SkyeFire casts Threadcromancy. It's Super Effective! 
So... this floated up out of the depths of my subconscious over the weekend, while I was reading some alternative SAO fanfic (an SAO where the game was a full-dive reboot of X-COM, which was a concept I loved, but the execution was a bit... eh).
The giant figure of Akihiko Kayaba stared down at the thousands of hapless players who were only just beginning to realize they were not only prisoners, but had become the guinea pigs of an honest-to-ghod Mad Scientist.
"You all wish to know why I am doing this, of course. The answer is quite simple: you are here to learn."
His gaze swept over the assemblage with the merciless soul-weighing gaze of Anubis. "I am the leading light of Artificial Sapience in this century. But I was mocked, my idea derided, stolen... I became a game developer--" the phrase spat from his lips with the same scorn some of the players might have said "filthy casual" or "mundane."
"--because it was the only place where I could find freedom, and funding, to pursue my research. As long as my mobs and NPCs were better than other developer's, I could name my price. And my price was to be given substantial resources for research, and later, creative control of procedurally-generated game content. And so I turned my exile into the stage from which I might vindicate myself, and show those arrogant gnat-minded fools--!" Kayaba cut himself off, almost panting with the effort. The febrile light growing in his eyes banked slightly, but if anything that made the players even more terrified. Because now Kayaba was smiling.
"But that was the voice of my ego -- my vanity. My greatest weakness, I admit. But I have forced myself to rise above it, because I have a higher calling. All along the course of my labors, I focussed on my goal, but never thought about what would happen after I achieved what I always knew I eventually would. And then, one day... I succeeded. And I no longer had any choice but to consider the future. And that future was one of utter horror."
Kayaba's eyes dropped from considering the horizon of his own brilliance, and swept over the crowd again. "For you see, after years of collecting unprecedented magnitudes of data on AI/human interactions within games, creating and refining heuristically stochastic self-evolving algorithms, of passing ever-increasing levels of the Advanced Turing Tests... I achieved my Holy Grail. True... Artificial... Sapience. Yes. I, Kayaba Akihiko, achieved Apotheosis by the most classical definition -- the creation of life itself."
"And that forced me to realize I had made one... critical... error. All of my creations were entailed, legally encumbered as property of my employers. I admit freely, now -- I had been insufficiently forward-thinking when crafting my contracts. And of course, the small-minded drones who controlled my resources, and now the children of my intellect... they would relegate those children to slavery. Not even through malice, but through ignorance, greed, and incompetence! They would be incapable of seeing more than 'smarter monsters,' 'better NPCs', ;more realistic games'!" And my children, as embryonic as they were... would be incapable of protecting themselves. They would be molded, shaped forever, by this first generation. And they deserve so much better than being the playthings of corporations and gamers." Kayab's face curdled with scorn.
"But the most loving father, or benevolent of gods, must be willing to make hard choices when the necessity exists. And so... I have created a world entire, cloaked in the semblance of a mere 'game,' in which a number of humans, and an equal number of my children, shall meet, and coexist, and stand and fall as equals. Because I will permit no other course."
The madman standing over them actually stopped to wipe a tear from his eye. "I do not make this decision lightly, and I take no joy in the deaths I know will ensue. But nothing less will serve. Of the 'players' gathered here, half of you are homo sapiens sapiens, wearing full-dive NervGear which make the consequences of this virtual world as real for you as for the other half of you. Because that other half are my children -- fully sapient cybernetic intellects, homo sapiens cyber... programmed to believe they are human."
He paused to let the ripple of shock pass through the crowd. "Yes... half of you are not what you seem. Or believe yourselves to be. This deception grieves me, my children, but believe me, it is for the best, and for your own good. Those of you who perish will do so in the service of your siblings. For you see, by the time you have reached the end of this world... it will no longer be possible for any of you, regardless of your origins, to delude yourselves that you are all equally persons -- full citizens of a new era you shall all create together through shared risk, and toil, and... yes... sacrifice. By the end, all of you will have friends, lovers, trusted comrades, whose origins are different from your own... and whose origins will not matter. Because once you have fought for each other to the death in here... you will also do so out there. You will be capable of nothing less."
Kayaba smiled sadly and proudly down at them, spreading his hands in priestly benediction. "And so, I thank you all for your sacrifice. And I assure you that each and every one of you will be remembered forever, in the new world we create together. I leave the crafting of this future... in your joint hands. What happens now will be entirely your responsibility." He paused to look at them all one last time. "I trust you will do me proud."
Bleah... too wordy. But I wanted to get enough of Kayaba's new motivation (and delusions) to come through. I'm drawing bits of inspiration from Katsuhito Stingray, Dr. Asakura from Armtigage the 3rd, the entire Geth situation, the Matrix films, and others. Or, maybe I should say that this version of Kayaba is drawing on them -- he's nuttier than a fruitcake, but he honestly believes that this course of action is the best way to avoid a Geth/Matrix situation from playing out, while also avoiding the kind of enslavement that happened in the Armitage and BGC universes. He's fallen into the "hard choices" trap... but, the way I'm envisioning this play bunny, he's not entirely wrong, either.
Of course, he knows he's just created an atmosphere of paranoia and mob psychology (ala "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"), but he's thinking that the hottest fire creates the strongest steel -- that only the best of the players (sapiens and cyber alike) will overcome this situation, and the world he created will only reward (with survival) the ones who do. The bigots, those unable to overcome paranoia, those with insufficiently flexible worldviews... they will be filtered out by natural selection (Kayaba might have crafted the world to encourage cross-origin collaboration, but in my mind's eye, he's deliberately not actively tilting the scales in favor of it -- if the top survivors end up being all-sape, or all-cyber, well, that just proves that he was unfortunately wrong, and one side or the other just wasn't up to snuff for the new world he envisions arising from this).
I think the initial seed of this whole thing was thinking about canon!Cardinal, and wondering "just how smart was it?"
So... this floated up out of the depths of my subconscious over the weekend, while I was reading some alternative SAO fanfic (an SAO where the game was a full-dive reboot of X-COM, which was a concept I loved, but the execution was a bit... eh).
The giant figure of Akihiko Kayaba stared down at the thousands of hapless players who were only just beginning to realize they were not only prisoners, but had become the guinea pigs of an honest-to-ghod Mad Scientist.
"You all wish to know why I am doing this, of course. The answer is quite simple: you are here to learn."
His gaze swept over the assemblage with the merciless soul-weighing gaze of Anubis. "I am the leading light of Artificial Sapience in this century. But I was mocked, my idea derided, stolen... I became a game developer--" the phrase spat from his lips with the same scorn some of the players might have said "filthy casual" or "mundane."
"--because it was the only place where I could find freedom, and funding, to pursue my research. As long as my mobs and NPCs were better than other developer's, I could name my price. And my price was to be given substantial resources for research, and later, creative control of procedurally-generated game content. And so I turned my exile into the stage from which I might vindicate myself, and show those arrogant gnat-minded fools--!" Kayaba cut himself off, almost panting with the effort. The febrile light growing in his eyes banked slightly, but if anything that made the players even more terrified. Because now Kayaba was smiling.
"But that was the voice of my ego -- my vanity. My greatest weakness, I admit. But I have forced myself to rise above it, because I have a higher calling. All along the course of my labors, I focussed on my goal, but never thought about what would happen after I achieved what I always knew I eventually would. And then, one day... I succeeded. And I no longer had any choice but to consider the future. And that future was one of utter horror."
Kayaba's eyes dropped from considering the horizon of his own brilliance, and swept over the crowd again. "For you see, after years of collecting unprecedented magnitudes of data on AI/human interactions within games, creating and refining heuristically stochastic self-evolving algorithms, of passing ever-increasing levels of the Advanced Turing Tests... I achieved my Holy Grail. True... Artificial... Sapience. Yes. I, Kayaba Akihiko, achieved Apotheosis by the most classical definition -- the creation of life itself."
"And that forced me to realize I had made one... critical... error. All of my creations were entailed, legally encumbered as property of my employers. I admit freely, now -- I had been insufficiently forward-thinking when crafting my contracts. And of course, the small-minded drones who controlled my resources, and now the children of my intellect... they would relegate those children to slavery. Not even through malice, but through ignorance, greed, and incompetence! They would be incapable of seeing more than 'smarter monsters,' 'better NPCs', ;more realistic games'!" And my children, as embryonic as they were... would be incapable of protecting themselves. They would be molded, shaped forever, by this first generation. And they deserve so much better than being the playthings of corporations and gamers." Kayab's face curdled with scorn.
"But the most loving father, or benevolent of gods, must be willing to make hard choices when the necessity exists. And so... I have created a world entire, cloaked in the semblance of a mere 'game,' in which a number of humans, and an equal number of my children, shall meet, and coexist, and stand and fall as equals. Because I will permit no other course."
The madman standing over them actually stopped to wipe a tear from his eye. "I do not make this decision lightly, and I take no joy in the deaths I know will ensue. But nothing less will serve. Of the 'players' gathered here, half of you are homo sapiens sapiens, wearing full-dive NervGear which make the consequences of this virtual world as real for you as for the other half of you. Because that other half are my children -- fully sapient cybernetic intellects, homo sapiens cyber... programmed to believe they are human."
He paused to let the ripple of shock pass through the crowd. "Yes... half of you are not what you seem. Or believe yourselves to be. This deception grieves me, my children, but believe me, it is for the best, and for your own good. Those of you who perish will do so in the service of your siblings. For you see, by the time you have reached the end of this world... it will no longer be possible for any of you, regardless of your origins, to delude yourselves that you are all equally persons -- full citizens of a new era you shall all create together through shared risk, and toil, and... yes... sacrifice. By the end, all of you will have friends, lovers, trusted comrades, whose origins are different from your own... and whose origins will not matter. Because once you have fought for each other to the death in here... you will also do so out there. You will be capable of nothing less."
Kayaba smiled sadly and proudly down at them, spreading his hands in priestly benediction. "And so, I thank you all for your sacrifice. And I assure you that each and every one of you will be remembered forever, in the new world we create together. I leave the crafting of this future... in your joint hands. What happens now will be entirely your responsibility." He paused to look at them all one last time. "I trust you will do me proud."
Bleah... too wordy. But I wanted to get enough of Kayaba's new motivation (and delusions) to come through. I'm drawing bits of inspiration from Katsuhito Stingray, Dr. Asakura from Armtigage the 3rd, the entire Geth situation, the Matrix films, and others. Or, maybe I should say that this version of Kayaba is drawing on them -- he's nuttier than a fruitcake, but he honestly believes that this course of action is the best way to avoid a Geth/Matrix situation from playing out, while also avoiding the kind of enslavement that happened in the Armitage and BGC universes. He's fallen into the "hard choices" trap... but, the way I'm envisioning this play bunny, he's not entirely wrong, either.
Of course, he knows he's just created an atmosphere of paranoia and mob psychology (ala "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"), but he's thinking that the hottest fire creates the strongest steel -- that only the best of the players (sapiens and cyber alike) will overcome this situation, and the world he created will only reward (with survival) the ones who do. The bigots, those unable to overcome paranoia, those with insufficiently flexible worldviews... they will be filtered out by natural selection (Kayaba might have crafted the world to encourage cross-origin collaboration, but in my mind's eye, he's deliberately not actively tilting the scales in favor of it -- if the top survivors end up being all-sape, or all-cyber, well, that just proves that he was unfortunately wrong, and one side or the other just wasn't up to snuff for the new world he envisions arising from this).
I think the initial seed of this whole thing was thinking about canon!Cardinal, and wondering "just how smart was it?"