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donprisciotteThought back of one my favourite childhood games, Shadow of Memories, and as all 0.001 of you know, it is revealed in the chapter 8 sequence to unlock ending B that * noise of car driving by because I don't know how to avoid spoilers * was brought back from the dead and she lamented that being brought back from the dead was painful, horrible and causing eternal restlessness. I tend to think that although Tex is an AI, she feels in a similar way – after all she's an anomaly even in a let's-split-this-dude's-brain scenario. This really goes well with Epsilon Tex reminding as often as she can that she didn't ask to be back.
Now, yes, this is obvious, but I just would like to point out a thing because I love laughing at Church's misfortunes – he's just so adorable when he's in unbearable pain, what can I tell ya: when confronted with her anger from being brought back again, he says 'being alive is typically better than being dead' and while the delivery suggest it's just Church being annoyed and annoying and we should dismiss it as something silly, it's actually a good point. Because while Caboose fucked up his memories about what Alpha is, this particular Church is the Epsilon form who has memories about the original Allison that Caboose can only fuck up so much because it's all stuff prior to Blood Gulch and even Project Freelancer, things that cannot be reached, so Caboose's perception of Tex being mean only impacts it in a minor way. Then why is Epsilon Tex meaner, you're gonna ask? Being alive IS typically better than being dead.
Speculations on seemingly obvious material about why Epsilon Tex is meaner than the Beta
While Alpha Church telling Wash that he remembers events from his childhood might be false memories (we'll never know at this point), the speculation – not necessarily The Truth but still - here is: Epsilon is the fragment that represents the traumatic memories rather than all the memories, or at least it's more about the traumatic ones than the regular ones, therefore Epsilon Tex is a filtered through trauma version of Beta Tex (whose image is also filtered through trauma to begin with), therefore an exaggerated version. It's also said that everytime we relive a memory we actually inadvertedly change something in it, and reliving it changed the perception of the Director who in order to trigger himself the Alpha reshaped it over and over and over, changing Alpha Church's perception, and all that got incapsulated within Epsilon. No matter how similar the Alpha and Epsilon AIs are, a fragment spawned from Epsilon can only be created within the parameters of traumatic memories due to the designation of the fragment (so probably something within the code, or however it works) regardless of what Caboose says.
This is fun because despite what I said above Epsilon Church remembers Beta Tex's struggle. Being alive is TYPICALLY better than being dead, but not for Tex because they both know that she is doomed to fail every single time, because it's all the Director could remember about Allison et cetera et cetera. The self fulfilling prophecy of Church in his entirety's fears is rooted deeper than it looks like because it's not about the inevitable death, it's about the lack of love. If Beta Tex's rarely addressed kindness is any indication, ALLISON WOULD HAVE WANTED TO COME BACK, if only to raise Carolina even if she didn't love Church – which she did, at least a little bit. I hope. If she didn't it would be really fucked up but I'd love the comedy of how even less worth it it would be, making the aged-like-milk scene of Epsilon Tex hitting Church with his own body (that doesn't seem physically possible!) what good ol' TV Tropes would classify as a 'Funny Aneurysm Moment' and I live for it despite my visceral hatred for abusive women, but luckily that grim hypothesis is never gonna be confirmed or at least anytime soon.
So Allison goes, probably ignoring worried laments and making her husband lowkey think/fear that she doesn't care about coming back, she dies, gets recreated in a version that is doomed to fail every time and it's that which makes her not really want to come back. Because being resurrected is painful and consuming and horrible etc, but she's still willing to save Alpha Church as the Beta because of everything he's been through. Then Epsilon Church spawns an Epsilon Tex filtering through his own trauma, everything gets intensified exponentially and her birth is not on accident like the first time, rather on purpose like THE DIRECTOR is trying to achieve. Which although all three versions of Church have pure intentions when it comes to bringing her back (but let me address this in a minute*, comes with a not indifferent sanity slippage on, the Director's part. We tend to see Alpha as more similar to the Director than Epsilon, but in this instance it's the other way around, and given what the Director has done it makes more sense for Epsilon Tex, even if her 'augmented meanness' was because of Caboose, to be much less merciful to her counterpart because at this point the Director and Epsilon are the same to her and she's just trading one for another in that scene where she injures Church to get to Wash and destroy everything left of the project.
* Now, back to the parenthesis where I mentioned that all three Church iterations have pure intentions when it comes to bringing her back – war crimes and torture are wrong and I'm not trying to say otherwise, don't worry - , here's what I think is a key detail: Carolina.
Now, poor Carolina's side of the story is beautifully explained in the season 10 finale and retrospectively in the entire freelancer arc if you look carefully. And the closure she gets with her father is partially an act of forgiveness under certain aspects, it doesn't even have to be, but as anneapocalypse pointed out the meaning of her saying 'Your past does not define who you are, it's just the starting point for who you're going to be' it means that she doesn't want to become like the Director, that she's stopping herself from becoming like him. And it's important for her to say it as a reminder to both herself and EPSILON.
Right for this I think it's important to bring to your attention the family relationship seen from the Director's side: we have to consider that Carolina was very small when Allison died and that even for a single parent who is not deeply traumatized by loss it would be still be difficult to raise a child alone, and we have to add an unfortunate amount of feeling nothing without your partner that can severely impair your ability to parent your child even if you want to be good at it. So bringing Allison back means that everything will be like it is supposed to be. Because he is not good enough by himself and Carolina is a product of it, a reminder of it, and bringing Allison back is the only way to fix the damage that he's done to Carolina in his eyes.
As much as that is objectively wrong because the actions that he took in project freelancer are the actual parts where he fucked up irreversibly, he thinks that they're worth it because they would have erased the bad things and he would be enough because he wouldn't be on his own, so had he managed immediately he wouldn't have needed to go that far but of course it was worth it to try again and in doing so he forgot to split the common sense from his brain because he doesn't have any to begin with. Just kidding (not really) It makes sense especially if we see how Carolina is not only similar to him, but similar to Tex despite barely seeing her own mother. And if he isn't enough for Allison, surely he can't be enough for a daughter that is very much like her, therefore Tex is desperately needed. Unfortunately he didn't realize that Carolina would have been much happier if he still made mistakes but actually tried. Self fulfilling prophecies bring these consequences as well. Which is also very Shadow of Memories like, but I digress. He wants to save the day to a point where it becomes unhealthy and he is willing to challenge death and obsessively recreate Allison, instead of merely going through the experience like Alpha Church, while Epsilon Church does revert to that instead. Hence why it's important for Carolina's line to be directed at Epsilon as well.
Now, yes, this is obvious, but I just would like to point out a thing because I love laughing at Church's misfortunes – he's just so adorable when he's in unbearable pain, what can I tell ya: when confronted with her anger from being brought back again, he says 'being alive is typically better than being dead' and while the delivery suggest it's just Church being annoyed and annoying and we should dismiss it as something silly, it's actually a good point. Because while Caboose fucked up his memories about what Alpha is, this particular Church is the Epsilon form who has memories about the original Allison that Caboose can only fuck up so much because it's all stuff prior to Blood Gulch and even Project Freelancer, things that cannot be reached, so Caboose's perception of Tex being mean only impacts it in a minor way. Then why is Epsilon Tex meaner, you're gonna ask? Being alive IS typically better than being dead.
Speculations on seemingly obvious material about why Epsilon Tex is meaner than the Beta
While Alpha Church telling Wash that he remembers events from his childhood might be false memories (we'll never know at this point), the speculation – not necessarily The Truth but still - here is: Epsilon is the fragment that represents the traumatic memories rather than all the memories, or at least it's more about the traumatic ones than the regular ones, therefore Epsilon Tex is a filtered through trauma version of Beta Tex (whose image is also filtered through trauma to begin with), therefore an exaggerated version. It's also said that everytime we relive a memory we actually inadvertedly change something in it, and reliving it changed the perception of the Director who in order to trigger himself the Alpha reshaped it over and over and over, changing Alpha Church's perception, and all that got incapsulated within Epsilon. No matter how similar the Alpha and Epsilon AIs are, a fragment spawned from Epsilon can only be created within the parameters of traumatic memories due to the designation of the fragment (so probably something within the code, or however it works) regardless of what Caboose says.
This is fun because despite what I said above Epsilon Church remembers Beta Tex's struggle. Being alive is TYPICALLY better than being dead, but not for Tex because they both know that she is doomed to fail every single time, because it's all the Director could remember about Allison et cetera et cetera. The self fulfilling prophecy of Church in his entirety's fears is rooted deeper than it looks like because it's not about the inevitable death, it's about the lack of love. If Beta Tex's rarely addressed kindness is any indication, ALLISON WOULD HAVE WANTED TO COME BACK, if only to raise Carolina even if she didn't love Church – which she did, at least a little bit. I hope. If she didn't it would be really fucked up but I'd love the comedy of how even less worth it it would be, making the aged-like-milk scene of Epsilon Tex hitting Church with his own body (that doesn't seem physically possible!) what good ol' TV Tropes would classify as a 'Funny Aneurysm Moment' and I live for it despite my visceral hatred for abusive women, but luckily that grim hypothesis is never gonna be confirmed or at least anytime soon.
So Allison goes, probably ignoring worried laments and making her husband lowkey think/fear that she doesn't care about coming back, she dies, gets recreated in a version that is doomed to fail every time and it's that which makes her not really want to come back. Because being resurrected is painful and consuming and horrible etc, but she's still willing to save Alpha Church as the Beta because of everything he's been through. Then Epsilon Church spawns an Epsilon Tex filtering through his own trauma, everything gets intensified exponentially and her birth is not on accident like the first time, rather on purpose like THE DIRECTOR is trying to achieve. Which although all three versions of Church have pure intentions when it comes to bringing her back (but let me address this in a minute*, comes with a not indifferent sanity slippage on, the Director's part. We tend to see Alpha as more similar to the Director than Epsilon, but in this instance it's the other way around, and given what the Director has done it makes more sense for Epsilon Tex, even if her 'augmented meanness' was because of Caboose, to be much less merciful to her counterpart because at this point the Director and Epsilon are the same to her and she's just trading one for another in that scene where she injures Church to get to Wash and destroy everything left of the project.
* Now, back to the parenthesis where I mentioned that all three Church iterations have pure intentions when it comes to bringing her back – war crimes and torture are wrong and I'm not trying to say otherwise, don't worry - , here's what I think is a key detail: Carolina.
Now, poor Carolina's side of the story is beautifully explained in the season 10 finale and retrospectively in the entire freelancer arc if you look carefully. And the closure she gets with her father is partially an act of forgiveness under certain aspects, it doesn't even have to be, but as anneapocalypse pointed out the meaning of her saying 'Your past does not define who you are, it's just the starting point for who you're going to be' it means that she doesn't want to become like the Director, that she's stopping herself from becoming like him. And it's important for her to say it as a reminder to both herself and EPSILON.
Right for this I think it's important to bring to your attention the family relationship seen from the Director's side: we have to consider that Carolina was very small when Allison died and that even for a single parent who is not deeply traumatized by loss it would be still be difficult to raise a child alone, and we have to add an unfortunate amount of feeling nothing without your partner that can severely impair your ability to parent your child even if you want to be good at it. So bringing Allison back means that everything will be like it is supposed to be. Because he is not good enough by himself and Carolina is a product of it, a reminder of it, and bringing Allison back is the only way to fix the damage that he's done to Carolina in his eyes.
As much as that is objectively wrong because the actions that he took in project freelancer are the actual parts where he fucked up irreversibly, he thinks that they're worth it because they would have erased the bad things and he would be enough because he wouldn't be on his own, so had he managed immediately he wouldn't have needed to go that far but of course it was worth it to try again and in doing so he forgot to split the common sense from his brain because he doesn't have any to begin with. Just kidding (not really) It makes sense especially if we see how Carolina is not only similar to him, but similar to Tex despite barely seeing her own mother. And if he isn't enough for Allison, surely he can't be enough for a daughter that is very much like her, therefore Tex is desperately needed. Unfortunately he didn't realize that Carolina would have been much happier if he still made mistakes but actually tried. Self fulfilling prophecies bring these consequences as well. Which is also very Shadow of Memories like, but I digress. He wants to save the day to a point where it becomes unhealthy and he is willing to challenge death and obsessively recreate Allison, instead of merely going through the experience like Alpha Church, while Epsilon Church does revert to that instead. Hence why it's important for Carolina's line to be directed at Epsilon as well.
