In these stories, there’s always that little voice in the back of my head that wonders if we’re actually the villain. What inspired FNIX to do what it did, and are we the Quarians vs the Geth, have we become Robert Neville?
Then I squash that philosophical voice, another voice takes over and says ‘They shot at me first, I’m just returning fire…several thousand times in a row. Viva la resistance!’
According to the lore-tidbits you gather as you play the missions, the original idea was to use the Machines as drones in combat. One or several controllers would be used from a safe distance.
The military wanted to incorporate a more direct approach, by uploading a conscious human mind (in this case Doctor Von Ulmer’s) to assist in controlling the machines. Despite the science team’s protests. It went awry when Von Ulmer’s mind was uploaded and FNIX took control by absorbing his intelligence, resulting in a much more malevolent force.
So unlike the Geth, the Machines were never slaves to begin with. FNIX sees itself as superior, and humans as an obstacle to remove.
As I recall Von Ulmer was also dealing with stress due to the disease he’d gotten from that blood transfusion, which was why he’d insisted on being the subject of the experiment due to his immune system being incapable of rejecting the procedure. I seem to remember reading somewhere that he had come down with pneumonia , which he knew was going to kill him, and figured that this procedure would be the only time he had to give this a shot.
As far as
That’s not quite the impression I had from reading the bits and pieces. Von Ulmer was very troubled towards the end of his life, stress from the project going in a direction he didn’t agree with and combined with the stress of dealing with what sounded like HIV / AIDS, that can drastically change a person. Going into a procedure where you are copying yourself into a computer with that much stress, frustration, and the level of animosity that he had towards his superiors. Perhaps there was an AI that was imprinted by SVU’s consciousness, but I do lean towards the idea that this is a direct result of all of those negative feelings taking hold in a state where the chemical processes that allow you to heal from that level of animosity. Basically saying that rather than being able to recover from that state of anger and powerful emotions, his consciousness is now trapped in that state of mind without being able to be the person that is mentioned by his former coworker in the FNIX Rising storyline.
The author of the article on FNIX | Generation Zero Wiki | Fandom states it much better than I,
" * FNIX is actually Von Ulmer’s consciousness uploaded to a database and later modified to become the eventual FOA Unix System, technically making him a simulacrum of Von Ulmer instead of a separate AI. This is a reasonable theory since Von Ulmer was terminally ill and transferring his consciousness would be such a way to keep him alive, but it is not clear if this technology was available or being researched at FOA 53."
This is of course one of three theories presented, one of the others matches up with what you stated.
" * FNIX was a prototype military AI who somehow escaped and managed to take control of Von Ulmer’s comatose body during the experiments conducted on him. This would explain why FNIX’s voice is identical to Von Ulmer’s, why it does not sound digitized nor reproduced, and why FNIX is fascinated with organic computing. This still does not explain exactly what experiments were being conducted on Von Ulmer nor why."
While the second quote is generally the accepted way these storylines work, one of the reasons I subscribe to the first theory is that it is a very interesting question of how human consciousness would react outside of the biological network inside our brain, the fear that by making that drastic of a change it would fundamentally alter everything about you from your motivations in life, and the huge ramifications that the potential of being immortal may have on the human psyche.
Basically, I view this story as a warning to the potential that has been discussed with projects like the metaverse. That in a way, through all the data we have left behind, we could be digitally recreated in a virtual space and be capable of interacting with our children and family sounds both interesting and horrifying. Especially considering how censorship in it’s various forms would have a direct effect on the foundation of how we’d be represented, because somethings would be missing due to that. Please don’t mistake this for a political argument, because this should be a concern for everyone of every ethnicity, religion, or belief.
A prime example of history being written by the victors would be shows like Altered Carbon, a future sci-fi show that follows a single character through multiple bodies and over 280 years, and brings up the idea that in a future like that your literal body could be confiscated, and then sold or rented to the highest bidder to be used in everything from tourism to death match combat.
One point I do have to agree with you is that you are right, the Geth was a bad comparison, but I do feel like the Robert Neville reference still stands. To FNIX, the Swedish people have become a target, and yet FNIX seems to respect us, the character, seemingly because we were both not involved in what happened to him, and yet we were successful in being capable of fighting back.
Great, now I’m rambling while fully awake. Lol, all due apologies to anyone who read this all, on the other side, you now have an idea of what it’s like to be inside my skull over a 30 second period. Fun, huh?
All that being said, what else can I say other than I was dropped on my head as a child. =)