Silo Season 3 Just Hinted At The Book's Real Villain With A Simple Line

Spoilers for the "Silo" Season 3 finale and Hugh Howey's "Silo" books ahead.

And with that, another phenomenal season of "Silo" is over. Many of the show's previous mysteries have now been unraveled, only to be replaced by new ones and a cliffhanger that will make the wait for Season 4 unbearable.

The Season 3 finale, "Troy," pays off the horrifying ending of last week's episode, when nukes hit Atlanta in a terrifying scene recalling the "Fallout" TV show. That cataclysmic event forced thousands of people to enter the silos and never return to the surface, with Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) losing his memory during his centuries in and out of cryosleep in Silo 1 and now going by the name Troy. He, in turn, voiced the all-mighty Algorithm back when it ordered the deaths of everyone in Silo 17, only for the super sketchy Doctor Crnkovich (Matt Craven) to take over voicing the Algorithm in Season 3.

But while we've spent Season 3 thinking of the Algorithm as the ultimate "Silo" villain (i.e. a computer tasked with keeping the silos' residents trapped and oppressed), there's a single, simple line in "Troy" that hints at the show's real big bad. However, it may also be a slight tweak from Hugh Howey's "Silo" book series.

This happens when Camille (Alexandria Riley) reveals she tricked the Algorithm, giving Silo 18's rebels a chance to cap the pipe that will prevent the Safeguard Procedure from being initiated. When asked why she betrayed the Algorithm, Camille explains that she just couldn't answer a basic question: Why do the silos have the capacity to kill the people they're meant to keep alive and well? In the series, it seems this is the doing of Per Stensen (Colin Hanks) and not Senator Thurman from Howey's novels.

Camille's question is an essential one. After all, the silos do indeed have a lot of suspiciously grim issues with their foundations, be it the existence of a vitamin that can erase people's memories to quell rebellions or a bizarre set of laws written by AI (aka. the Pact) that forbids knowledge of the past and certain kinds of technology. Really, if the silos were built purely to save humanity in the event of some world-ending catastrophe, why do they include so many ways to kill the survivors? And what need do the silos have for a Safeguard Procedure that can outright eliminate an entire silo's population at once?

Well, it's hard not to immediately suspect the person who both bankrolled this entire operation and spearheaded the construction of the silos as being the responsible party. Yes, I mean Per Stensen, the first trillionaire in the world of "Silo."

After all, when Camille confronts Doctor Crnkovich as the Algorithm about the Safeguard Procedure, all he can do is point to The Pact and how questioning the Founders' prerogatives is a violation of it. This implies that even Crnkovich, who edited The Pact, has no idea why the Safeguard exists, so the only person who probably does is Stensen himself.

Furthermore, this tracks with Hugh Howey's "Silo" novels, in which the person who ordered the construction of the silos ultimately serves as the narrative's primary antagonist. Except, in the books, that role actually goes to Senator Paul Thurman, a tyrannical and genocidal leader who's re-imagined as the more sensible Rosalind Thurman (Laura Innes) in the TV adaptation. Hence, it's likely Stensen is the true man behind the curtain on the show.

Camille's question is essential to the very reason the silos exist. If Per Stensen is such a benevolent trillionaire, and the silos truly are meant to save humanity from the apocalypse, then why would he want to be able to kill the last few remaining humans on the planet?

The answer may lie in "Fallout." The Prime Video series adaptation of the video game franchise of the same name reveals that a shadowy organization called The Enclave instigated a nuclear apocalypse so it could experiment on the survivors in underground vaults. In the original video games, The Enclave's goal is to sweep the planet clean so it can repopulate it with those deemed "pure" enough to embody its fascistic and racist ideals.

How does this relate to "Silo?" Well, let's consider how the silos were built and first used. We know Per Stensen said he envisioned them serving as an ark whenever the world inevitably ends. And it just so happens that the nukes that destroy the world dropped the exact same day as the silos' inauguration (leaving just enough time for those touring the silos — people with specific invitations, mind you — to make it safely inside before the blast hits them)?

Needless to say, it seems very likely Stensen actually planned the whole nuclear armageddon in order to do a "clean sweep" of the planet and repopulate it with the exact conditions and kind of people he feels are worthy (namely, the folks in the silos). Doctor Crnkovich's memory-altering drugs would then ensure that everyone is docile and supports his ideals, with the Safeguard guaranteeing any silos that stray from his vision are eliminated. 

We'll see if that's the case when "Silo" returns for its fourth and final season on Apple TV.