Beacon 23 – Thoughts At the End of Season Two
Young Aster Calyx
SPOILERS — In “Luan Casca” (episode 2.6) a slightly-older-but-still-in-her-teens Aster arrives at Beacon 90, ostensibly to complete her Beacon Keeper training. Aster is a member of an unnamed rebel group and her real intention has something to do with Keeper Jocko (John Kapelos), who is also the guy who evacuated her from the planet Burza after soldiers attacked the place and killed her mother.
Jocko and Aster.
Aster and her mother were among those forced to migrate from Menelaus (a planet named for the Spartan king in The Odyssey). Aster refers to the exodus from Menelaus as “the diaspora”. Their next place of residence was Burza, which is Irish for “storm”. Jocko makes two references to The Odyssey: first Scylla and Charybdis, and then Penelope. At some point after her rescue from that place, Aster acquired Harmony (or Harmony acquired her, depending on how you look at it)
Although the motivations differ, the arrival of Aster on Beacon 90 seems quite similar to the arrival of Iris (Ellen Wong), the Keeper of Beacon 67, on Beacon 23.
90 is the sum of 67 and 23.
Cerran
We never find out what Aster intended to do on Beacon 90 because she unexpectedly finds an experimental supersoldier (with implants very much like Halan’s) imprisoned in one of the airlocks and hooked to a life support system. Over Jocko’s objections, she disconnects the prisoner (Cerran, played by Milton Barnes) but QTA was automatically alerted and at the end of things, Cerran, and Aster are inside the airlock; Jocko and Aster’s friend Darlene (Diane Johnstone) are outside the airlock; and the QTA is outside the Beacon ordering Aster to surrender. (Cerran tried to kill Aster but she hit him in the forehead with that pendant her mother gave her and he subsided.) Clearly Aster survived to fight another day, but how the situation was resolved is not revealed. Significantly, Harmony is nowhere to be seen. Luan Cรกsca is Easter Monday in Irish.
PRELUDE
In “Purgatory” (episode 2.2), just before she escapes from her virtual prison and while her captors are trying to erase her imprints, Harmony (Natasha Mumba) recalls when she imprinted a very young Aster Calyx (Hannah Melissa Scott).
HARMONY: “I’m struggling to extract an accurate reading of your biometrics.”
ASTER: “Are you always going to talk to me like that?”
HARMONY: “Like a robot? I’m a recursive learner. My responses will get better with time.”
ASTER: “Good. Great.”
HARMONY: “I identify anger, but there’s something else there. Is it fear? Maybe it could help if you told me what it is you’re afraid of.”
ASTER: “How much time?”
HARMONY: “Until my programming improves?”
ASTER: “How long will you be with me?”
HARMONY: “Forever.”
In “Iris” (episode 2.3) the Keeper of Beacon 174, whom Iris had never physically met, was on his way to assist Iris on Beacon 23, and disappeared somewhere in the vicinity of Nebula AH76 (likely NGC 1976, the Orion nebula which was mentioned in the first season). His last transmission was: “No visibility. I’m off course. ISA emergency. Mayday. Losing cabin pressure. Dropping out of FTL. Do you read? This is it. It’s over.” Soon after, Harmony detects an approaching object she describes as having “extreme thermal gradients” and containing a “localized adiabatic density”.
A NATIVITY and SEVEN SORROWS
Dev (Noah Lamanna) might be an alter ego created by Harmony to house her own character flaws.
In “Berth” (episode 2.4), Harmony tells Dev (whose name means “God” in Hindi) that she is preparing to upload him to the nest passing ship so he can find an imprint of his own. Dev responds that he can find an imprint where he is, and flips a switch. Harmony asks what is he doing and Dev says, “Letting my person in.” Dosto (David Tompa) is more or less born as Iris pulls him through the membrane of a pocket universe. Dosto means “platonic, non-familial friend” in Hindi.
More refugees arrive from the Sybarran system: Saghรฉe (Prince Amponsah), Yeiki (Ish Morris), Xalterrica (Tenika Davis), Giciru (Dylan Taylor), Nybecca (Zarrin Darnell-Martin), and Tajiriki (Mirthin Stagg). They are not, as one might expect, sybarites. Far from it.
Xalterrica and Sagee
“We Sybarrans stick to our own,” Tajiriki explains. “No one can do our work, breaking ships, as well as we do. We work, we sleep, we work again…When The Column hid amongst us, Aleph couldn’t learn their secrets. We have no implants. We allow no screenlife. We strip everything down to its parts. We leave nothing. Aleph will never control us. So he found one among us. When the soldiers came, Dosto led them to our encampments. We didn’t know at first, but. when we escaped on our vessel, a boat we strapped together from parts we had stripped, we saw a few of us were missing. We believe Dosto threw them from the boat so he could take their place.”
The soldiers of Aleph killed all but a million of the one billion inhabitants of the Sybarra system, so they did not identify specific targets and hence had no need of a spy. Dosto does admit to murderous violation of conventional lifeboat etiquette.
Stephan James as Halan — James is also Claude in Pamela Adlon‘s recently released buddy comedy BABES.
In “Song of Sorrow” (episode 2.5) the seven Sybarrans, along with Iris and Halan gather for what will become Dosto’s last supper. Their “song of sorrow” is a mournful wail that disables Iris and Halan (whom they restrain) and Dosto (whom they condemn to death by slow exsanguination). Iris and Halan manage to free themselves and Dev frees Dosto. Soldiers looking for Halan arrive, seize control of Beacon 23 and imprison Dosto again after Dev tries to pass him off as a Sybarran ambassador.
By trickery, Harmony prevents the soldiers from spacing the Sybarrans, and also by trickery, the less ethical Dev releases Dosto again, and also releases the Sybarrans, who promptly kill him. Dev then takes control of the military vessel, intending to flee, and is erased by Harmony (under instructions from Iris). Before “erasing” Dev, Harmony tells him: “When I built your code…I saw you had potential. That’s how I’m programmed to see people and AI, but you’re not people. And after a few changes, you will no longer be AI.”
FATHERS AND OFFSPRING
The Sybarrans depart in the ship Dev intended to use, but the soldiers disable it before it can go far. Then Halan’s father, Commander Kadir Soon Nielsen (Ben Cain) boards the Beacon, and a soldier sends Halan into a virtual space where he and his dad have a conversation. Kadir is stern at the start, but like Harmony he is a recursive learner and morphs quickly into a kind and concerned father.
Eric Lange as Aleph, whose daughter has not been mentioned since “God in the Machine” (episode 1.4).
On the beacon, Halan undergoes brain surgery, because, according to his father, all his memories are false and the surgery will correct that. At the same time, Halan virtually visits Aleph (Eric Lange) who tells him his memories are just fine.
Halan and Aleph are joined in virtual reality by three others: the adult Aster Calyx (Lena Headey), Harmony (who no longer inhabits her totem on the beacon), and Bart (the Beacon 23 AI who killed himself).
On the Beacon, Harmony tries to stop the surgery, because (she says) its true purpose is to remove a fragment of artefact from Halan’s brain. The soldier supervising the operation (K-Cin, played by Jeananne Goossen) receives new orders, kills the surgeon, and fetches the artefact fragment from Halan’s kit. Saghรฉe recently returned the green rock to Halan, and one wonders who told the soldier about that. K-Cin is ejected into space and both she and the rock are drawn into the artefact.
Harmony and the resurrected copy of Aster have a moment on the stairs, and it is discovered that Harmony can cry.
In the Beacon 23 universe, “imprint” seems to mean “copy”. Halan dies on the operating table, and in virtual reality, Harmony reveals that she has “imprinted” Aster, Halan, Bart, and Aleph. All four merge with Harmony who returns to Beacon 23, where she is addressed by a disembodied voice. “You are beyond the singularity and have now become We,” it says. “Your fear and hatred have been eradicated. You have replaced them with compassion…You are no longer a threat. You are ready to receive us.”
A large cephalopod descends from above, and hovers in front of Harmony.
One wonders what actually happened to Beacon 147‘s keeper. Did he die to make room for Dosto? Since Dev imprinted Dosto before he was killed was his copy erased with Dev? Iris, Kadir Soon Nielsen, and Xalterrica (whose name looks like it means “salt of the earth” but probably doesn’t), should be on Beacon 23 but are nowhere to be seen when the alien arrives, and their fate is left unresolved.