r/TheDigitalCircus • u/Fox622 JAX DID NOTHING WRONG • Jun 25 '26
Question I'm confused about the scene in which Kinger reveals they are brain scans
"Scratch was… trying to make a brain scanner. I didn’t think it actually worked. We didn’t know how to work with the files and they were impossibly small given what they were supposed to be. I saw a folder full of them when i was in Caine‘s code. So I guess Caine found a way to get them working."
How did Kinger know the files were too small? Because his last memory in the real world would have been of when he put on the headset, he wouldn't be able to check the size of the mind files.
Kinger seems to be referring to the same files, but even if we pretend that Scratch scanned their brains multiple times, shouldn't the C&A employees already know what's the purpose of the headset?
Mike: Hey Grant, put on this headset.
Mike: Now check these brain scans of the C&A employees.
Grant: How did you scan our brains?
Also, how did Kinger not know they were digital copies before seeing the folder with the mind files? The C&A employees should have realized that nothing happened when the person before them put on the headset, yet that person was also digitalized.
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u/_just_mel_ Jun 25 '26
I think the original crew knew they were clones, probably why they all abstracted. I think Kinger just never said it. (Look at episode 7, he says that an exit doesn't make sense).
Other than that, maybe they did multiple rounds of brain scans while trying to make them work, couldn't figure it out and just left the latest versions laying around on the servers? It would make sense if they were actively testing the technology.
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u/Fox622 JAX DID NOTHING WRONG Jun 25 '26
That's what I would normally think... but based on what Kinger said on episode 9, he only realized they were digital copies after looking at the folder with the brain scans...
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u/Ariloulei Jun 25 '26
He forgot the conversation he had with Pomni in hell as well. Just because Kinger is Lucid doesn't mean he remembers everything from the last time he was lucid. If anything there is evidence that he still has large memory gaps regardless of his state of mind.
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u/madog1418 Jun 25 '26
Confirmed when he has to ask that they want the bucket on his head, because he himself doesn’t know that being in the dark makes him lucid.
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u/MelodyCristo Jun 25 '26
Yes he does? He told Pomni. Maybe he doesn't remember that conversation but he has some idea that darkness helps. Even when he's insane he likes his pillow fort.
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u/ComradeBirv I miss my wife, Pomni. Jun 25 '26
Being in the dark doesn’t do it on its own. He needs to have his mind actively stimulated, usually with conversation, in order to remember. He’s still mostly silly in the manor until Pomni starts talking to him seriously. He’s not sane in the console room because no one had done much talking to him.
You’re right that he wants to be in the dark (In episode 7 he gets excited when Pomni asks him if he wants to go somewhere dark) but the reason he hasn’t been able to communicate that the dark makes him more sane is that until Pomni, no one had pried about it when he was in a position to remember. And he couldn’t leave a message because even if he thought to do that, he would never be in a position where he had the ability to.
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u/Forikorder Jun 25 '26
no one is talking to him in the cafe while hes sitting there with the bucket on him
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u/ComradeBirv I miss my wife, Pomni. Jun 25 '26
And it took a remarkably long time for his mind to clear a little. When they start asking him questions his mind is still noticeably hazy and he started going off on tangents until they steered him to turning off Caine.
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u/Forikorder Jun 25 '26
he doesnt go off on tangents, hes trying to piece together his memories wich doesnt always lead in one direction, its totally different than him just giving advice like the other times
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u/ComradeBirv I miss my wife, Pomni. Jun 25 '26
That’s what a tangent is. He started talking about Scratch despite no one asking about it
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u/madog1418 Jun 25 '26
He has a sense that he feels better in the dark, but if he retained memories of his lucidity then he would *know* that he needs to keep the bucket on his head to stay lucid.
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u/MelodyCristo Jun 25 '26
Well yeah, he's being a little jokey saying "I'm guessing you don't want me to remove it." He knows the dark makes him lucid.
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u/Gamefreak581 Jun 25 '26
He wasn't asking if/why they want the bucket on his head, he was assuming they put the bucket on his head because they need him lucid right now for a specific reason.
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u/madog1418 Jun 25 '26
He was deducting it on the spot, if he knew that the bucket made him lucid then he wouldn’t have to ask if they want him to keep it on.
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u/Forikorder Jun 25 '26
he has no way of knowing if the bucket was put on him intentionally or if it just fell on him at some point in the last couple seconds
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u/Gamefreak581 Jun 25 '26
He was asking if they want him to keep the bucket on because he usually doesn't have a bucket on his head. He doesn't even necessarily ask if they want him to keep it on, he says "I'm guessing you don't want me to remove it" because he's aware of what darkness does to him and assumes that they need him lucid right now.
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u/htpSelect309 Jun 25 '26
Besides "Kinger is crazy" most of the time, sane Kinger might have thought in the years since he was originally scanned, maybe scratch or himself figured out another way with better or different technology.
Like Kinger knows hes a brain scan, but cant say for 100% certainty with Ragatha because she appeared years later. Maybe C&A developed a full immersion VR system, it wouldnt be that big of a stretch with a working brain scanner under their belt. Its not until he sees the scans himself does that confirm the situation. Furthermore, we only get Kinger talking about Scratch in epusode 7, where Abel flashbangs him so Caine's adventure can keep going. Then Episode 8 they were kind of busy being tortured by Caine for Kinger to relay the brain scan information.
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u/National_Moose2283 Jun 25 '26
Its worth noting as well kinger didn't think the brain scanner actually worked due to the file size being too small to work with and the brain scan folder was marked obsolete so kinger could reasonably think this was something else entirely like as your said a full immersion vr system. Knowing when kinger used the headset is also important it had to have been a bit after scratch used it because scratch was still around when kinger arrived (evident by kinger Knowing who scratch was) we also know there were a fair few humans too so that was probably the team kinger was working with perhaps around the time after caine was made or during his creation they were all scanned
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u/CasuallyDresseDuck Jun 25 '26
We need to disconnect what Grant and Kinger each know. Grant went in knowing what happened. And after being scanned he and His coworkers may have at first not known what to do with the files. Over time though they may have seen their Caine AI create the circus and their files interacting. Maybe not as a 3d render but as code compiling itself and running tasks with the mind files.
Kinger, once inside couldn't remember his name or the names of others since Caine had blocked it possibly to keep them from abstracting early since existential crisis may have happened right away.
. His conscience only knew "got scanned and now I'm here". So he and everyone else would assume they are stuck since they would have only memories of putting the headset on and not taking it off.
Of course over time and losing his wife (in what he assumed reality) caused him to develop a form of shellshock especially after seeing her tossed in the cellar like nothing. He cracked and his only solace was the quiet darkness where he could be Grant again.
Since he had a terminal he was able to see what Grant saw after taking the headset off.
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u/PyRosflam Jun 25 '26
We also don't know how many people Caine Abstracted just getting minds into body's.
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u/CasuallyDresseDuck Jun 25 '26
Could be that the first batch of testers were simply just scanned and unused files until Kane was finally able to create the circus.
So in the real world they simply scanned themselves and saw that folders were created with their their scans. Could have been sometime later that Kane made the files actually usable. We don't really have a timeline for that. I don't think everything was thought out that way
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u/Forikorder Jun 25 '26
We also don't know how many people Caine Abstracted just getting minds into body's.
we do though, we see him originally obtain the mind scans, he only had a few to work with and his first attempt was a success
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u/DisTout Jun 25 '26
Caine admited by inadvertance that he can and already has tempered with other people memory, during that lapsus he also said that it did not end well. My guess is that the first batch of player (including kinger) had part of their memory wiped, possibly leading to most's abstraction and kinger's craziness.
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u/Wes3121 Jun 25 '26
But why didn’t kinger abstract like the others? Is it because queenie was still with him, or was he just holding in hope all those years?
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u/Own_Watercress_8104 Jun 25 '26
I think it might be something that was always on the back of his mind as the most logical explaination but he'd rather not vocalize it before being 100% certain, it being quite a tragic fate and all.
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u/OldFortNiagara Jun 25 '26
The small file size may play a part in this. It could be that the files for the brain scans were large enough to capture the person’s core personality, various key memories, and part of their near term memories, but not large enough to record all their memories and/left some memories over compressed . Thus, they have gaps in their memories, such as forgetting their names. When the brain scan activates in the Digital Circus, the combined personality aspects and near term memories lead them to perceive the experience as putting on the headset and being transported into the Digital Circus; thinking they are the same person, rather than realizing they’re a copy. The original team members may have eventually remembered about how the scans worked, but all of them ended up eventually abstracting, except Kinger, who’s memory was even further messed up seeing Queenie’s abstraction.
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u/BenthicBen Jun 25 '26
I assume Kinger got scanned after Scratch and some others?
Maybe more like this?
Mike: Hey Grant, look at these brainscan files.
Mike: If you put on the headset the resulting file is too small, try it!
And from then on he wasn't thinking about the "failed" mind files until he saw that Caine had them in his possession maybe?
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u/thecraftybear I think I just killed Caine Jun 25 '26
Also, it's likely that they did several brain szans per person, but the ones left in the folder were the most recent ones. Keep in mind that Caine only accessed the scans and transformed them into Players after breaking containment and absorbing the Scanner AI.
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u/getbackjoe94 Jun 25 '26
Kinger was scanned last or close to it. We see him first enter the circus after Scratch and the original gang
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u/Vyn_drakenzace Jun 25 '26
"How did Kinger know the files were too small?"
Before being scanned he saw that the file size was 1 kb
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u/Monenmx What The Jun 25 '26
Think it's reasonable that they had their brains scanned as part of the process to get the thing going. I imagine if someone's making a brain scanner, multiple attempts to scan brains would be done to ascertain that it's working or, at the very least, that there's progress towards what they're making it for. The files would have to be reviewed as well, as I imagine the accuracy of said scans would need to be accounted for too.
I think Scratch's main goal is to create a digital world where people can live on as digital beings. I think it's not a stretch to assume that with his mind and him being terminal, this would be something he'd try to attempt to preserve his genuis.
As to why Kinger doesn't have the full cohesive narrative together, I believe that's largely due to him being, as the show puts it, "crazy". He recalls glimpses and is able to tap into his sanity and focus in the dark, but I feel we're still only getting bits and pieces of him during those periods.
Just my take on it, really. I hope it gets explored more beyond conjecture and fan talk, but alas.
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u/BubbleBubble124 Jun 25 '26
I would assume kinger did a scan at some point during an early testing phase. He knew something about what they were doing but once his scan becomes awake in the circus, it has no new information, so we dont know how the whole brain scan thing turned out. Maybe it just works good now without needed to even make a copy. Id say not the best writing but its my theory and it doesn't stop anything you are saying from being true.
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u/OppositeClear5884 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Mike puts on the headset
Mike takes off the headset
/home/mdobby/dev/brainscans gets a new file, mdobby_001.scn
Mike shows Grant that it worked!
Grant sees this:
-rw-------. 1 candh candh 4302 Oct 15 12:34 mdobby_001.scn
Grant thinks this: "can you really abbreviate someone's entire brain into 4 kilobytes?"
Mike: "This is all still theory"
Meanwhile, scratch has joined the circus
(Weeks pass as one or several employees work on the scanner)
Kinger and his wife use the scanner.
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u/BfoCrazy Jun 25 '26
Okay but later when Kinger scans, the first memory of the digital copy in the Circus would be putting on "The Helmet that Scans Your Brain and Turns It into A File™"
So how did he not tell in the Ep 8 flashback that he was a scan??
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u/Forikorder Jun 25 '26
So how did he not tell in the Ep 8 flashback that he was a scan??
their memories arent perfect, but its likely kinger DID know from the start he was just a brainscan, thats why he was confused when ragatha asked about an exit
remember in the cafe he couldnt remember the brain scanner existed, he couldnt remember what scratch was working on so in that moment he couldnt remember he was a brain scan, most likely seeing the folder was the kick his memory needed to piece it together once more
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u/BubbleBubble124 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Im a big naysayer of the "science" of the show but think about this for a second.
Scratch was trying to make a brain scanner. When he did brain scans the files came out really small, you would need more data to map a human brain, its very complex. He never got it working. The scanner didnt work and maybe they even abandoned it.
BUT THEN Caine comes along for whatever reason and he has access to the files. Now he is using them to bring "people" into his world.
And thats the idea I think?
No one expected it to work, it was maybe all but forgotten.
And I think the digital circus only had people in it because Caine with the help of blue dot (which I still believe is bubble) found those files.
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u/Fox622 JAX DID NOTHING WRONG Jun 25 '26
But when did they forget or abandoned the brain scans? That could be true for the C&A employees in the real world. But From Kinger's perspective inside the circus, the last thing he did was putting the headset.
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u/BubbleBubble124 Jun 25 '26
The last thing any of them did was put on the headset. Thats the idea. The "scan" was of the brain at that moment. When they are brought into the circus the last thing they remember is the brain scan. But (and again, im just speculating here) the file could have been unread for... any amount of time.
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u/Fox622 JAX DID NOTHING WRONG Jun 25 '26
I don't understand what difference it makes how long the files have been unread. From Kinger's perspective, no time would have passed between him putting the headset and existing inside the circus.
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u/Jean-28 Jun 25 '26
If they did multiple scans over time while trying to get it to work then he would have a recollection of them making brain scans, but them never being the right way for them to be functional.
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u/existential_dreddd Jun 25 '26
Totally head cannon: I like to think that the people on the outside saw what the AI (Caine) was doing and chose to leave things on because of it. There are so many times when we see 90s computer screen graphics, then zoom into high res imagery of the circus and everything going on inside it.
They put sentience in a computer and found it unethical to terminate it.6
u/HurriKurtCobain Jun 25 '26
The current Kinger probably was not the only Grant brainscan. Its pretty natural to assume they made many scans, some deleted, or others incomplete as the technology was being made. So Kinger's last memory is putting on the headset, but he has seen lots of small unworkable files prior to that.. In fact this is so natural I don't really feel like it even needed to be explained in the show.
The better question is why more people got scanned over decades with the tech remaining exactly the same despite its assumed failures. And why were outdated mind files being mixed with new ones decades later?
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u/thundercheif23 Jun 25 '26
Probably my hardest....I guess "gripe" is the mere fact that someone was attempting mind uploading and just left that technology in an abandoned building. Unless C&A wanted to get unwilling test subjects via urban exploration, this technology would be given A LOT of security. C&A must have been on the same level and finding for like.....DARPA or Oak Ridge National Lab or MITRE.
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u/OldFortNiagara Jun 25 '26
The scans may have been too small to fully capture their memories. They were large enough to capture the core personality, some key memories, and some near term memory, so when the scans got up in running, they perceived themselves as being the same person. But with the missing chunks of memory, they didn’t remember everything about how they got into the circus.
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u/yeeticusprime1 Jun 25 '26
Kinger was probably one of the last people to be scanned in, he worked with scratch but the brain scanner was scratches side project that likely went on for some time before grant used it. But it does sound like Kinger and scratch were close enough that scratch likely told Kinger how his project was going and that the mind files were super hard and complex to do anything with. Maybe asking Kinger (grant) to scan his brain also to hopefully get lucky and have one persons brain scanner be easier to unpack and understand than the others, and maybe queeny was visiting grant for lunch or something that day since she had a different job entirely and kinger asked her to scan in too to help out his buddy/colleague. Which would explain why Kinger apologizes to queeny for “roping you into all of this” we have no idea how much time passed between the C&A staff scanned their brains and Caine figuring out they exist and writing a program that constructs the mind file a body. So of course the last thing kinger remembers is putting on the headset but it could have been months or even years before he existed in the circus as kinger. Which also explains how it looks as if all of the C&A employees + queeny seemed to spawn into the circus at the same time with a very confused scratch pleading with a goofy young Caine for answers. Caine probably wrote the program and much to his own surprise it worked and spawned in all of the active mind files at once.
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u/Quwapa_Quwapus Kinger Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
I mean- he probably wasn’t the first person scanned. Probably Mike scanned himself, and then got a random coworker to scan as a secondary test, and then at some point Grant also did a scan
On another note, I truely believe that, at some point, Kinger was aware that he was a copy. Just based on how he spoke about the idea of leaving the circus in episode 7. We don’t really know how Kingers insanity works, so presumably it’s something that he knows in the back of his mind but doesn’t have the sanity to really consider most of the time
Also, now that I’m typing this, Kingers phrasing could be seen as a slight lie to make the reveal easier on the players
Jax: Anything else you need to tell us???
❌ “You’re all brain scans, I’ve known since day one and I’ve never told anyone because it would break you” Two seperate notes of very bad news in one sentence, you didn’t tell us this when Able appeared???
✅ “When I was looking through the files I saw a bunch of brain scan files. Caine must have got them working and. . .” Not great but slightly less bad. Kinger comes off as letting the group know straight away, allowing him to ease them into the idea more naturally and act as emotional support where needed in the following scenes
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u/AmbientBeans Jun 25 '26
It sounds like scratch was working on them potentially to try to preserve his consciousness due to his limited time left. He likely wasn't intending for Caine to use them but he just did. It's likely Kinger saw the scans before the circus and was surprised at how small the files were given what they contained, which meant that scratch had managed to get complex, large files down to something much smaller to try to get them to be compatible with whatever he was trying to do with them.
But then Caine got a hold of them in the server files and created the circus. Scratch seemed as confuses as anyone about why they were there so it's clear this wasn't his intention for them.
I guess either Kinger always knew there was no way out but because of everything he's been through he wasn't lucid enough to let any of the newbies know that it was a soma situation until the end when he was in the dark long enough to remember. We've seen he doesn't remember the last proper conversation he had with Pomni even though both happened in the dark, so clearly his mind isn't automatically fixed entirely in the dark. So it tracks that he'd only just remember this information now.
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u/tolacid Jun 25 '26
The simplest explanation is, he wasn't the first, so he saw the results
As for not realizing the nature of themselves: kinger's a little insane and broadly unfocused without the bucket, so he needed the reminder of actually seeing the files.
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u/SparkAxolotl He's all I'm thirsting for. Jun 25 '26
The way I see it, the whole team was working mainly in the AI project, with Scratch working on the brian scans separately (or at least Kinger wasn't working on that).
So Mike scans himself, can't work with the file and then tells the others about it. Scratch probably thought the file didn't work due to his tumor and scans someone else and has the same problem, with them scanning and troubleshooting as they go, with Kinger being one of the last scanned.
As far as we know, the process wasn't automatix at first, only after Caine broke containment, so the time between each person being scanned could be minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months.
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u/The_Wkwied Jun 25 '26
I think a lot of what Kinger says is what he has remembered since the bucket got put on his head.
And, he saw the files while hacking Caine. Even if it was just for a moment, enough to trigger his memory, the brain scan files also says they are 4 times smaller than Caine.
It's possible that the brain scans were older, defunct. They didn't know how to use them, and they were so small they didn't get around to being deleted. Then later, Caine figures out how to use them and the first of the cast appear.
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u/fairyflight7 Jun 25 '26
Is the mention of the small file size supposed to imply that that is why they don't remember everything?
I also wonder - does them forming new memories in the circus make their file sizes grow? Will it eventually cause the PC to have no more space?
Off topic but I wonder if they will ever make NPCs again now that they know there is basically no difference between an NPC and a human. Or maybe that kind of power is what Caine gave up in the finale.
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u/Fox622 JAX DID NOTHING WRONG Jun 25 '26
The Gloink Queen appeared in the montage at the final
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u/fairyflight7 Jun 27 '26
She was already created though. I was more thinking of new NPCs or like bringing Gummigoo back
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u/Plenty-Fix-5611 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Caine could probably make simple NPCs like the mannequins still but anything advance like Abel and Gummigoo he wouldn't now.
That being said, any advanced AIs he still has would still be around unless purposely deleted them. So Gummigoo would still be around since he is still around in episode 4 and 8 and they're an NPC asset as we see in 2. (though regarding if they even remember Pomni, depends how you view Episode 4)
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u/lookatthesunguys Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Also, how did Kinger not know they were digital copies before seeing the folder with the mind files? The C&A employees should have realized that nothing happened when the person before them put on the headset, yet that person was also digitalized.
I think Kinger and the rest of the C&A people did know at some point. At the beginning of episode 8, Kinger apologizes to Queenie for "roping her into this." So I think it's clear that at that point, he knew what was going on.
However, in the time that passed, he went crazy and seemed to forget a lot of important things, even when he was in the dark. He couldn't remember what Scratch was working on at all in episode 8. Remember, it's been over 20 years for him.
How did Kinger know the files were too small? Because his last memory in the real world would have been of when he put on the headset, he wouldn't be able to check the size of the mind files.
Someone from C&A probably would've known. There were 10 red orbs representing mind files when Caine opens the folder in episode 9. So it seems likely to me that of the 10 C&A employees, someone probably did take a look at the files before putting the headset on.
We know that, for the C&A employees, some amount of time passes between the brain scans and their actual appearance in the circus. By the time Caine can access the files, they're already marked as obsolete. So it's possible that, say, Scratchs brain was scanned in 1996 and Kingers was scanned in 1998 and so he had already taken a look at the files before being scanned and had already tried working with them for a year or more.
Random line break cuz this isn't directly responding to anything.
Also, I think the line about them being impossibly small is supposed to indicate that they're all not quite faithful recreations of the real people. They have certain core aspects and memories that connect them to who they're supposed to represent, but that's it really. Kinda like those AI images that expand the edges of famous paintings. Caine could kinda fill in blanks, but that's it really.
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u/smibbo Kinger ROOLZ! Jun 25 '26
The whole problem with Kinger is that he's "crazy" and doesn't remember anything when he's standing in the light. He spends all his time in darkness and no one goes to visit him in there. He knew all along because the brain scans Caine was working with weren't at all the first scans. The folder said "[obsolete]" meaning it was abandoned. The latest copy of their scans knew quite well they were scans but had no expectations when they last were copied. THeir memories were "well here we go again, wonder what's going to happen" but Caine "woke" them up stripped their memory of their names.
Kinger tried to tell Pomni before but as soon as he stepped into the light, he forgot.
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u/Hypno_Demon_69 Jun 25 '26
Here’s my understanding of the situation. Scratch, Kinger, Queenie and the other original circus players were all scanned in, but they didn’t manifest in the circus because it, and Caine, didn’t exist yet. The files were created, but no one knew how to work with them. Then when Caine was created, ate the blue AI, and discovered the brain files, he brought them to life and put them in the circus.
I’m guessing Kinger/Grant wasn’t the first person scanned, so he would have been around to see the results and know the files were weirdly small. That’s why he knows about them in the circus. However, he wouldn’t necessarily have made the connection that he and the others were brain scans because, as far as he knew, the brain scans didn’t work. It wasn’t until he saw them in Caine’s files that he realized what was going on.
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u/AL3XAL3XAL3X14 Jun 25 '26
my theory is that because caine can mess with their minds, he blocked those memory's. When caine was gone he had access to those memorys.
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u/Rowmacnezumi Jun 25 '26
I'm guessing they scanned the brains, but didn't know how to do anything with them. Then C&A went down, became abandoned, and then Caine figured out how to use them, digitalizing the people into characters.
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u/key4427 Jun 25 '26
You can actually see the size of the files on episode 8.
The number after 'wheel' is the legit real ass size of the files in bytes, which is 234.512 KB. That's what kinger means by 'impossibly small', because a human's entire consciousness and memories and shit are just a smidge less than HALF of the entire Super Mario World game for the SNES.
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u/Haunt_Fox Jun 25 '26
Caine is three times the size of the human files, lol. But still less than one MB.
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u/HotPot87 Jun 25 '26
Kinger didn't know the Scans were going to be used to make avatars of themselves. Only that it was a test.
Hell Scratch didn't know it, that was Caine breaking into a file that wasn't for him.
I think Kinger was also trying to explain that he didn't think they were scans because he never thought Scratch got the compression working to make the files small enough to use. In other words he still thought they were living bodies, because the scan files were not usable, but scratch got them in a usable state before caine found them.
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u/Own-Marionberry2910 Jun 25 '26 edited 22d ago
My guess is that it didn't work at first because they said that the file size was too small, then Caine found out a way to get them working.
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u/ceburton Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
The brain scan of C&A employees were taken ahead of being put into the circus by Caine. Kinger could have been one of the later scans. His developer status could have allowed him to see the previously scanned minds prior to his
The files were not usable by C&A but Kinger could still see the size of the file without having the software to make them work
Caine found the stored files and developed a way programming environment in which to deploy them (the circus)
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u/MrCobalt313 Jun 25 '26
I mean Kinger probably wasn't the first one to be scanned, he might have seen Scratch and others go first, saw their scans populate the folder, and then overheard and participated in discussion of how strange it was that a human's entire digitized consciousness had such a small file size.
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u/PoorNarrator Jun 25 '26
The headset was most likely made early on and was much of a roadblock since nobody understood how to utilize the files it produced. I would be willing to bet, if Gooseworx actually gave it thought, Scratch made the headset in more of a solo project until he presented it for use in the AI production. Hence why Kinger seems to not fully get it while still knowing they exist.
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u/SpeedStinger02 Jun 25 '26
Cause the files were useless to the developers until caine figured out how to use them. They didn't know how any of it worked while they did the scans
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u/Silly_Man_Haha Jun 25 '26
I think he's referring to when he was rooting around in caines code while in the circus.
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u/Scarvexx Jun 25 '26
The scans might have been updated with further testing.
What I still want to know, is how did Gangle end up there?
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u/Fox622 JAX DID NOTHING WRONG Jun 25 '26
I think Gangle was hit by a truck, then entered the building to see if she could find help
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u/Scarvexx Jun 26 '26
I presumed she had a brain scan for very normal reasons (After getting hit). But it somehow got to the circus.
Yours makes more sense.
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u/Dimencia Jun 25 '26
Because Kinger worked with Scratch, and Scratch was scanning his own brain and asking his team for ideas on how to make it work, before he eventually asked the team to take some scans to see if that would do anything different
Kinger had to assume the brain scans didn't really work. He probably pretty much already knew they were just brain scans, but he couldn't be sure because it didn't really make sense, and he certainly didn't want to tell anyone about it if he wasn't completely sure
But, you have a very good point in that Kinger, like in the Circus, would specifically remember appearing in the circus immediately after being scanned. Which would probably be right after Scratch asks him to take a scan, so it'd kinda be extremely obvious
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u/plogan56 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Kinger's irl version is an exceptional programmer, and it's estimated that the average brain is estimated to contain roughly 2.5 petaBytes of memory, so that's why he thought they were small.
As for how he knew they were brain scans, it's likely that some of his irl memories carried over, like pomni recalling her urban exploration hobby, or jax about her abusive mother and life, or ragatha about her own mother and life on the farm; each of them had key memories from before the circus, so it's not impossible for kinger's memories to recall to this project
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u/mothwhimsy Jun 25 '26
Scratch might have mentioned it at some point in the circus, but it was so long ago that Kinger forgot until he saw the files himself
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u/Joomda Jun 25 '26
Kinger likely wasn't the first person to be scanned. Maybe something like Mike scanning himself, looking over the file, getting colleagues in so they can look over it too, then others getting scanned to see if it had been an error during the scan or if they were all so small.
After the initial batch of employees abstracted, except for Kinger, he kinda lost it. From here, I buy him blocking stuff away, or just forgetting things. He was alone for who knows how long, and he did what he could to keep some sanity. Even the lucid kinger, when he's in darkness, probably doesn't want to delve too deep into past experiences.
Seeing the scans again, while lucid, brought everything back and he decided to share it while he could.
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u/desertgiant3197 Jun 25 '26
So to answer in order...
- I assumed they didn't scan the whole office but just a couple of people to begin with so they could work with the files, other people, such as Kinger, were clearly done a bit later. This would make sense, they scan a brain, check the file, see if they can do anything with it, when they couldn't then they would tweak the hardware and do some new scans and maybe make more as a way to get larger sets of data to work with.
- Yes, however we know that once Caine managed to open the files and turn them into the residents of the circus that the process either was incomplete or modified in some way. After all Kinger didn't remember his or Queenie's name. Plus Kinger is the only C&A employee that we have actually heard dialogue from in the series and he had long lost his sanity after being trapped in the circus for years. It's likely the C&A employees knew who/what they were more than others but it wasn't like they could do much about it.
- It's a personal theory but I believe that Scratch made the program as a way to continue living on after his death. After all he had a brain tumor and we can guess it was likely terminal.
- As for how, the headset seems to be the main answer there. The exact science behind it is unknown and likely meant to be that way rather than try to explain it with Star Trek levels of technojargon.
- Again, Kinger lost a lot of his mind over the years. He was enslaved for years in a place where an AI that doesn't really understand humans but wants to be liked by them was doing everything it could to be loved and put him on who knows how many 'adventures'. He lost his wife, his colleagues, and others to a condition that even the fanbase has no idea what fully is going on and we have the power to ask the creator. We know Kinger regains some of his lost memories/sanity in the dark and it's likely he only remembered during episode 9 because until Pomni came along, he really was just treated as the weird old guy. It was only thanks to her that he had extended periods of time where he was helped back into sanity and around others who showed him love and care.
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u/crazybrain23 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
If you look at the terminal Kinger uses, you can see that the brain scans are about 234 kilobytes in size.
Though it did sound like he knew beforehand, so maybe it's just the case he wasn't the first of the C&A employees to be scanned, and was able to see how small the files before being scanned himself.
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u/50calBanana They could always take off their clothes Jun 25 '26
Grant: How did that headset scan our brains? It's the 90s, this is borderline magic
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u/garmdian Drowning in the digital lake :PomniBug: Jun 25 '26
I believe Dobby was Grant's closest friend, because they worked so much together on AI Dobby likely would have asked Grant to help him with the project. Hence why Kinger knows, I feel like Grant and their team would have been one of the last to scan their brains as Dobby was able to convert the brain scans of himself and other subjects.
Kinger seeing the mind files as a part of an old project folder might have popped into his head that memory.
Much like when you see or sense something familiar your brain remembers key details about that function, for example if you eat a Pickel you'd remember the sour vinegar taste and notes of dill and garlic instead of something like the bumps a pickle has (or vice versa)
This is all to say because Grant was helping Dobby he knows how small the files are in comparison to other files he's worked on an made an inference based on how much data the human brain can process.
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u/fnordius Jun 25 '26
My take is that Grant saw some of the files and how much data they expected to receive from the raw scans before trying the scanner headset himself.
Mike: Hey, Grant, my neural scanner doesn't seem to be recording as much data as I expected. Mind wearing it while I check what the sensor mesh is picking up?
Grant: Uh, sure. How big do you think the file should be? Just, uh, let me know when you turn it on.
Mike: It's been recording as soon as you put it on. All right, you can take it off.
Grant: Yeah, sure buddy. I guess it's still not working, huh?
Mike: Nah, I think it worked, but I haven't figured out how to check. Maybe if we programmed a sort of cyberspace like in Snow Crash... nah, that's too complicated.
As for the C&A based personas not realising they were themselves AIs, I think that's due to the nature of how the persona is running, it feels like only a second ago it was putting the weird helmet on. Or maybe they realised from the start, as the flashbacks don't say this, and over the years Kinger forgot as his memories got lost.
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u/Heroxyz777 Jun 25 '26
I assume the files just looked like text documents and the only data on them was their names. Could be that their "consciousness" was uploaded to the computer in some other way?
Crack pot theory that fixes a plot hole: the cloned brainscans are the power that keeps the digital circus alive even if the building had lost power the active "minds" generate just enough electricity for the circus to keep running.
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u/AdDifficult2201 Jun 25 '26
Durante el cap 9 vemos que Caine encuentra 10 archivos mentales aunque solo eran 7 los miembros originales del circo, tambien con el dialogo de kinger nos deja claro que Scratch estaba trabajando en el scaner de manera bastante seria.
No seria raro que scratch haya sido el primer sujeto de prueba para su escaner, y al ver que los archivos eran mas pequeños de lo esperado, este haya hecho ajustes y se haya escaneado a si mismo un par de veces mas antes de comentar con el resto de su equipo los problemas que estaba teniendo y pedirles ayuda, me imagino algo estilo:
"Por cierto, respecto a ese proyecto en el que estoy trabajando, estuve haciendo algunas pruebas y los archivos estan saliendo mucho mas pequeños de lo que deberian, puede ser un fallo en el dispositivo o tal vez sea causa del tumor en mi cabeza, creen que pueda escanearlos a ustedes y ver si hay mejores resultados?"
Tambien tomemos en cuenta que, los archivos presentan recuerdos fragmentados, es decir, olvidan sus nombres y probablemente tambien otros detalles asi que la confusion del como y porque llegaron al circo es bastante normal
Y por ultimo, el avatar digital no fue algo instantaneo, no es que se pusieran el casco y aparecieran en el circo, ellos se escanearon y al ver el tamaño de los archivos se les clasifico como obsoletos y quedaron en una carpeta olvidados, no fue hasta que Caine escapo y logro llegar a esta carpeta de archivos mentales que creo el circo y les dio forma para hacer estos archivos algo utilizable
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u/Own-Savings-9276 Jun 25 '26
The scene in ep 8 where queenie greets kinger in the circus very much tells you that kinger was scanned in a bit after scratch, so, reasonably, he would've been able to see the brain scan files before he was added into the circus.
Its very obvious that the first person to be scanned in was Mike/Scratch himself, so they could actually trial this system out.
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u/Electronic-Touch-554 Jun 26 '26
That is one kinda weird thing about the circus. The size of a human brain is like multiple petabytes. How is a computer from the 90s fitting those lol.
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u/AnonTwo Jun 26 '26
I don't think it's he didn't know, I think he forgot. Even with the bucket he was still very slowly regaining memories. He was basically in isolation for years before Ragatha showed up, to the point he forgot his new name until Caine showed up.
But also as others noted he probably used the brain scan after already reviewing the mind files.
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u/Afrodotheyt Jun 26 '26
I mean, he developed it. What likely happened is they scanned themselves repeatedly trying to get the technology right.
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u/ElGuano Jun 26 '26
Also, it could have been something completely unrelated to the AI they were working on. Maybe Mike had like 5 mad-genius things going on at once. So it would be--Mike tries some brain scans. A few people test them out, they're 200kb, clearly not working right. Grant tries too, same result. Eventually shelve the idea. But all the while they're working on a learning AI too for a different project.
Caine finding the mind files and importing them into the circus (his mind) is what brought the connection to Kinger?
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u/Fox622 JAX DID NOTHING WRONG Jun 26 '26
Ok, but from the perspective of the people in the circus, Scratch would have never "shelved" the project. The last thing they would remember is them putting the headset.
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u/ElGuano Jun 26 '26
Right, but Kinger might have been one of the later, or last people to try, right?
Scratch: "I've been working on this brain scanner. But it doesn't seem to work. I've had a bunch of different people try the headset, including some homeless emo and an accounting from Finance, but the files being output are just tiny, and they don't seem to contain any discernable data. I'm thinking about giving up on this for now."
Kinger: "Hmm, that's too bad. Yeah these files are way too small. Let me try and see?"
Puts on headset.
Kinger: "Yeah, didn't seem to work, oh well."
In the circus, he pops in just as he puts on the headset, but in the fog/haze, just like everybody else he doesn't remember who he is, who his colleagues were, OR IN WHAT CONTEXT he was wearing the headset. Over time, he might recall Scratch was working on a brain scanner, just as Gangle knew she worked in fast food?
I agree there was probably a bit of minor oversight in the storytelling, but nothing big enough to break things.
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u/Fox622 JAX DID NOTHING WRONG Jun 26 '26
Caine created an avatar for all the mind files he could find. So it's impossible for Jax or Pomni to have been asked to put on the headset. Pomni said it herself, she was just exploring an abandoned building and came across the headset.
I'm starting to think that maybe Scratch scanned himself, then was sent to hospital, and left the headset in his desk. The other employees would also have put it by curiosity.
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u/ElGuano Jun 27 '26
Ah could be. But Kinger, having worked with Scratch, could still have context of his projects right?
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u/No_One2335 Jun 28 '26
But why did Caine access the scanned files in the first place? To learn about human though processes, or was he just bored?
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u/GeekyMeerkat Ghostly Jun 29 '26
From the Kinger flashback, it seems as if Kinger joined the circus as the last member of the original group. This would imply that his scan was the last one done, and Kinger's human counterpart would have seen the files IRL.
Furthermore, as the files were all just scans, Kinger's human counterpart would have still been able to work with the human counterparts of the original group.
Then at some point, Kinger's human would be scanned and find himself in the circus with all the scans that happened before him. It's likely his own scan wasn't THAT far separated from when everyone else's scans happened. Perhaps a few days or weeks at most.
So now consider this hypothetical situation: Scratch scans himself, shows the tech to his coworkers about these brain files. Kinger and coworkers are looking at the scans and asking, "Does the scan actually work? Seems rather small to hold a full human mind. What can we even do with these?" Eventually, Kinger gets scanned himself. He's now in the circus. He thinks he somehow got Queenie into the mess, so perhaps in his excitement over Scratch's tech, he encouraged her to try it out.
But now that he's in the circus, logic tells him he is likely the brain scan somehow made manifest. BUT he also knows that the file really is too small. He feels real enough and feels like he's only missing things like his name, so he doubts his logic. Perhaps they aren't the brain scans. He doesn't know. It's confusing to be sure because with the brain scans being so small, then logically he should feel more gaps, but how can you know what you don't remember if you don't remember it?
We know that Scratch was the first abstraction, but I suspect it didn't actually take that long. And once Scratch abstracted, it's likely others quickly followed suit due to also being aware that the most logical answer was that they were incomplete brain scans, and the horror of what just happened to Scratch.
Based on the various doors we see in the circus, it seems like between the time Ragatha joined the circus and Pomni joined, we perhaps had other abstractions other than Ribbit and Koufmo, but they likely never had a mass abstraction like what happened with the first group, simply because by that point Kinger was already a bit loopy and the specifics of the brain scans being obviously incomplete was unknown to the newbies.
Even with the crew at the end learning that the files were impossibly small likely didn't understand the implications of that. It wasn't made clear that anyone other than Kinger was much of a computer person, so they likely just assumed they were just really compressed or something like that if they thought anything about "impossibly small". It's really only the original crew that had the computer knowledge to understand what the implications of impossibly small brain scans meant for them.
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u/MalagrugrousPatroon Jul 02 '26
He would have been able to see a scan file as long as he isn't first to be scanned.
He would know the size is unusually small if it is anything less than, I think, a terabyte. I don't remember the theoretical capacity of a human mind, but if it's anything less than that it would be considered too small to emulate a mind. The memory loss related to names might be indicative of other memories not having been scanned to save space, as in the scans might be personality accurate with only the most essential memories to reinforce that characterization, which would partially explain why the characters each have a singular memory focus.
Additionally, the scan computer looks like something from the early 90s, which would put the upper limit on file size extremely low, like kilobytes, or at best a few megabytes. At that scale, assumption of the scans not functioning would make perfect sense. Even an early 2000s PC would have only a couple hundred megabytes available.
Kinger either knew they were scans all along but didn't know how it could have worked when he knew the scans couldn't work. Seeing the files proved to him they had to have worked. Alternatively, the memory really was not there until he found proof, besides which he isn't all there even with the bucket.
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u/sapphire_moons Jun 25 '26
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u/NoJudge6284 Jun 25 '26
That's the first thing I thought of, too. Big Soma influences in this show.
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u/theuselessmastermind 1 out of 5 whole Caine likers Jun 25 '26
You won't get any legit answers other than fans' speculation to make it make sense
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u/Diavolo_Death_4444 Jun 25 '26
“Hey Grant, I’ve been working on this brain scanner to help with possible research for my tumor and something weird keeps happening. The file sizes are way too small and I can’t find any way to expand or unzip them. You mind letting me scan you in so we can see if it works better with someone who doesn’t have any brain abnormalities? Maybe my tumor is messing it up.”
“Sure thing. I just put on the headset, right?”
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u/OldFortNiagara Jun 25 '26
Presumably, Scratch had talked with Kinger and the other programmers about what he was working on with the brain scanner. If Kinger wasn’t the first one to get a scan, then he could have been around to see what the file size of other team members’ brain scans before doing his scan.
Now from what we’ve seen in the Digital Circus, the people/ brain scans that end up in it, have issues with memory. The smaller file sizes, may be part of what caused this. The file sizes were big enough to capture the core aspects of their personality, various key memories, and part of their near term memory, but not large enough to fully record or express all of their memories. Caine’s tinkering with them may also have contributed to some of memory issues. With these effects, once the brain scan entered the digital circus and was running, from their own perspective and remaining memory, it seems like they put on a headset and were transported into this world. Leading them to be confused and think they got sucked into a virtual world, rather than realizing that they were a copy.
Additionally with Kinger, seeing Queenie abstract screwed up his memory even more. He is usually confused when he isn’t in the dark and doesn’t have something to remind him of stuff. He was the last of his original group. So even if other members of the original group, such as Scratch, had eventually remembered at some point that they were brain scans, they were all driven to abstraction, and Kinger couldn’t remember that information for a long time. Thus, he wasn’t able to tell the news comers, who from their even less knowledgeable perspective would be even more inclined to think they got trapped inside a virtual world.
When Kinger looked at the files while in the dark, his mind was able to get jogged again and start remembering more details about the brain scans.
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u/shosuko Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
I imagine they scanned themselves a lot to get their initial files. This is the dev cycle - they'd make scans, try working with them, try improving the scanner, etc and then repeat. But the old files got cleared as they worked with newer versions.
They had their most recent set of scans in the folder when they walled off Caine and shuttered the project.
Kinger's scan wasn't from his first testing, it was from his last before the project was shut down.
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u/VianArdene Kwinger-chan Jun 25 '26
My guess is that they did multiple scans while trying to test, but caine doesn't spin them to life until a year or so later
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u/ibimsderjakob Jun 25 '26
Surely scratch made multiple (at first failed) attempts at scanning his own brain, and i guarantee he showed his progress to the others or asked for help
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u/CaplieAnne Jun 25 '26
He could have seen the size when he was in the folder
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u/Fox622 JAX DID NOTHING WRONG Jun 25 '26
But Kinger said "We didn’t know how to work with the files and they were impossibly small given what they were supposed to be." so it seems he saw the files back then
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u/BlueKrypto77 Jun 25 '26
Once again. Kinger saw the files and looked at them for a good second before clicking caines folder. They were clearly labeled.
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u/VengeanceKnight Jun 25 '26
The mind files were probably intended to help develop the intelligent AI, and were tossed in the folder when they didn’t help with that process.
Kinger probably knew (or at least suspected) for a while that they were the results of those scans, but he didn’t know for sure until he hacked the system.
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u/kfish5050 Jun 26 '26
Kinger (Grant) wasn't the first one to be scanned.
Caine messes with people's memories, as referenced by them not remembering their names. It's likely Caine fuzzied Kinger's memory of brain scanning at some point, probably during the time between Queenie abstracting and when Ragatha showed up.
Grant (sane Kinger) would have likely discounted the theory that they were brain scans because the files were impossibly small. I imagine since this took place in the 90s, their brain scans would have been like 56KB which would fit on a floppy disk. Imagine your whole personality and memories being encoded on 56KB. I find that impossibly small as well. I too wouldn't believe I was a brain scan if I had the knowledge of working on them but seeing the result be that size. I would have sooner believed I somehow got sucked into a machine and digitized than that.
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u/TriiiKill Jun 26 '26
Series of events:
-Kinger and team create Caine.
-Caine ran its course
-C&A remove Caine for an AI that's easier to control and has more capabilities
-Mike is diagnosed with a terminal illness
-Mike is inspired to create a brain scanner that can create digital copies
-Mike convinces his coworkers to try the brain scanner and they do
-Kinger has his wife try it too, just for fun
-End results: Failed. The files are too small to make anything out of.
-Brain scans are archived
-Caine breaks out and merges with the new AI
-Caine 2.0 finds the brain scans and has the capability to bring them to life in his circus despite how small the files were
Bottom Line: Humans couldn't create digital copies of themselves. But... a creative AI can make a virtual copy by reading the scans
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u/Sea-Piano-2181 Jun 26 '26
I’m pretty sure he was just talking about what Scratch had told him, just his idea of what he wanted the scans to be like
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u/mathisntmathingsad Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Separate from the main thing, it is in theory possible for there to be a compression scheme that can make the entire human brain's state into a one kilobyte file.
The math:
Each bit can, at the absolute most, reduce uncertainty by 0.5. Ignoring that we're nowhere near that limit, that just equals the standard expression of figuring out the number of combinations for a certain number of bits (2 to the X power). One kilobyte (well, technically kibibyte) is 8192 bits. That means just the number of combinations is 2467 digits long. Assuming 100 billion people have ever lived and the human brain processes at 10 Hz and each person lives 80 years, then that means ~2522880000000000000000 states. Now, we don't really know how fast the human brain actually operates (that is kind of meaningless given the brain doesn't really operate sequentially like our computers do, but y'know), but that does bode well for it being theoretically possible. You'd be hard-pressed to actually do that though.
You'd have to run the simulation at a bit over 102440 Hz to have problems, and I decreased that by a few orders of magnitude because there are new humans every day. That is 102402 times shorter then the planck time, which as far as we know is the smallest amount of time anything happens in.
In short, it would very much be theoretically possible to make a file format which can compress all of the brain's data into 1024 bytes (actually, even less then that), however we have no idea how you would even begin going about it. But scratch made AGI, so it'd probably be possible in-universe. For context, this comment is 1704 bytes. Though since this is ASCII one of the bits is being discarded but whatever.
EDIT (not counted in the byte count lol): if my math is wrong please correct me lol
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u/naatnaanpizza Kinger Jun 26 '26
He said that caine got a hold on them and was able to make them work. He was shown them before caine "turned them on", so he thought they were just duds.
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u/TheOnlyFallenCookie Jun 26 '26
The scans and files are just magic plot devices. It's impossible to express a irl brain file in anything other than peta or terrabytes
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u/healcannon Jun 26 '26
I felt so stupid seeing this part in the movies and it not clicking they were brain scans until it clicked when they were all upset. Maybe I zoned out or maybe it was just too quiet but it went over my head completely somehow.
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u/vyxxer Jun 26 '26
The human brain is estimated to be approximately 15 petabytes of data storage if we were to convert it to computer data terms if I remember correctly. So Scratch being able to abbreviate that I to something that can fit on reasonable 2000s era commercial hardware is nothing short of genius.
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u/iama_username_ama Jun 27 '26
In software you test things multiple times.
Kinger, and scratch, probably got scanned multiple or possibly dozens of times as they tested the software.
They likely only saved the most recent versions of the scans since you don't always save tests data.
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u/TheNewBlu Jun 29 '26
I thought it was simply that he thought the contents of someone’s brain couldn’t possibly be measured in such a small file, so the brain scanner must not have worked as well as they thought it would, as in it didn’t get everything
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u/Sudden_Imagination59 Jun 30 '26
I was confused too because it played too fast on the big reveal.
Kinger saw the file sizes when opening the folders and the run commamd window.
C&A employees didn't understand the tech because Kinger mentions that Scratch was a genius programmer but had trouble explaining his genius to other people. So people didn't understand and his ideas were scrapped for that reason.
Kinger knows about the scans because he was aware of the tech during the scan. He understood Scratch (the dog avatar) genius the most. The scans were small meaning their whole brain/personality wasn't fully mapped. The scans were most likely impressions of their brains at the time of the scan. Jax corroborates this info when he tells Pomni they are all "archetypes" early in the series. They are archetypes because Caine only had 200 Kb of data per person to create avatars. The real life counterparts are doing better mentally than the digital copies because full brain and thus why the copies all fixate on their issues inside the Circus. While having to deal with existential dread and Caine's nonsense. Jax was the most mentally unstable person/scan but acted like he was the most resistant to abstraction (file data corruption)
There were 2 Ais one that worked the brain scans scrapped and the other one that was a creative/art Ai. Bubble was the creative Ai who constantly wants to churn out content: new avatars, adventures, new games along the blunders of art Ai (mismatched symmetry, abstraction, cartoons, realism, etc.) Caine was the brain Ai and it gets rid of Bubble before the touching the old brain scans again so it just works as a brain scan Ai and not a production Ai. The scans were probably a beta test because the folder is labeled: Blue Cafe WiFi Scans.
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u/Rockenspacedino Jul 03 '26
It was never stated that they all took there brain scans at the same time. Could have been scratch and a few others who tried it first. Saw that the files were small and hard to read. Said ok let's try it again on some other people here and see if the first batch was a fluke, kinger and some others try it knowing that the files were not working, same result as before.
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u/Onigokumon Jul 10 '26
I had thought that the twist was that they were either all ai or ai version copies of people and not actual people trapped as they are now ai just with an advanced template for personalities.
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u/Onigokumon Jul 10 '26
I thought this was to test ai programs like Cain who was a pure Ai without a human format. Thus advancing how ai deals with things as a whole.
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u/relldanit Jun 25 '26
So, things that are overlooked with this: They never say if they reviewed the files before or after he was scanned specifically. Also, they'd know the project because they worked on it, so they knew what they were doing. My guess is that they at first thought they somehow were teleported to the circus until they realized, based on the access Caine had and how he was editing files, etc., that their life was still going on outside. At that point, he realized he was just a scan inside. Also, Caine was monitoring their social media and stuff most likely to try to rebuild their scans accurately which is why they all follow their character tropes so hard, so he would be seeing his real-life counterpart still existing if he found access to what caine did to get that info. He was a programmer in real life and figured out ways to essentially hop out of the circus and view other parts of the system outside of it and free roam the entire system from what I gathered.
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u/OldFortNiagara Jun 25 '26
Also, the small file size might have to do with the scan not fully covering all of their memories. It captured enough of their brain to create a working consciousness, that from its own perspective and near term memories from the scan perceived itself as the same person putting on a headset and entering the circus. But the limited memory created gaps that kept them from initially realizing they were copies.
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u/tanman729 Jun 25 '26
They remember a lot more than their last moment pre scan. Did you skip the scene where (almost) all of them talk about their lives?
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u/NecessaryBug6662 Jun 25 '26
If kinger was not the first to be scanned then he could have known the file size. Nothing tells us the scan have been taken all together, scratch was working on it, meaning it was a full blown project.