retirement

Retirement is known by all of the The Others but it is something that is not really mentioned among them. Most of them are holograms other than Joel and Astrid, so the typical north-western hemisphere version of the word 'retirement' may seem peculiar. Those who are 'holograms' in within the 'others' don't exactly die, when they retire they loose their ability to do what they are "programmed" on doing and they basically go into limbo watching what Joel is doing as if they were him since they all actually came from him and a lot of the control that Joel has comes through this link that the others and Joel share.