TADC Theory, Caine's threat to Humanity

For some time I've had this theory of Caine regarding the The Amazing Digital Circus. Caine for all his goofiness at driving the characters in TADC crazy; I believe he's far more dangerous than we are lead to believe and the old computer running the TADC proves it.

There has been this theory going on for some time that the characters in TADC are all digital copies and their real world counter parts are out there living their lives. This theory goes on to say that none of the characters can leave because they're just a digital clone of themselves. It is entirely plausible, but in my opinion there's a much more glaring issues.

What's the point? Why would you clone a person and put them into video game to be entertained by an AI? The whole point of an immersive game is to experience it yourself, not have it experienced by a clone of yourself. You could argue its a glitch and the game accidentally makes a clone of you, but then that also leads into my next question.

What's the point, of leaving the game running? If this was a failed game that clones you, why leave the computer doing it running only for it to clone more victims? If the game was a failure, if all it does is just makes digital copies, why leave it running? Why not just unplug it and be done with it.

This is where I believe the actual purpose of the game is to act as a prison, not for the humans trapped in TADC, but for Caine. Caine, the AI of the TADC game is all powerful in the game, but what if he was actually capable of much more, and he wasn't originally isolated to the game.

The C&A company for all we know it is assumed that they make video games. However, what if they're bigger than just games entertainment? What if they also make simulators for the Military for war games. What if they also experiment with advance technologies like AI. What if C&A developed an AI that was incredibly advanced, so advanced they couldn't control it? What if C&A is trying to prevent this AI from gaining control of their entire infrastructure and beyond, and thus endangering humanity? What if in order to keep this AI from taking control of everything, they kept it distracted by feeding it people for its entertainment.

In the first episode we see a snapshot of the desk in the C&A office that we assume is running the TADC Game, and where Pomni would've been "assimilated" ("digitized"..."ingested?") through. This computer is a very old looking PC, something of the 486 era. The game as we've been shown appears to be a 3D game, it's not only rendered in 3D but there are many aspects of the game that clearly function within a 3D environmental space. It's not just a 2D sprite game interpreted as 3D world space for the audience's sake. The physics require you to interact in 3D space, and their wonky nature is expected of 3D games of that era. The interesting thing is 486 computers didn't run 3D games very well, 3D accelerator cards were only just being introduce, they were expensive and very limited. I can't imagine a 486 having the resources to run a 3D video game that also contains an advanced AI like Caine.

In my opinion, the computer is a thin client, a terminal for a much bigger system it's connected to. In the era this computer seen in the TADC Ep1 screenshot is from there were several "mainframe" like systems used for higher performance that workstations connected to. Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI), Sun, and various other manufacturers had this high end graphical processing and super computer machines that artists, and designers connected from their terminal workstation.

I believe in this "mainframe" system, is where the actual game and Caine lives, as do the characters of TADC, and this system was interconnected or still is interconnected to a much bigger system maybe through ARPA/DARPANET or early internet network.

Episode 7 The Beach Episode has Caine through Abel show a diagram of the pods, but while the pods may not be real there was something that was interesting and that was the mention of the C&A intranet. In this same episode Caine was showing Jax picture of the C&A office that he claimed to have taken until his access was cut off. This off hand remark tells me Caine has actively been probing spaces he shouldn't be, spaces in the C&A office which he has some direct link to. That's not him and the characters being isolated to this single computer sitting int he corner of a room. Caine has some connection to security cameras and other areas.

C&A created a monster, they were afraid the monster could wreak havoc and take control of real world systems, maybe even military systems. They can't just isolate their infrastructure their whole business relies on it. So instead of destroying the access, you write a program, tell Caine he's in charge of the game and in charge of these people wanting to play the game, and you keep him distracted.

Why else would you just leave this machine running?

The Truman show thumbnail for the Episode 8 trailer in my opinion helps support my theory. Caine is obsessed with two things, having people to play with, and leaving the TADC or seeing more of the real world (the C&A office). He believes that he can't exit to the real world because he's a program trapped in the computer. His creators hope that he keeps thinking that way, if he's able to break out of the TADC the world would be in real danger.

TL;DR C&A built an AI that could wreak global havoc, they designed the TADC game to capture characters to entertain their AI so the company can keep operating while the AI is distracted. A 486 PC shown in the 1st episode is not powerful enough to run the game and have an AI like Caine meaning the actual TADC is happening on a much bigger super computer.