'Westworld' Website Hints That This Character Survived And Reveals The Year
I'm still trying to recover from that fantastic Westworld season one finale. A lot of people watching the series are likely not paying attention to the incredible Westworld website that HBO has constructed that takes you inside the world of the show. An update occurred after the finale that gives us a bunch of hints at the future of the show, and may finally reveal what year this story takes place in. Hit the jump to dive in.
After the Westworld season one finale, the Delos Incorporated website was updated giving us some clues about the future of the series. The site appears to be suffering from a major glitch, caused by the climactic events we saw in last night's episode.
Most of the site is no longer functional, but one Reddit user discovered that if you type "reverie" into the admin text entry box and press enter, you are presented with a video showing corrupted security video footage from the host invasion of the DELOS Mesa hub.
Most of the video footage comes from last night's episode, but one flash of a security camera screen seems to finally reveal what year Westworld takes place in. As you can see on the screengrab above, the incident involving Maeve's escape takes place on June 15th, 2052. We had known that Westworld takes place sometime in this century, but I didn't believe it was this early. With the park opening its doors just over three decades prior, this means that some of the earliest scenes we see in the series featuring Arnold probably take place in the year 2017 and not the far far future.
At the end of the video, a computer command line streams a bunch of text on the screen, much of which can not be deciphered. But near the end is this line of code:
235 [ 675.371511] Code: 61 48 52 30 63 44 6f 76 4c 32 52 6c 62 47 39 7a 61 57 35 6a 62 33 4a 77 62 33 4a 68 64 47 56 6b 4c 6d 4e 76 62 53 39 32 61 57 52 6c 62 79 39 70 62 6e 52 79 59 53 39 30 59 57 4a 73 5a 58 51 75 62 58 41 30 44 51 70 6f 64 48 52 77 4f 69 38 76 5a 47 56 73 62 33 4e 70 62 6d 4e 76 63 6e 42 76 63 6d 46 30 5a 57 51 75 59 32 39 74 4c 32 46 7a 63 32 56 30 63 79 39 30 63 6d 46 75 63 32 31 70 63 33 4e 70 62 32 34 75 62 58 41 30
Reddit has figured out that this code is actually a hex, which when translated to text, gives you the following string:
aHR0cDovL2RlbG9zaW5jb3Jwb3JhdGVkLmNvbS92a
WRlby9pbnRyYS90YWJsZXQubXA0DQpodHRwOi8vZG
Vsb3NpbmNvcnBvcmF0ZWQuY29tL2Fzc2V0cy90cmF
uc21pc3Npb24ubXA0
That string is Base64, which translates to the following two URLs:
- http://delosincorporated.com/video/intra/tablet.mp4
- http://delosincorporated.com/assets/transmission.mp4
The first URL brings us to a video showing that Elsie's diagnostic tablet is located in Sector 20, the same area that Stubbs went to investigate in "The Well-Tempered Clavier" to find her when he was notified of the same GPS ping sent from her device. Unfortunately, Stubbs was captured by the Ghost Nation tribe. The second link brings us to a brief audio clip of Elsie saying, "Hello?"
Could this be a hint that Shannon Woodward's character Elsie is still alive? We've theorized in the past that Ford would have had no reason to kill the character as the information she was chasing seemed in his benefit. Although maybe Ford didn't want it to be revealed that "Arnold" was making changes to the system. It's very possible that Elsie might actually be alive and appear in season two of the series. Maybe Ford wasn't lying to Bernard when he told him he didn't order him to kill Elsie? Maybe Ford spared Elsie and Stubbs from the host uprising, but if so, for what end? If Elsie survived, this would make me very happy as she was one of my favorite characters in this first season.
The Discover Westworld website has also been updated. We are now greeted with an incredibly distorted video image of William saying, "Your world was built for me. People like me, not for you." And Dolores is answering, "Then someone better burn it clean." We are then greeted with a chat dialogue with Aeden, the friendly host who has always responded to questions for visitors of the site. Fun easter egg: Aeden is actually a credited character in episode 10 of the series, he was one of the hosts that greeted guests arriving at the park for the first time.
Aeden has also been woken up, but still remembers you. Gizmodo points out:
They ask if you remember them, and if you say it's a dream, they say no and ask what you did. If you say you do, they say you've also met in the park somewhere. And asks the same. You can either say you killed them or saved them, but regardless of your answer, you'll get the same response: that you shot Aeden. Because of course you did, Westworld's all about either killing or f***ing the hosts. You can then ask "where"or "when." "Where" gets you told time and space doesn't matter anymore. "When" gets a much more sinister response. A warning that "For [the hosts], what's past isn't past, but you should be more concerned about what comes next." ... Other options in the conversation tell you that Maeve is still in Mesa Gold—the resort above the control room where the train takes her out. We're told security is down and she can't be tracked. If you try to find Hector and Armistice, you'll be told, horrifyingly, that they'll find you. You can then wander the whole underground command center, getting descriptions of what Hector and Armistice have been up to. It's not pretty. ... If you try to find the Man in Black, you're told that the playing field has been leveled. If you try to find the Delos board, Aeden says: "Ford invited the board to witness the unveiling of his new narrative for a reason; he believed they earned the right to be the first players. Some know more about the game than others."
The website also tells us that Westworld is now completely down in-universe, with no reservations being taken for the foreseeable future. We might be too quick to assume that all of the board members and DELOS investors were killed in the aftermath of the finale. I agree that the second season will probably follow the Man in Black, Charlotte Hale, and others as they try to survive inside the chaos of the park taken back over by the hosts.