If every citizens are androids, .....

how can they have blood, flesh, transpiration , .... how can they eat, drink, .... ?

If PC is only a Big theater, why and how the megadeus exist? what's their real objectives? what are the objectives of the creators of this "theater" to reset PC every time to test the citizens ?

quote:

Originally posted by samirsouleyman how can they have blood, flesh, transpiration , .... how can they eat, drink, .... ? If PC is only a Big theater, why and how the megadeus exist? what's their real objectives? what are the objectives of the creators of this "theater" to reset PC every time to test the citizens ?

There's NO REASON AT ALL to believe that everyone in Paradigm is an android. We've seen enough deaths in the show to know that humans bleed and androids shatter.

Why are there Megadeuses? If you believe that the world was falling apart before Big Venus appeared (and if you watch Act 25, you'll see why I think it was), then maybe Big Venus' job is to restart the world whenever it falls to pieces. So that's one Megadeus with a possibly-known purpose. If we guess that the world of Paradigm is a remnant of a world that was once much more normal than it is now, maybe the whole thing pretty much just happened, and the Megadeuses are there simply because they survived the catastrophe (and they probably caused it, too!).

The theater question is interesting. Have you noticed that the show goes out of its way to show only Paradigm people in the audience? At the end of Act 14, for instance, or when Alex is shown on TV proclaiming that "We Have a New God," or in WINTER NIGHT PHANTOM, where Dan Dastun and Sybil Rowan are both on screen and in the audience.

And, of course, we're shown that the Director is Angel, who has been living in Paradigm all along, and didn't even know that she was the Director.

I don't think there IS anyone outside of Paradigm.

What the world of Paradigm was FOR, originally, isn't easy to figure out. It seems to be free-running now, operating without any kind of outside inputs. It's not even clear if the big lights in the sky or the gears under the river are original equipment or just stuff left over from some previous cycle that was even weirder than the one we saw in the series. Because every cycle messes with reality, none of the evidence from previous cycles is 100% trustworthy.

But it seems reasonably clear that it's the people inside Paradigm who are in charge. Too bad they don't understand how their world works!

I think it's safe to say that Paradigm is populated by three groups:

1) "Natural" Humans that were given birth the typical way
2) "Tomatoes", which are genetically engineered humans
3) Androids, like Dorothy, Instro and Freddie

I personally don't believe that the majority are androids, but Tomatoes. Since most folks just do their jobs, don't stand out, obey the rules, etc...one can suppose that they're really just tomatoes that live their lives for the engineered purpose of populating the city.

Oooh, the Big G, I like that whole "genetically engineered to populate the whole city" idea. I think that is totally awesome, excpet for the fact that in your 3 classes of people thing (which I COMPLETELY agree with), the natural born civilians are the greater population, the genetically engineered citizens are a very small amount of the population (only a small amount of people in the room with Gordon keyhole flashbacks), i.e. the main characters, and those people who were killed by R-D (Did I forget any?) On androids... androids played a normal life in Paradigm City, running on oil, and refilling at oil centers. They seem to inhabit a semi-small percentage of the civilian population of Paradigm City, not being rare but not commonplace either.

That is looking at it from a real-life perspective. Looking at it from a Big O, stageshow allegory perspective...

The normal people are nothing but extras. The genetically engineered people (who says there are GENETICALLY engineered? it could be surgical implantation of videos into ones brain to play at a given time by Gordon Rosewater, REMEMBER THE TV CAMERAS UNDERGROUND??) are the main characters, and the andoids are also extras, with the exclusion of Dorothy. (Big Ear doesn't really count because for almost ALL of the story he was suspected to be human)

I tend to lean toward the majority of the populace being 'replicants', mostly because of what Gordon Rosewater said to Alex in the wheat fields about all of Paradigm being his children. Since his genetically engineered tomatoes were a metaphor for engineered people, it leads me to the "Paradigm City as Vast Experiment" concept. The city seems much like Olympus from Appleseed after the Holocaust. A controlled environment where variations are compared to determine which paradigm of thought will become the dominant paradigm under which humanity will exist. Paradigm is inhabited mostly by replicated humans as a control, and real humans are slowly being added from the outside world in the form of Union Operatives.

Each catagory of citizen, namely the androids, the tomatoes and the real humans represent a paradigm of Metaphysics. Under this perspective, the infiltration of Paradigm City by the Union operatives and even the entire story arc could represent a paradigm shift from Soft Determinism to Libertarianism as the dominant paradigm.

The three paradigms of Metaphysics are libertarianism, hard determinism and soft determinism. Libertarianism is the concept that we individually 'create' the universe. That our free will and actions directly influence the world around us. Roger obviously represents Libertarianism as a paradigm, as he always is in charge of his destiny.
Hard determinism is the concept that there is no such thing as free will, and that all of our actions and behaviors are structured by chains of causality...that although we believe we act freely, the events that occured before an action completely determines the choice, which isn't really a choice at all because it's pre-determined. Androids like Instro and Freddie represent hard determinism because androids only behave as they are programmed.
Soft Determinism is a mix, where we have a limited free will to choose options, but all choices exist within a framework of causality. Our choices are are limited by the structure of cause and effect that exist beyond our direct control. The Tomatoes represent soft determinism, as they're human, but act within the boundaries of their engineering and perhaps "implanted" memories. I have an intuition that Dan Dastun is really a tomato, because he's the quintessential policeman, born to do his job to his utmost. His experiences of deja vu with the movie "Winter Night Phantom" also belie a strong clue to implanted memories.

Within the context of these three paradigms of Metaphysics, the individual main characters demonstrate variations on how the character originated, and the paradigm they chose to live by:

Roger has doubts about his humanity, whether or not he's a real human, or a tomato bred to be the Dominus of the Black Megadeus. Despite this inner conflict, his Libertarianist view leads him to act as he chooses, and he strongly believes in his own free will, namely "Roger's Law".
Alex Rosewater is also a Libertarianist, although there are strong clues to his Tomato-ness in the final episodes. He believes that his personal power and free will are going to create a new world order. As a tomato, he should be a soft determinist, but his actions are indicative of a libertarianist.
Alan Gabriel is a real human from the Union who's chosen to become half android and represents Hard Determinism at its worst. Hard determinism gives rise to a lack of ethical morality. A true hard determinist can reason that he can murder, because he's not directly responsible for his actions, as they are not a result of free will, but only part of a causality chain that makes his killing the responsibility of causality.
Dorothy is an android, yet has human emotions and maybe even feelings. She should be a hard determinist, but is instead, a soft determinist, as she tends to act only in response to causality that she feels merits action. She is often oblivious to her own personal safety and doesn't exert free will to save herself, for example when she's carried off by the combat robots from Roger's Mansion.
Dan Dastun is a tomato, yet as a culmination of his character arc, eventually chooses Libertarianism over soft determinism, when he finally tears off his badge and renounces the Military Police. The shock and amazement of his fellow officers indicate that the action of doing so was far more important a symbol than just a human who's tired of being ordered around by Paradigm Corporation...as he pretty much toe-d the line throughout most of the story.
Angel, who ends up being the director and final authority for Paradigm's existence, is a true human, and also a libertarianist. In a way, she represents the purest example of libertarianism in all the characters, and indeed, her actions and free will directly create and influence the Universe of Paradigm.

Also seen in this context, the Amnesia of Paradigm isn't the primary focus for the overall experiment. It is very important to some individuals in the story, but serves as an experimental factor to 'level the playing field' between the three paradigms. Without memories, individuals are reduced to their pure essence as people, and it wipes out the "Nature vs. Nurture" aspect of what we are as humans. With no "Nurture" in the form of memories from our childhood and upbringing, we are left only with our inherited "Nature".

This is yet another theory to give meaning to the overall story. There are holes, of course, but one can have a lot of fun finding meaning and direct correllations between the theory and the characters or the metaphors and symbolism.