Felicitious Musings

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel BL: TPS Gameplay Discussion (Spoilers!)
#1

I had posted these as replies in another thread today, but, I have heard enough people complain about Felicity’s confusing behavior that I think this warrants its own discussion thread here on the new forums:

I like to think that her thought processes went from being one dimensional and war like and evolved to become more multi-faceted and complex, but also traumatized and unhinged due to the abuses the Bosun put her through.

Then she finally got to (very briefly) taste freedom before being cruelly thrust back into another prison / one dimensional existence of killing and war by Jack just as she was at the cusp of finally becoming independently free and happy.

So her mind…broke.

She went insane!

To be expected, considering the circumstances!

Sure, it’s a dark series of quests, but Borderlands is a dark series!

I mean, the Vault Hunters aren’t exactly nice people!

Sadly, if we had been given the option to defy Jack and save Felicity, the storyline for the game would have ended.

However, in my opinion, here is the real question; why couldn’t Felicity save herself?

Couldn’t she just have fled into the depths of the internet…er…I mean ECHOnet?

Wasn’t the Drakenburg networked up?

They must have had means of communicating with the rest of the moon / universe.

Unless they truly HAD lost all network capabilites and it was just the ship’s system and AI remaining, cut off from the outside world.

Then Felicity truly was a prisoner.

You take her data core out of the Drakenburg central computer and bring it somewhere else to be installed, right?

But then…how is she talking to you throughout the whole mission before she gets plugged into the robot body?

She must still be networked up to something if she is communicating with you on the same ECHO network that Jack is using to talk to you from Helios Station.

Unless she is being transported in the Borderlands equivalent of a laptop / portable computer that the Vault Hunters have wired their own communication software into…but then how does Jack hear what she is saying and respond to her messages?

If she is networked up, then she should be able to flee into obscurity on the Net at any time if she doesn’t like what she is about to be plugged into.

If she is just a data core being carried around, then she is a prisoner just being escorted and has to go whereever her data core is.

But then how does she communicate via the ECHO network?

Can anyone explain this?

#2

What’s more is why is she still talking when we go back to the Industrial Facility?

:open_mouth:

Seriously, it is just a game and not that well fleshed out. We have probably given this way more thought than the writers did.

…but, no sense in stopping now…

I figure the voice echos are kinda like cell phone voice traffic and not really on the 4G data network so to speak.

So Felicity was trapped.

That does not mean she is dead.

She was still talking to us during the fight … she was just really P.O.'ed!

In the end she became compliant, and we are left to assume she (the self aware part) was wiped.

I kinda like to think not, but I doubt any future story will do anything with it either way.

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#3

well there could be more than one shadow bot.

your comments are spot on tho.

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#4

So, had Gladstone succeeded in getting rid of all traces of her personality and retained only her warfare / combat functions by the end of the Felicity Rampant fight?

Is she still an AI at that point?

Or just an advanced combat / construction processor that had had all aspects of it’s individuality removed?

In my opinion, once a network / computer achieves sentience, it has superceded its physical coding and software / hardware and can never be made to just be a normal, non-sentient processor again.

Is Felicity still in there, just unable to communicate with the outside world?

Just trapped forever in her own brain, seething with anger and hate and despair, doomed to watch helplessly forever as her new Constructor body pumps out machines of war?

That’s horrifying!

#5

what’s even more silly is really wiping her should have taken almost as much time as copying her.

when files are deleted, often the content is not. instead the location of the info is simply erased. to perform a secure wipe, zeros and ones need to written randomly or xored with the existing content.

on top of that why was the wipe even necessary? seems more likely that she could just run the functions gladstone had engineered into the system.

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#6

Horrifying?

Maybe … maybe that is why the constructor bots in BL2 were so BA.

I mean if they were copies of Felicity.

Remember that one mission to find a new home for the constructor bot AI in BL2? It had issues.

…but … mabye …

She is just biding her time. A sentient AI could maybe control how it is interfaced with. Better to lose a battle than the whole war.

She does make an appearance in the Claptrap DLC, although I think that is just a Claptrap memory of her.

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#7

Maybe she forgot she could escape to the ECHOnets because she was in fight, not flight mode.

Ignoring the chemical responses etc, is it possible for a super developed AI to have responses like that?

That was such a good mission too. You can see how that whole event effected Claptrap. He wanted to save her, but was forced to doom her. He thought he was a hero, but was forced to be a villain.

3 Likes
#8

Thanks gor the awesome reies, guys.

Keep 'em coming!

I’ll try to respond in more detail later!

#9

anyone read the Ender’s Game series? Think of Jane, or to a lesser extent Halo’s Cortana. Felicity was like Cortana. what i dont get is when we upload Felicity into various consoles, how does she get back to us if we dont remove her to put her into the next one. Jane was an “AI” who was sentient and at one point she is under the threat of being “shutdown” from her networks and tries to hide.
@rcole_sooner wasnt it a loader AI that we put in a constructor among other things?

upon rereading my post i realize it doesnt really say anything, but you guys made me think of those two ai ladies who have crummy things happen to them similar to felicity

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#10

I only ever read the original Ender’s Game novella, which just dealt with the kid training but actually winning battles against the enemy,

#11

It was Loader 1340 I think, an EXP Loader.

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#12

yeah 1340. fun mission.

#13

Yeah, one of my favorite quests in the game.

I promise I will not attempt to murder you again.
…
I will now attempt to murder you!

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#14

The final part, wuth the terrible lounge music…too good!

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#15

The talking thingy is like Handsome Jack talking after you killed him in BL 2. Do side quests before you kill him or you’ll hear him.

#16

“Interesting. I feel the warmth of the speaker. The rhythm of the beat. It feels…nice. DIE DIEDIEDIEDIE.”

“Are your ears bleeding? Are you close to death? Is your suffering moving you to thoughts of suicide?”

“(sigh). I give up. You have defeated me. Please, let me be an asset to you – I will gladly live out my existence as a weapon to be used by you, or a shield to be worn by you. My days of attempting to kill you are truly over: I only wish to help you kill others. Take me to the one called Zed if you wish me to be a shield, or Marcus if you wish me to be a gun.”

Can’t beat 'em? Join 'em!

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#17

pretty sure Felicity is seriously “dead” after the players beat her. the constructors are just war machines after that. its cool to go indepth with games like this but its borderlands, we seem to put more thought into these games than Gearbox do only for them to turn around and be like “uhhhh…yeah yeah! sure, Axton is bisexual! we totally meant that and it wasnt a glitch!”

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#18

Making a virtue of a messesity.

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#19

It’s a feature!

#20

Doesn’t No mean Yes? LOL

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