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agftheorist · 1 year

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Is it possible to create a Darcy? An Amphibia meta

After the last events ( which is tumblr literally deciding to obliterate my toh analysis for no apparent reason) I hope this gets posted without any mess.

Well, we can begin now that I've written my blessings...

Disclaimer: I am not a neurology expert on anything like that, just someone who is very curious and makes research about brain. I will try to give sources of the informations I use in this theory post, and I would love it if anyone points out the missing or wrong parts of the information I give.

While watching the show, Amphibian technology always made me question the real life equivalents of these technologies. And, probably for many others too, the standing out one was the Core itself (I mean duh). In this post, we will look into the technology and biology that is the Core, and if it's actually possible to create one, and the possession, of course.

So, our main question is; is it possible to create a Darcy? To answer that, we need to answer these questions;

What exactly is "The Core"?

Can a machine control a human body?

Well, of course they create many other questions within them too, so let's start with the first one.

What Exactly Is "The Core"?

I think we all can agree that the Core itself is, to some extent, just a super advanced AI. I mean, before possessing Marcy, it has no organic compound forming it. A jungle of screens and cables and that's just it.

What makes it interesting is, however, the memories it contains. Aldrich claims that "it is the collection of Amphibia's greatest minds", which himself will also be included. Now, is it possible? Can we simply download our memories to a software system? Well, no. On the other hand, however, the answer should be: not yet. Because memories are said to be the connections between our brain cells (neurons) and solving them is what many scientists are currently working for. In fact, your thoughts are actually very much reachable with the most advanced technologies we have today.

The problem is, they are nowhere near the level of the Amphibian technology with very low resolution. Scientists can connect electrodes to your brain and record which parts of your brain are working more than others while thinking a specific thing, but just not very specific. As an example, you may be thinking about eating a hamburger and the scientists will know that you are thinking about food, and not some maths problem, because they see that the parts of your brain that are responsible for perceiving foods works more than others at that moment. Even if you are just thinking about food and not actually eating it.

Long story short, human technology still has a LONG way to go before actually resolving thoughts in 4K quality, let alone memories which have already happened AND recording them to an outside source. Also, I do not have that much scientific evidence to support this, but I assume memories must require A LOT OF storage unit. Because they need to include sensory information of that specific memory, the person's thought process etc., for the whole life of every person. Assuming Leviathans did just that, they must need a very strong CPU.

Now, let's say that we've managed to record their memories. We can say that this would be similar to saving a video to your USB. What makes the Core more special is, the ability to process these memories and experiences. Them drawing correlations between Anne and Sasha's invasion and Marcy's memory of watching the show is a mere example of that. And whose feature is that? Artifical Intelligence. IBM's definition of AI is given as below.

"artificial intelligence is a field, which combines computer science and robust datasets, to enable problem-solving. It also encompasses sub-fields of machine learning and deep learning, which are frequently mentioned in conjunction with artificial intelligence. These disciplines are comprised of AI algorithms which seek to create expert systems which make predictions or classifications based on input data."

The definition clearly states that AIs make their decisions by given data. And in the Core's case, the data becomes the memories of Amhibia's Kings, Queens and top-scholars. Their experiences and life perspectives. Most of the AIs make their decisions based on what knowledge you feed them with, sometimes resulting with "racist" AIs. (Considerig Amphibia's caste system, the Core can also be called racist but that's a whole different story)

To answer our first question, the Core itself is an extremely advanced AI which was fed by the views of Amphibia's extremely colonialist upper-class. Therefore, becoming and reflecting their very "Core", quite literally.

Now we're coming to the most interesting part....

Can a machine control a human body?

Before giving scientific evidence, I want to state that a machine or AI controling a human body is becoming more and more prevalent in media actually. From books to very well known movies. In Matrix, we see the character Bane becoming a vessel for Agent Smith, a literal AI virus. The process also has some similarities with both of them acquiring a cable to the spinal cord etc. But since science and general worldbuilding of Matrix is WAY different than that of Amphibia's, I don't get into specifics here.

Okay let's get back into the Core. As you might have noticed, the amount of cables Darcy has is getting greatly reduced throughout the show.

From this

To this

Another thing I noticed which may or may not be a change of design, but there is a little extension on the cable at this picture. At the later episodes, it is removed.

As you can see, the cable is continiuous now. Did that part had a purpose? Maybe as a filter for Marcy's memories or quirks? If it's the later one, it's obviously not working very well. What's interesting is tho, the apparatus dissappears within that episode. I don'y they'd change animation style mid-episode...

The extension disappears with the optimization process. Wanna know what else also disappeared with it? Marcy's "quirks" that are inherited by the Core. The cravings, trippings and everything else. If it weren't Darcy would've tripped and fallen probably a thousand times during their fight with Sasha and Grime. So that makes us question: what exactly did the optimization do?

For the rest of the theory, we are going to assume that the AI level of the Core is so advanced that it works similar to a human brain. And for those who don't know, human brains process data like a giant sponge. In whatever form you give it the data, the brain finds a way to make it "meaningful", especially in children. Ever wondered why infants talk a lot and touch themselves and around them? It is because their brains are trying to find the meanings and patterns of the sensory input. An example to that would be locating where your ears are and where the voice is coming from. The brain sends a random signal out there (gibberish voices) a feedback comes in the form of electrical impulses, and the brain finds a pattern eventually by repeating this so many times.

Deep learning method for an AI is also quite similar to this. AI does something, gets a feedback and fixes itself over time depending on those feedbacks. How does this connect to Darcy? Well, that cable from the head has to be going to somewhere. The Core and it's inhabitants never had a body for at least a thousand years, assuming the newest one that joined was Aldrich. So they had to learn pretty much everything from the beginning, in a body no newt has ever been in: a human body.

Even though they had insisted on possessing her for being smart, why wouldn't they just choose a newt, someone they'd be familiar with and would be comfortable as a body? Probably because to them, being smart meant processing more information faster, like having a faster computer. But they were also cautious, since they'd also installed a filter before processing the feedback taken from the body. As a result, they got the sensory info, processed it during sleeping (which is also one of the functions of sleep in human body) therefore "calibrated" the body. But in fact, the AI itself also evolved to actually process the sensory info.

Another little detail that I noticed is from a scene after Sasha cut the cord in All In. Darcy checking the body to find any damage is actually very confusing. I don't think any human (even most of the other animals) would need to touch or see to the wound to see if they've been violently stabbed by a long sword. After thinking for a while, I've formed a theory for that. We are not 100% sure what the inside of the body costume is made of, but we can safely make an assumption by looking to this picture.

This is a shot that shows the inside of the helmet. And it is full of electrodes that transports the signals from the brain to an outside source. So, we have no reason to reject the idea that the clothing covering the body is also filled with electrodes. Plus, when Marcy was in the rejuvenation tank, they needed to check her vitals to ensure her survival which doubles the possibility.

Now let's get back into the topic. If the costume/armor/WHATEVER is receiving signals from the body, then the outer part of it would be pretty plain, like the shell of a turtle. Turtles do have nerve cells on the shells, but way less than other parts of their body. Since she didn't have any signals from the outside layer, and no sign of damage from the inner electrodes, they checked the outer part with hands, whose signals were very well received by the Core.

I think this also explains how she was able to all those acrobatic moves when fighting with Sasha and Grime. The Core wasn't actually inside the body, but sending signals to the body. Same as human brains not having any nerves to feel pain, the Core itself wasn't actually receiving any pain signals like a normal human body does.

To sum it all up, an AI, computer programme or the collective memories of dead Amphibian upper class possesing a human body, is VERY possible. With very advanced technology, definitely. As my personal opinion, I believe we will actually see examples of it. When exactly, I don't know. Lastly, the helmet and pretty much all of the equipment is pretty Marcy-sized, so I wonder how long they've been designing those...

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