Forrest Cameranesi Geek of all Trades

(9x15) Virtuality Incarnate: Part 2, Episode 3

Though the Sphidi community is peacefully integrated with the rest of the Internation and worldwide understanding and acceptance of the Sphidi is growing, there still remains mistrust and hostility between Sphidi and humans, on both sides. Too many humans still mistrust "machines" with independent minds, even though those minds are human minds merely remote-controlling mechanical bodies. And some Sphidi begin to fear for their well-being from organic humans when they think through the full implications of that fact.

The Sphidi truly exist only inside of Virtuality, running on hardware controlled by organic humans, connecting to their physical forms in the actual world through more hardware controlled by organic humans. At any time, humans with the right access could disconnect any Sphidi from their body, imprisoning them back in the virtual world ruled by the Queen of Hell; or even disconnect all of Virtuality, erasing all the Sphidi from existence entirely.

At her people's urging Xiuying champions a political campaign for the Sphidi to take control of all operations concerning Xio and Virtuality and their incarnation into robot bodies, since all of their lives hinge on that and so control of it is their right. Overcoming the remaining fears of ushering some kind of robot apocalypse by letting these fully autonomous robot-people be in charge of themselves is difficult, but appealing to Metis for help in the campaign, they are at last successful.

Next: Virtuality Incarnate: Part 3, Episode 1