#shiro asks

Many works of fiction have pushed the concepts of transhumanism and what the human mind / soul is capable of outside the body. One example would be the game SOMA. Here, copies of human consciousness were uploaded into machines in such as fashion that they still believed themselves to be human. However, with no real body, with no mouth to speak with, no need to eat, nor even the concept of breathing existing anymore, many of these minds went mad. All the norms we took for granted in the world around us were shattered and their consciousness was unable to cope with such alien concepts.

So what did this mean for Shiro’s consciousness? Well, he makes this comment to Keith:

In the above SOMA concept, the copies of human minds were placed into things still in the world, and yet that jarring existence drove them mad. Imagine being separated from EVERYTHING. You are no longer a physical being. You no longer even exist on the same plane as the rest of the universe. You are a metaphysical concept of a soul, that is nearly impossible to truly define and you exist in the soul-space of an alien machine-being which is a pseudo living entity out in the vastness of space. I’m not sure how much more impossibly alien you can get then that.

I imagine, everything was chaos for Shiro. Points of light, sound, emotions, all existing in a formless, timeless jumble. How hard would it be to pull enough of himself together to /be/ himself let alone to understand the concepts of ‘I am dead’, ‘but I am in the Black Lion’, ‘That is not me’, ‘Something is Wrong’, ‘I need to warn the others’.

Shiro doesn’t necessarily go into the gritty details of what it was like drifting in the Black Lion’s consciousness and what it was like when he ‘woke up’ for lack of better words. He could have suddenly come into his own being all at once and been capable of conscious and rational thought and may have been desperately trying to figure out a way to contact the others for a long time. However, I think it’s much more complicated then that.

I imagine the strength of character and the amount of energy required to pull such a formless concept together long enough to form /Shiro/ took a herculean amount effort.

When Shiro was finally able to appear to Lance, he was barely able to spit out a single sentence, and his form was out of focus and draped in shadows. Even with Keith, Shiro was unable to hold his presence indefinitely.

I personally believe that Shiro did not fully exist in an easily definable sense the whole time he was in the Black Lion. I think his being ebbed and flowed, eventually reaching enough points of cohesion to be able to observe, comprehend, and act on the material plane again. I imagine it was very hard. when Shiro consciously existed enough to only catch snippets of what was happening, to even string them together into anything that made sense. Did he have any sense of the progression of time at first? When he saw Kuron in the Black Lion, did he think it was actually himself and was a memory from the past? Did he already attempt to contact Lance, or was that only the beginning of a thought that he needed to contact someone? Were any of these things even relevant anymore? Had too much time passed already, or had none at all?

So does this mean that all the excitement about Shiro helping pick Keith to pilot the Black Lion from within are false? Honestly, I think it’s much more complicated then that.

I do not believe that Shiro was directly responsible for Keith being picked by Black, of Black finding Kuron, or for Black allowing Kuron to pilot later. However, I /do/ think he still had an effect on all of these choices.

If Shiro’s spirit / essence / soul was inside of the Black Lion’s consciousness / soul-scape then they were very likely in synch with each other if not even partially melded. Shiro already had an amazing bond with the Black Lion, allowing the Lion to save him from a permanent end. So while Shiro may not have been directly pointing at Keith and saying YES, LET KEITH PILOT PLEASE! His very perception of Keith was now with the Black Lion. Does this mean that Shiro still was beside Keith the whole time he was forced to lead? I think so. Whether platonic or romantic, Shiro had sworn to never give up on Keith and I strongly believe that vow is written down into the very core of his being. Maybe it wasn’t the same as Shiro physically standing behind Keith while he flew, but his essence was still with him the entire time.

So what about the Black Lion finding Kuron? Clearly the Black Lion knew Shiro was inside its own consciousness and that this “Shiro” was false. So why save Kuron in the first place, let alone allow Kuron to pilot not once but multiple times?

Well, for one, the Lions’ thoughts and personalities are complicated and pretty alien. They don’t always interact as fully conscious beings all the time, but they clearly have souls and are some sort of machine-entities.

We may never get a solid answer on this. The Black Lion may have chosen to save Kuron for any number of reasons. Maybe because the Black Lion knew Keith desperately needed that hope to keep going. Maybe because the Black Lion knew that it wasn’t Kuron’s fault. Maybe because the Black Lion knew that Kuron would be needed, either for the sake of the team when Keith faltered / had to leave or perhaps the Black Lion even knew that Kuron would be absolutely necessary at some point to fully bring Shiro back.

My best friend also pointed out something really interesting, which was in the Hypable interview: 

LM: For me, the way I see it is that our Shiro has now been placed into the clone body. The clone Shiro, by all intents and purposes, truly believed he was the original Shiro and shared all of those same drives, and goals, and really only became evil when Haggar took control. And so, I like to think that the clone Shiro was kind of absorbed into the real Shiro’s essence when he was put into the body. And so now he’s just become part of that real Shiro. So our real Shiro is in control. There’s not a clone Shiro that’s watching out through Shiro’s eyes. He’s just part of his consciousness now, there’s just one guy.

So, in a way we actually had two Shiros at the same time. One existed in the Spirit Realm in the Black Lion’s consciousness and the other in a cloned body. There’s a chance this was just as confusing to the Black Lion as it is to us! But, remember also that the Black Lion didn’t pick up on Kuron until he dreamed of the team in his dying moments. Perhaps this strong bond resonated with Shiro’s own soul, as they were really one and the same. For a moment, their essences were in sync and the Black Lion sensed this as well with Shiro tucked inside. This is very likely why the Black Lion also let Kuron pilot. Not only just to help save the team, but multiple times after that. The Black Lion let Zarkon pilot and call out to it multiple times, even when Zarkon’s personality and goals took a turn for the worse. And since Kuron wasn’t exactly evil unless Haggar was controlling him, there really wasn’t a reason to not help him. Kuron essentially /was/ Shiro and, once, again, there’s a good chance the Black Lion sensed that Kuron would be ultimately needed to help sort everything out.

So how did Shiro feel about this?

Well. At some point in time, he certainly figured out that something was wrong and tried to warn the team. However, he was barely able to make contact with Lance and ultimately failed to fully communicate the issue. Of interesting note, is the fact that Kuron did NOT enter the spirit realm. I’m not certain what to make of that, but I think that perhaps the ‘real’ Shiro actually pushed Kuron away and used that energy as an opportunity to try to reach the team. This is one of the first times when Kuron seems to realize that something is wrong as well. (As does Lance).

Without having the full story and likely struggling to maintain cohesion of his self, the spiritual version of Shiro was likely forced to assume that Kuron was BAD NEWS but he couldn’t figure out exactly what to do about it. With Lance, he was barely able to do more than appear once in the Spirit Realm and that took a considerable bit of effort on the rest of the Paladin’s part as well.

Keith was definitely different.

Whether or not he was actively attempting to reach the team, but unable to reach them after Olkarion is unclear. But Shiro definitely pointed out that his lack of a deep connection with them, unlike the Black Lion or Keith, prevented him from being able to reach them. Even /with/ Keith, he is unable to materialize for very long.

But at least this time he’s finally able to explain what happened and where he’s been all this time. By this point, he’s able to borrow strength from Keith and provide all the answers he’s been desperate to share and that Keith has been desperate to find out.

And this connection with Keith seems to strengthen Shiro greatly, allowing him to lend his wisdom and support actively while teaching Keith how to see through the Black Lion’s eyes and unlock more of his potential.

With Kuron dying and Keith allowing Shiro to manifest much more strongly, it’s very possible that this was simply the point where everything clicked into place. The Black Lion may have finally figured out why Kuron had been important to work with all along, may have already known, or perhaps it was just sheer dumb luck.

But ultimately it paid off and allowed the two entities to fully merge as Allura transferred Shiro’s soul from the Black Lion into Kuron’s clone body.

Hopefully this answered the question! I know I went on for quite a bit XD. I’m curious if we’ll get any answers in Season 7 and if any of this drabble was accurate!