FanFic - Introduction

I've been a fan of the show, forever second-guessing what Sam Esmail had in store for us.

Here are thoughts about my own fanfic season 4 and season 5, as posted to facebook

I plan to systematically comb through all the episodes, milking them for less known facts. I'll post them to my website. I'll likely take a full month or so, even if I average one per day. http://twisty.org/post/mrrobot-s01e01

I hope to see more hacks, more modern situations, and more subverted expectations this coming season 4.0:

• Social media,
• audiobooks, mp3 albums,
• smartphone apps,
• augmented reality,
• puzzle apps,
• model reconstructions,
• special interest organizations,
• hi-tech communities,
• venture biz models.

• Vanishing,
• "going gray,"
• traps of Surveillance Detection Routes getting snapped,
• ubiquitous surveillance,
• spyware on phones,
• phones as tech & agency,
• credential/identity theft, living/dead,
• bug-out planning,
• hole-down prepping,
• urban caching.

• Bitcoin keylogging,
• secure chat spoofing,
• hot wallet robbery,
• non-capitalized gifting: Toffler's "Revolutionary Wealth"
• shadow economies/ecologies,
• shifts of occupancy,
• posthuman enterprise,
• civil disobedience,
• Elliot's pessimism, eg "she's getting rid of me."
• Identity Psychology.
• (Elliot has created a Robot ID of his subconscious Id: unfiltered, amoral, & self-centered; and an imaginary friend ID out of his super-ego: giving morality checks, objectivity, & rationality. It's great to uncover how we're wired.)

What if Elliot's unhack works, but isn't used? It might be in E Corps interest to keep things the same as they're going: a planet forced into a new ECoin currency that they control. It'd be the equivalent of rebooting a PC with ransomware, and seeing your files are still encrypted. Is this likely the way the writers may go? I doubt it: There is far more playability with a successful unhack that plays into the time travel conspiracies and examined consequences.

(Historically, a similar event happened in Ireland when the central banks went on strike. The communities effectively turned their local pubs into branches of a community bank, where you simply exchange checks, written out to even denominations. This kept currency flowing until the banks reopened much later, making some wonder if they were better off during the years the banks were closed.)

What if the unhack didn't work? Unlikely, it would be a death sentence for Elliot, who "doesn't make mistakes." It might get interesting as he goes underground on the lam, but not as interesting as a working unhack.

What could we expect from a working unhack? Dark Army sounded disinterested, but it's hard to tell what they're up to. Their end game sounds like a non-working delusion, but it continues to cost countless human lives. They are not motivated by finances as much as they are political pull... so the benefit to E Corp might genuinely mean nothing to them... Although we shouldn't forget that Two Trillion Dollars were provided from China for the bailout, and even interest-free, that's a lot of debt they now have cause to ask paid back.

For E Corp, this would be a tremendous windfall. They've gotten Trillions of relief dollars added to their assets, and continue to do business as usual. They would likely seize a lot of property whose mortgages haven't been paid in the cash-strapped months past. ECoin is now five times more cost-effective or so, because the American Dollar has been hugely inflated. (Examples are seen in the Red Wheelbarrow ordering menu. $12+ for a milkshake?) Instead of serving a buyer's market of consumers, they'd more likely revolt against the poor (like China has, opposite our Robin Hood notions), and start the smaller businesses competing more fiercely against one another in a bid for Darwinian survival. It'd be a massacre.

What about FSociety? They might be heavily hunted... unless the narrative of their end is to be believed. Even if the public thinks they're all dead, the FBI and E Corp would be more interested in getting them under control or outright terminated. But internally, FSociety would want to shore up it forces, now more than ever. They have renewed purpose in taking down the top 1% of the top 1%... the Bourgeoisie Elite, if you will. We know we've got another season renewed... hopefully more coming. That's enough time to flesh out how extensive the god-playing puppeteers network extends.

I'd love to see more backfill flashbacks for our favorite characters: Irving, Leon, Price, "Mr. Sullivan," Edward (the father), young Tyrell, young Whiterose, Hamburger Man, Agent Dom, and Darlene.

There's obviously more to Darlene's back story than has been revealed. What could have caused young Darlene to say "but we aren't friends" in Elliot's S01E04 vision? Why did Elliot not remember her? Why did she leave NYC until Halloween 2014?

The season 4.0 opening will have to address Darlene's fate. Good or bad, our storyline is quickly approaching Halloween 2015. This is not only the anniversary of FSociety's foundation, but it's also Elliot's anticipated date to get high and watch "Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie" together. This will either be a reassuring routine of comfort, or a terrible sense of loss, depending on how well Darlene fairs.

Even a dead character like Cisco must have an intriguing back story. How does a hacker like him get into the Dark Army? Meet Darlene? (Presumably, he was "assigned" to become intimate, but that seems to raise a causality paradox of Darlene soliciting Dark Army, Dark Army learning of FSociety, and around again.) How did the two parties become aware of one another?

More Elliot narratives about computer experiences, and how they relate so closely to real life. Whack-a-mole pop-ups, refactoring code, software agency, botnets, mining, etc., are just some examples that spring to the top of my head.

More Robot narratives out of the anger from Elliot's life experiences. Robot is his personality that speaks unfiltered, and unfettered by society's mores. Christian Slater does these so well.

More 'bated breathy whispers' by Rami Malek. :-) In S01E02, he expressed with great hesitancy that he's happy staying at Allsafe. In S03E07, he acted a very intense accounting to Darlene when he said "I liked it." These are rare moments when the moral wrestling of his character meet the honesty with confided discretion.

More "interactions" with his imaginary friend audience. Elliot never hears his imaginary friend talk back. But no doubt they do, shouting back at the television about things the characters should have worked out. :-D One of the best examples of this 'plea for our intervention' is seen in S02E10 when Elliot finally makes it back to his apartment, asking "There must be something here that he needs. Can you help? Can you look? Do you see anything?" The camera pans a bird's eye view of his place. The moment really drew in our attention.

Darlene has a strange 'like father like daughter' similarity to Mr Robot, even though Robot has only the loosest basis upon her actual dad. We see that Elliot's ego is very self-conscious and morally restrained, but his subconscious id, manifest as Mr Robot, is unfiltered, amoral, impulsive and self-interested. Sound like anyone else we know? Darlene is far more id than ego or superego.

Darlene seems to be what happens when you play that chess match against yourself and lose. The considerate, self-doubting ego takes a back seat to the control of the inner monster. It's also more tied to the Amygdala's fear and anger than it is to the Neocortex's rational thought. "I'd say be careful, but I know you'll be anything but." Her anger represents her "bust your chops" interpersonal front, and her fear unfolds as panic attacks.

How did it unfold that her dad's demise and her mom's bitter meanness drove her to her own psychological issues? At what point did her close bond to Elliot become strained?

Tyrell might have one of the more complex back stories going back to his immigrant father. He hates his father. Like most of us, the "Rich Dad Poor Dad" model likely dealt him the poor dad, handed an ineffective employment model and absence of self-worth. (As opposed to being his own boss.) It also stands to reason that Tyrell's strange religious fervor and subordinating misogyny come from this bad role model.

Angela continues to unfold as a strange 'mirror image' to Elliot. Her default mindset seems to be innocent, idealistic, and childlike. But her "soldiering up" alternate persona seems brazen and id-like in much the way Elliot's is in Mr. Robot: no sentiment in counting acceptable losses. (Her quest for vengeance has destroyed Allsafe, The Washington Township inspections, and played part in the Stage 2 Cyberattacks.)

(Angela owes Phillip Price a favor, in exchange for firing Elliot, which served only to further the Dark Army's cyberattack against ECorp. It is likely that ECorp HQ still has full record of Elliot's access to the shipping issues and firmware signing security leading up to the attacks. So what would an investigation say? Would they know Angela gave all the keys to the Dark Army? Would they see Elliot's managerial presentations as foresight of the attacks? Would they praise him, or place blame upon him? So far, their attitude seems to be "he was simply fired.")

Hamburger Man. Is there any character more mysterious? Whiterose comes close, as she has proven herself a master of control and continues to hide what she knows/thinks about conjoining minds in the multiverse. But Hamburger Man continues to pop up in pivotal Dark Army places (so far Blank's Disk, Stage 2's Confectura warehouse, & The ECorp HQ riot) and never says a word. (Good formula for mystery.) The very moniker "Hamburger Man" underscores how misunderstood this guy is: He eats BBQ or chicken sandwiches from Red Wheelbarrow, not burgers.

So it always raises the question: "Why does this guy always show up, in places near their destruction, wearing cleanroom attire, when it will never serve that purpose?" Is he just a hypochondriac? Is he just keeping the BBQ off himself? Is he anticipating something much messier? Is it an issue of containing the evidence of his presence where he goes? Or is it akin to the "separation from dirty reality" akin to the Bourgeoisie Elite's separation from the cares of the masses? More questions than answers/statements. Mystery.

Tyrell and Darlene are two characters that beg our attention after this most alarming season finale.

We last saw Tyrell the week before the season ender. He was given the CTO title at ECorp, but only in title, lest he get any 'aspirational designs.' He's going from being a god (in his mind) to being a futile/ineffective lone wolf, and this on the heels of losing his family. Worse yet, he pulled off stage 2 in opposition to our fsociety heroes, as the 71 CyberAttacks and several thousands killed had to be "his solution" to rescuing the mission. This leaves a striking dilemma: Just as Tyrell is agreeing to be the revolutions mole against the new target of the puppeteering elite, Eliot is going to learn about how Tyrell chose terrorism, and Tyrell is going to learn that everything done from stage 1 & stage 2 just got "unhacked."

So, new conflicts are going to arise between Elliot & Tyrell. Tyrell has always been pivotal to the series, ever since the first visual from the pilot episode, centering on his face in the ECorp board room. Now, we've got new directions abounding around him: no more family to impress; a new vendetta against the Dark Army for that. A new role at ECorp as the titular CTO. The strange irony that in the view of the world, he is the hero who almost stopped the Stage 2 CyberAttacks that blew up 71 buildings. The truth that despite being framed in a positive light by Whiterose & the Dark Army, Tyrell was actually the mad opportunist who envisioned and deployed that mass destruction to begin with.

There have been reports about a "deleted scene" that will either appear in early season 4.0, or only in the deleted scene collection of the Season 3.0 BluRays & DVDs. In it, Tyrell is driven in his Cadillac SUV to a road side security stop. (this much is filmed in the preview trailers, but never aired yet!) He tells the guard something to the effect of "Do you have any idea who I am?!?" It is safe to assume he's likely heading in to work at ECorp HQ.

As mentioned before, we're coming up fast of Halloween 2015 in this story. I see three possibilities coming of this:

• Option 1) Things go bad for Darlene at the hands of Fernando Vera (drug dealer at the post-credit finale scene). She dies, and Elliot makes good on his "vengeance pact" to end Vera once and for all. Very abrupt and very sad: Elliot will be alone for the worst Halloween ever.
• Option 2) Things go rotten for Darlene, but she and Vera live another day. Elliot has a rotten Halloween as Darlene is hospitalized or goes into hiding, but all the characters have more story to tell.
• Option 3) Things get hairy between Vera and Elliot, but Darlene is rather unscathed, and swoops in to save Halloween for Elliot.

I do hope the writers keep her character going strong... In a lot of ways, she's as entertaining and important as Christian Slater's Robot character himself. The two are like peas in a pod: One almost has to wonder if Elliot gets the brazen aspects of Robot from his sister rather than his well-mannered father.

There are still many raised questions that remain unanswered about Darlene's childhood. When did Elliot first (or last) forget that he had a sister (again)? Is this what drove her from NYC? How abusive was their mother that they'd share a bed when their mom got mean? How would they sneak into movie theatres to hide together? How do Elliot & Darlene stay afloat financially? (They are never seen wanting: do they live off their dad's life insurance, or just hack away all of life's needs?)

How did young Elliot get such a black eye in S02E06? It's not in his character to be violent, until he has serious psychotic breaks, but this is evidence of a more violent world in which he lives, before even hearing news of his dad's illness. He wouldn't tell Principal Howard, nor even his BFF confidante father, so it must be embarrassing and serious. Was it over his early mad math skills (stat analysis of train cars?) or interpersonal relationships? Over a girl? Darlene? Over a boy? Some other injustice?

(It may seem a trivial detail to worry about, but I suspect it's anything but... Sam Esmail rarely includes such a carefully prepared detail without purpose. Sure, it was 'an in' to Edward's confidence in his son, but it raises a question over what taxes his strongest bond on earth.)

There is no question that Tyrell is gay. (S03E03 "Subtext, you know?") He eagerly deemed the seduction of Anwar necessary to his CTO aspirations, and nearly completed the sentence "I love you" to Elliot. Does he have a working "gaydar" to see the same in Elliot, Robot, or some yet-unseen alter?

If Tyrell wrestled early in life with this homosexuality, it might explain his hatred of his father, who likely condemned him with the same Deuteronomy scriptures that he still recites today. The resentment he has for his father is more deeply rooted, and may also explain his subordinate views of women and unsuccessful laborers... but the details could be far more telling. How did he go from a tortured childhood to an ascent up ECorp's ladder?

Here's a mad theory: Could it be that Darlene is a 'Miss Robot' manifestation within Angela? It doesn't always hold true that "Batman and I have never been seen in the same room, just sayin'," but that's sometimes a matter of perspective since the same could be said of Elliot and Mr. Robot. It would explain why Darlene & Robot share so many id-like unfiltered qualities. The toughest explanations would be over scenes like FSociety training her for the femtocell hack, or Cisco's surprise to see Angela, or how Elliot perceives the two so differently... but those aren't insurmountable in the Mr. Robot world. Doesn't he only see one or the other, never both?

What is up with the family polaroid? Early in the series, Elliot's brain is filtering out all but him and his mom, but later we see that his dad and Darlene were being 'edited out.' It's now clear why his dad was being blanked from his mind... but Darlene? Not so much... She doesn't even appear with the rest of the family in Times Square.

Did she ever really exist? Is she a shared delusion of Elliot & Angela? Could it be that Angela has manifested Darlene right out of the starting gate, leaving Elliot to think of her as a sister? Or like Edward Alderson, did she go from a living person into an early departure?

I think the world of Darlene's character. Her "bust your chops" confrontational attitude often surpasses the entertainment and mystery of Mr. Robot himself. I hope the show preserves her role into later seasons, because she offers a very blunt narrative that adds even more perspective to the show.

Enough with "Empire Strikes Back," We want our Jedi Returned. Season 3.0 brought all sorts of highs and lows, but the lows would shame Breaking Bad in grizzly tragedy. By the end of phase 2 (eps3.6_frederick+tanya.chk), everyone is broken. Time for the fsociety reunion tour.

Cypher tools like GCC - GeoCache Calculator.

Counter-surveillance traps snapped. We've heard Angela talk the talk about SDR checks, but we want to see her do the actual "dry cleaning," and bust some uncool joe.

Elliot's manic moments: * Cheering in Times Square, blending in to "Steal My Sunshine," Adderall high, ReDo to NXS' "New sensation."

Elliot's crazy moments: * Battle of the Internet cafe, Maniacal laughter at Mr Robot in their cell, Fight Club battle of the body, the bated whisper "I liked it" to Darlene.

Revolution moments: * Mr Robot discussing the invisible hand of money on the ferris wheel, Mr Robot in Times Square lambasting 'What is real,' Darlene's foot-breaking rally, Elliot's church revolt, Philip Price "where are your followers?"

Character highlights: * Shayla liberating Angela, Trenton's personal motives, Leslie Romero's arcade history, Cisco getting his chops busted by Darlene

Season 2.0 had some of the best hacks: the pwnphone, the FBI femtocell, and the Smart House Hack, which was essentially a suite of control gone wild. That one started with Darlene hacking Susan Jacob's fitness band during a jog, which infected her phone, which infected the entire house. Lighting, media, HVAC, doorways, everything went mad... which made great television.

Season 3.0 tried to meet a high bar, yet somehow there was less hacking to be done despite Elliot being freed from jail. It had a most excellent kickoff: the CTF qualifier at the hackerspace called "1984." Even the music fit the DEFCON activity. Thereafter, the hacking was mostly confined to turning Stage 2 and hooking into the Dark Army. (and I forgot to mention the 5/9 "UnHack" of ECorp.)

Opportunities for Season 4.0 abound. Special Agent Dom is under new Dark Army management. Tyrell is now a mole inside ECorps. Leon survives, but the only two left who are hackers are Elliot and Darlene (and to a smaller degree, Angela).

Wouldn't it be cool for Dom to get her Alexa voice data hacked? Wouldn't it be just as cool if Dom were savvy enough to plant misinfo?

What about crowds being hacked? Flash Mobs summoned by MMS hacks? Juicejacked phones distributing FSociety vids? Botnets engaging whole armies or corporations. Scale works.

Infrastructure hacks? eg Traffic grid redirects? Automated/Amazon warehouse redirection? Ship movers turned "I,Robot" destructobots?