Editor’s Note: Below are major spoilers for 1899.
Bye 1899 has its fair share of cryptic elements, daniel beetles (Aneurin Barnard) and Elliot (Fflin Edwards) use on board Kerberos can puzzle even the most attentive fan. This is because the series never gives us a clear explanation of these errors and what exactly they do. However, enough clues are scattered across the series’ eight episodes. 1899the first season for us to put things together and figure out what these bugs are. However, the answer is not so clear-cut, as the bugs also represent an emotional bond between Maura (Emily Beacham) and her son and a concept from computer science.
How “1899” uses errors
In the first episode 1899, the bug leads Maura to the Prometheus closet where Elliot is locked up. Daniel and Elliot also use the same bug multiple times to open locked doors, access one of the virtual rooms that hold the fake memories, or even get them through Kerberos while avoiding Henry’s detection (Anton Lesser) henchmen. Later in the series, Maura also uses a bug to get back to open a shaft under her bed so she can go back to her memory and find her father. Daniel also uses a beetle to bring Ada (Vida Sirslev) to him before he uses his shell to kill the girl and start the events that lead to the mutiny aboard the Kerberos. In short, the beetles are used to overcome one of the limitations of the simulation by causing behavior that does not seem to be the intended part of the virtual terrain code.
It looks like the bug is a tool that only Daniel and Elliot can use to jump into the simulation at any time and overcome some of the hurdles of the virtual environment. More precisely, bugs or bugs are used to create unwanted behavior inside the simulation. Like computer bugs, bugs break software and make it do things it wasn’t originally programmed to do.
Of course, bugs are usually a by-product of programming and are born within the software, the result of bugs in the code or unpredictable interactions between different parts of the code. Bugs also usually result in one type of unwanted behavior. AT 1899, however it seems that Daniel and Elliot were in control of the bugs and may have introduced them into the simulation. So, if we wanted to use the correct terminology, Daniel and Elliot would use bugs as hacking tools, not as bugs. This means the bugs could be external code that Daniel brought with him to manipulate the simulation to his advantage.
Then again 1899 was created as a puzzle, giving viewers clues to unravel its mysteries. Therefore, it would be reasonable if the creators Jantje Friese as well as Baran bo Odar wanted to simplify things since “bug” is a term more accessible to the average fan than “hack tool”.
It could also be that the bugs are indeed bugs, meaning problems in the simulation code left behind by its creator. In this case, Daniel and Elliot didn’t create the bugs, they only used them. Since Daniel and Elliot are one of the few people who are aware that they are in a virtual world, this will allow them to review the code and find flaws that they could use to their advantage. This would be a classic case of a bug becoming a feature. In any case, it is important to remember before the second season 1899 is that these bugs cause unwanted behavior inside the simulation, which makes them valuable tools for people trying to escape their virtual prisons and return to the real world. However, in addition to being related to computer science, 1899errors also have an explanation for their appearance in the universe.
How bugs are connected to Maura’s past
While there’s still a lot we don’t know about Maura’s past, Season 1 1899 explains why the woman is trapped inside the simulation. In the real world, Maura is married to Daniel and they have a son together, Elliot. At some point, Elliot falls ill with a terminal illness. Unable to say goodbye to her son, Maura created the first version of the simulation in which she kept Elliot’s mind safe. Maura and Daniel often visit this simulation, extending their married life next to her son. We still don’t know how Maura’s simulation became a prison for so many people or why she had her memory erased. However, the beetle that Daniel and Elliot use in the simulation looks very much like another bug from their past.
In one of Maura’s flashbacks, we see a woman spending a cozy afternoon with her son. During the day, Elliot finds a bug that looks exactly like the bugs used in the simulation. Elliot wants to keep the bug in the box, and Maura tells the boy that the poor thing doesn’t deserve to live in prison. Elliot then asks how he can know the bug is safe and watch it grow if he doesn’t keep it to himself. Maura tells her son that he won’t find out, but that doesn’t mean another being should be deprived of their freedom. Ironically, a few months or years later, Maura locks Elliot in her virtual box, completely forgetting her own advice.
We still don’t know exactly how the simulation works, or whether traumatic memories can Kerberos‘ Passengers have nothing to do with reality. However, the simulation is at least partly dependent on Maura’s memories, which makes sense since she created the whole thing. So it would be fitting if the computational errors that appear in her code took the form of the bug she saw while spending time with Elliot. Within a simulation, any piece of code is represented by an object, so it’s interesting to think that errors can be represented by, shall we say, errors. And if that’s the case, then there’s nothing like a beetle than a beetle that Maura taught Elliot a lesson she should learn for herself.
1899 streaming on Netflix right now. Unfortunately, the streaming platform has yet to renew the series.
Source: Collider
