37:54
Hello, internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that always loves a good vote. Dang it. That's from our show Dead Wrong over on Theory First, by the way. Link in the description. But despite being totally right, that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Instead, I wanted to go back and visit an old classic game of voting and deception, Among Us. Why? Because during the Summer Game Fest, out of nowhere, we got an entire 10 episode season of an Among Us TV show dropped on Paramount Plus. I remember when this show was announced, and the cast was stacked. And then it just never came out. But better late than never because I've been itching to dive back into this franchise. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What are you, what are you doing? This is a TV show. As in film as [clears throat] in film theory. Lee, please. I need this. It'll just be for one episode. You've never even talked about these little beans before. It would be weird to start now. We've been over this. When one of your things comes to my medium, it becomes mine. That's the rule. Okay, look. Can we just not do this in front of the loyal theorists? Let's just step inside here and we'll Hey. Hey, let me out. I learned that from playing James Bond First Light. How's that for a movie video game? Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. I'm so pleased this show dropped because it means we can finally dive back into this franchise and talk about the element we
all love, the law. Many years ago, we did an episode about the lore of this game because it does exist. It's just much harder to find than usual. But a show that's going to be full of the stuff. Every show needs a story, right? This one is focused around a regular who done it story where one by one each of the characters are killed off, including the sexiest character of all time, Blue. Ah, rest in peace, sweet prince. So, the crew has to figure out who the imposter is. I won't spoil the ending here, but there is one thing this story showed us that drastically changes part of our original theory. These little beans
aren't human. Their anatomy is a very large focus of this story. From their single bone bodies to their private back areas, they aren't even wearing suits. The color is just their body, and they wear clothes on top of that. These things definitely aren't human. So, what are they? And how does that change what we know about this game? in its story. Well, get those pointer fingers ready, theorists, because we're going to vote humans out of the airlock and figure out the real identity of these beans. Let's just hope we get it right. [groaning] Let's start with the biggest factor that
changed my entire outlook on these beans, their skin. These guys aren't wearing spacuits. It's literally just their skin. I suppose it makes sense if they were in space suits, then sending them out into the vacuum of space wouldn't cause any issue, at least not immediately. But in the show, we see them wearing clothes and at one point they begin to hallucinate and start taking off all their clothes, including their backpacks, revealing their private parts. I guess it's a very weird show. Regardless, this gives us a few key details to work with. If this is their skin and not a suit, that means this thing isn't a visor, but their actual eye. And we see that in the show. It
squints when they're sus, cries when they're sad, and sparkles when they're in the presence of blue. And who can blame them? He's hot stuff. Can you trust me? In reality, this kind of evolution is exceptionally rare. Animals have evolved two eyes because it is just seen as a far superior trait. Two eyes provide you great depth perception, which I'm sure you can recognize is important to daily life. And in the show, the fact that green struggles to catch the ball shows that one eye lacks that depth perception. However, that's not to say that single eyes don't have their advantages. A single eye, especially one as large as the beans, would provide better central symmetry.
Two eyes often have a blind spot that your brain has to make up for. With us, it's our noses. Technically, you don't see your nose when you're looking forward. Your brain just fills in the gap. But one giant eye means there is no blind spot. Plus, a single eye allows for a wider field of view, which could be more useful if you're expecting to be caught offguard by an imposter. And given that the mirror corporation is actively shipping impostor eggs to use as a fuel source, they could have pushed for that evolutionary trait in order to survive. Single eyes also require less brain power and energy to use. One eye produces a single image. Your brain doesn't have to work at combining images
and filling in the blanks, which means less energy spent on the vision. And when you're the size of a jelly bean and hunkered down in a spaceship for months on end, conserving energy is a really useful thing, especially for a company that is trying to be cheap. And that's actually backed up by what the scientists say are the most likely animals to go down this line of evolution. basically anything that lives underground in caves or deep underwater because their vision is already low down in those environments and so their need for depth perception or detailed sight is already low. Why not just save your body the energy and resources while you're at it? The closest thing we have to this right now is the copapod, a
small aquatic crustaceation who has a single median nplear eye, which is actually just a bunch of photoreceptive cups grouped together behind a single lens. So given they don't survive outside of the water, the beans are likely some kind of underground or cave species that has evolved this singular eye. Hey, listen to me, man. Got to listen to me. Huh? What was that le? It's probably not important. Anyway, in the game, one of the major sabotages that could occur is oxygen deprivation. They then mirror this in the show and end up hallucinating in one of the episodes due to that same oxygen deprivation. So oxygen is clearly important to their survival. And throughout the show, Yellow and Brown are also shown making pizzas for the crew and regularly enjoy
sharing one together. However, while they need to eat and breathe, they don't have mouths, so they'll need to be able to do that likely through their skin. How animals do this is rather than having lungs or stomachs, they instead absorb oxygen and nutrients through their skin directly. Lungless salamanders, for example, have a butt ton of blood vessels in their skin, which when in moist environments like water or underground, allows the oxygen to simply dissolve into the layer of moisture that covers the skin, which can then be absorbed and pumped around the body by the heart. The same thing goes for animals that absorb their nutrients
through their skin. But speaking of weird skin, it's time to talk about this moment. Oh my. [snorts] Yeah. So under their backpacks is a censored area and due to them getting naked in this scene, it's heavily implied that this is some kind of genitalia. Obviously, we have no idea what it looks like, but we can presume a few things based on what little we're shown. And honestly, it's more than I was asking for anyway from my silly little bean detection show. Anyway, this reproductive organ is on the back of the crew. Both mask and fem presented. Meaning either there is no distinct difference between male and female sexes within this evolutionary species or they have the same genitalia regardless of
sex. This actually works for the lungless salamander we were talking about. They don't have external reproductive organs like mammals do. Instead, both sexes have a cloica that is used for both excretion and reproductive purposes. However, how they work is different depending on the sex. The male will create a packet of sperm that it then expels from the cloa and leaves for the female to find. When the female comes over, they then pick up the packet with their own cloa, which leads to offspring. The benefits of this being
our solution is that one, a cloaker is pretty flat, which means putting a backpack on top of it isn't going to be too uncomfortable, but also it allows you to not become super vulnerable to predators by having to be together at the same time. Other reptiles do it slightly differently by having cloa to clo. Am I saying this word too much? Feels like I'm saying this word too much. Either way, salamanders seem like a pretty good bet. I do have to say that no animal actually has reproductive organs on their backs like this. It's typically seen as massively disadvantageous as it is a very exposed area. But I suppose doing it back to back does mean you can keep an eye out for predators similar to the evolution
of the single eye. So maybe this is just another one of those future evolutionary traits. But sadly, the salamander train comes to a screeching halt with our next detail. The beans can survive a nuclear fallout. A big plot point is the story behind Red and Purple's relationship. When they were younger, they failed to stop a reactor meltdown, which then totally decimated the entire city. However, everyone seems to survive, including them, despite being so close to the fallout. Now, we're never told exactly what these reactors in the game are, but given that they're used to power the ship, and the only type we
have right now that can do that, utilize plutonium and uranium. Yeah, I think it's safe to say these were a nuclear explosion. There are actually a few contenders here. We've all heard about cockroaches being able to survive nuclear fallout. And if you believe shows like Fallout, they actually kind of thrive. But there's also things like deloid rotifers, a microscopic aquatic animal that is also said to do the same thing. They do this via a few methods. For cockroaches, it's because of their slow cell division. Radiation causes your cells to mutate, and so when they divide, they create new cells with those same mutations, which can lead to things like cancer. However, if your cells divide slowly, then the mutations
take longer to grow throughout your system. It doesn't make you fully immune. It just means that you survive for longer. Rotifers, on the other hand, can actually repair shattered DNA really quickly and also have the ability to borrow DNA from the environment. So, they can just swap out the bad DNA and be on their way. Then, there's also one of this channel's favorite little creatures, the tardigrade or the water bear. They have special proteins that physically protect their DNA from things like radiation. You'll notice though, salamanders not on that list. They would die fast. But that's okay because I think the tardigrade is a pretty decent replacement candidate. They resist
radiation like we talked about. They absorb oxygen through their skin and they reproduce via a flat hole called a gonopore which they use to expel sperm into the female's body and they absorb it back through their own gonopore. Tardigrades also have another feature that the beans have legs without bones. When killed, the Among Us beans fall over and only have a single bone sticking out of them. During the show, we get told that this is in fact the only bone they have, while imposters have zero, which is how they use the scanners to determine an imposter. That means their limbs aren't being supported by bone structures like most mammals.
Instead, they have fleshy, unjointed limbs that are essentially just giant fluid cavities with muscles that push against that fluid that allow them to move. These things are called lobo, and it's exactly what the tardigrades have. So, they would seem like the perfect fit, right? Well, once again, I have bad news. Firstly, tardigrades do have mouths, unlike our little beans. Secondly, while they are technically ripe for the oneeyed evolution treatment given their environment right now, their eyesight is very rudimentary, basically only focusing on light rather than anything else.
Dude, you don't you go talking about this bone. But thirdly, that big bone. Yeah, that's not a trait tardigrades also share. I was feeling so good about this one, but now we're just back to square one. What could it possibly be? I feel like I've run out of options. I guess I'll just go and drown my sorrows by watching more of this silly show. I grew up on a worm farm. Wait, it's just like that time in the worm farm when I feel like a worm because I didn't know if kissing new worms would be adultery. That's it. All of this time, it's been staring me right in the face. They're worms. Okay, I know it sounds crazy, but
just hear me out. Earthworms are prime examples of animals that breathe without organs or mouths. They also mate in a way that would track with what we've seen. Earthworms are actually hermaphrodites, meaning that they have both male and female reproductive organs. They line up bellyto belly and exchange sperm, fitting both our idea of flat body parts for their back areas, but also the fact that there is no visual difference between male and female reproductive organs. As for eating with no males, there are a bunch of worms that just absorb nutrients through their skin. Flatworms like the ones we've talked about in our Bamban episode, giant tube worms literally have no digestive tract. But the most notable
would be the ever popular tapeworm. If you've never had the misfortune of getting one of these for yourself, tapeworms are a parasitic worm that will make your intestines its home, using its outer covering to absorb all the nutrients it needs from the food you digest. Food like pizza, just like we see in the show. And while you probably think of worms as limbless creatures, there are actually a few that break this rule. The velvet worm has the same ny loopods that tardigrates have, which makes sense. They're actually a related species. And they're seaworms like the bristle worm that have similar fleshy appendages called parapodia which also move by muscles rather than bones which allow them to crawl, dig, and swim.
Also, if these guys were worms, then a bunch of the things that Green says especially make way more sense. At one point, Green mentions kissing worms back on his worm farm. It's just like that time in the worm farm when I got caught in the worm silo and push on my neighbor, but Oh, I thought maybe there'd be an echo because the lights are on. Animals are biologically programmed to be attracted to the same species as them. If they do not mate with their own species, they will not be able to produce offspring and the species won't survive. So, from a young age, they
learn to identify visual signals like color and patterns, smells, and pherommones, as well as particular sounds and dances that the species used to attract mates. The reason that Green looks at the worms and goes, "That's good kissing practice." isn't because they look like lips. It's because he's looking at a less evolved version of his own species. And so, that biological attraction is still there. Later on, when he's hallucinating, he also calls out, "I feel like a worm." When you lose oxygen, your brain loses its higher functioning abilities, which can essentially cause you to go into autopilot. Your dominant behaviors that you don't think about become your primary action, as they don't require your brain to make it happen. So, here,
green is acting and feeling like a worm because that's what his brain is used to doing when it doesn't have access to its higher functions thanks to the lack of oxygen. On top of that, there are these tiny worms called round worms found in Chernobyl, the most radioactive landscape on Earth. And these round worms were not only surviving, but actually thriving due to their simple bodies with less complex organs for radiation to disrupt their ability to pause their metabolism while under stress, further slowing down the spread of mutated cells and their ability to just resist more radiation than other animals. Now, I know I've mentioned a lot of different worm species here rather than one specific genus, but
that's because no worm, heck, no animal, has every single feature we need. Given this takes place with very readily available space travel in a galaxy we don't recognize, I don't think it's a stretch to say that this takes place somewhere in the future. And that allows for years and years of evolution to take place. And with many years of evolution in this new space fairing environment, it would make any worm a likely candidate for what they call convergent evolution. The idea is basically that there are only so many solutions to certain environmental problems in the world and so different animals end up growing similar adaptations despite being very different genuses. Think hedgehogs and akidnas or flying
squirrels and sugar gliders or yes all the kinds of worms we've mentioned. These guys are all examples of different genuses evolving in similar ways. So given enough time and enough environmental stimuli, it is fully possible that these guys would begin to look even more similar to one another. essentially borrowing traits from each other, eventually evolving into the little beans we now know and kill. Maybe that's why Green has a worm farm to begin with. They're literally farming and selectively breeding worms to create more crew mates. And speaking of evolutions, all of these worms are perfect for the single eye evolution.
They spend most of their time either underground or underwater depending on the species. Some like Venadis even have camera lens eyes to see which can actually see on a similar level to some fish. So, all we need is for that to converge into a single eye over time. Tom, I swear. Let me out of here, Tom. I'm going to call a meeting. Tom, I am going to call a meeting. Are you seriously not going to mention it? Mention what? You've talked about their eye how many times now? But you haven't mentioned the fact that their eye is weird. Unlike most mammal eyes, which are soft and squishy, their eyes do act like visors.
When pierced by the imposttor, or if they have something thrown at it, they crack and shatter like glass. But they're also completely able to heal. How can you explain that with your worms? Also, did you forget about the whole bone thing? I'm getting there. But let me start with the eye thing. While this is not a trait we see in worms specifically, we're already going down the rabbit hole of convergent evolution. So, let me show you where we have seen this kind of thing historically. An extinct animal called trilobytes. These guys had lenses on top of their eyes made of calite, which is about as tough as a copper
coin. This hard eye was designed to focus light better due to its large curved surface, which is just like what we see from the beans. It was also really durable, so it would protect their eyes from scratches caused by sediment and debris. We see similar evolutions in modern animals, too. Sharks, snakes, crocodiles, even some birds have protective lenses that do the same job, although they've evolved to be slightly softer and more flexible. But there's one more reason that all these animals have the protective layer. That tells us something interesting about the Among Us characters and their future. See, sometimes you get scratches in your eye just from existing in locations thanks to things like dust and debris.
Another reason is it can get damaged because something else tries to attack it or if you're trying to attack something else. All of the animals I've mentioned, including trilobytes, are predators. They use this lens to shield their eye from the prey that might try to fight back and to stop any debris getting into their eye to cloud their vision while they're on the attack. The Among Us beans are not the good guys of the galaxy. They are actively evolving to be predators, growing a hardened lens over their eye in order that they can attack their enemies without distractions. We actually see a little bit of this in the show. We find out that the special ore they are harvesting
are actually the eggs of the impostor species. They are going to other planets to harvest their young. And I would be surprised if that's happening without a fight. Which finally brings me on to the whole bone thing. Look, no animal in the world has a single bone in their body. It's just not practical. In animals, bones do a couple of crucial things. They support the body and form the structure. They protect your internal organs, and they act as storage for various minerals, fats, and blood cells. However, the bone we see from the beans can only really do one of those things.
The bone may appear as what is holding up their torso, but it's not exactly forming the bodily structure. And without a rib cage or skull, all of their organs are just easy access for anyone or anything to get. Which means realistically this bone is more likely acting as a mineral or fat deposit and a way to produce more blood cells which will help with oxygen efficiency. Useful when you're stuck in space. But then how would our worms get them? Well, there are some worms out there that like to borrow from their meals. Some flatworms eat algae, but rather than digest it, it goes on to live inside their tissues, allowing them to photosynthesize. Other flatworms take pigments from what they eat to change
their color. But the best example is the ribbon worm, who consumes things like crustaceans, molllesks, and even other worms. All of which contain toxins that the ribbon worm then adopts in order to defend itself. Worms have the ability to absorb useful traits from their prey. And if they are indeed evolving to become predators, then they're more likely to be consuming other creatures that do have bones, allowing them to borrow that trait and gain a useful mineral and oxygen producing part. I mean, we do see them eating pizza with meat on it after all. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching World Premiere on Game Theory.
This is how you win among us every
