Another theory about Big O

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From: htfwky | Posted: 11/5/2007 12:50:12 AM | Message Detail

The Event was a cataclysmic war utilizing Megadeii to effectively destroy all life on earth. Paradigm City is the only known surviving city, and was rebuilt by Gordon Rosewater for the purpose of restoring mankind and repopulating the earth.

Roger and likely every other character in the series are clones. Once created, they were implanted with memories of the world before The Event by Gordon Rosewater, whose technique was imperfect, thus forcing him to perform the procedure multiple times over the course of several years. This is what is meant by "tomatoes" and "the harvest:" the citizens of Paradigm are tomatoes. As Gordon Rosewater lamented to Roger, when they are implanted with memories, they are "synthetic." Only by repeating the growing process year after year can the original "taste" of tomatoes be restored; that is, Roger and the citizens of Paradigm will never be genuine, but Rosewater's goal is to create a group of humans to be as close to their pre-Event personalities as possible.

When Angel lamented that "the power would be released too soon," she was referring to the power of Big Venus, whose purpose is to erase all memories of Paradigm City and restore it to the state it was at the beginning of the growth process. Diagrams from the Big O art book portray Paradigm City as a gigantic stage which is constantly pushed upwards from underground. Essentially, copies of Paradigm City are manufactured underground and pushed upwards with each new generation of "tomatoes." Memories are also manufactured underground (the miniature "stage" where the Archetype was found was likely used to film re-enactments of The Event, just as the log cabin stage was used to film Angel's memories of her childhood. These memories were implanted in Angel and Roger by Gordon Rosewater, in hopes that they would result in perfect copies of the original Roger Smith and Angel Rosewater).

Leviathan and Behemoth were designed for cleanup: Behemoth dug the underground chambers where memories are manufactured. When Big Venus is activated and memories are deleted, Leviathan dissolves all evidence into sand (this is why Paradigm is surrounded by deserts), allowing the new stage to rise upwards. The stagelights, which were mistaken for bombs, are also used for cleanup, and systematically timed to fall in accordance with the activation of the dock flares and, most likely, the activation of Big Fau.

Interestingly, each "version" of Paradigm City seems capable of taking multiple event paths, evidenced by Roger's memory flashes in Act 26 upon discovering the underwater machinery in the trench. In our observed version of Paradigm City, the chain of events leading to Big Venus's activation was started by the death of Timothy Wayneright: without his death, Dorothy does not serve under Roger and he dies when Big Fau throws him into the sea; further, without Dorothy there is no way for Roger to activate the Final Stage, the Archetype is not awakened, Big Fau is not restored due to the absence of Dorothy's core memory module, etc. etc. Wayneright is the key, and Dorothy is the most important character in The Big O. Notice that there are several copies of Dorothy (notable R.D. and the android encountered in Wayneright's laboratory in Act 15), one for each "version" of Paradigm City.

It seems, thus, that the purpose of Paradigm City is to ensure that The Big Venus is not activated. When Big Venus is activated, all memories are deleted, Paradigm City is destroyed, and the entire city resets. Only when all threats to Paradigm City have been eliminated and the city is protected by The Big O does the desired scenario play itself out: Big Venus is not reactivated and the loop is broken, so Paradigm can continue in a natural state, populated by people who are nearly identical to the people who were alive right after The Event. This is the goal of Gordon Rosewater: to effectively eliminate the negative effects of The Event and allow Paradigm City to advance into the future with no threats to its existence.

With this in mind, several "rogue" elements can be identified. All of these elements are remnants of The Event, or glitches in Rosewater's plan, that should not exist in his desired city:

The Red Balloon

The red balloon identifies glitches in Rosewater's scenario. These include:

Conclusion: Roger Smith is a clone and destined to die. It is very likely that Angel Rosewater cannot bear this, and thus, as the Director, keeps the infinite loop going despite her knowledge that she will lose her memory every time.