Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-67.225.97.144-20140228040158/@comment-78.105.6.160-20140911190749

They never "achieved" metastability. The Alpha and Beta AI's were already metastable, because they were directly based off humans. Essentially copies of the minds of Leonard and Allison. The reason why the fragments had to try to "achieve" metastability was because they were fragments of Alpha. A metastable AI is representative of a whole human - the fragments could not be, because they were fragments, as the name suggests. Even Delta, who understood and even experienced a few emotions, was still not as diverse as a human, and Sigma, the most driven to become metastable, was stuck between the "Anger" and "Jealousy" stages of rampancy, as evidenced by his actions while controlling Agent Maine.

Although Epsilon could be considered metastable, as he experiences everything Alpha could, he still experiences the emotions as fragments - he only experiences logic when he remembers the delta fragment of Alpha. That said, this may have been the way Alpha processed things - we never saw him in a metastable state, only after he had been fragmented.

It is also debatable whether Beta was metastable, though the evidence would suggest that she was - Omega was in her head for a long time, was strongly attached to her, and basically went crazy inside and in control of her mind. Every other freelancer who had that relationship with their AI was strongly affected by the removal of their AI - Wyoming, Carolina, and Washington, for example. That said, Beta always ended up doing the same thing, failing, and never truly became sentient, as a human would.

In conclusion, it is debatable as to whether there was ever any metastable AI's in RvB. But I would say that Alpha was metastable pre-fragmentation, because he was directly based off of a human being, instead of from the memories of one. If Project Freelancer found a way of electronically copying someone's mind, then the Alpha definitely would've been metastable pre-fragmentation, as he would've basically been a copy + paste of The Director.

I would say that Alpha was metastable after fragmentation as well, as he believed he was a human, right up until the moment he died.