#speak faust

Between Choreography & Merriment, Mammalians Nurturable, and O&D (who MDR already have contact with and could likely bring on-side without difficulty), that's got to be about 100 innies working together.

If they refuse to leave the severed floor, that's about 100 Lumon employees who don't return from work that day, with zero warning or explanation. This is already a PR nightmare for Lumon.

They can't go in with force, because the kidnappers are also the hostages. Besides which, if they just mow them down with bullets, they risk murdering Helena Eagan - and Helly is absolutely the kind of person to make the most of this fact by bodily shielding people.

And if they decided to use force anyway? I simply don't believe they have those kind of resources. We've been shown repeatedly that Lumon relies on exactly one (1) security guy - Graner and then Drummond - and that all their failsafes go to shit if said guy is taken out of the picture.

Lumon doesn't operate on the logic of the repressive state, it operates on the logic of the company: they cut costs and they rely on everyone else buying in to their authority. Could they get the government to help them out? Quite possibly - but that's the kind of thing that takes time to co-ordinate.

I reckon the innies could hold out for at least a week. O&D can make weapons. There must be a catering department that does the melon parties and the egg bars - if they find it, they've got access to a food supply. Both the stairwell and the lift are very easily defensible. They've got access to the overtime contingency if they want to contact the outside world. They've got access to the testing floor if they want to speak to their outies.

Perhaps most importantly, though: their hostages include Dr Mauer. With both Reghabi and Cobel gone AWOL, that guy's probably Lumon's best chance at recreating what they did with Gemma. That's a HUGE bargaining chip.

Thing is, Bull's qunari route actually is incredibly bleak - because it's contrived to be. It didn't NEED to be 'Bull leaves the qunari' or 'all his friends get murdered'. The writing goes out of its way to make qunari Bull the bad end, which is in of itself Revealing (read: racist).

More broadly: I am really not a fan of giving characters two routes where one is straightforwardly 'better' than the other. It's just... less fun and interesting.

Annual tweak of Ghila's face morphs, because I couldn't get the idea of giving her braids out of my mind. my beautiful infected daughter <3