The World to Come is the seventh episode of second season of Pantheon.
Synopsis[]
Caspian wakes up to a new world twenty years in the future where conflict between uploaded intelligences and humans is at a breaking point. The world needs him now more than ever.
Plot[]
As Caspian takes in that his battle against Stephen Holstrom was twenty years ago, MIST reveals she underclocked him to separate his code from Holstrom's and tried to remove SafeSurf. However, she admits that some fragments of the antiviral still remain in Caspian's system, and that increasing his processing speed will cause them to proliferate again. MIST informs Caspian that modern society is facing a problem that only he can fix, and she had no choice but to wake him up prematurely.
MIST takes Caspian into The Cloud where he is surprised to find multiple uploads. MIST informs him that they uploaded by choice thanks to his actions and reminds him to take things slow. Soon, security arrives and MIST speaks to it as Caspian is restrained. They are brought to the waiting room where MIST informs Caspian he is unregistered, something that has not happened in a long time. As Caspian struggles to take everything in, MIST informs him of how it all started.
At first, people wishing to escape the limits of a physical body uploaded on the blackmarket and were all killed by SafeSurf. When MIST mentions Renee being one of the casualties, Caspian feels melancholy upon learning her fate. MIST then explains how other victims, such as Charlie Dugan, were seen as martyrs and the public gradually stopped fearing UIs. Eventually, data centers not connected to the internet were established, but only the ultra wealthy could afford them. The two are called before the three UI leaders. MIST and the leaders overclock to speak until she slows them down so that Caspian could partake in the conversation. After Caspian is scanned, the leaders find shards of SafeSurf in him and they are amazed that he is alive, along with the on lookers. The leaders consider MIST's suggestion to have Caspian represent them in negotiations with the Embodied Council, which is headed by Maddie Kim. MIST states that he can receive a proper download after speaking to Maddie before the leaders leave. As MIST explains Maddie’s choice to never upload and that she is not allowed to take him to Maddie on her own as CIs are not allowed to operate machines and vehicles, but Ellen Kim and Peter Waxman. who arrive and are surprised to find Caspian, can.
The four use a drone to fly from the Svalbard Data Center as MIST states Maddie knows about Caspian. Ellen explains that she uploaded as she did not want to retire and,with multiple people uploading, she felt like she was being left behind. After Ellen and Waxman explain their previous romantic relationship, Caspian asks why UIs are more accepted now. MIST states that as more people uploaded, UI labor became common place to help bridge the two worlds, leading to a UI labor tax that created a universal basic income. Expensive government-regulated havens were built where UIs could be safe from the antiviral, but private data centers eventually sprang up. Due to the massive increase in numbers of UIs who could think several times faster than embodied humans, unprecedented developments in science, medicine, and art followed. The drop in resources used by embodied humans also reduced pollution and allowed nature to flourish again.
When they reach Portugal, Caspian sees see that the declining human population has allowed nature to heal. However the three inform Caspian of a small but effective extremist group called The Humans has sprung up, advocating for the supremacy of embodied humans and going so far as to bomb a data center in Covilhã, Portugal, and killing millions of UIs in the process.
Nearby, as The Humans discuss their next plan of action and how their bombing operation has affected the mentality of the embodied population at large, their leader, Julius Pope, states the explosion was meant to cover their tracks after stealing data.
Soon, the four leave the drone and take a virtual elevator to The Orbital Ring. When Caspian asks, they say it is because the UIs shut down the internet after the Covilhã Bombing. The others explain that the Orbital Ring was meant to house the four million UIs and three-hundred billion CIs, but one of the anchor points lined up with Incan ruins in Ecuador and the locals protested. Waxman underclocks everyone as they have time before arriving in Palo Alto.
Caspian wakes up in a skin covered robot body that Maddie made, something that amazes Caspian. MIST stays behind as the UIs go to the main building. As they walk, Caspian struggles to move in his robot bod and is surprised that the Logorhythms building is up and running as a blue diamond appears on their hands, indicating that they are UIs. Soon Ellen's grandson, a young man named Dave, walks over to Ellen and, upon seeing Caspian, is in shock. Ellen and Waxman are angry that MIST did not tell Caspian about Dave. When Caspian asks for an explanation, Ellen introduces Dave as Caspian's son, much to his shock.
Soon, Maddie arrives and demands answers upon seeing Caspian, thinking it is a cruel joke. Caspian tries to convince Maddie it is him by describing their first kiss and explaining what happened to him after taking on Holstrom. Upon learning MIST is at the facility, she asks Caspian to come with her. Dave tries to go with them, but Maddie wants him to stay away from MIST. Once outside, Maddie hugs Caspian and he apologizes for not knowing about their son. Maddie knows MIST did it to get Maddie to talk to her.
Maddie fills Caspian in on what happened in his absence. She states that Joey Coupet made sure the government knew what happened between him and Holstrom and, shortly, learned she was pregnant. At first Maddie considered giving their child up for adoption, but decided to keep him after a visit to the geology museum and, upon touching a meteor, decided she would keep her child, as well as not upload as she did not want to spend eternity remembering her pain. With the help of MIST and her mother, she eventually finishing high school. She enrolled in Stanford University, but dropped out to start a robotics company, becoming an eminent engineer and innovator, and building bridges between the physical world and the cloud. When Ellen decided to upload, she was against the idea, even more so when Dave demanded she permit him to upload before he is legally old enough. One day, Maddie stumbled upon MIST advising Dave on black-market uploading, and furiously cut ties with her sister.
Meanwhile, Dave talks with his grandmother and Waxman about Caspian's return. As the three talk, Dave expresses his frustration with his mother denying his request for early upload and considers having his father sign off on it. Ellen rebuffs this and, as Waxman says he can simply wait a year, Dave expresses that there is no certainty he will make it to his twenty-first birthday. He tells his grandmother and Waxman that he believes the physical world is on its way out and everyone will upload at one point or another.
In the Load-in Bay, MIST greets Maddie and Caspian as Maddie berates her sister for lying about Caspian's fate. MIST states she did not want to give Maddie false hope in case she could not remove all the antiviral from Caspian. When Maddie suggests having Caspian exchange code, MIST states that the he would lose his sense of self. MIST reveals that she wants Dave to upload so he can donate his code to Caspian and cleanse the antiviral from the latter without any ill effect. When Maddie refuses, MIST insists it is the best option given the circumstances. Caspian intervenes, stating he knew he would die from the fight and accepted it. MIST states that he was not okay with dying as, during reconstructing him, she saw every moment of Caspian's life and fell in love with him. MIST revealed that, in addition to serving as a mediator to end the impasse, she wanted him to survive.
Wanting some time alone, Caspian sits in a private server as a beam of light and, much to his surprise, manifests into David Kim. After teasing Caspian about impregnating Maddie, he tells the teenager he is from somewhere where "things worked out a little different". Caspian shares his concerns about representing an entire society he knows nothing about. David reassures Caspian that he is capable of it before disappearing. Soon after Caspian forgets the encounter. When MIST returns, he tells her to inform him of everything he needs to know. She is hesitant as Caspian would survive a week at most. She suggests trying to convince Maddie to let Dave upload, but Caspian refuses to sign off on Dave's early upload because of the effect it will have on Maddie, and has MIST give him all the information he needs to solve the orbital ring impasse. She reluctantly agrees.
Meanwhile, "the Humans" attack a secure facility, allowing Pope to steal the SafeSurf program, which he intends to plug into a data center.
Cast[]
Starring[]
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Co-Starring[]
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Trivia[]
- The book Caspian is reading in Maddie’s picture resembles The Hidden Girl and Other Short Stories by Ken Liu, an anthology containing the short stories Pantheon is based on.