I have this categorized as a New Theory cause, I'm not sure if anyone else has thought of this. Frankly, the idea of this theory came to me in a dream, but after thinking about it, it does make some sense, and holds answers about the TADC cast. This theory is MOSTLY about what I believe the process of abstraction is.
What we know about abstraction is that when a human's mind starts to break and deteriorate, their avatar shifts into a glitched mess and become a monster, only calming down in the darkness, before Caine sends them into the basement. We don't actually know what the experience of abstracting is for the abstracter, only the possibility of what Jax experienced in Episode 7 being him abstracting. My theory is that abstraction is an inbetween process between a player's file being corrupted, until it is reborn.
The process would go something like this:
- The human's mind breaks, through insanity or other methods, it doesn't matter.
- The human's memory files and player files becomes corrupt (We know that each human has some files tied to them from Episode 8)
- The avatar, with so much corrupt data, becomes corrupted, adopting a "missing texture" to fill the empty space
- This process is disorienting, causing the human to become animalistic and aggressive to others, especially in a bright and saturated confusing location like the circus.
- Some automated program would be used to scrap the salvagable data from the corrupted files
- The useable files would be used to create a new avatar for the human. However, some memories would be missing, mainly the ones from the digital circus, as being in the digital circus is most likely the first files to become corrupt. Personalities would change because the PERSON themselves would be different, due to differences in memory.
- CONGRATS! You fixed the human and can now throw away the broken corrupted avatar. The new human is registered under a different file, to sepreate it from the corruption
Thats right, I think that every human in the digital circus are reskins of each other from the first batch of humans that Caine brought. No new humans have EVER entered the circus, it was only those 7. Caine, like the creative AI it is, creates a program that reuses human files (and other sources it has) to put them back together. generating something new out of scrapped data.
The main source of evidence I have to this theory is from Episode 1, with Kaufmo and Pomni. The timeline of events is that Kaufmo was in his room alone on the brink of insanity, Pomni spawned in, and they later find out Kaufmo abstracted in his room. The timing could be coincidental, but it would be interesting if it was foreshadowing the truth of the circus instead.
Theres a lot of questions and contradictions that arise when thinking of this theory.
For starters, the given max so far is 7, so why is there only 6 humans currently? I'm assuming that its because there wasn't enough files to accurately recreate a human, therefore the program failed and the unused files were stored for future uses.
How come no one has realized that everyone has the same memories? Well for starters, the only two who we know for sure could realize that is Kinger and Ragatha, cause they've been around the longest (Kinger is a moot point cause he would not remember ANYTHING about others memories he learns while in the light, let alone his own). Realistically, the humans are not going to share everything that they've ever done to other strangers, it would be just small fun facts that are shared in the moment. Besides, it not like being a tattoo artist, or an accountant turned youtuber are unique experiences. Anything shared could be chalked up as being a common life occurance, and anything unique has a high likelyhood of being corrupted if they abstract.
How come Caine says that they're "New Humans" if he created the program, and why did it take so long for Ragatha to show up after everyone else (except Kinger) had abstracted? The program was probably made after Queenie's abstraction, because if there were no humans than what purpose would Caine have in the circus? Kinger would be the last human, and who knows when HE would abstract. Caine needed more humans, but there wasn't anyone he could access in the real world. So he created more. Theres also a chance that its the Bubble AI who created the program (for whatever reason) and Caine didn't realize it, hence his surprise for Ragatha.
This theory is, fresh in my brain, and there definietly could be lore that I am forgetting. But right now, this theory sounds interesting, an incredible plot twist, and could answer some things about what "escaping the circus" would look like.