Posted by Silo is one of those series that will raise valid questions basically forever. The show on Apple TV+ is inspired by a long series of books written by the American author Hugh Howey between 2011 and 2013, and most likely, the plot will go on for many seasons before the spectators have final answers. One of the most common questions is: who built the silo, and why? In this article, we will give you an answer complete enough to understand more about the series without revealing too many details about how the events in Silo will be explained in the future.
You can watch the official trailer for Silo here on Youtube.
Silo series explained: who built the silo and why?
In Silo, humans live inside an isolated structure called “silo,” organized in levels and protected from what’s outside. In the silo, there are strong authority powers that set strict rules, keeping everybody under control. There are also cameras everywhere. It’s forbidden to have memories of the world before, to own objects that belong to how life was before the silo. If you doubt the necessity of the silo’s existence, you are exiled outside, where you will die because of the poisoned air.
The more secrets you discover while living in the silo, the more obvious it gets that there is a truth that is kept hidden from people. That’s why, as a spectator, you start to wonder what’s this secret about and why there is such a strong authority that wants to keep everybody unaware. Who built the silo, ultimately, and why?
There is a detailed answer to this question, but it will reveal elements of the plot of Silo that would spoil the continuation for you. However, we can indeed explain some generic parts to help you gather a more general understanding, which will help you enjoy Silo better.
The silo was built by the so-called “founders” many years before. There is no memory of how long it was among the residents of the Silo, and that serves the purpose of keeping people with the slightest knowledge possible. If you read the “Shift” books of the Silo series (the 6th, 7th, and 8th book by Hugh Howey), you’ll find out that the silo was built between 2049 and 2052, whereas the events you are seeing in the Apple TV+ series take place around 300 years later. Who built the Silo in practice? It was an order of the American government.
Why was the silo built? The original idea was to have a safe structure in case of a nuclear apocalypse. What happened is that the moment the silo was completed, the atomic bombs really started to explode on Earth, and people were sent into the silo. Nuclear explosions have dominated the surface of planet Earth, and it won’t be possible to live out there for at least 500 years, based on scientists’ calculations.
In other words, yes, the air outside is poisoned, and who built the silo did it to ensure that a small population can still survive. The reason why there is a strong authority preventing people from rebelling is to guarantee stability inside the silo. However, the continuous monitoring, the cameras, and the fact that holding memories is illegal are arbitrary decisions made by the silo’s authority, considered necessary to society.
However, in the series you see many elements pointing to the theory that the air is not actually poisoned. In Episode 9 of Season 1, Juliette also sees a video of a girl sent cleaning, who sees birds flying in the sky. This led many to believe in a conspiracy, according to which the authorities of the silo kept everybody inside the silo, lying about the poisoned air. At the same time, people really die when they are sent outside, and that’s a fact. Also, the nuclear explosions that occurred centuries before are true; that’s no lie. How to explain all this? Is the air poisoned or not?
This is the biggest mystery around the Silo series. We explained the interpretation of Silo Season 1 and its ending in the article below.
We also provided a detailed explanation of Silo Season 1 ending in this article. You can refer to it to understand what will happen in Season 2.
