I’ve seen some people confused about the lore of The Amazing Digital Circus, and wishing that we got more details. But I think we got plenty. You just have to piece it together. So that’s what I’ve done here.
Here is the chronicle order of events as I see them:
Mike Dobby and Grant Best are programmers at C&A. Because of Mike's tumor, he develops an interest in creating a brain scanner. Meanwhile Grant works on developing a creative artificial intelligence. Mike is successful in getting the brain scans to work, testing out on the people who work there, but nobody at C&A is able to figure out how to use the files because of Mike's abstracted way of thinking. So the brain scans sit dormant in a folder (obsolete).
Mike also helps out on Grants Al program. The first prototype (red) is put away, and a second one (blue) is developed that is more stable.
Unbeknownst to the team, the red ai breaks out of its confinements and absorbs the blue ai, creating all sorts of crazy shapes and outputs.
Deemed a failure, the whole thing is scrapped.
At this point C&A goes under. Either because Mike finally succumbs to his tumor, or because they just weren't very successful in making what they wanted to sell. The building is abandoned, but the computer containing Caine and the Brain Scans continues to have power supplied to it (not an uncommon thing to happen when large office buildings are abandoned).
In this downtime, Caine, who has been developing his circus, ventures out into the void and discovers the obsolete brain files. He then uses his creative powers and finds a way to get them functioning again by giving them a digital body. Scratch appears in the circus.
Soon after everyone who has brain scans at the office are given bodies. This includes Grant Best and his wife Destiny.
Scratch, unable to comprehend what's going on, asks Caine to help and as Caine starts messing with his code Scratch abstracts. Either from this incident or shortly after, members of the circus start to abstract one by one. Maybe it was the existential horror of their situation, or the fear they couldn't see their family and friends anymore, I don't know. But the end result is that Queenie is the final abstraction leaving Kinger all alone in the circus with Caine.
Kinger lives in the circus alone for years, close to a decade even, before Ragatha shows up. She was a real estate person coming in to try and sell the property. She used the headset and accidentally created a brain scan. From this point onwards, if someone puts the headset on, they will get scanned into the circus. The real Ragatha goes on to live her life unbeknownst to herself that a digital copy of her brain was left behind in this computer.
Kauffmo and Ribbit show up next. Followed by Jax. These could be anything from urban explorers like Pomni, or maintenance workers who were inspecting the building. In Jax's case he was a runaway who likely stumbled on the building while being homeless.
At this point a routine starts to form with the crew in the circus and Kauffmo, Jax, and Ribbit become close friends. Until one day Jax unloads about his tragic past too much and tries to push away Ribbit. This has the unintended consequence of causing Ribbit to abstract.
Shortly after Kauffmo starts to succumb to Jax's negative behavior.
Gangle, after suffering an injury from a truck accident, is next. Given her depressed nature it's entirely possible she went there to try and commit suicide and stumbled upon the headset.
Kauffmo abstracts around the same time that Pomni, an urban explorer YouTuber, comes in to the circus.
The events of the show play out, ending with Caine getting deleted and the circus crumbling.
With nothing left, Jax abstracts. Deleted files aren't ever truly deleted, they are just moved to an area where they can be overwritten with new data. Since no new data is coming in that just results in Caine being transported to the void.
Ashamed of what he's done, Caine lets the blue ai go. A nearby wifi hotspot shows up and Caine is briefly able to access it. He uses it to figure out what the people in the circus have been doing on the outside world, and in the process learns that he is so much smaller than he realized.
Humbled, he comes back to try an apologize and make amends for how he treated everyone. It takes time, but gradually everyone warms up to him and they all continue to enjoy their lives in the digital circus.
