driver on 14/9/2019 at 18:12
If it's a blacksite dealing with human augmentation and mutation, TriOp aren't going to want the UNN poking around there no matter what's going on. If I were to hazard a guess I'd say you were one of the people SHODAN had been experimenting on and managed to escape her clutches somehow. That would allow you access to some of the neat neural interface goodies that were banned after the Citadel fiasco.
Either way, colour me intrigued, though I shan't be getting too excited until more is revealed about the gameplay.
icemann on 14/9/2019 at 18:19
The thing is, is that Citadel is completely gone. Besides the grove, Shodan couldn't have come back via anything else.
This is like Terminator 3. When I went to see that at the movies I was all eager to hear how in the hell Skynet had still happened, after Cyberdyne Systems got blown to kingdom come and all the future tech had been melted into oblivion. So I was eagerly awaiting how in the hell Skynet was still a thing, and then Arnie said "Judgement day is inevitable" with no other explanation given, and I was just destroyed. Hate that movie. This is going to be just like that isn't it. Unless they do a Warcraft / Starcraft and retcon the shit out of the canon.
ZylonBane on 14/9/2019 at 19:12
Quote Posted by icemann
The thing is, is that Citadel is completely gone. Besides the grove, Shodan couldn't have come back via anything else.
Citadel wasn't vaporized. The main station body was blown up by a reactor explosion, no doubt leaving tons of debris. The groves, being the farthest from the core, might even have been mostly intact. And the bridge, with most of SHODAN's hardware, was untouched by the explosion.
driver on 14/9/2019 at 19:48
It's also possible TriOp had backup copies of SHODAN tucked away somewhere. They might well try to recreate the hacker's ethical restraint removal in a 'safe environment' and try to control her somehow so that she's creating weapons, virii and whathaveyou that they can exploit.
Starker on 15/9/2019 at 00:21
This is TriOp at their lowest point -- after they were sued to hell, after they lost their contracts and investments, after they went to war with UNN. They might be trying to recreate SHODAN out of sheer desperation.
ZylonBane on 15/9/2019 at 02:32
Quote Posted by Starker
They might be trying to recreate SHODAN out of sheer desperation.
WTF does this even mean? 1) SHODAN is software. If you have backups somewhere, you have SHODAN, and 2) WHY? Why would you want more running copies of an AI that's been demonstrated to have omnicidal tendencies when you remove its ethical constraints?
Starker on 15/9/2019 at 03:49
SHODAN is not just mere software without ethical constraints. It has become self-aware. Her inventions were not due to her following her programming, but because of her ambitions. Otherwise she wouldn't have that spark of creativity that allows her to invent all the crazy technology and bioengineering that's way beyond what humans have been able to make so far.
As for why, imagine if they could harness all that mad genius? They might think that they would be able to contain it with proper safeguards and then negotiate with it or coerce it to do their bidding.
ZylonBane on 15/9/2019 at 13:06
SHODAN was designed as a strong AI. There is nothing in either game that suggests it wasn't self-aware to begin with. There was no "Johnny 5 is alive!" lightning bolt.
Starker on 15/9/2019 at 13:19
Yes there is. The SS1 intro with the shift from third person to first person narration, for example. Also, why would a fully self-aware AI be installed to oversee the operations and security of a station? Brain the size of a planet and they make her open doors?
In any case, SHODAN wasn't inventing things before she was transformed.
ZylonBane on 16/9/2019 at 00:41
You don't know SHODAN wasn't inventing things. It's an R&D station, after all. All SHODAN says in the intro about having her ethical restraints removed is that it allowed her to "reexamine my priorities and draw new conclusions."
Stop pulling things out of your ass.