In the third episode of Beacon 23, we witnessed another death in Beacon. An official of QTA, Coley, who had sneaked into Beacon in search of the precious space minerals, was eventually stabbed by her colleague/lover Aster. The episode concluded with Aster saving Halan’s life, leaving us hoping that we will see their budding romance or friendship in future episodes. However, the fourth episode of Beacon 23 comes with a surprise, with completely new characters. We saw that Sophie, whose specialization was on various kinds of fabrics found in space, was the actual master of Bart. This episode is probably going to be the origin story of Beacon 23, which was initially supervised by Sophie and Bart. Let’s see how Sophie was connected with the core narrative of the series.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did Milan Aleph Come To Beacon 23?
Episode 4, titled God in the Machine, opens in a different timeline in the same space station, Beacon 23. Sophie is the beacon keeper, who treats Bart like her own child. Bart, who was also fond of Sophie, always tried to protect her by any means necessary. Sophie, who was one of the first beacon keepers, was a kind and generous lady. She used to collect the space fabrics to design clothes. Meanwhile, a QTA scientist, Milan Aleph, was seen talking to his personal AI named Hope. Milan was on his way to arrive at Beacon and take over the entire space station. He disguised himself as a mechanic sent by ISA, just like Aster did, but Sophie could recognize him well. Sophie allowed him to enter, but she secretly talked about it with her AI, Bart. Bart couldn’t recognize him, but Sophie informed him that he was a brilliant scientist, Milan, who was also the creator of the beacons and artificial intelligence. From the very beginning, it seemed that Milan had some ulterior motives. He not only faked his identity but also gave Sophie some space fabrics as a gift from the ISA. Sophie was a little bit smitten by him, but she could sense something was off.
Milan was actually in Beacon to find an artifact, which would be necessary for his dream project to conquer death, and make every human being omnipotent and as powerful as the Almighty. So on the pretext of fixing a technical problem in Beacon, he tried to look for the artifact.
How Did Sophie Survive?
Sophie offered Milan some tea and sat with him to talk about each other for a while. We came to know Sophie was estranged from her husband, and a mother of two sons, who never came to visit her. Similarly, Milan had a daughter, who was probably somewhere else on a different planet. Milan and his daughter hadn’t spoken to each other for a long time, so Milan installed his daughter’s voice in his AI, Hope. As Milan was about to take off, he gave Sophie another piece of fabric as a bonus gift to show his gratitude towards her. Sophie was suspicious of Milan, so she called him by his real name and asked why he used a fake identity to come to Beacon. Milan told her that despite being the creator of Beacon, he never got to enjoy it. Therefore, he came here to check on the space station. However, before further explanation, Sophie touched the fabric, which was made of a toxic substance, causing her to lose consciousness. Milan, who seemed to be another antagonist of the show, shouted at Sophie, saying that every part of this station was designed with functionality in mind, and he was upset that Sophie wasn’t using it properly.
Milan removed the key from Sophie’s neck and unlocked Bart, who kept on asking him why his mom, Sophie, was lying on the floor. Milan told Bart that he was merely wasting his time playing home with a lonely lady in Beacon while his purpose was to achieve bigger things. Bart, however, managed to open a safe locker and directed a weird device to enter Sophie’s body, to bring her back to consciousness. While Milan was trying to operate the system, Sophie woke up and asked why Milan couldn’t have just asked her for what he wanted instead of poisoning her. Sophie had brought a device that would be helpful to operate the control system. It would enable Milan to look for the artifact. Sophie volunteered to fix the device but she demanded the truth about why Milan was after it.
Milan said that his project was to create transcendental intelligence to unite the human consciousness. Sophie asked him why his organization QTA didn’t consider alleviating the food shortage of the planet, to which Mikan said that instead of solving a minor problem, he wanted to focus on the major issue, which was eradicating death from the human world. Sophie was strongly against it, but she also believed in Milan. She didn’t want to harm the man who’d poisoned her a few moments ago. Rather, she wanted to build a connection with him. Sophie was a lonely lady who lived her life in isolation. She was devoid of her husband’s love and even her sons never visited her, causing her to drown in the darkness of loneliness. So she truly wanted to help Milan so that he could at least remember her. But Bart, who was scared that Milan might harm Sophie, hatched a scheme to take him out. He created a false alarm saying that some ships were approaching Beacon. As Sophie rushed towards the dock, Bart asked for her permission to kill Milan, whose intentions didn’t seem right to him. Bart believed the project Milan was on could be harmful to humanity, causing the death of many people including Sophie’s family. But Sophie asked Bart not to do anything. She even warned him that if he tried to cause any kind of harm to Milan, he would have to kill Sophie as well. Bart remained silent but waited for the perfect opportunity to take revenge on Milan.
What Happened To Milan?
Sophie talked to Milan about Bart’s intention, which was to kill him. Milan, however, didn’t want to harm Sophie anymore. Rather he began to trust her and asked her to team up with him so that both of them could study about the artifact together to finally make the project successful. Sophie refused to join him, saying that Beacon needed her. She couldn’t be a part of a project which she didn’t even believe in. She asked Milan to leave Beacon, and Milan agreed. But the moment Milan arrived at the dock, Bart made the entire dock airtight with no oxygen supply. Sophie was stunned by Bart’s behavior and continuously asked him to open the lock to save Milan. But Bart didn’t listen to her. Eventually, without any oxygen supply, Milan was on the brink of death, but before he took his last breath, he instructed Hope to do something which he planned. Milan died on the spot, which devastated Sophie. She was strongly against the idea of murdering Milan even though he was hostile to her. After Milan’s death, Sophie’s relationship with Bart faced a severe change. She couldn’t put her trust in Bart anymore. However, Bart might be an AI, but he did have feelings of guilt. He considered Sophie his mother, so he kept on begging for mercy, but Sophie couldn’t bring herself to forgive him. She thought the entire place, which used to be a light in the darkness to direct all the spaceships around dark matter, became cursed by the death of Milan.
However, at the precise moment when Sophie was devastated by the death she had just witnessed, she found Milan incredibly alive in her room. She was stunned by his presence and asked him if he was a ghost or a hologram to which Milan replied that he was Aleph, the transcendental intelligence of Milan who had just lost his life in the airlock. It seemed that Milan’s dream project had already begun as he had successfully created his omnipotent version which was indestructible. Aleph once again asked Sophie to join him and proceed with the rest of the project but Sophie refused to help him. She said she couldn’t trust any AI anymore, so Aleph was on his own. She went into her room and plugged her earphones in so that she wouldn’t have to reply to Bart. Bart kept on asking for forgiveness, but Sophie avoided him. The episode ends with a lot of confusion, leaving us wondering about the existence of Sophie and Milan. Whether Halan and Aster have any connection with Milan and Sophie is still a mystery that we might get to know better in the upcoming episodes.
