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I mean at least they can potentially get a lot of money at the end of it???

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I hope Fiona still has General Pollux's eye. I just think that'd be hilarious.

Whatever people she's with come across an old sealed Atlas facility with a retina scanner, they're all brainstorming ways that they can get inside when Fiona just perks up suddenly, reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small container with a perfectly preserved eye inside, while the others just stare at her in varying degrees of horror, and all they hear is "Greetings, General Pollux" as the door successfully slides open.

Bonus points if Athena is there and they get into a mini argument about Athena telling her to throw that thing away because it's weird and everyone else gets to discover she's been carrying it around for YEARS.

(I mean, it's Borderlands they probably have a way to preserve the eye forever right?)

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You know what? At this point I am fully on board the Vallory is a Flynt theory/headcanon. I know it's been around for a WHILE but I really only thought about it when playing BL3 earlier and hearing Zane's mention of his sister.

"my sister always loved a good explosion"

Vallory's main weapon being a rocket launcher, plus her being "The Queenpin" that lead a group of bandits, being acknowledged as intimidating or a threat by other characters including vault hunters.

And with August looking kinda similar to Zane, yeah I'd believe that they're Flynts.

Is it right or wrong? No idea, but it's a fun theory and I think Zane would like to have a drink in the Purple Skag with August sometime. He'd probably be excited that his nephew ran a bar.

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I'm glad they didn't overuse him but honestly I kinda wish we had seen a bit more of Katagawa Jr. That whole part of the game where the vault hunters were helping Rhys deal with him and helping stop the Maliwan invasion was one of my favourite parts of BL3.

I would've also loved Naoko to be part of the confrontation in some way and to learn more about how she was different from him but that's just wishful thinking. Either way I hope we do get to see more about Naoko at some point.

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Speaking of AI Jack I wonder at what point he was created. Like when in Jacks life was it, what memories does he have?

We know it's obviously after the events of the Pre-sequel and before Angel dies, he comments on Nisha's hat in his office in Tales so it also has to be after he gifts Lynchwood to Nisha which I believe was for their anniversary (?), so it's gotta be at least a year after Pre-sequel. He has a decent amount of items in his office on the same shelf as the hat that he's aware of as well so there must've been time to collect all those too.

There's probably some other information that narrows it down but I can't remember it right now, either way it's interesting to think about.

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This is a really cool way to look at it and I like your insight on whether or not he's Jack, I think we have the same fundamental ideas of how he came to be and him being Jack while still being someone different, we just have different opinions on how much so that is, I enjoyed reading through this so thanks for linking it to me!

On Handsome AIs and identities

This was going to be a comment in the discussion under this post, but I cannot be stopped.

After clearing up semantics, OP and I are in agreement that AI Jack was created by means of a ‘brain download’, however BL’s near-magical technology would handle that.

What comes next is determining to which degree AI Jack is or isn’t the same person as Jack 1.0. I’m afraid you’ve triggered an unskippable cutscene.

To clear this up, I propose we answer the following questions:

1. Is AI Jack a SEPARATE being from Jack 1.0?

2. Is AI Jack a DIFFERENT being than Jack 1.0?

Is he separate?

As far as I’m concerned, yes, because:

He is a new being: AI Jack is a digital entity that had not existed before being created by Nakayama: and we know that Nakayama did make the initial primitive AI we meet in TPS; we can imagine the AI Jack in Tales being a much, much, much upgraded version of that.

He is operatIONAL, even if not operatING: based on how easily AI Jack is activated in Tales, we can assume that the 'brain download' wasn’t being passively dumped into a static database, but incorporated into a digital, self-aware system capable of autonomous thought and action, once activated.

“But he wasn’t activated until—”

Irrelevant! As far as I'm concerned, a being in stasis is still a being. It exists, and it’s alive, just not presently active. If I wouldn’t be okay with destroying an active self-aware AI, I also wouldn’t be okay with destroying a fully functional AI that hasn't been activated yet. Killing the latter would NOT feel more okay than the former.

Is he different?

OP has pointed out that from the point where Jack 1.0’s and AI Jack’s experiences start to differ, they become separate beings. Based on my points above, I argue that AI Jack is a separate being from jump. But paraphrasing OP, I would say that 1.0 and AI become different beings the moment their experiences diverge.

And that moment is the very next second after 1.0’s brain download begins. Because the brain being downloaded is a snapshot in time, so as soon as 1.0 makes a new memory, including the memory of uploading said snapshot… continuity has been broken. 1.0 now has a memory that AI doesn’t.

Which kind of means that the only time Jack 1.0 and AI Jack are the same person is the split second between 1.0 starting the brain download and the download commencing?

(As an aside: if we imagine that New-U's are canon, they are meant to instantaneously back up the user's brain at the time of death, and digistruct a new body into which the brain contents are uploaded. Similar for Fast Travel or any other teleportation: you're scanned, destroyed, then recreated at the destination. As long as only one copy of you exists at a time, your continuity is preserved. If a spare copy is left behind, we have a problem.)

(As an extra aside: the show Living With Yourself features a darkly funny, but pretty solid exploration of what happens when a spare copy of you gets left behind.)

Revisiting our questions now…

1. Is AI Jack a SEPARATE being from Jack 1.0? - yes, because AI Jack has existed at the same time as Jack 1.0 

2. Is AI Jack a DIFFERENT being than Jack 1.0? - yes, because AI Jack’s memories are never exactly the same as Jack 1.0’s, due to the snapshot nature of the hypothetical brain download

Now, for the trillion-dollar question… Does being a separate and different ENTITY from Jack 1.0 make AI Jack a different PERSON?

This one, I’m afraid, has too many layers, because wouldn’t you know it, being a person is complicated. XD

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s take the Felicity example. If the memory of what Jack 1.0 did to Felicity are part of AI Jack’s memories, does this mean that AI Jack also inherits the blame for those actions?

I don’t know. For real. 

It’s easy to say ‘of course he does, because he’s a direct continuation of Jack 1.0’ - except that he’s not, as I’ve described above.

‘But even AI Jack himself, in Tales, views himself as a direct continuation of 1.0’ - but just because he thinks that doesn’t make it true.

I think the only way that makes sense to me is to ask: if Jack 1.0 were still around, whom would you hold responsible for the damage done to Felicity? For the death of Bloodwing? For the destruction of New Haven?

If you had to put someone on trial for that, would you go after the man who actually did it? Or after the man who was made to believe that he had? 

So if we wouldn’t have held AI Jack responsible for Jack 1.0’s actions if the latter was still around, I don’t think that 1.0’s death should change things.

AI Jack is a Separate and Different being than Jack 1.0, and should not be held responsible for any of 1.0’s actions.

The defense rests--

Wait, actually…

There is one exception to my closing statement.

AI Jack is a Separate and Different being than Jack 1.0, and should not be held responsible for any of 1.0’s actions UNLESS he chooses to accept that responsibility for whatever reason.

Now, in what situation would AI Jack WANT to be held responsible for Jack 1.0’s actions? When accepting responsibility is inextricably tied with some experience of being Jack 1.0. When he would rather think of himself as Jack 1.0, with everything that entails, rather than be completely separate from him.

When there’s something in his-not-his memories that he wants to think of as his own, even if it means accepting the pain and grief and other baggage that comes with it.

Consider the following segment from my fic, in which AI Jack, by now pretty invested in the idea that he is NOT Jack 1.0, believes he has a fleeting chance to speak to the ghost of Angel (emphasis added).

“Angel.” Just saying her name again makes Jack want to drop to his knees, but he’s not gunning for pity here. “I am… so sorry. I’m— I’m told you understand that I’m not… him, but really, I’m not not him, either, ‘cause I— I remember it all. Better than he ever did, ever could, ‘cause he never could go back and look, really look at it all, and I can. I… have. I’ve seen everything he’s done, I’ve learned what you did, and I got it, I finally got it, too fucking late, of course, but for what it’s worth— Yeah, no, I know it ain’t worth much. Just like your dad, always a day late and a dollar short when it comes to the stuff that matters. Gahd, you really have been dealt a shitty hand as far as parents go, eh, baby girl? Far as too many things go, really. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, what he— what I— Fuck.” He forces a chuckle. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Language.” Seriously, this identity crap is starting to really get in the way. Story of his digital life, huh. Guess he’d better pick a pronoun and stick with it. Is he saying sorry for what the other Jack did, or taking on the man’s actions as his own? Is he offering an apology, or just condolences? Is he a bystander, an accomplice, or the perpetrator? Well, he can’t be either of the last two, ‘cause he, this Jack, never did anything to her! He never even met her! He wasn’t even around at the time, he wasn’t alive, for his given value of living! He’s more than within his rights to absolve himself of the guilt. But if he does that, if he’s a bystander offering condolences, that means he’s talking to a stranger right now. If he absolves himself of the guilt, if he stands aside from the horrors Jack 1.0 is responsible for… then he’s got no claim to any of the good memories, either. He never lost a daughter ‘cause he never had one. He was never married, he never ran Hyperion, he had nothing, he was nothing till he got sparked into consciousness when Rhys jammed a data drive into his cybernetics. He’s not Handsome Jack. He’s not any Jack. He’s just a confused collection of ones and zeroes, a digital ghost mixed up in old memories he doesn’t know what to do with. She’s a stranger to him, and he’s no-one and nothing to her, and he’s got no business talking to her, and none of this has any meaning. Well. Fuck that. “Angel. I’m sorry for what I did to you. I’m so sorry, baby. You deserved so much better than that. So much better than me. So much better than this bullshit apology. I mean, it’s not all bullshit, ‘cause I mean every word, but it’s still bullshit ‘cause it can’t fix a thing. There’s nothing to be fixed. You’re— you’re gone, and it’s my fault. All of it. You did nothing wrong. It was all me. I never saw. I never understood. I left you with no choice. I’m sorry.”

So, in summary… in my many, many thousands of words of writing about AI Jack, I ask the question ‘but IS he Jack?’ many times, but I never answer it. It’s always up to AI Jack himself to decide. His feelings about it change a lot as time goes on, but ultimately, he accepts that his identity is a liminal space between ‘Handsome Jack’ and ‘Not Handsome Jack’. 

Is AI Jack the same person as Handsome Jack 1.0, or is he someone different?

Yes. 

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I see where you're coming from and that's an absolutely valid point! I really like how you choose to look at it, I think the viewpoint just depends more on how you determine AI Jacks separation from the original.

The way I view it is that AI Jack is less of just an AI given Jack's memories but more a complete download of Jack's brain taken at a specific point in time (Like how the Head. Case side mission works in bl3, where they are both that same person but from the moment of upload they can become different).

Where that point in time is I think it's debatable but we know that it is after he gifts Lynchwood to Nisha, so where my feelings of it still being poetic justice comes from is that, based solely on my personal viewpoint, this would still be the Jack who killed Felicity even if it wasn't the Jack who summoned the Warrior.

I love thinking about the way AI Jack differs from normal Jack (flesh Jack??? Idk that sounds wrong) I just personally view that it's less that AI Jack was built to do Jack's bidding, and more than that IS Jack up until his brain stopped being uploaded to it. (Probably somewhere before borderlands 2)

So in the Pre-sequel Jack had Felicity assimilated into the constructor, which essentially killed her and basically generates all future Loaderbots, which in turn is his undoing when one of those Loaderbots goes rogue, starts helping the Tales crew and saves Rhys from the AI version of Jack up on Helios which eventually leads to his death when Rhys rips his cybernetics out.

So I'd like to think that for every Loaderbot that turns against it's programming there's a little bit of Felicity's original code that made its way in there as a final act of rebellion. I think there'd be some poetic justice in that.

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So in the Pre-sequel Jack had Felicity assimilated into the constructor, which essentially killed her and basically generates all future Loaderbots, which in turn is his undoing when one of those Loaderbots goes rogue, starts helping the Tales crew and saves Rhys from the AI version of Jack up on Helios which eventually leads to his death when Rhys rips his cybernetics out.

So I'd like to think that for every Loaderbot that turns against it's programming there's a little bit of Felicity's original code that made its way in there as a final act of rebellion. I think there'd be some poetic justice in that.

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Okay so I know they aren't the most popular characters, likely due to not much being known about them, but I genuinely think there was some real potential and mystery in both Felix and Vallory's backstories.

To start with we know that Felix was extremely smart, being able to bypass Hyperion's biometric security, hack into their systems and change his information, and made one of a kind things like Fiona's elemental derringer (or Sasha's healing pocket watch before it got retconned to be that stupid crystal). He was crafty, he was intelligent, and there was some mystery in his backstory teased in Tales.

The first time we find out that he had a past Fiona and Sasha didn't know about is in Hollowpoint, when Fiona finds a picture of a younger Felix with a woman that neither her nor Sasha recognise, but with Fiona remarking that they seem happy.

It's surrounded by multiple empty bottles, and since neither of the girls have ever seen the photo before it's fairly easy to assume it brings up painful memories. The photo has a crease down the middle which would probably indicate that it was something he carried around with him, folded up in his pocket instead of just being hidden away in a drawer somewhere.

Now there's a chance it could be a younger Vallory sure but considering how it's never elaborated on I don't think that's something that can be said for certain. Either way the pair are dressed in outfits that seem similar to each other, which would probably mean that they weren't just emotionally close with each other but probably worked together as well.

Now regardless of whether or not that woman in the picture is Vallory, we know that Felix and Vallory DID have prior history together. He clearly is afraid of what she can do, she's been well aware of both Fiona and Sasha for most of their lives despite them never hearing about her before which would likely indicate she'd been keeping tabs on Felix. On the contrary, Felix was completely unaware of what was going on in Vallory's life, that August was her son until the vault key deal was already in progress, which would mean he likely wanted absolutely nothing to do with Vallory and tried to stay far out of her life, potentially even trying to hide from her to protect both himself and Fiona and Sasha.

---------------------------------

Now then, onto Vallory. Vallory is introduced as the Queenpin, she's a feared crime boss that has some connections at Hyperion and plenty of bandits at her disposal. She's tactical and cruel and is one of the main antagonists for the Tales crew.

Regarding her relationship to Felix, she clearly holds a grudge against him for some prior reason that isn't explained. Sure she's mad about the vault key deal but she goes out of her way to tear Felix out of the photo she finds of him, Fiona, and Sasha.

She also seems to focus far more on Fiona, directing her questions at her, taunting her, and referring to her as the leader of the Tales group. She's callous and cruel and can stab either Sasha or Vaughn to deliberately to fuck with Fiona and make her agree to her terms.

She has connections at Hyperion. At first it seems like it's just Vasquez she knows but then Finch is able to walk around Helios freely without having to blend in so it seems likely she has more. When this started it isn't clear, whether it was while Jack was alive or after his death. We know Hyperion had dealings with some criminals on Pandora before, like with turning people over for experimentation, so it's possible she had a hand in that or something similar.

But where I think it gets really interesting is when Fiona confronts her during episode 5. While talking about the Traveller she says "it's bigger than any I've ever seen" which would seemingly point to her being someone involved with vault hunting in the past or at the very least involved with someone else who was vault hunting. Sure she could have seen the Warrior from a distance when Jack awakened it but that's not really enough to mention the Traveller being bigger than any vault monster she's ever seen.

That's not to say I think she was a successful vault hunter or anything, but maybe that she was someone who was able to attempt it and get pretty far, or was allies with someone else that did.

Aside from that Athena seemingly knows her, and Vallory was more than willing to fight Athena before August stopped her. Vallory isn't stupid, she sends in her goons to do her dirty work when she doesn't want to get involved. For her to be willing to fight a literal assassin/vault hunter, even if it was impulsively, she must have some kind of confidence that she could actually get somewhere with that.

Hell she even has the ability to contact the Crimson Raiders and enlist the help of Mordecai and Brick to take out Athena, sure they needed to get her for Lilith but the fact that Vallory even knew that they were going after her and implies that she has some idea of why is impressive.

All in all I think that those two were really interesting characters and I wish we would've gotten more lore about them, why they knew each other, what they did before, and what exactly was going on between them.

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I think the whole thing about Fiona being Felix's favourite is really interesting solely because from her perspective she wasn't. Like at all.

When Felix betrays them and steals the money not only does he talk to her as if this is a lesson he's teaching her, saying that this is the only way to make her understand not to trust anyone, but the last thing he tells her to do is to take care of Sasha. Not to look after herself or to stay safe, but to protect Sasha.

It's also especially interesting with the gifts he gives both of them. Now obviously gifts aren't equivalent to love but the intentions behind it do matter. His gift to Sasha was freedom from harm and from the worst kind of consequence (death), his gift to Fiona was limitations, endangerment, and being forced to stick to his teachings.

Both of Fiona's gifts are a lesson, literally restricting what she can do and putting her at risk so that she sticks by Felix's teaching that she can always talk her way out of more situations than she can shoot her way out of.

He gives her a sleeve pistol sure but he only gives her a single bullet, and then later on when they find his stash she gets an elemental upgrade to the gun and one more bullet. But the upgrade is rigged to burn out after each shot, increasing the risk that Fiona will just get killed by any of the bandits or creatures roaming Pandora. Athena is the one who has to give Fiona bullets and to modify the gun, to remove the elemental burnout which was intentionally added by Felix as "training wheels", despite the fact Fiona has always been a better shot than Sasha, as said by Sasha herself.

And then you get to what he gives Sasha, while at first both Fiona and Sasha think it's just a sentimental pocket watch, it gets revealed that it's literally built to bring Sasha back from the brink of DEATH. And if you go by Debt or Alive, it's a watch containing an ancient alien crystal (god knows where he got that), that is supposed to repeatedly heal any injury Sasha gets and bring her back to life if she dies.

His gift to Fiona was a gun with two bullets that he intentionally rigged to burn out to "teach her" to not use it too much (on Pandora of all places???), and his gift to Sasha was the cure to death itself. No matter how grateful Fiona was that Sasha had that when she needed it there must've been some moment where she realised the difference in the gifts they were given and it probably didn't make her feel great.

Something else interesting is when Vallory says that Fiona was Felix's favourite. Both her and Sasha look shocked. Now I don't think that's because either of them assumed Sasha was the favourite or anything, just more that they had no idea that Fiona was supposedly favoured by him. And why would they? I made a post on here a while back about how Fiona is the only one with a bounty in that family, and that she's the one taking the blame for things more. So considering how she's put in that position why would they ever assume she was the favourite?

He seems to treat them both very differently, with him pushing responsibility onto Fiona, putting her in a position where she is made responsible for taking care of Sasha and prioritising her, with his gifts being lessons that endanger Fiona's life when they're rigged to fail. And his treatment of Sasha being more protective, rushing out of the caravan to get to her when the deal goes wrong leading to him getting shot, making sure she has someone taking care of her, and giving her the ability to defy death and just walk off any injury.

That's not to say he didn't love them both because he did, even if some of the stuff he did was dumb as hell. But I think it raises the question of whether Fiona was the favourite because he loved her more or because she was just the one he thought could take more responsibility and didn't need protecting as much. Someone he didn't have to treat like the child they were as much.

Bearing in mind this isn't to argue that she wasn't the favourite because she was, that much was confirmed by both Felix and Vallory. It's more that I doubt Fiona believes that she is, who would after all that?

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I think the residents of Pandora, especially the native Pandorans, should get to collectively beat the shit out of the next corporate warlord that invades them. As a treat.

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Siren Fiona my beloved, the things you could do, the mayhem you could cause

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Sometimes I think about the fact that Jack had no choice but to sit and watch the Tales crew + Athena play Bunkers and Badasses and I think that's hilarious.

I like to think that he started off acting as if it was just something dumb and made jokes about it and then got WAYYYYYY more invested than he'd like to admit. I mean the guy didn't exactly have much else going on so he probably watched that shit like it was Critical Role.

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I never understood the people who say that no-one plays borderlands for the story like uh yes we do? Some people might not care about it sure but take a look at Tumblr where we riot about characters being mischaracterized or forgotten or about story plot points being ignored. Tales is a hell of a good example of people playing Borderlands purely for the story.

A lot of us absolutely do play it for the story, and I'm not sure why those guys think they are the only people in the fanbase.

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I want to know what happened to Gortys and Loaderbot. Are they happy? Are they adventuring? Did they settle down somewhere?

I would like to see the funky little robots again please

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Being autistic and having a special interest in Borderlands is a different kind of hell.

Because on one hand you can have some amazing characters, some really good story sometimes, great music, and great vibes.... and then on the other you have Gearbox ignoring plot points or retconning them entirely, wildly mischaracterizing your favourite characters or forgetting they exist for 10 years straight, having weird guys on YouTube scream that it's "gone woke" because they saw more than one black person or woman in a scene, or having the CEO have a public breakdown on twitter randomly because someone complained about the quality of the franchise.

You like a character? Good luck with that feeling of dread every time you think about them maybe getting a future appearance.

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She definitely has ended up with a bounty on her head from shit talking people on the ECHOnet. The stuff she would've said probably invented some new community guidelines

More Fiona shenanigans. The original post was just supposed to contain the first image, but I thought 'eh, why not 🤷🏽‍♀️' and threw in the Johnny Silverhand meme too 😆

The general take away from these two images is Fiona is a menace on twitter the ECHOnet, as she should be 😌✨️😆

©rin-bellatrix 2024

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