This article contains major spoilers for Silo season 3, episode 7.While many mysteries surrounding the central silos in Apple TV’s Silo remain unsolved, the show seems to have quietly given away some crucial details about Silo 1. Since season 1, Apple TV’s Silo has been carefully removing the tapestry around its mysterious post-apocalyptic world. Like its characters, viewers were initially clueless about what was in the world beyond the walls of the central Silo 18.
However, when Juliette finally stepped out of her “home” in Silo season 1’s ending, viewers, too, learned that there were multiple silos out there. As the show has progressed, it has revealed that there are a total of 51 silos out there. While it is unknown whether all of them are still functional in the show’s present timeline, they were once planned to accommodate thousands like Silo 18.
When it comes to Silo 1, however, the Apple TV sci-fi show has been subtly hinting that it is nothing like the others. Most details surrounding Silo 1 remain shrouded in mystery. However, after watching recent episodes from Silo season 3, Silo 1’s purpose has become more and more evident.
Bernard Has Revealed How All Silos Are Connected To Silo 1
In Silo season 3’s episode 6, Knox and the team notice an extra external power line on the old schematics of Silo 18. This is when Bernard reveals that the mysterious line carries electricity directly from Silo 1’s own generators into the IT Server Room. He explains that even when the Mechanical in their silo shuts down or their Silo’s internal main generator is turned off, the IT remains intact.
The IT’s server room and its communication equipment are constantly running because the Mechanical is not their source of power supply. This leads Knox, Juliette, and the team to deduce that a separate Judicial line carries the activation signal and routing for the deadly Safeguard poison gas.
Owing to this, when their plan to send Kennedy and Kyle to Silo 17 fails, they decide to bomb the Judicial to potentially disable the Safeguard system before it is too late.
Silo Season 3 Has Hinted A Human Is Behind The Algorithm
Almost throughout season 2’s runtime, Silo portrayed the Algorithm as an omnipresent AI that keeps a close eye on everything that happens inside and outside the central silos. Even the way it presented the statistical odds of Silo 18’s survival to Bernard and Camille suggested that it was nothing like a regular human.
However, in season 3, several key scenes have suggested that a human is behind the Algorithm’s voice. For instance, the Algorithm displays the ability to adapt to situations and conversations and, accordingly, manipulate characters like Juliette and Camille. In one sequence, the Algorithm’s voice is not even around when Camille tries to reach out to it.
Considering how the IT has a constant supply of power, it seems likely that the Algorithm would malfunction and suddenly pause if it were only AI. The fact that it takes time to think and even disappear time and again seems to prove there is a human behind it.
Given how all silos are seemingly connected to Silo 1 through the power lines and Safeguard switch, the person behind the voice has to be living in the first silo itself. Whoever they are, they seemingly hold the key to making crucial decisions surrounding the silos’ fates and trigger the Safeguard when necessary.
Silo’s Wizard Of Oz Of Parallels Hint At The Truth Behind Silo 1
Since the beginning, Silo has had some intriguing parallels with Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz. The vitamin D+ pills are reminiscent of the field of poppies the Wizard Witch uses to put Dorothy and her friends to sleep and make them forget their quest. Juliette, of course, is a lot like Dorothy, while her closest allies in Silo 18 remind one of the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion.
Just as Oz relies on green-tinted spectacles to make everything look like the “Emerald City,” the helmets in Silo convince cleaners that the world outside has healed. The show even makes its Wizard of Oz inspiration quite evident by featuring a physical copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a banned relic. Juliette even has a spiral tattoo, which seemingly represents the cyclone from the Frank Baum story.
Considering these parallels, it is hard not to speculate that the mysterious person behind the Algorithm’s voice represents the “Man Behind the Curtain” from The Wizard of Oz.
Like the Great Oz, he seems to be projecting himself as an omnipresent figure of authority. However, like Oz, the mysterious Silo character is probably nothing but a man pulling levers and buttons from behind-the-scenes to control the narrative.
