Some thoughts, spurred on by the recent Hank Johnson revelation:
Some thoughts, spurred on by the recent Hank Johnson revelation:
The implication in the video found is that it's additional footage from when Hank entered the "Nest." Given that he was alone in that venture, he would have to be the one filming.
This means he's come face-to-face with his own body. How can this be?
Well, let's think back to Jarvis for a minute here. He was killed in Zurich, and became (or awakened) his XM self. He fiddled around in the portals for awhile, making some tenuous forays back into the physical world from time to time, until his "resurrection" in San Francisco, on Reckoning Day.
Except... we still don't know where his body is. In fact, the only reason we call it a resurrection is because we're assuming his XM self is now inhabiting his old body.
But what if it isn't? What if he's merely made the jump from XM to physical form?
For the sake of the example, we'll call the XM form a 1, and the corporeal form a 0.
In the case of Jarvis, he flipped his state from a 1 to a 0.
Now back to Hank. If you recall, he was on a mission in Afganistan when he went missing, turning up a few days later in a dazed and disoriented state. He was recovered without any of his original gear, and wearing traditional tribal garments. His friend, Azmati, was with him when he was attacked, but he doesn't know where he went afterward. (It's of note that this mission is one of the first references to Alexander the Great and immortality... foreshadowing much? :P )
Now, we have footage of him in a place that matches the description where he and Azmati were when they were attacked, right down to the humming and whispering. Here, he finds his own body, wearing his old gear, judging by the color of the shirt.
It seems that Hank has gone through a similar experience as Jarvis: He was killed in a place saturated in XM, and was somehow "resurrected," but with some extra abilities. In his video diary, he states that he now understands what Jarvis is... Because he now understand he's in the same state as Jarvis. He's a physical manifestation of his XM self, or, as Edgar Allan Wright has (maybe?) called it, a simulacrum.
I'd like to offer the theory that the rapid re-manifestation of his body is what led him to be so disoriented. Jarvis spent much more time as an XM entity, and had opportunity to reorient himself, and understand his new state of being, before coming back to the physical realm. Hank, on the other hand, had his process accelerated. He still has some faint contact with his XM self, when he is near a portal.
Hank, as it seems, is a 0.
Which brings me to my last example: Hubert Farlowe.
Like Johnson and Jarvis, he was exposed to large amounts of XM, and then killed in the near vicinity of a portal. The power of the portal might have something to do with his current state, however. Hubert, it seems, is a superposition of states. He exists as both an XM entity, and a physical being, as demonstrated by his ability to "phase" out of our existence, and into the realm of XM. In the novella, when he was in the safehouse, he encountered Jarvis' XM form; and was invisible to the agent who came to investigate the break-in.
He also refers to "losing time," as if he could just blink and have hours pass. We know that time is different to those who exist as XM entities.... Perhaps he has the ability to slip between the two realities, but doesn't have any conscious control over it?
As Hank can contact his XM self through portals, and Jarvis was able to contact those in the physical realm through portals (and, I suspect, has similar abilities to Hank now that he has manifested), Farlowe appears to be a superposition of the two--he appears as a portal to those around him, and thus would be in constant contact with his XM self.
One might say he's fully entangled with his XM self, existing as a superposition of both XM and physical entities.
Perhaps this is the immortality that Alexander was seeking.
The implication in the video found is that it's additional footage from when Hank entered the "Nest." Given that he was alone in that venture, he would have to be the one filming.
This means he's come face-to-face with his own body. How can this be?
Well, let's think back to Jarvis for a minute here. He was killed in Zurich, and became (or awakened) his XM self. He fiddled around in the portals for awhile, making some tenuous forays back into the physical world from time to time, until his "resurrection" in San Francisco, on Reckoning Day.
Except... we still don't know where his body is. In fact, the only reason we call it a resurrection is because we're assuming his XM self is now inhabiting his old body.
But what if it isn't? What if he's merely made the jump from XM to physical form?
For the sake of the example, we'll call the XM form a 1, and the corporeal form a 0.
In the case of Jarvis, he flipped his state from a 1 to a 0.
Now back to Hank. If you recall, he was on a mission in Afganistan when he went missing, turning up a few days later in a dazed and disoriented state. He was recovered without any of his original gear, and wearing traditional tribal garments. His friend, Azmati, was with him when he was attacked, but he doesn't know where he went afterward. (It's of note that this mission is one of the first references to Alexander the Great and immortality... foreshadowing much? :P )
Now, we have footage of him in a place that matches the description where he and Azmati were when they were attacked, right down to the humming and whispering. Here, he finds his own body, wearing his old gear, judging by the color of the shirt.
It seems that Hank has gone through a similar experience as Jarvis: He was killed in a place saturated in XM, and was somehow "resurrected," but with some extra abilities. In his video diary, he states that he now understands what Jarvis is... Because he now understand he's in the same state as Jarvis. He's a physical manifestation of his XM self, or, as Edgar Allan Wright has (maybe?) called it, a simulacrum.
I'd like to offer the theory that the rapid re-manifestation of his body is what led him to be so disoriented. Jarvis spent much more time as an XM entity, and had opportunity to reorient himself, and understand his new state of being, before coming back to the physical realm. Hank, on the other hand, had his process accelerated. He still has some faint contact with his XM self, when he is near a portal.
Hank, as it seems, is a 0.
Which brings me to my last example: Hubert Farlowe.
Like Johnson and Jarvis, he was exposed to large amounts of XM, and then killed in the near vicinity of a portal. The power of the portal might have something to do with his current state, however. Hubert, it seems, is a superposition of states. He exists as both an XM entity, and a physical being, as demonstrated by his ability to "phase" out of our existence, and into the realm of XM. In the novella, when he was in the safehouse, he encountered Jarvis' XM form; and was invisible to the agent who came to investigate the break-in.
He also refers to "losing time," as if he could just blink and have hours pass. We know that time is different to those who exist as XM entities.... Perhaps he has the ability to slip between the two realities, but doesn't have any conscious control over it?
As Hank can contact his XM self through portals, and Jarvis was able to contact those in the physical realm through portals (and, I suspect, has similar abilities to Hank now that he has manifested), Farlowe appears to be a superposition of the two--he appears as a portal to those around him, and thus would be in constant contact with his XM self.
One might say he's fully entangled with his XM self, existing as a superposition of both XM and physical entities.
Perhaps this is the immortality that Alexander was seeking.
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