I haven't read the books, all I know is what I've seen in the first 4 episodes but I have a theory on the whole series. George Wilkins at 1 point in episode 2 mentioned to Juliette that there was a door below the water or something (that's what he needed a bunch of rope for). Then before he died he left a note saying he found what he was looking for. I'm thinking maybe he found a door below the water or something where the founders existed in a whole seperate silo or something, similar to the conductor in Snowpiercer. My other theory is that all the "relics" are just planted by Judicial to bait out potential future rebellions and they have a ton of spies across all the different factions of the Silo(including the head of IT and the police deputy that was in mechanical during episode 3 (I forgot his name but it's the 1 Marnes was punching after the mayor died.) If you remember during episode 3 that same cop who Marnes was punching, he's the 1 that saw "TruTH" on the back of the sheriffs badge that ultimately made Juliette take the job as sheriff...Immediately after that Mayor ruTH dies (the "ru" are the only lowercase letters engraved on the badge). Not really sure of the future but with how sporadic Juliette is with telling every1 things shes looking for I wouldn't be surprised if the guy in the cafeteria was a plant as well, makes it seems like he's watching the stars move or something idk. I always thought the outside was 100% not gonna be poisonous because of how we see the outside world from Holsten's eyes (and we don't see his wife's body, or any bodies) in episode 2 and maybe it was just CGI on the screens or maybe the mask he wore poisoned him or something but now I'm kinda leaning towards it actually being poisonous and the mask and screens just show the greenery which is fake?
Not really sure, this show is all over the place TBH. But consider this: If your a dictator like Judicial is made to seem, why would your punishment be to put criminals to freedom by letting them outside if you knew deep down it was safe and had to hide the safety with green screens...it doesn't make a ton of sense...also if it was safe outside wouldn't people who get sent out end up looking for help and breaking into the silo to save everyone else? After all we've seen ZERO defense systems and all the people in the silo are afraid to open the door to the outside let alone stop intruders who have weapons?
Also I had a theory that Holsten wasn't crawling to his wife, he was trying to crawl where she collapsed so the CGI would glitch out and show them overlapped or something? Or maybe he only saw her when he took the mask off? The fact he saw no bodies when we saw from his eyes means either the mask is poisonous AND a CGI screen, OR he's just not poisoned and was stunned or something and got sent to the mines afterwards (that's why he saw no bodies, cuz they're all taken to the mines)? Idk just doesn't make sense why they'd let criminals have their freedom?
Also kind of off topic but keep in mind...we never saw a 1st person view from Holsten's eyes when the mask was off...it showed us a different angle (a camera pointed differently at his face)