The Stranger - theory
Uh, please bear with me as I'm new here and a little nervous, but I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere so I hope it's ok to share a theory I have about The Stranger (please delete if it's not ok). I'm also new to the Borderlands games so I don't really know much backstory other than what I've learned from you knowledgeable folks and from within the Telltale game.
My theory is this - Loaderbot is carrying Handsome Jack around inside him, much like Rhys did - two personalities in one mind.
I suspect there will be holes in my logic but please bear with me.
In episode 5, Rhys asks The Stranger, now revealed as LoaderBot, how he survived. The resulting flashback only commences from AFTER Helios has crashed and I also recall that a lot of people have said how out of character it is for The Stranger to be so violent toward Rhys regardless of how you choose to play later - Rhys who LoaderBot should have known beyond a doubt had nothing to do with Gortys' destruction. So I got to thinking, who else has been so violent toward Rhys? Jack.
It's already proven that Loaders are tough enough to survive atmosphere re-entry (Episode 1 when LoaderBot is first sent to Pandora) but that's when they're whole. Our LoaderBot is hideously damaged and under attack by Kroeger when we last see him so I'm unclear if destruction would be assured.
Meanwhile Jack knows Helios is crashing and now the one person he wants to kill has escaped in a pod - he may be sociopathic but I figure he hates to lose even more. I thought maybe he struck a deal with LoaderBot along the lines of let me into your system and I'll get you to Gortys. LoaderBot has feelings and wants to survive and help Gortys and his friends so I'd imagine he would agree. Jack then took him and Kroeger to a pod (I'm not sure why. Maybe Jack figured Kroeger could be a body he could use for his Immortality Suit/skeleton once he found it). As mentioned by others, Jack wouldn't have told Rhys about any remaining pods but there were some - during the opening credits, pods were still launching even after Rhys was evacuated - and the three made it to Pandora in one piece.
This version of AI Jack probably wouldn't know what came to pass in the ruins of his old office, and seeing Rhys lying there, among carnage and blood (from Rhys' self-inflicted dismemberment) would have assumed he was dead or upon installing LoaderBot's Jack-infected head on the suit, returned to find Rhys had gone? Either way, only Jack and Rhys knew about the Immortality suit/skeleton so how would LoaderBot know to head straight to the correct part of the wreckage? Also the "I had to survive" declaration seems very Jack-like to me though I admit, Loaders are smarter and self aware.
Then there's Kroeger. He looked to be working for The Stranger, or at least with, which makes me think he was saved by the robot and finding that Finch is dead, decides he can do worse than repay a debt (life saved even after he tried to kill LoaderBot). I surmised it took a while to track down Vaughn and Kroeger would be able to do that, though LoaderBot couldn't have let him track Fiona as he probably would have killed her.
Speaking of killing, the way LoaderBot killed Kroeger was... rather reminiscent of Jack's method of dispatching folks. Rhys himself was on the receiving end of an attempt like that, once or twice.
Maybe between LoaderBot and Jack, an accord was reached that assembling Gortys and the team would be beneficial for both. LoaderBot gets his little friend back and AI Jack would gain access to a vault (before getting his revenge though he wouldn't admit THAT to LoaderBot). I'd guess the Jack "virus" would be more than able to take over LoaderBot but perhaps, like Rhys, he'd need to be granted access to LoaderBot's wider system first.
Does any of this make sense or are these just the mad ramblings of a Dodo?
Comments
Nope, it does Not make any Sense. If that would Be the case, TTG would've teased it a bit. And the Part of the Stranger being to brutal to Rhys is easy to explain. 1. he's undercover. Or 2. TTG didn't thought this through. (I'd say number 2).
Imo, Loader Bot was brutal to Rhys and Fiona simply because he saw them kill Gortys. He didn't know the reason why they killed her, so he considered that action as betrayal.
G S Salvador, most likely it probably IS a symptom of the rewrites. It's just that the other little tidbits seemed to fit together and just made me think Jack is somewhere else - he WAS in all of Helios' systems after all.
Hm, maybe, AlfMusic, but Rhys was clearly not there when Gortys was destroyed since LoaderBot saw Fiona and Sasha shoot her then presumably not long after, saw Rhys in the wreckage of Jack's office.
Ah well, thanks for responding folks. I probably explained badly but worth testing the water, right?
I guess that makes sense. When Jack is Helios, he could have uploaded his AI to the loaders or somthing like that...