The Machine. The
omniscient and omnipresent Machine. I have used a capital M for the Machine for
two reasons. First, I consider it a major character in the show much like
Finch, Reese et al. The second reason it deserves such respect is because of
its abilities. Not so much its computational abilities but its conscious
abilities. When the Machine becomes common place, then it will be called the
machine. Remember back in the day when the internet was called the Internet.
Through many
flashback scenes between Finch and Nathan Ingram, we have been told that the
Machine has been completely sealed against human interference i.e. from user
input. Finch went on by saying that the Machine “upgrades itself, maintains
itself, and patches itself”. Finch maintained that preventing human
interference was the only way to ensure its powers wouldn’t be abused. But we
know through another flashback scene that Nathan actually built a backdoor into it. More on this later.
There have been other
events that secretly suggest that Finch can in fact still control the machine. The
very last scene of the first season’s finale (Root Cause) showed Reese speaking to the Machine via a street/traffic
camera that he needs to find Finch. And the phone rings. What I wish to point
out here is that Reese issued a command in very natural speech and the Machine
understood and complied. This was a form of control. In other words, user
input. This method of input was further shown in the first episode of the
second season (The Contingency) where
through flashbacks we see Finch testing and debugging the Machine by speaking
to it. Later on in the episode, Reese again speaks to the Machine by threatening
to down tools if it didn’t help him with finding Finch. This particular scene
is very important. In literal terms, what happened here was a hack. What Reese
inadvertently did was force the Machine to perform a function it had specifically
been programmed not to do. – remember when Finch told the Machine not to prioritize
his own safety over that of others.
What all of this
means is that Finch can in fact still control the machine and by control, I mean
full administrative control. This is a suspicion I have had since the debut if
the second season. A suspicion which I believe has been tacitly confirmed by three
occurrences. The first is in The Contingency during a time shift sequence when
the Machine is searching for Finch and it writes “Searching for Admin”. If you
are wondering, admin in this context stands for administrator, a tech term for
a user with complete and absolute control. So all that talk between him and
Nathan about the Machine being sealed was probably just a lie; characteristic
of Benjamin Linus Finch.
The second occurrence
that shows that Finch still has control over the Machine is at the beginning of
last week’s episode (Proteus). Finch and
Reese are discussing the possibility of the Machine being infected with Kara
Stanton’s virus. When Reese suggests that Finch should fix it since he built
it, he fidgeted for a very little bit when answering that it was impossible. I concede
that this is not very obvious but it’s there.
The third occurrence is
the ‘hack’ performed by Reese. Being the calculating man that he is, Finch must
have figured this out by now. All he needs to do is to speak to the Machine. More
importantly, the Machine still recognises him as an administrator and so could very easily allow him to patch
things up (assuming it is infected by Kara’s virus). Perhaps even by remote
connection. The Machine will most probably allow this so it can continue its
primary function of providing the relevant and irrelevant list. And don’t forget
that Nate built a backdoor into the software. It is unclear though if Finch is
aware of it.
Of course all of this
is just conjecture. It all seems plausible unless if the show’s writers and
producers have dropped the ball and created a plot hole. I very much doubt
that. On a lighter note, why does Finch call it the Machine and not a computer?
It’s a supercomputer after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment