Spoiler Alert for 1899 Season 1
The mind-bending Netflix series 1899 has left fans with more questions than answers throughout the duration of the first season. Brought to us by the creators of Dark, Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, 1899 features passengers on a ship called Kerberos that is traveling to America. A diverse cast of people from all over Europe and even China is seeking to escape their past and start new lives. But instead, they find themselves in a nightmare reality, which isn’t even real, to begin with. As it turns out, they are trapped in a simulation, but who is behind this and why?
The season finale sends fans through yet another twist of events as Maura finally wakes up from the simulation, only to discover that she is being held in a pod on a spaceship. Surrounding her, still asleep in their pods, are the other people she met in the simulation. The center console of the pod chamber then reveals a message from Ciaran, Maura’s brother, who she had been searching for on the Prometheus ship in the simulation. Maura then looks outside only to discover she is sailing not on the sea but among the stars. Let’s explore what this reveals about the plot of season 1 and hopefully find some answers to all the confusion.
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Who Is Controlling the Simulation?
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Initially, we are led to believe that Maura’s father, Henry, is running the simulation and keeping Maura trapped. She was originally a doctor but has now become a mental patient due to her father’s interference. Her husband, Daniel, and their son Elliot have entered the simulation to save her from it and wake her up. Henry becomes known as the Creator, but later, Henry reveals to Elliot that it is he who is trapped in the simulation, not Maura and that it was his mother who created the simulation for him because he was dying. With Daniel’s help, Maura created this alternate reality to allow Elliot to live with his parents forever. In which case, Maura is the Creator.
And if that wasn’t confusing enough, it is revealed at the end that Henry is as entrapped in the simulation as Maura and Elliot. Supposedly, Maura’s brother Ciaran is now in control and has taken over the project. According to the message that appears on the console, the year is actually 2099, and the spaceship they are traveling on is called the Prometheus. With all this information to decipher, it is difficult to know who the Creator is, but we know that Ciaran is the one currently in control of it.
However, we know very little about Ciaran. Beyond the message from Ciaran referring to Maura as ‘sister,’ we have little evidence that he is really Maura’s brother or if he is even a person at all. Perhaps he is the program’s artificial intelligence entity that Maura created to control the simulation once she and everyone else were inside. That is, assuming that Maura is indeed the Creator.
What Is the Purpose of the Simulation?
Since we now know that the main characters of 1899 are being held in simulation pods on a spaceship, we naturally want to know the purpose of the simulation. The simulation is set to take place 200 years before 2099 and will repeat itself if Maura doesn’t wake up by the end of the cycle. However, this time Daniel is able to reprogram the code for the key and wake Maura up.
We don’t know if she has any memory of how she got there, who she really is, and what is going on. It could be entirely possible that the program rewrites her memories or implants the latest version of the simulation. Regardless, we still don’t know the real reason for the simulation and why it was set in 1899. And although the message on the console of the pod chamber welcomes Maura to reality, we can’t be sure that it is reality. She may have escaped the loop set in 1899, but she may have found herself in yet another simulation that takes place in the futuristic year 2099.
Initially, it could have been that simulation was meant to keep the spaceship passengers occupied during their voyage, but if that’s the case, something must’ve gone wrong in the programming, such as a virus. Or someone else (Ciaran) took control and reprogrammed the simulation to exploit the passengers’ darkest secrets, forcing them to endure an endless cycle of nightmares. Or, possibly, this was entirely how the simulation was meant to be, and it was some mind exercise or training regime for those on the voyage across the solar system.
Perhaps Maura has not yet found her way into reality, but another simulation that is set in a different time, where she and the other passengers are taking place in Project Prometheus. We imagine this will be the main subject of exploration for season 2, and hopefully, we will get some answers, but not before we are thoroughly confused. The season finale certainly sets us up for a whirlwind of mysteries yet to be solved.
