USS Callister: Into Infinity’s ending reveals that James Walton, the CEO of Callister Inc, had always been the real evil. He was the one who exploited the computer geek Robert Daly for his financial gains and created an unstoppable monster the world wasn’t aware of. [Spoiler Alert] The Black Mirror episode didn’t exactly explore Robert’s mental condition, but it could be assumed that the introvert might have had a traumatic childhood, which could explain why he got so addicted to his favorite television show, Space Fleet. It seemed like Robert was abandoned by pretty much everyone he cared for. He grew up a lonely lad who yearned for some warmth and validation, but when he didn’t find any, he confined himself to his quarters to find an escape in a fictional universe. Robert always had a yearning to prove his mettle to the world so that people would love him, adore him, or at least respect him. So no one would ever leave his side again, but he ended up being the lonely guy every time. That was Robert’s tragedy, but it doesn’t give him the excuse to take digital clones of his office colleagues prisoner just because he lacked company in real life. Maybe Robert wouldn’t have turned out to be a monster if James hadn’t handed him a DNA cloning machine. Well, you never know. But let’s not delve into “ifs” because, in that case, the possibilities will be endless, and with that said, allow me to break down the ending of USS Callister: Into Infinity without further ado.
Robert Daly Is Alive, Not Exactly
In the ending of episode 1 of Black Mirror season 4, clone Nanette and her crew of digital clones were able to escape the server on Robert’s personal computer and jumped to the public server, which was connected to Infinity’s virtual universe. However, after spending a few months in this simulated universe, Nanette and her crew soon realized that their deaths would be permanent, unlike other players who are resurrected after they lose their lives in the game. This meant Nanette and her friends would sooner or later die fighting the real players. Nanette was trying really hard to give her friends a hope to survive against the odds, but she didn’t have any. This was the moment when Nanette came up with the idea of accessing the game’s source code so they could create their own private universe, just like Robert’s Space Fleet Mod. This private development build would be sealed off from the rest of the cloud server, meaning they would never come across other players and wouldn’t have to hunt down credits to survive. They would live happily ever after in a universe of their own.
However, the source code was stored inside the Heart of Infinity, a core engine at the center of the virtual universe that creates and maintains the whole game. And only two people could access this core: the founders of the game, Robert and James. Well, they rescued James from an isolated planet only to find out that, some 12 years ago, the real James used a DNA cloner on Robert to make a virtual clone of him so Robert could finish the game in time and they could launch it as quickly as possible. So basically, all these years, it was Robert’s digital clone who had been tirelessly creating Infinity’s universe and was trapped for all eternity inside the game engine. Well, he got pretty lonely, to say the least. The irony is, that the young nerd was abandoned by his real self. He’d enslaved his digital consciousness, mirroring how James treated Robert as an employee in his own company. So yes, Robert was alive, though not in flesh and blood. He still lived in the simulated version of the garage where everything started. Robert’s consciousness believed his real self, or maybe James, would one day pay a visit to him and acknowledge his work, but alas, that day didn’t come. Robert had completely forgotten about him, while for James, the digital consciousness wasn’t real. It was just a computer program… his golden goose.
Being a monster is in Robert’s DNA
The very first visitor Robert’s consciousness got in all these years was a digital clone of Nanette, who wanted the game’s creator to help transfer her and her friends to a private universe so she and her friends would no longer be hunted down and killed by other players in the game. Well, when Nanette met Robert in his garage, I noticed kind of something strange. I guess this whole scene tells us more about Robert than the entire two episodes. Robert was just trying to understand Nanette’s crisis and finally told her it all sounded like Cladenstination, one of the classic Space Fleet episodes. For a moment, she stood there, completely blank and expressionless, as she, like James, or most folks, for that matter, hadn’t seen a single episode of Space Fleet. At that moment, Robert believed Nanette, too, was just like James, and that she’d come to visit him just because she needed his help. But before he could jump to a conclusion, Nanette finally acknowledged his love for the show, and even though she hadn’t seen the episode, it made her curious. This made Robert realize that Nanette was actually listening to him, unlike James, who bluntly ignored him every time he talked about the Space Fleet or things that mattered to him.
The thing is, Robert had always been a thinker. While Nanette was standing in front of him begging for help, he was calculating millions of outcomes of what would happen if he helped her or if he didn’t help her. He knew that Nanette was going to leave the garage, and he would once again be a lonely guy for another million years. This was one of the reasons he wanted to make another digital copy of Nanette and keep her as a pet. Well, that’s classic Robert Daly. In the real world, normal people believe in earning a woman’s love, but Robert wants to “own” it; that’s some serious concern, bruh. He also played a little Space Fleet role-playing game with her and gave her the Matrix “red pill-blue pill” choice. In the scenario, the real-life Nanette was brain dead but Robert could revive her by transferring her digital consciousness into her physical body. So, Robert gave digital Nanette the choice to either save her real-self or save her friends. Well, Nanette chose her crew, because it had been her struggle since the very beginning of USS Callister: Into Infinity. It turned out there was a third option too, and Robert could save everyone, though he wanted to “save” a copy of Nanette too. When she resisted, he sealed off her lips, the very same thing that had traumatized Nanette in the previous episode, which she’d been having nightmares about ever since. Well, long story short, no matter how many digital copies Robert makes of himself, and no matter which alternate universe he is in, he is always going to end up acting like a monster in the end. It’s ingrained in his DNA, and this can’t be cured.
Infinity Is Gone Forever
Surprise, surprise, Robert wasn’t just imprisoned inside the heart of infinity; he was actually the heart of the game. And with him dead, the game was gone forever… His death activated the kill switch, which wiped the game from the servers along with all its backups. There wasn’t a single trace left of it. Most of the files were deleted or corrupted, which means not even Kabir, the tech guy at Callister, could bring them back, and I am sure you wouldn’t expect James to have any physical copies of the game, because that’s not his thing. He was just there to cash the checks. Additionally, even if they managed to restore Infinity somehow, the company wouldn’t be able to sell it, considering James got himself into a real legal mess for using a banned technology to create the game.
In USS Callister: Into Infinity’s ending, Nanette threw Commander Scarfax’s Bargradian cutlass at Robert, which sliced his frontal lobe into two halves. Well, the guy had been split between being a hero and a villain from the very beginning, so I guess, in the end, we saw his true face. Also, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the guy who always considered himself Captain Storm, the hero of the Space Fleet, was actually the villain, Commander Scarfax, all along. And it was Nanette who acted like a true hero and saved her real self and her crew from the villain’s grasp.
The Space Fleet Crew Is Stuck In Nanette’s Head
Well, saying James was narcissistic could be an understatement. He was a loser, a pathological liar, and a sadist who didn’t care for anyone except himself. To get rid of the rogue clone crew with the “noplayers tag,” he infiltrated their starship and invited all the players for a game where a whole bunch of revenge-seeking warships appeared in the space in front of them and started attacking their vessel. Nanette’s USS Callister lost its shields in the attack, though it was fortunate that she was able to transfer her digital copy and her friends into her real-life body. Robert did tell her that he had created a private universe for her, but you see, this separate pocket was still a part of the game, and with the original core engine gone completely, the separate universe couldn’t exist there. I guess the kill switch messed up the whole programming, and Nanette was only able to copy her digital consciousness into her physical body, which ultimately saved her and her friends’ lives. Yes, they were transferred as well, because where else would they have gone? There was no other place for them to go with the servers wiped out. This meant Nanette’s crew now had to live inside her brain, at least for the time being, like the core emotions in the Pixar film Inside Out. Well, she said she was working on a way to transfer them to a private universe on her local computer, but she didn’t exactly look enthusiastic about the whole deal, so we’ll never know. She had made a few notes, but you can already spot the breadcrumbs on it suggesting her crew was going to be stuck inside her brain for a long period of time. But that doesn’t mean Nanette couldn’t do it. If you remember, Nanette had always been in awe of Robert’s work, and if there’s anyone who could rebuild Infinity, then it’s either her or Kabir. I believe she would enlist Kabir’s help to recreate the virtual universe where she would be able to transfer her friends and give them a new home. Well, let’s see when she finally accomplishes this task at hand, because she’s currently trying to catch up with the real-life reality show “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” However, the thing I am not quite sure of is how the crew can make a call to Nanette’s cellphone, considering the fact the game is wiped out and there’s no internet inside Nanette’s mind. So, that’s really not possible. This hints at the possibility that Nanette and her crew might still be stuck in another simulation, and we will likely find more about it in the next sequel if there’s any in the future.
James Finally Gets Arrested
Like they say, all’s well that ends well. In USS Callister: Into Infinity’s ending, James got what he deserved. After the game crashed, James tried to flee the scene but was finally arrested by the authorities. But you may ask, on what charges? I mean, crashing the game isn’t a criminal offense, right? Well, actually his arrest has everything to do with Nanette. If you remember, it was James who had killed one of Nanette’s crew members, Karl Valdack. Yes, both clone and real-life Nanette held real James responsible for Karl’s murder, and even though they couldn’t frame him as a murderer, they did have a lot of other evidence against him to put him behind bars for a long period of time. I guess, as soon as Nanette took over her real self’s body, she contacted the journalist Kris El Masry and gave him the information about how James and Robert used a DNA digital cloner to create the game. Kris, who had been investigating Robert’s shocking death, had spotted the device on his desk. According to Kris, the tech was banned globally on human rights grounds, which meant creating sentient digital clones of real people was illegal, but James, in his greed, forced Robert to do it so he could finish the game in time and earn money. And with Robert already dead, both digitally and physically, it’s all going to spiral back to James, who will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
