TheJake2020 answers “What is the significance of the horned...”

A Goodreads user asked this question about Foe:

What is the significance of the horned beetles? I did not get the big reveal? What the heck was this one all about?

TheJake2020

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[After finishing the book and getting to the bug at the end I started to peel back the layers of the onion and I found something MUCH DEEPER. I really wish Iain would chime in here for a comment. Are you ready for a crazy theory? Here we go.....OuterMore started out in the automated car industry. To perfect an automated car you need at the core the best AI you can design. While the AI was perfected, OuterMore joined the VR bandwagon to develop an incredible VR experience and dominate the market. What would the next evolutionary step be for OuterMore? Obviously, not space. Joining the two technologies into one? Yep. It's The Matrix or Oasis here folks! OuterMore has been working on the perfect integrated VR worlds with advanced AI so you could literally live in it. Both Junior and Hen are AI test subjects in the VR. The one set of Junior believes he is at the "installation" (it's a computer installation and not space). The other set of Junior is at the farm being tested and prodded. If you noticed at the workplace, the only other place we encounter besides the field with burning home (possibly another group of test subjects being deleted), Junior goes through the front door and notices how the building doesn't appear to him as it normally should. It isn't until Terrance goes to the bathroom to activate the code for the other AI models to show up in the workplace before Junior is tricked into believing everything is back to normal. The AI of Hen is supposed to be support for her husband but is starting to think more about herself and what she really wants more than the relationship itself when Junior Version 2 shows up. She ends her program when she writes the letter, leaves the VR world and another instance is created by OuterMore. OuterMore wants to study both versions of Junior and when they are done with the farm version they replace it with version 2.0. They also want to see how version 1 would react to seeing version 2 so they reveal to him the next version to also test his reaction. Imagine multiple versions of Junior AI. How would they react with one another in the same space? Version 2.0 Junior goes back to everyday life with the new version of Hen 2.0. The "bug" mentioned a few times in the book is very important because it's not just a physical bug. It's a "bug" in the software. It's a glitch in the VR world " that shouldn't be here" and "it's alive but doesn't move" (or something like that mentioned). At the end of the book we know that the VR world isn't perfected. There's still bugs in the system. Terrance, a software designer/programmer/tester will continue to monitor all versions of Junior and Hen until the matrix like world they have created is perfected. I believe there are multiple versions of farms in the "outer" parts of the city that are other versions of AI being tested as well. (hide spoiler)]

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