Grand Theory on Lain

After I watched Serial Experiment Lain, I felt that the Lain software was running on in my mind and it ate up my brain power. I tried to clear my mind and got rid of the confusion and melancholy for days and finally, after studying the information available on the Wired (including a number of messages on this site), I fought back...

One of the biggest mystery in the series is the nature of Lain, who really was Lain?
To understand who she was, we have to start from the beginning...

Spoiler Ahead!!!

In the beginning, Eiri Masami added extra capability to protocol 7 from tried to connect human unconsciousness. This unauthorised change was rejected by the Tachibana lab and Eiri was dismissed and killed by the agents from the company (just like the death of the Knights later on). However, Eiri was aware of danger and he had already programmed himself into the Wired beforehand and he was going to fight back (Message #655 from menlange, http://www.animegrapevine.com/messages/messages.asp?MID=96618).

It was difficult for Eiri to fight Tachibana lab alone and he found that the Knight Templar knew how to use the network of human unconsciousness before the existence of the Wired (Layer 10). (The Knights was a tightly organised society and it was not easy to join. Though the camera man in Layer 07 was technically very capable - he found the original Lain of the Wired and broke into the physical Lain's email system, he did not join the society at the bottom entrance level and such behaviour was not tolerated. Therefore, he did not only lost his chance to become a Knight - he was eliminated.) Eiri promoted the vision of joining the Wired with the network of human unconsciousness to the Knights and so they worked together. He became the leader of the project.

Lain was THE program that Eiri and the Knights developed. Other than the compass symbol of the Knights, she was the most frequently used symbol in the Knights community (e.g. the camera man in Layer 07 found Lain when he searched for the Knights and the goddess Lain in the sky). She ran on human brain power (KIDS project) to simulate certain personality(s). The first version of Lain existed in the Wired and interacted with other people on the Wired.

The next stage of the development was to feed the image of Lain into human mind. The Knights chose Cyberia and setup a LAN (Local Area Network) for brains within the Cafe (Layer 09, Lain showed Taro a replica of this experiment). Initially, people needed the help of Accela to have the hallucination of Lain. After some more development, Accela was no longer needed for people in Cyberia to 'see' Lain (Layer 02, the three girls saw Lain at Cyberia).

The next breakthrough was the project of putting Lain into the physical world. By adding a crossover component to the program, Lain actually could have a physical body and move physical objects. So a false family and a school were arranged. In Layer 01, Lain was not very responsive because her performance was not tuned. However, in case of danger, the Wired Lain personality could take over and take offensive measures (Explanation of Lain in Chinese http://www.animad.idv.tw/2794.htm).

Since the member of the Knights was scattered all over the world and it was hard to observe what the physical Lain was doing in Japan and improve the Lain program, Eiri tried to seduce Lain to go onto the Wired by the incidence of the suicide of Chisa (Lain was actually brought to the top of the building to witness Chisa's suicide) and all sort of hallucinations so that the Knights could observe her from the Wired.

The next bit that follows is the scene that Lain went to Cyberia for the first time. The LAN system was not totally compatible with the physical Lain and it twisted the mind of those who took Accela (Not just the Accela boy, a few people was lying on the floor in the end of Layer 02). The Accela boy somehow figured out that Lain was responsible for the problem and so he tried to kill her. In this dangerous situation, the Wired Lain personality took over and started an offensive attack on the Accela boy. The mind of the Accela boy was then under Wired Lain's control and finally killed himself. Due to problem in compatibility, experiments on the Cyberia LAN was then not frequently performed (In Layer 03, JJ asked Lain why she had not been in Cyberia for a while).

When Lain was brought to the police station, she was quite unresponsive because the Knights put a lot of attention in making the Wired Lain took over the normal Lain quickly but not the reverse (because the threat was over and latency would not be a problem). Moreover, it was only very the first time that this function was used (This is some kind of programmers' mentality – when there is a deadline to be met and the programming was not completed, a 'cunning' programmer will concentrate on the most important features and the presentation of the program. The half finished bits will be named 'minor adjustments' or 'bugs' and they now belong to the maintenance cycle, not the development cycle). The normal Lain herself was also confused – were there two of me in one body?

After installing the Psyche processor and a lot of hacking by Lain, Lain was now online and the Knights and develop and debug Lain more effectively. Lain became more responsive and positive. She also helped out in programming too!

However, some members of the Knights still did not satisfy with speed that Lain was online. Therefore, they captured the brain of Mika, and turned her into a fax machine (Panel discussion with Yasuyuki Ueda and Yoshitoshi ABe, http://www.cjas.org/~leng/o2klain.txt, search for fax) so that the Knights had their dedicated surveillance system on Lain to investigate in another dimension (Mika was sending messages to someone when Lain was doing the Cyberia reproduction experiment in Layer 10). So what was the prophecy? I think the prophecy was the breaking down of the Wired and the physical world and the connection of human unconsciousness. Mika was a part of the fulfillment because she was a development tool for the Lain project.

After observing the way that Lain built her computer system via Mika, a few members of the Knights was not impressed. They sent a parasite bomb to destroy part of the system so that Lain could rebuilt it, and hopefully, to improve the performance of the system. The rebuilt system looked better in Layer 07, but not perfect (in Layer 09, even Taro could spot that some part of the system was only 'not smart, but it works'). Lain put up more security measures and other members of the Knights put social pressure on those who sent the bomb and so there was no more 'bomb to improvement'. I see the Knights as a community made up of people with different attitudes. It made the interpretation of Serial Experiment Lain easier.

Lain became more self-absorbed when she immersed herself in hacking. I think hacking was addictive for Lain because she actually could discover her true self and clear up her confusion. Imagine if you did some programming and suddenly you felt that your brain worked better or you felt physically stronger. I think as Lain discovered more again herself, it was hard for her to explain to the other girls the weird things that had been going on. This also made her unresponsive.

Things did get better as the series went on. In Layer 09, she actually could reproduce the Knights' experiment in Cyberia and seduced Taro to her room to test it. At that point, she did not just accept the fact that the normal and Wired Lain co-existed in one body, both personalities actually co-operated in this testing plan.

The Lain program was more effective and so some members of the Knights tried to put in one more personality and one more body, i.e. evil Lain, and tested its performance.

One unexpected effect of getting Lain online and participating in hacking herself was that Lain was so good at it that she could beat the Knights and had their identities exposed. The Knights did not care about Lain's feeling and had not anticipated Lain's reaction to the evil Lain and got revenge.

The development of Lain at this point was good enough to achieve Eiri's original aim – to defeat Tachibana Lab. He could now influence the decision made by the company and the Knights were not needed anymore. Therefore, Eiri just had the Knights killed by the MIBs. Karl actually said to Lain in Layer 10 that some sort of god was protecting her so they would not kill her. Eiri could have protected the Knights but he did not want to the secret in the program Lain to be exposed. So even the MIBs were killed. Eiri used part of the Lain program to twist the brain of one of the MIBs so Karl could see Lain inside the other MIB's pupil.

After all these killing, there was only Eiri and Lain who knew the secret of the technology. Those people who knew something in Tachibana Lab were already under Eiri's control. Eiri disconnected Lain from reality and tried to make Lain to love him by isolation. However, Lain refused and tried to re-connect herself and took the courage to share her discovery of her true nature with Alice. Firstly, she did not do a pretty job (Lain with an alien body in Layer 11). However, she became all that she wanted, happy and positive, on the next day in school in Layer 12 because she now understood who she was and had full control over any Lain that existed. Her performance was also well tuned and she was very responsive and having fun. Unfortunately, Alice took the reverse role and became the confused and sad lady.

When Alice visited Lain, Eiri found that Alice started to understand a bit of the secret and so he kindly asked Lain to take control over Alice, but...

For those who watched the show to the end, the rest is pretty straight forward and I do not think I need to explain anymore.

When I am typing this message, I wonder if I am proposing a theory or I am just writing a fan fiction since I speculate a lot. I also feel uneasy to treat lain like a machine, but it seems that more explanation of Lain can be found this way. If you are a technical person, some of the stuff also did not make sense in strict technical terms. However, I think that is all that I can do.

So what do you think? Please make some comment to this theory. May be it can help you to clear your mind a bit too.

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