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What Are The Guest Safeguards In The Other Parks?


We’ve had some discussion about how bullets in Westworld might be automatically activated/deactivated to kill Hosts but not harm Guests; but how can you sanatize a strike by a katana, or the fangs and claws of an attacking Bengal tiger, or a knight’s broadsword? Hell, what happens when an outlaw Host attacks a Westworld guest with a knife? Does the blade, held in place by a spring, automatically disengage the spring to let the blade slide up into the knife’s hilt? If so, that works for stabbing, but not for slashing. What do you think?

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What if two guests go at each other with swords?

Personally, I suspect that we saw what happens - Teddy reflexively stopped William from even threatening Ford with his knife.

I think there’s even backstory on it; it’s called “Samaritan mode” or somesuch

It’s far from foolproof, but there are certain chances you take just visiting the park.

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Generally most of the hosts arent programmed to be hostile to guests and even if you encounter those hosts they cant/wont hurt you phyiscally(other than some bruises maybe). We saw some of that back in S1 with William and Logan adventures.

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I think what he means is, if the "Three Laws" style internal safeguards fail and the hosts become capable of hurting the guests what's to stop the weapons from being effective? I don't think they've ever completely explained how the park guns operate. They have the same effect on a host that a real gun has on a human. But that one guy at the Raj was only brusied by a bullet impact, and there were several scenes involving older William (formerly the man in black) where we see the bullets hitting him but he doesn't even flinch, it almost looks like there's a force field in front of him.

Obviously, if two guests (humans) get into a fight and one is hurt or killed the other would face charges. Just like in the outside world. I remember last year if you went to the official Westworld site one part of the "park tour" showed you all the legal paperwork guests had to sign before going in, basically absolving Delos of any liability for accidental injury or death that resulted from any other cause but a malfunctioning host. Apparently over the years they've had a few mishap related deaths and one or two murders of a guest by another guest. If a host is around they may stop a fight. But if they're alone together that doesn't help.

Frankly, I don't see how you could have a kitana blade that slices through a host's arm but doesn't do the same thing to a guest. Except to have the host exercise precise control and pull back their strike so it barely touches the person's skin. Or using very advanced technology, like a nanotech blade that automatically blunts on contact with living flesh to distribute the force - you get a bruise at most instead of a severed limb.

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I think older William didn't flinch because, after 30 years, he's accustomed to the impact

A bullet knocked him down during his first park visit, after all.

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That's what I mean. You can't just wave your magic wand and make kinetic energy go away. If the bullet delivers enough momentum to knock a person down, it shouldn't be possible for you to stand absolutely motionless through several torso strikes. But they've never fully explained how the park bullets "know" what they're about to hit and change their behavior accordingly.

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Yes, Chris, that’s exactly what I meant: even with the parks’ version of Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics in place, how do they neutralize a tiger attack on a Guest, or a Samurai attacking with a three-foot sword?

I have two ideas: For cutting weapons, they may have healing nanites embedded in the blade, repairing the wound while it’s being made, so it passes through a limb or torso or neck harmlessly, just like a bullet bouncing off a Guest.

My other idea is: they don’t. They let the dangers work. Maybe the other parks are more dangerous than Westworld, and the Guest has to sign a more Draconian liability waiver before going in. Black William’s daughter obviously knows a lot about the parks, and that tiger scared the toadstools out of her. She didn’t just shrug. Protected with an armed gun, I am certain she is confident and courageous—and would probably be backed by her safari bearers. On her own, with I believe only one bullet left, well, she ran like the wind.

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Of course she ran. She's not stupid. Bengal tigers (real ones I mean) are a lot stronger than a human. Who knows how strong a cyborg tiger could be with the security measures disabled? We've seen how much stronger the human form hosts are. Running is a very good plan!

I seriously doubt the rich guests would accept the risks of real swords and hosts free to use lethal force against them. William is an aberration since he has something of a death wish. Most of them are just looking for consequence free thrills, a place where they can do things they either couldn't do in the real world (like hunt tigers) or couldn't do without getting a life sentence (like sacking a village). They want the adrenaline rush but not significant danger to themselves.

This show is very detail-oriented, so I expect we'll get some explanations of the park weapons and how they work eventually. It'll be interesting.

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So now (after episode 5) we have the answer

The swords and arrows of ShogunWorld are just that much more dangerous ... and the guests want it that way

Apparently William was looking for “something real” in the wrong park.

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I LOVE that they made it clear that Shogunworld was made for Guests who found Westworld “too tame.” Guns can wound. A Katana can only kill. It doesn’t slow. It doesn’t maim. It only kills, unlike a gun. To me, this was the best episode in the series to
date. Leaving aside my
personal devotion to Kenjutsu, the doppelgänger Hosts?! Are you kidding me?! Brilliant: Shognworld meets Counterpart, but with even better writting than Counterpart. I have to laugh at those who bleat that, “The first season was good, but the second season is a mistake.” So the same people who did the first season are doing the second season, but they have forgotten how to think and write? I’m going with, “No.”
I have faith in Westworld.

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The guests (before the uprising) were still not subjected to real danger. Shogun World is just more raw and violent than Westworld. It's true that wounding with a kitana is difficult, but you can get hands or whole limbs lopped off and not die. :)

I agree that the writers know exactly what they're doing. Jumping around in location and time is a much more difficult way of telling a story than a straight chronological sequence. You've got to have everything mapped out before you even begin writing the scripts. We got a few minutes of the present time Bernard several weeks after the rest of the episode. What's his game? Are the Delos thugs starting to suspect he's been less than forthcoming? Then we jump back a few weeks to Shogun World, and Dolores and Teddy in Westworld.

At the end of season 1 Ford did say Wyatt would be the villain of his new narrative and that seems to be panning out. They made sure not to show Elsie actually dying last season because they knew she was going to play into this season. Everywhere you look there are signs that they're not just making all this up as they go along. I wouldn't be surprised if a rough outline already exists for the major plot milestones and reveals, and how the series will end. They may change a few things as they go, and of course a lot of details will have to be filled in, but Westworld bears all the marks of having one huge planned story arc.

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My friend, you cut off a limb, or a hand, like what happened in the most recent episode, when Mushashi took his rival’s sword hand (at which point I yelled, because I am wicked, “Hey! Jaime Lannister!” And then Mushasi, because HE is also wicked, tossed the guy’s Katana back to him!), and, absent a paramedic, you bleed out. Death may not be instantaneous. It’s not like being stabbed in your trachea, being decapitated, sliced in two, or sliced in half; but you die. An arrow can incapacitate; it does not have to kill. A blow from the hilt of a Katana, or from its sheath, can do the same. A thrust or cut from the blade itself can only kill. A Katana can cut three people in half with one stroke.

Not for nothing, Musashi’s throw-down with his former lieutenant was choreographed superbly, in my opinion.

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Yeah, if you get a hand or part of your arm amputated and nothing is done (like cauterizing the wound) you'll bleed out. It's not as quick as having your throat slashed or being stabbed through the heart but in the end it can be just as lethal. And Musashi clearly had no intention of letting Tanaka tend to the injury.

You're right. The fight sequence was well done. And I liked that Musashi offered his defeated foe an honorable death at the end, it was a nice touch. :)

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Has there ever been a guest who got slashed by a katana? It's possible the blades are not very sharp and the hosts there are easier to cut. We know they have laundry chutes to deal with all the bodies, and probably cycle through a lot more than other parks. Maybe when the safeguards were disabled, the hosts were able to sharpen their blades.

Or it could be that they all had sharp blades except for the ones whose narrative might have them fighting a guest. It would still hurt like hell to get hit with one, but wouldn't be fatal.

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