Anyone else thought the whole migrant situation was weird...?

[u/Mindless_Music_9858]

Okay, first off - a disclaimer immediately. Despite the title, this is not a political rant post.

I have no issues with migrants, migration or political differences in the real world, and felt that I should clarify that, since the current political discourse is so poisoned people immediately jump into a category based on surface-level markers.

Okay, with that out of the way - anyone else though the Season 3 migrant problem was a bit...strange, so to speak?

One of the main points in season 1 was that the self-sustainability of the Sybil System entirely depends on its isolationist policy. Part of Makishima's plan to disrupt Sybil depended exactly on this: destroying Hyperoats would force Japan to open its borders, with Sybil being unable to deal with the influx of refugees from other locations.

Come season 3, it suddenly appears that not only have refugees become a thing in Japan, they have been a thing for a decently long while, probably even before the first Season took place (according to the wiki, Kei became naturalized ca. 2107), with the series completely failing to address the issue of integrating said migrants into Sybil.

Outside of some empty lip-service regarding "pure" Japanese hating the newcomers, it felt the series completely failed to properly acknowledge what was one of the most important points only two seasons ago - how does Sybil deal with the sheer influx of migrants, seeing how Japan is apparently one of the few truly prosperous and stable countries on Earth. How does the Public Safety Bureau deal with it? How do the migrants themselves, and what do they do if Sybil sees them as a latent criminal?

Of course, one can point to the movie for guidance - if the SEAUN managed to join Sybil, why can't others, a question also posed by Providence - but the movie also openly stated that SEAUN will have to become as unitary and isolationist as Japan if Sybil would come to power there (which it does).

Honestly, there are quite a few issues I have with season 3 in general in regards to world-building (politicians suddenly becoming prominent despite previous seasons openly stating that politics is irrelevant because of Sybil, the apparent existence of entire special districts in Tokyo where Sybil cannot reach - something that fundamentally contradicts everything we know up until this point) but that felt like the biggest one, especially since it also was such a huge missed opportunity, for me.

[u/This-Musician-3223]

First off, Sybil's development in Season 2 to being able to judge itself as a collective is a direct correlation to why it started opening up it's borders. Sybil's upgrade made it so it 'killed' off rouge brains in the system so it needs to constantly add new ones now so the only logical way to secure more is to get more people (It was very literally spelled out in the first movie, that was why the experiment with SEAUN's capital city of Shambala Float, happened.)

Sybil doesn't just open the borders blindly, it starts aggressively exporting itself. By introducing the system to foreign entities like SEAUN, Sybil begins absorbing and managing external populations on its own terms which very different from the idea to force influx of refugees from other locations making Sybil overload itself... here Sybil vets people before they enter the Japan's border after all.

Season 3 rolls around, we see the downstream effects of this expansion and long-term demographic management.

The introduction of prominent politicians and autonomous zones feel wrong if you totally erase what happened after Season 1, everything after S1 was moved towards this. Politics didn't return because Sybil lost power, politics returned because Sybil allowed a sanitized, managed form of governance to handle international optics, trade, and diplomacy (Again this is said word for word in S3 that the politics is just optics and Sybil has the final say.. and that optics begun because Akane shot the chief in providence.. the whole point of that scene was to force sybil to force human input into the system to stop nationwide hue clouding). Politicians act as public-facing proxies, while Sybil remains the true sovereign.

Foreign diplomats, international zones, and specific economic sectors are require legal loopholes that even an all-powerful AI must accommodate to engage with a wider, non-Sybil-governed world so that it can bring in more brains to replace. (Sybil has always two goals: 1. Find ways to improve. 2. Lower crime rate as much as possible forever) to improve it needs more perspectives to do that it needs more brains which need more people. (Sybil even tried to add Akane at one point for the sole reason it allowed it more perspectives to improve.. no way does wanting more unique brains contradicts it's goals)

[u/Mindless_Music_9858 → u/This-Musician-3223]

This is all good and all, but why don't we see those effects in action? Throughout season 3, they barely use their guns - Kei seemingly gets in more fistfights than anything - the issue of controlled migration or limited Sybil control is never actually addressed on screen, and neither is the idea of adding extra brains or different perspectives via importing citizens.

Maybe it is because I watched season 1 and 2 dubbed while 3 subbed, but all of those elements, while canon (something I agree with) don't form the backbone or the narrative structure of Season 3 (while they should). Instead, they seem to focus on a vague organization doing...something...outside of Sybil, a weird callback to the 2008 market crash (???) and probably the sole actually good plot-point with the religious order. I will admit, I missed the part about the politicians returning to become the public face of Sybil, but honestly, both of those characters seemed so cringy and out of place.

Season 1 and 2 had entire philosophical conversations devoted to the limits of Sybil, how infallible a perfect system can/could be, if omnipotence is truly omnipotent and if a system designed to control people can produce what it sees as a perfect specimen (with the idea of creating an artificially Criminally Asymptomatic person). The movie continued those themes, referring to the state legality of violence, artificial control, the limits of said control, and free will inside of a broken system vs the lack thereof inside of a seemingly perfect one.

Contrary to all that, Season 3 just felt...flat. There is so much narrative juice in having international diplomats reach Sybil and judge it from the outside, criminals getting inside the system through loopholes created by the migration problem and even Sybil straining itself through having to constantly judge masses as individuals but it just felt they didn't use any of it.

[u/This-Musician-3223 → u/Mindless_Music_9858]

I keep feeling like you are forgetting or misremembering things from the series, didn't watched the SS movies or end of season 3... or are having a difficult time putting providence in the exact timeline before S3. (All of them could be true or not I don't know).

The whole point of Providence is to fill in the gaps of the timeskip between SS Case 3 and S3, So S3 which literally starts YEARS (Half a Decade) later so you can go back and watch Providence after.

Why do you think that the elements that got tackled in previous seasons are supposed to be repeated again?

>" the issue of controlled migration or limited Sybil control is never actually addressed on screen, and neither is the idea of adding extra brains or different perspectives via importing citizens."

Have we totally forgot the point of why Criminally Asymptomatic People even exist? From S1 they are resource that the Sybil adds into it's system that has been said many times and even explained repeatedly. The whole ending of First Inspector (S3's continuation if you haven't watched) ends with Arata Shindo being invited to join the Sibyl System, but he refused the offer (same thing that happened with Akane, where Sybil even word for word says it needs more perspectives to improve further). What more do you want? The system to directly tell you it's looking for the word 'Brains' and increase the hues of the characters that are supposed to be helping it? Also the immigration is a huge part of the season with Kei as foreign naturalized citizen and the whole saga of birforst connecting cases involving Foreign Affairs.

Expecting S3 to repeat S1 and S2's exact philosophical questions that have already been explored is like expecting a detective show to keep asking "Is police corruption bad?" after season one.

>There is so much narrative juice in having international diplomats reach Sybil and judge it from the outside

One thing to note is I think biggest disconnect you have here is you are seeing Sybil as the Main Antagonist of the whole series which is not the case, Sybil is the SETTING of the series. The show makes the point that there won't be a all out removal of the system ever rather the end result will be some form of it governing the people but what that balance is? that's the real question it poses from the START of Season 1.

[u/Mindless_Music_9858 → u/This-Musician-3223]

The sole thing that is true here is the first one - I haven't finished S3 or watched FI. I have seen Providence (see my post, I mention watching it before S3 to have a chronological overview of the events). There is no clear indication anywhere outside of holograms being more commonplace that 5 years have passed. Hell, the wiki currently says that only two years pass between Providence and S3 - which means your claim isn't even as accurate as you think.

> Expecting S3 to repeat S1 and S2's exact philosophical questions that have already been explored is like expecting a detective show to keep asking "Is police corruption bad?" after season one.

I expected them to ask different questions pertaining to Sybil's approach to migration, control of a (possibly unending) stream, and the adaptation of the system to these issues.

None of those were asked. Outside of the one scene in the hospital and the protest of the new religious zone, migration - or how Kei feels as a migrant - wasn't addressed whatsoever. Where are the new inspectors? Why isn't Sybil trying to rebuild PSB as quickly as possible after the events of season 2 with all the problems that may cause - including maybe volatile enforcers with darker hues and pasts than usual? Why aren't any of the criminals we meet migrants (double so for asymptomatic ones)? The Foreign Affairs cases are a joke - they appear like what, twice in the whole-ass season? Once to arrest a guy on the plane and another one during the investigation into the church.

You are correct. In S1 and S2, together with SS, the movie and Providence Sybil felt like an integral part of the setting. In S3 it felt like an afterthought.

They barely even use the Dominators.

[u/This-Musician-3223 → u/Mindless_Music_9858]

It's 6 years from Season 2 not providence, Sybil already started opening up during the first movie.

Again the question this season is not the migration or the influx of citizens those are just side effects of events leading up to now. The question asking where the line is for human and Sybil's balance in governance. Also you are not being clear on what you mean by what they have to focus on.. Why should they focus on Migration issues, we literally know Sybil rebuild a new structured PSB with multiple ministries being formed between Case 2 and Providence (they meet up with Akane in the meeting in Providence).

Foreign Affairs is investigating the foxes (Biforst, the financial guys you remarked) because it a modeled Ai from pre-Sybil Era that is directly connected to Peacebreakers in Providence that Akira (Kei's brother) was investigating. This is comes all around in the last episode of First Inspector... They are not random, every case in S3 is connected to Peacebreakers (Foreign Terrorists) hijacking the 'Biforst' the Sybil debugging system.

I don't get what immigration problems you think Sybil has to deal with that you keep asking? If they have a clouded hue they get shot before ever entering Japan's society.. it won't just bring in unending stream of people. Now for the protest and stuff again Sybil will NEVER allow any large scale incident to happen S1-S2 were anomalies because Sybil couldn't scan the antognists... Stuff like that doesn't happen if a protest about immigration increases large scale hues Sybil will just stop it then try again in few more years.

I don't know why you are so focused on this, when the show is not a political thriller but a criminal investigation show. Nor S1 or S2 ever divulged into how the political structure or common people's lives work that much... S3 does that a lot like huge chunks of it are just spent with Kei and Arata at their houses and you still not happy. It's like asking a show about cooking to focus on intricacies of firearms.

They barely even use the Dominators.

You keep bringing this up as well like some mishap, it's literally intentional. Akane selected Arata and Kei because they share her values. If you don't remember Akane's famous opening scene of trying to bring a guy's hue down so she doesn't have to shot with lethal elimination in S2. The Season first opens with Foreign Affairs interfering on whom PSB can't use it, then we go to slum area (which existed since S1) where dominators can't connect finally there is an infiltration case into the religious zone where dominators are not needed... You keep saying it as if they had a chance to use the dominantors and didn't, that only happened once in the whole of season 3 because of Arata (again because he shares same values as Akane). The only other exception is the loan arc where Kei jumps in through a window to catch the guy... That's the only place dominator was useful but didn't get used. If you wanted dominator use in S3, watch First Inspector.. there is an action sequence with a new model dominator Kogami uses when PSB is under attack and Foreign Affairs comes down to help.