‘Silo’ and the Containment of Humanity

What if people confined themselves underground for countless generations?

I caught a cold recently, and the one good thing to come out of it was that I finally got around to watching Silo on Apple TV+. It’s as great as I’ve heard.

This is pure science fiction in the best way, adapted from the books by Hugh Howey. In the future (we don’t know how far into the future), ten thousand people are living in a giant silo underground. They’ve been living there for several generations already, if not many. No one remembers life outside the silo—the wider world is one vast mystery.

Ostensibly, people live in the silo because Earth has become a poisonous wasteland. But occasionally, people get curious. They wonder if they’re being told the whole truth. Eventually, someone will reach a breaking point and say they want to go outside. And once they say it, they can’t retract it—they must leave the silo, and they’re given materials to clean the exterior cameras. Soon after leaving, despite wearing a protective suit, this person collapses and dies, and the body lies in view of the cameras long afterward.

To present this concept, the pilot episode breaks a TV rule. We barely meet the series star in the first episode. Instead, we follow a pair of guest leads, played by Rashida Jones and David Oyelowo. Through them, we begin to learn about this confined world and the various restrictions placed on its population.

And it works wonderfully. Even though our focus then shifts to the real series lead, the events of the pilot have consequences for the remainder of the season.

The series is full of interesting ideas and mysteries. It all stems from that great sci-fi question: What if …?

As Neil Gaiman writes in the introduction to Fahrenheit 451’s 60th anniversary edition:

There are three phrases that make possible the world of writing about the world of not-yet (you can call it science-fiction or speculative fiction; you can call it anything you wish) and they are simple phrases:

What if …?

If only …

If this goes on …

He then explains, “ ‘What if …?’ gives us change, a departure from our lives.”

Silo indeed gives us a world that is a massive departure from our own. The “what if” questions build on each: What if humanity withdrew into a silo? What if people lived their entire lives in a limited space without ever stepping outside? What if they continued living there for numerous generations? What if they entirely suppressed and forgot their pre-silo history? What if people became curious about that forgotten past and the world outside? What if the people in charge went to great lengths to stamp out that curiosity?

There might also be some “If this goes on …” in the series, but that will depend on how events unfold.

The silo becomes a fully formed, albeit claustrophobic, world throughout the season. One delightful recurring detail is when characters find “relics” from the Before Times. Time and historical memory loss transform something as simple as a Pez dispenser into an exotic and inscrutable artifact from an unknowable, long-gone civilization. A travel guide for children now holds tantalizing—and forbidden—clues about how people used to live and some of the creatures they used to live with. Formerly routine technology, such as recorded video, had become so lost that it seems almost magical when it’s rediscovered now.

As fascinating as the concept is, the characters glue it all together and add meaning to the “what if” questions. We meet the series lead, Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), as a mechanic who has withdrawn to the lower levels, where she toils away obsessively to keep the power running for the entire silo. We gradually learn about what drew her down there to that work and what motivated her to excel at it—as well as what now motivates her to return to the upper levels and take on a new job as the silo’s sheriff, a position she has no obvious qualifications for.

Characters like her, and others we meet, give life to this cold, mechanical world. Without the focus on the specific individuals, this would be an interesting philosophy exercise at best.

Fortunately, Silo presents us with interesting characters and interesting ideas, as well as a near-perfect season-ending cliffhanger to further intrigue us.

The first season was so excellent that I picked up the first book, Wool, which compiles five previously published stories of varying lengths. It opens with a short story that can stand on its own but also leads into the rest, which explains the unorthodox pilot episode mentioned above. (Structurally, it’s along the lines of what I’m doing, so I hope this is a good omen.)

I’m only partway through, but I’m enjoying it so far. The TV series changed details while capturing the same spirit. Oddly enough, the book appears to be moving at a faster pace than the show (again, so far).

I suspect I’ll be reading the next two books before the second season airs.

Perhaps this is Apple TV+’s greatest public service—introducing people to good books.