Introduction – The Enigma of MDR’s Work

From the very first episode of Severance, the refinement work carried out by the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) team seemed absurdly simple—almost ridiculous. Watching numbers float across a screen and classifying them based on vague feelings like fear, anger, or joy. Yet Lumon never offered a logical explanation, and the characters themselves appeared as lost as the audience.

However, as the series progresses, fragments of information begin to surface. When carefully pieced together, they form a disturbing outline. This article presents an investigative analysis of what the four innies were truly doing—not to state absolute truths, but to explore what the narrative allows us to glimpse, even if only through cracks. This time, we’ll base our insights on visual evidence from the show itself, including signs, screen files, and confirmed dialogue.

How Does Refinement Work in Severance?

The MDR department operates using four emotion-based categories: Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice. These names—created by Lumon—represent sensations associated respectively with resigned calm, impulsive euphoria, fear, and aggression. The innie’s job is to observe the floating numbers and classify them according to what they “feel.” No logical explanation is given about what the numbers represent—the only rule is to trust the emotion.

To better understand Lumon’s rituals, commandments, icons, and sacred texts
— it’s worth diving into the article dedicated to the corporation’s mythology.
Lumon Mythology: symbols, doctrine, and the rituals of the corporate cult

The interface displays no charts or technical data. Just visual blocks, animated patterns, a progress percentage for each file, and a selector for emotional categories. At the end of each refinement task, the innies receive no financial bonuses or external prestige. The rewards are symbolic and ritualistic: “Refiner of the Quarter” plaques, caricatures, themed parties—like the famous Waffle Party. Dylan, for instance, won several times during the first season, with his awards proudly displayed on his desk.

This organizational culture—built on almost childish incentives—sustains a job that already felt much more serious, even though no one knew why.

The Intuition of the Innies: They Knew Something Was Off

The series offers a revealing (and unsettling) moment when the MDR characters try to speculate on the nature of their work:

Helly: “What if the goats are the numbers, and we decide which ones live and which ones die?”
Dylan: “Maybe we’re cleaning the sea.”
Irving: “Or cutting swear words from movies.”

These guesses range from absurd to metaphorical, but they all share one thing: they treat the work as if it had real consequences. Something that somehow affects the outside world. Even without understanding it, the innies feel there’s something hidden behind the numbers—something Lumon treats as normal.

The Refined Files by Each Innie

What initially seemed like a standardized task gradually reveals itself to be more segmented. Each innie handles a different file, with unique and evocative names, suggesting an internal logic—though still unknown—in how tasks are distributed.

Helly – Siena File

From the first episodes, Helly expresses discomfort while working on the Siena file. The interface shows that the file triggers fear and disgust in her—feelings she instinctively associates with the numeric patterns.

Interestingly, Siena is also the name of one of the visible rooms in the testing center, suggesting a direct link between files and experimental environments.

Dylan – Dranesville, Eminence, and Tumwater Files

Dylan is seen refining Dranesville in episode 1×01 (with 96% progress visible on screen) and Eminence in episode 1×07. He also verbally mentions the Tumwater file, saying he’s about to complete it. Even though the name doesn’t appear on screen, his statement suggests he is a productive refiner, handling multiple files over time.

Tumwater is also a confirmed room in episode 2×07.

Dylan approaches everything with competitiveness and enthusiasm, which might indicate that Lumon selects refiners based on specific emotional traits. Perhaps he handles files related to proactivity, impulsiveness, or instinctive leadership.

Irving – Parcoima File

Irving was refining the Parcoima file until he was terminated in episode 2×04, during the ORTBO ritual. It’s a striking scene: Milchick says he’ll erase his existence and dispose of his belongings. Irving is rigid, disciplined, and obsessed with order. So, it’s not hard to imagine Parcoima involves modeling emotions tied to obedience, repetition, and tradition.

Mark – Cold Harbor File

For most of season one, Mark isn’t shown with a visible file. This changes in season two when he starts refining Cold Harbor—and everything shifts.

In the final episode, Cobel reveals that Mark’s work was unknowingly generating multiple severed versions of his wife, Gemma (Ms. Casey). In other words, each refined file created a new consciousness:

“Each file you completed is a new consciousness for her. A new innie.”

Cold Harbor, then, is the final fragment. The most sensitive. The deepest. Possibly the one containing the emotional core of Gemma’s consciousness—directly tied to the loss of the baby she and Mark experienced. A trauma no other refiner could access with the same emotional resonance.

The Rooms, the Files, and the Hidden Factory of Consciousness

Rooms That Mirror Files

The twist in Cold Harbor’s case reveals a previously hidden relationship: each file refined in MDR might correspond to a specific room in the testing center. This becomes especially clear in the final episode of season two when Gemma enters the room named Cold Harbor—but only after Mark completes the refinement of the file with the same name.

In episode 2×07, Gemma walks past the Cold Harbor room but doesn’t enter. She only accesses it after the Cold Harbor file is finalized. This suggests that the rooms physically exist, but Lumon only activates them after completing the corresponding refinement work in Severance.

This pattern supports a larger hypothesis: the MDR department doesn’t just “refine emotions”—it prepares consciousnesses to enter specific simulated experiences, which are activated by physical blocks in Lumon’s experimental center.

Day Review: Six Rooms in One Shift

In a conversation outside severance with Dr. Mauer, Gemma reviews her day. He asks how many rooms she visited, and she answers: six. Together, they list:

• Billings
• Lucknow
• St. Pierre
• Cairns
  
• Zurich
• Wellington
  

Although these rooms aren’t shown in detail, their names appear on doors throughout the episode, suggesting that each corresponds to a different severed version being tested in a specific scenario.

Allentown Room: Obedience to the Point of Pain

Gemma as an intern at Allentown in episode 2×07

In episode 2×07, we briefly see Gemma as an innie in the Allentown room, endlessly writing Christmas cards alone and in silence.

Later, she tells Mauer that her hand hurt after being in that room. This indicates that even if it’s an emotional simulation, physical wear manifests—possibly as a psychosomatic reflection or part of a sensory programming.

Ultimately, the room’s emotional function seems clear: to test obedience, repetition, or resignation.

The Allentown Room appears when Gemma walks in the hallways and is also mentioned by Dr. Mauer.

Wellington Room: The Never-Ending Cycle

In the Wellington room, one of Gemma’s innies is activated and finds herself in a simulated dental office with Dr. Mauer. She asks for “a moment,” as if she’s been there too long. He replies:

“It’s been six weeks.”

She responds:

“But I just got here.”

This detail reveals that the severed consciousness has no perception of time between visits. To her, it’s as if it’s her first time. However, the simulation’s script seems programmed to acknowledge time passing.

Mauer’s line suggests that the rooms can be revisited cyclically, perhaps to observe how the consciousness reacts across multiple rounds of the same experiment. And as we saw in the case of Cold Harbor, all signs indicate that these experiences only begin after the refinement work in Severance is completed — reinforcing the idea of a controlled protocol rather than a simple repetitive schedule.

Additionally, the mention of six weeks implies that Lumon subjects these consciousnesses to carefully planned repetition cycles, in which similar experiences are revisited with minor variations.

Overall Pattern: Rooms Only Activate After Refinement

Based on visual cues and the activation timing of the Cold Harbor room, a clear pattern emerges:

• The rooms exist beforehand but remain inactive.
• They are only activated after the corresponding file’s refinement work in Severance is completed by the MDR team on the Severance floor.
• Refinement is done by different innies, each contributing their emotional load.
• Room activation marks the start of that consciousness’s test.

Relationship Between File Names and Room Names

In many cases, the names of refined files in MDR match the names of rooms in the testing sector:

Visual confirmation of the Siena room. Episode 2×07.

Central Hypothesis: MDR as a Factory for Emotional Consciousness

MDR is an emotional assembly line for creating severed consciousnesses.

This is the hypothesis that emerges from the visual evidence, dialogue, and Lumon’s structural logic revealed over two seasons.

Each refiner receives an emotional fragment and processes it subjectively, contributing their own psyche. Once the refinement is complete, that fragment is activated as a new innie—a new consciousness—tested in a specific simulated environment.

Implications: What Lumon Might Be Doing

From this logic, we can infer that Lumon might be:

• Creating multiple emotional versions of the same person (as with Gemma)
• Shaping specific behaviors based on the refined emotion (resilience, submission, aggression)
• Repeating tests over time to measure consistency, evolution, and reactions across different contexts

These practices suggest a meticulous protocol of emotional manipulation—where consciousnesses are not just created but shaped, repeated, and refined as products.

What We Still Don’t Know

Even with so many clues, Severance continues to protect its core mystery. Some key questions remain unanswered:

• Were the other files also versions of Gemma—or of other people?
• Did the innies know, even unconsciously, that they were shaping consciousnesses?
• Is emotional connection between refiner and file a requirement of the process?
• Are parallel tests occurring beyond what we’ve seen?
• What is the final destination of a “completed” severed consciousness?

Conclusion

Over two seasons, Severance turned a bureaucratic task into an existential experiment. After all, those four innies—who spent their days classifying numbers based on emotions—may have unknowingly operated a deep process of artificial identity construction.

Even if only Mark accessed the final fragment, all of them took part in the Refinement Work in Severance—a process that may never have been just about emotional data. Without realizing it, they may all have helped build Gemma’s consciousnesses.

Lumon hasn’t given us all the answers—but it has shown us that even data can feel.

Dive deeper into Lumon and the mysteries of Severance

The world of Severance is layered with hidden clues, symbolic meanings, and intriguing connections. If you’re trying to piece it all together, these articles will take your understanding even further:

• Clues about Lumon are in the show, says creator

• Lumon in Severance: the company that turned obedience into a cult

• Severance Season 3 Confirmed: What We Know and What We Can Expect

• Lumon Mythology: symbols, doctrine, and the rituals of the corporate cult

• Kier and Dieter’s Walk – Lumon Mythology Explained

• Helena Eagan in Severance: The Heiress Who Lost Everything

Keep exploring the underground world of Lumon and uncover how every detail may hide a larger truth.