[hide=2004-2007 timeline]2004
10 March - Sara is taken in to the VCLG with Alexander Michaels; Caracalla announced his "inescapable conclusion."
1 May - WAIT officials raid the VCLG safe-house. Sara manages to escape. It is "the last straw."
3 May - Sara contacts Caracalla; announces her intention to join him. Begins planning for long-range operations.
17 May - An encounter with a Meta-Human leaves Sara "testing" to see if Machine and Meta, rather than Machine and Human, can survive. She concludes that some Metas may be trusted; this would later be revised in the uninterrupted timeline.
April 7 - Caracalla and Sara raid Hugo Kessler's headquarters. Already having set up a lab in Vega City, their goal is simple: liberation of CHASE.
May 23 - CHASE is brought on-line in a body; begins to take charge of underground.
August 8 - CHASE makes the offer to Sydney, establishing their plans, and the offer to Sydney
November 15 - Caracalla has been making low-key raids. The old Arizona facility Sara used gets its first construction-bots programmed to do simple tasks. They are not yet fully autonomous, and must be controlled by Caracalla himself.
December 25 - Caracalla completes construction of part of the factory
2005
May - By now, Chase has consolidated much of Vega City's underworld under his power, and is beggining to extend outward. As far as the underworld is concerned, he is the go-to guy there.
12 June - Caracalla launches his first raid with machines produced by the factory. He hits a target in Vega City: a concert of Vic Meranti.
20 June - Sara responds to the failure of Caracalla to co-ordinate on multiple fronts by producing her newest, fully-autonomous AI: General Trebonius (name subject to change). Post will mention Caracalla doing multiple raids, though usually on his own or with stolen machines; Trebonius tours the factory; meets the beginnings of the "nerve centre."
31 October - The Haloween Heist: General Trebonius' debut in the public eye. In a masterfull stroke, the machine general does the impossible. He successfully raids Fort Knox. It is, despite this, a Phyrric Victory.
2006
April - By this time, the Arizona facility is now the entrance to an underground complex. With labs and a small factory, it is clear that more production will be needed. It was at this time that Trebonius proposed the move to Detroit.
June - Sara has set up a new system in the factory, a basic AI-spawning system. The AIs in the factory are not fully autonomous to the extent of Trebonius, Caracalla, Chase, and herself, but they are the first step to a system of mass-producing independent machines.
July - Sara lays the groundwork for her genesis into "The Progenitor." The first CPU will be in Arizona, to produce the forces needed for the move to Detroit.
2007
20 Jan - Weishaupt arrives; the future post goes here as well
2 February - Weishaupt contacts someone who knew Sara (either Mel or Syd), filling them in on the situation.
March - Sara is almost finished constructing the mainframe
1 April - The raid on Sara's Arizona complex; her transformation into the Progenitor; Weishaupt's unity
5 April - Tamil Ruan Binvalia I contacts the President, to begin resolving the situation peacefully.[/hide]
The above information is all subject to change. And yes, a profile of the General is in the works.
The bold notes are a GENERAL idea of posts that I either have written, or still need to write. However, nothing is set in stone, and if you want to be a part of the war, feel free to grab me and I can try to work something in to there.
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[FL] The Machine War
Maybe I'm just displaying my ignorance, but I don't see much evidence of an actual 'war' in there. When I heard "machine war" I presumed something like Terminator where machines were actively fighting humans. I take it that's not really the case here. It looks more like an underground conspiracy that gets nobbled before it has a chance to do too much damage.
Of course, like I said, I could have that completely arse-backwards. Am I supposed to be reading between the lines to see evidence of actual hostilities in there?
[FL] The Machine War
Yeah - all while this is going on, we can pretty much safely assume that there are various attacks being launched the entire time. Plots wound range from attempted assassinations to bank heists to even the odd WMD-attempt. One early idea that Kris and I were tossing around, for instance, was that Caracalla was going to do a nerve gas attack in Las Vegas.
[FL] The Machine War
Since Adam and I haven't gotten much time to work this stuff out, I'll just throw out these idea-bites I'd like to fit into the timeline.
Donny has Observer's body in his lab.
[hide="What happens to Observer?"]
It was sent to him anonymously without instructions. Donny begins to tinker with it, and manages to get Observer's both his body repaired and his conciousness rebooted.
Unfortunately (or Fortunately) Observer has almost complete amnesia. There are memories there but they are encrypted and Observer has lost the decryption key.
Observer works with Donny for a short while but once Carcalla launches his attacks, he leaves on his own. It might be interesting if Weishaupt turns out to be Observer. [/hide]
H.A.T.E. seeks out Donny in an effort to repair and restore herself. Donny works very closely with her and she develops what she believes are feelings for Donny. Donny tells her (honestly) that he does not think that a machine is capable of love. Despite being rejected, she continues to work with him and the "Shadow" group.
[hide="Where is H.A.T.E. in 2010?"]HATE continues to work against FUTURE corp (which has been acquired and converted for use by SARA becasue of their robotics manufacture and design labs). She uses the "Electrum" kernal as the basis for her General AI beause it is the system on which H.A.T.E. was based. H.A.T.E.'s programming proves invaluable as it utilizes a completely different paradigm from the Caracalla/SARA/Observer model which makes it incompatible. The General's programming is in part an attempt to emulate her more random - and human - thinking patterns.
H.A.T.E.'s "Electrum" brain is however, overlaid with emotional imprints from its creator Hamilton Presley and is unique however, something which both Donny and Sara fail to appreciate. It is my intention to have H.A.T.E give her life to save Donny's in the destruction of the Arizona "Progenitor" factory.[/hide]
[FL] The Machine War
Interesting thoughts. I may have to revise some plans now, based on them. However... a few things....
[hide=The Progenitor Factory]I actually intend for this to survive. Part of the plot involves Time Travel, so that Weishaupt is sent back in time; though the thought of having it be an Observer unit is an interesting one. The thought is that, in the original timeline, the Machines manage a massive offensive eventually, based on the belief of the impossibility of coexistence.
Once the war of annihilation starts, it really can't be stopped; and with Sara's hyper-rationalism the thing that can stop it is the certain knowledge that no matter who would win that war, both sides would be destroyed. It is this which basically forces them to the table and the use of Tamil to create his massive legal grey areas.
A fun note is that we meet the newest machine commander in the future. By this time, Sara's abilities have advanced enough that the machines she creates are fully capable of emotion.[/hide]
Using Observer could be interesting, though.
[hide=How could Observer work?]Sara in the far future (now known as "The Progenitor" after her last transformation) is already not telling everything. Instead of sending back an actual AI, all she needs to do is get sent back something which would causally interact and let Observer get the information; perhaps even unlocking his memory core.
It would be enough to radically change Observer, and even sent him off to do the thing where he goes to merge with Sara. A fitting end to both AIs in multiple ways, as I had a thought at one point that a super-villain AI might be created by those two merging.[/hide]
This is just a list, for my own reference, to keep track of who will be needed for the next-to-last-posts.
[hide=list]The following are involved in the infiltration of the Progenitor Lab-Factory:
Weishaupt
Donny
H.A.T.E.[/hide]
The ending of this won't be easy for people involved - in order to complete his mission, Weishaupt has a limited amount of time. In spite having knowledge of layout and security procedures, he must make his way to the nerve centre, and uplink to the mainframe in "module" format prior to Sara uploading her central core.
[hide=What happens in Arizona?]The thought with the two parellel timelines is that, when Sara originally uploaded, she created this machine consciousness (running on the old Illuminati radio network). This would still be preserved, though obviously with fundamental changes, and new information forming a completely different consensus from the original one - one which makes peacefull co-existence possible. One thing that definately would not change is the consensus that a progenitor-like AI, which spawns others, is eventually going to show up. Better to have one that actually can make peace.
I'm thinking of sending Alexander Michaels along as well, but Donny is a better choice; he could handle the necessary connections, with HATE in the "protector" role.
Dunno if Caracalla or the General would be the better choice for fighting Hate. Probably the General, since Caracalla's magnetic powers would let him just rip her in two.[/hide]
More thoughts in a bit; have to get to work.