As a Bronze Age king, Rehoboam would have had unlimited power, like his father Solomon before him. What the king said, the people did, no matter what it might have been. People were essentially little more than chattel in the eyes of a bad king, and Rehoboam would certainly fall under the heading of “bad king” by any measure applied then or now. In the above cited verse, the leaders of Israel approach their new king Rehoboam after the death of his father King Solomon and ask him to lighten the labors put on their shoulders. Solomon had asked a lot of the people, building David’s temple in Jerusalem, building the king’s palace, rebuilding the city walls, a fleet of ships, multiple cities… given that it’s work done by people by hand, it’s no wonder that the people of Israel were looking for a break, and Rehoboam was the man who could give them that break. If the king told someone to go on vacation, they went. If he told someone to be a priest or an architect or a warrior, they picked up their vestments, plumb bob, or level, whether they were qualified or not.
In much the same fashion, the AI Rehoboam has ultimate control over the destiny of individuals in the world of Westworld. Caleb Nichols (Aaron Paul) puts on suits, goes on job interviews, has good test scores by whatever metric is used to determine job fit, and a background in the military that would get him a leg up on anyone in today’s world. Does he get a cushy civil service job? No, because Rehoboam has decided that, in 10-12 years he’s going to kill himself, and thus, he’s not worth investing in. Caleb remains a construction worker and petty criminal. Not through any fault of his own; what Rehoboam says goes, whether it’s talking about Caleb or siding with Charlotte Hale in her attempt to take Delos private.
And the king answered the people harshly, and forsaking the counsel that the old men had given him, he spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.” 1 Kings 12:13-14
Putting aside the logistical question of how to discipline someone with scorpions—I’m picturing a Fear Factor-style box full of scorpions with some poor Israelite’s head stuck in it—anyone can agree that being punished with scorpions is worse than being punished with a whip. But Rehoboam the computer is established as being just as cruel as Rehoboam the king. When Liam says that his father was killed, he doesn’t mean just by Serac; Rehoboam is likely the entity that indicated that Liam Dempsey Sr. needed to be taken out for the good of Incite. Serac might have ordered the trigger pulled, or pulled it himself, but he didn’t make that decision. Serac, as Liam says, has the system, and the system can do more than fill jobs and direct traffic.
It is heavily implied that the AI Rehoboam is more than willing to stamp out anyone who tries to step off the path it has generated for them. Dolores is one of the few entities in the world not under Rehoboam’s control, and Serac will do anything to stop her, from having crooked cops attack an ambulance to torturing Caleb for information. Her mere presence damages the path Rehoboam and Serac have crafted for the world. Hence Serac’s desperation to stop Dolores to the point of unleashing a fully-operational Maeve on an unsuspecting human world. Serac and Rehoboam might believe that they can use a glitch in the system to stop glitches plural in the system, but they might just be dooming police officers, Yakuza, and innocent bystanders to die for a futile cause.
