Why safeguard exists?

I try to make sense of that part of the story: the gas pipe, the safeguard, the ban on talking about it that would trigger it. (It's a repost with a new title)

What I notice in Silo is the way the story is told to the audience on several levels: what we see, what we don’t, and what we’re told and untold. What we see is often given as objective facts (silo 17 folks went out and died), while what we’re told are mostly assumptions from characters, more or less reliable. They say what they think is true, or what they guess. Solo in particular is mixing facts (his parents were looking for that pipe), with his own assumptions in episodes 9-10. Juliet understood that: it was not Solo that was meant to protect the vault, but the vault to protect him. That means not everything told in the story must be taken for granted, we must discern facts from assumptions when seeking truth.

What is sure is there was no killer gas in Silo 17 ever released, because there were survivors all along. We must assume Solo's parents succeed. He seems very confident in it and we know for a fact there is this pipe in level 14 (Lucas found it too on the map in hard drive #18, both silos have the same design).

There was no gas released in the airlock or in the open when the folks went out either. It wouldn't have killed all of them in open air if it was breathable. I must assume outside air is deadly to silo people. Given the state of the surface it's not that hard to believe. There is no sign of life at all.

What doesn't make any sense is killing people to prevent them from going outside... where they will die anyway. You don't prevent death with death. It's absurd, one time is enough. So by any logic, since the outside air is deadly, something is wrong with the idea of a killer gas. I think it comes from how things are told to the audience by characters. They assume it's meant to kill. Because they don't know much about their world to say the least. They don't know why, how could they?

So I think the most logical explanation should be that the threat and nature of the safeguard are misunderstood by the characters at this point of the story. They all assumed it's a deadly gas that would come out of the pipe. That's a gas for sure.

But I think it's a neurologic gas that disrupts brain activity and causes severe amnesia. It was mentioned before in the story as something existing, or a kind of legend. After a few hours the whole silo would be entirely touched from top to bottom and there would be no escape from it. Not for the huge majority of people anyway. Affecting the brains of an entire silo would disrupt a rebellion and a mass exit attempt. And save the people's lives at the price of ruining them.

I really think the political narrative of the silo, the rebellion described in the mayor's speech in the first season, is an explicit reference to such an event. Silo 18 obviously had a huge traumatic episode 150 years ago. In the aftermath, they were unable to make sense of it by themselves. Instead they adopted that unquestioned but rather weird narrative blaming the rebels and Salvador Quinn for "destroying their past". How could such a magical event happen by the doings of rebels?

Put it like this I think it makes sense. The safeguard is, as its name indicates, an “ultima ratio” to keep people alive. That explains why the people of the Silo know so little about their past and their origins (plus that relic policy that removes every piece of information). They even admit it in this motto: “we don’t know why we’re here”.

Then there's the why and who, but I would like to know what you think first.

All that said, I think this Silo series is truly remarkable and unique for its depth as a science-fiction story. What a show. We’re trapped with the characters in that grim world and we barely know more than them. It feels like a dead end for humanity. Of course it must come from the books (must read them now), but the TV show makes it more real and more disturbing between what things seems to be and what they truly are. I can find some flaws in season 2, but I say bravo to its creators and author.  It's one of the best scifi story I have ever seen.