Railroad synth memories

[AeonsLegend]

So this is something that I've never really understood and I've been trying to get some info on it in the game, but haven't been able to find any record or conversation option for this.

 

The big questions are: isn't wiping and replacing someone's memory the same as killing them? If a synth wants to escape and you remove those memories from him/her is it still the synth that wanted to escape?

 

I mean aren't they essentially doing a worse thing than the Institute? At least the institute is not trying to be noble about it. They treat them as machines and therefore they are in the right with regards to their actions. But removing someone's memory and basically taking away who and what they are when you believe them to be a person instead of just a machine should invoke some sort of conflict. If I believed a machine was sentient I would never even think to mess with them that way.

 

Also Glory was very vocal about synths not being the same as a human. She knows they are machines that mimic humans and is fine with them being a machine. She just wants them to be free. Interesting.

[StormWolf01]

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

 

Heyas Aeons.

 

Interestingly enough I was just watching a vid on youtube about the whole Curie being transferred into a synth body, about how Glory had a synth friend, who's body that they used for the transfer. And Glory's feels about the body being used for Curie.

 

In a way, this kinda strikes me the same way that the new TRON disks works. Where their memories are connected to their Disks.

 

Anybody that gets hold of it, has complete and utter access to their memories. It's an enormous security risk to both the program/synth and anybody who's had contact with them. For a lot more detail on that, watch the Disney (Ugh, I know...) cartoon series TRON Uprising. It's a seriously dangerous thing when somebody can see anything and everything that somebody has ever seen, said, or heard.

 

 

Not to mention that institute has got spies Everywhere. Eyes and ears that can report the runaways to the recovery division all over the place.

There's also the fact that the institute has proven that they're not above creating "sleeper" agents. Synths that have programming that they're not aware of, until the order or situation comes about, to trigger it.

 

I see it as one of those hard choices. Where it's a case of Does the Fate of the One outweigh the Fate of the Many? And from what I have seen so far, Desdemona is pretty good about making those hard choices.

 

This is another way that I look at it. 3rd gen synths have proven that they are easily manipulated. They've been given free thought, free will, and sentience, but never taught how to use it. Their sense of ethics is brainwashed into them from the point of their "birth" that they're just created people, who are belongings to somebody else.

As such, for right or for wrong, that is what they believe of themselves. While we may or may not disagree with that, is us instilling human values to something that isn't human. Do we have that right?

 

 

Just them escaping from the institute is a high degree of a death sentence to them. Their very existence is a huge risk, while they are on the run. If it decreases their chances of getting caught, and puts anybody that they have ever seen or heard at less of a risk of being killed, or captured, then so be it.

 

 

Now, however, myself...I really prefer Dima's way of going about it. They escape, they're brought to his sanctuary, and they're free to be who they be. Screw the whole thing of trying to hide and fly under the radar all the time.

 

[HeyYou]

According to theory, the synth gets a choice on if they are mind-wiped or not. Most are convinced that it is a 'good idea', for 'security' reasons. (hard to give away that you are a synth, if you don't even know yourself.....) But, the mere fact that you CAN wipe their memories, and then install whatever you want, leads me to view them just as organic machines. Can the same thing be done to a *real* human? I don't have any info on that. I know it's possible to download their memories, and install them in a synth, is the reverse possible? I don't recall seeing that documented anywhere.... (but, I haven't really looked for it either.)

 

But yeah, wiping their memories essentially "kills" the synth, and uploading new memories creates a new 'person'..... So, are they really helping? Not in my opinion.

[StormWolf01]

I dunno, I guess it kinda depends on how ya look at it.

What are their memories from the Institute? Constant fear, abuse, slavery, subjugation, being treated like trash, being cannon fodder, being told that you were only produced for a purpose, not being allowed to have any sense of self worth, or community....

I mean... if somebody offered to wipe out most of my childhood memories, I'd be in the front of the line, if that's the kind of childhood that I'd had.

 

But yeah. A lot of it really does portray some of the runaways as being easily manipulated. So talking them into undergoing the process isn't really that hard for some of them.

 

 

Tho I don't think that Mayor "McDonalds" would be so easy to convince

 

[AeonsLegend]

I understand that bad memories can be difficult to deal with, but they also define and make you who you are. You wouldn't be the current you without them. And removing all of your memories basically turns you into a whole new person. People with 100% memory loss often are traumatized by that alone. How about coming into contact with something from your past. You would still want to know, because that's how we tick. So in the end you're trying to find out that which you wanted to forget.

 

Now if the railroad would offer a selective memory purge that might actually be an interesting thing to discuss. Obviously with consent.

[HeyYou]

Thing is, the whole purpose of the Railroad is to 'save synths from the slavery', or some such. They do that by basically killing them and creating a new person. That doesn't help the original personality at all, they are dead. That's it. No more memories at all for that personality. They are simply saving the body. Which the institute can produce more of at will......

[StormWolf01]

I understand that bad memories can be difficult to deal with, but they also define and make you who you are. You wouldn't be the current you without them. And removing all of your memories basically turns you into a whole new person. People with 100% memory loss often are traumatized by that alone. How about coming into contact with something from your past. You would still want to know, because that's how we tick. So in the end you're trying to find out that which you wanted to forget.

 

Now if the railroad would offer a selective memory purge that might actually be an interesting thing to discuss. Obviously with consent.

That might make for an interesting mod. Kinda like the whole visit through Kellogg's memories. Except that you're in there to destroy this memory, that memory, another one, yada yada, from the current point in time, up from when they decided to flee the institute.