This comprehensive explanation was inspired by another post released about four years ago. I initially planned to release this at that time but due to some delay I was unable to. It took me a few hours so please enjoy.
What is remnant?
Remnant is a fictional substance belonging to the franchise "Five Nights at Freddy's." It binds a soul to an animatronic, allowing it to "haunt" the animatronic and possess it. While the exact purpose of the substance is straightforward, the concept behind how remnant works is murky – even eight years into the franchise.
In order to delve into this, we need to ask ourselves a question – how can the soul exert its influence over a machine? While the question may seem dumbfounding, the answer is actually straightforward.
The animatronics in "Five Nights at Freddy's" operate under CPUs, or computer processing units. The CPU acts as a mind, processing the code needed for the animatronic to function.
The information contained within the code is expressed as bits and bytes or ones and zeroes.
The brain also processes information, but not in the same way a CPU does. A CPU relies upon electricity to run while a brain relies on ions – chemicals – to run. A CPU requires external assistance to initiate – for instance a programmer – while a brain can automatically respond to stimuli. Therefore a brain is much more powerful than a computer (among other reasons).
Based upon this there is no way the animatronics in "Five Nights at Freddy's" operate under regular processing units. The average person's brain stores up to 2,000,000 gigabytes. CPUs process 4 gigabytes at a time. Since souls – my interpretation – are concoctions of information derived from a person's brain – memories, DNA, experience – typical CPUs cannot process this.
This is where quantum computing comes in. Quantum computing is like computer science's older sibling – it harnesses physics to construct a more advanced concept of computer science.
For instance, two quantum concepts – entanglement and superposition – are two of many phenomenons that actually take place inside of the brain. Because of this, the fundamental unit of quantum computing – called a qubit – could express the information that flows inside a brain.
Therefore, William Afton/Afton Robotics must have achieved a breakthrough in technology – compressed quantum chips, integrated into the animatronics.
Now we can focus on remnant. We already know what it does – it allows a soul to possess an animatronic. In order to do this, however, a barrier must be bypassed – deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. Simply put, deoxyribonucleic acid is a set of instructions that maps an organism into a template. It also distinguishes between species – for instance, it classifies modern-day people as homo sapiens and dolphins as delphinus.
Why is this relevant? As explained above, it classifies organisms into their respective species.
Every species is different – in anatomy and physiology. Therefore, an organism’s soul – as a concoction of its experiences and memories – still contains DNA that identifies it as a species. For instance, the souls in Five Nights at Freddy’s are human souls because they have human DNA. Therefore a human soul is inadequate for the body of another species – like a dolphin or even an animatronic.
As you can probably guess by now – this means remnant must remove the part of a soul that identifies it as a specific species. DNA maps the information in an organism’s brain in a specific way. Without it the soul is no longer part of a species and should be able to “possess” inorganic constructs – owing to the fact that it is now flexible concoction of a person’s memories and experience. Anyways, this was my take on remnant. Thank you for reading and let me know if I should do more of this in the future.
