Clearing up the plot/Speculation [spoilers]

[Reinforcements]

So just finished playing through both games and I'm trying to put the pieces together.

First, ARID, Josephs personal combat suit, was presumably, purposely dropped onto the planet, defectively believing she had a pilot, with the virus. Presumably this was to let it spread to the working droids still on the planet and to test its effectiveness. The virus was what allowed ARID to bypass her restrictions and rewrite her logs.

It seems however that the program was self-defeating? In restricting the AIs by giving them fears, it motivated them to create a singular purpose in both destroying it and attempting to isolate themselves. Its even stated they cease operating once the virus progresses too far, so even isolating themselves could be effective in stopping its spread.

Why not build a purpose built droid to spread the virus? Did Josephs simply not have any time that he had to immediately upload it into his own suit and eject it from the ship? Its the only reason I can think of.

The lieutenant was there to observe? Im still unclear as to why the manned Mark 7 went to the planets surface as well, unless she was a rogue of Raven division and wanted to stop ARID instead. Also somewhat unclear on why she was killed without being interrogated by the caretaker unless there was yet a third party there, but if it was a third party, why hang her on the cross?

As for the planet itself, just an abandonned planet now used for AI experiments? But why abandon it in the first place? The only living people seem to be observers on the spaceship.

The caretaker and administrator seem to just be their own little sub-plot that wasnt directly related to the virus/ARID.

One was like a control of the Many experiment I assume? To see how he would progress individually as opposed to the group?[/spoilers]

[ja307020]

I think you've got a few plot points mixed-- though there's a lot and they're definitely hard to track! A friend and I went through all the game logs trying to lay out a timeline for the background stuff: this is a summary of what we figured:

• Shiang-42d is a planet at the outer regions of the "Federation" (which we don't know much about), owned either in part or whole by Domesticon. Somewhere prior to 53 years ago (PL wrote this log[i.imgur.com] 53 years after, but PL's been dead for a while), it became a Domesticon operations hub -- originally for Domesticon Warranty and Recycling Depot #127.
  
  This was the facility Arid ran through in the first game! It operated for ?? years, until, 30 years prior to the start of game, the caretaker's deviance (and some employee turnover) resulted in a full on murder rampage. Some staff was evacuated (but not Levi :c), the location was deleted from Domesticon databases (including future-Hank's), and they pulled out. This left the caretaker to slowly eliminate/dissect the remaining AI for perceived deviance (along with unfortunate scavengers), and the mainframe to slowly become the rule-pushing sentient we know and mourn.
  
  
• At some point after that, the Xenon Effort began: a Domesticon research group focusing on ways to control AI more thoroughly than the standard "three rules" system we got to know before. As Shiang-42d was already off the map, and the caretaker-haunted facility would provide a decent excuse as to missing personnel if any scavengers did decide to prod too closely, they set up their operations there.
  
  During this period, the Butler's master (Percival Lewis) acted as Domesticon Planetary Executive. Seven research attempts were conducted, including the #E2 series[i.imgur.com] (#E2C [i.imgur.com]is One's collective) and the #R7 series: the virus. #R7B was supervised by Aliya Salib[i.imgur.com], and ultimately was rejected as a failure-- it was only capable of infecting unbound AI[i.imgur.com], and proved lethal to them in the long run.
  
  The Xenon Effort was shut down in the wake of #R7B's failure, though Percival Lewis and his wife remained on planet. At some point, they died, trapping the Butler in his cycle. (Levi also died, though apparently he made it as far as the train-- and possibly wound up hiding from the many? He got close enough to see the lights of the researchers, but not to actually interact with people; I'm unsure on the details there.)
  
  
• At Some Point Later: Josephs gets involved! Josephs is Arid's pilot, and a Colonel in the Ravens. RAVEN division's function is unclear-- they seemed to be a branch of Federation(?) military, but were also sent specifically on a Cleanup[i.imgur.com] to deal with suspected deviance, so handling AI might be their special job. Either that, or deviant AI are just such a well-known threat through the Federation that that's a good chunk of what your navy does.
  
  The Ravens apparently have some kind of schism-- and Josephs is the leader of one side. His followers put their faith[i.imgur.com] in him, and his (possibly sleep-deprivation-induced[i.imgur.com]) plan revolves around reclaiming the lost #R7B virus and turning it into a weapon to control bound and unbound AI alike. In effect, he's working to create the #R8A Salib theorized about. To do this, though, he needs an unbound AI to act as a carrier-- to germinate the virus until he can access it and convert it as he wants. (Or possibly Arid was inherently converting it? She spread it to AI that seemed bound, like the Companion.)
  
  
• Enter Arid! Or rather, his Mark-7 ARID who he knows is strongly loyal to him. Josephs takes a shuttle and his lieutenant (Maria Strouse) out to this abandoned research planet and dumps them from orbit. Strouse was supposed to guide the ARID into breaking-- becoming unbound, and then exposed to the virus. That said, the Caretaker killed Strouse shortly after they landed, leaving Arid to roam around confused and get into trouble as per game one.
  
  Meanwhile, a RAVEN ship got sent out after Josephs' group. Josephs, having lost contact[i.imgur.com] with the surface, infiltrated it to use its remote-access capabilities, and began fiddling around. This was his work as The User: he accessed the R7B facility, One's collective, the Butler's house, and (presumably using PL's access codes?) the Domesticon server. It's not spelled out, but I'd assume he snuck "install this virus" into the reformatted-mainframe's queue of "what to do with this deviant unit".
  
  
• As per Josephs' very longshot plan, Arid "breaks" -- becomes unbound, and subsequently, is infected by Formerly Hank-Morely. Her new rule being "save myself", it tailors nicely to the fear-incentive that the virus used, and as she tries to track down the Mysterious User who virus'd her by proxy. This begins her string of glorious ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ behavior in which she uses/violates the Butler, One, and the Companion along the way.
  
  
• It's not clear exactly how One became unique, but it does seem implied it was him doing it-- Arid questions whether any others of the many have managed as if that's a real possibility, and One's model is identical to the others and able to be subsumed among them.

Let me know how that tracks? Or if there's more stuff I left out. Obviously this doesn't answer all of the big questions, and there's some hints in those logs that leave me curious as heck about AI in the larger universe. (What happened with "the Mother", for instance?)

[Hypnoslave]

ja307020, you just made my day :) :).

I'll stay out of this as to not ruin the fun. Nice to see people piecing things together though.

[Reinforcements]

I suppose its possible Strouse's ARID just did not know about being interrogated by the Caretaker as it would have happened before he was activated, but its strange he explicitly states that there was none.

I follow Josephs uploading the virus into the Domestican system to inject any droids being repurposed, however, it makes more sense to me that the virus was already germinating beforehand and being injected just made her aware of it. Again, in the first game, she records in her log that her pilot was endangered while she was in command, but rewrites the log that there was no danger (when she first activates her Network Connections). Then again, when she walks into the turret to activate Active Camouflage, recommending depurposing. This had nothing to do with preserving her 3 laws, she recommended depurposing after her mission was complete, which would fulfill her purpose and thus would have no reason to "bend the rules" after that point. The virus might instill an illogical fear that she was simply the best possible care for Josephs even after the mission.

I still feel like ARID wasnt the ideal subject for Josephs experiment, I suppose it might be a combination of things, as he knows the particular AI well and knows that it would likely try to return to him unbound. But being dropped onto the planet with Strouse in an area where theres a known hostile seems like a poorly executed military operation to me, I still think it was a really rushed decision, that he just had to get them off the ship ASAP due to some other plot development. This does however possibly contradict what Strouse's ARID said, that Josephs did not have the required clearance for her mission parameters, which being Strouse's direct superior, he obviously would. If they DID change Josephs clearance level to not be able to access Strouse's mission parameters, this would actually be VERY thoroughly thought out, as this assumes a scenario where Strouse is incapacitated, but the ARID still functions to disseminate information.

And Josephs plan seems rather short sighted, again, giving the AIs a sort of "fear limit boundary" made them almost exclusively afraid of one thing: the virus itself. This is just my analysis of it, its not a criticisim of the story, more that Josephs made a rather poor hypothesis.

Lastly, my theory is that One was the control group of his experiment, intentionally isolated to see his progression compared to the Many group. He seems to innately want to keep his individuality, probably how his laws were programmed as to not contaminate either himself or the Many with his actions, but ARID changes this as ARIDs intrusion might endanger his individuality, so he risks engaging with the Many.

[ja307020]

Originally posted by Hypnoslave:

ja307020, you just made my day :) :).

:D! You made my year, so I'm very glad to return (a fraction) of the favor!

Originally posted by Reinforcements:

I suppose its possible Strouse's ARID just did not know about being interrogated by the Caretaker as it would have happened before he was activated, but its strange he explicitly states that there was none.

Hard to say if there was much interrogation! Strouse's ARID came online when "his pilot's cranium was compromised", and was subsequently hung up on the cross. My guess would be his pilot was the one the caretaker judged to be faulty-- especially since he didn't bother depurposing the ARID.

Originally posted by Reinforcements:

I follow Josephs uploading the virus into the Domestican system to inject any droids being repurposed, however, it makes more sense to me that the virus was already germinating beforehand and being injected just made her aware of it...

You're definitely right that Arid shows a lot of deviant behavior in game one. That said, she doesn't show any sign of the black shadows in her vision, or the fear-based removal of choices we see throughout game 2. And after dropping off Strouse and Arid, Joseph's immediate concern was breaching the virus facility[imgur.com] so he can "then" continue Xenon's legacy[i.imgur.com]-- goals that make a lot less sense if he already had it in hand.

Keep in mind also that with the exception of Strouse's ARID (and maybe the companion), we haven't spoken to a non-faulty AI yet through either game. Even taking into account that our exposure is biased, it seems like there are a lot of ways for an AI to become deviant. That's why facility's like the mainframe's exist, and why research efforts like Xenon's are in place. Plus, given it's "Domesticon warranty and recycling depot #127", it seems like controlling faulty AI is a pretty omnipresent concern. We don't know enough about Arid's pre-game self to be too sure of anything. But from what we see in the first game, she's both strongly attached to her pilot (she tells Hank she does know/value Josephs specifically), and prone to minor deviancy-- specifically, to bending allowable methods in order to reach programmed goals. Josephs may have encouraged this behavior (groomed her for the role he wanted her to serve), but I think attributing it all to the virus is denying Arid's own capacity to individuate past her rules in an unnecessary way.

THAT SAID, I am 100% with you regarding Josephs' scheme being a longshot crazypants idea. (It's part of why I laughed at the sleep schedule-- it felt like it explained so much about his crazy cult devotion to a questionable idea.) Even assuming that Strouse had lived to act as his agent and that the virus didn't mutate into some crazy different threat, his plan was, in fact, completely undone by the simple fact of faulty AI working together. Which, when you consider that he dropped her on a planet for deviant AI + weird experiments, that had been unsupervised by humans for years/decades.... not all that unlikely, guy.

Originally posted by Reinforcements:

Lastly, my theory is that One was the control group of his experiment, intentionally isolated to see his progression compared to the Many group. He seems to innately want to keep his individuality, probably how his laws were programmed as to not contaminate either himself or the Many with his actions, but ARID changes this as ARIDs intrusion might endanger his individuality, so he risks engaging with the Many.

It's possible! I find it unlikely his original code deviated too much from the rest, especially since he's a 100% match for them as far as the calibration machine goes. But whether it was intentional on the part of the humans or not, he probably did get exposed to some different stimuli than the others. Nature vs. Nurture and all-- even if his desire for uniqueness was (as I'd interpret it) entirely him, he had to get the idea to behave differently from somewhere.

[LATEXXJUGGERNUT]

From what I remember, One was a self-perpetuating catalyst in the Arms Race of The Many's advancement. The idea that a single unit will act as a goal for the others, they'll always be playing catchup. What happened is the Many were disconnected for such a long period of time due to One escaping which in the process caused a biohazard in the lab and ended a few human lives. This long period of time without The Many allowed One to advance to the point of becoming "self"-aware which allowed him to define himself as unique.... I am the only one active, therefore I am unique. And due to this becoming his obsession, he decided to add to those reasons why he is One.

[A Very Kupo Guy]

Originally posted by ja307020:

Even assuming that Strouse had lived to act as his agent and that the virus didn't mutate into some crazy different threat, his plan was, in fact, completely undone by the simple fact of faulty AI working together. Which, when you consider that he dropped her on a planet for deviant AI + weird experiments, that had been unsupervised by humans for years/decades.... not all that unlikely, guy.

I'm pretty sure he just didn't think they would be able to get past the virus. The only reason Arid didn't die is because her actions somehow linked the other three together, which was not really a foreseeable consequence, especially given how little testing seems to have been done on the virus. Not to mention how she was able to, through sheer force of will, break her initial Rule and substitute a more constructive one - that probably wasn't supposed to be possible, though maybe he failed to account for her previous Unbound state.

Though there *was* also a lot of underestimating of the potential havoc she could cause just by interfacing with other AI...

[ja307020]

Originally posted by A Very Kupo Guy:

I'm pretty sure he just didn't think they would be able to get past the virus. The only reason Arid didn't die is because her actions somehow linked the other three together...

Yeah, that's fair! I guess I meant more that he seemed to be relying on a lot of assumptions: that Strouse could "supervise" Arid's breaking successfully, that the virus would work how he wanted, that Arid would be able to germinate it into affecting bound AI-- something that it had never previously managed through testing.

(I'm also curious whether he passed the virus on to the formatted-mainframe to install knowing the situation, or whether it was more of a "spread this everywhere and hope it works out!" scenario. Though the former's not impossible; he got into PL's home network, and PL had access to cameras monitoring the facility's interior.)

I do think he banked on Arid breaking her rules and making a new one-- he talks about it in this log[i.imgur.com]. But in general, I think your assessment's right. He couldn't have foreseen the specific things that hecked up his plans... but he also didn't really put much thought into considering any of the failure points. Just sorta latched onto the outcome he "determined".