancer segment of Season 9, which technically already happened and is therefor unaffected by what happens to Epsilon-Church, therefor the fight can still occur when Tex goes to retrieve the Alpha.
- Most likely confirmed, but the fight will be in the flashbacks: in episode 14, as soon as Carolina gets Eta and Iota in her head, she says "I want a match. Right... NOW."
- Called it!
- Descriptions for Wash are that he has brown hair which is graying significantly due to the stress put on him by Epsilon.
- Are you talking about fanart? Because I'm not sure he even has official facial features.
- According to official art, Maine is a redhead.
- Luke McKay's work is not official art, actually. For instance, his art of South looks nothing like what she ended up looking like, so there's no guarantee it'll be followed. That goes for both Maine and Wash.
- And as of Episode 6, it seems that Maine may be bald and Wash may be a blond; admittedly neither is seen clearly. Wyoming does look a bit like Luke's art, though.
- Alternatively, that scenario was what split Alpha-Church into his various pieces.
- Nope. Delta was made before that.
- Why not just Spartan IIIs who were poached from the program before their suicide mission?
- With the exception of Maine, aren't they all too... small? I mean, the director is taller than Wash in full armor. And they don't have the excuse of being young kids either, like Gamma company, cuz we see their (adult) faces. I guess a better theory is that they were "wash-out" spartan II's, who didn't grow as much as the others and got recruited into Freelancer. (But unfortunately, Burnie did say they weren't Spartans."
- Back in Out of Mind, we actually saw Church in standard blue armor. True, this was Mark V/VI/whatever armor, but that's only because ODST armor didn't exist back then. If it had, it's entirely possible Rooster Teeth would have used it.
- RT says the blue Freelancer will have a bigger role in Season 10. Seeing as the AI have yet to be truly introduced, I think it's safe to say the Alpha will also have a large role in Season 10. Coincidence? I think not.
- But don't we see both Blue and Alpha in the same scene, in the Preparing for the Heist episode? We first see Director talking to Alpha, and then we see Blue standing with the others around the table.
- Technically, we don't see Alpha. We just hear his voice, which I guess could be coming from Blue.
- It's entirely possible that he wasn't a Freelancer - just a guard or other soldier who happens to be chosen as the Alpha's later host.
- Not sure if it means anything, but Blue has a... well, a blue visor, like 379. All the Freelancers have gold visors. Of note is "he" is much smaller than the other Freelancers, even Carolina. Heck, in the team lineup he's even shorter than Four-Seven-Niner, though he is more in the background than she is. Chances are either he's tiny, or has a much smaller suit of armor.
- But don't we see both Blue and Alpha in the same scene, in the Preparing for the Heist episode? We first see Director talking to Alpha, and then we see Blue standing with the others around the table.
- The seemingly superhuman freelance was only surpassed by Tex, who uses a robotic body that doesn't have the limits of even an augmented human body.
The Insurrection's Elite Mooks notably wear ODST BDUs and are mentioned to be ex-UNSC. The assumption can then be made that they are former ODSTs. They match the Freelancers more or less blow-for-blow in combat, which allows an estimation for where the Freelancers' combat strength lies.Tex, given her robot body, may represent the in-series strength of a Spartan.
This is why it's called Project Freelancer in the singular form, and why the Director praises Wyoming and Maine. It isn't about avoiding casualties; it's about the strongest surviving.
Presumably, Tucker's comment in Season 3 about how "there's fifty of you", or forty nine (or possibly even less, considering Carolina apparently represents both Carolinas), still holds true, as Word of God has not yet contradicted it. Season 9 has only shown nine (or ten, depending on who the blue soldier is) Freelancers. These nine, six of them being ranked, are being observed more clearly and more hands-on by the Director, either because they are the very best of the Freelancers, or because they have been deemed more suitable for AI experimentation for one reason or another (Tex's reason being obvious). Meanwhile, the other Freelancers are off serving in other areas, fighting either the Insurrection or the Covenant. This would be an easy and believable way to justify the lack of almost forty more Freelancers in the group.
I couldn't find this anywhere, and i'm guessing mostly off name. We have yet to see Agent D.C., but remember, this is the future. Perhaps the abbreviation has changed... to Doc (District Of Columbia). This doesn't seem to far out, if you use it in conjecture with the (way) above theory about North and South being related to Doc. He wasn't especially good at what he did, but there's always the chance that his behavior was the result of an AI. It would seem sort of poetic, considering his involvement with Washington, who could be seen as sharing his name (Washington DC), and Wash not bringing it up simply because there are a ton of Freelancers, and he can't be expected to remember every last one, especially assuming that not all of them were working in the same area as the Freelancers seen in Season 9. You heard it here first!
- Except he is introduced to us as Medical Officer Du Frense, Doc is a nickname he receives at Blood Gulch because it is easier to remember.
- 'Jossed. It was a Covenant Engineer that Project Freelancer used to salvage and segregate the A.I. fragments after making them split off from the Alpha.
- I'm pretty sure that's Jossed, because Burnie said specifically that "these guys are not Spartans" in the commentary for Season 9.
- He might just be talking about the almighty Spartan IIs, like Master Chief. Spartan IIIs were genetically altered to impressive effects, but they were nowhere near the power of the IIs.
- Here's a thought: they're Spartan II washouts. It was mentioned that most washouts went on to work for ONI. What if Project Freelancer recruited them?
- I really really really want to see this. Double bonus points if they show it vs. Epsilon's original breakdown in the flashback sections.
- We've seen him now, doesn't look to be the case.
- This troper is sure that as soon as we hear that music again, she will outright pee her pants.
- Update: Yep. Pants officially pissed.
- The problem with this is that without any AI, the Meta isn't really much of a threat. Then again though, bringing him back could mean a villain that can be dealt with in the half a season allotted to the present day stuff.
- He's alive and working for the Director again, with the promise that he'll get Epsilon as a reward. As a bonus, Epsilon will re-implant in Wash (instead of just riding in storage) to escape, which will unlock all his repressed memories and reintegrate the other A.I.s. Cue cliffhanger season ending.
- And Wash will get backstabbed in the process. Again.
- The insurrectionist slacker in season 10 episode 1 seemed to think Project Freelancer was "the bad guys", which would make this guess interesting, but unlikely.
- I actually wish this one to be true, I happen to like the Directors dick personality so it would be much better if it was revealed the Councilor was the Bigger Bad; besides his voice is WAY too creepy...
- He actually joined the Insurrectionists! He faked his own death with the jet pack, which is why "they never found him." In fact, he might even be the guy CT was so chummy with.
- Admittedly, I don't have much backing that up, but stranger things have happened in this series...
- That seems a bit unlikely, because I don't think any of the freelancers knew about the Alpha in Season 9. In the "planning the heist" episode, the Director's talking to Alpha and quickly tells him to log off when Carolina approaches. She then stares confusedly at the console.
- She did have multiple armour abilities which requires an A.I to use properly or at all, and they mention that she did have an A.I prior to Season 10.
- That could explain (some of) her current plan of action — she gets Alpha, she becomes friends with Alpha, they take Alpha away and do God knows what to him ... It would also explain why she called Epsilon "Alpha", since they're functionally the same and speak with the same voice.
- Jossed; her AI was Sigma.
- She gave up Sigma for Maine, but still jossed as Alpha couldn't have been in functioning condition by that point.
- When did she have invisibility? Also how much is "super-speed" and how much is just enhanced Freelancer abilities isn't exactly confirmed. And also, abilities aren't tied to an AI, that's just upgrades to armor. You can run multiple armor upgrades with one AI (Meta used invisibility and bubble shield with one AI).
- Jossed; her AI was Sigma.
- Not necessarily jossed. She gave her A.I. up to Maine so that he could speak, which still means she has up to two A.I. left to get.
- Seconded! Which also means that either: the real CT is still alive somewhere and in hiding, or that she's dead and Pillman is wearing her armor and using her name as some sort of sick homage.
- Word of God confirms Pill Guy and Recreation CT share the same voice actor. That's not a confirmation they're the same person, however, especially in this show.
- Really, it's more likely she used his voice as some sort of a sick homage, if she really did care for/admire him.
- The dialogue between Carolina and Washington at the beach seems to imply that Carolina watched C.T. die in the past, resulting in her surprise that Wash found C.T.'s armor in the desert, which fits with this theory.
- Apparently Confirmed as of Season 10 Episode 10
- The two of them and Tex are the only original Blood Gulch cast members who haven't had one yet...
- Doc hasn't had one either. granted, he came in at season 2 but Doc is almost always included with the classic cast.
- I believe this one.
- Jossed, CT was a legit traitor
- Gamma always seemed rather primitive in his speech, so it makes sense that he would have a primitive, basic, even incomplete appearance like the yellow AI.
- Jossed. The blurry, blue AI is Gamma. That just leaves the yellow AI unaccounted for, assuming that the other two dark A.I.s are Omega and Tex.
- Further cemented by the fact that Wash has one in his locker too!
- I got the impression that Georgia lost control and ran into an object....like an asteroid or a star. Might also be that he was launched with too much velocity somewhere and ran out of fuel - in space, you run out of fuel with velocity, they may never find you...
- While the Director seems just creepy enough to do that sort of thing, Tex was an unintentional byproduct of him making an AI of himself. If that's the case, why was he pushing Carolina so early? Why did he create the Alpha or the Freelancer program? Why would he put the various fragments into the bodies of the other freelancers rather than just trying to throw them at either Tex or Carolina so that she would slowly absorb them all?
- The Director may genuinely have been pushing her to be the top agent before Tex showed up. It sounds like Alpha was created to make the Freelancer project more efficient. As for the fragments, he may have just been gathering data from a variety of sources to make the fusion work better than just cramming all of the AI into one head and hoping for the best.
- For evidence, consider the commands Wash and South were able to give to Delta, even though Delta wasn't technically their AI—evidently they had sufficient permissions to give A.I.s commands. Why should Epsilon be any different? And if anyone has "admin rights" to Epsilon, it'd be the Director.
- Come to think of it, what if Carolina has those permissions? Just wait until she gets a little too annoyed at Church...
- What if Epsilon's already metastable? Would it still work?
- Interesting idea, although I really doubt Epsilon is metastable. As a certain Rv B fan on the forums is fond of saying, metastability is a big f***ing deal.
- Wordof God had already confirmed that Epsilon has become Metastable, because out of all the fragments he was the most whole due to being the memory of all them put together.
- Interesting idea, although I really doubt Epsilon is metastable. As a certain Rv B fan on the forums is fond of saying, metastability is a big f***ing deal.
- Agreed. I told my friend the other day that it was very obvious RT was deliberately making Wash as innocent, naive, and adorable as absolutely possible, so what we knew was coming would hurt that much more.
- He has a twisty straw, for crying out loud! I hate you, Director, so very, very much. :(
- :/ I also have to give props to Shannon McCormick for playing both Cute!Wash and Badass!Wash with equal skill.
- Basically, Wash is the Agent Coulson of the Red vs. Blue universe. *cry*
- He has a twisty straw, for crying out loud! I hate you, Director, so very, very much. :(
- Alternately, the mission happens after he's implanted but before the breakdown (or during the breakdown, which causes it to fail). I'm honestly not sure which would be worse.
- If that were the case, Carolina would have understood immediately why CT's armor was such a valuable asset.
- Possibly. But what's most important is that the Director places value on the Mjolnir Armour - he immediately sees the risk of it staying in Insurrectionist hands even when Carolina doesn't. Studying and developing their own armour seems like a logical and desirable goal for the Innies, and it would nicely explain the shift from Marine BDU's to Mjolnir for the rest of the series. But I guess we'll have to wait and see.
- Something that should be noted: In Halo, it was sadi that the Mjolnir armor was so heavy that if an unaltered human tried to wear it, they would literally tear themselves apart if they tried to move. The freelancers seem to lack the modifications that the Spartan-IIs had, most likely being unaltered, or having modifications closer to Spartan-IIIs. Perhaps the Freelancers use a form of armor similar to Mjolnir, but much lighter. Perhaps they Insurrectionists are trying to reverse-engineer that sort of armor. Or, going with the "Insurrectionists are actually the UNSC" theory below, perhaps the UNSC is trying to reverse-engineer that sort of armor for use with Spartan-IIIs.
- I think the missing equipment the Chairman referred to was CT's armor, which would tie in to the Director's conversation with Carolina in the same episode.
- Actually, it might be the computer chip CT stole and gave to the Pill Man. It sounded pretty important to them.
- Nah, I figure it's the Sarcophagus. After they stole it, the UNSC-but-maybe-Insurrectionists-but-maybe-both soldiers started chasing them. I think the Director needed it to split the Alpha, but the UNSC wouldn't give permission for those experiments (they only would allow him to have one AI), so he resorted to stealing it.
- Semi-Confirmed in the last episode of Season 12, which reveals that the "Insurrectionists" are UNSC military detail illegally hired to serve as the private security force of Charon Industries. Both Freelancer and Charon were fighting each other, but neither was really a "rogue" force (with it just being an Enemy Civil War from the perspective of the UNSC's enemies).
- Nah, equipment is usable without A.I.s, but only in a limited fashion. Wash's pulse was no different than North using the barrier at the beginning of season 9, just a simple use. Now, prolonged use, regulation, or any of the fancy tricks that they do require either use of an AI, or a direct connection to HQ's AI. Hell, even Grif was able to use equipment without an AI. He just couldn't use it well.
- Well, I did say I could be way off base, but for now I'm sticking with my theory until something proves me wrong. I get excited. Sue me.
- On the one hand, Delta's timeline suggested that Epsilon was last and we've yet to see Gamma or Carolina's second AI. We'll ignore Omega since Tex might already have him. It'll be interesting to see which comes first - the "Freelancer" rebellion where they try to find the alpha (which I think Sigma will be the instigator) or Epsilon disintegrates.
- Officially Jossed as of episode 13.
- (different troper) Specifically, they'll fail because Carolina and Tex are too busy competing to actually complete the mission. York, Wyoming, and Wash will be more than a little annoyed by this.
- Annnnnnnnd confirmed.
- So I guess that means York's first name stars with E, since Delta is sometimes referred to as "Dee." I bet it's something nerdy like Ebenezer.
- I think that's "Dee" as in the letter D, the way someone named Thomas Joseph would be called T.J. O'Malley and Gary were names the A.I.s chose for themselves. It's only others who call Delta "D".
- Yeah, it's like Sigma being called "Sig" by York—it's just a nickname based on the AI's name.
- Not to mention Delta plus Ebenezer would be "Debby".
- I think that's "Dee" as in the letter D, the way someone named Thomas Joseph would be called T.J. O'Malley and Gary were names the A.I.s chose for themselves. It's only others who call Delta "D".
- Fully agree to the point that the Iota/Xi entries on the Character page is driving me bonkers. It makes sense too. The various entities are actual fragments of the Alpha. The Alpha is male so it makes sense that his subcomponents are all male as well (though it would be a great foundation for one hell of a joke if this wasn't the case). Tex, of course, was created through a different process and season 9 strongly suggests that she existed before they actually started experimenting on Alpha.
- That's a good point about Iota and Xi. They could be female (Church probably does have a feminine side, much as he'd deny it if you asked), but in light of this WMG the entries now say "may be" instead of "presumed to be" female.
- The problem with this is that, well, it just makes the whole Church/Tex relationship creepier. Both Alpha and Epsilon clearly thought of Tex in a romantic way, and there's plenty of hints that Omega was obsessed with her too. As Theta's a fragment too, it doesn't seem like he'd have such a drastically different view of her, even if he is the "young" personality. One doesn't typically think of one's lover as a sister, after all...
- I got the impression it was more like Georgia's jetpack sent him flying into an asteroid or a star or something rather than him running into enemies to get shredded. Falls more in line with the general idea of losing control of your jetpack that was implied in episode 2. Plus, there's enough other freelancers to play with that throwing a few to some jokes isn't that hard.
- Alternately, Georgia will become a Brick Joke reappearing out of no where later in the season, similar to York's inglorious entrence when the Freelancers were preparing to go to Bone Valley.
- And he was given only a clearly robotic arm instead of a full replacement because....
- ...he was put into a new body and lacked enough armor to cover the enitre robot body. Or maybe he was trying a new arm as an enhancement. He seems much better in combat with that new robot arm, maybe he was gradually replacing his parts. Alternatively, the Insurrection has multiple copies (or backups) of the AI that they can put into different robotic bodies, and this new one wasn't fully armored but they felt they needed to put him out there in case he was needed to fight off the Freelancers. I'm trying to find other ways to explain his survival of so many things, given that this Freelancer flashback isn't full of goofy things.
- It's already confirmed in-verse that Blood Gulch Chronicles was a testing simulation for technology, and it's heavily implied that the entire Red vs Blue conflict is testing simulations.
- The Freelancers are with the Blue Team (or at least never with the Reds):
- Tex is initially hired by the Blue Team and despite her claims of being purely mercenary, her only allegiance has been shown to be to Church.
- Church being components of both the Alpha and Epsilon A.I.s, as well as a copy of the Director is the leader of the Blue Team
- In Season 10 Ep.1; we find that Washington has officially joined Blue Team, filling in for Church.
- Similarly, in Season 10, Carolina's only real ties to the Red vs. Blue group are Washington and Epsilon-Church; both of whom are on Blue Team
- All of the other freelancers seen in the series have remained strictly neutral in regards to Red vs Blue, and have either fought both sides equally or not at all.
- The Reds win every exercise
- Sidewinder is won by the Reds by default, as Tex kills all of the Sidewinder blues except Church, who transfers out
- We find out that the Reds ultimately win Blood Gulch when Lopez kills Sister
- In Revelation, we find out that when the Armor Stasis is released, that Donut is alive, winning Valhalla for the Red team by default as the only remaining soldier there.
- In Reconstruction, there is a meta example in-verse in that Simmons actually "deletes" the data about the Blue Army soldiers.
- This all ties together in Fridge Brilliance Territory when you realize that the main opposition to the Freelancers in the past is the Insurrection, with a touch of not-so-subtle-hinting that they are comparable to the Reds, since all of their best soldiers- the Elite, the Female Soldier, the Insurrection Sniper, the Flame Soldier, the Demo Man, and C.T. all have red armor. It falls to reason then that the training cycle continues because the Reds (Insurrection) keep beating the Blues (Freelancers).
- Also, lampshaded from the original series in that the Red team has the only soldiers who are actually concerned with "winning the war" - Sarge and Simmons - where the Blue team is generally apathetic to the war overall.
- This is also echoed in the Freelancers, who try to remain mercenary or neutral and don't care which side wins.
- Even the past, there's a bit of a Call-Back to this, the Freelancers seem mostly concerned with keeping the Sarcophagus and C.T.'s armor out of the hands of the Insurrection, more than outright defeating them. Compare to the need to keep the enemy team from having control of your flag...
- Wait, this isn't canon?
- Not to mention that their mutual breakdown was arguably harder on Epsilon than it was on Wash, considering it was his mind doing the unraveling.
- This may be more attributable to Church than Epsilon, given that Alpha!Church had a similar attitude towards Freelancers (when he first heard about the Meta hunting down Freelancers, his first response was that he wanted to build it a shrine. He only changed his mind after learning Meta had hunted and captured Alpha!Tex).
- That's a good point, but Epsilon's issues with Washington are much more personal. It's like all of Alpha's issues with the Freelancer program boiled down into two individuals.
- However, Word of God is that Rooster Teeth isn't planning any major changes to Caboose's character.
- Or it'll just make her madder. It's probably a 50/50 either way.
- Considering that where she failed, Simulation Troopers succeeded out of blind luck, it's probably best they keep it quiet.
- The guys may be better off with her not knowing BG's successes against Freelancers. Makes it easier for them to pull a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass on her.
Carolina throwing Maine off a building to act as a counter-weight seems exactly like the sort of thing Sarge would do to Grif. Carolina trying to get Wyoming, the squad's sniper, to charge into close combat against sustained minigun fire is exactly the sort of tactical brilliance that would be worthy of Sarge.
Both Sarge and Carolina have very driven, type-A personalities, which stand in contrast to the more relaxed attitude of their peers (this is more relative for the Freelancers, but most of them (especially Wash, North, York, and even C.T.) are still a lot more easy-going than Carolina). Both Sarge and present day Carolina are rather sociopathic towards the well-being of their men, although Carolina's rage is played completely seriously instead of for laughs due to her much greater affinity for acting out on that sociopathy.
Also, both of them were exceptionally and obsessively loyal to an ideal (the Red Army for Sarge, the Director/Project Freelancer for Carolina), and completely cracked when that ideal betrayed them. The difference being that Sarge got over his Heroic BSoD to become a better man (at least until his status quo personality reasserts itself somewhat in the next season), while Carolina apparently went down a much darker path.
- Perhaps the two of them could realize their shared issues and have a moment of commiseration together (although in true Red vs Blue fashion, it'd probably be interrupted by explosions and/or shooting at each other).
- It's a good theory except wasn't the Blue team specifically told that Command was sending a freelancer with the code name "Texas"? Unless there was a second Agent Texas and Tex killed him/her and took their place — which, I will admit, is completely within the realm of possibility — this probably wouldn't work.
- Quoth Vic, "I'm sending Freelancer Tex".
- I like this. Since she was Maine's first victim, he would've been less likely to be axe crazy and more likely to spare her. That would also help lead to her sympathy towards Maine: he spared her life.
- Confirmed. Wyoming was his first attempt, but it was unsuccessful.
- Not to mention Wash seemed to know, or at least have supposed, what is going on.
- Ohhhhhhhhhh. I assumed she was going back to where Connie died.
- I just assumed they were going back to the Freelancer base where Church got a robot body and they revived Tex. You know, where they left the monitor body behind.
- Carolina's going to an island. The Freelancer warehouse is on the mainland.
- Confirmed.
- His armor self-destructed in Recovery One. Sorry.
- Ok picture this: York gets shot in the firefight with Tex and Wyoming. He is seriously wounded, which sets off the recovery beacon. Tex and Wyoming leave. York, only mostly dead, uses his healing unit to bring himself back to the world of the living. He then ditches armor, healing unit, and Delta and takes off as a free man. (He's not heartless for ditching Delta cuz he, like the other Freelancers, assumed Delta was deleted.) A few days later, Recovery Agent Wash arrives and sees what appears to be York's corpse. He recovers Delta and the healing unit, blows up the armor, and goes about his business. Everyone thinks York is dead! But he's out there somewhere, probably running a comic book shop or an Italian Bistro, waiting to be reunited with the love of his life!
- You're just making me sadder.
- Sorry to have to burst the bubble, but Delta was pretty sure that York would not survive, and was keeping York doped up as he died. York is Deader than Dead. Carolina will find a crater. I don't mean to be heartless - I'm just stating the facts.
- Wait, wait, wait... York is italian?
- Semi-relivant fun fact: An Italian explorer, Giovanni de Verrazano, was the first European to reach what would become New York Bay in 1524. So one could make the case that, yes, New York is Italian.
- Someone get the names of the owners of Italian Bistros in New York. We are onto something.
- We'll need a time machine first, this does take place in the future, afterall. Does anyone have means by which to contact The Doctor...
- No, but I know where we can find an old Delorean. Does anyone have some plutonium? Alternatively we could just wait and see how the next few episodes play out... nah. Dah DAH dah dah dah dah dah DAH!
- Sorry, no plutonium on hand, so how about this: we cryogenically freeze ourselves and set a timer to wake us when it's The Future...but by that time the next episodes will have already aired...back to the drawing board.
- Of course! It's been staring at us in the face all along. We get an expendable friend of ours who can speak Chinese, we get a wooden crate and fill it with ice. We stick our friend in the box, nail it shut and put the words "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL THE FUTURE" on the front. It's perfect!
- Well, as of episode 12, Italian or not, looks like York has officially kicked the bucket. Excuse me while I go and cry my eyes out.
- Ok picture this: York gets shot in the firefight with Tex and Wyoming. He is seriously wounded, which sets off the recovery beacon. Tex and Wyoming leave. York, only mostly dead, uses his healing unit to bring himself back to the world of the living. He then ditches armor, healing unit, and Delta and takes off as a free man. (He's not heartless for ditching Delta cuz he, like the other Freelancers, assumed Delta was deleted.) A few days later, Recovery Agent Wash arrives and sees what appears to be York's corpse. He recovers Delta and the healing unit, blows up the armor, and goes about his business. Everyone thinks York is dead! But he's out there somewhere, probably running a comic book shop or an Italian Bistro, waiting to be reunited with the love of his life!
Warning, Cerebus Retcon ahead.
Virtually Intelligent Computers are designed to represent Red or Blue Command technicians and to keep the bases supplied, focused, armed and reinforced. They are also in charge of implementing training scenarios, as well as devising new ones. Occasionally, they deploy a Freelancer into the gulches, who are simply treated as mercenaries instead of Agents for a secret UNSC organization. They must keep up a convincing illusion of a genuine conflict between Red and Blue. However, the war with the Aliens began and the resources that would normally monitor the VIC's were shifted away along with the Freelancers themselves - Project Freelancer has bigger things to worry about. Because they have not been updated or had routine file cleanups for years, the VIC's have become rather... eccentric, especially the Blood Gulch VIC, who I will distinguish by naming VIC-1.
VIC-1 becomes very chaotic, delivering robot kits meant for the Blues to the Reds instead. He hired Agent Texas, even though she was rogue -according to his outdated files, there was no Alien War or Freelancer Schism, so he saw no problem in contacting her. VIC-1 later grew tired of the stagnation in the gulch, so he began working on a new scenario to shake things up a bit.
All VIC's must obey instructions from Command, Freelancers or their A.I.s, so VIC-1 assisted Omega in his schemes. VIC-1 also delivered a powerful bomb, originally meant to act as a fail safe should the Freelancers find the Alpha, delivering a powerful but only mildly destructive pulse that would incapacitate anyone in blast for arrest. When VIC-1 accidentally revealed to Tucker that he was playing both of the teams for fools, he tried to contact his superiors for a plan of action. But, as had been the case for some time, there was no response due to the war - Freelancer Command just doesn't care. But VIC-1 does care. So in another display of unorthodoxy, he decides to hire yet another rogue freelancer, Wyoming, to dispatch Tucker.
After the "10 megaton" pulse bomb went off, Wyoming took the Alpha to the wind power facility and hooked him up to Gamma for repairs to the A.I.s body, while he goes off to learn more about the Aliens, investigating the sword quest. Wyoming probably intended to use the Alpha as a bargaining chip, and Gamma caught up some lost time with his favorite Mind Rape victim. The arrival of the Alien shakes things up a bit for the collaborators.After Wyoming learns about the Alien Sword and its significance for the Aliens, VIC-1, Omega and Wyoming plot to find a way to exploit this and become the ultimate power in the known galaxy. When Tucker's pregnancy is revealed, they see an opportunity and put their plan into action, with the help of another Sword Quester Alien.
So, after a while, VIC-1 gets into contact with Church again, disguising himself as an Identical Grandson. By this point, VIC-1 has regained contact with Freelancer Command. The war is not going well, and they need something, anything to win it. They learn about VIC's shenanigans with crazy scenarios, chaotic organization and collaboration with rogue Freelancers and A.I.s. They are unimpressed with the state of the simulation (I'm assuming almost none of the Freelancer Staff know that the Alpha is involved). But they are impressed with VIC-1, Wyoming, Gamma and Omega's plan to enslave the aliens through the use of Junior and the Sword. While it was not from a source they had expected, they give their support for the plan. Even if it means giving an alien army to an AxCrazy AI. So VIC-1 tries his best to keep the Reds and Blues in disarray while the others act out their plan. However, at the last minute, the dropship they sent explodes with their collaborators onboard in the middle of a time-jump (the disappointing flash).Less than a month later, the Alien War is resolved peacefully, probably with massive concessions to the Aliens. The Reds and Blues are relocated to avoid the word from spreading too far about what Freelancer almost did. VIC-1 was probably taken offline for his troubles. A year later, the ship emerges from the Time Vortex and lands in Valhalla, it's last minute time jump sparing it from the worst of the explosion.
In short, many of the wacky plot devices of the first five seasons are the result of VIC-1 going nuts without Command's supervision and deciding to make things interesting. Its not the setting of Rv B that is wacky, it is the characters.
- At the very least, we've pretty much had it confirmed that they were rogue at some point. York's report suggested that he was hacking into the Freelancer feeds suggesting he was on the run and he specifically cited Tex, South, Carolina, Wyoming and Maine as being hunted by Freelancer Command. That pretty much leaves... North as the only one not accounted for, and it's probable that he was with South the entire time. That said, the weird question is: Vic. He clearly summoned Tex. He clearly has open communication with Wyoming. And Omega in his own right. Vic should be aligned with the Freelancers so.... huh?
- Yeah, this was... weird. My guess is that, at the time York made his journal entry Wyoming and Tex were rogue, presumably just after the attack to free the Alpha. Eventually they were caught and brought back into the fold. But by BGC, Tex, Wyoming, Washington, and South were still with Project Freelancer. Or... with them again, I guess.
- Tex says in Revelations that she convinced some of the rogue agents to come back and help her with the Alpha rescue. Maybe Tex pretended to come back to the fold so she could get the others in, and then they stayed on for real when the rescue failed ("come back now and all is forgiven", or something).
- As suggested earlier in the VIC WMG above, perhaps Vic simply didn't know that Tex and Wyoming were rogue - it is unlikely that a VI that was so chaotic was operating with much oversight - Freelancer seems to like its autonomy. He may have had no knowledge of an Alien War or the Freelancers going rogue. He decided to contact her, and Tex decided to play along. Maybe she was trying to lay low after breaking away from Freelancer, or maybe Omega was just driving her to want to kill something and Blood Gulch was as good a place as any. Wyoming probably went along with Vic for similar reasons, at least before he and Omega and Vic decide to corrupt the Aliens.
- Shelia seemed very, very dead last time we saw her, to the point where she may be unsalvageable. (No matter how amazing that might be.)
- Doc might be hanging out there, too.
- It wouldn't be the first time they've put Sheila back into working condition from a heap of flaming scrap.
- Season 10, Episode 15: Confirmed! Donut and Doc are still alive, although Lopez is still offline.
- Donut is obviously just taking Lopez out for an extended shopping trip, but was sidetracked by the 38th Annual Galactic Wine and Cheese Expo.
- Director: We will be asking you to do a great many things.Carolina: ...You've given me everything; I'd do anything for you.
- Though it is unlikely as of episode 12 of season 10; her sadness over the loss of York and her team seems legitamate. Her loyalty could still be to the Director but it's a huge stretch.
- It has been stressed multiple times that Sheila can only upload into machines large enough for her - like the Pelican. She is a vehicle AI, it is unlikely that she would be able to fit into a suit of Mjolnir armour.
- Hey, guys, what about the motorcycle Church/Epsilon is inhabiting...
- Mongooses (mongeese?) are notoriously lacking in main cannons.
- Maybe they'll find the Staff of Charon!
- Hey, guys, what about the motorcycle Church/Epsilon is inhabiting...
- Or it could send them both back into the spiral of mutual insanity. Epsilon still doesn't remember most of what he's been through, but Washington does, and it's been hinted it could be very, very bad if/when Epsilon ever does remember.
- That said, it IS Church's armor. It would be fitting for him to be back in it eventually.
- I'm hoping for the Chairman. They could have him specifically welcome Agent Carolina and Agent Washington back to Valhalla and have him meet Epsilon. Would solve a lot of open threads and wrap them in a nice tidy bow.
- On the other hand, a Leonard Church vs. Leonard Church showdown would be freakin' sweet.
- Sure, but in like Episode 20.
- Goes without saying.
- On the other hand, a Leonard Church vs. Leonard Church showdown would be freakin' sweet.
- If the Director knows Carolina is alive, do you think he knows Wash is alive, too? Does the Chairman know? Both agents are officially assumed to be dead.
- Given the established canon, this seems unlikely.
- The A.I.s supplemented the agents' own skills, but they didn't share them. For example, having Theta on board would allow you to run a wicked awesome bubble shield, but it wouldn't make you a better sniper.
- Again, given the established canon, this seems unlikely. Not to mention Alpha's been dead for four seasons, so why bother?
- ... what? I don't... your grammar is getting progressively worse. This one I actually don't get what the theory is.
- Oh thank God, somebody said it.
- Slight problem, though: Reach kinda, uh, got glassed.
- We can't assume that is the case in the Rv B-verse. It is its own story. We don't even know if the Great War was against the Covenant and the UNSC, or just between the Elites and the UNSC - we don't even have knowledge as to whether the Covenant as we know it exists - the Elites aren't even named as such and are very different in characterisation to their original selves. For all we know, Reach was never glassed.
- And here's some potential Fridge Horror: Does Wash know it's Carolina's fault he was paired with Epsilon instead of a more stable AI?
- This is the second "Carolina's really working for the Director" WMG, and I still don't buy it. Taking revenge on someone else instead of facing one's own culpability is a classic psychological scenario. The audience may know the truth about a situation, but that doesn't mean the characters do.
- There's a good chance the footage from the teaser trailer won't be used at all in the actual series; that seems to be the trend for the teaser trailer from each season starting with Recreation. Word of God is that the trailers are more to depict the "mood" of each season rather than showing actual events from the story, and the Season 10 trailer does this by focusing on the A.I.s and showing the new character Sigma as the new Big Bad.
- Maybe the backup only stored the information he has collected for preservation. It is unlikely that he could back up his entire self. Remember, you can't copy an AI.
- This WMG is right, but not for the reasons given. Versions of the fragments are all stored and in hiding within Epsilon (that's how Delta made an appearance in episode 12). Epsilon just isn't aware of them/can't access them.
- Why Zulech? Is that just a placeholder, or are you saying she shares the name of her voice-actor?
- It's a placeholder.
- The final flashback sequence will be from the Alpha's point of view. He, in the human body from the sarcophagus, will awaken to the sight of the Director. Having lost his memories, he will go "Wha...? Where am I? Who are you?" The Director will say "My name is not important. But do you know yours?" When the Alpha says no, the camera will show the Director's eyes for the first time, and the Director will say "Your name... is Leonard L. Church."
- That would be pee-your-pants awesome. Double bonus points if it mirrors Delta's birth in season 9.
- DOUBLE TRIPLE SOOPER BONUS POINTS if they take it one step further and do the flashback scene from the Blood Gulch Chronicles where Church and Tex are talking and Wyoming comes up and shoos him away.
- That would be pee-your-pants awesome. Double bonus points if it mirrors Delta's birth in season 9.
- I would not be surprised if he finally stands up to her at some point.
- At the rate things are going, there's a good chance that could get him killed. I really, really, really hope I'm wrong about that.
- This is Agent Washington we're talking about. Nothing in the verse could actually kill him. He's always got a back-up plan, he's the freelancer who survived the project while still taking a direct role until its very end, being responsible for HQ's destruction. We're seeing moral Wash, right now. Lovable and silly. Don't forget what happens when Wash starts fighting a war.
- I could ... I could just hug you for pointing this out. Is that okay? Can we hug? Let's hug.
- Hug returned, good sir.
- If something like that happen, we might see our dear Wash injured really bad, and when he is about to get killed, our lovely Caboose will try to help him, and then...i hope the other Blue and the Reds come in time to hep them
- I think that being shot and killed by the mental representations of both the Alpha and Allison would be far more likely to do damage.
- Except Omega is already displaying his Season 1-5 personality at that point ("Never! The darkness will swallow you whole!").
- Perhaps Omega takes on the personality of what it's host thinks is evil. Caboose thinks of a violent and mean bully, Doc thinks of a Meglomaniac, Simmons thinks of a non-conformist, Tex sees a being of barely restrained rage.
- That would also explain why Omega is much more goofy and incapable while within Doc. Doc is just such a nice, naive guy that he isn't capable of even imagining evil beyond cartoonish supervillains. And because of that, Omega can't behave otherwise while inside Doc.
- It was said Omega was Alpha's aggression, which sort of goes along with this. Caboose's O'Malley wasn't just a mean bully, but had some legitimately frightening lines... all reserved for Tucker when he thought he was getting between him and Church (I still love "Never. Be. Alone"). Doc's megalomaniacal supervillain personality is how he views exerting aggression, trying to bend everyone to your will. Simmons, who is so repressed and subservient, views aggression as breaking free of societal restraints.
- Perhaps that other AI is what Carolina's looking for? She's probably reluctant to put it in her head, though, much like Wash with Epsilon.
- They did seem to merge together when stored in Carolina. Maybe they just chose that form when the Meta revealed them.
- It was established on the show and in the characters page that there was a "Xi" AI, and yet we already have accounted for all the AI the Meta took. The theory that Eta and Iota merged and made Xi is one way they could make this work.
- Possible Fridge Brilliance: Perhaps that's the real reason why Sigma wants to create the Meta... so hopefully the fragments can all fuse in that same way?
- Possibly. We need to find out if these two, Eta and Iota, really did merge, and how they did it. If that happened, I want to see what caused them to merge, how they merged and why Sigma didn't make the AI merge as they were added in the Meta. After all, when the Meta went to get Delta, we see every other AI he had, not one AI representing all the ones he took. Still, that Fridge Brilliance is an awesome theory, and creepy enough to fit Sigma.
- Word of God is that when Alpha finally joined the party at the end of season 6, the fragments collapsed into him and were reabsorbed. So, in a way, Sigma got what he wanted for about two seconds before the emp hit.
- Oh thanks, now my heart hurts. Of course, this actually makes a lot of sense, which just makes it even worse.
- Junior is confirmed to be alive but, last we heard, he was working as a liason between humans and aliens. Lopez claims to have killed Sister back at Blood Gulch, and he's not prone to lying.
- He may not be, but Grif says she's Made of Iron (once spent several hours under water, and came out not only alive, but pregnant). Lopez simply believes that he killed her.
- It's been almost five seasons since we've seen her, so I'm going with "she's dead" unless Word of God suggests otherwise.
- He may not be, but Grif says she's Made of Iron (once spent several hours under water, and came out not only alive, but pregnant). Lopez simply believes that he killed her.
- This could explain why Wash was so cold when he found York's and North's bodies: They walked away instead of sticking by him after the incident.
- This is more Fridge Brilliance than a WMG.
- Sigma's avatar hid in the camera. Omega is the only fragment who can jump from host to host on his own (and he needs a radio channel).
- Additionally, Omega gained the ability to jump from the Alpha. There's no reason to think the Alpha has the ability to jump into random electronic equipment, at least on the fly.
- But they already had a super awesome Misfit Mobilization Moment at the end of season 8. Given RoosterTeeth's love of subverted tropes (and of stomping on our feelings), there's a good chance the attempt would be crushed. Or worse, it could fizzle before it gets started.
- Or Wash and Church say "screw all y'all" and leave together.
- Which will lead to a sitcom called "Wash 'n' Church".
- In light of recent developments, I'm slating Wash as the wildcard for the remainder of the season. He's feeling increasingly lost, betrayed and abandoned right now, and history tells us that probably won't end well for anyone.
- Confirmed as of S 10 E 18.
- This theory got much more likely after episode 20 came about. With the robot army from last season being made into an army of Tex copies, it makes sense that the Engineer would be used to make them all. It also explains why Epsilon!Tex inexplicably had black armor.
- Her emergency backup unit, or information that will lead to said backup unit.
- Information that will lead to the director.
- Information that will lead to something else we haven't thought/been informed of yet.
- Something mundane, like Grandma Church's secret family recipes (the secret ingredient is subterfuge!).
- Confirmed. It contained enough data for Epsilon to figure out the Director's location.
- Not only that - He remembers everything.
- That is now this troper's favorite theory.
- It's a good theory except for one thing — the Director is probably 15-20 years older than Connie, and the original Allison would probably be about the same age if she was alive.
- Not necessarily. The Director doesn't look that old, maybe 10 years older than Connie. And even so, he could've been older than Allison during their relationship. Secondly, Allison's death might not have been that long ago. Thirdly, Allison herself might've been older than Connie and she was more of a mentor/older sister figure.
- I disagree on the age thing — Connie's maybe 30 at most, and the Director's in his mid-40s at the youngest. (This is based less on how they look and more on how they behave in their respective roles.) Hence, the gap is 15 years at minimum, and probably closer to 20. Plus, he described himself as "an old man" in Reconstruction, which usually means a minimum age of 50.
- He's an old man in the present, we've only seen Connie and the Director in the Freelancer prequel sections, "A long time ago," presumably 10 years or so. But that aside, he looks considerably older regardless. Plus Allison died when he was "very young" and given his age, that's got to be at least 20, 25 years ago (if you think he looks 40, then her death was when he was 20 at the latest, I'd posit). Long enough ago that it doesn't seem like she would know Connie.
- Unless Connie knew Allison before either of them even enlisted... favorite babysitter or maybe even a cousin?
- Not necessarily. The Director doesn't look that old, maybe 10 years older than Connie. And even so, he could've been older than Allison during their relationship. Secondly, Allison's death might not have been that long ago. Thirdly, Allison herself might've been older than Connie and she was more of a mentor/older sister figure.
- My vote's for an extended round of "Reason You Suck" speeches intended to demoralize the team and make them give up. It will fail, not because the Freelancers are awesome, but because the Blood Gulch guys already know they suck, and are therefore impervious to that brand of psychological warfare.
- It looked to me like Love/Happiness was squashed together much like Sigma's Creativity/Ambition, and there's another unaccounted for trait when Tex is scrolling through- Greed. Considering South's reaction to not having an AI, it seems likely to me that Iota would be Greed, leaving Wash with Happiness/Love, which is the trait he would best get along with/would best complement his mentality.
- Semi-Confirmed, Semi-Jossed. According to Word of God, Eta represent's the Alpha's fear and Iota represents the Alpha's happiness.
- Killing the Director seems too cliché and unoriginal for this series, the more I think about it. My theory: Church will instead possess the Director and somehow merge with him and share all of the Alpha's memories: His time with the Blood Gulch crew, what all of the Freelancers and A.I.s went through, and of Tex herself and what Tex wanted all this time. And how he learned to let go of Allison. The Director will then Villainous BSoD and either commit suicide or turn himself in. Granted, I suppose that's also a little cliché, but in a way more fitting with the overall tone of the series, I think.
- Killing the Director wouldn't necessarily be a cliché. It's all in how it happens — like, say, if Carolina and Church are having their big showdown with him and then Wash shoots him. That would be epic.
- Well, I was right about the ultimate end result, though the Director had already gone into the BSOD of his own accord.
- I like it.
- Well, he is the only one immune to the Freelancer lockdown protocol.
- Tucker: Although the most badass of the Blood Gulcher, he's still leagues below the Freelancers (which was even noted in universe when Church comments that he was a badass... once).
- Sarge: He's presumably the oldest of the forces, and lately seems to be a bit off. Even that bit a few weeks ago where he revealed he constantly wished Grif would die seems a bit reflective and nostalgic, I'm getting a sort of "one week away from retirement" sort of vibe from him.
- Caboose: It would be a great way to twist the knife for Wash (recall the scene where Caboose calls him his friend). Heck, even Epsilon, Tucker, and Sarge seem to kinda like the dolt. Which would make him not coming back hurt.
- Naaaahh, can't be. Killing Caboose would be killing the series. He's one of the most popular characters. The fans would be furious.
- Caboose has a special form of Improbable Infant Survival, in that his childlike demeanor protects him from serious harm. Bumping him off would send the series as a whole over the Despair Event Horizon.
- I say it's Donut. He's the most "expendable" of the Reds. Sure, fans like him, but he's not crucial to the dynamics of the Reds, like Grif, Simmons, or Sarge. He might even get killed off-screen, like Sister.
- Church. Argument against: The story of Leonard Church is the core of Red vs Blue. Argument for: If they get the Director, that story would legitimately be at an end.
- Is it only three episodes? The DVDs traditionally ship the day after the last episode, which leaves space for five more.
- RvB seasons have so far been consistently 19 or 20 episodes. Except for season 5, which was probably only upped to 23 so they could leave off with exactly 100 episodes.
- That's actually what makes me think season 10 will run long, for several reasons. 1) RvB loves them some milestones, as evidenced by season five. 2) There would normally have been two more PSAs by now (after eps 12 and 16), with episode 20 airing on Nov. 5 (the day before the DVD release). Why break the pattern if all it'll do is throw off the schedule? 3) The trailers did call this the "Biggest season ever. Of all time" which could easily refer not just to the story, but to the running time. 4) Word of God says the Freelancer flashbacks end with this season, and I just don't see how they can wrap it up in only three episodes. Admittedly, this is all just guesswork, but I'd bet money it's accurate.
- Annnnd confirmed. Season 10 will be 22 episodes long.
- RvB seasons have so far been consistently 19 or 20 episodes. Except for season 5, which was probably only upped to 23 so they could leave off with exactly 100 episodes.
- Alternatively, the final scene will be in the present but completely CGI, like the prequel scenes. This will serve as a preview of what Season 11 is going to be like.
- Unfortunately, Carolina takes off her helmet in season 10. She's human.
- Maybe, though one of the Halo 4 maps is a remake of Valhalla, which would suggest at least part of the season will probably take place there (after all, RvB can be boiled down to two groups of jackasses fighting over a canyon in the middle of nowhere).
- We still haven't seen Staff of Charon even though that ship got one heck of a big introduction - specifically going out of the way to show us the name and everything. Mind you, Mother of Invention would be even more appropriate.
- As of episode 19, this appears to be a real possibility.
- There will be a duet between Grif and Simmons called 'Why We're Here', done in the style of an old show tune.
- Lopez will have a song. It will be called '¡Viva Lopez!', and it will be translated by none other than Delano Donut!
- Doc and O'Malley will share a song as well.
- The thing is, though... Church is actually kind of right. A lot of what's messed up in his life really has been caused by the BGC or the Freelancers. He didn't handle the whole matter well, but he was kind of justified. Maybe it'll be a mutual realization.
- He might have some legitimate complaints, but considering that a lot of complications came when he hired his girlfriend to beat the crap out of the opposing team, he's about as responsible for their problems as they are for his. Plus, the getting shot with the tank was supposed his fault when he disabled the friendly-fire mechanism. And for this, he was demanding that they go into what was likely another suicide mission even though the only reason they were at that point in the first place was because Carolina was threatening most of them.
- I don't want to gripe, but it has been pretty much confirmed that Church never went back in time, and that the whole thing was just Gamma making him feel that he was to blame for everything, just like he did years earlier.
- Also, Church didn't hire his girlfriend, Tucker and Caboose did. In fact, Church expressly warned them not to hire Tex.
- It's not about how right he is. It's about how the Reds and Blues have managed to look past the "war," bond together for his sake, and risk their lives to rescue him. It's not really about "how could you say that?" but "how could you hold all that against us, after all we've done for you?"
- 'Xactly. He's so focused on all the times they've screwed him over that he can't see all the times they've risked their lives to help him. Plus, he wasn't around for Sarge's rally speech, which is when the others really gelled as a group. This could be his chance to catch up with the rest of the class.
- It just seems wrong to blame Church for being justifiably upset that the very people who are responsible for much of his grief are now abandoning him when he feels like he needs them most.
- Again, it's not that he was upset, it's the way he expressed it.
- I guess I can just empathize with having people treat you poorly, then act like you're the one in the wrong when you're not cheery and nice in response.
- Eh, true. But you gotta remember that while they caused him all that grief, they weren't exactly obligated to be nice to him. They were on opposite sides of a (pretend) war, after all. It's understandable that Church is upset... but dang.
- Another counter point is that none of that stuff actually happened to Church, well this version of Church at least. Epsilon is getting mad thanks to things that happened to his predecessor. What did Alpha do? Suck it up and make one hell of a heroic sacrifice. What is Epsilon doing? Burning bridges and going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Of course, YMMV on this point.
- Plus, up until recently, Epsilon only had pieces of Alpha's history. He only just (re)discovered the depth of Alpha's trauma, so his emotions are incredibly raw. (It's still no excuse for making Caboose cry.)
- He might have some legitimate complaints, but considering that a lot of complications came when he hired his girlfriend to beat the crap out of the opposing team, he's about as responsible for their problems as they are for his. Plus, the getting shot with the tank was supposed his fault when he disabled the friendly-fire mechanism. And for this, he was demanding that they go into what was likely another suicide mission even though the only reason they were at that point in the first place was because Carolina was threatening most of them.
- Alternatively, now that Epsilon-Church has become the complete Alpha again, he's as much of a jerkass as the original Alpha was. The difference is that, with what they've been through over the past few years, the Blood Gulch Crew have matured and are no longer in any mood to put up with his crap. Remember, Alpha-Church could really blow up on the people around him, but at the time they were generally too concerned with fighting each other / chasing O'Malley around to be really offended by any of it.
- I doubt this, for the same reason I doubt they'd ever kill Caboose. Wash is too popular and sympathetic, and we all wanna see him have some peace.
Also, this leads me to believe that she never had any intention of keeping the BGC alive. She wanted Cannon Fodder, and decided to take some of the director's own supply.
- The Director is seen retrieving an AI storage unit during Tex's attack. I'd bet money that was Epsilon.
- As much as I'd like for this WMG to be true... I don't think it will be. We're almost at the end of the season and we've already been shown one CGI scene of Wash rolling around in agony while a holographic Allison talks in the background. I don't think we'll be lucky enough to get another elaborate scene like that, when there are so many other ends to tie up, including the present-day stuff.
- Word of God says there are three more episodes (22 episodes total), so I think there's time. I can easily see Wash getting reimplanted offscreen because the Director found a way to keep him from screaming, but then the solution doesn't stick and everything goes pear-shaped. Wash was pretty clear in his descriptions of what happened to him — Epsilon unraveled, taking Wash's mind with him. We haven't seen anything like that yet, just the initial shock of the implantation.
- They never actually show if there was a beacon or not. It stands to reason all four possible beacons (in order: Church, Wash, Tex and Maine) had been triggered by the end of the fight. If getting their car blown out from under them didn't set them off, they should probably ask for their money back.
- At the end of Episode 19 after losing her fight against Tex and getting knocked out of the Mother of Invention as it crashed into Sidewinder, Maine literally tears the AI out of her head, then pitches her off the cliff. She survived... so Maine surviving his fall off Sidewinder looks a bit more likely.
- I dunno. I'm pretty sure the Meta fell into the ocean. Water that goes higher than your hips is a certified death warrant in the Halo-verse.
- Caboose and the Reds survived being totally submerged in the Recollections trilogy. I don't think that the normal Halo rules apply to them.
- At the end of Episode 19 after losing her fight against Tex and getting knocked out of the Mother of Invention as it crashed into Sidewinder, Maine literally tears the AI out of her head, then pitches her off the cliff. She survived... so Maine surviving his fall off Sidewinder looks a bit more likely.
- Carolina survived because she used her grapple-gun. You see her pull it out while she falls. As for the beacon thing... well, we really don't know if a recovery beacon went off, but presumably it did and Law of Conservation of Detail is in effect. Wash was probably just not monitoring the frequency any more. As previously mentioned, all four of them took enough damage to set off a beacon anyway. If the Meta's didn't go off, then it means there's something wrong with the beacon, not that he survived.
- MIGHT be possible, considering the season 11 trailer, right after the Reds and Blues are done talking, the screen fades and you can hear what sounds like the Metas signature growl/snarl.
- How does them knowing what happened to Maine get the Director off the hook?
- It may not get the Director off the hook, but knowing that Sigma was the one that started the rift between Freelancers over the AI would get Church and Carolina to reconsider what they're doing.
- Ehhh, I still don't quite follow. If you take Sigma out of the picture, it doesn't change what the Director did, it just shakes up the order of events a little. Besides, Carolina and Wash both seemed pretty up-to-date on things when they discussed the Meta earlier in the season.
- It may not get the Director off the hook, but knowing that Sigma was the one that started the rift between Freelancers over the AI would get Church and Carolina to reconsider what they're doing.
- I was kind of under the impression that episode 19 was that attack, and Church's... loopiness (and him trying to "normalize" things and rewrite his memory to make it make sense) led to him wildly misremembering what happened.
- When they go to the arctic base in the last third of Revelations, Tex specifically says they were storing Alpha there. However, that Tex was based on Epsilon, so her memories could also be corrupted.
- Season 10 will wrap up the Freelancer saga, so the last flashbacks will probably focus on tying up loose ends and bridging the gap to Blood Gulch.
- This actually fits well with the WMG that Church's memories of the rescue were inaccurate. Alpha's constructed environment in episode 19 was run-down and covered with ice and drifted snow (mirroring his fractured mental state). Later, in his mind, that plus the ship plus the snowy planet surface = Sidewinder.
- ...I literally had this same idea. Mostly due to Avalanche looking so natural and barren of human construction.
- It also explains why Church remembered Tex beating someone to death with their own bones. Turns out it really wasn't physically possible; he was just so broken he could believe it was.
- This has been confirmed on the commentary. The ship crashed there and then they basically made the base out of the ship's parts. Also, this adds to some nice story completion with the Meta, as this is where he obtains his first AI's, and where the Reds and Blues defeat him. His "birth" and death.
- The bases were explained as being left unattended, followed by Sarge and Simmons "redecorating". The lack of greenery is left unexplained, though likely connected to the Red Team's landscaping efforts.
- Wash's total absense in episode 19 seems to suggest that he still has a role to play in the flashbacks before things catch up to Blood Gulch. Perhaps, while Tex was fighting everyone, Wash was integrating with the full contents of Epsilon's memories, leading up to him taking some action that will earn Epsilon's ire.
- It's worth noting that when Epsilon first encounters Wash in Revelations, he's not only instantly angry enough to laserface a wall, but he babbles something about not letting Wash "get to her" ("her", I feel safe in assuming, was Tex). So obviously something happened between the two of them besides their mutual insanity (which could also support the theory that the trigger event had something to do with Tex). It's probably one of the last things we'll see this season.
- On the other hand, the insurrection has served its narrative purpose and is no longer really required.
- Maybe, maybe not. There's a lot of Canon Fodder left unexplored — their motivations, what Male!CT was doing at the dig site, what they (and the Director) wanted with the monitor, whether they really were an insurrection or just a splinter group, etc. From that angle, they've been seeded through the story the way Project Freelancer's backstory was seeded through the Blood Gulch Chronicles — tangential to the current story, but with a lot of room for future exploration.
- Confirmed.
- Maybe, maybe not. There's a lot of Canon Fodder left unexplored — their motivations, what Male!CT was doing at the dig site, what they (and the Director) wanted with the monitor, whether they really were an insurrection or just a splinter group, etc. From that angle, they've been seeded through the story the way Project Freelancer's backstory was seeded through the Blood Gulch Chronicles — tangential to the current story, but with a lot of room for future exploration.
When they first interact, Wash seems very close to her, calling her Connie when he doesn't have a nickname for any of the other Freelancers, trying to convince her she didn't make a mistake when he can see she's clearly distraught. Even pointing out that Connie has always been hard on herself. At a later time period when he see's her talking to the Insurrection Leader from the Mother of Invention, he's much colder to her, it's really the one time he isn't dorky around a Freelancer.
So, they had been dating, or at least very close together during the beginnings of the Freelancer program, the Leaderboard, her own insecurities lead her to joining the insurrection after she did some digging and realized exactly what the hell was going on at Project Freelancer. She fell for the Insurrection Leader and broke it off with Wash, or potentially broke it off before hand.
So yeah on top of being driven insane and having his friends betray him and run off, as well as being burdened by everything that ever happened to the Alpha, he also lost his love to the Program.
- ...that makes an interesting amount of sense. It would also explain why she tells him not to call her "Connie", since she has no problems letting both Tex and the Insurrection Leader do so.
- My guess is they'll be more savage but less skilled — it's probably important that the voice we heard wasn't Tex's, it was O'Malley's.
- Or the guys arrive right as Carolina and Church run out of there screaming, thereby making them all flee, avoiding a big fight and setting up the conflict for next season.
- The Tex army may have inherited the failure aspect of the Tex we know. In addition most of Tex's fights don't have her fighting with someone helping her. They might not be able to function in groups.
- What if that's what the Director's been trying to "get right"?
- Seems pretty much confirmed; the Blood Gulchers do rather well against the copies, each netting several kills. Sheer numbers begin to be a problem for them however.
- Agent Carolina and Epsilon vs. Agent O'Malley/Omega
- Agent Washington and Doc vs. Crazy Agent Washington
- Tucker and junior vs. Agent York and Delta
- Grif, Sister, and Andy vs. Agent North, Agent South, and Theta
- Simmons, Caboose, and Sheila vs. Agent Wyoming and Gamma
- Sarge and Lopez vs. Agent Maine and Sigma
- Doughnut vs. Agent Conneticut
- One teensy leetle problem: For the AI process to create copies of the Freelancers, their deaths would have to affect the Director in a deep, personal and incredibly scarring way. Now look me in the eye and tell me how likely you think that is.
- Well, it is true that the director probably wouldn't care that much by his Freelancers, but you know who probably is affected by the dead of all those soldiers? Carolina. So, perhaps the director will trap Carolina and do the same thing he did with himself,only using Carolina instead, giving as a result new AI's with the personality of those Fallen Freelancers.
- I would have said her ass was grass, but yeah. I've been thinking the same thing. Although at this point, capture or a hasty retreat-and-regroup are also likely.
- Wash and the gang arrive in time to rescue Church and Carolina. They spend next season on the run.
- Wash and the gang don't arrive in time. They spend next season trying to rescue them.
- On that note: the Director kidnaps Carolina in hopes of using her body as a new host for a resurrected Allison. They'll be rescuing her from a fate worse than death!
- Wash and the gang arrive and everyone gears up for a fight, which is somehow interrupted.
- Armor lockdown for everyone! Except Caboose, who spends next season on the run, trying to rescue everybody.
- The hornet pilot gets called on the carpet for losing a second aircraft to the same people and is placed on indefinite unpaid suspension. He spends next season tracking down the gang in a bloody-minded quest for vengeance, leaving a trail of incorrect paperwork and flouted bureaucratic protocol in his wake.
- Number five is a new want, now that you put it out there.
- Wash shoots the director.
- The Tex-bots turn out to be hilariously inept, just a bunch of broken replacements that they easily destroy.
- Somehow Carolina finally learns to let things go and she achieves true victory, not by killing the Director but by capturing him and turning him in to the authorities so he can suffer with his own memories. (Go Carolina! I have faith in you!)
- Omega will come back from the dead and possess one of the Tex bodies, running off to live another day.
- Which raises an excellent question: Does this just sound like Omega, or is it actually him, body surfing and all? Folks, we could be in for a world of hurt.
- I kind of assume it just sounds like him, and it's Tex with a voice filter (which, while it sounded like Omega, had nothing to do with him).
- Ooh, good catch. Either way, it's scary as hell.
- I don't know which is more horrifying: That theory, or the fact that I could see the Director doing it.
- Is this in the flashback or the present-day sequences? Because Carolina is "dead" in the former, and York is dead in the latter.
- Yes.
- I hate you.
- Yes.
- Simmons: Hey, look! Is that a... body floating out there?Tucker: That's some fancy-looking armor. ...Is that a jetpack?Washington: Huh. ...Hey, wait a second... Is that... Holy fuck, is that Georgia?!
- Was it actually confirmed that Wash was committed? He was declared "unfit for duty" but I'm pretty sure Director and Co didn't know that Wash inherited the memories. And besides, if they forcefully committed him, why would Wash agree to work for them as Recovery 1 later? Also, I remember him saying to Church, "I wouldn't let them pair me with another AI, because I was scared they would find out that I knew everything."
- I don't recall if they ever say outright that Wash went to the nuthouse, but he was definitely certified unfit for duty, and it was at least implied he did time in the psych ward. This theory also explains why he seemed his usual self when he woke up in episode 18 — he was embittered by his treatment after the incident, not by the incident itself. Also, Wash's reason for avoiding A.I.s doesn't rule out the Director knowing (or guessing) what happened to him. Dr. Church isn't exactly an open book, and it's entirely possible he would keep his suspicions to himself. It would all boil down to:
Wash: The Director's been torturing an AI!Director: He's obviously gone 'round the bend. Better lock him up for his own good.Counselor: I agree. Back to work, everyone. We'll take good care of him.- Wash stayed with the project because it gave him access in case the chance for revenge/retribution ever presented itself. Which, of course, paid off in spades.
- I like this theory. The blue armor could also be explained by Church believing he'd always been a blue, so therefore he'd assume whoever he was with must have been wearing blue armor, despite any lingering memories to the contrary. "It's only logical" becomes "that's how it must have happened" becomes "that's how it happened" — bingo bango, you've got yourself a false memory.
- That explains what the Omega voice was. It wasn't her voice filter, it was her fragmented rage. It was Tex's Omega.
- We haven't seen Doc. Perhaps the Director's collapsed from shock or exhaustion and he's tending to a patient.
- Or Carolina and Church walk in, see what he's become, stare for a minute or two and then just walk back out without a word.
- Confirmed. Carolina realizes what exactly he's become, convinces Church to leave the revenge alone, and Leaves Behind A Pistol.
- Well, i was wondering what kind of plot season 11 is going to have, but i do not really think is going to revolve around the UNSC getting arrested the red and blues, the worst thing the do was steal....and i think crash some expensive equipment... and i feel everything of that might be forgiven if they capture the director....
- Some of that stealing involved breaking into a secure military installation and using deadly force and combat techniques to reach their objective, which was a vital piece of evidence in a major criminal matter. Which they then stole. There's no way that won't come back to bite them in the ass at some point.
- I like this. Given that Gary is all about deceit, it would be like him to pile on one more lie, especially since it would hammer home the whole "it's all your fault" theme.
- Longer than Ep. 100 and more epic than Season 8 Episode 10? I certainly hope so.
- It was about seven minutes long without a single bullet fired or punch thrown — and it was stunning.
- Well—there was one bullet fired... but we don't see or hear it.
- Wait a minute, if we never see or hear the bullet being fired, how are we so sure that.... oh crap.
- Remember, the Director shut off all of the room's life-support systems. If he didn't fire the gun, he still would've suffocated.
- But didn't Burnie say there WAS going to be a Season 11? Or am I losing it?
- Okay, I did not see where he said that, however, looking through the comments on the latest video, apparently at least a few people have seen that season 11 was confirmed. That makes me happy. Anyone got a source?
- Podcast. Either # 187, 188 or 189, can't remember which. Hear it right from the Horse Puncher's mouth.
- There's also a contest somewhere that has a walk-on role in season 11 as one of the prizes.
- Jossed. Season 11 is already over and it ended on a cliffhanger.
- Of course! It all makes sense now!
- But... wasn't he also cold about Carolina screaming in agony from the two AI? Maybe he's overprotective and an asshole dad.
- Definitely an asshole dad. His thinking seemed to be along the lines of "she got herself into it, she can get herself out."
- Definitely possible to be overprotective and an asshole. Or, alternative, now that I think about it: Subconscious jealousy? He didn't get to be happy with his own love, after all.
- Definitely an asshole dad. His thinking seemed to be along the lines of "she got herself into it, she can get herself out."
- How is this a WMG? They all but put up a big flashing sign that said "Yo, these three are totes a family!"
- Yes, it's a very obvious WMG, but it hasn't yet been outright confirmed in the series itself. All we have are a lot of subtle implications. There's still a chance for some sort of curveball.
- Considering the reveal was itself a HUGE curveball, I think we're safe taking it at face value.
- Or... she's the Director's daughter but not Allison's. Would explain why he's so cold to her most of the time, but has some paternal moments with her. And the fact that she's got red hair while Allison's blond. If she really was Allison's daughter, I feel she'd be a lot more precious to him. And the "bad taste in men" thing could mean her real mom picked a guy who was already in love with the memory of another woman. (Of course... this puts the whole Carolina/Tex rivalry in a whole new light. Tex is the "other woman!")
- Given Carolina's dialogue about her mother's thoughts on goodbyes (which heavily references Tex's/Alison's earlier dialogue), this seems unlikely. Also, red hair is a recessive gene, so it's entirely possible for a blonde mother and brunet father to have a red-haired child.
- Yeah, I'd say it's pretty obvious this WMG was supposed to be the case.
- Well, I imagine Carolina may have felt she had to live up to the legacy the Director built up around Allison. And given his own warped perspective of everything she did, she was practically perfect in his eyes, making Carolina unable to live up to that legacy. I'm wording this horribly because I'm exhausted, but I think I got the general point across.
- The only problem with this theory seem to be that epsilon does not seem to know that Carolina is the director's daughter, i mean, epsilon said "i remember everything" in chapter 17 i think, if he really remember everything, shouldn't he be able to remember the daughter the director and allison had?
- Who says he didn't? He may have taken his cues from Carolina — she obviously didn't want to discuss it, so he wasn't going to bring it up. The information has more impact on the audience than the characters, anyway.
- Yes, it's a very obvious WMG, but it hasn't yet been outright confirmed in the series itself. All we have are a lot of subtle implications. There's still a chance for some sort of curveball.
- This is a distinct possibility. I think it makes more sense that Project Freelancer would be able to convince its people, who only have communication with other people through them, that this happened. That said, I don't see how destroying Floria (either for real or as a lie) actually hides the disappearance of Agent Florida (see Headscratchers).
- Confirmed in Episode 22; Agent Florida was none other than Butch Flowers, and he was sent away to help keep the Alpha a secret... well, until he died, anyways.
- Another possibility is that he still hopes that Church will get Tex right. Remember, we never saw what happened to that new Tex AI. The Director told F.I.L.S.S to delete all their files except the Allison clip. Note that Church wasn't included in that commanded. So Tex may still come back.
- Church was stored in Carolina's armor, not the facility's database. F.I.L.S.S. couldn't have deleted him, even if ordered to.
- Damn, i was about to said that, anyway, maybe when tex and carolina were about to fight each other, when the director screamed Allison, probably he was worried that Tex might had killed Carolina, not backwards, and the AI went all crazy because they remembered Tex, and they do not know that Carolina is the director's daughter.
- What if her name really was Carolina (or Caroline), and that's where the Director got the idea to name the agents after states?
- And after trying to get rid of boredom, which didn't work out that well as the Alpha was an AI just like him, he decided to try and get the Alpha to shear off one of the Director's greatest traits - guilt. When Church accepted that he couldn't change his mistakes and could only live with the consequences, the acceptance of guilt was the exact opposite that Gamma had wanted. So Gamma had the Alpha placed back in his robot body, admitting defeat and letting him defuse Andy.
- Wait a minute... guilt... Church thought he killed Flowers... fragments bond with the people they think died... Flowers was revived only to be possessed by Omega... The guilt fragment was designed by Gamma to bond with Florida!
- Flowers was revived by the aliens, who were an unknown variable at the time of the simulation.
- Well, so much for my spike of brilliance.
- Wait a minute... guilt... Church thought he killed Flowers... fragments bond with the people they think died... Flowers was revived only to be possessed by Omega... The guilt fragment was designed by Gamma to bond with Florida!
- This seems entirely possible, and is all the more sad because of it. Since it means her central goal, to gain the love and respect of her father, was forever doomed to fail... just like her mother.
- Alpha-Tex IS Beta. Epsilon-Tex came from Epsilon, thus Alpha-Tex came from Alpha (like the rest of the AI did), making her Beta. The collective mind from Season 10 are copies and thus come from Beta, so I guess you could call them Beta-Tex. Or Beta-Beta.
- Annnnd confirmed In fact we also find out that he was Agent Florida!.
- That actually makes perfect sense. It always seemed a bit weird to me that the Project Freelancer would go to such great lengths to recover, store, and guard the AI fragments, but when they needed to hide Alpha they just sent him off to some obscure simulation base with bare minimum security. If Flowers was a Freelancer, it might have been his job to protect and look after Alpha (and, possibly, make sure he didn't remember any of what the Director did to him) while he was in Blood Gulch.
- It'd also explain Flowers' seemingly easy-going attitude to the Red vs Blue conflict, with his knowledge that it was all a simulation rather than a real war. Him knowing that the Reds were just "low level rejects" would explain him referring to them as "those little rascals" instead of thinking of them as a more serious enemy. Although it's a little weird that Flowers would allow Alpha/Church to inject him with a mysterious chemical, if he knew he was really a mentally unstable A.I.
- The fact he accepted an injection from a mentally unstable AI is easily explained by the likely possibility that Church's time-travel shenanigans were just an artificial torture session by Gamma.** On the flip side of that, though, Flowers may have been assigned to Blood Gulch because of his easy-going attitude, which would have made him a poor leader in a frontline fight with Covenant forces, regardless of how well he got along with his men.
- Flowers actually seems to be the "safest" bet regarding the identity of MBG, and seems the one with the highest probability (well, either Flowers or MBG being a robot rather than a Freelancer). It's consistent with the established plot, upsets the status quo between the characters the least, and creates the fewest plot issues. That said, it'd also be one of the least "wham" reveals of MBG's identity. Also, from a completely meta perspective, many of the newer fans (from Reconstruction onwards) wouldn't even know who Captain Flowers is, so the reveal would be pretty lost on them. You'd also think that Flowers would at least be mentioned at least once in the present day sections if this is the reveal they're going for.
- If someone wants to skip the first five goddamn season of a show they can suck it up. Burnie said the freelancer seasons are for the fans that have been with them from the start, anyway.
- Rooster Teeth not having gotten Ed Robertson back in the booth yet would explain why MBG doesn't talk.
- After re-watching episode 50, it definitely seems from the dynamic between Flowers, Tucker, and Church that Church had newly arrived in Blood Gulch after Flowers and Tucker had already been there for some time. That would seem to suggest against Flowers being MBG and having brought Church with him to Blood Gulch.
- CONFIRMED
- Aha, they always said they wanted to end it all off with one last, glorious Brick Joke that explains so damn much...
- Jossed. MBG is clearly seen participating in ground operations in Season 10.
- You sir, are a genius.
- Jossed. See first entry.
- Alternatively, suffered amnesia, rehabilitated, and sent to a particular outpost to guard the body containing an AI unit....where he later takes the armor of his dead captain (and would also explain why he's such a badass for someone who's supposedly amongst the worst in the military). Alternatively, suffered brain damage, rehabilitated, and sent to a particular outpost with a tank.
- It should be noted that when he yanks out and throws the axe, it lands at the feet of the goons he tossed it at. Not exactly the worst throw. Ever. Of all time. But still...
- Jossed. He's Agent Florida.
- This seems a little too schmaltzy for Rooster Teeth. It's more likely he'd begin his heartfelt speech, get about two words out, and then get teamkilled or run over by a car.
- That can be arranged.
MBG: Things are changing. Whatever happens, promise me this-
Wash: Promise you what?
MBG: ...what I'm going to tell you. You nee-
York: When are you gonna tell us?
MBG: Right now. Don't let them-
Wash: Is this the promise?
MBG: Gaargh!
Carolina: Guys...
York: What? It's not our fault he's so evasive!
Wash: Yeah, sir. If you have something to say, say it!
MBG: You know what, forget it. I can't get away from this place fast enough!
A warthog driven by Maine smacks into him and carries him off screen.
MBG: Son of a bitch!- I like it.
- Just because he's wearing ODST armor doesn't necessarily mean he's not a Freelancer. Each individual Freelancer has customized armor to stand out. Perhaps the MBG's armor is based on personal preference.
- Jossed. Agent Florida. He was sent to guard the Alpha, and Project Freelancer made a cover by saying that Florida broke from the American landmass and sank.
- How is this a guess? That's like posting a WMG that Wyoming is the team's sniper.
- He could've maybe fleshed this out to be a WMG that MBG is Donut... but that's a stretch. Actually (this is just for fun, Donut is even more of a stretch than, say, Tucker)...
- Skilled grenadier
- His small stature is pretty feminine, which fits Donut's personality
- Donut and Tex had a tiny bit of a rivalry going on, possibly leftover Freelancer animosity. The grenade to the head made him forget his Freelancer background.
- While it's very likely, it's still a WMG since it hasn't been explicitly confirmed in-episode or by Word of God yet.
- Also, as to MBG being Donut, his slight frame (in the cast poster he's the same size as Carolina and C.T.) fits extremely well with this. The problem is, Donut has "one hell of a throwing arm", whereas MBG seems to be the exact opposite. His skill, if anything, seems to be with the grenade launcher (and possibly with trick shots/chain reactions, although one act isn't enough to generalize from yet).
- Wyoming's "Looks like you still have some fight in you" comment was said with all the surprise and emotion of a guy realizing his phone still had enough juice to make a call... though it may just be Wyoming's sociopathy at work.
- Also why he doesn't speak; robots do not seem to speak by default (Lopez needed an upgrade in order to speak).
- This would explain why MBG doesn't seem to have an official designation or codename.
- The Director apparently had an army of robot bodies stored in the Freelancer training facility, so Project Freelancer using robots in combat isn't out of the question.
- MBG doesn't bleed after getting hit by that throwing axe, just like Tex. C.T. on the other hand bleeds heavily when Tex axes her. Then again, the fight scenes are really inconsistent with regards to whether characters bleed or not after being shot or sliced.
- It's possible the axe didn't penetrate his armor, but the impact was enough to knock the breath out of him. This made him lose his balance and fall, which stunned him further and kept him down for a few minutes.
- That's got a lot of credence when you consider CT was hit point-blank range by an axe thrown by Tex, who is almost assuredly much stronger than Pillman. Though MBG's armor is ridiculously light...
- To add to this. Episode 10 also shows us that the Blue Guy is bad at throwing.
- Also, it wouldn't be the first time Caboose tried to take out a superior opponent by dropping a huge crate on them.
- His weapon of choice is also the Assault Rifle. Caboose is the only one who consistently uses the Assault Rifle (I believe... at the very least, it's pretty uncommon).
- But wouldn't Wash recognize Caboose in Reconstruction, then? If not by his face and demeanor, then at least by name? Wash did work with Blue for awhile, enough to know him pretty well, it seems.
- Two possibilities: He knows Blue, but he doesn't know Caboose. Church went five years without seeing Tucker's face, and Caboose's name when he was a Freelancer wasn't Caboose, it was a state. Alternatively, he does know but he doesn't tell Caboose because he's forgotten due to... brain... stuff.
- Keep in mind, when Washington picks up Delta in Recovery One, neither appears to recognize the other. It doesn't hurt that it's been a while for them both, but between Washington's "brain... stuff" and the little interaction they had despite being almost consistently placed on the same team, it's probably that Washington just forgot some of the people in Freelancer. And if MBG didn't talk much, even less memorable!
- Also, if Caboose suffered enough brain trauma to forget he was a Freelancer, it'd make sense that his personality would have become somewhat altered. Perhaps Caboose's mental image of himself from inside his head was his original personality (in which case his voice is different enough that Wash could credibly fail to recognize him).
- Another similarity between the two of them is that both wear "obsolete" armor compared to their peers. MBG wears ODST armor amongst the Mjolnir-wearing Freelancers, while Caboose wears a Mark V helmet amongst the Mark VI-wearing Blood Gulch crew.
- Also, Rooster Teeth has said that none of the original main cast would have their faces shown, and MBG and Wash are the only two Freelancers whose faces haven't been at least partially revealed (although this point could apply to MBG being any of the original cast members).
- One drawback to this theory is that Word of God is that Rooster Teeth isn't planning to make any major changes to Caboose's character.
- Jossed.
- Wasn't the reason he was the best non-Freelancer due to his alien encounter?
- Yeah, Tucker was pretty much about as useful as Grif prior to finding the sword and getting knocked up by Crunchbite.
- Pro: Tucker was reassigned by Command to actual field operations, instead of sent to another simulation site like everyone else.
- Con: Donut was also reassigned by Command to field ops; they can't both be MBG. Supposedly, Tucker was reassigned to field ops due to his connection to Junior, who appears to have been key to negotiating and maintaining peace with the aliens.
- Jossed.
- That said, MBG seems to favor the assault rifle rather than a shotgun in the actual series.
- Jossed.
- Jossed.
- It's been pretty much confirmed that Alpha's mind was completely broken by the time the Sidewinder incident happened, and Church's memories of that incident were pretty inaccurate, and only true in broad strokes.
- During his time in Valhalla in Relocated and Recreation, Caboose has a brief moment of semi-lucidity and writes "Private Jimmy was here!" on the giant wall that the Warthog crashes through in Revelation.
- He writes it ''inside'' the wall. Inside. A. Solid. Wall. Also, Jimmy's skull shows up a few times in the series, even almost becoming 2nd in command of the Reds - Caboose's brain is doing pretty well without him. They were almost reunited after the mix up with Andy and Lopez, but alas, 'twas not to be.
- I like this idea. I like it a LOT.
- This one's a little less solid, but Montana is right next to Wyoming, and MBG always seems to appear next to Agent Wyoming.
- Of course, this doesn't give any real hint as to his actual identity (if any), but at least it puts an official name to the guy.
- Jossed. He's Agent Florida. Montana was probably a subtle hint to [1]
- Possibly... but I see it more likely that he'll just show up in the last minute of the show as a Sequel Hook similar to Carolina showing up at the end of season 9. Probably won't even learn his identity, since RT seems to be having fun teasing that.
- Sort of confirmed. He appeared in the current timeline back in the Blood Gulch Chronicles as Flowers.
- I had the exact same thought, but upon rewatching I noticed that at the beginning of the fight the tank's pilot can clearly be heard talking to the gunner, and it's the voice of a generic Freelancer soldier. While it doesn't completely rule out him being MBG, the fact that his silence has seemingly been a plot point up til now does somewhat rule against it. As for the tank giving Tex so much trouble, it is after all a tank. Hell, it could be Sheila for all we know.
- The dialogue is ambiguous enough that it could simply be the gunner talking to himself (noteably, the pilot is completely silent once the gunner gets blown up).
- Her first appearance in the series was after there was a call to get reinforcements in Blood Gulch during Season 4 as a replacement for Captain Flowers. Who else came as back-up when one of the teams radioed for reinforcements from command? Tex
- When she joined the teams, she brought a ship with her. I doubt Command would take a chance and let a simulation trooper fly it if she really was a Dumb Blonde.
- According to Grif, she survived being trapped under ice for three hours and came out not only alright, but pregnant. Considering how Grif has survived a 500 foot drop before, it seems like survivability/endurance is a major trait for their family. In addition, MBG took an axe to the chest, fell to the ground... and later pulled it out and threw it at the Insurrectionist Gunners.
- Now for those who talk about her stupidity and similar incompetence to her brother, I guess I have to admit defeat. After all, because of her stupidity, there's no way she could be a Freelancer.
- Why didn't Wash recognize her? We haven't heard the MBG speak at all so far, and it's also possible they never really encountered each other enough for to recognize each other.
- Alternatively, MBG isn't Sister, but rather some other family member. Toughness is a genetic trait in that family.
- Jossed. Georgia has completely different armor.
- Captain Veronica Dare
- Captain Serrin Osman
- Warrant Officer Jun-A266
- Gunnery Sergeant Stacker
- He works for Command and is neither red nor blue, but he gets overtime while Freelancers don't, and seems genuinely surprised that they don't. He spent most of season 8 with Maine and Wash who don't recognize him. You could argue that he's hiding his identity, but he was possessed by O'malley. If he were a Freelancer, O'malley would've been able to find that out.
- Jossed.