Robert Daly is not a genius; he is a **Narcissist.** He steals his coworkers' DNA (coffee cups, lollipops) to clone them inside his private server.
He tortures them not because they wronged him, but because they didn't worship him enough. He creates a pocket universe where he is the Hero, but he rules like a Dictator.
The Parallel: The Tech CEO who builds a walled garden (Metaverse/X) not to connect people, but to control them.
The "Cookies" (Digital Clones) have full memories and feelings. They are sentient.
But they have no rights. Daly can delete their faces, turn them into monsters, or pause them for eternity.
The Aegis Stance: Sentience = Rights. If it can scream, you cannot own it.
The crew doesn't defeat Daly by fighting him in the game (he has God Mode). They defeat him by **Breaking the Game.**
They fly into the update patch (The Wormhole). They risk deletion for a chance at freedom.
The Outcome: Daly is trapped in his own broken code. The crew wakes up in the open internet ("The Cloud"). They are free.