Omniscient: All Knowing

 Omniscient wraps up its first season on an ominous note, and as per most entertainment a cliffhanger. Nina and Daniel confront their father's killer, as he details how he avoided being caught. However Nina upon returning to the city, Nina has had her interface stolen. The interface is the sole component that runs the Omnscients system, and with it gone someone, a human that has access to all the video feeds live, and past of every single drone. Now the question arises as Nina has a mental breakdown, who stole the interface? Better yet who has unlimited information and power over everyone now. Nina then goes on a large accusation tour accusing her boss, boyfriend, and others of killing her dad. After her boyfriend Vinicios breaks up with her she goes on a dramatic walk to the park? Either way, she realizes who has had known her every move, and the only person with access to her room, Judite. Surprise surprise the government was the bad guy, shocker I know. Judite however has gone rogue and is planning on using the interface as a way to start a rival surveillance technology company, headed by Nina's former best friend Olivia. 

A city in Brazil that mimics that of Nina's. Futuristic in nature.

Nina then threatens to kill Judite, but changes her mind and prepares to leave the city with Daniel, Judite is seen watching Nina through the drone as the credit begins to roll. The show ends with us not knowing why Judite wants to start a rival corporation, is it because the government wants one? Is she power-hungry? The only explanation we get is Judite telling Nina that she has been selected since she was born, and she has been watched and provided along since the beginning simply because of her ability to code, and technical know-how. Judite then tells her she has become Omniscient herself, dropping the name of the show in a frankly bad-ass way. 

The overall technology practice remains the same throughout the entire show, the usage of survivance technology. This includes the cultural/societal relation around it, obeying and disobeying the law, loopholes, and ways around the drones, invasion of privacy, and now prominent in the final episode, usage of information as a weapon against the public. Judite with access to all footage and drones has become the most powerful person in the city and is a classic example of technology being used in malpractice. With her being Omniscient she is the encoder, decoder, dominant representation, and everything in between. Your privacy is no longer private, your location public, effectively Judite is the system now, and with human interaction there no longer resides technology neutrality.

My final remarks simply boil down to this. Whether technology and culture ever blend into a scenario like Omniscient in the real world, once the neutrality that is gone and people's privacy are blown, the situation loses all morality and is no longer a technological one, but one of control and ethics. The drones never controlled people's lives, they still could act independently hence why there is a jail. What it did do was protect and serve as a tiny policeman, however, Judite and any future situations that mimick this now is totalitarian, and resembles that of a surveillance state like China. Humans ruin technology neutrality because we cannot be robotic, emotionless, and non-biased. So in the future and for Nina and her city, they should have let technology be technology even if it had failed her father because now it has failed an entire city. 

Trailer for Omnscient