The guns themselves prevent "head shots", as we've seen twice now, first with Teddy in The Original and again in this week's episode with Lawrence.
HBO's "Westworld", starring Anthony Hopkins/produced by J.J. Abrams
- Thread starter Ensign_Redshirt
- Start date
The only way I can think of to make it sort of work is to have a combination of a bunch of different systems working simultaneously:
— The Simunitions mentioned by Jonathan Nolan in DigirificWriter's post above. They can be filled with some harmless powder that "poofs" and then fades away once it hits you if you're playing in God Mode like Ed Harris, or synthetic blood that leaves a trace if you want to play a game where you can be hit and forced to sit out a while. So everyone, Guest and Host alike, is only hit with these mostly harmless paintball-like munitions.
— Sensors on the Host and Guest guns that prevent them from firing if they're aimed at sensitive areas of the Guest's bodies, like the head or crotch (don't want a lawsuit).
— Special FX explosive squibs under the musculature of the Host's bodies, with smaller explosives for entry wounds surrounded by larger explosives for exit wounds.
— An internal sensor system to register where a Host is shot and create an entry wound and a corresponding exit wound on the other side if applicable.
— Pressurized synthetic blood reservoirs under the skin to simulate bleeding wounds and blood spatter as would happen with a person with a beating heart.
(Alternatively, the 3D-printed Hosts may be a lot more complex and have synthetic analogues for most human organs and bodily functions)
— Explosive squibs in every building, animal (with blood), tree, and piece of scenery to register damage. We saw Ed Harris shoot through a thick adobe wall to hit the Host hiding behind it with the shotgun round from his gun. Also, windows that shatter when shot.
— An army of contractors who go around repairing all the bullet holes everywhere at night while the Hosts are being repaired.
— Knives with blunted edges made of special metamaterials that remain rigid when stabbing a Host but turn flexible and soft if you purposely or accidentally try to stab a Guest.
It would require an enormously complex and logistically inefficient system to operate, and even then will probably not explain every shooting or stabbing incident we see. But since the show is compelling I can suspend my disbelief for that stuff.
You realize that's, like, a thousand times worse than just having live ammunition, right?
So what's your explanation for the fact that bullets just go *poof* when they hit Guests but blow completely through Hosts and thick adobe walls? And I bet we'll see more physical damage to environments in future episodes as well. Nolan already said they use Simunitions.
They addressed that difference too, with the one guy who stabbed the host through the hand and was trying to make his friend 'release his inhibitions' and violently kill and rape everything, but his friend found his thing being gentlemanly to Dolores.
Sometimes I'm a little tired when in a tv show talk about "inhibitions".
If you kill without a valid reason and rape is not because you have no "inhibitions", but because you're a f***ing psycho.
I didn't offer an explanation. I just said that making everything in the bloody park highly explosive is sort of a waaaaaaaay worse idea than just giving them live ammunition.
If the target is a human being, yes. If the target is pixels or robots, possibly not. People can have violent fantasies, never act on them for moral reasons, and not be evil people. That's why we have GTAV.
It's not "highly" explosive, it's a tiny charge (think firecracker packed in dampening material) designed to simulate the splash of bullet impacts on inanimate objects like walls, dirt, trees, and scenery. Actors and stunt people stand near them and run through them, and while there is a marginal risk involved in using them, it's not "way worse than using live ammunition." They even used to be worn on the actors or stunt performers themselves but now it's mostly been replaced with compressed gas packs, but carrying them internally on the Hosts wouldn't be like live people carrying them.
It's enough to destroy bottles and entire sections of walls. That is "highly" explosive, especially since everything is apparently coated in it.
Just an odd, random thought all this talk about a mysterious maze and the appearance of a solitary small black church reminds me of the more mystifying moments of LOST in a good way.
All in all, I think Locutus' explanation below makes the most sense:
The photo doesn't necessarily preclude the women at Time Square isn't human. Different explanations could be offered: Most people on the planet are AI's now and don't remember it; or most people on the planet are AI's and only those in the park of Westworld don't remember it. Huge stretches, I admit, and I certainly don't expect or even necessarily want the show to go in that direction.
All in all, I think Locutus' explanation below makes the most sense:
An interesting article about the comparison between WestWorld and videogames
The Video Game Horror Of HBO’s Westworld
The Video Game Horror Of HBO’s Westworld
Smart bullets, obviously, that know where they are going, what they are hitting, and what to do with their atomic structure when they get there. That's a whole lot better and simpler than the kind of support and infrastructure required to wire the entire host population and landscape for the chance that a bullet will strike exactly there.
I want to see knives and other implements of destruction addressed on the show.
Nano-meta-magic-materials of course. Even if an entire building falls on you it would magically dissolve
That's why I said "other important people." Political, industrial, military, media....
Agreed. I would not want to hang around with a person whose lack of violent behavior is just a result of their inhibitions.
Yep. I was a little bewildered when the friend of the decent guy was like "Just relax! Murder or rape someone! Have fun!". He gave me the impression that the only thing that prevents him to do these things in the real world is the fear of being caught.
To be fair, most modern religions are based upon the same ideology; don't murder, rape, steal, and generally be 'good' or go to Hell or its equivalence.
What bothers me is how the show suggests that each of us can become a full fledged psychopath if we can be sure that we will suffer no consequences to our actions. I think most people are better than that. People who kill just for fun is only a very small minority of the population. Even serial killers usually have some perverse justification for their actions. God has commanded them to do it or something like that.
Don't underestimate the power of gaming on one's mindset. I know there's a huge difference between a video game and what Westworld represents, but at its core it's the same thing, and if one is of the mindset that it's just a step-up from virtual reality, I don't have much problem seeing a lot of people acting like absolute animals if given the chance, and especially the encouragement to do so.
Someone suggested a theory to me that those scenes with the two visitors are actually flashbacks of Ed Harris' past, and he's the one in the white hat who eventually becomes the Man in Black. They're making us think they're happening concurrently with the present storyline when they really are set 30 years ago.
