Occam's Razor is too simply here (Destiny)

by Earendil, Thursday, June 11, 2015, 15:28 (3248 days ago) @ Durandal

We already know the Vex are an almost incomprehensible enemy. The idea that Exo's were invented primarily to deal with the hazards of the Vex is appealing.

Note though the other implication, that the Vault and the Citadel are not from our native timeline.

There is an inconsistency here. The researchers model of time is a singular and immutable. You cannot go back and change time because the law of physics excludes any solutions that create a paradox.

FWC and the Vex Citadel state the opposite, that there are alternate timelines that can be crossed, the many worlds hypothesis.

Only one of these situations can be true. Time is immutable or it isn't. If the former is true, then the Stranger's mission is impossible, as are the Vex's inscrutable goals. If the latter is true then the Ishtar Collective's researchers are in for a wild ride much like Sliders.

I think the entire "we are a simulation" idea doesn't allow for time to be immutable. Perhaps the simulation can be reset to a certain point in time? If some amount of memory or information were to survive the reset, then that would be a sort of time travel, in that you could send information back to your past self, thus effecting the next outcome of the simulation.

Also, Occam's Razor: You are not Dr. Shim, Ghost just happened to use her login credentials when he hacked the lock. There is no indication Shim Prime moved to an Exo body and then died fighting in the Cosmodrome.

Not that Ghost doesn't spill out all kinds of mumbo jumbo, but that doesn't fit with what ghost does or how he reacts.
If ghost used a simple login/pw he got it in one of two ways
1. The tower, in which case he really should't be surprised by the Dr. Shim greeting
2. He brute forced it, which would defy the "radial A encryption" that Ghost goes on about. You don't need to know the encryption algorithm in order to brute force something.

It seems more likely to me that Ghost did a more traditional hack and found a way to bypass the security all together. That's the simplest explanation in my mind. It's also simply to imagine that in the future biometrics would be used as passwords, not something you enter into a keypad. It is in fact the idea of biometrics that made me SURE we were Dr. Shim when we first arrived.

I would agree that Shim moving to an Exo body and going to earth is an unsupported leap. However it is also a plausible one in the absence of other information. The motivation and ability to transfer into an Exo (or simulation a perfect version of themselves inside an exo) would have lied with those scientists if anyone. As the Golden age came to an end, going back to earth would be a plausible location to retreat to. Plus, just because every other human at the spaceport was trying to escape Earth, doesn't mean Dr. Shim wasn't just arriving. If we assume Dr. Shim didn't die on Venus (for which we have no evidense) then where is the most likely location for Dr. Shim to die?