What Is '1899's Pyramid-Shaped Artifact?

Don't worry, you don't need to study computer science to understand.

How ‘1899’ Uses the Black Pyramid-Shaped Artifact

Editor's Note: The following contains major spoilers for 1899.

After one week of 1899’s release on Netflix, we’ve all had the time to watch, and maybe re-watch, Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar's new puzzle box disguised as a series. However, while Season 1 of 1899 answers many questions and points to an exciting future, some plot points might hide clues to understanding the show’s universe. Like the black pyramid-shaped artifact Elliot (Fflyn Edwards) carries everywhere. While the series gives a great explanation of the pyramid's purpose, how Daniel (Aneurin Barnard) and Henry (Anton Lesser) refer to the object might hint at how the simulation works. That’s because the pyramid-shaped artifact is an exit code that must be accessed by a “key”, which is also an essential concept in programming logic.

As Season 1 of 1899 develops, we learn that the Kerberos is just one iteration of a ship simulation and that everyone aboard the steamer has their memories wiped out before they begin a new journey through the virtual world. Outside the ship, but inside the simulation, there’s Henry, who’s always observing each iteration of the ship while he looks for Elliot and the pyramid-shaped artifact. That’s because while Henry is unique compared to the other people inside the simulation, he’s still trapped inside the virtual world. And the artifact he’s trying to retrieve contains an exit code that allows anyone who activates it to exit the simulation and return to reality

The pyramid-shaped artifact contains a keyhole, and someone must insert a key into the object to activate the exit code. That’s precisely what happens at the season finale. Daniel hacks the simulation, alters the code, and replaces the object’s properties, transforming a different digital model into the exit code and turning Maura’s (Emily Beecham) wedding ring into the new key.

So, when Henry tries to use Elliot’s artifact, he reboots the simulation back to its first iteration, where Daniel hid a new pyramid-shaped object. Maura uses her ring as a key in this new object. The process makes her exit the simulation and wakes up two hundred years in the future.

While that final moment of 1899’s Season 1 raises its own questions, the way the pyramid-shaped artifact is used in the series seems to be inspired by programming logic. That’s because “keys” are often used to extract essential information from a piece of code.

Key and Value.

When programmers start to build software, they must store vast amounts of information they need to access later. While there are many ways to store data inside a code, one of the most common mechanisms is to use keys and values. As the name betrays, values inside a code could be anything. They could be the information about a character's looks and personality, the simulation logs, the number of objects inside a room, or even the order in which rooms should be disposed of in a virtual environment.

A value is any piece of information that’s essential for the programmer to store. Each value can be accessed from anywhere in the code, allowing programmers to reach out and take the information they need regardless of their current task. To track down these values, all the programmer needs is an address, also referred to as a “key.” In other words, when writing code, programmers usually create maps, or dictionaries, to store information, aka “values.” And to access a specific value at a later date, programmers also attribute a “key” to them.

Using the key-value analogy, we could say the pyramid-shaped artifact is the map that stores values, like the exit code. The key that Maura inserts in the object is the address that’ll lead to this specific exit code. And while this makes sense in itself and already solves the mystery of the pyramid-shaped artifact, the use of a key-value mechanism inside the simulation indicates the series is digging deep into programming logic to establish the rules of the world.

Since the first episode of 1899, we have witnessed glitches in the simulation that we don’t understand until we learn the Kerberos is a virtual environment. There are also bugs being used to overwrite some doors' functionalities, a virus that spreads and corrupts information, and an archive that holds failed iterations of the ship simulation. It’s clear that creators Friese and bo Odar are deliberately using words coming from the programming domain. And since Dark taught us nothing is random in the duo’s stories, we should consider the repercussions of them using keys to access specific pieces of code. That’s because no programmer creates a map with a single piece of information. Otherwise, they wouldn’t need to organize everything with keys.

If there’s a key to an exit code, there might be other keys inside the virtual environment that could give access to multiple functionalities. We don’t know yet what will happen in Season 2 of 1899. However, if the show keeps exploring the journey of the people trapped inside the simulation, their next goal could be to find out new keys that’ll help them manipulate the simulation in their favor. And since keys can be absolutely anything inside the virtual world, Friese and bo Odar could have hidden another right under our noses. That’s because one of the series' main characters, Eyk (Andreas Pietschmann), is an acronym for “Key." Of course, that’s all speculation for now, but we should keep our eyes peeled for other clues coming from programming logic if we hope to solve the mysteries of the Kerberos.