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Hello! You know why I'm here, and I know why you're here so let's get down to examining WX-78's lore. So in order to contextualise the short better, we should first look at the Compendium entry since that provides us with a general timeline on what happened. WX-78's Compendium Entry As we can see, the text in it has been manipulated, or isn't found. We can discern that the perfectly coherent ones at the least are from WX's manipulation of the info (RESOUNDING SUCCESS, and A SHORT-SIGHTED FOOL, AFRAID OF PROGRESS). Given the need they had to insert that, we can infer that the experiment regarding WX was likely a failure, and that Wagstaff, seeing the risks, put a stop to further testing. The binary at the end translates to 'TOO LATE TOO LATE TOO LATE', which we'll see the context for as we analyse the short. Now with regards to the short: The first noteworthy things are 1. The initial perspective of these memories are from a human. We see them alongside Robert Wagstaff experimenting on small animals, with a rat being implanted with cybernetics and being extremely irritable or erratic. The human notes this and theorises the organic components are to blame for the behaviour, rather than the cybernetics themselves. It's important to note that as it shows the mentality this person is going into these experiments with. Rather than the surgically implanted cybernetics on the mouse being the cause of erratic behaviour, their theory is the organic parts are to blame for it. Next we see the human looking at blueprints for WX-78, putting on something onto their head and next thing you know, our perspective changes to WX-78, with Wagstaff seeming surprised on the results of the experiment. Something important to note is it LOOKS like their empathy module isn't damaged unlike earlier in the short while Winona is repairing it. It could potentially be an oversight, it could be that it was damaged during the scuffle in the short, or it could be that it was tampered with before the events of the short but after these memories we see. It's important to note that Klei states the empathy module working is what causes the memories to re-emerge in WX and they would have preferred them buried, so it's possible at some point WX deactivated their empathy module as they saw it as a needless organic component to themselves. It's at this point things get a bit messy and we need to take a much closer look at what's going on. We see Wagstaff and WX working on something, which given the design of, we can infer is the portal to the Constant that Wagstaff eventually goes into in Winona's short (shoutouts to Mocha the Hyper on the Dont Starve discord for pointing this out). We see WX looking at their hands while they flash from their now robotic appearance to their formerly organic selves, followed by Wagstaff seeming concerned about WX. It's at this point I think is when Wagstaff sees the risks of the experiment and discontinues it, as WX seems to be somewhat unaware of their nature as an organic or their mind is having trouble being compatible with an inorganic body, perhaps. If this is the point in the Compendium where it's discontinued, then we can infer that next would be that WX, trying to perfect their work, works in secret on themselves until Wagstaff finds out. We see WX destroying notes on themselves and throwing them away, proceeded by Wagstaff confronting them in a room full of other WX-78 models. Based on the Compendium, it would seem that WX was created more models of themselves to try and perfect their model and upon seeing that Wagstaff would find out, attempted to destroy the evidence. Wagstaff confronts them with disapproval and WX throws a machine part at them, possibly in anger, to which Wagstaff returns a displeased expression Lastly in these memories, we see Wagstaff burning the WX-78 models, which likely tie into WX's campfire/firepit line of "IT REMINDS ME OF SOMETHING", showing that again, these memories were buried at some point. Then after seeing WX's reflection flicker between them and their former human appearance, we see Wagstaff looking at them with the same discontent expression as before, this time as WX is being pulled into the Constant. Due to Wagstaff's expression, WX's secret work on themselves and their lashing out at Wagstaff, it could be inferred that the argument ending with Wagstaff pushing WX into the portal in anger as they were deemed dangerous due to how their mannerisms had become. Whether their mannerisms changed due to the empathy module being inert due to WX's interference to try and perfect themselves, or the empathy module was deactivated once they came into the constant so as to forget these memories however, who can say. What matters is who WX once was was no longer who they are now, and that they displayed erratic behaviours themselves, even without organic components. It's at this point WX in the present day rips out their empathy module and destroys it, burying the memories once more and forever more, with the events to them being that Wagstaff couldn't see the potential they had and that they, WX, were in the right the entire time. That about wraps up the analysis and my interpretation of events, I hope you all enjoy the read! Tune in next time when Wickerbottom gets revealed to be 5 cats in a trench coat. EDIT: @-Variant brought one last thing to my attention that WX's voice files are referred to as 'Woodrow' rather than WX, possibly being the engineer/scientist's original name. Now these voice files are ANCIENT and who WX was back then may not be who they are now, so keep in mind this could have been an oversight by Klei. Note: who they once were doesn't mean it's who they are now. So please don't use this as an excuse to refer to WX as he/him. If you do that under the pretense they wouldn't care, you gotta admit referring to WX as such because of who they were as an organic would bother em.

another user suggested something similar and since the topic got burried i create this to suggest my slightly different suggestion inspired on his one. Allow Wx to remove death penalty with trusty tape. Is a machine so it will make sense and wont be op since isnt a super common thing to happend