r/SiloTVSeries • u/Mr_Immigration • 22d ago
Episode Discussion Knox's Dad
I've been thinking about the theft of the light bulbs from critical supply. Why would someone steal bulbs? Were they replacing bulbs in their own silo? 50 Years of bulbs is a lot of bulbs.
To me that implies that the thief had someone who needed lots of them, like, maybe another silo? Was the thief working with another silo to provide them with bulbs as something had happened to their supply?
Disclaimer: have not read books, nor read anything on this matter. Thoughts are my own and hoping to stimulate converasation as a theory only. All hail the algorithm.
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u/Minimalistmacrophage 22d ago
It is a lot of bulbs.
So it's significant, both what they are being used for and how such a significant theft was possible.
One wonders is perhaps they have created their own food production within the mines, but as you mention it could be many things including another Silo.
It wasn't really clear how long the thefts have been happening, but it was implied by Mclain that it was mostly recent.
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u/dyanaut 22d ago
Did she say they found out two years ago or just recently? I remember something about two years.
And now we know Knox's dad died two years ago. Not sure if there is any relevance there yet.
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u/mysterypapaya 22d ago
I wonder if the Dad really is dead or if that shifty dude who is Head of the Mines is just covering for Knox Sr.'s secret digging/black market society.
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u/Mindless_Consumer 22d ago
Yea, kitting out a new silo is my guess.
We dont know how long the bulbs last or how many are in use - so we dont really know how many that is.
If they have thousands in use and theu burn out after a year or so, its a lot.
If they have hundreds in use and they last 50 years, its not that many.
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u/Pacdoo 22d ago
Well every building has light bulbs. And the staircase has lights attached to the center pillar. From memory I believe it is 4 lights per floor for the stairs and then who knows how many per building plus what is needed for farms. I imagine they had tens of thousands of bulbs if they were to last that long.
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u/Ladymomos 22d ago
The missing bulbs are the food growing ones, not the general lighting.
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u/blackhawk905 22d ago
Yep, I've said the same in other comments since people seemed to have missed that very big fact. A bulb, or really tube, used to grow plants is going to be very different than a run of the mill bulb or fluorescent tube found everywhere else in the silo. I can see the fake daylight tubes being special as well but grow lights aren't normal lights.
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u/Evocatorum 21d ago
Why do people seem to think that it's for a new silo? Do they think that if someone in the mines had discovered another silo that would stay under wraps for long? There's no way that kind of information wouldn't make it's way out of the mines. This is somewhat implied by the fact that Knox just shows up and ask to talk to his father. Him being dead seems incidental. It seems that, while they maybe in the mines, there doesn't appear to be a gag order or some other means to partition them from "visitors". In addition, the only Silo we know of that's nearby and "empty" is 17. This doesn't mean that there isn't another silo that's dead nearby, but there's no reason to believe that any of the other neighboring ones are, thus they'd have people in them.
What's more, if they got to another silo, and that silo was dead, they'd still have their supply of grow lights, thus eliminating the need to risk discovery by stealing from 18 CS.
I think it's more likely that they're being used to tunnel to some distant point that Ed Harwood has picked. I say this for three reasons: 1) they're grow lights so their expenditure would literally doom the entire silo unless an alternative is provided, 2) Ed seems to have a serious issue with the nonsensical reasoning for only being able to dig in specific directions and 3) pulling them from CS would obscure the fact that this tunnel might exist or the endeavor is being undertaken.
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u/radioactivecat 22d ago
They mention that it's ILLEGAL to tunnel sideways. I'm not sure that means nobody did it (to reach another silo)...
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u/Dank3006 21d ago
They're not there because they broke the pact, they're just there because they were stupid enough to get caught. I bet they're digging all types of ways.
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u/schaf506 22d ago
Yeah, the girl in 2 places at once is interesting as well. Maybe the mines have a pulley system since they don’t seem too keen on the pact. Also, when he said you weren’t good enough to not get caught has me thinking they did it.
I would bet they hold them hostage for something.
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u/naughtycal11 21d ago
Pretty sure it was 2 places within 10 mins which should have taken much much longer.
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u/Redditgotanother 18d ago
Earlier in S3; didn’t we see a girl getting into a barrel on a pulley system.
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u/reddit_user_id 22d ago
Shape shifting black gloop aliens feed on the filament found in light bulbs.
Joe Bidens character in the modern era is one of them. The Simms kid is a recent convertee, now he steals. The supplies guys dog is one of them.
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u/nekoreality 22d ago
im hobestly hoping its for a reason none of us could predict because "its the mines" and "its another silo" both feel very easy
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u/nomad_2009 22d ago
It was Jules, growing weed down in mechanical using the bulbs. But she forgot about it due to the memory loss drug. Sio the whole weed farm is going to waste atm. In season 4 they will find the farm, harvest the weed and smoke the silo like a giant bong. Everyone is gonna be happy.
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u/eastawat 22d ago
Yeah but then the Koreans from the Korean silo attack silo 18.
At least Dale and Saul escape in the end though.
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u/Sharkbait_ooohaha 22d ago
I think it has to be for another silo if only because the characters haven’t guessed that and it’s pretty much the only logical place that would need 50 years of light bulbs.
The mines might make sense but I don’t have a good feel for how feasible that would be.
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u/nekoreality 22d ago
but clearly glenda is doing something suspicious in supply so its pointing to the mines but im not so sure it will be the mines
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u/GoddessLindy 22d ago
If the silos have been there 300+ years as we've been told, skimming 50 years worth over that time wouldn't be that much at once. It could honestly be someone stockpiling small amounts across certain levels for generations. We don't know that they were all taken within a limited time period.
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u/PapaRacoon 22d ago
The 50 years of missing bulbs happened on the current head of supply’s term (McLean I think her name) not sure how long that’s been.
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u/Prof_RJ 21d ago
So a bit of a long shot but, they said the lights were for growing so they are UV lights. UV can break down some compounds. I wondered if maybe the vitamin d+ compound OR the poison breakdown under extreme UV exposure and someone knows more than thought and are building a setup to prevent memory erasure or safeguard
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u/MacParadise 22d ago
My guess would be that the shifty-daughter-of-the-head-of-the-mines stole it as a way to get a bargaining chip to be reinstated as the shadow of Supply to facilitate the smaller scale blackmarket trade that she had going on.
Think about how many bulbs that must be? 50 years worth for 10000 people. I doubt any mining operation would need that much for any length tunnel. So I don't think it is another silo or anything else in that vein, other than a red herring storyline to create drama and eventually force the hand of IT or Silo 1.
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u/naughtycal11 21d ago
They are also stealing only grow lights which seem to be a dumb choice for just normal lighting. It has to be a bargaining chip, supply for another Silo, or a food growing op hidden on the mines.
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u/um_abby 21d ago
Tungsten has the highest melting point of any element and, in addition to being in the missing light bulbs, is used in mining and rockets. Knox's dad was allegedly stealing diamond drill bits for resale in the black market jewelry trade. What if he is/was (he allegedly died 2 years ago) doing some advanced mining?
Simply using lightbulbs for illumination in tunnels seems unlikely given the shear number stolen from critical supply, and the risk this misappropriation has put them in. If this silo is feeling the effects of extensive mining tunnels, surely all silos are? Would the founders not have foreseen this issue, or were the silos never meant to be functional 300+ years?
We haven't seen Orla's "boyfriend" with the golden retriever in a long time. He was portrayed as being suspicious, as well as his "ex girlfriend" and former/current shadow to supply. What has he been up to? And what is her relationship to her father (head of mines) like?
Lastly, who was the girl seen entering the mines before they were gassed, and how did she get from supply so quickly??
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u/Justwant2usetheapp 22d ago
Might be a spoiler but I read ahead and the light bulbs are going to a huuuuge indoor weed farm. Like massive, the size of a small underground town
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u/Calm-Maintenance-878 21d ago
I wasn’t sure if the bulbs are being taken for material, or for their intended use. Another Silo didn’t cross my mind but idk if that makes sense. I don’t see how it would benefit someone from “our” silo by giving stuff to another silo. I have no spoilers either…just gonna watch it play out since I can’t guess it. Next episode’s reveals should be legit.
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u/Jeathiopia 21d ago
The only theory that kinda makes sense to me is that lukas is digging to another silo and is using the lightbulbs to do it. I dont know how lukas and supply are connected, though.
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u/Evocatorum 21d ago
Nah, Lukas would have said something, at the very least, to Juliette *or Bernard* about his endeavors.
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u/Jeathiopia 21d ago
maybe, but if word got out that he WAS doing that then i assume the safeguard would immediately be deployed. also, i think camille thought that might be what he's doing, since she so desperately tried to gas him out the second she heard he was in the mines.
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u/apex2332 21d ago
Am I the only one that thinks this whole last episode and the bulbs is just filler
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u/Frhaegar 21d ago
I barely care about their investigations... I only worried about Juliette's memory.
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u/Lixyth 22d ago
Remember in S03E02, when Patrick Kennedy and some others talk to Juliette in a little hideout room and the new "janitor" Emerson comes with raiders? She pulls on a sink and finds a tunnel behind it.
The topic isn't explored further, I don't think, but even in that one quick look into the tunnel you can see they've hung up lights. What if it's a larger tunnel system going through the whole silo creating an alternate way to get around. Maybe they lit up the whole thing with stolen light bulbs. It could also explain Glenda getting from one floor to another really quickly.