Why did the ticking make the bulk of the passengers and crew jump off of the ship? At first I thought most of the people in the simulation were fake, but the ship at the end shows the manifest count which appears to be about what was on the 1899 Prometheus.
shareGood question. They were overthinking when they did this show. That tends to leave stray questions that they forget to answer.
shareProbably the answer was planned to be revealed in the next seasons.
shareI'm gonna guess that it's the simulation calling you back to reality? Hell if I know.
sharenot necessarily.
Once your character is "copied" in the simulation it can be used and destroyed without being connected to reality.
Or something. Or maybe is not copied but death is just "return to slumber"?
We can see that the characters don't have any recollection of the original world OR the previous simulations.
So yeah, it's a FUCK if I know situation :D
We are not told if you die in the simulation you will die in the "original" as well.
And clearly you don't since they re-run the simulation hundreds of times.
So they are not "fake" but "un-important" for the scope.