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"The lesson will be taught in due time, Aloy. Until then, we wait." This article contains heavy spoilers. Read ahead with caution.
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- "The Entity... lives? Unacceptable... Unacceptable... Unacceptable..."
- ―HADES
HADES was the primary antagonist of Horizon Zero Dawn and a minor character in Horizon Forbidden West. It was a rogue artificial intelligence that was previously a subordinate function of the AI GAIA, specifically serving as the extinction failsafe protocol for Project Zero Dawn.[1]
History[]
Background[]
Development[]
While creating the concept for Project Zero Dawn, Elisabet Sobeck recognized that GAIA was unlikely to successfully restore the biosphere on her first attempt. One of the subordinate functions, HADES was designed as a solution to that scenario: if GAIA's terraforming efforts proved unsuccessful with regard to producing an environment suitable for sustaining life, HADES would take control of the system and reverse the work done, reverting the planet to its previous lifeless, sterile state so that GAIA could engage in another attempt. HADES' last resort failsafe function intrinsically meant that it only became active if required. As such, HADES was originally not a true AI, but could instead be considered an extension of GAIA.
The Alpha in charge of HADES' development was Travis Tate, an erstwhile criminal hacker. Recognizing the delicate balance that needed to be struck with HADES, Tate used the FAS Facility LATOPOLIS to test the subordinate function. These tests mostly resolved around the sub-function practicing hacking copies of GAIA. Also, the reason why LATOPOLIS was used was because the facility was designed to be impenetrable from any signal (entering or exiting), any risks regarding HADES' nature were effectively neutralized.
After Zero Day came to pass, HADES activated a total of three times - in 2154, 2161 and 2168 - before GAIA successfully created a stable biosphere.
The Extinction Signal[]
Nearly 1,000 years after GAIA went online, GAIA Prime, the facility where GAIA was located, received a signal sent from deep space, which took about 8.6 years to arrive at destination. This signal was created by the rogue AI entity known as Nemesis, an amalgamation of the minds of the Far Zenith colony in the Sirius star system - one responsible for the destruction of the colony. The signal's purpose was to destroy Earth's biosphere, thus preventing its creators from finding refuge there.
Gaia's representation of the signal
The signal turned HADES from a relatively low-level AI to a fully conscious and intelligent entity, filled with antipathy for life. While HADES was the only intended recipient, the other eight subordinate functions were similarly transformed into self-aware AIs, albeit without the malevolence of HADES. It then fixedly sought to reverse GAIA's terraforming effort even though it had been successful. To do so, it attempted to seize control of the terraforming system from GAIA. Unable to fend it off, GAIA resorted to self-destructing by overloading the GAIA Prime reactor in an effort to destroy HADES. However, HADES released a virus that unshackled it from GAIA Prime by destroying the coding that bound it and the other subordinate functions to the facility, and thus escaped the site before it was destroyed.[2]
Because the signal was only meant to make HADES self-aware, it also gave the AI several other instructions. When GAIA self-destructed, HADES sent back a notice of that to Nemesis – which took further 8.6 years to reach Nemesis before the latter then stopped sending the Extinction Signal as a consequence, which was therefore brodcast for about 17.2 years. Nemesis also gave HADES knowledge on how to build weapons that could be used against the Zeniths, though it could make no usage out of it, as a result of being thwarted.
Sylens[]
HADES found refuge in the still-functional computer core of the remains of an FAS-BOR7 Horus deep in the jungles of The Jewel, southwest of the Carja capital Meridian.
Sylens
Trapped and unable to move or interact with the environment, HADES began broadcasting a signal in the hope that someone would detect it and come to its aid. In the technologically primitive New World it found itself in, this would have been highly unlikely. However, the signal was indeed detected by a wanderer named Sylens. A self-styled researcher, Sylens had a deep obsession with the knowledge and technology of the humans of the Old World, referred to as the Old Ones. Years of finding and interacting with their technology from exploration of various ruins of their civilization had given him extensive experience with, and understanding of, their technology, starting with his discovery and use of a Focus. Indeed, it was his Focus that detected HADES' signal. Tracking the signal, Sylens found the trapped AI, and used his experience and understanding to repair the computer core housing it to the point where it could communicate verbally.[3]
The Spire[]
HADES questioned Sylens about the world he was in; its tribes, politics and points of interest. Sylens supplied the information, familiarizing HADES with the New World.
The Spire
However, there was one point of interest HADES wanted to know about above all else. Said point was the Spire, a towering, monument-like structure that was clearly of ancient origin, close to Meridian, the capital of the tribe that controlled the land in which it was situated. The Spire was in fact one of a global network of transmission towers built by MINERVA, another of GAIA's subordinate functions, who had used the towers to broadcast the shut-down codes for the Faro Plague worldwide after brute-forcing them. HADES intended to use this network to broadcast a new signal that would reactivate the robots, allowing them to obliterate the biosphere as they did before, exterminating all life in the world and again leaving the Earth sterile, thus achieving its goal.
The Eclipse[]
However, in order to get to the Spire, the surrounding lands had to be brought under its control. Realizing the potential usefulness of Sylens to that end, HADES promised Sylens all the Old World knowledge he desired in exchange for his service.
A FAS-ACA3 Scarab unit
As Sylens readily agreed, HADES first had him recover and repair as many Focuses as he could find and establish a communication network for them. He did so, recovering, repairing and networking several dozens of the devices.
A FAS-FSP5 Khopesh unit
HADES next sought to build an army that would, at his bidding, conquer the Carja, securing the Spire for its use. Sylens suggested forming a warrior cult from the losing faction of the Carja tribe's civil war, called the Shadow Carja. He proposed that HADES pose as the Devil from their religion, the Buried Shadow, in order to induce the two key Shadow Carja leaders, the High Priest Bahavas and the kestrel commander Helis, into forming the cult. HADES agreed, and Sylens arranged an encounter between the two men and the AI. The meeting had the desired effect: believing HADES to be the Buried Shadow, who would help the Shadow Carja defeat the main faction and retake Meridian, the men formed a cult of priests and warriors, the Eclipse, in service of HADES. This way, HADES had its army, equipped with the Focus network that it had the wanderer set up. To bolster their power, it also had them exhume several Faro Plague robots, which came to be known by all who saw or encountered them as Corruptors and Deathbringers. Once its army was formed and equipped, HADES decided that Sylens had outlived his usefulness and transmitted an instruction to Helis to detain and kill him. The wily sage, however, had secretly built a back door into the network, and was thus able to monitor communications without either the HADES or the Eclipse knowing. He heard the transmission and escaped, continuing to monitor the AI and its cult from afar.
Events of Horizon Zero Dawn[]
The "Entity"[]
As part of their intelligence gathering in preparation for their assault on Meridian, the Eclipse pressed a scout and scrounger named Olin, of the Oseram tribe, into their service by abducting his family and threatening to kill them.[4] They equipped him with a Focus and placed him in Meridian, allowing HADES and the Eclipse to monitor everything he saw and did. He was selected to be part of a delegation sent to the territory of another tribe, the Nora, to promote peace between the two tribes in the aftermath of a previous strife, and to observe the Nora ceremony commencing the rite of passage of their youth as new Braves, called the Proving. It was at this ceremony that Olin encountered Aloy, a young female participant in the Proving.
Aloy
Upon seeing Aloy through the man's Focus, HADES noted that she was wearing another of the devices, which meant that she had at least a cursory knowledge of the Old One's technology, which was disconcerting and abnormal among the Nora. But what alarmed the AI was her appearance, as she bore a striking resemblance to GAIA's creator, a renowned Old One scientist named Elisabet Sobeck. The resemblance was far too great to be mere coincidence, and indeed it was not the case. Aloy had been created by GAIA using genetic material from the long-deceased Sobeck, as an agent with the ability to access sealed Zero Dawn facilities anywhere and acquire the resources to eventually rebuild and reboot GAIA. But more importantly, in regard to HADES, she could access the control room of the ruins of GAIA Prime and retrieve the one thing that could stop it: the terraforming system's Master Override. In addition to that, only Elisabet Sobeck had the authorization to activate the override via her genetic fingerprint. Since Aloy was her genetic clone, she would have the same fingerprint, and therefore would also be able to activate the advice capable of purging the AI from Zero Dawn. Correctly surmising that her existence was an extreme threat, HADES immediately ordered an attack by the Eclipse on the Proving to kill her.
Although she was almost killed by Helis, she managed to survive thanks to the sacrifice of her guardian Rost. After learning from a Focus lost by one of the soldiers she had killed that the attack had specifically been an attempt on her life and that she had been seen by the killers through Olin's Focus, she was determined to track Olin down. Furthermore, Aloy's resemblance to Elisabet Sobeck had also been noted by Sylens, via his back door into the Eclipse's Focus network, as he had also heard HADES' kill order against her. Now fully realizing the threat posed by HADES and the Eclipse, though yet unsure of its precise nature, Sylens resolved to assist Aloy on her quest, realizing that she was the key to stopping whatever it was that the rogue AI was planning. Her quest eventually led Aloy to encounter HADES personally twice.
Aloy encounters HADES at the Eclipse's main base
The first encounter between the two revealed to HADES that the Eclipse's attack on the Proving had failed to kill her. The AI was extremely angered to learn that she had survived to the point where the Focus Aloy was holding exploded. A while later, Aloy infiltrated the cult's base intending to destroy their Focus network. HADES detected her accessing the module on the derelict Tallneck that regulated the network. Manifesting itself via hardwire connection, HADES taunted that she had made the mistake of coming directly to it without means of destroying it. Though terrified, Aloy managed to grasp her spear and destroy the module, crashing the network. In retaliation, HADES ordered the Deathbringers under its control to open fire, toppling the Tallneck and dropping the woman on the cliffs of the facility. Despite the difficulties she faced, Aloy eventually managed to leap off a rappeling point, making a hasty escape.
Without its an operational Focus network, HADES remained blind as Aloy infiltrated Sunfall, the Shadow Carja capital. Although she was later captured by Helis and thrown into the Sun-Ring, Aloy managed to escape with Sylens' aid. After saving her tribe of extinction by one of the cult's attacks to the Embrace, she then went on to do what GAIA had created her to do: retrieve the Master Override in order to purge the rogue AI.
Defeat[]
After Aloy's successful crashing of the network, HADES determined that the Eclipse were ready and ordered them to launch their assault on Meridian, commencing its plan to capture the Spire. HADES' core was brought amongst the Corrupted machines, dragged by a Deathbringer. The assault was successful: the core was dragged through Meridian Village's breached walls and positioned at the base of the Spire. HADES interfaced with the Spire and began transmitting the signal to reactivate the Faro Plague. In various lands, Deathbringers, long buried, dug their way to the surface. However, in the course of her quest, and with assistance from Sylens, Aloy had become fully aware of HADES' goal of exterminating all life, and rallied a united force consisting of Carja, Nora, Oseram, and Banuk combatants to oppose the Eclipse.
Knowing what HADES intended to do, and knowing the consequences if it succeeded, Aloy pursued and confronted HADES in the courtyard the Carja had built at the base of the Spire, wielding the master override bound to a specially designed lance that Sylens has given her. HADES attempted to stop her using an especially heavily-armed Deathbringer, but Aloy prevailed against it with the help of her allies. Upon destroying the ancient machine, Aloy approached the helpless AI's core and stabbed it with the lance, activating the master override, and executing the command to purge HADES. Immediately after being seemingly purged, all of the Faro Plague robots HADES had reactivated were once again shut down, this time with no means of reactivation.
Capture[]
“Hello, old friend. Remember me?”
Alhough HADES was defeated, it was not destroyed. Sylens had designed his lance to make it appear to Aloy that she had successfully destroyed HADES with the Master Override. In actuality, however, his lance established a connection, allowing Sylens to download HADES into his capture device.
Sometime after its defeat, when the dust had settled and repairs began on the Alight, curious Carja nervously gathered around the core, peering at it and furtively touching it. Suddenly they saw HADES leave its now useless core and streak off into the sky toward a presently unknown location in a harsh, desolate environment. There, atop a mesa, Sylens scanned the sky expectantly, carrying a lantern-shaped device. He watched HADES as it altered its trajectory and flew straight into the device. With a satisfied tone, Sylens asked his new prisoner if it remembered him, and mused that there was a great deal of information he intended to get from it, such as who sent the signal that awoke it in the first place. Intending to get the answers from the imprisoned AI, Sylens walked toward the wreckage of another FAS-BOR7 Horus, eager to begin the interrogation.
Events of Horizon Forbidden West[]
Interrogation[]
Arriving at the debris of the Horus, Sylens used Firegleam to detach the computer core from the body of the machine and transferred HADES into the component, in order to once again give it a voice. Over the course of several months, HADES remained Sylens' prisoner as he interrogated and tortured the AI with holograms of living things. After 10 days of interrogation, HADES had divulged all it knew about Nemesis, its role in the Extinction Signal, the Zeniths' return to Earth and data on how to circumvent the Zeniths' shields. However, due to the constant extraction of information, HADES began emitting digital convulsions that started corrupting its memory data, slowly disintegrating its mind.
Death[]
When Aloy returned to Meridian, inspected the Spire and learned of Sylens' deception, she followed some coordinates left by him into the Forbidden West. There, she eventually found his workshop under the Metal Devil and some marks left behind by the computer core that led her to the ruins of LATOPOLIS. Finding the core that housed HADES, she inserted her spear into it, discovered HADES in a crippled condition and had one last discussion with the AI, trying to learn what she could from it. However, Aloy was not able to get a lot out of HADES as much of its memory and mind had been damaged from Sylens' interrogation, though she did manage to learn a small amount of information. HADES revealed to Aloy that Sylens had left it in its current state for her to find, a death bed and grave of sorts. HADES continuously mocked Aloy, claiming that GAIA was dead and that she could not resurrect it, nor save Earth's biosphere, and believing that it had won. Having had enough of HADES, Aloy once again executed the command to activate the Master Override, destroying the AI for good.
Legacy[]
The information that Sylens acquired from HADES during his interrogation proved essential to both his plans and Aloy's to some extent, paving the way for the Tenakth rebellion, GAIA's restoration, the retrieval of the other Subordinate Functions, and the ultimate demise of the Zeniths.
As of now, no surviving copy of the HADES protocol exists: the majority were destroyed along with their corresponding backups of GAIA in Ted Faro's purge of APOLLO, and the copies in LATOPOLIS were all destroyed by water damage.
Personality[]
HADES is malevolent. It is coldly calculating, and views humans only as tools to be used. This is in keeping with its objective of destroying all life; it will use humans as instruments to bring about their own annihilation as well as that of all other forms of life. A microcosm of this attitude can be seen in its dealings with Sylens. Though Sylens repaired it, gave it the ability to speak, gave it all its knowledge of the new world, devised and executed the plan that gave it its army and provided it with an instant communication link to that army via the Focus network he built for that purpose, HADES considered him no longer useful when his work was finished, and thus ordered Helis to detain and kill him.
Additionally, HADES was capable of anger. When it saw that Aloy was still alive at Maker's End, it became enraged, shouting that this was unacceptable. When Aloy encountered it at its lair in the Eclipse main base, it was surprised that she dared to enter its stronghold, and furiously ordered the Deathbringers and Eclipse soldiers guarding it to kill her. However, it also feels fear, as shown by its alarmed reaction on seeing Aloy for the first time, and its fearful remark of "System threat imminent" when Aloy approached it to purge it after she killed the augmented Deathbringer that had been guarding it.
When Aloy learned that HADES had survived and found it in the Forbidden West, the AI was still able to retain a smug and prideful attitude. Even in its helpless state, HADES repeatedly mocked Aloy before she ultimately destroyed it.
Abilities[]
- Awakening Machines: HADES has the ability to reactivate the long-buried Corruptor and Deathbringer units of the Faro Plague. Presumably, GAIA would have had the Plague’s activation codes as part of its ultimately successful efforts to brute-force its deactivation codes. Thus, as part of Zero Dawn, HADES would have had access to them as well. However, it was unable to restore their biomass conversion systems on its own. It appears to be unable to restore Metal Devils, as it made no attempts to reactivate the Titan it had hosted itself in for almost two decades.
- High-Level Intelligence: HADES possesses near-human cognitive functioning and an advanced understanding of mathematics and science. When scanned by the Focus, it is said that HADES' machine intelligence exceeds Turing 1.0, indicating its intelligence is indistinguishable from a human.
- Non-Corporeality: While HADES generally remains within some host body, it is shown that it is capable of existing outside of a physical host.
- Vocal Communication: Through Sylens's repairs, HADES is capable of speaking when contained within a Horus's processing core, albeit in a rough, unnatural tone.
Trivia[]
- HADES is named after the Greek god of the underworld.
- Early in the game's development, HADES was named Ares, after the Greek god of war.
- HADES' icon is based on the logo for Decima, the engine used to run the game. It is also used by the Eclipse as their symbol.
- This symbol is an upside down "standby" power symbol, commonly seen on all sorts of electrical devices. This was probably a deliberate nod towards HADES' intended role as a 'standby' emergency killswitch for the terraforming element of Project Zero Dawn.
- When HADES mentions that the current biosphere is version five and that there won't be a version six, it could be an intentional parallel to the Big 5 extinction events, which are real life prehistoric phenomenon that, in the universe of Horizon, would predate even the Old Ones.
Gallery[]
Concept art[]
References[]
| AI Characters | |
|---|---|
| Project Zero Dawn AIs | AETHER - APOLLO - ARTEMIS - DEMETER - ELEUTHIA - GAIA - HADES - HEPHAESTUS - MINERVA - POSEIDON |
| Firebreak AIs | CYAN |
| Far Zenith AIs | Nemesis - The Julius |
| Other AIs | Nova - VAST SILVER |