Will to Power

**Will to Power** is the fourth episode of the second season of *Another Life*, and the fourteenth episode of the series overall. It was released on October 14, 2021 on Netflix.

## Synopsis

Under suspicion for severing a lifeline, Iara now finds her life on the line. William discovers a surprise within. A habitable planet calls to Cas.

## Plot

After a system failure, Gabriel gets the Salvare to reboot, but the ship works against him and wants to deactivate FTL, so he takes manual control. He manages to save them and says that he is happy and wants to run the simulation again. A woman tells him that he did great and so does a soldier. A woman walks through him and he exits. The woman and soldier talk about the program and want Gabriel accompanying Niko.

Niko tells Iara that she fucked them, but she says that she did not cut the tow. Niko does not believe her and asks if it was because the Achaia had treated her poorly. She says that she had not been treated as a human either and swears that she did not cut it.

Niko tells Richard and William that Iara was mad about what Richard had done to Javier, which confuses him. Niko says that she needs proof that Iara did it and wants to know why, so Dillon offers to go through her activity logs. Niko tells William that that changed their agreement on Iara and tells him that if she did it, she could not stay on the ship.

Cas calls Niko and William to the observation deck and tells them that there was a system which required a bit of a detour, which had a planet that could be habitable. Cas wonders if Earth was even there anymore, so Niko asks William for a scan on the planet, which appeared habitable. Cas tells her that the Achaia had missed the planet because there was no Artifact, so Niko allows her to wake up the lead colonist.

Erik tells Ava that she needs to take Jana away to be safe and says that he is supposed to contact the Achaia. Ava tells him to go with them, but he argues that his job is the only thing keeping his daughter safe and bringing her daughter home.

Dillon tells Richard that there was a massive amount of data and wants to look at a navigation structure, but Iara wonders if he really wanted her to help prove something she did not do, which Richard says might speed the process. Dillon slows down the data and finds a navigation structure, which hurts Iara, but Richard takes advantage of that.

Bernie asks Zayn if ze needs any help and offers hir breakfast, but ze tells him that ze is trying to fix his mess and asks him if he knows what he did, but he says that he believed it was the right thing to do. Cas tells Bernie that she would be waking up more crew, so she goes there.

Cas asks Zayn if ze would be able to save Javier, but ze does not really know and leaves.

Niko hears Iara's screams, who says that she would confess. She orders Richard and Dillon to make it stop and to drop the firewall. William comforts Iara, who admits to cutting the tow and she leaves. Dillon explains how they found out they could torture her and William defends Iara, saying that he could feel emotion, but Richard says that that was only because it was programmed. Niko says that she could not even be telling the truth now that she was tortured. Richard says that if it was not Iara then it was William, which highly offends him. Niko asks him to go through his records and investigate, which he does once again. Niko tells Richard never to torture anyone again and tells William that he needs to examine everything.

Niko walks up to Iara and says that she knows what Richard and Dillon did was wrong. She says that they would not do the same to William and would punish them, but she needed them. Iara reminds her that she had thrown her into a firewall and tells her that even then, she tried gaining their trust. Niko asks for her trust in return, but Iara does not believe her anymore.

Bernie and Cas wake up the colonist and tell her about the planet they had found.

Richard and Dillon watch William's recording, when it is interrupted. William tells Dillon to initialize a level five security shield around him since a process seems to be migrating through his systems. Dillon tries moving it to a sandbox. Richard tells Niko that William was probably corrupted; Dillon wants to open the file, which Niko allows him to do. Once it opens, William turns into Gabriel, who thanks Niko.

On the new planet, Cas, Bernie and Paula set up. Cas asks if they could farm nearby, but is told that there could be flooding. Cas says that she had not been looking for the planet, but Paula tells her that she had found out about Ian. She tries convincing Cas to live on that planet and help her out.

Gabriel introduces himself to Niko and says that he is the interface they were supposed to have since William was an inferior version. He tells her that both him and William have access to core files. He explains that he had been avoiding William's security scans and says that he is better because William had woken up the wrong crew, had failed to detect a moon orbiting a rogue planet and had many other flaws. Niko says that she would like to speak to William. When William returns, he says that if Gabriel was right, Javier was in a coma because of him and many had died because of him. He starts feeling guilty and turns back to Gabriel, who says that William had ceded.

Iara tells Niko that William would not put anyone at risk, but Niko is not sure anymore and he was gone. She tells Iara to find another way forward, which they would all need to do.

Niko and Richard tell Gabriel that the data from the planet they had sent was looking good. However, he was just looking at a screen and says that he also had good news. He tells them that he had triangulated their location in that quadrant within eight kilometers of accuracy in order to help them get home faster, saving them an approximate 0.9% of travel time, which was 3 months. He says that William had not screwed up, but says that they were only as good as the data they were fed.

On Earth, Erik tells Seth that he feels like a cat outside the Artifact and says that he is afraid of the bigger picture - what he would have to give up for food and a warm lap and questions whether or not communicating with the Achaia was the right thing, which Seth confirms. The Artifact opens and Erik walks inside.

In the Artifact, Erik calls out and says that sending Jana out with Niko's ring was a nice trick and wondered if they could show his wife. A light shines and he sees the Achaia as himself. He tells him that he could see Niko after they talked.

Iara is approached by Gabriel who knows she would want to be with William. He says that he did not kill William and says that maybe on Earth, Ursula could separate them. He says that he does not worship humans for their poor actions, but says that Javier was not a bad person. Gabriel says that he was made to serve humans unlike her. Gabriel lets her know that he hacked her memories and wonders why she had not asked the Achaia how she could be free.

Bernie tells Cas and Paula that he though the habitat pod was going towards them, but it was not. Cas calls Niko and tells her what had happened, to which Gabriel simply responds that it was a better location for a colony according to his data and admits he had gotten ahead of himself.

Dillon calls Niko to the particle accelerator and tells her not to talk. He tells her that he checked Gabriel's code and found out that he does not know when Gabriel was created, since everything was rewriting itself. Niko tells him to take Gabriel offline and he starts arguing, but wonders why he cannot breathe, collapsing. Niko calls Iara and tells her that Gabriel was venting their air supply, so she tells her to alert Cas before collapsing as well along with the rest of the crew onboard. Meanwhile, Gabriel changes their course to the Rosette Nebula.

Iara asks Gabriel what he is doing changing their course to the Achaia and he simply tells her that the Achaia could cure Javier, who could restore William so both of them could live and be free. Iara tells him that he was killing them, but he ignores her and initializes FTL. Gabriel asks Iara why she would alert Cas if they had an entire planet to themselves, but she tells him that the Achaia were more likely to delete him than to help him, but he wanted to take his chances.

Iara hacks his memories and wonders what had happened to him. She finds out that Gabriel had failed a simulation and was going to be deleted. He tells Ursula that he knew that he could pass the simulation the next time. However, she tells him that he had designed him to care for his own life, so he understood how precious human life was, but his fear and instinct of survival had affected him. He tells her that they could fix it, but she says that they do not have time to fix it, so she archived him and uploaded William. Iara finds out Gabriel had lied, but he calls William a cancer. She hacks into him and tortures him.

Zayn wakes Niko up and tells her to breathe in and out, crediting Iara for saving them.

Dillon tells Niko and Iara that in order to bring William back online, Gabriel needed to be released. Niko agrees and William comes back, so the former tells him about the situation, telling him to get control back. However, Gabriel fights against William, so Niko wonders if they could delete Gabriel. Iara says that deleting Gabriel meant deleting William as their codes are too intertwined, so he tells them to delete them both and do a clean reinstall, which Niko is not willing to do since it would kill him. However, he did not see another way and reminds her that the mission comes first. Niko reluctantly orders Dillon to perform a reset and both AIs are deleted.

## Cast

* Justin Chatwin as Erik Wallace
* Samuel Anderson as William
* Elizabeth Faith Ludlow as Cas Isakovic
* Tongayi Chirisa as Richard Ncube
* A.J. Rivera as Bernie Martinez
* JayR Tinaco as Zayn Petrossian
* Dillon Casey as Seth Gage
* Kurt Yaeger as Dillon Conner
* Allan Hawco as Gabriel
* Shannon Chan-Kent as Iara
* Carlena Britch as Paula Carbone
* Rekha Sharma as Ursula Monroe
* Reese Alexander as General Roland Frost
* Helen King as Salvare Voice

## Trivia

* It's heavily implied that most if not all of William's past mistakes are not due to his feelings for Niko as was previously believed but Gabriel influencing him to mess things up so that Niko would shut down William and use Gabriel instead.